Storm Warning

At 6:00 AM on the third day of the uninhabited island, the satellite weather map refreshed automatically. Shiina Hiyori was the first to see the update. She sat on the edge of her cot, the cold light of the terminal screen reflecting off her expressionless face, her light chestnut hair still loose and draped over her shoulders. On the screen, the weather map, previously marked as "sunny turning to cloudy," had been cut in two by a newly formed low-pressure trough. The trough was moving from the southwest toward the northeast, expected to pass through South Coast Area B around 9:00 PM tonight, accompanied by instantaneous high winds and sustained heavy rain. Below the map, the school had attached a note in red text: "Camps may adjust task priorities based on weather changes. All outdoor tasks remain valid within the deadline, scoring weights remain unchanged, and equipment damage within the group is to be borne by each group individually."

"Borne individually." The meaning of these two words was clear—the school would not delay tasks due to weather, nor would it provide replacements for equipment damaged by the storm. If the solar still was overturned or the filter element was clogged with silt and the task remained unfinished, it was their own points that would be deducted.

"Move all outdoor tasks to the morning." Kanzaki Toru put down his terminal, his gaze sweeping over every member of the group. "The weather map shows the low-pressure trough will begin affecting the island's south coast after 6:00 PM today, with instantaneous wind speeds expected to reach force seven. We must complete all outdoor work before 12:00 PM; the afternoon will be used to reinforce the camp and organize data. If there are questions, ask now; if not, get to your stations."

No one asked any questions. Ishizaki pulled a waterproof tarp from his backpack and began attaching securing ropes to the still and the folding water buckets. Hamaguchi sealed the remaining water filter elements into a waterproof bag. Nomura spread out the paper map, using a red pen to renumber the outdoor coordinates that needed to be measured urgently. Morishita packed the communication equipment into a waterproof shell. Shiina clipped the clause from the Shared Pool rules regarding "equipment damage borne by the group" and posted it on the outside of the supply box. The six members each occupied a corner of the camp, their movements dense and silent.

At 7:30 AM, the sky over South Coast Area B still held the pale remnants of the previous night's sea fog, the sunlight filtered by high-altitude thin clouds into a uniform milky white. Ishizaki crouched beside the still, reinforcing the last wind-resistant rope, while Morishita stood nearby with a record board, counting the filter element inventory one by one. The distance between the two was exactly the width of an outstretched arm, allowing them to pass tools without having to look up; there was no longer a need to deliberately turn away, nor a need to deliberately watch. Hamaguchi was at the cliff observation point, re-verifying the slope with a measuring wheel, while Nomura marked alternative emergency evacuation routes in the rear, checking the error between the contour lines on the map and the actual terrain meter by meter.

Morishita finished checking the list at 8:00 AM—three filter elements, two boxes of waterproof matches, one folding water bucket, the tourniquet and disinfectant tablets in the first-aid kit remained unopened, and the dry rations were divided into six bags for six people. She recorded the list into a spreadsheet and sent it to the group channel. When she looked up, she happened to see Ishizaki taking his personal pack of emergency biscuits out of his backpack's side pocket. He placed the biscuits on the pile of communal supplies—just placed them there, without saying a word. This was the second time—the first was on the evening of the landing day, after the first batch of supplies from the Shared Pool was unlocked, when he had lined up his biscuit label alongside the others. He had been hesitant then. This time, he simply put the biscuits down and went back to pulling the wind-resistant ropes.

At 9:00 AM, Kanzaki Toru finished summarizing the data for all of today's outdoor tasks. Every indicator for the water quality re-inspection met the standards, and the error rate for the cliff mapping coordinates was far below the upper limit set by the school. He pressed the submit button, and an unexpected prompt box popped up on the terminal screen: "Current collaboration score: A. The Old System Shared Pool weight bonus has reached the first stage limit. Unlocked content: Group Peer Review Immunity (Basic). This permission allows the entire group to unconditionally pass one resource allocation in any subsequent task without undergoing school score review. Can only be used once. Valid until the end of this exam."

He read the prompt word for word. Ishizaki, crouching beside the still, looked up, still clutching the end of the wind-resistant rope he had just tied. Hamaguchi put down the water quality log, his pen hovering in mid-air. Group Peer Review Immunity—this frozen clause of the Old System, which had not been officially activated during the cross-class group era of the last semester, had now been pushed past the activation threshold by the "allocation reasons" they had collectively filled out over the past few days. And during that submission, Ishizaki had hesitated over whether to put his own biscuits into the communal supply pile.

Morishita added a new page to the Shared Pool terms binder: "Timing for the use of the permission is not yet determined. Must be approved by all to be enabled. No individual proposals, no early invocation." She screwed the cap onto her fountain pen; her tone remained indifferent, but the ink of those words in her notebook was pressed with more force than usual. She looked up at Ishizaki—the name she had read in Manabe's group chat a few weeks ago was now sitting beside the solar still, winding the wind-resistant rope into uniform coils, each loop neat and tidy.

Ishizaki did not notice her gaze. He hooked the rope onto the anchor, took half a bottle of leftover sports drink from his backpack, and placed it on the folding table. "Leftover from last night, less than two hundred milliliters. If anyone gets thirsty while reinforcing the camp this afternoon, help yourselves." Then he pushed the door open and went out to continue patrolling the surrounding drainage ditches.

"Leftover from last night." It wasn't an allocation, not a gift, just a note left on the bottle without a recipient. Hamaguchi picked it up and shook it; the drink sloshed in a shallow arc at the bottom of the bottle, and he then silently placed the sports drink into the communal supply area. There was no "sports drink" category in the Shared Pool's classification labels, but that pale liquid sat between all the filter elements and emergency biscuits, and no one moved it until the storm arrived in the afternoon.

Just past noon, the leading edge of the low-pressure trough touched the island. In less than an hour, the wind rose from a breeze to a gale; the bushes were pressed almost flat against the ground, and the rust on the tin roof was lifted by the wind, dancing in the air mixed with shredded leaves. The thin mountain spring on the back slope was covered by a fallen dead tree, and the water quality instantly turned turbid.

Ishizaki was the first to rush into the rain, jamming a folding shovel into the base of the dead tree to pry loose the rotten roots. Hamaguchi followed closely, holding onto the stones at the edge of the water intake to prevent mud from pouring into the filter elements. When the two of them worked together to move the dead tree, several small gullies had already been washed out around the spring by the downpour, but the drainage ditches they had dug in advance played their part—the muddy water was quickly diverted along the pre-set channels, and the core water intake area remained basically clear. Inside the house, Morishita held the waterproof communication device, updating the storm dynamics and school instructions in real-time. Nomura pressed down hard on the paper map to prevent the wind from blowing it away. Shiina packed all the paper copies of the Old System terms into a waterproof bag, then stood by the door, using her body to block the rain pouring in through the door cracks. Kanzaki Toru coordinated the group's signals, reporting real-time equipment status and personnel safety confirmation to the school during lulls in the wind.

At 6:00 PM, the center of the storm moved to the sea southwest of the island, and the wind on the south coast slowly subsided. The white light of the lighthouse pierced through the dissipating rain curtain and swept across the tin roof right on time. The solar still outside the tin house was intact, and every wind-resistant rope remained tightly tied to the anchor stakes. The turbidity of the water intake gradually returned to normal under the filtration of the filter elements. Ishizaki crouched beside the spring to test the water quality for the third time; the test strip showed that all indicators had stabilized to a drinkable standard. He stood up and was about to return to the house when he saw an empty bird's nest that had been blown from its nest by the gale, half-submerged in the mud under the tin house's drainpipe. He used his shovel to lift the nest and placed it on the branch of a bush on higher ground on the back slope, examined it for a moment, and tucked a few clean, dry leaves inside. Then he carried his shovel back into the house. This action did not appear in anyone's log.

Inside the tin house, the six of them sat around the solar desk lamp. Nomura spread out the paper map again, using a red pen to cross out the sections of the emergency evacuation route destroyed by the storm, and drew a detour line next to it. The supply bucket had been refilled, the dry rations were divided into six portions for individual consumption, and Hamaguchi turned to a new page in his log: "Storm passed, group safety confirmed. Water intake damage is minor, still is undamaged. Suggest re-examining the cliff mapping point tomorrow."

Kanzaki Toru pressed the confirm button. The last submission message of the day contained only four words: "All personnel safe." The system pop-up lit up: Current collaboration score A, Shared Pool weight stable. There was a second line in the postscript: "Independent observer Ryuen Kakeru has submitted his first observation report. The comments section is blank. The data portion is consistent with the data submitted by this group."

The members lay back on their cots one after another. Ishizaki lay down, mud and sweat still mixed on his face and arms. He did not fall asleep immediately, but listened quietly to the tin roof rattling gently in the weakening wind, a coil of wind-resistant rope for tomorrow resting by his pillow. The white light of the lighthouse outside swept past every ten seconds, and the mountain spring on the back slope, once pressed by the dead tree, continued to flow at its original rate, silently pouring into the water intake they maintained together.