Favorability 70

The afternoon classes passed without incident.

When the final bell rang, Kanzaki Toru packed his things to leave, only to discover a folded note tucked beneath his notebook. It wasn't Sakura Airi's handwriting—hers was lighter and more delicate; this script was pressed down with force, the strokes carrying a hint of impatience.

"Tomorrow at 2:00 PM, the cafe on the third floor of Keyaki Mall. Please come. There is something I wish to discuss with you. —Horikita Suzune."

Horikita Suzune. The girl who had silenced the entire class on the very first day. She was looking for him.

Kanzaki folded the note and slipped it into his pocket, shouldering his bag as he walked out of the classroom. Instead of heading straight to the dormitory, he took a detour to the library. The school's library was absurdly large, spanning three floors. He wandered between the shelves until he found what he was looking for in the deepest corner: club publications and activity records left behind by previous students, neatly stacked on the bottom shelf and coated in a thin layer of dust.

He crouched down and pulled out a student council work report from the previous year. Flipping through the table of contents, several headings caught his eye: "Special Exam Assistance Records," "Class Point Fluctuation Summary," and "List of Expelled Students."

"Kanzaki-kun."

He closed the file and looked up. Sakura Airi stood on the other side of the shelf, clutching a thick photography book. Her hat brim was pulled low, but those purple eyes were watching him through her lenses.

"Are you looking up information?" she asked. Her voice was soft, but it carried perfectly in the quiet library.

"Just browsing," Kanzaki said, sliding the file back onto the shelf. "What about you?"

Sakura glanced down at the photography book in her hands without answering. Yet, she didn't leave.

The two stood separated by the bookshelf for a moment. The library was silent, save for the occasional sound of turning pages in the distance and the low hum of the air conditioning. The setting sun slanted through the high windows, casting golden beams between the shelves.

"At noon today," Sakura suddenly began, "Kanzaki-kun went out. Sudo-kun was very anxious in the classroom."

"Yeah."

"Then you came back. There were traces of dust on you. But you weren't hurt."

Kanzaki watched her. Her tone was a statement of fact, not an interrogation. She wasn't prying into his whereabouts; she was using her own observations to confirm something.

"Yoshida got into a bit of a conflict with some second-years. I went over to help stall for time. It wasn't a big deal."

Sakura remained silent for a few seconds, then gave a slight nod. The nod was incredibly firm, as if she had confirmed an answer she had already guessed.

Then, she lowered her head and walked deeper into the library, clutching her photography book.

Kanzaki watched her back disappear between the shelves. Just as he was about to look away—

A stir occurred in his mind.

The illustrated guide was turning its pages. Sakura Airi's page remained in its original position, but a new mark had appeared. A faint point of light flickered at the edge of the page, and the numbers shifted.

Favorability: 68 → 70.

Reward Two unlocked.

New information surfaced directly into his consciousness: Favorability 70 reward: Enhanced Observation. Unlocked.

Enhanced Observation.

Kanzaki stood still, feeling the change unfold deep within his consciousness. It wasn't that his eyes had improved; his vision remained the same. But the precision of his perception regarding his surroundings had completed a leap in a split second. Details in his peripheral vision became sharp—a faint crease on the spine of the file on the bottom shelf that he hadn't noticed before; the sound of a girl turning a page at a window seat in the distance, mixed with a faint sigh; a fan blade in the ceiling air vent rotating a quarter-beat slower than the others. These details had been there before, but his brain had filtered them out. Now, the filter had been thinned.

More importantly, he turned his gaze toward the direction Sakura had left. From her stride, the tilt of her shoulders, and the way she held her book, he could discern her current emotional state. It wasn't nervousness or fear, but a rare sense of calm. When she spoke to him at the shelf just now, her heart rate had been much steadier than usual.

In front of him, she was no longer so afraid.

This was 70.

Kanzaki leaned against the shelf, slowly digesting these two abilities. The disguise technique allowed him to hide deeper, while Enhanced Observation allowed him to see more clearly. One light, one dark, perfectly complementary. The rewards from the guide weren't random; they aligned with the development of his relationship with the target. Sakura Airi was skilled at observation, so he used Enhanced Observation to respond to her talent. The disguise technique came from her trust in him—she believed he could protect her secrets, so the guide gave him a more perfect disguise.

The logic held. He just still didn't know why the guide itself existed.

He returned to the shelf, pulled out the work report again, and flipped to the "Class Point Fluctuation Summary" page.

The data was more blunt than he had expected. Last year's Class D started with 1,000 points. After the first special exam, it dropped to 600. After the second, 300 remained. For the third—the column read "Record Terminated," and a small note in the remarks section stated: "Class D remaining headcount below standard; no longer participating in subsequent special exams."

He turned to the next page. Last year, Class D started with forty students. By the third special exam, twenty-eight remained. Twelve students had been expelled. Within a single semester.

He closed the file and returned it to its place.

When he walked out of the library, the sky had already darkened. The streetlights flickered on, and the people on the playground gradually dispersed. Sakura Airi sat on a bench by the field, still clutching her photography book. Her face, beneath the brim of her hat, was tilted slightly upward, watching the distant gray-white wall. The last light of the sunset was fading from the barbed wire atop the wall.

Kanzaki glanced at her from afar but did not walk over.

He opened the guide in his mind; her page glowed quietly. Favorability 70. Next stage requirement 85. The name of Reward Three was still gray, but beneath the gray box was a line of extremely tiny text—

"Trust will be transformed into power during a true crisis."

He closed the guide and turned toward the dormitory building.

Every girl recorded represented a possibility. All he had to do was turn those possibilities into cards in his hand before the crisis arrived.