233 0.5 Second

Kimura Kazuki deeply resented gambling.

What Ikioi Ito was doing was not even considered as gambling. It was as if he did it just to spend his money. With that in mind, he looked at Ikioi Ito, and with a soft tone, he asked, "How do you play this game?" As he was speaking to a person who was freely handing him cash, Kimura Kazuki's mood clearly had enlightened by a good deal.

After Ikioi Ito explained, Kimura Kazuki could more or less get the gist of it.

A typical Kendo match usually ended within a very short time, so the rules Ikioi Ito set were quite simple.

Say, a match took one second, and another took two. 

If the tournament could be completed within one second, and as long as it was less than that… it would still be considered a win. If a person ended the match in two seconds, and the period of the whole match fell between 1.01 to 2 seconds, it would be rounded to two seconds. However, if the match ended in 0.999 second, the time for the match was within one second, not two.

I see!

The rules were simple and not complicated at all.

As long as there was one person who won a bet, then all the money would start piling in. Although Ikioi Ito was the founder, he was not the bookmaker. He was still one of the participants; this event did not have a bookmaker.

If two participants were betting on the same timing and in the end, they got it correct, then the two would have a share in the money.

"Which timing are you planning to bet on?" Kimura Kazuki asked curiously.

"I haven't bet on any yet." Ikioi Ito's mouth curled up into a smirk. Others had come to a conclusion that Kimura Kazuki's sword skill had reached the second stage of sword power, but he knew that certainly there was more to that. Ikioi Ito had let him know that Mitsue Natsume had passed away. Although it was not Kimura Kazuki who had killed him, even back when Mitsue Natsume was still with them, he had no desire to challenge Kimura, and that alone was enough to prove his opponent's strength.

He, at least, was already at the fourth stage of sword power.

When he had taken a guess at his strength back then, Ikioi Ito had a hard time believing him. However, once he had ruled out all the impossible facts, then the remaining ones, no matter how incredulous, were still the hard truth. He was familiar with the Sherlock Holmes collection, and he had never missed out any movies of the same genre too.

As such, when a person at the fourth stage of sword power fought against a person at the second stage, the outcome would be quite obvious. The match would end in mere seconds, but it still depended on Kimura Kazuki's willingness to do so.

Upon hearing that, Kimura Kazuki groaned.

Kimura Kazuki whispered, "How many people are betting now?"

Ikioi Ito looked at his phone and nonchalantly replied, "Basically everybody has placed their bets, those who bet that you will win accounts for 40 people, but Saito and I are not betting. And those who bet that Tomoya Saito will win also accounts for 40 people. Katsuki Sugawara and I did not bet either." The first tournament would be the Men's Team of Meiki High School from Osaka vs. Geien High School from Kumamoto District tomorrow.

In this tournament, there was no opening ceremony.

They did not recognize anyone from Geien High School. Perhaps it was just pure luck for them to move forward into the top four rounds as they managed to escape from some of the strongest schools like themselves. The results were clear, it was obvious that Mizuki Sugawara would lead Meiki High School to victory.

The second round was Gyokutoku High School from Osaka versus Sakurakyu High School from Tokyo. That would be Tomoya Saito versus Kimura Kazuki.

Hearing that, Kimura Kazuki's face turned a shade darker. He wanted to balk. Due to the rules, everyone bet on both sides. After all, as long as one had won, the money would belong to the winner. Betting 200,000 yen for a few million yen in return, although the odds were not high, but to this little group which had very few activities, it kept everyone in high spirits. According to the rules, each person could only place a bet once… In other words, if all the members of [Camp Kensei] had placed their bets, it would total up to 8.4 million yen.

Eight million four hundred thousand yen. As he thought about it, Kimura Kazuki's heart rate which was initially steady had started escalating. However, Kimura Kazuki was amazed. He did not expect that the number of people who would bet on him would be the same as that of Tomoya Saito. The thing was, he did not even know a single person from the group. Neither did anyone from there know him too.

These people gathered in the group would naturally have a decent understanding of each other. Thus they must know who Tomoya Saito was, and they should be aware of his capabilities.

Tomoya Saito who was at the second stage of sword power must have been an influential man, so why was it that they had no confidence in him? Or in other words, weren't they worried that this would be an insult to Tomoya Saito?

Kimura Kazuki's guess was not wrong, as Mizuki Sugawara, Tomoya Saito, and Ikioi Ito were considered influential figures in the group.

As for the girls, it would be Katsuki Sugawara and Yayoi Momoi. It was not as if the Big Eight did not have their own representative, it was just that this group only welcomed the younger generations, most of them aged between 15 to 20 years old. As for those with greater strength and abilities, Ikioi Ito did not invite them; different groups have different standards.

Ikioi Ito murmured, "Although at times, Mizuki Sugawara is not the brightest bulb, this activity was proposed by him, so he personally allowed anyone who participated in the group to bet on both sides."

As long as Mizuki Sugawara had voice this out, there was no need for anyone to fear Tomoya Saito anymore.

Kimura Kazuki nodded as he added coolly, "Then let's bet on the one within one second."

Ikioi Ito hesitated before saying, "Somebody has already placed their bets on one second."

Kimura Kazuki was confused, who would have so much faith in him? He did not know anyone from the group, unless the person was an avid gambler?

"It was Katsuki Sugawara." Ikioi Ito was not happy. Katsuki Sugawara bet for 10,000, but she did not place bets on both participants as did others. Upon knowing this, the group of people broke in outrage, and on top of that, Tomoya Saito's face was not a sight to behold… He had even personally rushed over to have a private talk with Ikioi Ito and Mizuki Sugawara, asking if they had let Katsuki know about what had happened earlier in the afternoon.

Back in the afternoon, during the individual tournament, when Kimura Kazuki went against Katsuki Sugawaya, Tomoya Saito bet 1,000 yen on Katsuki Sugawara's victory and another 100,000 yen on Kimura Kazuki's victory.

If Katsuki Sugawara knew about this, there would be no hope in him pursuing her anymore. 

However, Ikioi Ito and Mizuki Sugawara had kept their mouths shut all along. Even though Mizuki Sugawara was unhappy with Tomoya Saito, the latter was quite brilliant. He felt that it would be nice if Tomoya Saito befriended his sister. If that was the case then the Sugawara family and the Tomoya family could come together in an alliance through marriage.

However, it seemed like Katsuki Sugawara had no interest in Tomoya Saito.

"I'll just go with the one that's within one second." Even though he had to pay Katsuki Sugawara a portion of the money, after Kimura Kazuki had checked through the list, the other timings have already been bet on. 

"Actually, we can bet within 0.5 second." Ikioi Ito suggested in a hushed voice as he revealed a smile, "That fellow Saito, upon seeing that Katsuki had bet on your one-second victory, he added another time slot to bet on and that was the one within 0.5 second, but he had bet that you would lose within 0.5 second."

"..."