The white dust billowing from the 100-meter dash track had yet to fully settle to the ground when the stadium loudspeakers crackled sharply once more. The cheers of victory from the White Team's camp still lingered in the air, but the school committee allowed not a single student to breathe a sigh of relief. At Advanced Nurturing High School, every second of relaxation was a luxury paid for dearly.
In the center of the field, the school staff moved with efficiency, shifting the starting blocks and beginning to assemble a new track. Cargo nets were stretched low over the sand, narrow wooden beams were installed with precision, and wooden vaulting boxes were aligned to form a line of barricades.
"Attention to all first-year students!" The committee's voice echoed, slicing through the panting breaths of the previous participants. "The second event, the Obstacle Course Race, will commence shortly! This event is included in the Mandatory Event Category. All students, without exception, must take to the track according to their designated heat schedule!"
Beneath the Class 1-B tent, Horikita Suzune stood with an upright posture, her sharp eyes sweeping over the arrangement of obstacles on the field.
"Obstacle Course Race," she murmured softly, turning the page of her notebook. "A combination of a linear speed race and physical agility. This cannot be completed simply by running fast."
"Of course not," replied Koroizumi Seiji, lounging comfortably in his folding chair. He twirled a mineral water bottle in his hand with a constant rhythm. "If absolute speed is king in the 100-meter dash, then this event is the stage for adaptation and balance."
The loudspeaker broadcasted again, detailing the rules that had to be obeyed. "Every participant must navigate four obstacle stations in sequence. First, the Net Crawl; participants must crawl beneath the net without getting entangled. Second, the Balance Beam; walk across the balance beam without falling. If a foot touches the ground, the participant must restart from the beginning of the beam! Third, the Vaulting Box; leap over the wooden box using hand support. And finally, the Sack Race; race using a sack to the finish line!"
The committee's voice suddenly grew heavier and laden with warning. "Special attention to the Physical Violation Clause! Given the high tension of this event, any form of intentional physical contact—pushing, pulling clothes, or tripping other participants while navigating the obstacles—is an absolute violation! Field supervisors will issue an immediate full disqualification. Violators will receive zero points, and the penalty margin will be charged to the faction!"
Hearing that last rule, Kushida Kikyo, standing near Suzune, smirked faintly. "Disqualification due to physical contact, huh? A very friendly rule. Ryuen must absolutely hate it."
"On the contrary," Seiji interjected, his gaze fixed on the Red Team's tent across the field. "For a cunning predator like Ryuen Kakeru, a disqualification rule isn't a prohibition; it's a weapon. He doesn't need to trip us openly. He only needs to create a condition where we 'appear' to initiate physical contact, or force his weak pawns to commit tactical suicide to break our rhythm."
Suzune nodded in understanding, her eyes conveying a high level of vigilance. "Since this is a Mandatory Event Category, our Shadow group—Sotomura-kun, Sakura-san, and those without physical advantages—must run. This is an incredibly vulnerable moment."
"Let them run," Seiji stood up, dusting off his track pants. The smile of an educator who knew exactly what his students were capable of bloomed on his face. "Remember, Suzune. No one ever comes out of the 'Hell Juice' training sessions without acquiring a new survival instinct."
The first through the tenth heats played out brutally.
The heat system, which pitted four runners from different classes simultaneously on a single narrow track, created a highly structured chaos. This was where Ichinose Honami's strategy truly shined. To secure the accumulated points early on, Ichinose deployed the entire athletic echelon of Class 1-A without holding anything back. They charged the Vaulting Box and navigated the Balance Beam with incredible speed, sweeping first place in many of the opening heats.
However, what drew Seiji's attention the most wasn't Class 1-A's aggressiveness, but the sickening movements of Class 1-D.
Ryuen was truly implementing the Zero Point Stamina strategy. The Class D students sent to this track were those who looked the palest, slowest, and least motivated. They intentionally slowed themselves down in the Net Crawl, stumbled in the sack race, or even pretended to lose their balance on the wooden beam to avoid further exhaustion. Ryuen was letting them become dead bait.
"Heat 14! Participants please enter the track!"
Sakura Airi's heart pounded so hard she felt it might leap out of her throat. The bespectacled girl walked toward the starting line with slightly trembling knees. As part of Class 1-B's The Shadow group, she knew her task was not to win a gold medal. Her task was simply to survive, not be a burden, and avoid disqualification.
To her right stood an athletic girl from Class 1-A. To her left, a girl from Class 1-C radiating the calculative aura typical of Sakayanagi's followers. And on the far outside, a girl from Class 1-D staring at Sakura with a cynical glare.
"Don't panic, Airi," whispered Karuizawa Kei from the sidelines, crossing her arms with the haughty flair of a girl-boss. "Just imagine you're being chased by Koroizumi carrying a bottle of that rotten green juice. Move, or you'll be forced to drink it again."
Hearing the words 'green juice,' the hairs on the back of Sakura's neck immediately stood up. The sensory trauma of the extreme bitterness that had tortured her tongue for weeks instantly overrode her social anxiety.
Bang!
The pistol fired!
The four girls shot forward. The Class A girl immediately took a commanding lead, while Sakura was in third place, trailing behind the Class C girl.
They arrived at the first station: the Net Crawl. Sakura dropped her body to the sand, beginning to crawl beneath the entangling cargo net. This was where the terror began. The Class D girl, currently in last place, intentionally veered off her path, approaching Sakura aggressively. The girl from Ryuen's class aimed for the narrow space beside Sakura, intending to bump her arm so Sakura would get caught in the net and lose her rhythm.
It was a gray-area sabotage tactic. If they bumped into each other under the net, it would be difficult for the referee to determine who initiated the physical contact.
However, something extraordinary happened.
To Sakura Airi, the movements of the Class D girl looked... far too slow. For weeks, Sakura had been forced to crawl, roll, and dodge ambushes from Seiji Koroizumi, who moved with the speed of a precision machine. Sakura's muscle instincts had adapted to a high-level physical threat.
As soon as the corner of Sakura's eye caught the aggressive movement from the left, her body responded autonomously. She twisted her hips, lowered her center of gravity half an inch closer to the ground, and executed a side-step maneuver to the right without decreasing her crawling speed in the slightest.
The Class D girl lunged at empty air. Having lost her balance due to her missed attack, the Class D girl's shoulder snagged hard on the cargo net, causing her to cry out in frustration as she became entangled.
Sakura emerged from the net, panting heavily, yet remaining in her lane. She proceeded to the balance beam, stepping with absolute focus, ignoring the cheers of the crowd. At the end of the race, Sakura successfully crossed the finish line in third place, securing 5 pure points for Class 1-B. She incurred no penalties, did not stumble, and successfully executed her task flawlessly.
In the spectator stands, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, who had just finished his own heat, observed the scene with a flat gaze.
I see, Ayanokouji thought. That torturous 'Bounty Tag' training program wasn't merely physical punishment. Koroizumi intentionally instilled muscle memory for passive evasion maneuvers. He knew this event prohibited physical contact, so he trained the weaker group to possess absolute evasion reflexes. Avoiding collisions means avoiding disqualification.
The masterpiece of the White Room glanced toward Seiji, who was jotting something down in his notebook with a relaxed smile. Seiji's existence further solidified Ayanokouji's hypothesis: this young man was no ordinary high school student.
In the White Room, Ayanokouji thought, analyzing the fundamental difference between them, children were forced to evolve into geniuses through sterile despair, torture, and the discarding of defective products.
But this monster... he took the defective products discarded by the school, then forged them into resilient students simply by exploiting their survival instincts through a 'game'.
Ayanokouji turned his face back to the track, feeling a sense of rational satisfaction. The more I observe the results of his tutelage, the more grateful I am to have made the tactical decision to use him as my shield. As long as I hide behind that monster's shadow, I can remain sitting quietly in the middle of the board, enjoy peace, and live my life as an ordinary, average student.
As the heats progressed, the pattern of competition became increasingly crystalized.
At the Vaulting Box station, it was Sotomura Hideo's turn to prove the value of his suffering. Although his body weight was his greatest hindrance in the sprint races, Sotomura utilized his center of gravity when pushing off the top of the wooden box. He planted his hands, allowed the momentum of his large body to swing like a pendulum, and landed safely. Even though he finished in third place, the fact that not a single lower-tier student from Class 1-B received a disqualification or finished in last place (4th place was consistently locked down by Class D's sacrificial pawns) was a tremendous tactical victory.
On the other hand, Sakayanagi Arisu controlled Class 1-C with utmost elegance. Aware that they were in the same faction as Class 1-B, Sakayanagi did not order her class to bleed for first place. She instructed her students to draft—running directly behind the shadow of Class 1-B or 1-A students—securing second or third place with minimal energy expenditure. Sakayanagi swam in the current created by Seiji, reaping the point benefits without having to fight the storm.
"Heat 38! Participants prepare yourselves!"
The tension reached its peak in the final heats. Hirata Yosuke stepped onto the track, representing Class 1-B's The Shield group. His opponent this time was one of Ryuen's hired thugs from Class D: Komiya Kyogo.
From the moment the whistle blew, Komiya wasn't aiming for the finish line. He was aiming for Hirata.
As they both climbed onto the long, narrow wooden Balance Beam, Komiya, in the adjacent lane, intentionally swung his arms too wide, feigning a loss of balance, and threw his body toward Hirata. If Hirata fell, he would have to restart from the beginning, losing crucial points.
However, Hirata was the class's primary shield. He had been trained not to retaliate, but to absorb.
Realizing that physical contact would result in a double disqualification if he responded with a shove, Hirata did exactly what Seiji had taught during the Tug of War simulations. He lowered his knees drastically, shifted his body weight to his heels, and pulled his shoulder back a fraction of a second before Komiya crashed into him.
The collision occurred, but because Hirata's posture was as solid as a rock, the effect rebounded. Komiya slipped off his own wooden beam, landing hard on the sand, while Hirata merely swayed slightly before regaining his balance and running forward.
Tweeeet!
The supervisor's whistle blew shrilly. A red flag was raised. "Participant from Class 1-D, Komiya Kyogo! Disqualification due to physical zone violation!"
Komiya punched the sand in frustration, while Hirata dashed off to finish the race in first place, breaking the chain of Class A's monopoly in this round.
Beneath the Class A tent, Ichinose Honami, holding a stopwatch in her hand, bit her lower lip. Her business calculations were beginning to crack. She had hoped Class A could sweep first place in 80% of the early events, but Class B's The Shield and Vanguard lines, possessing abnormal recovery stamina, continuously stole those golden points.
"They aren't getting tired," whispered Kanzaki Ryuji, standing beside Ichinose, sweat soaking his temples after being forced to run desperately in a previous heat. "Class B is holding back our momentum, while Class D's pawns are intentionally throwing their lives away. If this continues, our pure stamina will be completely drained before the main events even begin."
Ichinose looked straight across the field, directly into the pitch-black eyes of Koroizumi Seiji, who happened to be looking right back at her. The young man raised his can of isotonic drink slightly into the air, a toasting gesture that mocked Ichinose's logical calculations.
He read my entire plan, Ichinose thought, feeling a chill creep down her spine despite the blazing sun. He knew I sold the latter half to Ryuen, so he destroyed my assumptions in the first half. Koroizumi-kun... you really don't let anyone breathe, do you.
All 40 heats of the race finally concluded. Cheers mixed with the roar of mass exhaustion dominated the field. Class 1-A students collapsed, searching for water bottles, their stamina drained far beyond their initial allocations. In another corner, Ryuen Kakeru merely smirked cynically, letting Class A suffer while his main vanguard remained fresh and fit.
The giant digital system in the center of the stadium blinked. An electronic hum signaled the entry of new calculation data from the Obstacle Course Race. The school's algorithm processed the individual points—1st Place received 15 pure points, 2nd Place received 10 points, 3rd Place received 5 points, and 4th Place (as well as disqualifications) received 0 points—then multiplied them by the festival weight of 10, combining them with the previous earnings.
The giant screen displayed the newly accumulated results:
Sports Festival Accumulated Points Scoreboard: Obstacle Course Branch (Overall Total)
WHITE FACTION : 11,300 Points (Absolute Lead)
Class 1-B: 7,250 Points (Additional 3,800 Points)
Class 1-C: 4,050 Points (Additional 2,700 Points)
RED FACTION : 8,700 Points (Trailing Far Behind)
Class 1-A: 6,850 Points (Additional 4,000 Points)
Class 1-D: 1,850 Points (Additional 1,500 Points)
Even though Class 1-A managed to score the highest pure points in the Obstacle Course Race thanks to their early aggression (4,000 points), the defensive solidity of Class 1-B, which secured 3,800 points, prevented the margin gap Ichinose had hoped for. And with Class D's collapse contributing numerous disqualifications, the Red Team sank deeper into a deficit.
"Excellent work," Suzune praised, noting the scores into her notebook. "Sakura and Sotomura's adaptation capacity exceeded my pessimistic predictions. We managed to maintain dominance on paper."
Kushida Kikyo fanned her face with a small fan, glancing at Seiji with a smirk of satisfaction. "Class A is already panting, and Ryuen's trash pawns have been slaughtered. I think this first half officially belongs to us."
However, Koroizumi Seiji did not join in the smiling. He stared at the scoreboard with an incredibly flat expression, then slowly reached into his trouser pocket.
"Do not be lulled by the numbers on the screen, Kushida-san," Seiji said, his voice flowing calmly yet carrying the heavy weight of a premonition.
He turned his body, looking at the grassy field in the middle of the running track, which was currently being painted with thick white lines by the school staff, forming a square formation designated for direct combat arenas.
"The abstract agility calculation is over. The time for playing by clean rules has run out," Seiji narrowed his eyes, observing the shadows of Ryuen, Albert, and Ishizaki beginning to rise from their bench with muscles still brimming with energy. "The tyrant hiding behind Ichinose's shield has finally come out of his cage. After this... the real battlefield will only just begin to showcase how brutally this school can drain the remainder of your energy and physical limits."
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