cote react to

part 16

"Manipulate them as an individual?" Yukimura asked warily. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Calm down, Yukimura-kun. I'm sure it will be explained later." Miyake said. "Let's watch for now."

'He seemed to like to manipulate people to achieve his goals.' Horikita thought. Her mind went back to when Ayanokoji manipulated her by creating false evidence during Sudo's case. Chabashira's words, her praises about Ayanokoji's abilities. It all kind of made sense now.

"But the additional rules were really difficult to understand. If you did things normally, you wouldn't have been able to identify the leaders. Right?"

"Yeah. First of all, I volunteered to join the search for the base camp. Able to move freely, I planned to search out spot locations ahead of everyone"

"You make it sound simple, but no one should have known the spot locations."

"That's not true. You didn't understand because you were ill and holed up inside the ship, but the school already gave us hints about the locations when we were sailing around the island."

"I didn't noticed anything." Ike said.

"It's because you're dumb." Sudo retorted.

Ike glared at him, "Huh? Like you are one to talk!"

Boys, boys. No need to fight to know who's dumber." Yamauchi wore a smug smile. "It's obviously the both of you. Be glad you're friends with someone like me."

"Excuse me?" Sudo looked at him from head to toe.

"Don't even start. You're dumber than than the both of us combined." Ike snapped.

Katsuragi had also noticed this when the ship circled the island at an unusually fast speed. Horikita fell silent. The ship had been traveling nearly three times faster than a usual cruise ship. Besides, if it were just for sightseeing, it wasn't normal to use a strange expression like

"significant scenery."

Kouenji had noticed this hint, too. Well, it was probably a waste of time thinking about Kouenji, anyway.

"It is most certainly not a waste of time to think of my perfect existence, mysterious boy." Koenji said haughtily.

"Yes it is." The class silently muttered.

"Mysterious boy?" Ayanokoji stared at him.

"Then, I reached the cave. I thought it was the most important base."

"The cave was the most important base? Don't you think that the river and the well would have been more convenient, though?"

"The spot itself wasn't what was important. Its location was."

There were no spots close to the river or the well. However, there were two spots near the cave: the hut and the tower. It was the perfect place to exercise control. Horikita looked like she understood once I explained.

"Class A had 3 spots? Lucky." Yamauchi looked envious.

"Why didn't you tell the class?" Sato asked Ayanokoji curiously.

"It's not like I have a good reputation in our class, and everyone thought that it was a normal summer vacation. Even if I did told you, our class can't handle that type of responsibility. Our leader would have been discovered right away." Ayanokoji explained. During their stay in the island, multiple disputes happened. The most infamous was over a missing underwear.