The Tower's Secret

21. [Part 2] Conviction

Hello everyone! After this chapter, I'm going to focus on editing these past twenty one chapters. So updates will happen less frequently. In the meantime, I will be starting another story, and it relates to Kyn's storyline in his "Other World." His story concept came up before I even started The Tower's Secret, but I never got the chance to work on it. However, since I was going to slow down and work on edits recently, I thought, why not? I'm already four chapters in, but the update will happen later after I get my world building done.

You don't need to read Kyn's Story to understand this one, but it might be something you like. In fact, the storyline progression is more complicated than this story, so if you're in for it, feel free to pick it up when it comes out!

Anyway, onto actual business :)

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Twenty minutes until voting began.

Zero rubbed the numbered slips of paper in between his fingers as he calculated his options.

Twenty-four characters; each character possessed two votes, so forty eight total votes circulating around, all of which were generally ambiguous. Idealistically, he needed to stay at around two votes—the average votes per person—to remain in the middle, but he feared that the situation was more complicated than it seemed.

Such a strange test . The results involved more luck than logic, yet in the whole scheme of things, deduction was still a key factor to surviving.

He glanced around. From his analysis, allied characters would most likely coordinate their votes together to kill two characters of their choosing, thus avoiding death by too many votes. And the more people in the alliance, the easier to shape their choices.

Allies... look for allied groups.

He continued his roundabout scanning, concluding that the largest group contained seven characters. Fourteen votes. So if they partitioned half their votes to others and half to themselves, the maximum votes a targeted character would receive had to be approximately five or six votes: three or four from the big groups' vote and up to two resulting from other scattered votes.

Zero needed to stay away from the brink. Three votes would be the limit. Any further than that and he could potentially die. He zoomed in on different characters, checking for anyone who was looking his way—more specifically—checking for anyone who'd potentially vote for him.

He found one immediately. That blonde sniper from before was casting quick glances at him, her actions discreet yet not subtle enough avoid his detection. After their previous fight, he knew that she wanted him dead. And though voting and refraining from voting could equally kill a person, she likely wanted to take action herself by picking him as one of her numbers.

One down, most likely down, that is.

Zero still had his own votes, one of which he could choose himself to complete two votes. An idealistic range. With the possibility that another might vote for him, he still stayed at three votes—a safe number to work with. And the chance that he received another vote on top of that was slim. He was all set.

Now, who to vote for.... Of the two slips of paper to place in the ballot box, he'd already dedicated one to himself, but he still needed one more person. The sniper? No; she didn't seem to pose a threat in terms of appearance, so she would naturally receive little votes. If he wanted to kill her, refraining from voting could put her near the bottom two. He was banking on that.