Chapter 188: You Came Just in Time

The mood inside the Student Council Office wasn't exactly grave.

Chris turned his head and glanced at Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.

The guy sat ramrod straight, the very picture of an outsider quietly waiting for the next item on the agenda. Nothing in his face gave away what he was actually calculating.

Chris pulled his gaze back and turned to Tachibana Akane and Nagumo Miyabi behind the desk, picking the thread back up.

"About Alien Mefilas… we only found out about him because Kouenji used the Mirror World to come warn us, right when we were getting ready to deal with Godzilla."

"Assuming the Black Sphere Controller wasn't malfunctioning, and working it out by the timeline,"

"that thing was most likely dropped into the exam world partway through."

Tachibana Akane looked up, the tip of her pen pausing over her notes. "So you're saying a single sweep of the map at the start isn't safe anymore. We have to keep part of our attention on the Black Sphere's radar Controller at all times?"

"We can't use the monster data detected at the very beginning as an absolute safety standard."

Chris nodded.

Nagumo Miyabi leaned back in his chair, fingertips tapping lightly on the armrest, entirely unbothered. "Outside of worlds like Godzilla's, where it's clear from the start that there's only one monster, most survival-type exams already demand that you watch the radar constantly."

"That doesn't make the initial intel useless, though. It just proves that the longer we stay in a mission world and the further we stretch the front line, the easier it is for something uncontrollable to happen."

Tachibana Akane kept writing in her notebook, asking without looking up, "Speaking of which, the time limit on your exam yesterday… were both the test beforehand and the main round after it set at twenty-four hours?"

"Mm." Chris made a sound of agreement, then laid it out. "Both were a full day. I'd guess the presiding god matched the time limit to how hard the situation is to solve."

"When we went up against the Darkness Devil, the presiding god only gave us three hours. This time, Godzilla was worth fewer points than the Darkness Devil, and yet we got far more room to breathe."

"Most likely because that exam field had no item specifically designed to weaken the monster. We had to find the solution ourselves."

Tachibana Akane and Nagumo Miyabi both pressed their lips together, thinking it over.

Right then, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, who had been silent the whole time, spoke up.

"The extra monsters are strong. Strong enough that they might even outclass the exam's original monster."

"But… alongside that enormous risk, there's an opportunity in it too."

Ayanokōji's voice wasn't loud, yet it pulled every eye in the room to him. "When we were leaving, Mefilas handed us a single-use trial version of the [Beta Box]."

He paused. "Honestly, going by the profile of Mefilas laid out on the Black Sphere Controller…"

"I don't believe an alien that treacherous was being generous. I suspect he planted some kind of contingency inside that item before he handed it over."

Ayanokōji looked at Chris. "Except Ryuen told me that after we got back to the presiding god's space, Chris scanned it with the system-issued Item Illustrated Guide, and the result showed no defect and no hidden flaw."

"So… what exactly are you getting at?" Chris raised an eyebrow, playing dumb.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka put his idea out there without hedging.

"Maybe we could try bringing native items back out of the mission worlds."

"Even if the Black Sphere and the presiding god aren't kind enough to strip the hidden flaws and side effects out of that 'contraband' for us,"

"at the end of the day these are zero-cost items. No matter how you run the numbers, we don't lose. Right?"

"And with the Black Sphere Space's rules as a safety net… even if an item carries uncontrollable risk, the moment it's judged hazardous the school forces it into capsule form. In the school's everyday areas, at least, nothing can go wrong."

Something about the way he talked his way through the loopholes struck Tachibana Akane as off, and it left her faintly uneasy.

Nagumo Miyabi, on the other hand, had already sat up straight, giving Ayanokoji Kiyotaka a look of open approval.

"Working the loopholes intelligently is a viable road, no question."

"Assuming, of course, that we have the ability and the channels to secure those high-value items in another world on short notice."

Ayanokōji inclined his head slightly, accepting the compliment.

The groundwork was laid, so he rode the momentum into the question he'd prepared.

"Ryuen and Hirata mentioned that the upper years are sitting on a fairly deep item stock now."

"You even walked out of the Chimera Ant instance with the 'Nen power' the Chimera Ants used."

"I've been wondering whether we could use that to work out a 'Nen ability' system humans are actually capable of learning."

Nagumo Miyabi answered with a cold little laugh that committed to nothing.

"Ayanokoji, you're giving these people far too much credit."

"As of right now, barely anyone in this school has properly learned Ripple Breathing, and that's the lowest bar we have."

"And we're supposed to reverse-engineer an entire Nen ability system on our own? That's daydreaming."

"Besides, we already have the 'Ki' cultivation manual the Darkness Devil dropped. Why waste time chasing something distant when the answer's already in hand?"

As he spoke, Nagumo Miyabi turned his gaze to Chris. "I assume that's also why Chris and the others didn't trade for the [Navy Type Six] in the shop when the exam settled?"

"Between gear that's immediate combat power and a technique with an enormous learning cost, the choice really isn't hard."

"With Ripple and Ki already laid down as a foundation, that's the threshold. Anyone who wants to go a step further has to pay something for it. Nobody's obligated to chew their food and spoon it into their mouths."

Chris agreed wholeheartedly. "That's exactly the logic of it."

"And since the Navy Type Six is a martial technique you can upgrade by burning points in the presiding god's space, spreading it around is far too difficult. Pound for pound it's less practical than the Stone Mask."

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka let it go without argument.

He'd only brought it up in passing anyway.

His real purpose in coming today was simple. Every topic so far had been groundwork for the intel he was about to drop.

He let a moment pass, then spoke as though it had just occurred to him.

"During yesterday's exam, I saw a lot of familiar 'White House' personnel turn up in the exam field."

"I don't know the specific reason they got pulled in, but after watching them quietly, I found the thing they all share… every one of them had practiced the Ripple technique that came out of the Black Sphere."

"Oh? The White House, is it…"

Nagumo Miyabi murmured it under his breath.

In truth, he'd already gotten the broad strokes of the mass White House intrusion from Honami Ichinose that morning.

What he hadn't expected was how much heavier the entanglements behind it ran compared to the surface.

Tachibana Akane thought for a moment and followed the logic out loud. "Then, Ayanokoji… after you processed your withdrawal and left the school, and the Black Sphere still selected you a second time — is this part of the reason for that too?"

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka nodded. "It's possible."

Chris picked up the thread at the right moment, tossing out what Tokinari Tsukishiro had done the previous night.

"Director Tsukishiro sought us out specifically last night and brought this exact thing up."

"All I can say is that as a technique that extends life and preserves youth, Ripple is simply too tempting to the important people on the outside."

"In the exams to come, Intruders dragged in by force like the White House crowd… definitely won't be a small minority."

Far from finding it troublesome, Nagumo Miyabi smiled.

"For us, that isn't entirely a bad thing."

"The Special Exams these days generally throw a high-score monster at us, but only one or two people ever actually snatch the kill points. Most of us come away empty-handed."

"With enough Intruders in play… as long as we can keep them alive, the survivor bonus at final settlement would hand everyone in the main round a decent floor of points to upgrade with."

Nagumo Miyabi stared coldly at the desktop. "Otherwise, once the free gear stops covering for us, there's no real difference between a regular official examinee and a test participant. And judging by the presiding god's intent, these so-called intrusion instances won't show up in every single exam either."

Chris nodded at that and offered a reminder.

"If you've got points to spare, I'd suggest buying a few [Blank Card Box]es and [Phantom Mask]s. They're useful whether you're saving your own skin or someone else's."

"Though the Blank Card Box requires you to carry an object that works as a reflecting medium, and the Phantom Mask corrupts you if you wear it too long, plus there's a cap on how many you use — ignore that and you can end up with serious problems."

"But set against what they actually do in a real fight… those side effects are trivial."

Nagumo Miyabi smiled, unruffled. "After facing Muzan, side effects on that scale are something I'll naturally keep an eye on."

"Speaking of which…" Nagumo Miyabi leaned forward suddenly, looking straight at Chris. "There's something else I'm curious about. When you opened the exam early yesterday to go rescue people, I heard you were all doing special training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber at the time…"

"Inside a space sealed off from the real world like that, how exactly does the Black Sphere's presiding god judge the flow of time for you?"

At that key question, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's brow rose a fraction and he listened closely.

Chris made a show of considering it, then gave an answer that could be read either way.

"Can't say for certain. All I can tell you is that from where we stood, the passage of time seemed to be measured against the presiding god Black Sphere's 'observational horizon'."

"Which means… the presiding god isn't monitoring everything? Isn't omniscient?" Tachibana Akane seized on the blind spot at once. "With the Time Chamber and reality both existing, there's always one place sitting in a blind zone they can't watch?"

Nagumo Miyabi waved a hand, unconcerned.

"Senpai, whether it's watching or not doesn't actually mean anything for us."

"Rather than fixating on that, we'd be better off worrying about our target in the next exam."

"Last exam we were more or less forced into farming points with a nuke… Next time there's no guarantee we get prey as easy as Muzan waiting for us."

Tachibana Akane went quiet for a moment. She knew Nagumo Miyabi was right, and all she could manage was a soft sigh.

The exchange of information had run its course.

Chris traded a glance with Ayanokoji Kiyotaka and rose slowly to his feet.

"That's about everything I came to say. As for the rest — that you can pay a premium at the special Mystery Merchant for past stock, and so on — I imagine Ichinose will put out a single announcement in the group files, so I won't keep taking up your time here."

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka considered it, nodded in acknowledgment, and did not follow Chris out.

True, now that he'd stated in front of Nagumo Miyabi and the others that an outsider who practiced Ripple would most likely be turned into an exam Intruder,

in a certain sense the task Tokinari Tsukishiro had handed him could be considered complete.

But even if he'd said nothing, it would have cost Tokinari Tsukishiro very little to come and negotiate with Nagumo Miyabi in person.

Obviously, what Tokinari Tsukishiro and Atsuomi Ayanokōji really wanted from him was a way to "circumvent" the forced mechanism that turned Ripple practitioners into Intruders.

And if he wanted to dig into that exemption quickly, he really would need help from Nagumo Miyabi's group.

After all, by the Black Sphere's rotation, the next regular exam should fall to the upper years.

If he waited for the upper-years' exam to finish, waited for his own turn to come around, and only then started moving at a leisurely pace…

the politicians standing behind the White House would run out of patience and start making trouble.

Not that Ayanokōji cared in the slightest.

But there was no need to tear off the mask just yet.

Elsewhere.

After leaving the Student Council Office, Chris didn't head straight back to Class D. He turned instead toward the second-year floor.

Mainly to touch base with Kiryuuin Fuka.

Before long, Tachibana Akane would compile the detailed summary he and Ichinose had put together and route it through student council channels into Kiryuuin Fuka's hands.

Even so, Chris had personally promised her that they'd stand as equals in an "intel exchange".

The courtesy he owed her wasn't something to skimp on.

Isn't that how dealing with people usually works…

Whether your reasoning is correct isn't really what matters most. Getting the attitude you show the other person right — that's what matters.

All the more so with a free-spirited senior like Kiryuuin, who yielded to a soft touch and never to a hard one.

Turning that over, Chris soon arrived outside the Class 2-B classroom.

And walked straight into something unexpected…

All right, fine.

As the presiding god behind the curtain, the one who oversaw the whole board with information flowing only one way, there was nothing in this school that was genuinely "unexpected" in his eyes.

The fact that Arisu Sakayanagi, once the exam ended, hadn't gone to rest but had gone to the director's office to talk with her father, for instance — he knew every detail of it.

And now, because her father Sakayanagi Seimori had also practiced Ripple Breathing, under the current mechanism he counted as an "Intruder" who could be dragged into an exam field as expendable material at any moment.

So the ever-lofty Miss Sakayanagi had, for once, set the pride buried in her aside and come looking for Kiryuuin Fuka herself, hoping to strike some sort of under-the-table deal.

They'd had contact before, and Kiryuuin Fuka was herself the daughter of a great house.

She had no personal interest in the whole political-family routine, but she did respect the maneuvering of the current Prime Minister, Onijima.

And the Sakayanagi family was a core ally of the Onijima faction.

Which meant Sakayanagi and Kiryuuin could be said to belong to the same camp.

By rights, so long as Arisu Sakayanagi was willing to put up enough chips, the deal shouldn't have been hard to close.

Unfortunately…

Kiryuuin Fuka's goal in life had always been to advance through school without leaning on a single family connection, and once she came of age, to live a life with no ties whatsoever to the Kiryuuin name and standing — unnoticed in society, unbound, steady and peaceful.

And so…

"As an examinee, I obviously have a duty to protect Intruders inside the exam field. Even if you hadn't come to me, I'd step in if I actually ran into one."

"But I have no interest in letting something like this drag me into the political brawls happening outside."

At the floor-to-ceiling window in the corridor, Kiryuuin Fuka folded her arms.

"If you're looking for a partner who fits your interests perfectly, never mind the ambitious Nagumo Miyabi — even that utilitarian Kiriyama would suit you far better than I would."

Kiryuuin refused Arisu Sakayanagi to her face, without a shred of softening.

She knew who Arisu Sakayanagi was, of course, and it hadn't been difficult to guess the real reason she'd come.

Faced with that, Arisu Sakayanagi knit her lovely brows in a small, troubled frown.

Then she smoothed the flicker of frustration away just as quickly and smiled with a touch of apology.

"I was taking a little too much for granted."

"I assumed without thinking that you had shouldered your family's responsibilities as well, Senpai."

"Now that I see it… you'd rather be a free bird, Senpai? Unwilling to be tied down by anything of this world?"

Kiryuuin Fuka laughed lightly, letting it slide.

"Freedom, so called… that's an idealist's notion. Absolute freedom in the true sense has never existed."

"The moment you're standing on the board, some cause or some thing is going to bind you. Nobody escapes it."

Kiryuuin looked out at the sky beyond the window, her eyes deep. "So what I want is nothing more than that small 'limited freedom' inside the range of my own ability."

"Taking part in the Black Sphere exams to stay alive is something I have no choice about. But outside of those exams, I have no wish to be disturbed by tedious headaches of yours…"

Kiryuuin Fuka's voice broke off mid-sentence.

Her wine-red eyes shifted, catching Chris as he strolled closer.

Arisu Sakayanagi noticed the slight turn of that gaze, raised a brow, and followed it without thinking.

Both of them were now staring straight at him.

Chris stopped where he was and raised a hand in greeting.

"Yo. Am I… showing up at a bad time?"

"No." Arisu Sakayanagi turned to face him, a smile in her eyes.

"Your timing is perfect."

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