cote react to

part 16

"What! I am smart!"

"Wait, the answer is you made me retire? What in the world did you do?"

"Oh, that reminds me. I didn't return it to the school yet."

I took a single card out of my pocket and handed it over to Horikita.

"This is a keycard. Why do you…?!"

Horikita was astonished when she saw the letters engraved on the card.

"Wait, why does…?"

The name read "Ayanokouji Kiyotaka."

"Why does Ayanokoji-kun's name in it?" Sato asked. "Horikita-san was the leader, right?"

Matsushita eyes widened. She remembered the rules. 'He used the that to his advantage. Incredible.'

"The test had to be fair. The rules were fundamentally created to be fair."

That was quite natural, something you would have seen if you'd carefully confirmed the additional rules. Only one person could be chosen as leader. The leader could not be changed. Only the leader held the rights of exclusive possession.

"What do you think would happen if the leader retired because of poor health?"

"The rights to the spots and points would disappear?" Yukimura said unsure.

"Additional rules?" Hirata muttered.

"That's… The leader would be absent. So the rights of exclusive possession would disappear…"

"Wrong. In the manual, it says, 'It is impossible to change the leader without suitable justification.' Don't you think that retirement is suitable enough justification?"

"Because Horikita-san retired of poor health, we can replace our leader." Karuizawa realized. "When that happened, you name yourself the leader!"

"If Ryuuen-kun knows all the class' leaders and he schemed with Katsuragi-kun and named Horikita-san the leader they're penalized because it was wrong!" Yukimura eyes widened.

"That's why we avoided being penalized. Ayanokoji-kun was our leader." Miyake said.

It seemed like the additional rules had been made to be broken if someone were absent due to poor health or injury. I could predict setting up a new leader.

I was able to figure this out by looking at the other rules. For example, we couldn't change the base camp without suitable justification after we'd first decided where it would be, but there were suitable reasons.

We'd occupied the riverside area, but if we were careless and it was taken by another class, then that would have counted as "suitable justification." You couldn't stay in the base itself, so if there wasn't a system where you could search for a new base camp, everything would collapse.

"So then, you made me…?"

Horikita Suzune had retired, and I was appointed in her place. Of course, that meant that I was the leader they were supposed to guess at the end of the test. There can only be one.

"Oh my god!" Sato covered her mouth.

"Ayanokoji-kun's amazing!" Haruka cheered.

"I didn't knew that the additional rules would have played an important role in the exam." Yukimura sighed defeated.

"It's amazing how you took advantage of it." Hirata smiled.

"That's why even though Class C knew you were the leader, we avoided penalties."