/
“W-why
? Just how
?”
Aria’s eyes widened in confusion as she looked at the total amount of stock prices displayed on the smartphone held by Kirara.
As Aria alternated between looking at her phone and Kirara, I looked at Alice’s face.
Then, Alice-san looked at me for a moment, and then quickly looked back at Kirara and Aria.
I guess she doesn’t want to have a conversation with me right now.
I noticed that Alice’s bodyguard, who was looking at us from a little distance, was looking at us in surprise.
It’s hard to believe that she could hear what we were saying because of the distance between us, but from the way Aria looked, she might have guessed that our stock was higher than theirs.
“T-That’s impossible
 How on earth did you
”
Aria muttered and operated the screen of the smartphone she had taken from Kirara.
She was probably looking up the company whose stock Kirara had been holding.
When Aria saw the name of the company, she looked even more surprised.
“What’s the meaning of this!? Why are you buying shares of Byodoin Systems!?”
“Well, I wonder why?”
When Aria asked why, Kirara stuck out her tongue to provoke her.
As I looked at her, I thought that she was a woman with a lot of guts.
Aria’s current momentum is such that she could almost use her hands, but she provokes Aria even more.
“Don’t be ridiculous! How the hell did you know about the anti-virus software?”
“I didn’t even know about it until I saw the news, though?”
Kirara tilted her head in response to Aria’s question.
However, this is not an attempt to play dumb.
She really didn’t know about Byodoin Systems’ anti-virus software beforehand.
After all, I didn’t tell her about it.
All I told her was that “Aria is trying to do insider trading because she knows Byodoin Systems’ stock will go up.”
If I told Kirara the details of the transaction and it came out, it would be interpreted as insider trading by Kirara.
That’s why I didn’t tell Kirara.
Even though I didn’t tell her why Byodoin Systems’ stock was going up, I think it’s great that she believed me without asking any questions.
After all, this time, Kirara’s life depended on it.
And yet, it would be impossible for a normal person to continue believing in a suspicious person even without being given any proof.
This game had raised Kirara’s stock in my mind considerably.
The reason for this result goes back to the day when I taught Kirara my strategy.
Part 2
(**Backstory, Kaito’s POV**)
“―As I taught you earlier, Aria will definitely use the account of the proxy man to do insider trading first.”
Kirara nodded at my words and opened a website on her computer screen that listed the stock price of Byodoin Systems.
“But look, if they know that the stock is going to skyrocket, I thought we didn’t stand a chance, but thinking more about it, we have a fixed amount of money for this game of 100,000 yen, right? If that’s the case, don’t you think we have an advantage? You see, Byodoin Systems has a high stock price, right? So even if we bought it with 100,000 yen, we wouldn’t be able to buy that much stock, and it would be pretty hard to make a profit. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be better for us to just buy a stock whose price is likely to rise and play the game?”
Kirara said to me, pointing at the stock price of Byodoin Systems on the screen.
Kirara had a point.
It’s true that if you have a fixed amount of money, it’s better to buy a stock with a low price than to buy a stock with a high price.
However, Aria had already blocked that move.
One of the things that Aria has tied up this time is the 100,000 yen― you might think that she is just deciding the amount of money.
However, it was a single binding that had multiple meanings.
The most annoying thing about this restriction is that if you want to play the stock market, you have too little money and your strategy is limited.
What this means is that even if you try to increase your stock steadily, it will be hard to make a profit because the stock prices of stable companies are reasonable.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t make a profit.
But if you do, you will lose ninety-nine percent of the time.
There are probably a number of companies with somewhat stable stock prices that have lower prices than Byodoin Systems.
However, if I were to ask myself if I could make more money than Byodoin Systems, whose stock price is expected to skyrocket, the chances are slim to none.
Because I know what Byodoin Systems is planning to announce, and Aria is a company owner, no matter how little she knows about stocks.
It’s not as if she doesn’t know anything about how to make a profit on stocks.
In other words, there was no way Aria hadn’t thought of a way to steadily increase her earnings.
And yet, the fact that she is confidently playing with the stock of Byodoin Systems, which has a high stock price, means that she is expecting the stock price to rise that much.
This means that if you play the game steadily, you are sure to lose.
That said, it is recklessly dangerous to buy very cheap stocks that have the potential to rise in price in order to make a big profit.
The reason is that such stocks are volatile.
If the price of the stock drops sharply from the time you bought it, you will not be able to recover because you only have 100,000 yen in capital.
This is another effect of the 100,000 yen limit.
By making it a rule that once a company fails, it is almost impossible to recover, we avoided making more than a profit on Byodoin Systems’ stock.
If they wanted to compete with the rapid rise in Byodoin Systems’ stock price, they would have to choose a stock with a rapid rise in price ― and also has a low price.
However, this is where things get tricky, except for the fact that Aria said she was tied up.
Although she called it a bond, she also made other decisions that would restrict her activities without Kirara noticing.
One of these is the two-week period.
The contents of the Byodoin Systems would be talked about for at least a few weeks after it was announced, so why did Aria choose two weeks as a short period of time?
Why did Aria choose two weeks as a short period of time when the anti-virus software could be expected to generate enough profit for the stock after it was announced and not give Kirara time to plan her stock strategy?
I don’t think Aria knows how much knowledge Kirara has about stocks.
But perhaps it didn’t matter how much she knew about stocks.
It wouldn’t make sense for a solid stock to exceed the profit of the stock that Byodoin Systems would be offering this time.
The only way to do that would be to find a new, cheap company whose stock price would rise rapidly.
However, as I mentioned earlier, stocks whose prices can be bought for 100,000 yen are not stable.
Moreover, it is not enough to read the flow of a single stock of an unstable company in order to make a solid profit to win the game.
This is because there is a possibility that the stock will not go up within a period of time.
Therefore, you need to read the stock trends of several companies in order to buy and sell stocks repeatedly at key points.
If that were the case, she would want time to do extensive research on multiple companies and read the stock market trends.
That’s why Aria didn’t give Kirara that time.
If you are a person who usually reads and researches stocks with the expectation of making a large profit, but you are trying to earn a stable income, you may have some information, but you may not have a firm grasp of it.
It was the same for Kirara, who was reading the stock market to learn more.
From Aria’s point of view, she had a strong impression of Kirara from the past, so she probably didn’t think that she was interested in rough stocks.
So I guess she decided that as long as we didn’t give her the time of day, she would be fine.
Besides, we have school.
And since we have tests this time of year, we can’t afford to miss school.
I don’t think Aria knew about our test period or the end-of-term ceremony, but she probably decided that all schools have the same period.
I think that’s why Aria designated the next day, which was probably the last day of school, as the date to settle the game.
She wanted to finish the game on the next day after school ended, because she couldn’t do much while school was in session.
It is possible to take a gamble and buy a company with a low stock price without spending enough time researching the company or reading the stock market trends, but Kirara would never be able to make such a choice.
No, even if it was just a game and that was the only way to win, Kirara would most likely have adopted such a strategy in order to beat Aria.
However, what Kirara is betting on in this game is all the Saijo Company shares she owns― in other words, her entire life.
There was no way she could take such a gamble, and in fact, she had to be very careful.
If there was a risk that the stock price would fall without sufficient information, it would be impossible to buy and sell repeatedly to make more money in this game, which could not be redone due to low capital.
This was probably the reason why Aria had him bet all of Kirara’s shares.
I thought it was too big a bet for the game, but it made sense if the goal was to keep Kirara from betting.
I think that’s why Aria thinks that Kirara is going to play the game in a solid way.
And the reason why Aria said that she would not simply compete on the basis of the profit of her stocks but on the total amount of stocks she owns is probably to prevent people from buying stocks whose prices are not stable, which could be more profitable than Aria’s.
If you are going to play with unstable stocks, you must sell them when they become more expensive.
If you want to play with stocks whose prices are not stable, you must sell them when they become expensive because they may plummet in a short period of time.
However, since you have to own the stock in the end, even if there is a possibility that the stock will go up until the very last trading day, you can’t sell the stock if the stock price drops sharply right before the last trading day.
If this happens, there is a small chance that you will not get the profit you expected.
It was a coincidence that she met Kirara on the day she decided to play the game, and yet she immediately came up with a bind to restrict Kirara’s actions so that she would not notice.
“So, what are you going to do?”
As I was thinking about Aria, Kirara peered into my face.
“Ah― Maybe Kaito prepared 200 million this time to combine that money with my own money to buy a lot of cheap stocks and raise the stock price of the stock that I bought in advance for 100,000 yen to win, right?”
Kirara clapped her hands as if to say, “All right!” and asked me that.
I shook my head at her words.
“No, that’s wrong. Kirara knows a lot more about stocks than I do, so you know that if you were to suddenly raise a cheap stock, there’s a risk that the number of people who would take advantage of the situation and sell the stock would skyrocket, and the stock price would immediately plummet.”
“So, what if I raise all my shares at once, sell them immediately, and then do the same thing with other shares?”
“That’s even worse. Why do you think Aria didn’t bind herself to something that anyone could have thought of?”
I shook my head again at Kirara’s words, then asked back.
“U-umm― the plan she’s going to do would be a very different one, or maybe it’s a
trap
?”
This time I shook my head in response to Kirara’s questioning look.
“I’m not sure, but it’s probably better to assume that. She seems to be quite a schemer, and I can’t imagine that she forgot to tie them up. If that’s the case, then she must have intentionally left it untied. Of course, one time would be fine, but multiple times of doing it should be avoided. If Aria is connected to the management, there is a high possibility that they will use it as an excuse to freeze her account immediately. If her account is frozen, she will not be able to prove the movement of the 100,000 yen that she had prepared as her first game fund, and she will lose at that point.”
“So, what should I do then
?”
I smiled at Kirara who asked me anxiously.
“Of course, we’ll buy the shares of Byodoin Systems.”
“Eh!?”
Kirara let out a surprised voice at my words.
I’m sure Kirara is wondering, “Wouldn’t that put us at an overwhelming disadvantage and leave us with no chance of winning?”
If we were to buy the same stock, that would be a strong possibility.
Because of the high price of the original stock, a slight change in the stock price will not change the number of shares you can buy.
So, a draw at best would be the most likely outcome.
But I had a plan for that.
“First of all, I’ll use the 300 million to buy shares of Byodoin Systems beforehand.”
When I told her that, Kirara must have understood what I was trying to do.
She immediately shook her head.
“But with all this, even if Aria sells all her shares after she buys them, we probably won’t be able to buy more shares than Aria. I don’t think the stock price will go down that much.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve thought about that too.”
I myself don’t believe that we can buy more shares than Aria with this.
That’s why I’m going to use this 300 million as a bomb to detonate.
“For now, Kirara, read the timing for Byodoin System’s stock to reach its lowest price within two weeks, or even ten days. That’s the most likely time for Aria to buy the stock, and buying the stock after Aria is the absolute prerequisite for winning this game. That’s why I said I want you to bet your life on me, but that only means that I want you to follow my strategy, and this game is on you.”
I dared to say that the game was in Kirara’s hands, so that she would be aware that even though I had thought of the strategy, the game itself was in her hands.
In this way, when Kirara wins, she will feel more confident that she won on her own.
If this puts pressure on Kirara and she makes a mistake, that’s not my problem.
I have my own way of finding out if Aria bought the stock or not.
After that, I left Kirara and went home, and created an app that would not allow anyone with this app installed to identify themselves, including their location and device address, no matter what website they accessed.
After it was completed, I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t lose, so I hacked into a stock trading site and looked for accounts that had bought as much stock as they could for only 100,000 yen.
The next day, I first went to see Kisaragi-sensei and asked her to let me use my 20 million yen to trade stocks in an account I had created in her name.
If the stock price of Byodoin Systems was going to rise sharply, I wanted to give all the profits I made from it to Kirara, who was going to be disadvantaged by this game.
I wanted to make up for that disadvantage, since it was caused by my strategy.
And the remainder of the money I had left over after covering the disadvantage, I was going to give it to Kirara as a thank you for trusting me and going along with my strategy.
If I put it in my own pocket, there’s a chance that my insider trading will be exposed.
After parting ways with Kisaragi-sensei, I contacted Shirousagi.
After I succeeded in getting his cooperation, I asked him to tell me about the website where he had heard the rumor about Byodoin Systems, and I created multiple accounts so that they could not be traced back to me, and I posted a lot of comments expressing my concern that the management of Byodoin Systems might be in danger.
Well, it’s called a monologue.
I had done this in the past to spread rumors about KAI, so I was rather familiar with it.
And the fact that Byodoin Systems’ business was in jeopardy, that they hadn’t achieved much in the recent past, and that their stock price had been dropping, albeit quite subtly, led some people to believe it.
In the meantime, I got a call from Kirara that the stock had reached its lowest price, and I waited for someone who was probably Aria’s agent to buy the shares of Byodoin Systems.
I waited for the person who was supposed to be the agent to buy the shares of Byodoin Systems, and it wasn’t long before I found that person.
But I needed to be sure that the person was definitely Aria’s agent.
So I got the registration information from the account and contacted the person that day.
Well, there were other reasons for my contact, but we’ll get to that later.
The day after I knew for sure that Aria had bought the software ― the same day that Byodoin Systems was going to release their anti-virus software, I gathered Kirara and Shirousagi in the morning in a secluded place.
When they arrived in the early hours of the morning, I handed them a pre-made, non-personally identifiable application.
The three of us then used multiple accounts to start spreading the rumor that Byodoin Systems was in danger on a proper stock site.
Aria would have been at the school by now, so even if we acted out in the open, she wouldn’t notice and she wouldn’t be able to sell her shares and buy more.
As I had been spreading rumors behind the scenes, other people began to join in the conversation.
The moment the time reached nine o’clock, I had Kirara to sell as much stock as she could buy for 300 million yen.
Because of the rumors and the fact that the stock price had started to fall, the stock price started to fall as soon as Kirara sold the shares.
Then, Kirara joined in the rumor spreading again, and this time, she kept watching the stock price fluctuations in order to buy shares with the account that Shirousagi had prepared in advance.
Since the amount of money had been properly calculated in advance, Shirousagi kept waiting for the right moment.
The reason why he chose to buy the stock with his account instead of Kirara’s was to reduce the burden on Kirara and to make it clear that Shirousagi was involved in this case.
The moment the price of the stock reached 100,000 yen, which was one share more than he could buy at the lowest price the day before, Shirousagi purchased as many shares as he could for 100,000 yen.
And soon after, I bought as many shares as I could for 20 million yen on Kisaragi-sensei’s account.
After that, we moved on to get rid of the accounts that had been spreading rumors.
However, since there weren’t that many people affected by the rumors and we stopped spreading them, Byodoin Systems’ stock didn’t drop as much as we thought it would after that, and the stock price wasn’t much different from the one we bought.
But as a result― Kirara was able to make more profit than Aria.

Of course, I was late for the test, but

I asked Kirara in advance to take care of it, so Kirara, I, and Shirahagi could retake the test later and not be scolded.
Shirousagi didn’t seem to care about the test, and was happy to join us, saying that he would do it for the money.
This was my scheme that I had given to Kirara―.