Macho Man Doesn't want a Slice-of-Life

"Let's all play sugoroku(board games) together~!"

Rinji: "…"

Shirogane: "…"

Kaguya: "…"

Ishigami: "…"

Fujiwara, as usual, was up to her antics again.

As a tabletop gaming club member, she mentioned their club recently developed a new version of sugoroku.

Sugoroku, originally from ancient Egypt, is somewhat like Monopoly, though the rules differ. The goal is still to amass the most money to win.

Fujiwara's version used connected cards as a board, with dice rolls to determine movement.

It looked normal enough, but given it was Fujiwara's idea, the student council stayed wary.

"I call it the 'Happy Life Game'! I promise you'll all have a great time~"

Rinji: "I think you're the only one having fun here."

Fujiwara acted like she didn't hear him and said mysteriously, "But just playing a game is boring. Let's make a bet."

Shirogane & Kaguya: "No bets."

"Ehhh!?"

Rinji: "You never learn, do you? Are you sure you want to bet with me?"

"…"

Fujiwara finally remembered the trauma of being dominated by Rinji's cheating techniques in the tabletop gaming club, and the humiliation of losing a whole quarter's dues.

Shirogane sighed. "Forget betting, we don't even want to play the game."

Kaguya: "Anything Fujiwara-san creates is always a bit… off."

"Eh eh eh!? This was made together with the tabletop gaming club!" Fujiwara quickly clarified.

Unfortunately, the student council had always held a rather poor opinion of her intelligence.

After thinking it over, Ishigami said, "Well, I guess we might as well give it a shot. It'd be kind of sad if no one ever played it."

"...That's true."

"When a toy company CEO's son says something, it's hard to argue."

"Ishigami-kun..."

Fujiwara looked at Ishigami with gratitude.

Thus, the game began, and Rinji was dragged into it as well.

The game was divided into three stages: childhood, adulthood, and old age. There were 99 spaces in total, each one represented by an event card. The players used tokens labeled with the first character of their names.

Looking at the starting space marked "Rin," Rinji tossed the die.

Three.

"Ah, Rinji-kun landed on an Unlucky Space."

Fujiwara pointed at a card marked with a cute skull icon and the word "Unlucky."

"...What's the event?"

"Flip the card over."

Rinji turned the card over, and Fujiwara read, "Mugged by delinquents. Lose 5000 yen."

"Why not just beat the punks to death?"

"Well... to avoid this kind of misfortune, you need to roll a 5 or higher."

Clatter~

The die spun across the table and landed on a six.

"Oh~ Congratulations, Rinji-kun. The delinquents were scared off by nearby police officers and didn't complete the robbery."

"Tch. So they didn't die, huh?"

"Can you not sound so murderous? They were just delinquents."

"This is about pride. If someone messes with me and doesn't end up missing limbs, I'd feel pretty humiliated."

"...Such a socially charged comment."

"My turn, then."

Shirogane placed his "Shiro" token on the start and rolled the die.

Four. He landed on a card labeled "Random Event."

He flipped the card. It read: "After-school Random Event."

"What's this?"

"Basically, after school, does the president go out to play or study at home?"

"Study at home."

"Got it~"

Fujiwara handed him a card.

"Congrats, President. You've earned the 'Bookworm' title."

"Are you screwing with me?"

Cards landed on were discarded into the "graveyard" so other players could catch up more easily.

Kaguya rolled and triggered a lucky event—finding 10,000 yen.

Ishigami rolled and landed on an Unlucky Space—"Traffic Accident." Luckily, as long as he rolled more than one, he could avoid it. He rolled a two and was safe.

The childhood phase didn't earn much money, but once they entered adulthood, the financial gains increased significantly.

Thanks to his "Bookworm" title, the president got into a top university and landed a stable job. Kaguya kept landing on lucky spaces, so her funds were way ahead. As for Ishigami and Rinji...

These two unlucky souls kept hitting bad spaces.

Ishigami's funds were nearly zero. As for Rinji... due to frequent random disasters and the game's high degree of freedom, he always found ways to profit from misfortunes.

For example, during a robbery, he rolled double sixes and beat up the robber, taking his money. Or when a brat damaged his stuff and cost him money, he kidnapped the kid and extorted their parents for cash.

After this series of stunts, Rinji's funds ranked just behind Kaguya, who kept hitting lucky spaces.

"Rinji-kun, you really can't judge a book by its cover..."

Watching Rinji's evil schemes in-game, Fujiwara commented.

"Turning adversity into opportunity—methods don't matter as long as you win," Rinji said. "But yeah, this actually feels like a game."

It wasn't just Rinji. The others also found the game surprisingly enjoyable.

"Right~"

"I wasn't praising you, Fujiwara. I was appreciating that the rest of the tabletop gaming club are normal people."

After Shirogane finished rolling, it was Kaguya's turn.

"Six points... Hm? This is... the Marriage Space?"

Kaguya looked at the card that said "Marriage" and turned to Fujiwara.

"Oh, the Marriage Space means you marry the player closest to you on the board. From then on, you share events."

"!!?"

"!!?"

Kaguya and Shirogane were both shocked.

'Kaguya is getting married!? Who's her partner...?'

He frantically checked where her token was, and the closest one was...

Takamine Rinji.

'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!'

Shirogane's brain conjured the image of Kaguya in a wedding dress and Rinji in a tuxedo walking into a chapel. Foam practically frothed at his mouth.

Rinji stared blankly at Fujiwara.

"Where's the Divorce Space?"