No one paid any more attention to the locker room. Yamauchi Haruki, Ike Kanji, and Sudo Ken, who had been on edge the entire time, finally let out a sigh of relief.
To avoid arousing suspicion, they pretended to mess around by the pool for a while longer before using the restroom as an excuse to secretly slip toward the locker room.
Ike Kanji had the remote control tucked in his arms. His palms were drenched in sweat, but his face wore an expectant smile.
He arrived beneath the ventilation hood and carefully operated the remote, slowly driving out the remote-controlled car that had the miniature camera hidden on it.
It worked! Joy surged through him, and he reached out eagerly to take the remote-controlled car down.
But the instant he took it down, the color drained from his face with a whoosh, leaving him pale as a sheet. The smile at the corners of his mouth seemed frozen in place, stiffly hanging on his face.
Because he could clearly see that the miniature camera, which had originally been secured to the remote-controlled car with heavy-duty tape, was gone. The tape had been violently torn off, leaving behind only a few messy traces, while the camera itself... had disappeared!
A chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head. His entire body went cold as he already envisioned the miserable future of being expelled from school and utterly disgraced.
But Yamauchi Haruki and Sudo Ken behind him had no idea what had happened.
The excitement in Yamauchi Haruki's eyes was even greater than Ike Kanji's had been, and it felt as though he had a ball of fire burning in his chest.
When he saw Ike Kanji suddenly freeze in place, he could not