The next stretch of the camp Special Exam seemed to sink into a period of complete calm;
because this exam was tied only to each class's own abilities, it was very hard to interfere with other classes. So everyone concentrated on improving themselves—busy with studying, with physical training, or with memorizing the obscure, hard-to-grasp sutra.
There were no flashy schemes; at most, first-year Class D stirred up a lot of conflict after Matsushita had once been carried back to the forest school by Yukio—quite a commotion.
But over the last two days even that had been forcibly suppressed by Matsushita and Horikita working together, so, for the moment, no internal discord was exposed in front of outsiders.
When the Special Exam reached the fifth day, an accident occurred.
That day, just after everyone finished meditation and was heading back to the cafeteria for breakfast, the unifiers of every class had their phones ring simultaneously. Not only the first-year students—Yukio, Sakayanagi, Ichinose—even second-year Kiriyama, third-year Horikita Manabu all received calls.
Since each class sat separately, people didn't immediately notice the situation at other tables; they were merely curious as to who would phone during breakfast.
When Yukio took out his phone he saw it was Sakagami calling. What's he doing calling at this time? Want someone to bring breakfast?—Sakagami-sensei isn't that lazy, is he?
With that curiosity he answered. Sakagami barely waited; once the line opened he spoke at once.
"Yukio! Are you in the cafeteria for breakfast? Tell everyone to stop eating! The forest-camp ingredients might have a problem! Several students got food poisoning!"
Yukio froze. "Food poisoning?"
Clang—clang—clatter!
Ishizaki, Albert, Nomura: all their utensils crashed onto the table.
On the other side Ibuki grabbed Shiina's wrist in a flash so Shiina, who might not have heard, wouldn't keep eating.
It wasn't just Yukio's table; everywhere a phone had rung, noise erupted—you could practically hear the panic.
"What? Katsuragi? Katsuragi-san got food poisoning?"
"W-what do we do? Isn't that an automatic elimination? Our class loses one event? Damn it—why's Katsuragi screwing us?"
"Enough, enough—he didn't do it on purpose. Have some sympathy before you rip into him."
"Look over there, second-years are panicking too—someone's sick there."
"Not just them, third-years are the same!"
The surroundings were in chaos. What had been quiet murmurs at each table instantly turned into a flock of crows cawing inside the cafeteria.
Shaken from the din, Yukio focused and asked, "Sensei, what exactly happened? The school could never have this kind of issue, right?"
Don't joke—the school even ran an uninhabited-island survival without food problems. How could a modern forest facility mess up?
"I'm not sure either," Sakagami admitted. "I only saw it in the teachers' chat—Hoshinomiya-sensei's latest message. Apparently a few students in the personal-ability project got food poisoning and were sent to the infirmary, so she alerted us."
Yukio's expression grew very strange. To confirm, he asked, "So, only the personal-ability participants had a problem?"
Sakagami paused, seemed to grasp Yukio's point, fell silent, then ventured a guess:
"You suspect… this was Ryuen?"
"Besides Ryuen, who else could pull something like this?" Yukio countered, motioning to his classmates that it was fine to keep eating—the cafeteria food was safe. Ryuen—truly impressive.
Back in the bath they'd pointed out the loophole: use force to injure personal-ability students so they'd be sent to the infirmary at a non-permitted time and be disqualified.
Ryuen had gone even further—no force, just poisoning.
Of course poison was broad; drugging worked too.
That made Sakagami laugh aloud, fear gone.
"Tsk tsk. Honestly, I'm lucky to be your homeroom teacher; what a treasure this class is.
Never thought Ryuen had such an idea! How'd he pull it off? It's not easy to get a substance that poisons a few people—the only place would be the infirmary, but Hoshinomiya's been there late every night and no meds are missing."
"No need for that trouble," Yukio said, reverse-engineering the process.
"Sensei, remember: the personal-ability kids cook for themselves. The school only supplies ingredients and cookware. Ryuen just needed to tamper—dirty the ingredients or tools a little."
"No drugs necessary; even deliberate filth would make someone sick. And some of them can't cook well—half-raw rice, unclean produce—eat enough and you'll feel bad."
"He probably realized he couldn't knock out that many rivals with force alone, so he used this to eliminate competition."
"Hahaha, good, good." Sakagami was fully relieved. He reminded Yukio to stay cautious and hung up.
As Yukio lowered the phone, Ishizaki and company crowded in, first glancing around to be sure only their own class sat nearby. Then Ishizaki whispered:
"Aniki, that whole food-poison thing—Ryuen's doing?"
Yukio nodded. "It should be. Only my deduction, but think: among personal-ability participants I've heard of—no one compares to Ryuen."
"D-Class's Koenji? He'd never pull something unbeautiful. Katsuragi in Sakayanagi's class, Kanzaki in Ichinose's—forget it. Thinking it through, only Ryuen could do it."
The boys' faces lit with respect.
"Awesome, Ryuen-san! With this, our class's personal-ability event is basically secure."
"No wonder he's Ryuen—unlike me, just stuck doing Kaneda's homework, running laps, half a sutra page still unfinished."
"We really gotta step up—can't let only Big Bro and Ryuen hog the spotlight!"
...
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