Ever since Ayanokouji Kiyotaka had been a child, he played a lot of chess. From grandmasters to engines, he beat them all time and time again.
There was no person or program in the White Room or anywhere else that could hold a candle to him. Then so...
On Monday morning, I walked over to the classroom.
With every day that passed, the weather got more unbearable. The only comfortable climate conditions were inside the buildings, because the materials for the uniforms were quite thick. Outside, it felt like a river of lava was flowing right under our feet.
As I reached the school building, I caught sight of a new paper on the otherwise scarcely filled bulletin board.
Ever since the club fair, the only papers posted there had been club openings. As the clubs found their respective members, however, these notes dwindled and their representatives began to remove them one after another.
The new poster I had just caught sight of was different, since the creator was asking for information on the incident between Sudou and the Class C students. They also promised to reward potential whistleblowers with points if they received any helpful tips, which showed their sincerity in the matter.
At first, I thought that this interesting approach had been Ichinose's doing, but the number that was specified at the bottom on the page wasn't hers. It was Kanzaki's.
"Good morning, Ayanokouji-kun!"
Ichinose, like an angel one just thought about, showed up with her usual cheery attitude.
The girl walked up beside me and looked over the new paper as well. Her eyes widened during her read-through, which indicated that she hadn't known about this until just now. Despite this, she nodded with an approving smile after completing her examination of the bulletin board.
"So there is this method too..."
"Good morning, Ichinose-san. Ayanokouji-kun. I see you found the paper. What do you think?"
Her classmate and a good friend of mine, Kanzaki Ryuji, walked up behind us with his familiar, calm and composed, yet amiable expression. His proud, expectant bearing would have confirmed that he had put up the notice, even if I hadn't known his number beforehand.
"Did you get anything reliable yet?"
"Nothing at all."
He shook his head and shrugged as Ichinose spun around to face the two of us.
"I see. How about we check the bulletin board?"
"Is there another board I missed?"
Kanzaki's pupils dilated a moment after these words left his mouth, increasing his cognitive load. He must've been retracing the school's layout and checked whether he had put up a paper on each board he came across.
Ichinose's thin smile deepened as she pulled out her phone.
"There's a message board on the school's homepage. I made a post requesting people to forward information about any violent incident they have witnessed during the last week. With any luck, we might gain some additional clues."
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