Jujutsu Kaisen — Chapter 111 - Probing and Game Escalation

Junpei pointed at the row of rusted iron doors ahead, his fingertips trembling.

"There are three types. Green is 10 chips, yellow is 20, red is 50."

His gaze drifted across them.

"Once you go in, the game is random."

"Win, and you get your stake back plus the opponent's and the dealer's chips. Lose, and your chips stay behind. High-difficulty games might cost you your life. Accumulate 1,000 chips and you can cash out early."

Yuji Itadori stared at the row of blood-red text on the wall.

This isn't a game.

These people treat human lives like numbers on a ledger. Weighed by the pound. Priced and sold.

He shoved both hands into his hoodie pocket and clenched them tight.

The fabric pulled taut into hard, cold ridges.

Nanami withdrew his gaze. His thumb worked slowly across the rough edge of a plastic chip.

"High-risk, high-reward zero-sum game, with a dealer subsidy built in." He adjusted his goggles. "Designed to lure in desperate gamblers and keep them feeding until the last drop of blood is squeezed out."

"So what do we do?" Yu Haibara leaned half a step closer. "There's no exit."

Nanami didn't answer. He reached up and undid the top button of his suit jacket.

"I am an adult."

He slid his hands into his trouser pockets and walked toward the mid-level zone, where yellow light pulsed along the walls.

"Scouting ahead is the kind of overtime that gets you killed. That responsibility falls to me. You two stay put. Don't cause trouble."

Yuji's back went rigid. He reached out, but Haibara's hand came down on his shoulder.

"Trust Nanami-senpai."

Nanami pushed through the green door.

Behind it was a gray-white room with no windows. A stark fluorescent light hung from the ceiling, throwing cold brightness down onto a stainless steel table in the center.

In the chair on the left sat a balding middle-aged man, eyes webbed with red. He fixed his stare on Nanami the moment he walked in.

At the far end of the table stood a dealer in a ludicrous clown mask, idly turning a bomb-shaped timer over in one hand.

"Welcome to the 10-chip zone. Tonight's game is called: Greed's Bottom Line." The clown dealer's voice came through a voice changer, shrill, grating, wrong. "Please take your seats."

Nanami pulled out the chair and sat down without hurry.

His gaze moved once.

He caught the faded pink hair tie wrapped around the man's right wrist.

"The rules are simple." The dealer set an electronic blind board in front of each of them. "Insert your 10-chip voucher into the slot. The prize pool this round is 30 chips. You have ten seconds. Both players enter any integer between 0 and 30."

The dealer paused. Behind the eyeholes of the clown mask, something looked out that wasn't amusement.

"If the two numbers add up to 30 or less, each player takes away exactly what they wrote down. Everyone goes home happy."

"But if the sum exceeds 30..."

The dealer pressed the remote.

CLICK!

A cold metal collar locked around Nanami's throat.

The same happened to the man across from him. He flinched so hard his whole body rattled.

[Game Rules Panel]

[Restriction] Blind bid. Ten-second limit.

[Erasure Condition] If the sum exceeds 30, the player who entered the larger number is judged "Greedy." Collar detonates. Erasure.

[Secondary Consequence] The player with the smaller number survives and receives only their 10-chip stake back. Equal numbers, both erased.

A classic game of chicken.

To survive, the rational play was obvious: write the smallest number you could stomach.

The balding man heaved ragged breaths, eyes locked on his blind board.

If he wrote 15 and the other guy wrote 16, sum hits 31. Other guy's number is bigger. Other guy dies. He walks out with his stake.

But if he wrote 0, he was completely safe. And completely broke.

He hadn't walked into this slaughterhouse to leave empty-handed.

The man was still sweating through his collar when Nanami moved.

No hesitation. Not even a second. He pressed "30" on the blind board.

Then he did something that made no sense by any logic the game was built on.

He flipped the board over and slammed it face-down on the table.

Screen pointing directly at the balding man.

The red "30" was impossible to look away from.

The balding man stared. The dealer went still.

"Are you — insane?!" The man jabbed a finger at Nanami, his voice cracking apart.

Nanami leaned back in his chair. Hands folded in his lap.

"That is my number. Now it's your turn."

His tone was the same one he'd use to walk someone through a quarterly performance review.

"Let me lay out the logic for you. I've written 30. Any number you enter between 1 and 30 pushes our total over the limit."

He held the man's gaze. His voice didn't move.

"If the sum exceeds 30, I'm the one with the larger number. My collar detonates. I die."

"But you, with the smaller number, walk away with only your 10-chip stake back. You earn nothing. You waste an entire chance to win."

"And if you think I'm bluffing and also write 30 — the sum is 60. Equal numbers."

Nanami rapped the table once.

"Boom. Both our heads repaint the walls."

Cold sweat dripped from the man's chin onto the steel surface. His hands shook like he was coming apart.

What was this? A suicide run?

"I came in here to collect a debt for the people upstairs." Nanami adjusted his goggles. "Whether I walk out or not, I genuinely do not care."

"But you're different."

He lifted his hand and pointed at the man's right wrist.

"That kind of cheap hair tie — little girls wear those. You came in here to risk your life. To pay off a debt. To see your daughter one more time."

The balding man broke.

He roared, squeezed his eyes shut, and slammed "0" onto the board.

Ding,

"Time." The dealer's voice came out dry. "Player One: 30. Player Two: 0. Sum: 30. Settlement complete."

The collar released with a click.

The man folded into his chair, sucking in air. He didn't look at Nanami once. He grabbed his refunded stake off the table, stumbled to the door, wrenched it open, and ran.

Nanami stood up. He swept the 40 chips the machine spit out into his coat pocket, face blank.

"Exploiting loopholes." The dealer's eyes tracked him. "Do you find that amusing?"

Nanami smoothed his jacket. "I just think your game design is terrible."

He pushed the door open and walked out.

The noise of the hall hit him again, ugly and relentless.

He tossed the 30 chips he'd won into Yuji's arms.

"That's it? You won already?" Yu Haibara's eyes went wide. "That was less than 3 minutes! Nanami-senpai, you're unreal!"

"The opponent was a gambler with something to lose." Nanami's tone didn't change. "The return rate here is too low, though. To accumulate enough to buy our way out quickly, we'll need to, "

BZZZT,

The microphone feedback hit before he could finish, a shriek of static from somewhere above.

On the screen overhead: a deformed figure in a tailcoat several sizes too large, its head a massive rusted gear, teeth grinding against each other in slow, deliberate circles.

Special-grade cursed spirit.

Yuji's eyes locked on it.

He'd seen something at the same level at the West Tokyo Juvenile Detention Center.

"Good evening, all you pitiful, adorable pieces of trash!"

The gear cursed spirit's voice came layered with metal-on-metal grinding, rolling out across the entire hall like something dragged over gravel.

"I'm your host! And oh my, the system just flagged a very, very disruptive little signal."

Its massive mouth split wide. Row after row of interlocking spikes showed through.

"Seems like a few little bugs, trying to break the rules, have crawled their way into our paradise."

Nanami's back tightened.

They'd been made.

"But that's fine! The boss always says, the more a bug squirms, the better it feels to crush it!" The gear cursed spirit threw its arms out on the screen, practically dancing. "To welcome our special little guests, I hereby announce: the rules are getting a full upgrade!"

The noise in the hall died. Completely. Like someone had cut the sound.

Every head tilted up.

The gear cursed spirit raised one coarse finger.

"The low-tier 10-chip and 20-chip games are permanently closed."

The silence broke into wailing.

"Participation is optional, of course. But those of you who spent chips on rent or food and are now sitting under 50 chips..."

The gear cursed spirit let out a wet, clattering laugh. "Sorry. You don't qualify to play tomorrow."

"No chips means you just get to die."

"What?!" Junpei hit the floor, legs giving out. "I spent 5 chips on a bread roll. I've only got 95. If the system auto-deducts 20 overnight and I don't play a game, I won't have 50 left by morning!"

"This can't be happening!" A man near the back, tattered backpack, face gone gray, screamed at the ceiling. "I lost a round yesterday. I only have 30 left. I'm done. Let me out of here!"

"Shh —" The gear cursed spirit raised one finger to its lips.

The next second.

BANG!

The man's head exploded.

No warning. No sound before it. Just, gone.

Red and white splattered across the person standing next to him. The headless body dropped straight down and hit the concrete like something already hollow.

The screaming that tore through the hall wasn't panic. It was something rawer than that.

"See?" The gear cursed spirit watched the chaos below with something close to pleasure. "That's the rule."

"Want to live? Easy. Not enough chips? Take them from whoever's standing next to you."

"Murder and robbery are perfectly legal here."

The hall went silent.

Then, after a beat, several men reached for their belts. Rusty blades caught the light as they turned, and their eyes found the weakest people in the room. The homeless. The students.

No cursed energy. No law.

The hall became a meat grinder.

Yuji looked left.

A thug had a switchblade raised, already angling it toward the person beside him.

Yuji yanked his hood down.

His pink hair blazed under the white fluorescent lights.

"I cannot stand one more second in this place."

➤ Next: Hell Difficulty Unlocked