"Um, I..."
Kamuro Masumi took half a step back, her face a masterclass in desperate self-preservation.
"I was just passing by. I literally just happened to be walking past — I didn't see anything. Not a single thing."
As she said it, her gaze drifted toward the flower bed beside the path, and she began angling herself for a clean getaway.
"Boring."
Ryuuen Kakeru couldn't be bothered to waste another second on this. He let out a short, unreadable grunt, shoved both hands into his pockets, and walked away without a backward glance — not even pausing to squeeze a parting jab at Sakayanagi.
Chris, meanwhile, looked down at the girl leaning against him.
He considered it for a moment — then, with the decisive energy of someone dropping a hot potato, he neatly extracted his arm and stepped back to a socially appropriate distance.
"Don't get the wrong idea. We're not close."
"We just happened to go through the same exam together. Sakayanagi-san has difficulty walking, so I gave her a hand out of basic human decency. That's all."
Without his support, Sakayanagi Arisu swayed.
She didn't fall — but the sudden absence of something to lean on sent a visible flicker of surprise across that perpetually composed face of hers.
...He just pushed me away?
She steadied herself and looked at the empty space beside her, genuinely — if quietly — bewildered.
It wasn't arrogance talking.
As one of the two poles of Class A's leadership, she had grown accustomed to a world that orbited around her — a world of adoration, reverence, and careful, cautious handling, as though she were something precious and fragile.
To be used and then set aside. To be dropped the moment she was no longer convenient, like someone who couldn't get away fast enough.
This was, genuinely, a first.
"A special... exam?"
Kamuro Masumi blinked, her gaze sliding quietly back and forth between the two of them.
Is there really an exam that requires you to hold each other like that?
"Ahaha..."
Sakayanagi Arisu, having composed herself, finally rejoined the conversation.
She showed no embarrassment at having been rebuffed. She simply smoothed a strand of hair back into place, shot Chris a mildly exasperated look, and turned toward Kamuro.
"That's right. A rather memorable exam."
"Though for someone like you, Kamuro-san — I imagine it's exactly the kind of exam you'd spend the rest of your life hoping you never have to take."
"Ha?"
Kamuro Masumi stared back, completely lost.
But something in the way Sakayanagi said it — smiling, soft-voiced, and yet leaving a trail of ice down the spine — made her instincts kick in before her brain did. Her shoulders pulled in slightly.
"R-right, well, I won't keep you — I'll be going now!"
"Since we've run into each other, there's really nothing to be done about it."
Sakayanagi Arisu had no intention of letting her leave. With the most natural motion in the world, she reached out and looped her arm through Kamuro's free hand — the one not holding a bag.
"My third 'leg' seems to have wandered off. I hope you don't mind being a temporary substitute, Kamuro-san."
"Eh? But—"
"Good night, Chris-kun~"
She didn't give Kamuro a chance to object. Sakayanagi turned toward Chris with a bright smile and a small wave.
"You have absolutely no chivalry whatsoever — but tonight..."
"I'll thank you for your hospitality all the same."
The two of them walked away together. As their figures grew smaller in the distance, Chris could just barely make out the faint sound of Kamuro Masumi's quiet, disgruntled complaints — and Sakayanagi's low, unhurried pressure in response.
The expression on Chris's face slowly settled back into blankness.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the school-issued smartphone — custom-built for Advanced Nurturing High School — and opened a split screen showing Kushida Kikyo's and Ichinose Honami's shared location interfaces.
Say what you want about this place — this was one of those things you simply had to experience firsthand.
Add someone as a contact, and you could see their real-time location. No approval required from the other person.
Sure, Chris could have just hacked directly into anyone's device through GANTZ, but...
That wasn't the point, was it?
This was a completely different kind of violation. A normalized, institutional one — actively cultivating exactly the kind of toxic social atmosphere that made real trust impossible. Not great for school morale at all.
Right now, Kushida Kikyo's red dot sat calmly in the direction of the dormitories.
The other dot — Ichinose Honami's — was still drifting around the academic building area.
"Still trying to reach the outside..."
Unfortunate. But in order to create the kind of desperate, cornered pressure that made survival the only option, Chris had already reached an understanding with the higher-ups — a firm one.
On this sealed island that was Advanced Nurturing High School, not a single piece of information would get out unless he permitted it. Not even a fly.
"Honestly, going straight to the authorities really is the rational thing to do, when you think about it."
"It's just that in a horror movie, that's usually how you end up as the first casualty — too naive, too eager to do the right thing..."
Chris darkened the screen.
Ichinose's fear was completely unnecessary, in the end.
This game — the Black Sphere and everything wrapped around it — looked brutal on the surface. But at its core, it was nothing more than something he'd put together to kill time.
He knew himself well enough to be honest about it. He was a transmigrator, yes — but he had no ambition to rule the world, and he was certainly no sadist.
If anything, he was the type who got bored fast and moved on even faster.
There was a good chance that before too long, once the daily refresh threw something more interesting his way, he'd simply toss all of this aside without a second thought.
When that day came, a quick press of the Dictator's Button or a dose of Liar 800 would wrap everything up cleanly, once and for all.
This is the confidence that comes from a daily-refresh system that never confiscates your items!
"But..."
Chris stopped walking. He tilted his head back and looked up at the ink-black sky.
After gaining GANTZ administrator access and linking to this world's data, he had found a bug.
The anomalies in this world weren't ancient. They had begun appearing, gradually, roughly one month ago.
And no — the blame for Parasytes and Ghouls showing up couldn't be laid at Chris's feet.
He'd only been in this world for two or three weeks. He'd even had to use the Devil's Passport just to wrangle himself a spot in the school's enrollment roster.
So what was this, then?
A Reiki awakening? A dimensional invasion? A collision of worlds?
Chris didn't know. GANTZ hadn't given him an answer either.
But the feeling — the steady, quiet certainty that this world was becoming less and less safe — sat uneasily in his chest all the same.
Who knew what would crawl out of the cracks tomorrow.
An Angel of Annihilation capable of destroying the world? The Anti-Spiral, coming to purge the universe of life?
"Therefore..."
"Until the world completely falls apart, this game still serves a purpose."
"Using these elites as a test to gauge how deep the water runs — and along the way, raising a few reliable heroes as insurance. That's not asking too much, is it?"
After all.
It's not like I want to put you through this.
It's this chaotic world that brought this upon you.
...
The next morning.
Chris returned to the classroom after an all-night psychic training session.
He hadn't even made it to his seat before a faint citrus fragrance drifted over.
"Um... good morning, Chris-kun."
Kushida Kikyo turned toward him, dropping her voice to a volume only the two of them could catch.
"Did your points come in?"
Chris glanced at her, then pulled out his phone and idly swiped through the screen. He shook his head.
"Figured as much..."
Kushida bit her lower lip lightly. Unlike the boys around them who were already making noise, she kept herself composed.
Her eyes moved, considering:
"The whole class got nothing. We were told at enrollment that a hundred thousand points would be distributed on the first of each month."
"But given what that exam mentioned last night... it seems like the so-called spending points are fundamentally tied to class evaluations, doesn't it?"
She let out a half-joking sigh:
"Hey, Chris-kun. If it really is tied to S-Points — doesn't that mean everyone's living expenses from now on might be riding entirely on the two of us?"
"Who knows," Chris said, noncommittal.
"Speculating in the dark isn't going to help. Might as well wait for our teacher to show up and ask her directly. This affects everyone's livelihood — she doesn't have a reason to hide it."
"That's true~"
Kushida didn't press further.
But in the seat beside them, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka — who had been staring quietly out the window — tilted his head almost imperceptibly and let his gaze drift over the two of them.
Just yesterday, Chris had been, in the most literal sense of the word, invisible in this class. And while Kushida was the type to be warm and welcoming to everyone, toward someone on the fringes like him, it had only ever been polite, surface-level small talk.
But today, something had shifted.
The angle at which Kushida leaned in when she initiated the conversation. The easy, almost lazy indifference in Chris's responses.
That atmosphere between them...
Strange.
'S-Points?' Some kind of code?
The curiosity registered. But it wasn't enough to make him abandon his own rules of engagement.
Ayanokoji pulled his gaze back to the blackboard and returned to staring at nothing.
Then —
Click. Click.
The sound of high heels on granite tile, approaching from the hallway.
Chabashira Sae walked in, lesson plan tucked under her arm, expression as flat and unreadable as always.
"Teacher!"
Ikebata Kanji, who had clearly been holding this in for a while, shot his hand up and blurted it out:
"Our points didn't come in! Aren't they supposed to be sent out on the first of every month? Did the system glitch or something?"
"Yeah, yeah! I'm basically broke for food!"
Chabashira Sae surveyed the classroom descending into noisy chaos, and the corners of her mouth pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"You can stop waiting."
"This month's points have already been distributed."
"What?! Distributed?! My balance is literally zero!"
"That is precisely what I came to address." Chabashira continued, her voice carrying cleanly over the noise. "Have you all forgotten what I told you at enrollment? This school operates on a single principle: merit rules."
"Your class performance, evaluations — and yes, your daily tardiness, early departures, and the phones you were on during my lectures — all of it factors into how many points are distributed each month."
"After a full month of assessment..."
She turned to the blackboard and wrote a single, enormous number in chalk.
0.
Then she turned back, crossed her arms, and looked out at the sea of pale, stricken faces.
"The points you started with — you've deducted them all yourselves."
"One month. That's all it took." She let out a quiet, contemptuous exhale. "Truly worthy of Class D's reputation."
The classroom, which had been buzzing with energy moments ago, plummeted into a silence so cold it felt physical.
Chabashira tapped the blackboard again.
"However."
"Given that this is the first time this situation has arisen since the school's founding, the administration has decided to give you defective students one chance to turn things around."
"Tonight, there will be a Special Exam."
A Special Exam.
Hearing those words, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's eyebrow lifted — just slightly.
"Each class will be allowed to send exactly one participant."
"The score that participant earns will be added directly to the class evaluation at a one-to-ten ratio."
"And most importantly — because this is a first occurrence, the points earned tonight will be counted toward last month's evaluation."
"Which means — one point translates to one thousand points for each of you!"
The words had barely landed before Class D erupted.
They could earn points?
Points that converted directly into money?
"Seriously, Teacher?!" Sudou Ken shot to his feet. "So just by showing up to this exam, we can actually get paid?"
"That's correct." Chabashira gave a single nod. "On the condition that you manage to score anything at all."
"So then..."
She let her gaze sweep across the room, and then she threw the question open to all of them — this crowd of students with hunger practically gleaming in their eyes:
"Tonight — who wants to volunteer?"
— End of Chapter —
Note ① — Dictator's Button: A button designed for the future dictator. Press it, and anyone who opposes you simply disappears — or rather, is erased as though they never existed to begin with. In practice, it was designed to show the dictator the true face of absolute loneliness, as a lesson in reflection. The effects on people can be reversed.
Note ② — Liar 800: A drink that causes everything you say afterward to come out as a lie. Perfect for April Fools' Day.
____
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