Full-Class Mobilization

Chabashira finished handing out the stack of forms, and Class D stayed quiet for less than ten seconds before erupting.

"Why do we have to write down our personal points too?"

"And what positions we can take on? Aren't we not even on the island yet?"

"What the hell counts as wilderness experience? Who's ever been to a place like that?"

Questions came one after another.

The voices piled over each other.

Compared to the briefing in the auditorium, this was when it truly felt like it had landed on their heads.

Back then, they had only heard about "rules."

But what they held now were names, numbers, and responsibilities.

Sudo flipped through two pages of the form, and his face darkened.

"Who designed this crap? They've seriously got something wrong with their head."

Ike Kanji could not help speaking up as well.

"Teacher, once we fill this out, it's not going to become something everyone in class can see, right?"

It was a practical question.

And it immediately dragged out everyone's concerns.

Several forms were flipped back and forth until their corners were creased from being gripped too tightly.

Some people covered the "personal points" section, while others pressed a hand over the line labeled "health condition."

"The school only requires you to submit the results." Chabashira stood beside the podium, her gaze as cold as the back of a blade. "How your class collects those results is your own business."

"You can choose to muddle through."

"Or you can choose to die together even faster in the exam."

After saying that, she offered no further explanation.

Chabashira closed her folder of handouts and did not pick up the chalk again.

The faint commotion below the podium had not even died down when she turned and left the classroom.

Once she was gone, the classroom became even more chaotic.

Horikita was the first to stand, her voice cold and blunt.

"If you're done arguing, fill it out."

The effect of those words was practically nonexistent.

Someone in the back clicked their tongue.

Someone in the front frowned.

Not everyone dared confront her directly.

But no one was truly willing to obey just like that.

Some gripped their forms without moving, while others held their pens against their desks, the tips never touching the paper.

Gu Heng watched the scene, lightly tapping the edge of his form twice with his fingers.

After Horikita's words fell, a pen cap was still rolling across a desk in the back.

No one wrote the first stroke.

Hirata stood as well, softening his tone first.

"Everyone, don't rush." He said, "Let's separate the issues one by one. Otherwise, we'll just keep arguing."

The voices in the back lowered a little at those words.

Someone lowered the hand they had just raised back onto the desk.

But it was not enough.

The forms on the desks remained blank.

Beneath the first line for their names, no one had written anything else.

"Don't fill anything out yet." Gu Heng finally spoke.

The classroom quieted considerably.

Many people looked up at him.

Horikita turned her head toward him too.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean that if everyone fills out this form by themselves right now, there's an eighty-percent chance we'll end up with a pile of useless answers." Gu Heng set down his pen, rose to his feet, and walked to the front. "People afraid of losing face will write less. People afraid of being assigned dirty work will make things up. People who want to slack off will leave it blank. People trying to show off will exaggerate themselves to death."

"What we submit in the end won't be information."

"It'll be garbage."

The two people in the back who had been about to respond opened their mouths, then swallowed their words.

Gu Heng did not give them long to process it. He picked up a piece of chalk and wrote several lines on the blackboard.

Frontline physical work

Midline transport

Logistics and supplies

Records and accounting

Night watch

Loss control and reserve

There were not many words on the blackboard.

Yet the instant they appeared, many faces changed.

Because this was not about "everyone doing their best together."

They were starting to assign roles.

"No way, right?" Yamauchi was the first to cry out. "We're dividing people up like this already?"

"Don't start thinking about it as dividing people." Gu Heng turned to look at him. "I'm dividing up the work."

"You'd better understand something: we're not going to the island for a group photo."

"People without a function will not become useful just because they feel better about themselves."

Yamauchi's face immediately stiffened.

Ike Kanji was even more direct.

"Then people like us, with average stamina and no wilderness experience, are we just automatically classified as 'dead weight'?"

This time, Gu Heng did not answer immediately.

He swept his gaze around the classroom before speaking.

"I don't have a category called 'dead weight.'" He said, "There's only what you can handle and what you'd better stay away from."

"People with average stamina can carry things, guard supplies, run errands, and save the people at the front some energy."

"People who are afraid of dirty work, afraid of the night, afraid of hunger, afraid of exhaustion, yet refuse to say what they can do—those are the real dead weight."

Once those words were out, the classroom quieted even faster.

Ike Kanji loosened his grip on the corner of his form slightly.

Yamauchi did not immediately start shouting back either.

Hirata picked it up at once.

"What Gu Heng means is that everyone should give us the real situation first." He said, "It isn't to put anyone on the spot. It's so we don't go into the exam with bad information."

"If someone has a physical issue, or there are things they truly are not suited to do, it's far better to say so now than force yourself to endure it after we get to the island."

Horikita stood beside them without interrupting.

She pressed the form in her hand down slightly and did not urge them again.

"One more thing." Gu Heng added. "Personal points, health conditions, and things like that will not be read out publicly."

"Only give them to me, Horikita, and Hirata."

"Afterward, the class will only see the compiled results, not your personal details."

The moment those words fell, the tightest layer of wariness in the room finally eased.

Someone drew a circle beside the "personal points" section, then pulled the form closer to their chest.

"So how do we start?" Hirata asked.

"No big group meeting yet," Gu Heng said. "We'll do it one line at a time."

"Add another line to the back of your form."

"The one thing you do best."

"And the one thing you absolutely should not force yourself to do."

"Write both."

That was simpler than filling out the entire form.

And easier to speak about.

No one had to lay their entire self bare from the start.

They only had to offer one strength and one weakness first.

"I'll go first," Hirata said.

He picked up his pen with barely any hesitation.

"I can handle coordination and keeping records of night shifts."

"What I'm least suited for is direct conflict and high-intensity trailblazing."

As soon as he wrote those words, several people in the front looked down at their own forms, and someone had already picked up a pen.

Hirata pushed his form slightly to the side without covering it.

The people beside him, who had originally been clutching their pens without moving, finally pressed their pen tips to the paper.

"I'll handle the first round of summaries." Yukimura, seated around the middle-front of the room, suddenly pushed up his glasses. His tone was not warm, but it was steady. "I'm better suited than most people for things like numbers and supply inventories."

Gu Heng glanced at him and nodded.

"Alright. You can set up the accounting side first."

Once there was a first person.

There would be a second.

Ike Kanji scratched his head and finally spoke in a low voice.

"My stamina's decent, so I can carry things and run errands."

"But I don't want to stand watch all night. When I stay up late, my head gets foggy easily."

Gu Heng made a note.

"Fine."

Yamauchi muttered in the back for a long while, but eventually wrote something down honestly too.

"I'm not fast, and my stamina's average too."

"But I'm good at getting familiar with people, calling people over, passing messages, and handling scattered errands."

The moment he said that, even Horikita raised her brows slightly.

Someone in the back shook with suppressed laughter, but the sound was quickly lowered.

Yamauchi's face reddened a little, yet he did not pull back his form.

That line of writing was crooked, but at least it was no longer blank.

The atmosphere in the classroom began changing bit by bit.

It was not that everyone suddenly became cooperative.

Rather, blank forms began to be filled one after another.

Some wrote very slowly.

Some wrote something, then crossed out half a sentence.

But at least the pens were moving.

"I'll take the boys' side first." Hirata looked toward the group that had gradually begun moving, his voice natural and relaxed.

Then, from the other side, a voice that was sweet in exactly the right measure followed.

"I'll handle the girls' side."

Kushida raised her hand, smiling in that way that made people relax so easily.

"Some physical conditions and things people don't want to disclose probably would make them uncomfortable if they had to say them in front of the whole class."

"I'll help collect the first round and organize it for you afterward. How does that sound?"

Several girls visibly relaxed.

Even those who had remained silent until now shifted a little closer to Kushida.

"Sure."

"That's much more convenient."

"I knew Kushida would be easier to talk to about this kind of thing..."

The moment those words were spoken, someone among the girls' side of the classroom, which had still been tense, soon shifted her chair half an inch toward Kushida.

Horikita's brow furrowed slightly.

She watched as those girls handed their forms toward Kushida, her fingers tightening around her own form.

She could suppress the noise.

But the people who had been covering the corners of their forms just now had not handed them to her.

Gu Heng did not state his position immediately.

He merely watched Kushida move between the seats, bend down to listen to people, her tone, smile, and pauses all perfectly measured.

One girl spoke in a very low voice at first.

Kushida did not rush her. She merely shifted her notebook slightly to the side, blocking the view of the people looking over from the back.

Only then did the girl continue.

Gu Heng watched that scene as the chalk in his hand slowly came to a stop.

Something flickered softly at the edge of his vision.

That transparent thing floated up and settled above Kushida's head.

Collect 92

Filter 88

Conceal 90

Gu Heng's gaze darkened slightly.

Too high.

When she took the first form, her fingertips tightened around it, and her eyes shone a little brighter than before.

That was not the look of someone merely helping out.

It was more like she had suddenly been handed a key that could unlock countless doors.

By the end of the last class that afternoon, Class D's classroom no longer resembled the place it had been that morning.

The desks and chairs had been moved aside to create several temporary aisles.

People in the front were checking numbers.

People in the middle were matching physical abilities to positions.

In the back, some had even started arguing over who was suited for the first round of night watch.

They were still arguing.

But it was no longer the kind of argument born from disorder.

They had begun putting their effort toward the same thing.

Chalk dust in front of the blackboard had been scattered beneath countless footsteps.

Forms piled up beside the podium, and for the first time, Class D was not huddling alone in their seats, waiting for someone else to make arrangements.

Hirata watched people crossing the classroom to hand in forms and let out a soft breath.

"It's actually moving forward."

"It's only just started moving," Gu Heng said.

"Even that is already remarkable," Hirata said quietly. "At least now, it looks like they're no longer each filling out their own forms and fearing their own fears."

Gu Heng did not argue.

The clearest change from today's round was not how many more forms had appeared on the desks.

It was that people in the back had already started taking their forms to Hirata with questions, while people in the front were beginning to fill gaps in the assignments listed on the blackboard.

"Gu Heng."

Kushida came over at that moment with a small stack of forms in her arms, their corners pressed neatly flat against her arm.

She lowered her voice.

"I've collected the first round from the girls' side, but there are a few issues I may need to discuss with you privately later."

Gu Heng took the stack, his gaze lingering on her face for half a second.

"Fine."

"Then I'll come find you later."

Kushida drew the remaining two forms in her hands closer to her chest, the corners of her eyes still curved in a smile.

"Some people say they're fine, but they actually have plenty of concerns."

The instant she turned away, the brightest stat above her head ticked upward slightly.

Collect 95

As she carried the stack of forms back, even her steps seemed a little lighter than before.

Gu Heng watched her return to the girls' side and listened as she continued chatting with the others in a cheerful tone.

Another girl handed her a form.

Before doing so, the girl glanced around, and Kushida held her notebook out to the side, blocking the gazes coming from the back rows for her.

When the form landed in Kushida's palm, the girl's shoulders visibly relaxed.

Soon, someone else edged over from nearby and added a few quiet words.

Kushida lowered her head to listen, her pen lightly moving across her notebook.

The chalk in Gu Heng's hand stopped at the edge of the blackboard. He did not continue writing.