Classroom of the Elite Volume 15 Chapter 4 Part 6

“Ayanokōji-senpai…! Ayanokōji-senpai…!”

Later that night, after everyone had already gone to sleep, I awoke to a voice calling out my name.

They spoke quietly so as not to wake up anyone else in the campsite, whispering to me from just outside my tent.

I briefly checked my watch to see how late it was, only to find that it was 2:30 AM.

“It’s me, Nanase.”

Hearing that, I quickly woke myself up and poked my head out of my tent. Sure enough, Nanase stood in the darkness before me, her figure faintly illuminated by the light of her tablet. Furthermore, despite the darkness, I could tell that she was panicking about something.

“What are you doing here so late…? You’re not hurt are you?”

“I’m fine, it just so happens I ended up here in I9 like you Senpai. In fact, I saw you from afar earlier this evening, but I decided against making contact since I was together with Hōsen-kun at the time.”

“…So?”

“There’s something urgent I needed to tell you about. Today… no, I guess it was actually yesterday given how late it is, but anyway, Hōsen-kun told me that on the twelfth day, the first-year students will be carrying out a large-scale plan to try and trap you, Senpai.”

“A large-scale plan? Did he ask you to play a role in that?”

“Ah, no, how do I put it… Whatever, I’ll just start from the beginning.”

After taking a deep breath, Nanase began to explain that had happened.

Apparently, Hōsen had been told to meet up with Takahashi, Yagami, Tsubasa, and Utomiya, but he never showed up for the meeting. Nanase didn’t know exactly which day this meeting had taken place, but later, on the ninth day, a different student approached Hōsen with a walkie-talkie in hand, claiming to be the group’s messenger. They came asking for Hōsen’s cooperation once again, and the details of their request went as follows:

First, they said something about how they were going to force my retirement during the final stage of the special exam.

Then, they talked about how they wanted to hunt down other upperclassmen who were taking the exam alone and forcing their retirement as well.

Finally, the messenger handed Hōsen the walkie-talkie and told him they’d reach out on the day of with the specific details. However, from what Hōsen told Nanase after the fact, he allegedly had no intention of actually working together with the other first-years. Instead, he planned on pretending to cooperate with them whilst using them to further his own goals in turn.

In any case, this all just validated my suspicion that they were going to take action during the final stage of the exam. Fortunately, I had already taken measures to deal with that very scenario ahead of time.

“They made the right choice by keeping the specifics to themselves until the last minute.”

If, somehow, the details of their plan were to leak out and reach my ears, it would only make it that much easier for me to prepare countermeasures.

In fact, they still haven’t revealed the finer details of their plan to Hōsen yet, out of a well-placed fear that he might betray them.

“Who’s the one spearheading all of this?”

“I don’t know for certain, but the main contact Hōsen’s been speaking with over the walkie-talkie has been Tsubaki-san.”

“She’s never seemed like the type to take action out in the open like this, though.”

“That’s what I thought as well. If anything, I was under the impression that Class 1-C was centered around Utomiya-kun. However, I’ve heard that Hōsen-kun and Utomiya-kun are on bad terms. They apparently become belligerent with one another during discussions, so it’s possible that Tsubaki-san was just chosen to act as their intermediary.”

That was certainly possible, but someone like Yagami or Takahashi could just as easily be the one pulling the strings as well.

“I’m grateful just to find out which day they’ll be taking action. I know it’s late, but you’d best not stick around here too long. Things could get pretty dicey later on if they were to find out that you’ve told me all of this.”

My own circumstances aside, getting caught now could potentially cause a lot of problems for Nanase’s school life moving forward.

For better or for worse, she was still in the same class as Hōsen, and that wasn’t going to be changing any time soon.

Therefore, I instructed her to leave before Hōsen realized what she was up to.

“Alright. I’ll get back in touch with you if anything else happens.”

“Ah, don’t do that. I appreciate it, but you’ve already done more than enough for me for this special exam. Even if you notice that something else is going on with the first-years, there’s no need for you to report to me about it. You don’t have to go out of your way to keep helping me.”

“But─”

“You’ve given me enough information. Take a step back and focus on doing what you need to as a member of your own group with Amasawa and Hōsen.”

If Nanase were to lose their trust now, she wouldn’t be able to act as an informant for me in the future.

In which case, Nanase’s value to me would plummet considerably.

“If you say so, Senpai, then… I understand.”

With a deep bow, Nanase trotted off into the darkness.

Once her figure had completely disappeared from view, I took out my tablet and thought to myself for a second.

As my eyes adjusted the brightness of the screen, I could feel my drowsiness completely fade away.

While it was probably safe to say that the information Nanase gave me was genuine, whether or not things would end up playing out that way was a different matter altogether. I didn’t know much about the inner-workings of Class 1-D, but as a person, I knew Hōsen utilized the same sort of tactics as Ryūen to maintain control over his class. The only real distinction between them was that Hōsen had a tendency to take a more self-serving approach when faced with obstacles.

And yet, Hōsen had kept Nanase right by his side ever since they first enrolled here.

It made sense why he did too. After all, Nanase sported a level of resilience and mental fortitude that was practically unheard of for a first-year high school student. Add that on top of her impressively high academic and physical abilities, she was no doubt an exceptionally useful person to keep around.

However, just how much Hōsen truly trusts her remains to be seen.

If he didn’t truly trust her, then it’s possible that he had told her everything in order to mislead her. And while I didn’t quite believe that Hōsen had figured out that Nanase was on my side, I wouldn’t exactly be surprised if he still felt wary about it. Furthermore, given that Amasawa is involved, there was always a chance that she told him about it as well…

In any case, this plan the first-years were working on wasn’t all that much of a surprise. Given the sizable bounty on my head, I’d been operating under the assumption that they would try to pull something on me since the moment I stepped foot on the island. So, while I was grateful for Nanase’s report, my plans still remained unchanged.

TL Notes:

Here’s Part 6. There is one more part in chapter 4 and then I’ll be done with it. I haven’t scoped out any of the novel past chapter 4, so chapter 5/6 might be excessively long. I’ll have more information on what’s to come once I get through this last part of chapter 4, so look forward to that. Thanks for reading and look forward to more soon.

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