Chapter 146: Habitual Sneak Eater, Kushida's Night Call (Two-in-One 5k) (Patreon)

When every first-year received the text message from the school, everyone understood that the second Special Exam was well and truly over.

Whatever the reason, and whatever had happened along the way, the outcome was already settled.

Today was the second day of the exam, or really the first, since the names of the [VIP]s hadn't been announced until 8 a.m. this morning.

Class A had won in a landslide, so the remaining three days of the exam naturally ceased to exist.

Around ten that night, all the first-years received another notice from the school.

[Because the Special Exam has ended early, the return trip originally scheduled for August 15 will be adjusted.]

[The new schedule is as follows.]

[August 12: All first-year students will take their final rest aboard the cruise ship.]

[August 13: The cruise ship will return to Tokyo Bay, and all students will take school buses back to the school.]

They only had one last day aboard the ship, but for everyone that was actually good news.

After all, from the 1st until now, two exams announced back to back had left everyone with tangled feelings. They had thought they were in for a luxury cruise and a proper summer vacation.

Instead, it had started with seven days of survival on an uninhabited island. Then, after three days of rest on the cruise ship, the [VIP] exam began, with everyone second-guessing one another.

Two Special Exams in a row had dulled the appetite of many for enjoying the cruise. Better to get back to school early, where at least they wouldn't have to worry about being away from familiar surroundings.

On the other hand, now that the VIP exam was over, students in all four classes had a rough estimate of their own class evaluation points, since the gains and deductions had been announced after the exams.

First came Class A, which had won big in both exams. Across the two, they had earned close to 800 class evaluation points, and a large sum of Private Points was still to be credited.

In September, the start of the second term, the average payout per person would exceed 300,000 points. For a closed-off school like Advanced Nurturing High School, that was a dream of an opening, even more outrageous than when they had first enrolled in April.

300,000 points meant a huge improvement in quality of life. Whether they bought goods or ate expensive food, they could indulge to their heart's content.

Next was Class B. Their results across the two exams were decent: they had earned points on the uninhabited island and lost none in the VIP exam.

A quick calculation put their class evaluation points at around 50, which meant that in September each student would receive roughly 50,000. Not bad.

Even having to repay 2,000,000 points to Class A wouldn't hurt their quality of life much. They would just have to spend a little more carefully.

As for the two exams' biggest losers, that was naturally Class C and Class D.

Class C had scored 0 in the first exam on the uninhabited island and lost 150 in the second. Their class evaluation points were estimated at just over 100.

Converted into Private Points, that was a little over 10,000 a month. Every purchase would have to be strictly controlled, or they'd run out of points to spend.

Then there was last-place Class D. They had scored on the uninhabited island, but after subtracting the 150 lost in this exam, their class evaluation points would fall back into the double digits.

In other words, in September, at the start of the second term, the class wouldn't even receive 10,000 Private Points a month.

That doomed everyone to live at the very bottom of the school, as before. With under 10,000 points a month, they'd have to eat the free set meals at the cafeteria all the time, and forget about buying drinks.

After all, the cheapest drink in a vending machine was around 150 points. With a total budget of 10,000, a few too many bottles would bankrupt you.

That was the class landscape now.

Hikaru Naruse ran through the results once more in his head, then switched off his phone and went back to his room to shower.

Tomorrow he'd have one last day on the cruise ship, and the day after, they'd head back to school.

Looking back on this summer trip, he had certainly done a lot. Besides helping Class A win, he had gotten considerably closer to two of the girls in Class A.

Asuka Shiraishi and Ryoko Nishikawa had always been classmates and friends who could talk to each other at school. But after the VIP exam, they had clearly become warmer toward Hikaru Naruse.

This was probably the legendary "bond of comrades-in-arms."

A little past eleven that night, Hikaru Naruse turned off his phone, leaned back on his bed, and got ready to drift off to sleep.

As the hours crept toward the small hours, the inside of the cruise ship gradually quieted down, and most of the shops and service facilities closed.

The shops on the cruise ship didn't run around the clock to begin with. Even meals were staggered by time slot, with breakfast, lunch and dinner each having its own window and notice board.

At night, the staff needed their rest too.

After midnight, only a few 24-hour convenience stores and a coffee shop that advertised 24-hour service stayed open, offering simple hot food and drinks for passengers who needed to buy something at night.

But even though everyone had gone to rest, the ship was no shopping street, and to look after passengers who got up at night, most corridors and living areas kept their lights on.

That was for safety, too.