The Second Test

Shinji was lazing around his room, when he suddenly received a message on his phone. He checked the message, and smirked when he read its content:

"A special test will start soon. You are required to come to your assigned time and room. A student that will be late, will receive a penalty. The room that is assigned to you is room 204 by 20:40"

'So it finally time, huh? Well, I might as well finish with it as fast as I can' Shinji thought, and suddenly, he received a message from Kei:

"Which room are you assigned to?"

"Room 204 by 20:40 " he answered

"I'm in room 204 by 18:00. What do you think this test is about?"

"There is only one way to find out... Let's meet after I'll come back"

"Sure!!"

'As expected, we're not in the same group...' Shinji thought, and then he received another two messages: one from Kiyotaka, and one from Suzune.

"Room 204. 18:00" was the message Kiyotaka sent him, and Shinji quickly replied which room and hour he's in.

'He's in the same group as Kei...'

"Which room are you assigned to?" was the message Suzune sent him

"Room 204 by 20:40 " he answered

"It seems that we're in the same group. Do you want to meet before the meeting?"

"Sure. Where?" he asked

"At your room"

"Okay. You can come-" Shinji was in the middle of typing, as he heard a knock on the door. He opened the door, revealing Suzune, who didn't say anything and simply walked in, as Shinji looked at her with an amused expression

"How did you know about this test?" asked Suzune as she stood in the middle of the room

"What makes you think I knew?" Shinji asked, keeping the amused expression on his face

"Don't try to lie to me. When you were celebrating with the rest, you told me that the class trip didn't end, which means you knew about this test. So how did you know about it?"

"Why should I tell you? You're not working for me yet, so I can't tell you my source" Shinji said with a cheeky smirk

Suzune sighed in irritation, and then said:

"Fine. At least you can tell me what you know about this test"

"Well, all you need to know, is that I know how to win this test, so you don't need to worry about anything. You'll be told of the rules of the test when we get to the room, so there is no need for me to tell you"

Suzune frowned, and then said:

"Just so you know, I still am the one who won the bet"

"What do you mean?"

"We said that if you get us to promote by the end of the survival test, I'll work for you"

"That's not really how I remember it. I'm pretty sure that we said by the end of the class trip, not the survival test. luckily for us, I recorded our conversation just for a situation like this" Shinji said with a grin, and took a recording device out of a drawer in the desk that was in the room, and started the recording:

"...Fine then. If you'll be able to promote our class to class C, then I'll work for you..." said Suzune's voice in the recording

"Looks like I have a better memory than you, Horikita-San. I have until the end of the class trip, which includes this test as well. Now, since you came here without alerting me, I have some other business to do, so I would like to ask you to leave now"

"Fine. I'll see you by 20:40" said Horikita with a frown, and walked out of the room. A few seconds after she left, another knock was heard from the door. Shinji opened the door and was greeted by Kikyo.

"Mind if I come in?" Kikyo said with a friendly smile

"Sure" Shinji said, and led her inside, closing the door behind.

"If you're here, it means you already got it?" Shinji asked

"Here it is!" said Kikyo, and handed him a notebook

"So this is the list of the groups? You sure are working fast" Shinji said, as he looked at the list of the groups, consisted of all of the first-year students.

Shinji looked through the list until his eyes landed on the group which he's part of:

Dragon Group:

Class A: Kohei Katsuragi, Ryoko Nishikawa, Koharu Yano

Class B: Ryuji Kanzaki, Sayo Ando, Hitomi Tsukabe

Class C: Kakeru Ryuen, Takumi Oda, Hidetoshi Suzuki, Masashi Sonoda

Class D: Kikyo Kushida, Yosuke Hirata, Suzune Horikita, Shinji Ayanokoji

'As the upperclassman said, the leaders of the classes are all grouped together. However, someone is missing...' Shinji said, and searched through the list for the person he referred to until he found the person's group:

Rabbit Group:

Class A: Koji Machida, Shigeru Takemoto, Takuro Morishige

Class B: Honami Ichinose, Tetsuya Hamaguchi, Ryota Beppu

Class C: Mio Ibuki, Shiho Manabe, Nanami Yabu, Saki Yamashita

Class D: Kiyotaka Ayanokoji, Kei Karuizawa, Hideo Sotomura, Teruhiko Yukimura

'That's weird... despite being the leader of class B, Ichinose is in this group... not to mention, Kiyotaka, Kei, and Ibuki is in there too... well, it doesn't matter to me. Now, I need to check if what the upperclassman told me is true...'

"So? How are you going to find the targets with that? You didn't tell me when you explained the plan to me" said Kikyo

"It's pretty simple. An upperclassman told me that the target is the student with the same order of the animal of the group when you're arranging the members of the group in the Kana phonetic chart.

All I need to do is to find all of the targets in all of the groups, and among them, I'll confirm if what he said is true, using the targets in class D, which you will have to find out after the targets are decided.

If it's true, and it better is, since I paid 100,000pp for this information, then you'll tell students in our class to name the targets unless they're in our class or class B's targets.

We won't touch the targets in class B, since we are cooperating with them, and it'll hurt us in the long run to betray them now, so we'll just leave them alone, so in their groups, we'll get the first or second results, depends on how the discussions will progress.

For our class's targets, I'll ask you to bring them to me, and I'll mess with their phones a little, so it won't be possible to identify them as the targets, and then once again, depends on how the discussions will progress, we'll get the first or second results. For all the other groups, we'll get the third result. Of course, we have a specific plan for our and Ryuen's group, which you already know of.

That's in the case that what the upperclassman told me is the truth.

If it isn't, I'll try to find another pattern in the selection of the targets, and in the case I won't find out the pattern, I'll have to persuade Ibuki-San to help me to uncover class C's targets"

"And what if she won't agree?"

"Well... I'll have to use my trump card, but I rather not to. I'll use it only when I'm out of options"

"What is your trump card?"

"I'll tell you if we'll ever need to use it. Now, I need to figure out all of the targets. If you want, you can stay here until I finish, and then we'll head to the room together"

"I might as well stay here. There's nothing else to do until we need to go to the room" Kikyo said, and took out her phone, and started to play around with it, as Shinji started to name the targets.