The Class C List Emerges, but Logical Deduction Hits a Wall

Night wind swept across the deck, and waves crashed against the ship's hull. A cold, hard metallic chill drifted through the air, gradually suppressing the lingering tension from the confrontation. All of Class C fell silent. No one dared contradict Ryuen in public again; they obediently raised their Student Terminals and handed them over one by one for Hiyori Shiina to check.

Shiina stuck to what she had said earlier. She checked only the school's official text messages, never looking through private chats or prying into anyone's personal affairs. Her movements were gentle yet orderly. She neither crossed the line by invading anyone's privacy nor failed to carry out the investigation Ryuen had ordered. The conflict, which could easily have flared up again, was quietly smoothed over.

Mio Ibuki stood to one side with her arms crossed, coldly watching the whole process. The suspicions in her heart only grew stronger. She was convinced that Ryuen and Shiina had coordinated their roles from the start: one playing the villain to exert pressure and establish his authority, the other playing the good cop to ease the tension. By standing up to them head-on, she had walked right into the trap they had laid in advance and earned herself a reputation for being impulsive and stubborn.

The checks proceeded quickly. In little more than ten minutes, Shiina had returned every terminal and swiftly compiled all the valid clues by comparing them against the group-allocation records in her hands. She turned and walked over to Ryuen, then lowered her voice to report quietly, keeping the other group members from hearing and preventing any internal information from leaking prematurely. "Ryuen, I've finished checking. By cross-referencing everyone's original group-allocation notices with the text messages about venue access and movement permissions, I've pinpointed the VIPs connected to Class C in this batch."

A sharp glint flashed in Ryuen's eyes, and a chilly aura immediately gathered around him. He pressed for the key details. "How many? Where are they? Are any of them clustered together?" He was anxious to uncover a concentrated clue that could turn around Class C's recent string of setbacks.

Shiina lifted her eyes, her tone calm and objective, free of speculation as she stated the results. "Four VIPs are connected to Class C. They haven't all been assigned to the same group, either. The system split them up at random, placing them in four entirely different discussion groups. They have no opportunity to coordinate with one another nearby, nor do they share any common activities."

As soon as she finished speaking, the deck's already tense, oppressive atmosphere fell completely silent. Every Class C student froze, confusion and shock written across their faces. None of them had expected the school's exam system to be so devious. Instead of grouping the VIPs by class, it had deliberately scattered them, cutting off the shortcut of working together to investigate and cross-checking one another's information.

Someone murmured in dismay, lamenting that the exam was far more difficult than expected; someone else felt a chill creep through their heart, realizing that Class C alone had no way to identify the targets with any precision.

Ryuen's brows furrowed slightly. The chill in his presence remained, but his voice carried less frustration and more restraint. "Four? And they're all scattered? The school really did plan this well. They obviously don't want us taking the shortcut of investigating our own class. We've spent all this time and haven't found a single useful opening." He rubbed his chin. Frustration and resentment had piled up over the past few days, but he didn't let them spill over. He kept the humiliation of their failure on the Uninhabited Island and the pressure of Class C's points being wiped out buried deep inside. Only the sharpness in his eyes grew more pronounced.

Hiyori Shiina remained calm, refusing to be swept up in the agitation around her. She gently touched the edge of the record book and began to review the situation in a clear, orderly manner. "Ryuen, the more scattered the arrangement, the more it confirms the core principle: this VIP exam was never a simple contest decided by on-the-spot observation and guesses based on intuition. It's a pure game of logic. From the beginning, the school left us no room to take shortcuts through personal connections, confrontations, or private investigations. All the answers are hidden in the underlying logic of the group assignments, movement permissions, and text-message distribution."

She paused and glanced around at the group members, whose expressions varied, then continued her careful deduction. "The four VIPs were deliberately scattered across different groups. That can't be random; there must be a fixed pattern behind it. It could correspond to attendance numbers, discussion-seat numbers, or tiers of academic ability. If we can gather and align the lists of VIPs that each class has identified, then cross-check them for common patterns, we'll most likely be able to figure out the logic behind the whole exam and use it to identify all the remaining VIPs on the ship."

Her deduction made Ryuen's thoughts flow more smoothly. A flicker of understanding crossed his eyes, and he immediately grasped the key point. "You mean forming an alliance across classes and exchanging the VIP records we each have? Working together to deduce the pattern would be a hundred times more efficient than searching blindly on our own or trying to sound people out one by one, when we can't be sure of their abilities?"

"Exactly." Shiina nodded solemnly, then turned to the most difficult obstacle. "But the risk is far too high, and it wouldn't be worth it. The exam rules clearly state that secretly forming an alliance and sharing core information about the VIPs carries a severe penalty if the other side betrays us. It doesn't matter whether the betrayal comes from the leaders who made the agreement or from someone else carrying it out later. Our class would lose a large number of base points. After our previous exam loss, Class C can't afford the consequences. Besides, even if we risk forming an alliance, the other class will probably conceal some of its information rather than hand over a complete list. We'd be risking our future for a reward we can't count on. It simply isn't worth it."

The practical barriers stood right in front of them, blocking the only seemingly perfect shortcut out of their predicament. Ryuen's face darkened. His voice remained calm, but there was an unmistakable pressure behind his words. "Knowing the pattern won't help if we can't risk an alliance. We can't just sit here and wait for another class to beat us to it." He weighed their options coolly, resentment hidden in his eyes, while maintaining his grip on the situation.

Just as the group fell into a deadlock again, with no one able to find a way forward, Shiho Manabe, who had been silent the whole time, stepped forward at the right moment. A sharp glint of calculation flickered in her eyes as she bowed and offered her suggestion. "Ryuen, Shiina, I have a solid lead from before the exam that should give us a precise opening."

Everyone's attention immediately turned to Manabe. Ryuen looked up at her and asked in a low voice, "What lead? Get to the point." He urgently needed a course of action to escape their current dilemma.

Manabe explained, "I suspect Kei Karuizawa from Class D. During summer vacation, she cut in line ahead of our group, and things got very unpleasant between us. That's an open conflict between us. At the previous discussion, when she saw the girls from Class C, she didn't go to her boyfriend Hirata or any of her classmates in Class D for help. Instead, she seemed to gravitate toward the boys from Class A. That makes her a strong VIP suspect."

She didn't go into the details of any plan, offering only a brief proposal. "Ryuen, I plan to take a few Class C girls with me to approach her. We can use our previous conflict as an excuse to strike up a conversation and see if we can get any clues out of her. She's less likely to be suspicious when approached by other girls, and it won't draw too much attention from the school."

At this, the gloom in Ryuen's expression eased slightly, and he immediately nodded in approval. "Fine. Do as you said. Be careful not to make a scene or draw the school's attention. Everyone else, stay here and rest. No one is to go out on their own or approach students from other classes in private. Wait for further instructions." At his command, all of Class C answered and dispersed in orderly ranks. The night wind across the deck remained cold, and a probing approach led by the girls was already quietly taking shape, leaving plenty of room for what came next.