Hello, Reality (End of Volume) (cont.)

The girl shifted her body, moving a little closer to Kitagawa Ryo.

"..."

Kitagawa Ryo remained silent for a moment before speaking:

"Hiyori knows about what happened between me and Megumi, right?"

"Um."

Shiina Hiyori pursed her lips. She not only knew, but she had even attended Kitagawa Ryo's trial, though he hadn't seen her then.

"Actually, at that time I could understand the Karuizawa family's thinking."

"However, subsequent developments did not proceed as they had anticipated."

Kitagawa Ryo smiled, but there was a hint of sarcasm in his smile:

"They thought that once Hui was out of that mess, she could have a fresh start after transferring schools, since she had forgotten everything, including the memories of being bullied."

The most ironic thing about this is—

"After transferring schools, Hui continued to be bullied in her new environment."

Nothing has changed; in fact, one person is missing.

"They've lost someone who took that knife for their daughter."

This was the first time Kitagawa Ryo Shiina Hiyori, because in the past he would always brush it off with "Who knows?"

Shiina Hiyori grasped Kitagawa Ryo's right hand, causing him to pause in applying the medicine.

"Then just ignore her, right?"

"... Just think of it as me being overly kind-hearted."

Kitagawa Ryo naturally wouldn't tell Shiina Hiyori that all of this was just a facade, and that he was only helping her because of the limitations of the mission.

"Anyway, it's all over now. Hui defeated me, so there shouldn't be any problems."

After applying medicine to all of Shiina Hiyori's wounds, Kitagawa Ryo stretched out a big yawn, his tone relaxed.

"What about dropping out of school?"

"If Ryo loses, according to the rules of the Sports Festival, he will be expelled."

"Let me calculate. Liang should still have around seven million points left from the last Werewolf. Class 1-B has had forty students for six months since the start of the semester. The Class Points are..."

Kitagawa Ryo interrupted Shiina Hiyori, who was muttering to herself about doing math, even though the way she was counting on her fingers was quite cute.

"It's okay, I already spoke with Arisu from Class A beforehand."

"She still has over 20 million points left, which will help me pay for the expenses of dropping out of school."

"Is she really that generous? Or did Ryo sign some kind of contract with her? Wait, Ryo hasn't told me about her yet."

Shiina Hiyori and suddenly realized that she had noticed that Sakayanagi Arisu and Kitagawa Ryo's relationship was unusual when school started.

"Oh, you mean Arisu? It's nothing really. It's just that her family promised to help me get out of that troublesome lawsuit, so I tutored them for over a year, teaching Chess. But Arisu never wanted to call me 'teacher,' sigh."

Kitagawa Ryo casually explained:

"Even my enrollment in Advanced Nurturing High School was arranged by the Sakayanagi Family."

Is that all?

Shiina Hiyori looked at Kitagawa Ryo with some suspicion.

"Absolutely true."

Kitagawa Ryo quickly made a promise.

"But that doesn't explain why Sakayanagi has to make up for this expense for you. Besides, she clearly instructed Class A to join the competition against Class B, in the 4x400 meter men's relay race."

"Because she can benefit from both sides, actually Class 1-A is the one who profited the most from this Sports Festival."

"Arisu's goal for this Sports Festival is simple: first, her class can't lose; second, she wants our class to lose; and third, ideally, she should defeat me herself."

"Megumi's plan and my plan are like fulfilling three wishes at once for Arisu, she'll definitely agree."

"But I also need Class 1-A to make this competition more reasonable and more difficult."

Kitagawa Ryo pointed out the window:

"This game should make all the students who watched it realize that it was a well-designed and successful plan by Hui, and that Class 1-B only narrowly lost after giving it their all."

"But essentially, you deliberately lost to Karuizawa. Does that really make sense?"

Shiina Hiyori couldn't help but question, and after hearing everything, she even felt a little sorry for Karuizawa Kei.

Just like in the movie "The Truman Show", from the day he enrolled in school, Kitagawa Ryo created a "world of Karuizawa Kei" for Karuizawa Kei.

If we think about it this way, is that so-called growth real?

Who knows?

Kitagawa Ryo lay down on the bed decisively, looking up at the snow-white ceiling above him:

"How wonderful is this world, as long as you believe it to be true, that's enough."

"Hiyori, you should rest first. The Sports Festival isn't over yet. Let's see if we have time to beat another class."

As if he had thought of something, Kitagawa Ryo got up from the bed again and walked out of the ward, his hand already on the doorknob.

Just as Kitagawa Ryo was about to open the door and leave, Shiina Hiyori interrupted him:

"... So, even being with me is just for...?"

Shiina Hiyori's tone was as fragile as glass, standing rigidly between the two of them, as if Kitagawa Ryo's next words would shatter it, scattering it all over the ground.

What are you thinking about?

Kitagawa Ryo turned around, his face bearing his usual warm smile:

"Get some rest."

The annual Sports Festival finally came to a close at 6 p. m., as the sky was dyed red by the sunset.

Class 1-A 1 won both of their matches, and their afternoon opponent was surprisingly Class 2-D, which they easily defeated 5-2.

Class 1-B 1 had a record of two wins and one loss. After losing to Class 1-D, they easily crushed Class 2-B with a score of 6 to 1, taking advantage of the fact that the younger students could choose their own events.

Class 1-C won both of their matches. To Ichinose Honami's surprise, Class 1-A did not cause trouble for Class C as they had threatened. Class 1-C was able to win another major match against Class 2-C with a score of 4 to 3.

After defeating Class 1-B, Class 1-D gave up the competition. Other classes were also wary of challenging them, and the Sports Festival ended with two wins.

The final changes in Class Points for each class are as follows.

[Class 1-A, Grade 1: 1284 points]

[Class 1-B: 1157 points]

[Class 1-C: 11:03]

[Class 1-D, Grade 1: 427 points]

All four classes saw their Class Points increase, proving the feasibility of the First-Year Joint Plan in this Sports Festival. Although Class 1-B lost one match to Class 1-D, they did not fall behind Class C due to their advantage in the smaller match score. Instead, they narrowed the gap with Class 1-A.

"It seems the competition will only get fiercer from here on out."

The homeroom teachers of the four classes also remarked with emotion, after all, this is only the beginning of the second semester of the First Year, and for these four classes of students, they still have more than two years to go.

Apart from Sakagami Kazuma expressing slight regret over Class B's defeat, no one took Kitagawa Ryo's withdrawal from school seriously.

After all, as the absolute core of Class 1-B, the students of Class 1-B would definitely contribute 20 million Private Points. Adding to that the Private Points that Kitagawa Ryo got from Werewolf, if that's still not enough, Class 1-C would definitely be willing to generously help. There's no way that there would be a dropout incident.

This is a view held by Karuizawa Kei herself.

From the very beginning of her plan, she intended to defeat Kitagawa Ryo first, and then use her 20 million points to cancel his expulsion punishment.

After all, Karuizawa Kei only wanted to prove her growth after leaving him, and never really intended to make Kitagawa Ryo drop out of school.

However, when she tentatively brought up the topic with Shiina Hiyori, the other party said that their Class B could gather their own members and did not need Karuizawa Kei's help at all.

Sakayanagi Arisu didn't care, after all, Kitagawa Ryo had told her that Horikita Manabu would help make up the 20 million Private Points. He boasted in his usual smug tone that he would be joining the Student Council as vice president next month, and used this as a condition to squeeze Horikita Manabu out of him.

That's practically the standard way to cool things down.

It even makes people look forward to the Matoba where he faces off against Nagumo in the Student Council.

Because Kitagawa Ryo had said that Sakayanagi Arisu would help make up the Twenty Million Personal Points, Shiina Hiyori wasn't too worried. She's currently trying out new desserts and trying to level up her cooking skills a few more times.

Like the blueberry pie that Kitagawa Ryo often made for her, she wanted to try making it herself.

Ryuen Kakeru seemed to have noticed something, but after talking to Kitagawa Ryo privately once, he didn't say anything more.

Just do what you want to do.

Who told him to say those things to Kitagawa Ryo before?

Until--

Kitagawa Ryo completely disappeared from Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School.

He really dropped out of school.

[Congratulations to the player for achieving the ending: Like a Dream]

[Like a Dream: a life of fifty years, compared to a world beyond the mundane, is like a dream, like an illusion.]

[Chapter 2 objective: Find and correct Karuizawa Kei's personality weakness. Completed. Final overall score:...]

Before the text even appeared, Liang quit the game, took off his virtual reality headset, and shook his head.

It's been almost a day.

"Fraudster's talent really works."

He squinted and muttered a few words to himself, then glanced at the clock. Liang left the game pod with slightly unsteady steps and turned on the phone on the table next to him.

"It's that day again."

He logged into a website using his mobile phone.

In today's world of rapid technological advancements and the continuous development of virtual technology, the increasing population has led to ever-growing land prices, forcing some things to become virtual entities—a situation so absurd it's almost comical.

Gently touch the screen.

The pre-programmed procedure will automatically offer incense, candles, and offerings to the central memorial tablet, with a variety of flower baskets to choose from:

[Firefly]

The memorial tablet bears this name.

Wisps of virtual smoke drifted by.

Water droplets were seeping from the corner of the basement ceiling.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Liang carefully selected desserts for her younger sister that she had always wanted to eat but had never tried. These "offerings," which only included pictures and text descriptions, could be obtained for free by watching a 30-second pop-up ad about the latest virtual game masterpiece.

I received a text message saying my electricity bill was overdue this month. I checked the amount of emergency savings I'd accumulated over time, and it seems I'll have to be more careful with my food for the next month.

If the rent is even half a day late, even in this dark and damp basement, the landlord will probably kick you out immediately.

She grabbed a basin to catch the water, then sat back down at the table. She knew she had to start working to support herself.

Hello, Reality

End of Volume

Let me first answer two frequently asked questions about this volume:

I. About Karuizawa Kei.

First of all, Karuizawa Kei is definitely the character I spent the most time and effort on in this volume. Whether it's her screen time or interactions, she basically has the most among the girls. The reason why people might have the impression that Karuizawa Kei background heroine is simple: unlike the previous volumes, I added a lot of descriptions of other female characters, such as Horikita Suzune Shiina Hiyori.

The root of this problem lies in the allocation between the main storyline and the simulation. Readers who have been following this book since April should remember that I mentioned at the time that the main storyline would begin at 200,000 words. However, my understanding of the main storyline was different from that of the readers at the beginning.

What I thought was the main storyline was the main storyline in the original work, namely the events that took place at Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School.

Because Ichinose Honami's simulation and Karuizawa Kei's first simulation took place before they entered high school, many readers said at the time that it was well-written but didn't seem like a fanfic of Classroom of the Classroom of the Elite. The setting of the light novel Classroom of the Classroom of the Elite is Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School, and it hasn't changed from the first volume to now.