With the Dragon Group exam over, Hikigaya became idle and no longer had to attend discussions. The next morning, he sat in his usual spot at the coffee shop to pass the time. As for the other groups' exams, that wasn't for him to worry about.
Before long, Horikita Suzune arrived at the coffee shop and sat directly across from him. "Was it you who submitted the answer to the school?"
"It's just an exam, no need to be in such a rush." Hikigaya was startled. Did this girl really need to be this frantic?
"I don't have time for small talk," Horikita said coldly. "Was it you?"
This person was truly impatient. She was probably planning to ask everyone one by one, or perhaps she had already asked Kanzaki and the others.
"It was me." Hikigaya nodded. There was no reason to hide it.
"What?" Horikita leaned forward slightly, her voice tense. "Who did you write?"
"Your class's Kushida Kikyou." Hikigaya shook his head helplessly. He felt that despite her cold exterior, her personality was still like a little girl's.
"You've got to be kidding me." Horikita stood up instantly, shocked to the extreme. "Wh... Why would you... guess it was her?"
Seriously? Did this girl actually think she had acted well? Not to brag, but when it came to human observation, Hikigaya had quite a bit of experience.
"Looking at your reaction, I must have guessed right, Horikita."
Hikigaya stood up with a bit of smugness. "You probably haven't played Werewolf before."
"Tsk." Seeing that her poor performance had been exposed, Horikita clicked her tongue in self-reproach. Since the Dragon Group exam was over, there was no point thinking about it. She frowned and said dissatisfactorily, "I've heard of it, but what's the point of playing such useless games? They don't improve you. What does that have to do with you guessing Kushida?"
"Heh." Since she was still putting on an arrogant, self-righteous face, Hikigaya cleared his throat smugly. "Listen well, the so-called Werewolf game..."
"Get to the point!"
"Ah? Oh..."
Clearly, not everyone was like Ichinose, who would quietly listen to him ramble about things they weren't interested in.
"Actually, it was obvious." Hikigaya lost interest and looked away, explaining indifferently. "You shifted the topic to Class A just to hide Kushida's identity as the VIP, didn't you?"
"Impossible!" Horikita straightened her back, her brow furrowed in disbelief. "Given the situation then, there was nothing wrong with me shifting the topic to Class A. Besides, the VIP could have indeed been in Class A, right?"
"Wrong," Hikigaya leaned back in his chair, disinterested. "With your obsession with Class A, if you really weren't sure who the VIP was, you would have acted like Ryuuen and attacked everyone present relentlessly."
"Instead of settling down quietly after shifting the topic. Precisely because you knew who the VIP was, both your actions and your speech were slightly distorted. Finding that the VIP was in Class D was an easy feat."
Humph. It was fine to underestimate him—Hikigaya knew his own worth—but underestimating Werewolf was unforgivable.
Hearing his words, Horikita sat back down blankly, her shoulders hunched as she lowered her head in silence.
"Hey," after a while, Hikigaya noticed something was wrong. "Are you okay?" Her desire to win—no, judging by the uninhabited island, her sense of responsibility was a bit too strong.
"So," Horikita clenched her fists, "the biggest flaw was actually me..."
"Well, uh, how should I put it." Seeing a beautiful girl look so dejected in front of him made it hard to keep attacking her. Hikigaya couldn't bring himself to do it and offered a half-hearted consolation. "Not really. Hirata and Kushida's speeches weren't much better than yours."
In his view, while Horikita, Kushida, and Hirata's acting was decent—at least their faces didn't turn red when they spoke—since everyone is raised to be a "good child who doesn't lie," many people playing Werewolf for the first time get flushed faces and shaking hands. Lying is a necessary standard for becoming an adult. Their performance was actually quite good, but their "arguments" were trash in Hikigaya's eyes.
Of course, Ryuuen's "attack everything" style wasn't much better. His identity as a "villager" (non-VIP) was seen through instantly.
"Is that supposed to be an apology?" Horikita's face darkened. Who consoles someone like that? It was like saying she was only at a Class D level.
"I intended it to be." Hikigaya gave a dry laugh. This person's personality was terrible.
"Whatever." Horikita took a deep breath, her voice turning cold. "A loss is a loss. I'll just win it back next time. But next time, I won't let you off so easily."
"Oh, really?" Sensing Horikita's sharp gaze, Hikigaya quickly looked away. "You're overestimating me. I just have some insight into human observation. In other areas, I'm not worth mentioning. Please let me go." He didn't want to be targeted by such a self-righteous woman.
"Is that so? I'll be the judge of that," Horikita said flatly. "However, knowing that Class D and Class B are in a cooperative relationship, you still attacked us without hesitation. Don't you feel any shame?"
"I don't know." Hikigaya looked away. "I'm not clear on the specific details of the cooperation anyway. Ichinose agreed to it." If you have a problem, go talk to Ichinose.
"I see." Horikita's expression became complicated. "Even though it's called a cooperation, it's only a cooperation in name. Indeed, we never discussed a treaty not to attack each other."
Clearly, the cooperation between the two classes was more like a verbal "gentleman's agreement." They would help if they could, but they wouldn't hold back in exams. Horikita seemed to find it natural that Ichinose had agreed.
"Anyway, Hikigaya, I've noted this debt."
"Wait, hold on..." Before he could finish, Horikita pushed off the table and turned to leave the coffee shop. Her style was certainly efficient—ask and leave.
Hikigaya shook his head helplessly. Afterward, as expected, Ryuuen and Katsuragi also sought him out for the same reason as Horikita. Hikigaya responded to them all. There was nothing to hide, though he didn't tell them the VIP's identity. Every VIP identity uncovered now increased the chance of finding the fundamental "selection rule." He naturally wouldn't do anything to harm the class.
As for what Ichinose and the others would do, Hikigaya thought for a while and realized he didn't care much. Winning would be best. If they couldn't win, he would still work toward his 20 million personal points.
August 14th. The final day of the exam.
Hikigaya lay on his bed playing a tile-matching game (Match-3), waiting for the school to send the exam results.
"Kanzaki, there's no need to be so nervous," Shibata said from his bed, trying to console him.
"You know what happened just now," Kanzaki shook his head grimly. "It's impossible to feel at ease."
At 9:00 PM, out of the remaining ten groups, seven had submitted their answers to the school almost simultaneously. Such an anomaly was indeed unsettling.
"Only three groups didn't submit answers," Kanzaki said, shaking his head. "Clearly, some class has found the method the school uses to select VIPs. If the Dragon Group is as Hikigaya guessed and the VIP was Kushida Kikyou, then the classes that submitted answers are likely the intact Class C and one of the others."
"Waa..." Watanabe said helplessly. "I don't even want to hear it. I don't want them to win. If I had to pick one, I'd rather Class C win."
The facts were before them, and the group could only choose to accept it. However, Hikigaya couldn't understand something. According to Ichinose and the others, to find the VIP selection rule, you'd need to know the VIPs of at least two classes. Clearly, two classes had collaborated. But with only three groups left, it suggested a single class acting alone; otherwise, they wouldn't kill their own allies. Neither Katsuragi, Horikita, nor Ryuuen were people who could be fooled by word games.
Unless... someone betrayed their class! And this person must have a high status in the class to know the identities of the other VIPs.
Hikigaya felt a bit excited. What were the other classes doing? In-fighting? This was too entertaining. But he wasn't that interested—as long as it wasn't someone from Class B betraying them, it wouldn't be funny.
Hikigaya thought for a moment. It seemed unlikely that Class A had another traitor. Compared to the uninhabited island, Katsuragi's command was clearly distorted and constrained—this was likely one of Sakayanagi's goals. Therefore, Hikigaya leaned toward the idea that even Katsuragi himself didn't know Class A's VIPs, which would allow the blame to be pinned on Sakayanagi's faction. If Class A really had a traitor, and three VIPs were discovered at once, do you take Katsuragi for a fool? It was obviously the Sakayanagi faction's doing. The other students wouldn't agree with it, giving Katsuragi evidence to blame them. Sakayanagi, who was willing to cause internal strife to take down Katsuragi, probably wasn't stupid enough to play such a bad move, or she wouldn't gain Class A's approval.
Therefore, he ruled out a Class A traitor. It also didn't seem likely to be Class C. Under Ryuuen's dictatorial rule, traitors are normal, but it would be hard for others to learn all the VIP information.
If three people leaked at once, do you take Ryuuen for a fool?
It also seemed unlikely to be Class D. Since Class D was already in last place, selling out the class offered no benefit to Class D—unless they were traded an amount of personal points too tempting to refuse.
Or, perhaps they were just a psychopath.
Therefore, Class D was also ruled out.
What the heck? After thinking for a while, he couldn't come up with anything.
Hikigaya clicked through the next level of his game.
If he had to choose one, he leaned toward someone selling out the class for a large amount of personal points, with D and C being the most likely candidates.
He'd just wait for the final results.
"However," Watanabe frowned, "if they knew the VIP selection rules long ago, why wait until now?"
"To guard against us, of course," Kanzaki said, shaking his head. "They were afraid we three classes would unite to find the rules, so they dragged it out to the last moment to give us no time to think."
Well, the opponents weren't idiots. They wouldn't leave such an obvious loophole for them to exploit.
Soon, it approached midnight.
All four received the school's email simultaneously.
Rat Group—Due to a traitor's correct answer, Result 3.
Pig Group—Due to a traitor's correct answer, Result 3.
...
Hikigaya was too lazy to look at them all and clicked directly on Result 5.