" Tsk."
Sakayanagi Arisu pursed her lips in displeasure, then promptly took it out on someone else:
"Isn't that obvious, Classmate Ryuen?"
"With one certain brainless brawler gone, we managed to clear the game perfectly with 'everyone surviving.'"
Ryuen Kakeru raised an eyebrow.
He got up from the ground, flexed his waist, which had been restored, and couldn't help sneering.
"Don't give yourself so much credit. One look at your sickly appearance tells me you couldn't possibly be the hero."
"Likewise."
Sakayanagi Arisu didn't back down an inch. She elegantly smoothed her rumpled skirt.
"Then let's use a simple process of elimination, Classmate Ryuen. Who do you think was the biggest problem in this exam? And who was the clown who got himself killed right at the start?"
The tension between them grew.
Kushida Kikyo and Ichinose Honami had no desire to jump in and play peacemaker.
The two girls were still caught up in the aftermath of what had just happened.
Even though reason told them that everyone had "three lives," and even though Ryuen Kakeru was standing right in front of them, alive and well,
the sight of blood gushing out and someone being torn apart before their eyes had completely overturned the worldview they'd built over the past sixteen years.
Fortunately, those who made it into this school were no ordinary people.
After a brief silence and an emotional outpouring, reason gradually returned.
"Now that the exam is over..."
Ichinose forced down her unease, walked to the center of the room, and tentatively reached out to touch the Black Sphere's screen.
"Can we... leave now?"
"There are the scores, too."
At her touch, a ripple spread across the surface of the Black Sphere.
Familiar white text appeared:
[Since you all made it back alive, let's start scoring.]
"Scoring?"
Kushida Kikyo came over as well. She was still afraid, but curious, too.
"By the way, do we get zero points for this exam? After all, Su Wei was the one who killed the monster, right?"
As she spoke, she looked at Su Wei.
The moment Kushida finished speaking, the Black Sphere seemed to respond to her expectation:
[Ichinose Honami: 0 points.] [Kushida Kikyo: 0 points.] [Comment: Apart from screaming and trembling, were you just playing mascots outside the convenience store? Better luck next time. Try not to be useless ornaments.]
Reading the mercilessly cutting remark, both girls blushed, too embarrassed to argue.
Then the display changed.
[Ryuen Kakeru: 0 points] [Evaluation: Commendable courage, brain out of service. Even if you're acting as a shield, try to last a little longer. You have two more chances to waste your life, so cherish them, you reckless fool.]
"Tsk."
Ryuen Kakeru clicked his tongue, but didn't try to argue.
"Since Classmate Ryuen didn't earn any points..."
Su Wei spoke up at the right moment, breaking the awkward silence.
"Then all we have to do is see whether Classmate Sakayanagi earned any points to determine how this exam is scored."
"Is it 'points for contribution' or 'points for kills'?"
"I'm curious, too."
Sakayanagi Arisu was sitting on the ground when she suddenly held out a hand to Su Wei.
As he looked at her in mild confusion, Sakayanagi put on a pitiful yet lovely, childlike expression.
"You've seen it for yourself. I have a congenital heart condition and trouble walking."
"The fight just now drained me... I'm sure that was obvious, wasn't it? Or are you really going to coldly refuse a sickly girl's little request, Classmate Su Wei?"
Su Wei raised an eyebrow.
He had to admit, with a face like Sakayanagi Arisu's, she was incredibly persuasive, even when he knew she was only pretending.
He took her hand.
"I thought your legs had been healed along with your injuries."
Once she was steady on her feet, leaning on Su Wei's arm, Sakayanagi Arisu rested one hand against her chest, looking a little disappointed.
"I can feel that my body's a lot lighter, and my wounds don't hurt anymore. But it seems Gantz isn't quite as generous as you thought."
With that, she stopped pressing the matter and turned her attention to the Black Sphere.
"Then let's see whether your guess was right, Classmate Su Wei~"
Ichinose Honami noticed the two of them and carefully stepped aside.
The text on the Black Sphere's screen changed again.
[Sakayanagi Arisu: 0 points] [Evaluation: For a disabled person, that shot was decent enough. But that's all.]
Still zero points.
At last, the screen settled on Su Wei's name.
[Su Wei: 3 points] [Total score: 3 points] [Evaluation: Whether through luck or skill, only those who survive are worthy of evaluation. Keep it up. You are 97 points away from freedom.]
The numbers on the screen left the room silent for a moment.
"A monster that dangerous was only worth three points?"
"According to what the Black Sphere said earlier, if it converts at a rate of one to ten into class scores... that would be thirty points?" Ichinose Honami said.
"The problem is, we still don't know how much this 'class score' is actually worth, right?"
Leaning against Su Wei's arm as though she really had made him her human crutch, Sakayanagi Arisu interjected in a leisurely tone.
"Though I can guess it'll probably be tied to our class rankings..."
"If S Points can really be exchanged for class scores!"
Kushida Kikyo's eyes lit up, her excitement impossible to hide.
"Then our Class D is already one step ahead, aren't we? And there are two of us..."
"Naive."
Ryuen Kakeru mercilessly cut off Kushida's fantasy.
"This does seem like a perk for the bottom-ranked classes. But who says these points, which are obviously so valuable, have to be contributed to the class?"
He stared intently at Su Wei.
"Besides, even if you exchange them for class scores, that's only thirty points. The school hasn't announced the rules, so who knows whether the scale goes up to a hundred or a thousand? Only an idiot would waste points for a tiny benefit like that!"
"What do you think?"
It was clear he was curious to see what this Class D nobody, who'd barely been noticed before, would choose to do.
Sakayanagi Arisu tilted her head slightly as well, seemingly wanting a closer look at the man's microexpressions.
Under their watchful gazes,
Su Wei paused for half a second.
"Let's save them for now."
"We can use the weapons for free right now, but who knows what'll happen later? What if, once we're veterans, we have to spend points to buy ammunition or repair equipment?"
It was an irrefutable reason.
Kushida Kikyo nodded again and again in agreement. As though something had just occurred to her, she suddenly spoke with urgency.
"Exactly! Didn't the Black Sphere say you could redeem your life with points? Maybe one hundred points is the threshold!"
"If we save up a hundred points, perhaps we can avoid being summoned to these terrifying exams until we graduate..."
At that, she remembered Sakayanagi's frail condition and added:
"Maybe it could even repair physical damage? Like Classmate Sakayanagi's heart condition..."
"After all, this place can bring people back to life as if it were nothing. Surely buying good health with a few points wouldn't be difficult? If we have to work as a team again in a future exam, having a healthy teammate..."
"Enough."
Ryuen Kakeru waved his hand impatiently.
"We'll deal with the future when it comes. Who knows whether it'll even be the same people next time?"
"What if the teams are organized by class in the future?"
"For those of us who aren't in Class A, wouldn't it be a huge advantage if this crippled princess stayed half-dead?"
His words were dripping with malice. He wasn't even trying to hide it.
Ichinose frowned, seemingly about to object to Ryuen's brutally practical remark. But when she saw Sakayanagi's unbothered smile, she swallowed her words.
Sakayanagi Arisu smiled faintly.
Her gaze passed over the others and settled on the door, which had silently swung open at some point.
"Rather than waste time arguing, our most pressing concern is probably to confirm the situation, don't you think?"
"For example... we could contact the friends who were with us at the time and find out how long we've been gone in the real world."
"Oh! Right! Our phones!"
Ichinose Honami snapped out of it and hurriedly pulled her phone from her pocket.
The signal bars, which had previously shown "No Service," were now full.
"I have a signal! Um, why don't we exchange contact information, so we can share information in the future?"
No one objected.
In a life-or-death game like this, even the biggest fool understood the importance of sharing information.
They quickly exchanged phone numbers and email addresses.
After they were done, Sakayanagi Arisu nodded slightly and put her phone away.
Then she suddenly turned to Kushida Kikyo, lowering her gaze and softening her voice.
"Classmate Kushida, you saw it for yourself. I can't move around easily, so it's hard for me to walk back to the dorm on my own."
"So, could I borrow your Class D's Su Wei to escort me back for a while?"
"Huh?"
Kushida Kikyo instinctively glanced at Su Wei, then smiled brightly, slipping back into her cheerful persona.
"Of course! We should help each other out~"
"..."
Su Wei watched the two women make an arrangement on their own and sighed helplessly.
Before you continue