The Test and the One Being Tested

"Ayanokoji..." Ken Sudō sounded a little nervous.

"Sudō, you take Ishizaki. Horikita, Oda's yours. Karuizawa, keep watch and make sure no one else is lying in wait nearby." Ayanokoji assigned their roles quickly. "I'll handle Mio Ibuki."

"You sure?" Ibuki looked at the makeshift wooden stick in Ayanokoji's hand, which he'd casually picked up along the way. "I have a real blade."

"This is enough."

Before he'd even finished speaking, Ibuki charged. She moved fast, her blade aimed straight for Ayanokoji's shoulder. She was clearly holding back and didn't want to inflict a fatal injury, but the strike would be enough to take someone out of the fight.

Ayanokoji leaned aside to dodge, then jabbed the stick at her wrist like a venomous snake.

Ibuki twisted her wrist, changing the angle of her blade to slice at the stick. If it connected, the stick would surely be cut in two.

But Ayanokoji moved faster. Just before the blade touched the stick, he flicked his wrist and changed its direction, striking Ibuki's elbow from another angle.

"Smack!"

The light blow sent a jolt through Ibuki's elbow, and her blade nearly slipped from her grasp.

Her pupils narrowed. She immediately retreated and adjusted her stance.

"Your movements are textbook, but too rigid," Ayanokoji said calmly. "Martial arts aren't about blindly copying forms. You have to adapt to your opponent."

"Quit lecturing!" Ibuki attacked again, her blade work fiercer this time.

But the result was the same. No matter how she attacked, Ayanokoji dodged with the slightest movements, then struck her joints or pressure points with the stick. Every attack came to nothing, while her arm grew more and more numb.

On the other side, the fight between Ken Sudō and Daichi Ishizaki was much more intense. Both were powerhouses, and their punches landed hard, kicking up clouds of dust.

Suzune Horikita completely dominated Takumi Oda. She had never trained in combat, but her excellent reflexes and physical fitness let her easily evade his stick, then trip him with a sweep of her leg.

Three minutes later, the fight was over.

Daichi Ishizaki was pinned to the ground by Sudō, panting; Takumi Oda's hands and feet had been bound with vines by Horikita; and although Mio Ibuki was still standing, the hand gripping her blade trembled slightly. She couldn't keep fighting.

"Do you want to keep going?" Ayanokoji asked.

Ibuki glared at him, then finally let go. Her blade dropped onto the sand.

"We'll give your supplies back," she said through gritted teeth. "But this isn't over. Ryuen will hear about it."

"Then tell him." Ayanokoji put away the stick. "If Class C wants to keep playing these games, Class D will see it through to the end."

The three of them left in a sorry state. Ayanokoji had Sudō and Horikita carry the supplies back to camp, while he stayed behind, watching the direction in which the three Class C students had disappeared.

"What are you thinking about?" Karuizawa came over and asked.

"Ryuen was testing us," Ayanokoji said. "He wanted to find out how quickly we react and how strong we are. Today's attack was meant both to steal supplies and to gather information."

"So we passed the test?"

"For now." Ayanokoji turned around. "But the real test is still ahead. Ryuen won't let this go."

By the time they returned to the beach camp, the sky had begun to darken.

Yosuke Hirata had already organized everyone and moved most of the supplies and students to a new camp inland. Satsuki Shinohara's injured arm had been bandaged, and she had calmed down.

Night fell over the jungle camp, and the bonfire was lit.

The Class D students gathered around it, sharing a simple dinner: compressed biscuits boiled into a mush, with some edible wild greens gathered by the stream.

The mood was a little lighter than it had been during the day. After all, they had successfully established a camp, driven off Class C's provocation, and no one had been seriously injured.

"Everyone did a great job today." Yosuke Hirata stood up. "We ran into difficulties, but we made it through. This proves that as long as we stand together, nothing is impossible!"

His words drew an enthusiastic response. At that moment, Class D's unity reached an unprecedented level.

But Ayanokoji Kiyotaka sat at the edge of the bonfire, watching the flames dance as he pondered deeper questions.

The conflict during the day had only been the beginning. Ryuen's test, Class A's quiet surveillance, and the possibility of an offer to cooperate from Class B... Every one of the next thirteen days would be a test.

Besides, the system still hadn't announced any specific tasks for this exam. That meant the real challenge might not have arrived yet.

"What are you thinking about?" Suzune Horikita sat down beside him.

"The rules," Ayanokoji said. "The handbook says the winner will be decided by each class's 'overall score' at the end of the exam. But what determines that score? Camp construction? The number of tasks completed? Or... some other factor we don't know about?"

Horikita was silent for a moment. "You mean there might be hidden scoring criteria?"

"That's very likely." Ayanokoji nodded. "The people who designed this school like to test students' abilities across the board. Wilderness survival is just the surface. The real questions might be hidden in the details."

"Such as?"

"For example, how united the class is, how it responds to emergencies, and whether resources are distributed fairly..." Ayanokoji listed. "It might even include the moral choices we make when faced with extreme circumstances."

Horikita's pupils narrowed slightly. "You mean the school might be watching everything we do?"

"Not might. It definitely is." Ayanokoji looked into the jungle's darkness. "They say the school won't interfere, but do you really think they'd leave four hundred students entirely to their own devices on an uninhabited island for two weeks? There must be some kind of monitoring system."

The idea left Horikita deep in thought.

Just then, the system's notification finally sounded.

[ Ding! The host has entered the core area of the Special Exam. Main quest activated. ]

[ Quest Name: Uninhabited Island Trial ]

[ Quest Objective: Lead Class D to finish no lower than second place in this round of the Special Exam. ]

[ Quest Rewards: A large number of points and a special ability, based on the final ranking. If you take first place, you'll receive the additional rewards "Charisma (Intermediate)" and "Strategic Thinking (Basic)." ]

[ Quest Failure Penalty: Class Points will be heavily deducted, the host's personal reputation will decrease, and the host must accept one random negative effect. ]

[ Current Progress: Day 1/14 ]

[ Hidden objective being detected... ]

A hidden objective. Just as he'd expected, this exam wasn't simple.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka looked up at the starry sky, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.

"Interesting," he murmured. "Then let's see what this trial is really about."

The night deepened, and the bonfire gradually died out.

On their first night on the uninhabited island, the Class D students huddled together under a makeshift shelter and fell asleep. The conditions were harsh, but at least they had a relatively safe camp.

At the other end of the island, Ryuen Kakeru listened to Mio Ibuki's report in the Class C camp.

After hearing her account, he didn't get angry. Instead, an excited smile spread across his face.

"Just as I thought... that Ayanokoji isn't ordinary." He licked his lips. "Now this is interesting. Tell everyone that starting tomorrow, we're targeting Class D across the board. I want to see how well he can protect his class."

"Yes."

Under the moonlight, the uninhabited island was quiet and mysterious.

Four classes. Four hundred students. Fourteen days of survival.

The real game had only just begun.

A Sleepless Night

The second dawn on the uninhabited island.

Before the sky had fully brightened, a thin fog hung over the trees. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka woke at the edge of camp. He had barely slept, partly because he was keeping watch and partly because he'd been thinking.

[Insight (Basic)] grew especially keen at night. He could hear wild boars rustling in the undergrowth far away, distinguish the first morning calls of different birds, and even sense... a steady, faint breathing from somewhere outside the camp.

Someone was watching them.

He got up without a sound, circled around his sleeping classmates, and headed to the thicket on the eastern side of camp. Suzune Horikita was sitting there, leaning against a tree. Her eyes were half-closed, but her breathing was shallow. She hadn't slept either.

"You noticed?" Ayanokoji asked quietly.

Horikita opened her eyes and nodded. "Two people behind the trees across the stream, about fifty meters away. They've been there for two hours."

"Which class?"

"Their footsteps are light, but I occasionally hear whispers. They're girls. It's probably Class B. Class C's girls wouldn't be so quiet."

That made sense. If Class C had sent someone to spy on them, they'd be more likely to provoke or steal from them directly, as they had the day before, rather than lie in wait so patiently.

"Let them watch," Ayanokoji said. "We need to show them a normal camp being built, not excessive precautions. Being too guarded would only make them more suspicious."

Horikita fell silent for a moment. "What do you think Class B wants? Honami Ichinose isn't the type to seek direct conflict like Ryuen."

"Cooperation," Ayanokoji guessed. "Or at least an assessment of whether cooperation is possible. Class B may be stronger than us overall, but they know they're no match for Class A, so they might be looking for allies."

Should they cooperate with them?

"Let's wait and see for now," Ayanokoji said. "Cooperation takes leverage, and we don't have enough yet. We should finish building the camp, complete a few tasks, and earn some points first."

As the sky brightened, the students at camp began to wake.

The first task of the morning was gathering food.

The issued compressed biscuits and energy bars would last only three days, so they had to find a reliable food source as soon as possible.

"There are fish in the stream, but not many," Ken Sudō reported on what he'd found that morning. "I saw a few, but they're hard to catch with our bare hands. We'd need a net or a spear."

"There are plenty of wild greens, though." Kei Karuizawa returned with several girls, carrying an assortment of plants. "I recognize some that are edible, but these can only supplement our food. They can't be our staple."

"What about bird eggs?" Kanji Ike asked. "I saw nests in the trees."

"Taking bird eggs would disrupt the ecological balance, and it would take too much time." Ayanokoji rejected the idea. "We need a more efficient food source."

He looked into the distance. "Those wild boar tracks we found yesterday... Maybe we can set traps."

"Traps?" Haruki Yamauchi's eyes lit up. "Like the ones on TV, where you dig a pit?"

"That would take too much time and effort, and it'd be easy to spot." Ayanokoji shook his head. "We need something simpler and more practical."

He went over to the pile of supplies and began rummaging through it. Besides tents and tools, they had brought some rope and wire.

"Use this." He picked up a length of wire. "We can make snare traps. If the boars follow a regular route, we might catch one."

"You know how to make traps?" Sudō asked in surprise.

"I read about them in a book," Ayanokoji replied simply. In reality, [Wilderness Survival Knowledge (Basic)] included instructions for making various traps.

Under his guidance, several of them soon made three snare traps and set them beside the path where they'd found the wild boar tracks the day before.

"Now we need another source of water." Ayanokoji turned to Hirata. "The stream is clear, but for safety's sake, it'd be best to find a second source as a backup."

"I'll look for one," Horikita volunteered.

"I'll go with you." Ayanokoji stood up. "Hirata, I'll leave the camp to you. Sudō, take a few people and reinforce the shelter. It looks like it might rain tonight. Karuizawa, keep gathering edible plants, but be careful identifying them."

"Got it!"

Once they had divided up the tasks, Ayanokoji and Horikita left camp.

Deep in the jungle.

The two of them followed the stream upstream. The farther they went, the thicker the vegetation grew, and the terrain began to rise and fall.

"Stop." Ayanokoji suddenly raised his hand.

Horikita halted immediately and warily scanned their surroundings.

"It's not danger." Ayanokoji crouched and pointed at the ground. "Look here."

Several clear footprints marked the soil. They were human footprints.

"They're not ours," Horikita immediately concluded. "They're older, at least from yesterday."

Ayanokoji examined them carefully. They were small, probably left by a girl or a smaller boy. The tread pattern was clear, and the shoes were the school-issued hiking boots.

"One person, light build, walking slowly..." he analyzed. "And their steps are hesitant. They might not be familiar with the wilderness."

A scout from another class?

"Possibly, but a scout wouldn't walk so slowly." Ayanokoji stood up and looked in the direction the footprints led. "This looks more like... someone who got lost."

The two exchanged glances and decided to follow them.

The footprints came and went, but continued all the way to a dense thicket. When Ayanokoji parted the bushes, the scene he saw made him pause.

A girl was leaning against a tree, her face pale and her lips cracked. Her right ankle was visibly swollen, and she couldn't walk.

What surprised Ayanokoji more was that he knew her: Hiyori Shiina from Class B.

In the original story, Hiyori Shiina was quiet and fond of reading. She was physically weak, but had excellent observation and analytical skills. Why was she alone out here? And injured, too?

"Shiina?" Horikita had clearly recognized her as well.

Hiyori raised her head. When she saw the two of them, surprise flashed in her eyes, followed by relief.

"Horikita... Ayanokoji?" Her voice was weak. "Why... are you here?"

"We're looking for a water source." Ayanokoji walked over to her and examined her ankle. "You sprained it? When did it happen?"

"Yesterday... afternoon." Shiina bit her lip. "I got separated from my class... and tried to find my way back, but I stepped wrong."

"You spent the night alone out here?" Horikita frowned.

Shiina nodded, a flicker of fear passing through her eyes.

"Your classmates didn't come looking for you?" Ayanokoji asked. It was strange. Class B was very united under Honami Ichinose. They wouldn't leave one of their classmates behind.

"They... must still be looking," Shiina lowered her head. "But I wandered too far from the main route... And I deliberately didn't leave any obvious marks."

"Why?" Horikita asked, puzzled.

Shiina fell silent for a few seconds before speaking softly. "Because... I didn't want to be a burden to my class."

Her answer left both Ayanokoji and Horikita silent.

Hiyori Shiina was a special case in Class B. She was physically weak and not good at sports or wilderness activities, but she was highly intelligent. In an environment like this uninhabited island, she could indeed be seen as a "burden."

"Your ankle needs treatment." Ayanokoji took a bandage and some anti-inflammatory medicine from his backpack. "It might hurt a little."

He treated the injury with practiced hands and wrapped the ankle securely. Throughout the process, Shiina merely gritted her teeth and didn't utter a sound.

"Thank you..." Shiina said quietly when he'd finished.

"Can you walk?" Horikita asked.

Shiina tried to stand, but her face immediately went pale with pain.

"Looks like you can't." Ayanokoji made his decision. "I'll carry you."

"What?" Shiina and Horikita both looked at him.

"Your ankle will need at least two or three days before you can even manage to walk. We can't leave you here," Ayanokoji said. "Besides, bringing her back with us might help us establish contact with Class B."

"But she's from another class..." Horikita reminded him.

"The rules don't prohibit helping students from other classes," Ayanokoji said. "On the contrary, if we leave her here to fend for herself and someone finds out, it might cost us points."

That convinced Horikita.

So Ayanokoji Kiyotaka carried Hiyori Shiina on his back. She was light, probably weighing around forty kilograms.

"Sorry... for the trouble," Shiina whispered near his ear.

"It's fine."

The three of them started back. With an injured person, their pace slowed considerably.

On the way, Shiina suddenly spoke. "Ayanokoji... Your class drove off Class C's attack yesterday, didn't you?"

Ayanokoji paused. "How do you know?"

"Someone from Class B was watching nearby," Shiina said frankly. "Ichinose pays close attention to what the other classes are doing. She said... Class D has changed."

"Cohesion, initiative... and you." Shiina's voice was soft. "She said you were a variable—a variable who might disrupt the current balance."

Horikita glanced at Ayanokoji, her expression complicated.

"What else did Ichinose say?" Ayanokoji asked.

"She said... if possible, she hoped to work with Class D." Shiina paused. "But not now. Class D hasn't shown enough value yet."

It was a very realistic assessment. But at least Class B was open to the idea.

"What do you think?" Ayanokoji asked in return. "Do you think Class D has value?"

Shiina was silent for a long time, so long that Ayanokoji thought she wouldn't answer.

"Yes." At last, she said softly, "At least... you haven't given up on a 'burden' like me."

Her answer left all three of them silent.

They walked a little farther before Ayanokoji suddenly stopped.

"What is it?" Horikita asked.

"A water source." Ayanokoji looked to the left. "I can hear running water, and... it sounds different from the stream we found earlier."

They left their original route and headed toward the sound. After passing through a patch of woods, they came upon a small waterfall.

The waterfall was only two or three meters high, but its water was clear, forming a small pool below. More importantly, some of the stones beside the pool had been worn smooth—evidence that animals often came here to drink.

"A second water source." Horikita's eyes lit up. "And it's cleaner than the stream."

Ayanokoji set Shiina down and went to inspect the pool. The water was indeed clean enough to drink straightaway.

"Mark the location. We'll go back and get people to collect water," he said.

Just then, the system's notification sounded.

[Ding! The host has discovered the hidden resource point "Small Waterfall" and triggered the hidden quest: Controller of Resources.]

[Quest requirements: Before the exam ends, ensure that no other class gains complete control of this water source.]

[Quest rewards: Receive "Geographical Advantage" points and a special ability based on the degree of control.]

[Note: This water source may become a focal point in future conflicts. Please handle it with care.]

As expected, this water source would become an object of competition.