My Level Zero System-Chapter 322: The Pawn

If anyone intends to fish in troubled waters by placing a bid under 10 gold coins, they will not be able to win. Although 10 gold coins is not a small amount, the four members of the alliance can still take turns bearing the weight.

Of course, if one bids 11 gold coins, they could still win and make a profit, but this profit is truly too small to be significant. It would be better to simply bid 15 or 16 gold coins and put it into the treasury; after all, their treasury balance would still be lower than that of the Raymon Family representative, and as previously stated, they would not be the victim even if a treasury was stolen.

In general, there are only two most likely scenarios.

Either the Zento alliance wins the bid, thereby using the winner's rights to do something—Kain believes it most likely that they will attack him, the one openly accumulating money, making it difficult for Kain to accumulate any further.

Or some other player wins the bid, but stealing from the treasury would result in a loss. This would conveniently help the Zento alliance cut down the money of other players, preventing them from accumulating enough gold coins to contest Cyrus's treasury at the end.

In both cases, the Zento alliance benefits.

Of course, there are two other possible scenarios, though with lower probabilities. These are a tie in the bidding leading to an even split with no winner, or some player winning with an amount greater than 10 gold coins but choosing to steal a treasury for only a very small profit.

If any player could weigh and consider all the above cases, even without knowing the alliance relationship between those four, and adding in Cyrus's complete emergence on the strategic board as a target for contention, then both the Zento alliance and the other players would read the situation and reach the same conclusion.

Placing a bid of 0 gold coins is the most profitable choice and should be the most used. It avoids wasting money uselessly while not reducing competitiveness at the end.

The reason for reaching the above conclusion is that even if a winner emerges with a low bid amount not worth putting into the treasury, and they choose to attack to cut income, the target would be the one accumulating the most money: Kain.

Exactly as Faith desired.

And exactly as Kain desired.

This had been happening since turn 1.

The moment Kain read Cyrus's strategy and read how Faith would act, he sent Faith a signal—a signal only he would understand.

It was the act of bidding 0 gold coins.

This act is only most wise when one knows there will be no winner, and to know this, Kain had to know that Faith would also bid 10 gold coins to tie with Cyrus in turn 1.

From that, Faith would know that he had realized his true intentions, leading to the current situation.

It looks as if there are nine different players, and each person giving Kain one attack would be enough to shatter him. But in reality, Cyrus will not act but only focus on his own strategy, while the eight other players have formed two different alliances and will clash fiercely with each other. Yes, even the Zento alliance discovering the Faith alliance was already predicted, because Faith will replicate the exact method the Zento alliance used to deceive the other players before, and they will certainly see through it.

Thus, faced with three directions—"accumulating money to steal Cyrus's treasury," "cutting the competitiveness of the Faith alliance," and "cutting Kain's incoming money"—the Zento alliance will certainly lean toward the first two. First, because stealing Cyrus's treasury is the easiest way to increase the amount of money in one's own treasury; second, because eliminating the opponent with the highest competitiveness will also benefit the goal of stealing the treasury.

Meanwhile, the priority of eliminating Kain will be deeply reduced.

That is because when Kain has accumulated too much money and intends to put all of it into the treasury in a single go, stealing from Cyrus becomes a foolish act due to heavy losses; therefore, Kain will not participate in that affair.

And even if the Zento alliance intentionally targets Kain despite having to compromise and join hands with the Faith alliance, everything still falls within Faith's calculations.

Why does Kain dare to be so sure?

As mentioned before, alliances in this game are very difficult.

The formation of those two alliances also relied on specific premises for the members to cooperate. And for two alliances with two different circumstances to join hands and cooperate is even more of a fantasy.

For example, from the perspective of the Zento alliance itself: if the Zento alliance makes an offer to cooperate, it is highly likely that the Faith alliance will suspect they are intentionally setting a trap, claiming to cooperate but actually intending to let the Faith alliance take the loss. And an even higher possibility is that the Faith alliance will agree to cooperate on the surface but behind the scenes find ways to exploit this cooperation to harm the Zento alliance. In short, it will always evolve into the two sides fighting each other.

This is what prevents the Zento alliance from requesting cooperation. And if they do not cooperate, and they proactively target Kain, they will be attacked by the Faith alliance; but if they fight back against the Faith alliance to preserve their competitiveness, Kain does not and cannot do anything to them.

It is obvious which one the Zento alliance will choose.

Another thing is the division of interests. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

In the original strategic vision of the Zento alliance, the four of them would have an amount of gold coins in the treasury greater than the other six players; this is already a division of interests at the largest acceptable level and the basis for the alliance's existence. If as many as eight people split the interests evenly, it wouldn't be much better than ten players all playing the game of splitting the gold coins equally.

Because the result of this game is settled through the ratio of gold coins in each person's treasury compared to the total gold coins of all treasuries, the quantity is only a symbol—the overall percentage is the essence.