Motivated to be lazy

Chapter 27

It's been three days since the end of the special test on the island. While we were back to living in luxury, the mood on the cruise ship was rather somber for the most part. I've been busy analyzing what I know about each of the classes, cross referencing it with their OAA scores and coming up with strategies and counterstrategies that I was sure lent itself to Eiichiro's strengths.

There was work to do, no more playing around. While everyone else was wallowing and feeling sorry for themselves at the fact that we had all been clean swept by Class C, I needed to work. Just like when I coded BUDDY there was a time window that needed to be met, there wouldn't be an opportunity like this again. It would be easier to gather information while everyone else was still emotional, people tended to be more forthright when they were grieving.

Class A - 1004

Class B - 801

Class C - 742

Class D - 0

After reviewing the prices and formulating different strategies based on various contributing factors, in the ideal circumstances, I'm confident I could have had us finish in first place with our original two hundred and seventy points. It wouldn't have been very difficult to do in theory, the problem was in the execution. It would have been strenuous to do without people being even more suspicious of me but it was doable. It was important to review these things, to look at the best and worst case scenarios when planning and setting up contingencies. There was a silver lining here though, we learned valuable information about each of the classes, their tendencies, strengths and weaknesses.

A lot of it could be inferred but it was important to separate fact and fiction, I needed details to be confirmed in order to solidify my suspicions and right now was the ideal time to do it. While I'm still in relative obscurity in terms of people's perceptions of me.

Since meeting Honami I haven't been very social. I can be charismatic if I want to be and I have no issues with being outgoing and speaking to people, I don't get embarrassed. It was one of the things I learned once I left that place and came to live with my family. There was always a politician and their children who were trying to ingratiate themselves with me. Trying to build a future alliance with me based on my potential. There's something unassuming about a child, adults always seem to underestimate you regardless of what they know about you, it's human nature. While these people always seemed to think they were pulling the wool over my eyes, I played dumb and oblivious to their ploys.

It was easy for them to forget I was even in the room as I watched them socialize with each other, carefully noting which of them were skilled negotiators, who was good at bridging and networking relationships and who were skilled tacticians. From there it was relatively simple, I'd eavesdrop or blend in and watch as everything unfolded and file everything away for future reference. Listening to how phrasing would affect people, watching facial expressions and learning non verbal queues was a fascinating thing. When there's very little that you don't already know, it's always fascinating to learn a new skill and this was one of them.

It's one of the reasons I have so much affection for Eiichiro, people never understood why I was such good friends with him. Arisu looks at him like he's a buffoon and every other child I've met would look down on him. He's our butler's son, there's no future alliance to be made with him and there's nothing to gain from being friends with the help's child. The truth is that Eiichiro has been incredibly beneficial for me in many ways growing up.

When swimming in those circles there was one tried and true way to judge people's true intentions. Watch how they treat the help.

When offered a drink or food if they were polite, said please and thank you, greeted them, asked for their name and actually remembered it, it was the good start in judging whether a person was genuine or not. I've dealt with influential children all my life, they put on a facade in order to rub shoulders with those who can benefit them later. You could always tell what kind of people they were based on how they treated others that were beneath them on the socio-political scale.