I have a life simulator.

Honami Ichinose used a spoon to gather the last bit of liquid remaining in the glass:

"But sometimes in the summer, I just want to eat something cold and refreshing."

"It's a very inexpensive form of enjoyment, though."

"Where is it cheap? Whether it's a 60 yen or 6,000 yen popsicle, what everyone really needs is that instant coolness when it's put in their mouth, right?"

Kitagawa Ryo, who had unconsciously lay down again, pouted and then suggested to Amasawa Ichika and Sakura Airi:

"Let's not talk about that. Ichika and Airi, why don't you come camping with us tonight? This place is big enough, and we can cook dinner together."

"Yeah."

Tianze Yixia agreed quickly, reaching out to grasp Kitagawa Ryo's right hand and pulling it in front of her eyes:

"What level is Liang's current discount card?"

"This number will be yours after you upgrade."

Because she had just eaten a smoothie, Tianze Yixia's little hands were icy cold, and it felt quite comfortable to hold them. Kitagawa Ryo was too lazy to retract his right hand, and instead extended his left hand to make a three-pointing gesture in response.

His discount card has been upgraded to level nine, and with Tianze Yixia's level, it's level ten, which allows him to get discounts as low as 30%.

"It's slower than I expected."

"This is already quite fast, after all, it's not easy to get an upgrade opportunity."

Kitagawa Ryo sighed as he let Amasawa Ichika open his watch to check the information on the card.

"Speaking of which, I'm probably not the only one in our group whose card has been upgraded."

"Arisu and I both got it once, but Honami doesn't seem to have?"

Horikita Suzune nodded in reply.

"Hmm, I haven't received the upgrade opportunity reward yet."

Honami Ichinose glanced at her watch:

"Anyway, my [Supply] Card isn't as good as Liang's [Discount]."

"It's a pity that my card was automatically upgraded immediately after I got it, so I couldn't transfer the upgrade opportunity to my teammates. Otherwise, the process of getting the card would have been faster."

"I remember that Suzune and Arisu's cards are [Hitchhiking] and [Double] respectively, right? What changes will there be after the upgrade?"

In response to Kitagawa Ryo's question, Horikita Suzune tapped her watch and read aloud:

"【Hitchhiking】: Cardholders can designate a student (any class) before the exam begins, and receive half of the student's personal points (lv2) after the exam."

"It was originally one-quarter."

Sakayanagi Arisu also recited along:

"【Double】: The personal points earned by cardholders after the exam will be doubled (lv2)."

"My price has also doubled."

"Oh, that sounds good too."

Kitagawa Ryo nodded, and said thoughtfully:

"I always thought that the [Discount] and [Supply] cards were more useful because they focused on helping with the exam, but the [Double] and [Hitchhiking] cards are also quite effective."

"Especially the [doubling] bonus. If it doubles every time you level up, then reaching level 10 or 11 would be a tenfold or elevenfold increase in points. The member ranked first in the group seems to get one million personal points, so tenfold would be ten million."

"If someone were to use a level 10 [Hitchhiking] card to target Arisu at this point... well, the probability is just too small."

"After all, each upgrade opportunity is hard to come by, and they are scattered across various topics. If you want to get multiple upgrade opportunities to upgrade your cards, you need to have an absurdly strong overall ability."

After Horikita Suzune finished speaking, she turned to look at Kitagawa Ryo beside her, who happened to be the one who met this strict requirement.

"Can I take this as Lingyin praising me?"

Kitagawa Ryo noticed Horikita Suzune's actions and instead winked at her first.

"...Whatever you think."

"A very distinctive ringtone-like answer."

With a sudden movement, Kitagawa Ryo straightened up from the ground and laughed:

"Just because of that, I'll add an extra dish for Lingyin tonight."

"You all rest first, I'll go make dinner."

Turning his back, he walked into the pots and pans. Kitagawa Ryo lowered his eyes, silently turned on his watch, selected the memo function, and then clicked to view it.

Above is a message that Tianze Yixia just wrote to him under the pretext of upgrading his card.

Kitagawa Ryo's series of statements just now were all attempts to cover up this secret, drawing everyone's attention.

Everyone.

Someone is following us.

[It's suspected to be Kiyotaka Ayanokoji, but he's probably not the only one.]

[I learned from xx that Kiyotaka Ayanokoji's card might offer a discount.]

Chapter 171: The Interveners with Their Own Messs

In fact, both Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka quickly realized a bug in the special exam on the deserted island shortly after receiving the "discount" card.

Whether it's the setup of the four ordinary cards, finding and completing tasks on the island to earn points, and then using those points to exchange for survival supplies, while facing competition from other groups, environmental challenges on the deserted island, and a circle-locking mechanism that occurs every two days starting from the third day, everything about this special deserted island exam looks like a large-scale real-life survival game similar to PUBG.

However, there are still differences between the real world and games.

That is, just like in the game, seemingly an inexhaustible supply of various resources.

Ordinary groups wouldn't even pay attention to this issue, or even notice it, because their thinking was constrained by the rules of this exam from the very beginning.

Earn as many points as possible – exchange them for necessary supplies – save as many points as possible – wait for the exam to end.

For most groups, this is a fixed process that is ingrained in their minds from the very beginning.

However, both Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka noticed the problem: the total amount of supplies held by the school was actually fixed, not unlimited. After all, it wasn't like a string of code in a game, where you could set the amount however you wanted.

Whether it's drinking water or food, although the school filled the docked luxury cruise ship with an astonishing amount of supplies for this special exam, it's not unlimited.

As long as it's not unlimited, it can be monopolized.

A high-level "discount" card can achieve this. Although both of them felt that the school was unlikely to set up a zero-yuan purchase, as long as the redemption price was reduced to less than 10%, there would be enough room for maneuver.

At that time, a series of ideas, such as buying low and selling high, monopolizing a specific product, and saving necessary points for other groups in the class, can be implemented.

Therefore, from the very beginning, Kiyotaka Ayanokouji and Ryo Kitagawa each had a clear goal: to pursue the rewards of upgrading common cards.

The deal with Ryuen Sho, and the conflict between Class A and Class B caused by Karuizawa Megumi today, are all just a smokescreen by Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.

Kitagawa Ryo silently turned off his watch, calmly washing the ingredients and preparing the meal while observing his surroundings.

Since Amazu Ichika said that it wasn't just Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, it should be relatively easy to find him.

After all, not everyone at Tokyo Advanced Educational High School is like Ayanokouji, born into a white-room family and skilled at concealing their presence. For ordinary high school students...

With his keen eyesight, Kitagawa Ryo quickly spotted a somewhat furtive figure in the southeast direction—a man of medium build.

By deliberately making a louder noise while chopping vegetables, the other person indeed glanced over, and Kitagawa Ryo quickly caught his facial features.

He is Totsuka Yahiko from Class 1-A.

Was he sent by Katsuragi Kohei? So, Ayanokoji's actions were his personal matter.

Just as these two thoughts flashed through Kitagawa Ryo's mind, he caught sight of a figure in the northeast corner of his eye—it was the stealthy Kamuro Masumi.

The matter wasn't over yet. Kitagawa Ryo, who had changed direction and started cooking, caught sight of Ryuen Sho, who was hiding in the tree, with half of his calf still showing despite being concealed by the branches and leaves.

The main thing is that the row of haphazard, not-yet-fully-healed abrasions are relatively easy to spot.

Including Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, who has not yet been observed but does exist, we've already got enough people for a mahjong game.

Kitagawa Ryo rinsed his hands with water and calmly began to put the prepared ingredients into the pot.

Although I don't know how many people I just said will be fooled, as long as it can have some effect on information interference, it's quite worth it.

-------------------------------------

"You just had a conflict with the students from Class D?"

Katsuragi Kohei looked at Totsuka Yahiko with some displeasure:

"I've told you so many times before, there's no need for our Class A to make enemies on all sides. We just need to hold our current position."

“Especially now that our Class A’s position is not secure, you should be more careful about your words and actions. As a leader, I have a supervisory responsibility, and you should also be careful not to do anything out of line.”

Upon returning to his own class, Totsuka Yahiko was immediately reprimanded in front of everyone by Katsuragi Kohei. Seeing many of his classmates pointing and smirking at him, Totsuka Yahiko found it unbearable and muttered a retort under his breath:

"What do you mean I shouldn't do anything out of line... Ayanokouji has done far more outrageous things than I have."

Totsuka Yahiko is a very self-aware person. He knows very well that his abilities are actually not that great in the entire Class A, just as Amasawa Ichika said. That's why he chose to invest in his relationship with Katsuragi Kohei from the beginning of the school year, and then use this relationship to improve his status in the class.

The more this is the case, the more difficult it becomes for Totsuka Yahiko not to feel increasingly disgusted with Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, who seems to have the same "persona" as him.

One follower is enough for Katsuragi Kohei.

However, every time he hinted at this to Katsuragi Kohei, Katsuragi Kohei would only give a perfunctory answer, saying something like, "You and Ayanokouji are both my important right-hand men," and making completely ambiguous statements.

Totsuka Yahiko was naturally unaware that his resentful status as a follower was merely a tactic used by Ayanokouji Kiyotaka to conceal himself while simultaneously controlling Katsuragi Kohei as the class's public figure. He simply felt an increasing sense of crisis.

Especially after the grouping rules for this special exam on the uninhabited island were introduced.

When Katsuragi Kohei formed an elite team, he didn't choose to be in the same group as Totsuka Yahiko. Although Totsuka Yahiko could understand this rationally, he still felt a little disappointed emotionally.

However, at that time, Totsuka Yahiko naively fantasized that Katsuragi Kohei might arrange for him to be with other elite students in the class, so that he could get a better group ranking.

In fact, Katsuragi Kohei initially thought so too. He even went directly to Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, the student he admired most in the class, and hinted that he would be willing to mentor the students in the latter half of the class, including Totsuka Yahiko.

Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, of course, was unwilling to do this kind of babysitting work, so he used the "top three in the group" pancake to shut Katsuragi Kohei up. However, this action inadvertently caused trouble for Totsuka Yahiko.

With Katsuragi Kohei not intervening, Totsuka Yahiko could only team up with other students from the second half of the class to participate in the exam.

When Totsuka Yahiko first saw that Ayanokoji Kiyotaka was teaming up alone, he was somewhat relieved, since at least he had found a teammate to team up with.

However, while Totsuka Yahiko was checking the group rankings every day, hoping to see Ayanokouji Kiyotaka's name in one of the bottom few positions, he waited and waited but his wish was not fulfilled. Instead, his group fell to the bottom half, with a group of C and D classes ranking similar to each other.

Upon hearing Katsuragi Kohei's instructions today, Totsuka Yahiko rushed over to pledge his loyalty, only to stumble upon Ayanokoji Kiyotaka asking Katsuragi Kohei for someone to participate in the "Two-Person Horseback Riding Battle" project. Katsuragi Kohei, without even blinking, assigned him Kito Hayabusa, the class's best-looking athlete.

Recalling his experiences over the past few days—being ridiculed by the students of Class D and now being publicly reprimanded by Katsuragi Kohei—Totsuka Yahiko couldn't hold back any longer and raised his voice to repeat his dissatisfaction:

"Katsuragi-kun said my actions were out of line, but Ayanokouji's actions were even more outrageous!"

"It's clearly not a special card, yet he's being put in a group alone. No, how could one person rank higher than our group of four? It must be Katsuragi-kun, you secretly helped him, just like that, it must be..."

Before Totsuka Yahiko could finish speaking, Hirata Yosuke, standing next to Katsuragi Kohei, quickly stepped forward and covered his mouth, saying to Katsuragi Kohei, whose face had suddenly darkened:

"Totsuka is too tired today. His group crossed four squares to get here, so he's in a bad mood."

While giving Totsuka Yahiko a way out, Hirata Yosuke whispered to Totsuka Yahiko:

"Apologise quickly."

Interrupted by Hirata Yosuke's words, Totsuka Yahiko's overheated mind cooled down instantly, and he quickly lowered his head, apologizing with a bitter expression.

"I'm sorry, Katsuragi-san, I was too emotional just now, I'm really sorry."

"At least in terms of controlling your emotions, you should learn more from Ayanokouji."

Katsuragi Kohei didn't want to escalate the situation. Other groups from nearby classes had already noticed the commotion, so he took a deep breath and replied:

"Alright, you can go back to your group now."

Somewhat dazed, Totsuka Yahiko walked away from Katsuragi Kohei. Just as he was hesitating whether to go back to find his groupmates, he saw the girl from Class 1-D who had just ridiculed him so harshly was with another girl, mysteriously avoiding the crowd, seemingly heading somewhere.

Thinking that she might have stumbled upon some great secret, and feeling some resentment because of the other party's earlier criticism, she was reluctant to go back immediately. At the same time, she also hoped to prove to Katsuragi Kohei that she was no less capable than Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.

With mixed feelings, Totsuka Yahiko inexplicably chose to follow Amasawa Ichika and Sakura Airi, wanting to see where they were going.

-------------------------------------

Ibuki Mio felt that Shiina Hiyori had been acting strangely these past few days.

If we narrow the time frame further and make the sample more precise, to be exact, it starts from the third night of the exam on the deserted island, after that stormy night.

Especially this morning, when Ibuki Mio, as usual, got up early to wash and then returned to her tent, she would usually wake Shiina Hiyori at this time.

Unlike the Shiina Hiyori who was the ultimate bed sheet captive in the past, when Ibuki Mio entered the tent, before she could even speak, she saw Shiina Hiyori sitting there smiling and touching her lips like a fool, chuckling to herself. In that instant, Ibuki Mio wondered if she was hallucinating from too much accumulated fatigue.