89 -88- Don't overestimate yourself

"Thud..."

The door of the student council office closed with a sound.

Nanaya left the office, intending to move towards Class D's classroom when someone called out to him from behind.

"I didn't expect it to be a dashcam after all."

Ryuen Kakeru walked up to Nanaya from behind, hands in his pockets, and stood beside him without looking at him, as if he didn't take this failure to heart, giving a cold smile.

"You're lucky."

Luck.

Ryuen attributed this failure entirely to luck.

But it wasn't that Ryuen refused to admit his failure; it was just the truth.

If it weren't for the timely footage captured by the Keyaki Mall's transport truck's dashcam of this incident, Nanaya wouldn't have been able to clear his name.

At least, that's how Ryuen saw it.

"It was my carelessness not to notice this. Being able to perceive it, you're not to be underestimated," Ryuen said dismissively.

"However, next time, you won't be lucky enough to get through it."

With that, Ryuen didn't even glance at Nanaya and walked away.

Just then...

"Listen to me, from now on, no matter what happens, you must insist that Nanaya Hori used violence against you."

Such words reached Ryuen's ears.

It was a recording from a phone.

And, it was Ryuen's voice.

Ryuen couldn't pretend not to recognize it.

This voice, this sentence, was what he said to Ishizaki Daichi, Komiya Kyogo, and Kondo Reo at the Keyaki Mall's KTV after the violent incident occurred.

It was this recording that made Ryuen's steps suddenly pause, and his expression froze on his face.

And the recording continued to play.

"What about the school asking us to find evidence that Nanaya Hori was involved in the violence?"

That was Ishizaki Daichi's voice.

"Who cares? My goal is just to defeat Nanaya Hori."

Ryuen's own voice also rang out very clearly.

"If we're going to frame him, we have to do it thoroughly. If you guys show any signs of slipping up, then I'll be even more ruthless than before. Understand?"

The recording ended there.

But the air around became dead silent as the recording disappeared.

Ryuen fell silent completely.

Then, Ryuen slowly turned back and looked at Nanaya.

Nanaya was holding his phone, seemingly closing the playback of the recording, and calmly speaking as he operated the interface.

"I've said it before, I didn't plan to use dashcam footage to clear my name."

That was the best evidence.

"I found the dashcam footage yesterday and noticed that Advanced Nurturing High School's public opening hours were on the previous holiday, but the time you invited me was a week ago."

Nanaya held up his phone, raised his head, looked at Ryuen, and sarcastically remarked, "Do you think I would leisurely wait for evidence to solve the problem on its own?"

That was, of course, an impossible thing.

Since Nanaya had always advised Class D's students not to worry about him and had taken no action, he had been waiting for the day of the deliberation without any worries that he would lose.

In other words...

"Because of luck that I got through the ordeal? You're seriously off base," Nanaya remarked disapprovingly.

"Firstly, your defeat was not due to my luck, but your misfortune."

"Secondly, this can hardly be considered an ordeal."

"Don't overestimate yourself, Ryuen."

Nanaya's calm words, like thorny brambles, pierced Ryuen's heart.

Ryuen finally understood.

From the very beginning, he was destined to fail.

"...How did you obtain that recording?" Ryuen asked, keeping his composure as he stared at Nanaya.

This was one of the two questions Ryuen had at this moment.

"At the time, only students from Class C were present, and the location was in a private room at Keyaki Mall's KTV. We didn't make a reservation in advance; we just went there and used it directly. You couldn't have recorded anything inside," Ryuen said, wearing a somewhat cruel smile.

"Unless... there's a traitor among us in Class C."

This was the only possibility Ryuen could think of.

To have a traitor in a class ruled by his terror?

Ryuen's expression become increasingly terrifying.

However...

"Traitor?" Nanaya said, as if hearing something amusing, "Is it even necessary to go to such lengths?"

Exactly.

Why bother?

"As long as it's a place I want to infiltrate, no one can discover me."

Nanaya didn't say this with a confident tone or a lofty arrogance, just a calm, matter-of-fact manner.

And it was precisely this calmness that greatly enhanced the persuasiveness of Nanaya's words.

Even Ryuen began to believe Nanaya's words unconsciously.

He believed that Nanaya, relying on his own abilities, stealthily infiltrated the KTV room where Class C was.

But how did he do it?

Ryuen couldn't figure it out.

To be cautious, after opening the room, Ryuen didn't even summon the waitstaff. Instead, he let the guys in the class get their own food and drinks.

So Ryuen was certain that, apart from the students in Class C, no one else had entered that room.

Did he installed a bug or something similar in advance?

That was even less likely.

Ryuen had already said that they didn't make a reservation but went straight there and used the room randomly. How could anyone know in advance which room Class C would use and tamper with it?

(Perhaps someone leaked information before the gathering, and someone carried bugs or a recording pen into the room?)

That was a possibility too.

Otherwise, the only possibility left was the existence of a traitor.

This was a typical case of being outsmarted by one's own intelligence.

Thinking that there must be some mystery behind it, Ryuen failed to realize, just as Nanaya said, that wherever he wanted to infiltrate, who could find him?

At least, Ryuen and those students in Class C would never find out.

Right in front of Ryuen, Nanaya secretly recorded this conversation.

So, Ryuen was shrewd, but he underestimated Nanaya's abilities.

He couldn't imagine that, even in heavily guarded military areas, Nanaya had the ability to sneak in alone and blow them sky-high.

That's the ability of the man who earned the name "Nanaya."

Ryuen, who didn't know this, could only voice his second question from his heart.

"Since you have such a recording, why didn't you use it during the deliberation?"

This was Ryuen's second question, which he couldn't figure out.