Light Novel 2nd Year Volume 3/Summary

Prologue
Tsubasa Nanase gives a monologue recalling a huge shock she felt on a certain day, with the cruel reality that presented itself without any warning. She mentions a person, whose warm hand that has always caressed her head, whose gentle smile that healed her soul, and whose very gaze taught her admiration, all felt silent and blank. She believes that person, a strong and gentle one who worked hard without giving up, did not deserve to lose their dream forever. To prevent any more of it happening to other people, she vows to defeat Kiyotaka Ayanokōji, and send him back to the place he is meant to be at.

Chapter 1
Test rules:

An area will be designated for each group. The first group which arrives first will get 10 points, subsequently the 2nd group will attain 5 points and the 3rd group 3 points. Additionally, every individual who arrives will receive one point for their group. So a group of 3 can potentially get a maximum of 13 points whilst for example, someone running solo can only get a maximum of 11 points. However, when calculating the order of arrival, it counts from the moment when every single member of a group arrives at the designated area. Furthermore, if the designated area for example moves from D2 to D3 then back to D2, anyone who hasn't left D2 yet will still be granted one point for arrival but would not be eligible to receive the reward for arriving within the top 3 rankings. Every single day the designated area will be announced 4 times. These times are in the following intervals, 7 to 9 AM, 9 to 11 AM, 1 to 3 PM and 3 to 5 PM.

All the movements of the students and the points they earn are monitored by a watch that they are required to wear. The school can also monitor students’ body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, sleep hours and stress levels through these watches. If any parameter exceeds the acceptable limits, a warning alert will immediately be sounded off from the watch. While the warning alarm, will only be given for about 5 seconds, if the student's relevant parameter hasn't reached acceptable levels after 10 minutes, the alarm will ring again. After another 5 minutes, the alarm will ring again and this time, it will not stop ringing until the student turns it off. When this happens the student must return to the starting point within 24 hours to receive a medical check. Otherwise, if they ignore the alarm or are unable to reach it, medical staff will rush to their location through GPS tracking.

In order to prevent cheating, the watch requires a special tool to be attached and removed. If the watch is forcefully removed, it will stop registering points. Additionally if the watch is damaged, it will also stop registering points. However, the student will not be penalised and can simply go to the starting point to have it exchanged for another working watch.

The groups are separated into 12 different routes for the designated points so that not everyone is moving to the same place. If a large group is formed during the exam, all members of the group's routes will become the same.

Kiyotaka is mildly cautious of the possibility of Tsukishiro messing with his watch but thinks that it's unlikely for him to able to repeatedly mess with Kiyotaka's score unless he wants to arouse further suspicion.

There are also special tests for the first few groups to arrive at every designated spot which provide opportunities to earn more points. They include things like mathematics, shot put and fishing.

One of what I feel like is the biggest advantages for being in a group is that every student gets 5000 purchase points to spend, with the group leader getting another 2500. Large groups can pool together their money and things like multi-person tents are a lot more cost efficient per person than single person tents.

Chapter 2
The items that Kiyotaka chose were a tent, 2 Litres of water, 12 servings of portable food, a torch, a spare phone battery, pot, lighter and a set of paper cups for a total of 4960 points. The first graders disembarks from the ship first and when all the first graders have disembarked, the first designated areas will be announced at 9 AM. This is done with the intention of giving the first graders a slight handicap. Since the classes disembark in the order of Class A first to D last within each year, D class is at a considerable disadvantage for the first designated area. Kiyotaka's first designated area is D7 whilst Horikita's is at F9. Horikita tells Kiyotaka that she won't worry about what he does but to ensure to get at least one of the top rankings. He replies that it wouldn't be funny if he got expelled after all this. Horikita says that she would be troubled by that because Kiyotaka still owes her money.

There are 100 areas in total. Each is 500 m by 700 m. Kiyotaka has to first move from D9 to D7. Since there is no chance of catching up to the first years, he is in no hurry and leisurely waits at the starting area. Kiryuuin comes up and asks why he is still at the starting area. The first designated area for both of them is D7 so she suggests that they go together but Kiyotaka declines by saying that he doesn't know whether he can keep up with her pace. Kiryuuin says it's easy to tell such a blatant lie but continues moves forward. Kiyotaka waits for a while longer but is unable to see Nagumo amongst the disembarking 3rd years, and so he also leaves for his designated area. On the way, Kiyotaka passes by the group of Airi, Haruka and Akito. Their first area was D8 so they had collected the three points of arrival already. Kiyotaka arrives at D7 and confirms on the tablet that he had received the point. There he meets Nanase. Apparently, Hosen and Amasawa had gone on ahead to scout the surrounding area whilst she stayed behind to look at their competing groups.

Kiyotaka takes a look at the wide array of special tests nearby. He sees a large amount of students heading towards the English test, perhaps because they don't want to take any strange tests that they are unfamiliar with. Kiyotaka heads to the grip strength test in C6 but is informed by Hoshinomiya-sensei that he was 5 minutes late and didn't make the 120 minute entry deadline. Kiyotaka is about to leave but is stopped by Hoshinomiya-sensei. Kiyotaka mentally notes that since Hoshinomiya-sensei saw his performance as the command tower in the end of year exam on top of his full marks in maths, she should have a rough idea of his abilities. Hoshinomiya-sensei asks why he decided to get full marks in maths since she thought he was someone who didn't like to stand out. She points out that there was a question in there that even she wouldn't be able to solve. Kiyotaka says that quite a few students in the school would probably be able to solve that question. Hoshinomiya-sensei says even if there were such students, they would probably be in A or B class. She points out that Class D is full of defective students and in the middle of them, there is Kiyotaka is someone with terribly high specs that are unsuitable to being in Class D. She says that it's the first time a class that she has led has ever dropped to Class C and expresses a little dissatisfaction since she thought that this class could have had the potential to be Class A. When Kiyotaka points out that it's the homeroom teacher's job to do something about that, she says that she has a brilliant idea and invites Kiyotaka to join her class in the same way Katsuragi joined B class. Kiyotaka doesn't think it's a brilliant idea at all and puts it at about the same level as Ishizaki since even if he had the 20 million points, he'd be better off just holding on to them since he doesn't know who would end up being Class A at graduation. In the grip measurement test, Sudo takes first place and takes the 5 points.

After that, Kiyotaka attempted to undertake other tasks areas but both had been quickly filled. His second designated area was B7 and his third was D7. The only points Kiyotaka had accumulated were the arrival bonuses and with just a total of 3 points, without a doubt he was amongst the lowest point scoring groups for the day. In a place close to where they met earlier in the day, he runs into Nanase once again. Once more, it looked like she was travelling alone. Her group had collected 8 points for arrival bonuses since Nanase didn't arrive in time for the 2nd, but got 1st place in one of the tasks she competed in and hence got a total of 13 points. After exchanging information about their respective circumstances, they soon went their own ways. Kiyotaka sets up his tent in a cool area in D7. He pours his water into a paper cup because drinking directly from the bottle would lead to the possibility of germs from his mouth entering the plastic bottle. Whilst the food and water from the beginning would be able to last the first 2 days, it was imperative for him to compete in tasks which gave them out as prizes. However, those tasks had significantly greater competition for entry.

Kiyotaka wakes up in the middle of night and contemplates about Tsukishiro's involvement in the exam. The most direct way to expel him would be to drop him to the bottom 5 ranks but that would most likely not be possible. It could be possible that the points displayed on his tablet right now were fake and a different number was inputted in the system but Kiyotaka doesn't think Tsukishiro would risk getting into trouble with the school. Hence, if Kiyotaka were in his shoes, the most appropriate action would be to cause him to forcefully retire from the exam due to an injury. He reflected that the forest has minimal surveillance and a white room student would probably have the ability to hide any human involvement and make it look like an accident.

Chapter 3
Kiyotaka wakes up at 6:30 and eats his portable servings and drinks some water before waiting for the notification of the next designated area at 7 AM. His next designated area is E8 which was close by and so he immediately began moving but with an increased pace compared to the first day. When he arrived in the area, he immediately received the notification that he had achieved first place and received 10 points. At 9 AM his designated area was E6 and he arrived in 2nd place and received 5 points. At 1 PM, his third designated area was F7 where he once again arrives 2nd and received another 5 points. Most of the tasks that were within his reach had a participation requirement of at least 2 members in the group. With the 23 points from today in addition to the 3 points from the first day, Kiyotaka now had 26 points. He soon ran into Nanase for the 3rd time. At this point they both wondered whether they had the same route. Kiyotaka is a bit concerned about the high encounter rate. Even if they had the same route, the tasks that they would participate in would be different and it was unlikely to run into each other so many times. It was also impossible to ascertain whether Nanase was actually on the same route since she still had Amasawa and Housen in her group who could at least collect 2 points at every designated area even without her participation. Just as Kiyotaka was about to leave, Nanase requested to accompany him. Kiyotaka is confused since there was absolutely zero merit for people from different grades to accompany each other. Nanase says that last night Housen and Amasawa got into a fight and decided that it was better for each of them to act alone. Nanase wants to follow Kiyotaka because he had arrived before her at each of the last few designated areas. She says that she will always let him enter first and if only one spot is remaining for a given task, she would concede that spot to him. Kiyotaka challenges her to keep up with his pace and warns the possibility that he may intentionally choose very steep paths. In the end, Kiyotaka still allows her to accompany him.

At that point, a quiz task point appears at F8. Kiyotaka suggests to head for that and Nanase agrees. He actually wanted to go to the ‘lifting’ task in E5 but since it had a tougher path, he decided to go to F8 instead to first ascertain Nanase's physical capabilities. In the group task, every single person in the group can participate. Hence the more people in a group, the greater the advantage since there would be more brains in the group and hence more trivia knowledge. Nanase questions whether he really wanted to go to E5 so Kiyotaka says it was 50-50 for him and he wasn't really leaning either way. Nanase says that's fine but tells him to not mind her and to please make the same decisions as he usually would. Sudou sees Kiyotaka and tells him to hurry since there are only 3 spots remaining. Kiyotaka mentions the grip strength test and Sudou dramatically expresses his relief that Kiyotaka wasn't competing with him. Apparently Ike is still feeling down from the Shinohara incident but Sudou doesn't know about it because Ike is trying to cover it up. Sudou then notices Nanase's presence and drags Kiyotaka aside to ask him about it. He warns Kiyotaka that Nanase might still be trying to expel him but Kiyotaka barely reacts. He tells Kiyotaka to tell him if any problems come up. The last group comes and the quiz starts. The first question is about an anime and Kiyotaka is stunned because he has absolutely no idea. He hears someone say “easy” and looks at the multiple choice answers with a perplexed expression. The second question is also about an anime. Kiyotaka realises it was a waste of time to participate. After completing the 20 questions in 10 minutes, Kiyotaka closed the tablet. He got 4 answers right with a final score of 20%. It was even below the 25% probability that came with multiple choice. Sudou's group was first with 95%. Ike and Hondou were apparently good with this kind of stuff. Nanase comes up and says “It was full of difficult problems, wasn’t it?”. She got 25%. Kiyotaka notes that this is the first time in this school that Hondou has made such a big contribution since up until now. It looked like this test was also able to look at other factors besides academics and sports. Before the test he was worried by the unbalanced Sudou group but it might just be a good combination.

The fourth designated area is I7. To get there with the shortest possible distance, they needed to cross a mountain. To choose a safe route, they would have to take a big detour. Rather than score at the designated area, Kiyotaka chooses to challenge the maths task in G8 and English task in G9. Since their next designated area will be near I7, he doesn't want to set up camp too close in case he accidentally camps in the next designated area. Hence he decides that they'll set up camp in H9. Sudou overhears and they agree to meet up together on the beach at 5:30 since Sudou's next designated area is H9. After they meet up, Kiyotaka notices that the other 2 members of Sudou's group look exhausted. They had been keeping up a high pace and aggressively taking points wherever they could but Kiyotaka questions whether they'll be able to keep it up. Sudou asks Ike for camping spot suggestions. Nanase points out that Ike isn't really being the mood maker that Kiyotaka said he was, to which Kiyotaka replies that there are personal circumstances. Everyone aside from Ike starts to grill him for the cause of his mood and because the flow of the conversation became like this, Kiyotaka naturally joined in. Sudou and Hondou say “it’s not going to be anything important anyway” and the two best friend/bad friends pressure him. Ike eventually confesses that he likes Shinohara. Sudou is confused because he's used to Ike always arguing with her and saying bad things about her behind her back. Nanase ends up giving romance consultation to Ike (LOL).

Chapter 4
The next morning the first designated area is H7. It would be tough to reach it within 2 hours. Sudou's group's designated area is the same for halfway. As such, Kiyotaka decides not to do anything hard that would leave Ike and Hondou behind and stay together as a group, hence giving up on reaching the designated area. The next designated area then arrived. After splitting up with Sudou's group, when Kiyotaka was in J6, he received a notification for a Beach flag competition. He chose to forgo it and instead aimed for the arrival rankings for the designated area. After stepping in J5 it was confirmed that Kiyotaka got 1st place and Nanase must have gotten the arrival point. The finish order would be dependent on Housen and Amasawa also arriving. Next they returned to the beach flag challenge in J6. They found that a large number of people had gathered even though there was no one when they had just passed by it earlier. It requires even numbers of men and women to participate. All the men's spots were filled up but there was one position remaining for the girls. Nanase offered to leave but Kiyotaka told her to participate in return for conceding all the area entry rankings to him. Student council vice-president Kiriyama was among the competitors. Nanase changed into a bikini swimsuit here while 5 of the 8 girls changed into school swimsuits. She just replies to Kiyotaka's questioning that everyone in the beach flags competition she saw on TV wore swimsuits like this so she thought it was normal. In the men's tournament, Kiriyama wins. Nanase wins the women's tournament. Kiyotaka notes that she won with quite a large margin and wasn't showing her full strength. He feels like Nanase's B+ physical rating on OAA was insufficient and that it wouldn't be strange for her to have an A or A+ rating. Here, Kiriyama approached Kiyotaka and warned him not to say anything unnecessary while looking towards the sea. Kiyotaka followed his gaze and saw student council president Nagumo. Nagumo invites Kiyotaka to also swim but Kiyotaka replies that he can't afford the luxury to rent a swimsuit. Nagumo, Asahina and some other third years are not only wearing swimsuits but are even playing with a beach ball. Tomorrow the top 10 and bottom 10 rankings will be revealed tomorrow. Nagumo warns Kiyotaka that if there is any 1st year or 2nd year group in the top 3 positions, he will personally make sure to drop that group with no exceptions. Nagumo gets called away by some other 3rd year and after confirming that there's enough distance between them Asahina comes over to Kiyotaka's side. She comments on Kiyotaka going solo and says that probably was the right choice because otherwise he could have caught Nagumo's attention.

Nanase asks Kiyotaka why he's acting alone. He lies and says he couldn't find anyone to group up with. She says that it's hard to see that from his personal relationships. She says that Kiyotaka's movements when up against Housen were not those of a normal high school student. Kiyotaka replies that if she could understand that, then she wasn't a normal high school student either. Nanase says that she used to laugh more when she was in junior high. She says that she doesn't know whether it's Hosen or Amazawa but someone in her group is earning more points than her. During the free time between 11–1, Kiyotaka wants to complete a task. Nanase is resting and drinking water. She's afraid of being left behind by him but Kiyotaka recommends that she rest here. They separate temporarily and Kiyotaka looks to challenge the history test that will start soon. Kiyotaka notices multiple groups moving in the same direction so he takes a different route and runs. He arrives there before them and is the 7th group to participate. Of the remaining groups, Hashimoto is in the lea, followed by Kamuro. A bunch of first years following right after them. The last member of Hashimoto's group is far behind so Hashimoto grabs Kamuro and says that they'll participate with just the two of them, taking the final spot. Kiyotaka takes first place, scoring 100 points. A 3rd year group takes 2nd place with 80 points and the Hashimoto-Kamuro pair take 3rd place with 70 points. Hashimoto asks where Kiyotaka is going next. Kiyotaka answers chemistry. Originally he probably would have chosen to go to the same place, but to the disgust of Kamuro, he chose to change to a different task. After that Kiyotaka also took 1st in the chemistry test and accumulated another 5 points. At this point, Kiyotaka now had 48 points.

The last designated area for the day is I4. Nanase has recovered and they quickly head in that direction with the intention of claiming the ranking rewards. However, they soon find that the terrain was arduous and in the worst case, it would be possible for students to fall and injure themselves. Since both of them are running on their last 500 mL of water, they decide to head to H3 which on top of points, also provides water as a reward. Since other groups were likely falling into the same crisis, the battle for drinking water was likely to be fierce. Even more so because the strongest groups would take first 4 or 5 times a day and all the groups who ran out of water would soon have to return to the starting area and be unable to compete for points. Nanase raises this concern and Kiyotaka says that in the worst-case scenario he can boil water in his pot and disinfect it that way. Nanase points out that they're running slightly off the track from the designated area but Kiyotaka finds Sakagami-sensei setting up for a task which opens at 3:30 PM. As soon as the clock strikes 3:30, they announce their participation. Nanase checks her tablet to see what kind of task it is. Sakagami-sensei says that they're lucky and that this was simply a task to give water based on the order of arrival. 2 litres and 3 points were given to the first place Kiyotaka whilst 1.5 litres and 2 points were given to the second place Nanase. When they arrived at I4, they weren't in time for the ranking rewards.

When they were setting up camp by the river, they ran into Ike who signalled for them to head upstream and join him. Ike shows them a bucket containing several fish which he had caught and invites them to eat dinner together. As Ike is roasting the fish, a nearby voice says that “there’s a nice smell” and comes over. Unexpectedly, Kei Karuizawa suddenly let out a sudden yelp after she saw Kiyotaka to which she lied by saying she was surprised that they were grilling fish. Kei's group members are both from the 2nd year of Class A. Kei pressures Ike into also giving her a share but he doesn't want to because he doesn't like her. When Sudou tells him that she might know something about Shinohara, Ike relented and allows her to join. Hence, even though Kei was half joking, they eventually ended up camping together. While waiting for Ike to cook the fish, Kiyotaka announced that he would be heading into the forest. Soon after, Kei follows behind him and the two go deep into the forest, away from the watchful eyes of others. They eventually found a good stop and sat behind a giant tree trunk. They then interlocked fingers, looking contented as they rested their weight on the log. Kiyotaka asked about her circumstances and she revealed that she has dutifully listed everyone she encountered on her tablet. It was revealed that Kiyotaka tasked her to look into a person before the exam begun but it wasn’t revealed who it was.

Over the 3 days, Kei's group had accumulated 37 points but she admits that it was mostly due to the other two and that she was just tagging alone. She soon leaned her face close to his, peer straight into his eyes and interrogates Kiyotaka about the news of him working together with a first year girl till the point that pretty much everyone knew. Kiyotaka jokingly asked whether she was worried. Initially she wanted to deny it but soon dropped the act and admitted that of course she was worried. Feeling heartened, Kiyotaka reassures her by saying that she is only working together with Nanase to get through the exam and that he has no other ulterior motives. She replies saying that she trusts him completely but absolutely abhors the idea of him spending time alone with another girl other than her despite it being necessary. Kiyotaka saw her turn away with a pout and knew that no matter of verbosity could reassure her as much as his next action. He knows that if she was concerned with him hanging out with another girl, the most efficient way was to give her something more intense to think about. Kiyotaka knew himself that even though he was a knucklehead when it comes to romance, he understood that it is natural for his girlfriend to be concern when her boyfriend was willingly travelling with another girl. He also knew that even if he listed out all the reasons in the world, it wouldn’t completely convince the crestfallen Kei. He calls her name intimately and by the time she looks up at him morosely, he took advantaged of her pout and kissed her on the lips much to her surprise, smothering away the pout. The kiss lasted for about a second but Kei was in absolute shock. Kiyotaka soon pulled away and told her to wait for just a bit longer and have faith in him to which she immediately nodded her head robotically. He then had the still shocked Kei go back to camp first before anyone got suspicious at their long absence. She was still in a daze when she recalled her first kiss as she walked back. By the same token, Kiyotaka reflected on how his first kiss, the sensation of her lips were much softer than he could ever imagine and how he wished it could have lasted longer but couldn’t because of the circumstances they were in.

Chapter 5
The next morning at 5 AM, Nanase and Kiyotaka are awoken by a faint distant ringing alarm sound. Nanase wants to go help but Kiyotaka reckons the school's staff will probably get there first. When he sees Nanase's determination to go alone if he doesn't cooperate, he goes to wake up Sudou's group. As they get closer, they realise that it's actually 2 alarms that are going off. It's Komiya and Kinoshita from Class B who are unconscious. Shinohara who should have been the 3rd member of the group is nowhere to be seen. Komiya and Kinoshita appear to have each potentially broken one of their legs. According to Komiya, he felt a sudden shock to his ankle and fell down the slope. Kiyotaka feels like if this only happened to one person, it could have been an accident but since the exact same thing happened to two, unless Kinoshita was trying to help Komiya and the same thing happened to her, it was unlikely to be an accident. Ike tries to climb up the slope which Komiya and Kinoshita fell from and Kiyotaka chases after him. Ike almost slips and is helped by Kiyotaka who then tells him to follow after him. At the top they find a scared Shinohara who says that she hid without screaming for help because she saw someone push Komiya and Kinoshita. Kiyotaka asks if Shinohara saw anyone last night who could have been the suspect. Shinohara doesn't remember so he changes direction and asks about who they were camping next to. Shinohara remembered a group of 3 first year girls and one first year boy.

Back at the ground, after Kiyotaka and Ike leave, Nanase notices the presence of someone watching them. She entrusts the two injured people to Sudou and puts the tablet on the ground before chasing after the presence. She is confident in her own running speed but the opponent is even faster and the distance between them only widens. She loses the person and meets back up with Kiyotaka, Ike and Shinohara before returning together to where Sudou is. As they are waiting for the teachers to arrive, a group of first year students arrive. It's a group of one boy and 3 girls that includes Sakurako Tsubaki.

Chabashira and Sakagami also come but end up with the conclusion that Shinohara is lying because there was no other GPS signal in the area other than Shinohara. Komiya entrusts Shinohara to Ike for the rest of the special exam. Kiyotaka suggests for Shinohara to just wait the special exam out at the starting port and receive whatever help she can from passing groups. Shinohara is prepared to have to leave the school, however, Ike refuses to give up and wants to save her. As is the Ike specialty, he hides this by saying that he has to help her for the sake of class points. However, Shinohara says that it would just be a burden to Sudou and Hondou. But in the end, with the support of Sudou, Ike decides to support Shinohara as much as he can, even if they have to lose points as a result of a merger between the two groups.

By the time they return to the tents and set off again, it is already 7:30 AM and the designation area announcement was half an hour ago. The top 10 and bottom 10 ranking were released today. Amongst the bottom 10 rankings, 7 are 3rd graders and 2 are 1st graders. The only 2nd graders is the group consisting of Akito, Haruka and Airi who are currently 9th from the bottom with 28 points.

Chapter 6
The next day Akito's group has left the bottom 10 whilst Shinohara's group has entered the bottom 10. Kiyotaka had been wanting to meet up with Ryuuen to talk and had been considering using the GPS function which opened tomorrow but coincidentally ran into Ryuuen and Katsuragi fishing. As it turns out, Kiyotaka was currently 74th with 52 points, Ryuuen and Katsuragi's group was 10th with 92 points and Kouenji was in fourth place with 126 points despite going solo. Out of all the top 10 groups, he has the most first-place finishes. Kiyotaka brings up the Shinohara case. Ryuuen doesn't appear to be concerned, but when he hears from Kiyotaka that Komiya and Kinoshita have retired, his expression freezes. Kiyotaka conveys some kind of plan to Ryuuen who agrees to it but we as the reader do not know what this plan is. Kiyotaka and Nanase continue on to a tug of war task. They thought they would be the first there due to how close they were but Kouenji was already there. He doesn't appear to have any luggage including his tablet and merely carries a bottle of water in his hands. Kiyotaka deduces that the reason he is able to move so quickly was because of the lack of weight he was carrying. Just as usual, Kouenji's actions are incomprehensible. Since it is a gender divided 1v1, Kiyotaka has to face Kouenji. Kiyotaka wants to just concede the victory to Kouenji since he has a much better chance of claiming top 3 in the overall rankings. However, Koenji didn't pull at all and refused to move until Kiyotaka took it seriously. In order to end things quickly, Kiyotaka put in more strength which Kouenji matched until Kiyotaka eventually let go and ended the match. They return to the starting port with Nanase just one minute behind. Once again Kiyotaka is impressed with Nanase's physical endurance for a first year female student. At the start point, there is a open water swimming task which is a competition to swim 2 km. Since the difficulty requirement is high, 20 points are up for offer. Kiyotaka arrives too late for the boys and finds Kouenji already in the queue. He sends Nanase off to participate and goes to meet his primary aim for coming – Sakayanagi. Kouenji has now leapfrogged Kiriyama's group into 2nd place and were he to win in the open water swimming task, he would take first place overall. Sakayanagi knows about Kiyotaka working with Nanase because she receives information from all around the island. In the swimming challenge, Kouenji was leaving the other contestants behind his trail. Sakayanagi says that while Ryuuen may participate because it has value for his class, Class A doesn't particularly see any merits in cooperating. Kiyotaka believes that Nagumo will also use a similar strategy in the second half of the exam.

Kiyotaka discretely talks to Mashima who tells him that Tsukishiro hasn't made any obvious moves to hinder Kiyotaka. The only thing suspicious was that he prepared 2 rescue boats rather than just one. In the open water swimming contest, Nanase achieved 3rd place while Kouenji took 1st in the men's. Onodera from Class 2D took 1st place in the women's. Kouenji has temporarily claimed 1st place but from now on Nagumo's group will increase in numbers and have an even larger advantage over Kouenji. After reaching the final designated point, Kiyotaka and Nanase are setting up tents but he is called out by Class 2C's Tetsuya Hamaguchi. He invites them to come for Yakiniku. Ichinose's class have set up a system where they bought stuff like a barbecue stove and having a few people responsible for feeding the entire class since moving a large amount of utensils and ingredients would be difficult. Essentially, the reason for inviting Kiyotaka and Nanase to dinner was because they wanted to hear whether Kiyotaka had made any progress with Ichinose since recently they often heard her say his name. It isn't in a malicious sense but in a friendly teasing gossiping sense since they think at least 80% of the 2nd year boys like Honami. Kiyotaka is exasperated by the fact that they were gossiping in the presence of the person involved.

Chapter 7
On the 6th day, Kiyotaka got first place at the first designated area B6. The next designated area was A5 but he was unfortunately unable to place in the top 3 ranks. At 1 PM, the third announcement required them to move toward C3 but the closest way of doing that would be to cross a mountain. Rather than taking a detour, that's what they decided to do. They came across a 10 m cliff which they needed to climb. Nanase insisted that she could do it so Kiyotaka let her try but she fell back down. Kiyotaka decided that was the limit of her abilities and that it was time to part ways after 6 days. However, after climbing, he soon felt her presence following after him. Nanase says to not worry about her. Kiyotaka wonders why she's going so far to follow him. He wonders whether she's going to sabotage him by attacking his legs. But seeing her determination and not wanting to waste any more time, he lends her a hand. After he reaches the top, Kiyotaka didn't wait for Nanase and kept walking ahead. Although Nanase lagged behind, her determination to follow him didn't change. Kiyotaka began mentally comparing her to a dog. Kiyotaka arrives first and receives the first place reward. Although she didn't get the second place reward, Nanase still sighed in relief.

All of the main 1st year members have been gathered together to listen to what Tsubaki has to say. This meeting was predetermined at a specific location on a specific date from the beginning of the exam. Since Tsubaki herself doesn't have any significant accomplishments, it would have been difficult to find people to listen to her so she had Yagami help her gather everyone. At the meeting they accuse each other of aiming for Ayanokouji even though each of them said they weren't planning on participating. Tsubaki uses Kushida as blackmail material to threaten Yagami into spilling his plans whilst Utomiya holds him from behind. Yagami ends up spilling the beans on Kushida's past and the fact that she wants to expel Kiyotaka because he knows her secret.

Chapter 8
At the start of the 7th day, Kiyotaka is in 51st place with 67 points. He plans on turning it up a gear in the second half of the exam. Kouenji was continuing to make good progress in 2nd place with an 8-point difference between him and the first place Nagumo's group. Ryuuen and Katsuragi's group are also in 9th place. The top 10 groups have 6 3rd year groups, 3 2nd year groups and one first year group. The first year group is Yagami and Utomiya's elite group. That day, Kiyotake notices that Nanase is in a bit of a daze and that her concentration levels aren't as high as they usually are. Kiyotaka was the first to arrive at the designated area. The next designated area is E2. It is quite close to but for the closest route, crossing a mountain is once again necessary. However, the weather looks like it might start to rain soon. Concerned about the danger posed by the ground getting muddy, Kiyotaka proposes that they take the long detour but Nanase is so determined to take the mountain route that she even said she would take it by herself if necessary. Kiyotaka decides to accompany her but notes that she was convinced he was going to choose that route. On the way, Nanase is struggling and breathing heavily so Kiyotaka carries her belongings for her. Nanase says that she's going to finally reveal the real reason why she accompanied him for this entire week. She apologises saying that Kiyotaka won't be able to reach E2. Kiyotaka jibes at her asking for what purpose did she have them take such a difficult route if that wasn't her intention. She says it was to guide him here, to area D3.

Kiyotaka realises that there's the presence of other people. Nanase says that he only has three choices. 1. Stand here and fight, get injured by her and be forced to retire from the exam. 2. Defeat her and leave the evidence of him severely injuring a first year girl and be retired due to violating rules. The teacher who will come will be Tsukishiro so any situation where he defeats Nanase would paint him in a bad light. 3. Put down his belongings and run away. But without his tablet and food or water, it would be impossible for Kiyotaka to continue the exam. It turns out that Nanase has created some kind of pseudo-personality of Matsuo's son and Kiyotaka mentally breaks her down during the fight by saying that with only this level of ability her attacks will never reach him. Whilst that wouldn't be true if they fought forever, since none of Nanase's attacks hit him, she feels like it's the truth. She ends up collapsing in despair.

Meanwhile, Kushida had been trailing the two of them after being tipped by Yagami that there was an opportunity to get her hated enemy Kiyotaka expelled. She now realises that the number 1 enemy she must expel isn't Horikita but rather Kiyotaka. She blames herself for not finding it suspicious after Ryuuen suddenly stopped looking for X in Class D last year. However, as she's about to start recording the conflict between Nanase and Kiyotaka's fight, Ichika who she's never interacted with, randomly appeared and intervened before she does so. Kushida tries to play her usual bubbling personality that had duped many others but Ichika saw through her futile attempts and began to physically assault her to draw out Kushida's true personality. She asks for the reason behind her action, to which Ichika replied saying that she came to save Kiyotaka because he was a very important person to her.

Kushida: “Huh? What does that even mean? Do you like him?”

Amasawa: “I don’t want you to describe my relation to him in such an unpleasant way. Rather than like, it’s more that he’s precious to me? Yep, something more than that… I think. More than something like love.”

Amasawa bids farewell and attempted to leave but Kushida tries to launch a sneak attack against her when she had her back turned. However, the attack was easily dodged and Kushida was sent sprawling to the ground once again. Kushida thinks back to how this all started. After noticing Yagami's strange relationship with Kushida, four other 1st year students confronted Kushida and got past out of her (Housen, Riku, Tsubaki and someone from 1A). As a result, she lost a lot of trust in him but he says that as long as Kushida cooperates and expels Ayanokouj, he will give her the private points and then expel the other 4 first years. He insists on her to do it because it would be suspicious if a man were to simply film a fight without stepping in to stop it, while Kushida could just pretend to be too scared to intervene. Being the paranoid individual that she is, Kushida says there's a chance her class could turn on her for selling out their classmate so Yagami says she can just send him to video anonymously.

Epilogue
Ichinose had accidentally tripped by the riverside and broken her watch on a rock. As such, the GPS function and some of the health monitoring functions of the watch had also been broken. Without a functional watch, she wouldn't be able to collect points and hence needed to return to the starting area to have it replaced. Since she couldn't navigate without her watch, Shibata accompanied her for a 2-hour walk until they were almost back at the starting area. Ichinose told him to go back since she didn't want to hold him back any longer. As she walked towards the starting area through a forest, she heard the voices of Tsukishiro and first year Class D homeroom teacher Shiba-sensei. At first she only wanted to ask them for directions to the starting area but thought it would be a student's own responsibility for breaking their watch and so, she decided not to approach them and hid herself, surreptitiously following them back to what she hopes was the starting area. Originally, she wasn't focused on their conversation but they suddenly mentioned Mashima and Chabashira being Ayanokouji's allies which caught her attention. She was only able to pick up bits and pieces of information like Ayanokouji being from a place called the White Room and the fact that Tsukishiro and Shiba were planning on having him expelled. Eventually, Tsukishiro and Shiba noticed the presence of someone following them and turned around. In a panic, Ichinose threw her bag into the nearby bushes and ran but tripped and was soon caught by Shiba. Both of them immediately knew who she was after catching a glimpse of her and although she didn't hear any concrete information, Tsukishiro and Shiba treated her as if she heard everything and said that if she spoke about this matter to anyone, they would have a group of Class 2-C students retire from the exam. They are fairly confident that Ichinose wouldn't risk her classmates to help a powerful enemy from another class as Ichinose was thrust into a dilemma.

Nanase says that since coming to this school, she realised that Kiyotaka won't receive any news from the outside world. She reveals that she is Matsuo Eichirou's childhood friend. Kiyotaka's father's harassment caused him to move schools but even after moving, the harassment continued so he eventually had to quit school altogether and get a part-time job. Eichirou's father eventually ended up committing suicide. She said that Eichiirou was always better than her at everything and even after everything that had happened, refused to give up and continued to have a smile on his face. On February 14 when she went to visit Eichirou's apartment she found he had given up on living. At this time, Tsukishiro told her that the reason Eichirou's life became messed up was because a person named Ayanokouji had escaped from a place called the White Room and enrolled in this Advanced Nurturing High School. Nanase understands that Kiyotaka didn't do anything wrong but she just wanted someone to take her anger out on. She apologises and says that the least she can do will be to drop out from school since she failed to do what she was brought in to do. Kiyotaka says that him being at this school was the only resistance he could form against that man (his father). He says that if she wants to honour Eichirou Matsuo's memory, the best thing she could do was cooperate to help him stay at the school since Matsuo had gone as far as disobeying orders to allow him to enrol. Nanase shakes his hand and promises to help him. Mentally, Kiyotaka is already measuring her usefulness as a tool.

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