Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e - Volume 15 - Chapter 6.0

Chapter 6 - The Man Known as Tsukishiro

At morning, I woke up at the right end of E3 and looked at the map on my tablet.

The result of avoiding the 1st years’ advance yesterday was ending the day without having set foot in a single designated area. According to Sakayanagi’s information, they withdrew just as afternoon arrived, but I decided not to head to my designated areas. Only to do tasks on the way and save up a bare minimum of points.

Yesterday, the random area at 13 hours was F3, and after that at 3pm was G3.

I opened my map and read an image of the GPS search from 1pm yesterday.

The 1st year groups chasing me numbered 5 in total. Along with Housen, who came after erasing his GPS signal, that accounts for all of them. There’s no mistake. Then Ryuuen and Housen’s confrontation happened. When that was concluded, all the groups retreated and continued with the special exam. That’s obvious from the GPS search.

However-. As Sakayanagi and I were focusing on those enemies, some groups for the disunited 1st years combined and moved to get to my designated areas ahead of me. The first time 1 thought that these groups were suspicious was after 3pm, when my next area was designated as G3 and I started heading to F4. Since the path here was narrow, if it was secured by the enemy then it would have been hard to escape. But if I avoided it the detour would have been too long.

"I avoided them to be careful, but that put me far behind for the last day.”

The result of avoiding that risk. 6 designated area misses and 4 penalties incurred. I need to cancel these as soon as possible. If I do this 3 more times the penalty would make me lose 18 more points.

Right now I have 119 points, but that’s far away from being safe from expulsion. The safety line I see is 105 points. If I drop below that, it would be no wonder even if I were expelled. Because of that I continued moving throughout the night towards the vicinity of G3, my last designated area, before anything else. I’ve succeeded in that.

Since the rankings are no longer visible, I must imagine mine while fighting through this last day. I can’t assume that it will be the same as my ranking from the 12th night at all. It seems fine since there’s a total of 157 groups, but in reality most groups will stop joining together. Which means it would be best to see it as the number of groups considerably dropping. Of course there will also be those who will move to save other groups.

If the groups with around 200 points pick up low-ranking groups, they would overtake me.

Since it’s the final day, I can’t ignore the effect of twofold point multipliers either.

The 1st years’ plan might push me to expulsion.

There’s also a chance that more 1st year students will be waiting for me ahead but I can no longer use the GPS search.

At 7am, my designated area was H3. There’s a mountain there so it’d be difficult to say I’m thankful to be assigned there even as flattery. But there’s nothing I can do but this so there’s no helping it. Even if I take the shortest route it would take me around 2 hours to reach. I can’t dawdle.

To think I would be forced into a risky struggle for designated areas on the last day, when most students have their points multiplied twofold and go to challenge tasks. My rank might drop further by the time noon comes.

After I prepared my luggage and departed, I received a message in the transceiver from Sakayanagi.

“Good morning, Ayanokouji-kun. Many big things happened yesterday.”

“I made it because of you.”

“Are you fine with the penalties? Though it seems that you’ve moved quite a bit during the night.”

My movements were leaked to Sakayanagi via GPS.

“My first designated area is H3.1 don’t have any leeway but I think I’ll make it.”

“H3, is it?”

As if she was thinking something, Sakayanagi muttered the designated area with a deep interest.

I continue the conversation with Sakayanagi while moving.

“The truth is, I have one thing I’m concerned about. Ichinose-san disappeared this morning.”

That's another troublesome problem for the final day.

“She disappeared? An accident?”

“No. I think she’s doing something self-destructive. She has been acting strange here for the past few days.”

Come to think of it, she did mention something like that.

“But why did you contact me? I don’t think I can help you with that.”

“To tell you the truth, when I used a GPS search to look for Ichinose-san’s position, I understood that she was at E3, where you were. She was at the opposite side near D3, though.”

Even the two ends of the same area would be quite far from each other.

But right now, I’m already setting foot in F3.

“Your last designated area yesterday was?”

“D5. Ichinose-san was there.”

Why did she wake up early morning to come to E3 without telling anyone?

“At morning, I noticed that one of us was missing. I’ve confirmed with the people in my group that no one had used a GPS search. It looks like Ichinose-san used it. Whether she’s aiming for E3 or an area even farther than that is currently unclear, but would it not be normal to think that she is going to meet someone?”

“That’s right. There’s about no reason to move so early in the morning aside of missing the 4th area in the previous day.”

“I thought that perchance this was to meet with you-”

“Sorry but I have no idea. I haven’t seen Ichinose at all in this special exam.

She might come to F3, but unfortunately I’m also in a hurry. What will you do?”

“Our first designated area we should head towards is E6. We will lose early arrival rewards, but we have no choice but to ignore this. Because at worst even if she retires, there wouldn’t be a big impact since it’s the last day.”

Though she’s saying that, Sakayanagi’s group is a precious team of 7. They were aiming for victory and were able to get as far as an ideal 4th place by the end of the 12th day. Ichinose going missing here would be rough for them.

If you look at it the other way, she’s acting recklessly despite the importance of the last day.

Ichinose acts for her comrades’ sakes more than anything else. This is completely unthinkable for her.

“You have it rough too.”

“An accident will be unavoidable. Well, even if we leave her alone the special test will only last for half of the day so I don’t think there will be a problem. If you see her please let her know about the situation.”

Sakayanagi said that more than this would become a hindrance and ended the transmission.

“Where is Ichinose going...”

While walking I placed my transceiver back into my backpack while taking out my tablet. On the final day, I can afford to not mind the battery. There shouldn’t be any problem with the remaining 31%.

There were tasks scattered around the map along with my designated area on the screen.

For the past 2 weeks, tasks were actually appearing at places one could reach from across the whole island.

But just for this last day, I understood that there no tasks were appearing at all in the northern parts of the island, tiles 1 to 3. On the other hand from the north to the center, from 5 to 10 and from A to E, many tasks were concentrated.

I understood that this was simply to guide people to return to the starting tile now that it’s the last day. Coming to the designated area then challenging tasks quickly would be smart.

I feel like using the GPS search to learn Ichinose’s position, but right now I am in danger of being expelled. For the sake of raising my chances of survival even a little bit, I need to save every last point.