Chapter 112: Chapter 111: Discussing Strategies for the World of Cicada’s Song
Upon hearing Mion’s proposal, everyone was stunned, and after a moment, Satoko finally spoke up with trepidation.
“Mion, can teachers join too?”
“Of course, Fang Zheng can come and be our advisor, all the clubs usually have a teacher advisor, right?”
“Even if I become your advisor, you won’t have any club funds to use.”
Fang Zheng wouldn’t miss the invitation from Mion, as he had been considering ways to infiltrate the protagonist’s group. Now with this opportunity, he naturally wouldn’t let it slip by.
“Don’t worry about the funds, Mion’s family is a well-known landowner.”
Rika also smiled and chimed in at this point. Fang Zheng could sense, however, that Rika was looking at him with a mix of wariness and curiosity.
Fang Zheng thought for a moment and found it no wonder, Rika, in a sense, wasn’t much different from Tom Cruise; both had reincarnated hundreds of times. The only advantage for Tom Cruise was that he was an adult, with no physical issues. He only lacked experience and awareness. Rika, on the other hand, was different. Her body was so frail she could hardly do anything physically. Apart from reincarnation, Rika was almost defenseless. Honestly, Fang Zheng truly felt pity for Rika; a child who had reincarnated hundreds of times, each time bearing the fear of death yet without any means to escape. It was a tale heartbreaking to hear and sorrowful to witness.
For Rika, this world was but one of her countless reincarnations, but now, a new character who had never appeared in dozens of past lives had emerged. It would have been strange for Rika to not react at all.
“If that’s the case, then I accept your invitation, Mion, to take the position of advisor… By the way, what’s the name of our club?”
At Fang Zheng’s question, this time everyone was stumped, and Keiichi also scratched his head, curiously looking at the others.
“Right, I don’t know either, our club has to have a name, right?”
“Uh… I haven’t thought of a name at all.”
“Come on, Mion! Think of one right now!”
“Even if you ask me to think of one now… how about the Game Club?”
“Too common! Or should I say, too old-fashioned!”
“You can do it! Go, Mion!”
Watching Mion hold her head in agony, the girls surrounding her couldn’t help but cheer her on. Unfortunately, Mion seemed to lack talent in naming, as she finally let out a scream and then collapsed onto the table as if she had exploded.
“I can’t do it, I can’t come up with a name for the club! All I can think of are names that are too plain!”
“Mion, you’re really hopeless…”
Upon hearing Rena’s words, Mion puffed out her cheeks defiantly, then her eyes lit up, and she swiftly turned to Fang Zheng.
“That’s it, let Fang Zheng decide our club’s name! Since the teacher is our advisor now, this task is all yours!”
True to the successor of The Three Noble Houses, she deftly passed the buck with skill rivaling a seasoned politician; her mastery was noted.
Silently labeling Mion in his heart, Fang Zheng pondered for a moment before speaking up.
“Then, how about the Academy Life Division?”
“It sounds quite nice,”
“Then it’s decided, starting today, our club will be called the Academy Life Division!”
With Mion’s words, the name was firmly established.
Afterward, everyone left the school chattering and laughing, heading home. Fang Zheng returned to his own room in the school—once a clinic, it now served as a decent temporary dwelling, at least equipped with essentials like a refrigerator and a gas stove, sufficient for daily living.
As the sun set, the night grew deep. Looking out the window, the fields were pitch black, with only the bleak white light from the road lamps along the country lane, which somewhat evoked the atmosphere of a rural ghost story. However, Fang Zheng certainly wasn’t afraid of such things. In this world, he couldn’t use the power of the Soulstone, but he could rely on his own abilities. Setting aside his now-transformed Zerg body, even without the Royal Cross Swordsmanship, the magic Fang Zheng had learned was enough to handle the crises here.
However, since this world was meant to train the mind and the will, strength alone was definitely not enough.
Should I be thankful the Codex didn’t throw me into the world of Danganronpa at this point?
Sighing, Fang Zheng began to write and draw on the blank cards in front of him. As the advisor of the “Academy Life Division,” he had promised Mion and Rena that he would create a new game for the club. There wasn’t much for Fang Zheng to worry about in this regard, as a game designer, even a simple board game was something he was quite familiar with, not to mention it was the 1980s, an era where such resources were scarce, so producing a satisfactory game for everyone would surely be a piece of cake for Fang Zheng.
But for Fang Zheng, that wasn’t his main focus. What he needed to consider was how to “clear” this world.
In the world of “When the Cicadas Cry,” everyone had a reason to darken, and in fact, for Fang Zheng, Miyo Takano, the mastermind, was the least of his concerns. Since she acted solely out of brute force, something Fang Zheng was least afraid of, he excluded her first despite her role as the world’s final boss.
But it was the problems that couldn’t be solved by violence that were the most troubling for Fang Zheng.
The story of “When the Cicadas Cry” made it clear, out of the five protagonists, three would be driven to a corner and snap, darkening and starting to commit murder. The best approach for Fang Zheng was to eradicate the cause of their darkening. And this was the most difficult part.
And the cause was the Hojo Family.
In the story of “When the Cicadas Cry,” a key background element was that the government once wanted to build a dam in Hinamizawa. The villagers of Hinamizawa didn’t want to leave their homes. Thus, a division was formed between those in favor and those opposed to the dam construction, with the Hojo Family siding with the former.
However, in the end, the opposition won, the government canceled the construction plan, and the Hojo Family, who had backed the wrong side, found themselves in an awkward position. They were ostracized and even branded as traitors by the rest of the village. Then, the Parents of Hojo died after falling off a cliff during a trip, and the two Hojo children—Satoshi Hojo and Satoko Hojo—were taken in by their uncle’s family.
But clearly, the two of them were not happy. In fact, Teppei Hojo’s family had been abusing Satoshi Hojo and Satoko Hojo. Eventually, unable to bear it any longer, Satoshi Hojo, in order to protect Satoko, killed their abusive aunt. Soon after, he was sent for treatment due to an outbreak of the “Hinamizawa Syndrome” and was officially reported as missing — which was announced as him moving to another school.
Meanwhile, Sonozaki Mion’s sister, Sonozaki Shion, had always harbored an unrequited love for Satoshi Hojo. However, her position was quite awkward. The Sonozaki Family, being one of the Three Noble Houses of Hinamizawa, was essentially a driving force behind the ostracism of the Hojo Family. It was akin to those ancient novels where a local tyrant landlord torments a poor scholar, while the landlord’s daughter happens to fall for that same poor scholar.
Of course, both Romeo and Juliet met tragic ends, so the rural landlord’s low-budget version — Satoshi Hojo and Sonozaki Shion — was even less hopeful. Not to mention that Shion’s love was unrequited, it was almost as if she had taken every tragic flag from girl-centric tragedy novels and raised them all.
After Satoshi Hojo disappeared, Sonozaki Shion always believed that it was the Sonozaki Family who had killed him. This became her almost unchangeable dark fate — she was already laden with pain and now the person she loved had vanished without a trace. Thus, Sonozaki Shion could be said to be one of the most susceptible to darkening in the entire World of Cicada’s Song.
The situation for Satoko Hojo was similar. Fang Zheng remembered clearly, in the later parts of the World of Cicada’s Song, Satoko had gradually begun to live the peaceful life she wished for. However, the return of her uncle, Teppei Hojo, shattered this false sense of happiness. In the end, what was once a happy routine began to collapse, transforming into the pitch-black Abyss.
It was for these reasons that Fang Zheng felt these two issues were the hardest to resolve. If Maehara Keiichi and Rena Ryuuguu’s problems could be prevented beforehand, then Sonozaki Shion and Satoko Hojo’s issues were not so easily dealt with — these were “historical problems” that couldn’t be easily smoothed over with intervention.
Of course, from Fang Zheng’s point of view, the best solution would be to kill Teppei Hojo. He had enough strength and confidence to make Teppei Hojo’s death look like an accident. But Fang Zheng did not dare to do so, each world had its rules, and he had a vague feeling that if he killed Teppei Hojo, his own fate would probably not be much better than Maehara Keiichi’s.
In Fang Zheng’s eyes, this world was even harder to deal with than Black Soul. Black Soul simply disallowed the use of power beyond certain limits, but at the end of the day, everything was still determined by combat. However, this world appeared to extremely discourage the use of violence, unless it was for self-defense, and any violent actions beyond that seemed to provoke some kind of backlash.
A world that trains the spirit, huh? High combat values are pointless if you’re unable to use them.
With that thought, Fang Zheng shook his head, then just as he was about to continue with his work, suddenly, his ears twitched slightly. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
Behind him, a series of slow footsteps emerged in the pitch-black corridor, getting closer and closer. Soon, Fang Zheng heard the footsteps stop right outside his door, then all was silent.
Ah, this feeling… you can’t tell me there are no ghosts, I wouldn’t believe it.
Fang Zheng sighed helplessly, then stood up and walked to the door. With a “click,” he opened the previously locked door and looked at the figure standing outside, greeting them with a smile.
“May I ask, what brings you here so late at night?”