First Discussion

The first discussion session began soon enough.

Everyone arrived at the designated meeting room on time. Anyone even slightly clever could tell that the Benefactor Exam tested thinking ability. In other words, it was not a test of teamwork. Individuals could think through problems and solve them with their own wisdom to reach the correct final answer: identifying the Benefactor.

The Benefactor was chosen by the school, but the list was by no means random. Even each group had been arranged with the school's considerations in mind. Ryuuen, Horikita Suzune, Ichinose Honami, and Ayanokoji were all thinking about how to uncover that pattern. Once they found it, they would practically have mastered the exam.

Finding the pattern was certainly important, but that did not mean group discussions were meaningless. Identifying the Benefactor through discussion was also a path to the right answer. It was just far too inefficient. This exam also tested the students' ways of thinking and breadth of vision. Before they uncovered the pattern, group discussions were necessary.

To find the pattern, they first needed to identify several Benefactors, then use them to deduce the others.

Figuring out the Benefactor from their own class would not be difficult, but confirming the pattern required knowing at least one Benefactor from another class.

When Ryuuen entered the meeting room, Katsuragi from Class A was already sitting on the sofa with his eyes closed, resting.

"Here so early? Thinking about how to break the deadlock?" Ryuuen and Katsuragi could be considered acquainted, so there was no need to pretend they were strangers.

"We have our own strategy. Ryuuen, you should worry about your own class first." Katsuragi was as stiff as ever.

Although Katsuragi looked rather rigid, Ryuuen liked the bald man. He had ability, but Ryuuen found him rather simple-minded.

"Don't want to work with me again?" Ryuuen crossed one leg over the other, his tone frivolous.

Mentioning cooperation was the last thing he should have done. Katsuragi's face darkened the moment it came up. Although their previous deal had been immensely profitable for Katsuragi personally, his class's interests had suffered.

In their previous deal, Ryuuen had paid Katsuragi two million Personal Points, while every student in Class C would pay Class A twenty thousand Personal Points per month afterward. All Katsuragi had needed to do was place fourth in the Uninhabited Island Exam.

The benefits Ryuuen offered were so great that Katsuragi had decided to cooperate after weighing his options.

However, Katsuragi only learned afterward that Ryuuen had also struck a deal with Sakayanagi—or rather, with Kamuro, Sakayanagi's representative. That idiot had signed another contract with Ryuuen without knowing anything about the terms of Katsuragi's deal with him.

Twice as much—four million points, plus forty thousand Personal Points per student every month. How was that any different from selling half the class to Ryuuen? If Sakayanagi Arisu had been on the ship, she naturally would never have signed such a foolish contract of servitude. But Kamuro had signed it. As Sakayanagi Arisu's representative, and on behalf of the Sakayanagi faction, she had signed that contract. Both Katsuragi and Sakayanagi wondered whether Kamuro was a spy Ryuuen had planted.

But she clearly was not. Kamuro merely had leverage held over her by Sakayanagi Arisu. As for anything Sakayanagi Arisu ordered her to do, she simply did it. She did not care about the consequences, nor whether she had done anything wrong along the way.

In the end, Ryuuen traded the contract he had signed with Kamuro for the one Katsuragi held. It looked as though Ryuuen had taken a loss, but he had not, because the contract with Kamuro came with conditions.

After the exchange, Ryuuen no longer needed to pay Katsuragi a single Point. As long as Katsuragi held that contract, his position within the class was guaranteed to some extent. After all, if he stepped down, Class A would have to pay an enormous amount of points.

In the end, Class A happily took fourth place in the Uninhabited Island Exam and gained nothing but a safeguard. That mattered greatly to Katsuragi personally, but it brought no benefit to the class. It even intensified the conflict between the Sakayanagi faction and the Katsuragi faction.

There had ultimately been only one winner of the Uninhabited Island Exam: Ryuuen.

That was why contracts had to be signed personally. Back when Ryuuen was at the company, he had signed every contract himself, no matter how large or small. This counted as a lesson Ryuuen had taught Sakayanagi Arisu from afar, back on campus.

"I don't like plotting with a starving tiger," Katsuragi said tactfully.

"Ha ha ha." Ryuuen laughed wildly.

Horikita Suzune had no idea what they were talking about and looked rather blank as she sat to the side.

"Now that everyone is here, let's begin the discussion," Kanzaki Ryuuji from Class B said. However, Ryuuen and Katsuragi merely glanced at him before dismissing him entirely.

The atmosphere became extraordinarily awkward, because after that clown Kanzaki Ryuuji spoke, nobody paid him any attention.

The leaders of three classes were present. When was it his turn, a mere Class B second-in-command, to speak? Just as Kanzaki Ryuuji himself began to feel awkward and fell silent, Ryuuen said, "Let's discuss something. Sitting here doing nothing is boring. Suzune, what do you think? Let me hear it."

"Don't call me Suzune!" Horikita frowned, but she did not waste any more time. She stated her thoughts. "The best outcome appears to be Outcome One. We simply all need to answer correctly and identify the Benefactor. That harms none of us."

"Naive. No harm is the greatest harm." Ryuuen directly rejected Horikita's idea, making Class C's position clear as well. They refused to pursue Outcome One.

"What about Class A? Katsuragi, you won't support reaching Outcome One either, will you?" Ryuuen continued.

After a moment of silence, Katsuragi answered Ryuuen. "Class A will not participate in any discussions for the time being."

"Total silence. Looks like you want to pursue Outcome Two with the lowest possible risk, Katsuragi." Horikita immediately saw through Class A's strategy.

"It really suits your style, Katsuragi. You like hiding in your shell that much? This defensive strategy is really boring." Ryuuen mocked Katsuragi from the side.

But Katsuragi remained unmoved. He truly intended not to say another word from then on.

"Then it seems today's discussion will lead nowhere." Ryuuen checked his phone. There were only five minutes left before the discussion ended.

As though he had suddenly remembered that Class B members were in the group, Ryuuen tilted his head and asked Kanzaki Ryuuji, "What's Class B's position?"

He was not asking Kanzaki Ryuuji personally, but Class B as a whole. This was only the first discussion, so Kanzaki Ryuuji naturally had not received any instructions from Ichinose Honami yet. "I don't know."

Kanzaki Ryuuji answered quite bluntly.

"Useless."

It was not that Ryuuen mocked everyone he met. He was simply subtly reminding Kanzaki Ryuuji to know his place.

In truth, Kanzaki Ryuuji and Horikita Suzune held similar positions in this conversation. Neither could represent their class's stance.

As Ichinose's deputy, Kanzaki Ryuuji naturally did not have that authority. Horikita Suzune was Ayanokoji's chosen representative, and Class D had not truly unified either. The outcome Horikita wanted might not be accepted by the other students in her class, so she could not represent her class either.

The reason Ryuuen had asked Horikita first was actually because he wanted to see what she personally thought. He wanted to see whether she had grown after the Uninhabited Island Exam. Clearly, she had not.

Of course, he could not rule out the possibility that Horikita was hiding her abilities, but given her personality, that possibility was slim.

When Ryuuen later asked Katsuragi for his opinion again, he naturally had not truly wanted to hear anything useful from him. Ryuuen had known long ago what strategy Katsuragi would choose. He wanted to use Horikita to indirectly pass that information to Ayanokoji and test Ayanokoji's stance. He believed Horikita would receive Ayanokoji's guidance after returning this time.

As for asking Kanzaki Ryuuji in the end, that had merely been a whim. Ryuuen disliked him. He had felt that way from their first meeting, because Kanzaki Ryuuji gave Ryuuen a strangely familiar feeling. He resembled a pathetic sycophant from Ryuuen's previous life.

Ryuuen naturally knew it was wrong to impose that inexplicable disgust on Kanzaki Ryuuji, but so what?

He followed his heart. If he liked someone, he liked them. If he disliked someone, he disliked them. He was not Kushida Kikyo; he did not need to maintain friendly relations with everyone. Put another way, Kanzaki Ryuuji had not earned Ryuuen's respect.

At his core, Ryuuen was just like Kouenji: arrogantly proud to the extreme. He merely had less dignity and more arrogance.

Dragon Group's first discussion ended amid Ryuuen's insults, and Kanzaki Ryuuji did not even offer a single retort. That made Ryuuen look down on him even more. Thinking from Kanzaki Ryuuji's perspective, he truly had nothing he could refute. The other group members were also happy to watch someone provoke Ryuuen. Unfortunately, Kanzaki Ryuuji had enough sense to know there was no benefit in provoking Ryuuen, so he ultimately chose to keep quiet.

The discussions afterward were even more boring, and the other groups were not making much progress either.

The only noteworthy situation was in Rabbit Group. Through Ibuki's description, Ryuuen gained a general understanding of that group.