The second Uninhabited Island Special Exam—two full weeks long—finally came to an end.
As the sun sank, the whole world turned crimson. Sea and sky bled into each other, the ocean's blue dyed red by the last light of day. Even the uninhabited island and the cruise ship's layered decks seemed gilded in gold and scarlet—so stunning that plenty of students who'd made it back onboard lingered on the deck, drawn to the sunset.
Of course, after two weeks out there, a lot of them were exhausted. Physically they could recover, sure—but mentally, the pressure had been brutal. Plenty of people wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and pass out.
But they still gathered on the deck anyway.
Not just for the view.
They were waiting for the school to announce the results.
Soon, the cruise ship broadcast and the school's text messages hit at the same time—audio announcement, written ranking. Everything laid out plainly.
[Second Uninhabited Island Special Exam Ranking Announcement]
1st place: Second-Year Class A — Hiyori's team, 1001 points
2nd place: Second-Year Class A — Yukio (solo), 910 points
3rd place: Second-Year Class A —Ryuuen's team, 880 points
The result was exactly what it looked like: Yukio's class completely swept the rewards.
Yukio's classmates went insane—because the class points they'd grabbed this time were straight-up ridiculous.
Add the top-three rewards together, and that was 900 class points dumped into their hands in one go. If another class had gotten that, it could've threatened Yukio's grip on Class A.
As for 6th place, just as expected, it was Koenji's solo team—but it didn't matter. It couldn't touch the sheer scale of what Yukio's class had just taken.
[Current Second-Year Overall Ranking]
Class A — Yukio's class: 3540 points
Class B — Sakayanagi's class: 1630 points
Class C — Ichinose's class: 1440 points
Class D — Matsushita's class: 320 points
For the other three second-year classes, nothing changed. They didn't place top three, so their points stayed the same, and the rankings didn't budge.
But those 900 class points landing in Yukio's class opened a gap that felt like a canyon.
They'd blown past 3500 points.
That meant that from now on, every month, their class could receive—on average—350,000 private points per person.
350,000. Per month.
That's a paycheck.
A normal college graduate out in the real world might start at around 200,000 yen a month (give or take, depending on the school and the job). And these guys weren't graduates—they were second-year high school students.
So yeah. The deck basically turned into a festival.
People were rolling around laughing, shouting, losing their minds. Yukio actually started to worry they'd roll right off the ship—thankfully the railings were sturdy.
Meanwhile, the bottom five teams were the ones who got butchered.
Two teams from First-Year Class D, two from First-Year Class C, and one from First-Year Class A.
In other words, Yukio's class had ripped those 900 points almost entirely out of the first-years.
Even with the school giving first-years buffs—score multipliers and all—they still couldn't compete with upperclassmen over two weeks.
At least the punishment wasn't dumped on a single first-year class. It was spread across the year group: First-Year's four classes each took an equal hit of 225 class points. If one class had eaten the whole loss alone, it would've basically been an instant free-fall to zero.
Yukio watched Ishizaki rolling around on the deck and couldn't help laughing.
"Ishizaki—if you roll off the deck and fall into the ocean, nobody's diving in to save you."
"Hehehe… I-I'm just excited, Aniki!" Ishizaki grinned like an idiot, then just stayed sprawled out on the deck like he'd decided standing was optional now.
Nearby, a bunch of the girls were swarming Shiina, Ibuki, Nishino, and the others. Even Yukio hadn't managed to beat Shiina this time, so the girls in his class were riding that pride hard.
Shiina handled it gracefully—just smiling and chatting quietly with the people she was close to.
Ibuki, on the other hand, wasn't used to being surrounded like that. She actually blushed—rare as hell—while still forcing herself to keep that smug, tough-girl face, acting like the exam had been "easy."
It was ridiculous. And kind of adorable.
Over on the side, Sakayanagi didn't seem to care about the class point explosion at all. She was still focused on preparing her "big event," shaping it into a perfect moment with no interference.
Even her confidants—Kamuro and Hashimoto—were thrown off. Their class leader looked… distracted. Like her mind was somewhere else.
Ichinose's class was the most carefree of all. They ran over, piled into Yukio's group, congratulating them loudly—then immediately started chanting for them to treat everyone.
Kanzaki, watching even Ichinose—his own leader—laugh and join the chaos, only grew more serious.
He knew it.
He couldn't wait anymore.
He had to start waking his class up—soon.
And finally there was Class D.
For them, the point gap had crossed into something like despair. They had barely over 300 points, while Yukio's class had over 3000.
A difference of more than ten times.
And when a gap gets that big, people stop feeling jealous. They stop feeling hateful.
It turns into something else—something closer to awe.
Class D was exactly like that. Even though Koenji had fought his way to sixth place, it didn't light any real fire. People joked and laughed like usual, but the words had a self-destructive edge to them.
"We're never catching up to Yukio's class. Graduating from Class A? No chance."
"Yeah… how are you even supposed to close a gap like that?"
"It's like a thousand-meter race and I'm still at the starting line waiting for the ref to fire the gun—while Yukio's class is already at the finish line taking a stroll. What are we even chasing?"
Matsushita could only sigh and try to keep them steady, repeating things like "There's still time," and "We still have more than a year."
Suzune Horikita went to see Koenji and told him that even if he didn't produce results next time, she'd still honor her promise—she wouldn't bother him again.
Even if Koenji refused to participate in future exams, she would explain it to the class herself… and make up for the missing force in whatever way she could.
And with that, the massive Uninhabited Island Special Exam was officially over.
Everyone's cruise-ship summer break finally began.