COTE:Oreki Houtarou's Strength-Supreme Classroom

The bracelet on his left hand showed the current time as 20:40.

Considering the late hour, Ichinose and the others decided to leave. However, Ichinose seemed to be planning to return with some classmates to retrieve the unused tents. A tent can accommodate 6-8 people, so an extra one would make their stay more comfortable.

Class A already had enough tents from the supplies exchanged with Class D, so they didn't need to take additional tents. 

Oreki and the others also headed back to their base, discussing Class C's abstention.

"It seems I made a mistake this time," Katsuragi said. "Ryuuen gave up on this exam."

"Are you sure?" Oreki asked, looking at him. "All we saw was Class C evacuating. There's no confirmation that Ryuuen gave up."

"When Class C evacuated, no one counted how many students left," Oreki said. "No one saw Ryuuen himself abstain or board the ship."

"Is that so?" Yahiko, who was following Katsuragi, asked quickly.

"If that's the case, does it mean Ryuuen is still on the island?" Katsuragi said, becoming alert. "And what if Ryuuen is hiding?"

"Could Ryuuen still be the leader of Class C?" Oreki speculated. "The team leader can't be changed without justifiable reasons, so if he's the leader, he can't just give up without a reason."

Katsuragi realized he might have overlooked something.

"It can be confirmed on the seventh day," Oreki said. "If Class C is still in the game and the task of guessing the team leader is completed, it means Ryuuen hasn't given up."

"But that's not the main issue now," Oreki continued.

"Isn't it?" Katsuragi asked.

"If Ryuuen stays on the island, what do you think he'll do?" Oreki said. 

Class C's basic points had been cleared, so they were at zero. As a result, certain foul actions wouldn't matter.

But as long as Ryuuen remained as the team leader, he could still participate in capturing strongholds or guessing the leaders of other classes.

"In other words," Katsuragi thought quickly, then frowned. "Ryuuen could be targeting other class leaders, including ours."

The leader of Class A is Yahiko, not Katsuragi himself, though Katsuragi had not kept this secret from the class. Katsuragi trusted his class.

However, Oreki was preparing for all possibilities. The internal conflict between the Katsuragi faction and the Sakayanagi faction had been fierce.

Every day, changes in the numbers of each faction's members indicated that faction members might be acting in their own self-interest.

Oreki said, "If Ryuuen guesses the identity of the team leader, 50 basic points will be deducted first, leaving our class with 270 basic points. This is both a good and a bad thing."

"The good thing is that if it can be turned into class evaluation scores, it would be very meaningful. But because it is not spent much, guessing the team leader will be guessed by other classes, so there will be a lot of deductions."

"For example, if Ryuuen knows the identity of our class leader and then shares it with Class B or Class D."

"It's hard to tell from Class D, but if it's Class B, they will definitely be willing to guess us. So instead of just deducting 50 points once, you could deduct another 50 or 50X2. So this part of the basic points that is our advantage has turned into a burden."

"Coupled with the fact that the identity of the team leader is guessed, the planned bonus points of more than 100 points will also be cleared."

"So in this island exam, not only did our Class A not get anything good, but we also had to pay a total of 800,000 points to Class D every month."

"At the same time, Class B's basic score remains unchanged, and then it can score close to 400 points in one breath—"

As he said this, Oreki noticed that the expressions of his classmates from the Sakayanagi faction changed. The same goes for Yahiko next to Katsuragi-san. As a result, all the students in Class A seemed to be nervous.

In other words, could Class A lose its advantage in this exam and allow Class B to significantly reduce the gap and catch up? Isn't this terrifying? The only way to prevent this is to protect the identity of the leader of his class.

Noticing the expressions of Katsuragi and Hashimoto, Oreki felt it was appropriate.

Although I feel that Sakayanagi is not too concerned about class affairs now, and even gave him the authority to direct the people sent by Sakayanagi, there is still no guarantee that people from the Sakayanagi faction will make their own decisions and hope to trick Katsuragi.

For example, if someone went to Ryuuen and then leaked the information about their class leader to Ryuuen.

After all, Katsuragi is now the leader of the class.

The team leader was also chosen by Katsuragi.

So isn't it normal for Katsuragi to be responsible if something goes wrong?

Then you can let Katsuragi fail and lose people's hearts.

Then Sakayanagi came on stage.

So Oreki now points out that Class A cannot afford to lose and deliberately threatens them not to do anything troublesome.

After all.

In this exam where you can improve your scores, you should improve your scores first. What are you fighting for? What a hassle.

And once the fight starts, then the two factions will deceive each other.

It's troublesome just thinking about it.

Then he provided psychological counseling to members of the Katsuragi and Sakayanagi factions.

"So, I think the classmates in the class can trust each other, so what we need to be careful about are outsiders," Oreki-san said.

"Maybe Ryuuen will arrange for someone to take a peek at where we are building a stronghold or sneak into our class."

"That's it—" Katsuragi and the others recorded it seriously.

In this way, after getting their attention, Oreki-san felt good. As long as there is no civil strife in your class, even if spies are sent out to betray the identity of the team leader, they will be fine. What will Ryuuen do? Arrange for spies to come in, right?

But this is Class A. Will the students in Class A go and pick up spies? This is not Class D. So, in this case, the results of this time's island exam will be stable.

Done with an incredibly easy strategy.

But.

When returning to Class A's camp, Oreki discovered that some students who were asked to return to the camp first when they went to the beach for roll call seemed to have brought back someone from a foreign class.

People from Class C.

Oreki returned to the camp.

He discovered it himself first.

He saw a female student from Class C sitting with her back against a tree.

Her hands were stained with some black mud, but she had no chance to clean them. Her face was swollen. She was holding her little blue package. She seemed a little pitiful.

"It seems to be a student from Class C." Hashimoto followed Oreki out just now, and now he came back and immediately got information from other students.

Then he reported. He showed quite a bit of attentiveness.

Of course.

It seems that Class C abstained, but Katsuragi didn't expect that Ryuuen was still on the island at first. However, Oreki noticed and analyzed it.

This made everyone realize that Ryuuen from Class C is indeed a super dangerous person. Compared to Katsuragi, it is obvious that following Oreki makes him more reliable.

This was the reason why he turned to the Sakayanagi and Oreki factions.

Moreover, Princess Sakayanagi's attitude towards Oreki is also ambiguous, so from Hashimoto's point of view, he should just show off now and be done with it.

Therefore, Hashimoto worked hard to show his ability to quickly obtain his own information.

"The reason seems to be that Ryuuen and Class B reached a cooperation, and Class C paid for Class B in exchange for supplies. We know this. However, in Class C, Ryuuen wanted to keep this part of the reward for himself.

Most of the students were afraid of his violence and dared not speak, but some resisted and were beaten in public by Ryūen."

"And this person is—"

Hashimoto paused.

A special word was also used.

"Again."

They were beaten by Ryuuen again.

Yesterday evening on the deck of the ship, there was a Class C student who resisted Ryuuen and was beaten by him. Now this person is the real proof.

Oreki looked at the girl under the tree. She had short hair and a slightly petite figure. Her face was swollen and her back was slightly bent, as if she had an injury on her back.

This student is Ibuki, whom he saw on the deck yesterday evening

At that time, Oreki had to choose between two system tasks.

The second task was to turn Class D into a cash machine.

But the first mission was to expose Ryuuen's Class C discord

In other words, Ibuki being beaten by Ryuuen which was a cruel scene, was just acting.

The result comes in handy now.

But.

"Who brought her back?"

Oreki looked at the tall girl with purple hair and a straight face who had come to him.

He wanted to know who had managed to bring back a spy.

"I brought her back," Kamuro said.

"Wasn't she beaten by Ryuuen yesterday? And today I found out that she was thrown on the island by Ryuuen, so I wanted to see if I could gain some goodwill and then see if I could instigate rebellion and break into Class C."

"Oh."

Then you are excellent.

Oreki felt a subtle emotion of appreciation for Kamuro's hard work.

Kamuro would act for the sake of the class, but this was not the time for that.

However, she could be seen as a valuable asset, and Kamuro would drive for Sakayanagi in the future, so it should be taken care of here.

"Get ready," Oreki said. "Go and get some of the sugar cane and corn picked from the other two strongholds today."

"Where are you going?" Kamuro asked, puzzled.

"Goinh to Class B's camp. To visit Ichinose," Oreki replied. "Yesterday, Ichinose seemed worried when she saw Ibuki being beaten, so it's a good opportunity to send Ibuki to her."

"Oh."

Kamuro nodded.

At this time, Ibuki must be sent to Ichinose.

But in this case, why not make a breakthrough from Ibuki, instigate rebellion, and plant her as a spy in Class C?

Kamuro was puzzled.

"Aren't you convinced?" Oreki asked after noticing that Kamuro wasn't moving. "Do you realize you got into trouble?"

"…" Kamuro.

"Don't use the leader's card in front of her, okay?"

After, telling them not to use the leader's card, Kamuro and Oreki went to collect the sugar cane and corn.

Each of them carried a sack.

A person came to Oreki carrying two sugar canes.

"Then—" Oreki approached Ibuki. "Ibuki-san, right? Even though it hurts a lot now. It will be fine soon."

"…" Ibuki.

Ibuki was a student of Class C, but she didn't speak. She just leaned against the tree. When she came out, Ryuuen had asked her to sneak into Class A and get information about the leader of Class A. Among them, Oreki Houtarou was the one who needed special attention. He was cunning, evil, and extremely vigilant.

So her current injuries were real. Then there was no reason to doubt her. Just as she was thinking this, she heard Oreki's sympathetic words.

"It's very late now, and it's definitely not safe to leave you in the wild, so we decided to take you to Ichinose in Class B."

"Ichinose-san was very worried about your health yesterday. If you sleep in the open like this, it's definitely not what she would want to see."

"So I think she will definitely take you in."

??

When Ibuki heard Oreki's voice, she raised her face in surprise.

Because.

??

What's wrong with this development?