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VIDEO: Tatarigoroshi-hen | TIP 3: Satoko’s Trap Course (Advanced)
BGM: Silence
It was a peaceful lunch break.
"Whaa?! What was that?!"
We rushed into the hallway... and to our surprise, Coach was there with a water bucket overturned on his head!
"C-Coach, are you okay?!"
Coach greets us, cool and calm.
"What's going on, Coach? You don't come to school very much."
"Well, I do come here once a week as part of my job. It had been quiet here for a while... but I totally let my guard down..."
"Ahahaha... Satoko-chan's little tricks always come when you least expect them... Will you be okay in those clothes?"
"Oh, I'm fine—I was just thinking of taking a nice bath, so this is actually cooling me off."
"You sure are calm, Coach. In fact, you never get mad! It really makes you come off as an adult."
...She was right.
If I were Coach, I would have started running around with the bucket still on my head, looking for her.
His adult way of not getting mad at every little child's prank was admirable.
"...If there's some secret trick to staying so calm after getting hit in the head with a bucket filled with water, then I'm begging you, tell me."
BGM: Silence
SFX: Higurashi
"For example... Let's say there was this old and traditional family, dating back to the Meiji era."
"Okay."
"And let's say they had many maids under their employ. Being a large house, of course, they have all kinds of maids—from the veteran ones who turned mean and don't want to give up their jobs, to the new ones who are young and full of energy!! See, can you imagine that? Yes...♪"
BGM: Baby's Walk (Rika)
A space filled with dreamy maids in pink and peach adorned with frills and headbands, with Coach at their center, began to spread out before me...
"The newer maids, with all their youthful vitality, giving everything they have to please their master! But the older maids won't allow that to happen! They find fault with everything they do, bullying them and tormenting them all day long!!”
“Look, there's still so much dust here! Oh... I'm so sorry... Do it over! Splash!! A bucket falls upside-down on the maid! She's soaking wet... and she wants to cry, but still puts on a brave face... haa haa!! Maaaiiidddsss~~~~♪♪♪!!"
"...Hau~~~☆ I don't get it but it sounds fun~☆ Maybe Rena should be a maid too...♪"
BGM: Sutakorasassa (Helter Skelter)
"Mgh! One Satoko Houjou-san sighted! ...I say, Satoko-san, what is this! I say, look at all this dust! I-I-I say!! It's time for you to be punished!"
"Whaa!! Nya-nya! Nyaaa!!!"
Coach plucked Satoko up and started giving her a spanking.
BGM: Afternoon in Paris
"...Satoko can put traps together with such brilliant predictions—it's so strange how she can't predict the very end, though."
"Is it? I think Satoko-chan wanted this to happen. She wanted it!"
"Satoko wanted this outcome? What do you mean by that?"
"When she plays pranks on people like this, they always get mad and chase her around. Don't you think it's like a form of communication?"
"...Sounds like a terrible way to communicate. Don't people normally say 'hello' to each other?"
Rena gave a cool smile and, laughing abruptly, explained.
"That's what I mean. ...If Satoko-chan plays a trick on someone, she wants them to get mad or laugh and chase her. It's kind of like a kitty biting you softly... Don't you think it's cute...?"
BGM: Orange-colored Time
SFX: Bell
Satoko, regaling us with her trap philosophy, was improving the already-brutal trap hell on the mountain.
If Rena was right, and her traps are to get people to pay attention to her...
Then all of these traps on this mountain... were basically a crystallized form of those feelings.
Alone with Rika-chan... setting up trap after trap after trap in the mountains...... always waiting for someone to fall into them.
...But nobody needed to come to this mountain in the first place.
...Without a doubt, she and Rika-chan had spent a lot of time imagining how victims caught in their traps would react.
Satoko, separated for so long from her beloved Nii-nii, Satoshi.
...With her stubbornness, she never once said that she wanted him to come home.
But all the traps sleeping on the mountain told me how Satoko really felt.
"Oh, sorry about that. What did you say?"
"All you have to do is pound one nail into the tree trunk like this, and it's already a great trap. If you trip up right there and smack your forehead into it... it would really hurt~!"
"A-A human hammer pushing a nail into your forehead... Y-Yeah, that sounds painful..."
"If it was someone really, really evil, this trap could put them to death! I do so look forward to seeing what sort of villain gets caught by it!"
"...Why do you keep glancing at me like that? ...Are you saying you want me to fall for it? ...I-I could get really badly hurt, you know. Maybe you shouldn't be using this trap."
"......Is that so? ...Well, it is true that I can't use traps without love behind them.”
“...Then I'll just move the nail here so that if the villain really reforms their behavior, they won't get caught by it..."
Satoko immersed herself in adjusting the nail's position.
...Traps of love, huh?
Maybe Coach was right. ...Just by reacting a little differently... everything changes.
Come to think of it... maybe you can feel humor and warmth even when Satoko's traps get you.
"Uh... yeah. It's perfect. I hope a villain comes along and gets caught by this trap."
"Ho-ho-ho-ho! No, of course it would be better if that didn't happen."
...It looked a little painful, but I considered coming here sometime and getting caught in it.