[Perhaps no one has noticed why, but I noticed it, it was precisely because of the previous pole toppling competition that I paid attention to your existence, Saiki.]
[At the beginning, you basically did not use strength, right? From your expression I could tell, and I noticed the change in your expression just now, only now did you become slightly serious.]
[And after you exerted strength, the entire tug-of-war's trend changed, from not using strength at the beginning to only using strength now… for you, is it possible to easily control the win-or-lose of this match? Interesting, I have already remembered you, Saiki.]
Horikita Manabu's face maintained a smile, and with his hand he pushed up his glasses; sharp gaze penetrating through the lenses, always falling upon Saiki's body.
And at this very moment, Saiki, in the center of the tug-of-war vortex, simply did not have the time to pay attention to Horikita Manabu's situation over there, putting his attention entirely on the rope in his own hands.
'The rope broke, I need to use the restoration ability for this to work… but now that the rope is broken, I have to make the two ends completely touch each other…'
Saiki thought so in his heart; because of the rope breaking, between the two broken ends in his hands there existed a small little gap.
'Just use a little bit of force to make the two ends fit together, then it will be more convenient to use the restoration ability.'
Thinking like this, Saiki was controlling the size of his strength.
At the same time, in the other direction of the rope, Ryeun's face showed an expression of confusion.
[What is going on? Obviously I even went so far as to change sides, and also used words to "motivate" them, yet still did not take the victory?]
[Just now didn't we already obtain the advantage? Why is there no way to, in one push, take the match?]
[Could it be… the other side is also holding back? Then we also cannot consume too much at this time, abandon this round. After all, tug-of-war is best of three.]
Before the match began, Ryeun had already set a tactic for the class, in necessary situations, he would order the class's students to suddenly let go.
In a fierce tug-of-war match, if their class suddenly let go, then the red team, who at that moment was using full strength, would instantly lose balance and fall to the ground, their stamina would not only be consumed, but it might even provoke their emotions.
If it were someone like Sudou Ken, he might even get his head clouded by anger and start a fight, and in that case they would be ruled as fouling and lose the match.
This was Ryeun's countermeasure, no matter what event, he had already thought up a corresponding strategy.
[Let's just go with that.]
Ryeun thought this in his heart, and then prepared to give the signal for the others to defend,
But at that instant, the rope in his hands suddenly burst out with a terrifying force, directly dragging him forward.
Not only Ryeun, the entire white team was suddenly dragged forward all at once.
This was exactly Saiki's doing.
Although it was only for an instant, it was enough to successfully disrupt the white team's rhythm. Many people lost their balance and fell to the ground, including Ryeun himself.
The balance between both teams was instantly broken.
"First round, red team wins!"
The referee blew the whistle, indicating the first round was over.
"Tch, so that's all?"
"So we were this strong?"
"Looks like the gap between us is this big!"
Several red team students cheered, and Saiki also, relieved, put down the rope in his hands, the originally broken place had already been completely restored, looking as if there was no difference at all.
'Yare yare, that was dangerous…' Saiki finally let out a long breath.
'Although the last push I didn't control my strength well, since it's a group event, probably not many people noticed anything abnormal.'
Saiki looked around, slightly confirming their mental activity, almost no one noticed anything abnormal, except for Ryeun.
[Impossible… why did the red team just now erupt with such a huge force?]
'Uh-oh… could Ryuen have noticed something wrong? He shouldn't suspect me, right?'
[Could it be…]
Although Saiki believed the other party shouldn't doubt him, he still felt slightly tense.
[Could it be… the red team already saw through our tactics, and has been hiding their strength all along?]
[Their overall strength was originally above ours, but just to speed up our stamina loss, they deliberately pretended to be locked in a stalemate with us earlier!]
'Good, not bad at all, you.'
Hearing Ryeun's inner voice, Saiki let out a sigh of relief. His dislike toward Ryeun lessened quite a bit, even to the point of gaining a little favorable impression.
Thanks to Ryeun, Saiki avoided quite a bit of trouble.
"We give up this round."
During the few minutes of break, Ryeun said this to his class's students.
"Huh? Why?"
Ishizaki Daichi, one of Ryeun's most loyal subordinates, was full of doubt. He believed they had just narrowly lost, and were close to winning midway.
"Idiot, you still haven't seen it? We fell into the red team's trap." Ryeun frowned as he spoke.
"Huh?"
Ishizaki looked completely dumbfounded.
"Their strength is far above ours. That evenly matched state at the start, even pretending to be at a disadvantage, that was just acting."
"Their goal was to give us the illusion we could win, to consume our stamina. That way, in the second round we'd be even less able to win."
"Not only that, some of us still have to participate in the upcoming events, we absolutely cannot have too much stamina drained!"
Ryeun answered in a serious tone.
"I see, as expected of Ryuen! Even such a scheme you could see through!"
Ishizaki responded in extreme amazement.
"I underestimated the opponent… I fear that this time's sports festival, we may fail in the end…"
Ryeun shook his head, then told the referee that Class D would forfeit the second round of the tug-of-war.
"Forfeit? What are you doing!"
Kanzaki Ryuuji from Class C could not understand Ryeun's one-sided forfeit at all. With Class D forfeiting, their Class C naturally could not face two classes alone, equivalent to handing victory over.
The people from Classes A and B were also completely puzzled.
"Ryuen and Class D forfeited, what exactly are they trying to do?"
"Could it be they've given up?"
"Feels like Ryuen is planning something."
But Ryeun ignored Class C's dissatisfaction and walked straight away,
Just then, his phone vibrated slightly; Ryeun received a message from Kushida.
Kushida, Yamauchi Haruki is indeed very likely the one behind all of this.
Kushida, Right after I met you, I ran into him at the entrance.
Kushida, Although he used the toilet as an excuse, that location was absolutely not the direction of the restroom. He was probably following me.
"As expected."
The corner of Ryeun's mouth slightly curved upward.
"But overall, this time's sports festival can still be considered to have yielded gains. This grudge, we can settle later, first, I need to confirm one thing."
Ryeun quickly brought Ishizaki to the girls' resting room of the class. At this moment, Manabe Shiho was doing warm-ups, she still had an event coming up.
"Ryuen… what are you here for?"
Manabe Shiho frowned, staring hard at Ryeun.
Although Ryeun controlled Class D, there were many in the class dissatisfied with him, Manabe Shiho was one of them.
"Manabe, you're hiding something from me, aren't you?"
Ryeun's mouth split into a grin like that of a jackal.
"What thing?"
Manabe Shiho tried to pretend she knew nothing, but the brief flash of panic on her face already exposed her inner thoughts.
"In our class there's a traitor, right, I think that person might be you. So I want to see your phone to confirm."
Ryeun slightly narrowed his eyes.
"If you confess honestly, I can forgive you."
Ryeun's face kept a smile, but his words carried a trace of killing intent.
He wanted to know the reason Manabe Shiho betrayed.
"I…"
Manabe Shiho hesitated, but seeing Ishizaki and others following behind Ryeun, she had no other choice but to hand over her phone.
She was very clear that lying at this point had no meaning anymore.
Ryeun browsed Manabe Shiho's message records, noticing an unknown contact named "X." But what puzzled Ryeun was that the other side seemed to have used two different anonymous accounts.
The first account had sent Manabe Shiho a cruise ship video, in the video, she was about to bully Karuizawa Kei, but at the end Saiki appeared in the frame, interrupting the act.
[So this is the reason Manabe was threatened? If this video were sent to the teacher, it would be a very serious matter, but this also proves Saiki is definitely not X, otherwise he wouldn't have appeared in the footage.]
The second account had Manabe Shiho do various things, one of them was to buy pudding, and another was to stay by Ryeun's side and look for chances to record audio.
But Ryeun had already noticed Manabe Shiho's abnormality, so he had been on guard and did not give her the opportunity to record.
[As expected, using Manabe to spy on my side's intel, huh?]
[But something is strange, why use two different anonymous accounts to send messages…]
[Could it be X is actually two people? No… is he showing off his ability? From all his actions, this guy is arrogant and conceited, most likely he's just displaying his ability, telling us he can easily hide his information.]
[But precisely because of your arrogance, it has led to your failure, I have already grasped your clues, Yamauchi Haruki!]
Ryeun's gaze gradually became sharp.
[Your identity, I've already found out.]
[To disguise yourself to this extent is already quite good, but too bad, your opponent is me. I will definitely tear you apart completely, ]
[But before that, I still need more intel about Yamauchi, for example, by targeting the people around him.]
Ryeun's gaze focused on the video on Manabe Shiho's phone, replaying the cruise ship footage again and again, Saiki's appearance at the end.
[Deliberately letting Saiki appear at the end, plus all the prior behavior, he must be a piece you're using to cover yourself. I might be able to use him to get more information about you.]
At this moment, Ryeun was like a hunter who had found his prey. He turned his head and said to Ishizaki, "After the sports festival ends, go meet this guy."
After the tug-of-war competition ended, each competition event also continued taking place.
Borrowed-item race, cavalry battle… all sorts of various events started one after another. Saiki felt somewhat baffled, these were clearly events just like kindergarten games, so why would they be counted into this sports festival?
However, among these competitions, the red team, including Class B, all obtained still-considered-not-bad results.
In contrast, Class D's morale seemed to have become extremely low, and the competitions were thus affected not a little, with their condition becoming extremely poor.
"Strange, why does it feel like Class D has lost their fighting spirit?"
"Yeah, I don't know why their results have become this bad."
"I feel the same way."
The students of Class B were all discussing in succession, yet only Saiki knew the truth.
[Ryuen said, those guys of Class B want to consume our stamina.]
[Ryuen told us to give up this sports festival.]
[We're going to have class points deducted again… but it also seems to be something with no way to do anything about…]
He could clearly hear the inner voices of the Class D students, it looked like Ryeun had already given up on this sports festival.
Although Saiki did not know the specific reason why Ryeun chose to give up, it seemed to have a certain relation with himself.
Very soon it was the final event, the mixed-gender relay.
However, unlike the previous other events, this time the 1,200-meter relay race would be held with the entire grade's members divided into several groups together.
This meant that the first-year students would have a chance to compete together with the third-year students.
Very soon, everyone, according to the referee's instructions, went to their respective positions, and Saiki was responsible for the final leg of this competition.
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