🐺 Week 9 | 人狼サバイバル 1 絶体絶命! 伯爵の人狼ゲーム 🧐

[Legato]

Week 9	January 11
Pages	99-115
Chapter	6
Read until	End of chapter
Previous week	Week 8
Next week	Not posted yet
Home Thread	人狼サバイバル 1

We’re reading this book as part of the Children’s Book Club.

Discussion Guidelines

• Please blur/hide any major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur), like so: text here (that’s [spoiler]text here[/spoiler]).
• If you have a question about grammar, vocab, the story, cultural things or literally anything else related to the book — ask! There is really no need to be hesitant. If it’s something you are wondering about, chances are someone else will be thankful you asked first, lots of people enjoy answering questions, you learn something new, and the thread gets more lively. It’s a win-win on all fronts!

Participation Poll

• I’m reading along
• I have fallen behind and I’m planning to catch up later
• I’m reading this at my own pace
• I’m reading this book after the club has finished

After reading this week’s part, I think the werewolf is most likely…

• ハヤト
• ウサギ
• ヤムネ
• ツバメ
• ギュウカク

(To avoid spoilers, this poll will always contain all participants, no matter what happens to them in the book.)

[Legato]

Chapter notes

Well, I’ll be damned. I guess it’s supernatural after all.

Things I did not expect in this chapter:

• ハヤト ticking off the “check where the wolf came from” and “fight the wolf” even after getting frozen in fear from seeing it… and getting away with it.
• Actually seeing our demon-tailed wolf from the story in the flesh!
• ハヤト and ギュウカク deciding to fight the wolf with *checks notes* condiments.
• The liquid soap actually playing a role?!
• ハヤト and ギュウカク running into their own trap.

I sort of did expect the cartoonish “flung into the open maw and swallowed whole” thing though. Whether it’s just because it’s still a kid’s book after all and we don’t want gore there, or whether it actually means that the eaten participants might still be alive… only time will tell.

I’m really curious how the next chapter will go. Will the mark in the room still be there, and they immediately figure out the werewolf? And thinking about it, how did the room have no clues as to who the werewolf is? No clothes? No suitcase/backpack? Is it even a children’s room?

(I think ハヤト should’ve just loudly called for ウサギ and ツバメ to see who can still answer, but at least he did leave a clue towards the werewolf’s identity, so… fingers crossed.)

[shitsurei]

chapter thoughts and werewolf speculation

Well that was, an unexpected turn of events.

I guess we can cross ハヤト as a (either knowing or unknowing) unreliable narrator. I had wolf chase on my bingo card but not in the immediate next chapter

I have no idea where the rest of this book is going to go. I can imagine that the next chapter is going to be ハヤト telling what happened/trying to find out which of the two remaining are the wolf, but there’s so much more book left after that and only one more reasonable vote.

I’m still holding out for it not to be ウサギ just because that’s so painfully obvious, but at this point, I think there’s not much other option. Other than the Baron pulling some “oh you missed this one loophole in the rules that means that none of you were the werewolf” nonsense.

[Legato]

@shitsurei

I have no idea where the rest of this book is going to go. I can imagine that the next chapter is going to be ハヤト telling what happened/trying to find out which of the two remaining are the wolf, but there’s so much more book left after that and only one more reasonable vote.

The werewolf is identified and all the children turn out to be still alive. Everyone congratulates each other and agrees it was fun, and then they go for a second round.

…seriously though, I’m also really curious. The book is definitely not going how I thought it would!

[araigoshi]

Chapter Notes

I’m still pretending it isn’t Usagi, but it’s getting harder lol.

I think the next chapter is that Hayato hasn’t slept, and is probably covered in debris and viscera and also had his room open and also may have some wolf hair on him or his belongings. So while we’ve pretty strongly ruled out ハヤト as readers, for ツバメ ハヤト has to look pretty suspicious right now, so all the ウサギthe wolf has to do is convince ツバメ that ハヤト is more supicious.

[Legato]

Hahaha. I hadn’t even thought about that, but yeah, you might be right! Apart from his physical appearence, his story would also be very suspicious. He fought the wolf and lived to tell the tale without any injuries?! (No viscera though; the prey was swallowed whole.)

My prediction: It’s gonna start with how you say, but then ウサギ mentions some detail that she cannot possibly know. ハヤト is gonna call her out… and then the kids win.

[araigoshi]

Metagaming a bit, but there’s 5 chapters left, and I can’t see them dragging the final poll out over more than 2 chapters. With 1 chapter for epilogue, that’s still 2 chapters unaccounted for, so… either ハヤト or ツバメ get voted out this time I think.

If ハヤト gets voted out, maybe he escapes temporarily and we get to to see the “outside” of the game, akin to a chapter in a certain other survival game, while if ツバメ gets voted out we get to see ウサギ and ハヤト’s aftermath of ハヤト realising she is the wolf, before the night changes and he defeats wolf-ウサギ, and maybe we find out what happened to the original-ウサギ

[Biblio]

Finished chapter 6.

I don’t think that any of the kids are the werwolf… surely it’s one of the adults… and I wonder if it’s some kind of social experiment like “The Wave” or the Milgram experiment or something…

[soggyboy]

Summary

And the werewolf appears!

…ハヤト running around looking for something to stab the eyes with, isn’t he still holding a ballpoint pen??

「このビネガードレッシングには酢が入っている。」

Love the loanword here making it read like ‘this vinegar dressing has vinegar in it’

Also, oh, I see, we’re not stabbing the eyes out with a pen, we’re looking for something to splash in the eyes I guess. I was thinking too violently, silly me.

Oh, and now we’re going to use olive oil and detergent to make the floor slippery Of course. Chekhov’s laundry chapter?

And then try to run away and slip in the oil These kids are useless.

Agreed that I’m not sure what happens for the rest of the book. ハヤト is definitely going to look suspicious now.

[IntrepidFox]

Thoughts on chapter

What is going on??? Werewolf, check. Trying to stop the werewolf with: something sharp, check; salad dressing, check; a pot of soup, check; detergent, check; olive oil, check. Miscalculating your move and having to gingerly go over your own trap, check.

Ok, so we do have a werewolf. It’s not ハヤト. There are too many clues pointing to ウサギ, so I’m getting fairly sceptical about her being the werewolf. That leaves me with ツバメ, unless it’s someone we don’t know (like one of the adults maybe?).

I also wonder what’s going to happen in the next five chapters. Agree that ハヤト might be suspicious to the others, but surely ウサギ would not vote him out?

[IntrepidFox]

Do we think the X ハヤト drew on the door will actually be useful in finding out who the 人狼 is?

[eefara]

Chapter Thoughts

Welp. Never has a chapter been so efficient. Feels pretty certain now that 1) ハヤト is not the wolf, and 2) those adults and kids are gone.

I’m definitely feeling like the wolf isn’t one of the children unless we really lean into the supernatural angle here (which I guess we are already), and have the wolf essentially “possess” a chosen child. (So the child is not literally the wolf, but is still “the wolf” for game purposes.)

I thought it was both silly and interesting that the wolf has a demon tail, by the way. Anyone else catch that in the second illustration?

@Legato

And thinking about it, how did the room have no clues as to who the werewolf is? No clothes? No suitcase/backpack? Is it even a children’s room?

@IntrepidFox

Do we think the X ハヤト drew on the door will actually be useful in finding out who the 人狼 is?

My guess: it’s no one’s room. What that means for the story, however, I’m not sure.

@araigoshi

Metagaming a bit,

I’d be willing to bet Internet points you’re dead on the money.

[Legato]

@eefara

those adults and kids are gone.

I’m not so sure. “Eaten in one gulp without gore by a supernatural entity in the context of a game” doesn’t feel very irrevocable to me.

@eefara

I thought it was both silly and interesting that the wolf has a demon tail, by the way. Anyone else catch that in the second illustration?

Yep. It’s the demon from the story we read a few chapters ago. That’s how it was described.

[eefara]

@Legato

I’m not so sure. “Eaten in one gulp without gore by a supernatural entity in the context of a game” doesn’t feel very irrevocable to me.

Feels like an irrevocable children’s book death to me. I hope they’re still alive, but won’t be surprised if they’re not.

@Legato

Yep. It’s the demon from the story we read a few chapters ago. That’s how it was described.

Yeah, I got the demon connection, I just didn’t think the tail in particular would still be demonic, haha. It’s an oddly cute detail.

[Legato]

Maybe you already got that, but what I meant was this specific mention after the story of how it looks like:

最後のページには悪魔の尻尾を持つ狼と一人の男が描かれていた。

[eefara]

Ooooh. Yep, totally forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me!