Starting in class C: not completely defective.

Arc 8 chapter 1: School Camp announcement

On a Thursday morning, shortly after the start of the third semester, several buses traveled in a row down the highway. He buses carried not only first-year students, but second and third-year students as well—the entire school jointly embarking on one big road trip.

The bus that carried us—the first-year class A students—entered a tunnel. My ears were assaulted by the pressure change.

This was the second time I'd ridden a bus since enrolling at this school. No one had explained where we were headed or what we were doing. All we knew was that we had to wear jerseys, and it was strongly recommended we pack several spare jerseys and changes of underwear before we left. This didn't sound like a vacation, though.

Since the bus ride was about three hours or so, everyone had brought along fun items considered acceptable by the school. Cell phones were a given, but people also brought books, playing cards, and snacks and juice. Some had even brought along gaming consoles.

Our seats were designated, with our names written on them, and I was seated next to Ryuuen Kakeru. We'd had an...odd sort of relationship. We were both good friends and business partners.

The atmosphere on the bus was pleasant, but I could tell this wouldn't be a mere field trip. If we'd done this in the middle of winter vacation, I might have held out hope of it being just a fun outing, but the third semester was already underway. It would probably be good for us to anticipate an exam like the one we'd had on the deserted island, just so we could prepare ourselves mentally.

I decided to stare out the window. This was a long tunnel. It'd been two or three minutes since we entered.

Just as I thought that, it began to get brighter. We'd made it through.

Sakagami, who had been waiting for us to emerge from the tunnel, started to move. At the same time, the pain in my ears increased.

"Sorry to interrupt your enthusiasm, but be quiet," he said, addressing the students through a hand-held microphone. "I thought you might like to know where this bus is headed, and also what you'll be doing once we arrive."

"We'll yea, 'course we're curious. We're not going to another deserted island, are we?" Asked Ishizaki.

Sakagami answered quickly. "I see that special exam is still seared into your collective memory. Allow me to give you some peace of mind; we don't hold special exams on that grand a scale very often. Nor are we so cruel as to put you through something like that when it's no longer summer. However, as you can already guess, there is a new special exam ahead. Compared to the island, though, you'll be in significantly better living conditions."

So he said—but I didn't trust him. The island aside, every special exam we'd faced so far had been insanely difficult from an average student's perspective. Hanging over our heads was the ultimate penalty of failing one of these special exams: expulsion.

"Allow me to give you students an overview of this special exam."

Receiving an explanation of how the special exam worked on the bus meant that we could prepare countermeasures, or at least I could prepare countermeasures. We couldn't just get up and walk around while the bus was in motion, but the bus was small enough that everyone could hear you if you spoke, and we could always use our phones to correspond privately with specific people.

"We are taking you to a school camp in the mountains. We will arrive in just under an hour. The less time I have to spend explaining, the more time you'll have to strategise," said Sakagami.

An hour until the exam started, huh? In other words, if it took twenty minutes to explain the rules, we'd have forty minutes left over to plan.

School camp. I'd never heard of it, so I looked it up on my phone.