We cut the logs in half and stuck them together to form rectangular floorings. Next, we put the prepared huts on top of the flooring.
We finished another hut that day, so we had as many huts as there were people. The children acquiesced to securing every hut by using vines to tie them to logs in order to prevent them from getting blown away by the wind, as I requested.
If we’d left them as is, they’d be carried away and smashed by the rain the next day.
Like we had done the previous day, we kept watch at night.
Thanks to the wooden flooring, everyone seemed to feel a little better than the day before. Of course, most of them kind of felt ashamed of themselves for feeling good about having a better place to sleep in this situation.
All of us were thoroughly exhausted, so no matter what kind of accommodation they had, everyone just fell asleep right away, as did I.
***
A dark night.
-Shaaaaaa…
The sound of rain.
-Rumble! Ruuumble!
Lightning.
-Woooosh!
Wind.
Because of the heavy rainfall and the wind blowing through the hut, I couldn’t help but wake up.
It was impossible to build a completely water and wind-proofed hut in the situation we had found ourselves in.
“What?! Rain!”
One or two people began shouting like that inside their huts. It was impossible for anyone to sleep comfortably in that chaos. Dark clouds covered the sky, the bonfire got extinguished, and our view was completely dyed in darkness.
The flashes of lightning that flickered across the sky from time to time was the only thing that allowed us to see our surroundings.
A storm was coming.
-Don’t go outside! Stay inside for now!
It was Bertus who shouted that.
It was raining, so it was only natural that one would get wet as soon as they left their hut. It was best to just stay inside where one was slightly more protected from the rain and wind. We probably couldn’t go back to sleep, so our only option was to hold on until the sun rose and the rain let up.
If we were to go out now, the only thing that would happen was that our body temperature would drop rapidly due to the cold rain and wind.
-I-it’s about to be blown away!
However, it seemed like some huts were still about to break—even after we firmly fixed all of them to the ground.
-If it gets smashed, go to another one immediately!
Even in that situation, Bertus calmly gave instructions to the confused and scared children. If we hadn’t reinforced the floor with the wooden flooring, we’d had have been laying in wet sand by then.
-Crack!
In the end, the hut couldn’t win against the strong wind. I could hear the sound of someone’s hut breaking.
-Kyaa!
That was Harriet’s scream.
-I-I can’t see anything! What do I do?!
In that deep darkness, Harriet seemed to panic. It would be good if she could use something like light magic, but there was no way that she was able to calmly use her magic in her situation.
-I-I can’t see anything! What do I do! I feel like I’m about to be blown away!
-Saint-Owan! Go into another hut!
-I-I can’t, I can’t see anything!
-Flash!
There was a single flash of lightning. At that moment, I left my hut after I located Harriet through the flashing lightning. I found her lying on the floor, fumbling around.
“W-who…?"
She seemed to feel some relief as well as fear when she felt someone grabbing her in the dark. I traced my steps back through the darkness and returned to my hut, all while dragging Harriet with me.
“Calm down, idiot."
“R-Reinhardt?”
It was kind of funny and sad that she was able to tell that it was me in the chaos just because I called her an idiot.
After I called her ‘idiot’, she immediately felt relieved.
“Bertus! I have her!”
-Alright, Reinhardt! Good job!
“Calm down. It’s just raining.”
I slowly patted Harriet’s back. She was drenched in rainwater, trembling in fear.
“The rain will stop. You know that much already, right?”
Aside from simply feeling scared, she was also trembling because of the cold.
“Use heat magic or whatever to maintain your body temperature. If you do that, this’ll be nothing.”
“O-okay…”
It seemed like she was trying to calm herself by taking deep breaths as I talked to her.
-Ruuuuumble!
“Hieek!”
However, it didn’t seem to be easy for her to calm down with strong wind and thunder constantly echoing through the area.
Before she could even adapt to the unfamiliar environment, she was faced with the worst possible situation that could occur in that place. She couldn’t calm down easily.
The huts creaked, and it seemed like a few more got smashed. Children were screaming, and I could see some trying to fix the huts.
“I’m scared…”
Because it was too dark, I couldn’t see what kind of expression Harriet was making, but I could definitely feel that she was shaking. I wondered if my patting on her back had helped because she was soon calm enough to cast magic.
Perhaps she cast something like thermal magic, as a shining yellow sphere appeared in the hut that spread warmth around it.
“Okay, well done.”
“Yes.”
The brightness of the sphere’s light was rather weak, but it was enough to barely discern our surroundings. Although there was strong, cold wind blowing outside, the sphere had a similar effect to a small bonfire placed inside the hut.
Harriet gradually calmed her heart and began to summon more spheres of light, this time placing them into the other huts.
“You…”
“…What?”
I didn’t know she’d do something like that, so let’s say I was slightly surprised. Harriet looked at me as if she was doing something wrong.
“…Nothing. Continue.”
In times of crisis, we had to help each other.
It was a simple concept, but it made me feel quite strange seeing Harriet act on it. Did she think that it was only natural to help out the others, as she also received help? She wasn’t supposed to be that kind of character.
Fortunately, the spheres of light Harriet summoned seemed to successfully quell everyone’s anxiety.
-Ruuuumble!
“Good job.”
“…Yes.”
A storm was raging outside.
It would be difficult to fall asleep again, but at least it didn’t feel cold anymore.
***
The storm that had been raging on throughout the night let up in the morning.
Of course, the rain didn’t completely stop. It was still raining cats and dogs. It was close to a torrential downpour. Waves were thrashing about wildly, crashing onto the beach. Looking into the distance one could see overwhelming waves jumping up and crashing down.
No matter if we had underwater breathing magic cast on us or not, going out into the sea when it was in such a state would be suicide.
It was morning, so our view became a bit clearer. It would be best to avoid going out until the rain stopped, but the rain would continue until nightfall. If we stayed like this, we would not only be unable to act that day, but we wouldn’t be able to do anything until the next morning.
Securing drinking water wasn’t a problem but securing food was.
“W-where are you going?”
As I scrambled to get up, Harriet looked at me, perplexed. She seemed exhausted from summoning heating spheres all night long. She must have been the most exhausted out of all of us.
“I have to do something. Go rest.”
“…”
As I walked out into the pouring rain, Bertus, who had already come out before me, looked at me, a hand raised in greeting.
“It’s a mess.”
“I know.”
I didn’t know if it was really necessary to come out, but it seemed like Bertus had been checking the three smashed huts all night. He probably tried to make sure that all of us were safe.
“Reinhardt, there’s a problem.”
“A problem?”
Bertus’ expression hardened.
“Cayer is gone.”
Originally, all of Class A except Ellen should have given up at that point.
So the things that normally should have happened to Class B instead started happening to Class A.
***
* * *
Reaper Scans
Translator – KonnoAren
* * *
Cayer Vioden was gone. Bertus was trying to figure out the situation.
“It’s strange. Normally, the one standing guard was supposed to wake up everyone else in case of rain… Why didn’t he do that?”
Cayer’s turn was before mine; he was supposed to wake everyone else if he noticed a storm was brewing so that we could prepare for it, but he didn’t.
"Erich, who was standing watch before Cayer, said that he woke him up, and he said that he went back to sleep as soon as he saw him take up the post…”
"He didn’t wake me up."
Cayer didn’t come to wake me up. We all just got woken up by the storm’s sounds.
"Something happened to Cayer while he was on night watch… At least that’s what I think.”
So, before he was able to wake me up, something happened to Cayer, and he went missing.
“There’s the possibility that something happened to Cayer and he gave up voluntarily, or maybe this situation in itself is part of the mission, or he might have accidentally run into the jungle and gotten lost… It’s complicated.”
Bertus nodded his head at my guesses.
“Are you sure that this might be part of the mission?”
“I mean, wouldn’t that make the most sense?”
“Well…”
It seemed like Bertus needed certainty. I wasn’t sure if Cayer gave up, wandered into the jungle, or what really happened. We didn’t know if the situation was controlled or if Cayer’s life was in danger.
But the teachers wouldn’t give us any further hints.
Everything had to be resolved with our own judgment.
Whether we searched for Cayer, gave up, or uncovered the truth, it was our choice.
“We have three strong possibilities at the moment…"
Bertus continued his calm speech in this heavy rain.
“Number one: Cayer went into the jungle in the middle of the night for some reason. If he went there to do his business, it would make sense. And while he was at it, the storm started—leading him to get lost after wandering around the jungle.”
“Number two: the other people on this island kidnapped or harmed Cayer in some way. If that is the case, there is a high possibility that Cayer gave up or was eliminated. You said that these others were part of the mission, so this situation was under the teacher’s control.”
“Number three: class B kidnapped Cayer or something like that.”
Bertus considered a possibility I would never have thought of. Bertus suspected Class B.
“Class B? Why?”
“The only way to complete this mission is to hold on until Sunday. However, that’s not the only way to win.”
Surviving until Sunday was the clear condition for this mission, but that wasn’t the way to win it.
After all, this was a cooperative as well as a competitive mission.
Bertus considered all possibilities, which involved being suspicious of one’s competitors.
“There are different ways to win this mission other than meeting the special conditions.”
I understood what Bertus was trying to say.
“If one made one’s opponents give up, one could win just by holding on until Friday."
Bertus already thought of other methods of winning in the mission that even I, the writer, hadn’t thought of.
He truly was an incredible kid. Of course, Bertus also knew that it was unlikely. However, he thought that there was no way that Charlotte couldn’t come up with something like that. Although the possibility of her using such a radical method was low, it seemed like he judged that it still was a possibility.
Therefore, he asked me to go check on how Class B was doing as a form of reconnaissance. I was the only one among the students of Class A who had frequent contact with Class B, so he said it wouldn’t be all that suspicious.
He also told me to take care of issues such as sharing our situation at my own discretion.
***
After the heavy rain let up a bit more, I went to Class B’s camp—it was a mess.
All their huts were destroyed to the point where they couldn’t be salvaged anymore, and everyone had left the camp. If I hadn’t known that there would be a storm of that level and gotten Class A to reinforce their huts, we would have been in a similar state.
Class B decided to check the situation as soon as the rain let up and abandoned the camp for the moment. It would have been impossible for them to salvage the situation at the moment, as everything had happened in the middle of the night.
They probably gathered under a big tree somewhere in the jungle.
“Charlotte! Ludwig! Delphine!”
I went into the jungle and randomly called for Charlotte and Ludwig. After walking for a short amount of time, Ludwig appeared from behind a large tree.
“Reinhardt!”
“Oh! Are you okay?”
As I approached, Ludwig came over to me through the rain with a welcome expression on his face.
“Phew, this sure is one hell of a mess."
“Are you all gathered over there?”
“Oh. That’s right, but everyone’s condition isn’t all that good.”
As I followed behind Ludwig, I could see Class B’s students all huddled under a large tree, trying to take shelter from the rain.
Fortunately, there was a single light sphere floating amongst them—although it was a bit different from the ones Harriet summoned, it still emitted warmth, so they were only barely able to hold on.
At that moment, I understood that the guy named Ashir, who had divine powers, had used his divine power to summon that sphere which could give a minimal amount of warmth.
“Reinhardt.”
Charlotte, who had been sitting completely still, got up, pulled at me, and sat me down near the sphere of light.
“What? Did you come here to spy on us?"
As if doubtful of my intentions, Charlotte continued to smile helplessly even in this dire situation.
“I can’t say that it’s not like that. The situation sure doesn’t look very good.”
“It certainly doesn’t; that storm was like a bolt out of the blue last night.”
I could see that everyone in Class B was trembling. Ashir looked overwhelmed just by having to maintain his divine magic.
“How’s the situation over there?”
“Some of our camp got destroyed as well, but not as much as yours. Still, things are very bad.”
Charlotte just said, “Is that so?” to my words and nodded her head. I counted their members and finished assessing the situation.
“Doesn’t it seem like someone is missing?”
Everyone’s expression slightly hardened at my words. There weren’t as many people in Class B I really knew, so it was pretty obvious.
“Louis Ankton, did he go missing as well?”
Hearing what I said, Charlotte’s expression changed.
“What? Is it the same for your side?… What happened?”
“Yeah, we lost Cayer.”
Those disappearances weren’t restricted to just one side.
It happened to both classes. In the original, it was Lanian Sessor who was supposed to disappear. Only, that part changed slightly.
And that was how the possibility Bertus suggested, that Class B had something to do with it, disappeared. Class B would go out to search for Louis Ankton as soon as the rain stopped.
“I can’t tell you a lot of things in my position,” I said while looking at Charlotte.
One student from both Class A and B went missing. With these clues alone, Charlotte should have been able to deduce many things.
“But there’s a stream running from the mountain. You’ll find it if you go in that direction. The water’s drinkable. I found it yesterday.”
“Drinkable water?”
“Yeah.”
Everyone’s expressions changed at those words. It was true water was literally dropping from the sky, but the location of a water source was still very important information. Charlotte’s expression turned a bit complicated when she saw me give out that information for free.
“Be careful, Charlotte."
“Yes, thank you, Reinhardt. Be careful as well.”
Charlotte watched me for some distance as I returned to Class A’s camp.
