Luxury cruise ship, second floor.
Compared to the time of the exam briefing, the second floor was undoubtedly much livelier now, packed with people everywhere.
After all, the exam briefing had been conducted in groups. Each group of a dozen or so students came at their own assigned time, so it had naturally not been particularly bustling.
But things were different now.
It was almost one in the afternoon.
In other words, the first discussion of the first day of the Special Exam was about to begin.
And they would all be held simultaneously.
That meant every first-year student was bound to appear on this floor.
There were 159 first-year students in total, with only Sakayanagi Arisu from Class A absent.
Under those circumstances, the cruise ship's second floor could hardly have been anything but lively.
Fortunately, this cruise ship was luxurious and large enough. Even with over a hundred students crowding onto this floor at once, it felt incredibly bustling without becoming cramped.
Fang Li did not come down from his room on the third floor until 12:55, arriving at the exam venue.
Naturally, accompanying him was Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, who was both in Fang Li's group and shared his room.
"This really hasn't been easy."
After arriving on this floor, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka looked around and spoke as though talking to himself.
"Hirata really put in a lot of effort to get Kouenji to participate in the exam properly, but he finally succeeded."
That was right.
Until just moments ago, Hirata Yosuke had still been in the room persuading Koenji Rokusuke to at least not skip the twice-daily discussion sessions.
In the end, Hirata Yosuke had finally succeeded.
"Letting the people at this school witness the existence of magnificent me is also quite necessary."
After casually tossing out those words,