"You haven't eaten anything for a day?"
Hearing Ibuki Mio's words, the Class D students all fell silent.
Hirata Yosuke and Kushida Kikyo even showed looks of pity, unable to say anything for a while.
The Class D camp, which had been noisy until just moments ago, suddenly became completely silent.
But on second thought, this did not seem strange at all.
Since Ishizaki Daichi had come out to look for Ibuki Mio and Kaneda Satoru early in the morning, before dawn had fully broken, it meant they had been driven out of Class C yesterday.
That meant Ibuki Mio had spent the entire previous day in the forest. Not only had she spent the night alone in the pitch-black woods, but if she could not find food, there was a very good chance she had eaten nothing at all.
She could not possibly have eaten bugs and wild grass in the forest like Ryuen Kaito had said, could she?
So it was not strange at all that Ibuki Mio had not eaten for a whole day.
Only now did everyone present notice that, perhaps because she had spent an entire night in the forest, Ibuki Mio's tracksuit was somewhat dirty and disheveled.
This made even the Class D students who had opposed taking Ibuki Mio in from the start show a trace of sympathy as they exchanged glances.
"Ibuki, here."
In the end, Kushida Kikyo was the first to break the silence. She took out some of the fruit the class had picked together from the orchard that morning and handed it to Ibuki Mio.
"...Thanks."
Ibuki Mio seemed ashamed of this begging-and-charity-like act. Her tone became increasingly self-mocking and stiff, yet she could not withstand the torment of hunger. She accepted the fruit and silently began eating.
Although