Chapter 271: Advanced Nurturing's Special-Class Chef

Early morning, not yet five o’clock. The entire forest school was still steeped in darkness, but the members of Ryuen’s group had already filed out of the forest dormitory building one after another. The cold wind scraped painfully at their faces.

“Haaah…”

Satonaka Satoru let out a long yawn. He rubbed his eyes and drooped his head, half-asleep as he walked along in the middle of the line.

“Why do we have to get up a whole two hours early to make breakfast? For a normal breakfast, an hour should be enough.”

Today was Monday. Per the group’s prior agreement with the second- and third-year groups, today and tomorrow’s breakfast were their responsibility.

“No helping it. It’s our first time making breakfast for over forty people. No one in the group even knows how many people can actually cook. Plus we have to factor in the possibility of messing up and starting over. We could only move it up, and then up another hour. Tomorrow will probably be a lot easier…”

Watanabe Norihito, trudging alongside him, dragged his feet and answered listlessly.

“Just be glad they actually managed to get everyone out here together.” Yukimura Teruhiko added wearily.

One had to know that last night, Ryuen had waged yet another world-shaking battle of chaos just to get everyone up to cook. The three of them, the small fry, had hidden in a corner for half an hour.

These past two days, Yukimura kept feeling his pillow getting flatter and limper. Probably in a few more days, it would fall apart entirely.

“In a way, Ryuen really is impressive. Even a weirdo like Kouenji can be dragged out of bed by him.” Yukimura pushed up his glasses and looked helplessly at Kouenji Rokusuke, walking at the very front with an easy, carefree air. “Normally, Hirata or Horikita in Class D can’t do a thing with him.”

“Because Ryuen is shameless enough, probably?” Satonaka tugged at the corner of his mouth.

He’d actually say things like, “If you don’t come, you’ll be sleeping in the same bed as this conglomerate heir tomorrow.” Kouenji clearly didn’t want to waste energy tangled up with him.

Hearing this, Watanabe rubbed his chin and asked curiously, “Then why hasn’t he fully unified Class C even now?”

“Because of that, right? The Great Shit-Eater King…”

“True. If not for that incident at the start of the school year, Ryuen might have been a huge threat to Class B.”

“Serves him right for sneaking up on someone in the bathroom. And getting recorded doing it.”

“And that business with Hirata-kun’s fight last time,” Watanabe added with a smile. “Back then the whole forum was talking about—”

“Watanabe, Watanabe, and Satonaka!”

Suddenly, Yukimura’s deliberately lowered voice cut off their conversation.

“Hm? What’s up?”

“Behind us. Behind us!”

A look back, and the sight behind them jolted both of them.

About two meters behind the three of them, Ryuen, with his two lackeys, hands in his pockets, was following step by step in utter silence.

Seeing them turn back, Ryuen’s gaze swept across their faces, finally fixing on Satonaka Satoru. He stared hard, eyes narrowing upward, mouth curving into a grin that could only be called sinister in the dim school building:

“Heh heh…”

At that exact moment, a cold wind blew past, sweeping across their necks. The nearby woods rustled. The three of them instantly felt an eerie chill, uncanny beyond measure. After a brief silence of a few seconds, the three exchanged a glance and, without a shred of hesitation, turned forward and quickened their pace.

At a time like this, it was off to seek refuge in the west with the first man to defy Ryuen’s tyranny, Emperor Hashimoto!

As for Ryuen, like a venomous snake that had caught the scent of prey, he followed the three unhurriedly.

To actually not show any flaws. Your acting is pretty good, sweet-faced villain!

Five minutes later, the forest clearing beside the school building, the outdoor cooking area. By the time everyone arrived, the school’s staff had already been waiting there early, handing them the ingredients needed for breakfast.

“You’re saying that bastard Ryuen might be possessed?” Hashimoto Masayoshi rubbed his chin, looking at Satonaka, who had come to him to complain. “Wasn’t he fine last night?”

“Or else that bastard deliberately came over to scare us!” Satonaka clenched his fists in indignation.

“Doesn’t seem like it…”

Puzzled, Hashimoto’s gaze slowly shifted toward that red-haired delinquent.

And the next second, he silently shut his mouth. After a long silence, he managed to squeeze out a sentence.

“Alright. I think there’s still a possibility of that.”

There was Ryuen, snatching a live, flopping fish from the water vat, tossing it onto the makeshift stove, and raising a wooden stick to pound it on the head with bang bang bang. As he pounded, he let out a few inexplicable bursts of manic laughter, then, more excited, increased the force of his strikes.

“Heh heh… heh haha… hahahahaha!”

In just a few seconds, he could already picture the mastermind’s death-fish-like struggling body once he caught him!

This week, this forest school, would be the damned mastermind’s burial ground!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Is this cooking? Has he been under too much stress lately?”

Nearby, Hamaguchi Tetsuya, who had just tied on his apron, broke out in a cold sweat and quietly moved out of Ryuen’s strike range, lest he go berserk and beat him too.

Ryuen had always been a bit twisted before, but still within the normal range. Why had he been getting more and more unhinged lately? Or else, was it just that when he used to be a delinquent, he was also in the habit of using things like pipes to beat people until their flesh was tender and springy?

“Relax.” Fuyuji came over to the stove, picked up a bottle of miso paste, and, with keen interest, examined the ingredient list on the back, raring to go. “A guy like Ryuen has a hard life. He won’t go down that easily. Maybe this is just his special way of cooking. In a manga I’ve been reading lately, the chef does it this way too. What was it called—Special-Class Chef Ryuen Kakeru?”

‘If only that were really the case! xN’ The entire Ryuen group collectively complained in their hearts.

That morning, the vast majority of Ryuen’s group spent the whole time with their hearts in their throats.

…

After breakfast, the morning classes officially began.

The original four hours of class were all scheduled as physical education. After several days of long-distance running training, the school decided to have the students try out the route for the final day’s [Road Relay] assessment ahead of time.

Unlike the 1,200-meter relay at the last sports festival, this assessment was a full eighteen kilometers round trip. The relay distance was divided among the group’s members, with a minimum of 1.2 kilometers, and each assigned distance had to be a multiple of 1.2 kilometers, such as 2.4 kilometers, 3.6 kilometers, and so on…

Considering the group had twelve people in total, three of them would need to run an extra 1.2 kilometers.

Though the distance wasn’t too long, considering the rugged terrain here, it was still a severe test for students with weaker stamina. Not to mention that for the remaining days, they’d be running the full eighteen kilometers with everyone, to get used to the route.

The evidence was…

“W-wait for me, I’m… I can’t anymore. If the school wants us to get familiar with the route, why not just put us on a bus? It’s all this garbage school’s fault!”

They’d barely gone less than five kilometers, and Yamauchi Haruki had already fallen to the very back, wailing and complaining!

“Yamauchi-kun, hang in there a bit more. After exercise, you’ll feel really refreshed, you know.” Shibata So wiped the sweat from his forehead and revealed a bright smile. “The final relay is completed by everyone together. By then, you only have to run 1.2 kilometers.”

“What’s the use of saying that? I already told you I’m tired right now. Useless guy!”

“This…” Shibata gave an awkward laugh, seemingly at a loss for how to continue the conversation.

“Shibata, don’t bother with him.” Watanabe, also from Class B, glanced back at Yamauchi. “He’s yelling that loud, so he’s clearly still fine. If you’ve got the energy, go check on how Hamaguchi’s doing.”

The three brothers-in-misfortune from Ryuen’s group walked past, supporting each other. Satonaka and Watanabe looked okay, only slightly out of breath. But Class D’s top student, Yukimura, barely had the strength to speak. If not for Satonaka and Watanabe lending a hand, he probably would have dropped out of the main group already.

“Oh right, Hamaguchi too!”

Shibata, as if waking from a dream, scratched the back of his head and ran toward the group ahead, leaving Yamauchi behind, still yelling.

“Huff… huff… he really is full of energy, Shibata-kun.” Bean-sized beads of sweat slid down his cheeks, spreading a small patch of moisture on the muddy ground. Yukimura gasped for breath in big gulps. “To actually still be able to run without changing expression.”

One could only say, the gap between people was not an ordinary one.

“That’s how he is in class too. He’s in the soccer club, after all. Lots of running.” Watanabe answered.

“Sorry… Watanabe, Satonaka. I’m dragging you both down.” Yukimura’s voice was a little low. “Last sports festival was the same… I was completely useless…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Satonaka quickly patted his back a few times. “Yukimura, aren’t your grades good? Just make up the points on the written exam. Besides,”

Satonaka looked up at the few figures rapidly shrinking in the distance, then turned to look at the second- and third-year groups gradually catching up from behind, and smiled bitterly, “it’s not that we’re too slow. It’s purely that those freaks are too fast. They wrecked the pace for the rest of us.”

At the start, it had clearly been the same large group setting off at roughly the same time. Yet within a few kilometers, the first-year Ryuen group had pulled far ahead. That alone said plenty.

“That guy Ryuen really knows how to pick people. He really wants to take first place, huh?”

“Huff… huff… seems like it.”

“So… for those of us left behind, what does he plan to do? If we can’t get back within the time limit, the group might lose points, right? After all, we don’t know if the final score includes a daily performance component.”

The moment the words landed, Yamada Albert, massive as a small hill, passed by the three of them and headed straight for Yamauchi at the very back.

“W-what are you trying to do? I’m warning you, I was a taekwondo black belt champion!”

Albert said nothing. He silently broke off a branch with leaves still on it, walked up behind Yamauchi, and without hesitation raised it and brought it down.

“Bad boy! Go!” A crisp smack rang out.

“Ooh hoo hoo hoo! I get it, I get it, it hurts, I’m walking, just stop hitting me!”

Smack! Another one came down.

“Ooh hoo hoo! I’m already walking! Go easier! Those three are walking slow too, why don’t you go hit them?”

Yamauchi sped up a notch.

The moment the words landed, another strike came down. Albert, like herding cattle, drove Yamauchi forward without pause. His screams drifted on the wind back to the second-year group behind.

At the same time, the second-year group following behind watched the Ryuen group pull away again in the distance, and let out a despairing groan between gasps.

“Ah! How did they get so far ahead again? Just how well can those guys run?!”

Bang!

A fist slammed heavily into the tree trunk beside him. Second-year Class B’s Mikitani, face dark, irritably kicked a stone away.

“Damn it. At this rate, how are we supposed to complete this task?!”

Students with outstanding ability who followed Nagumo Miyabi’s instructions could be promoted to Class A.

That was the big, round, fragrant pie the current Student Council President had drawn for all the second years, and through it, he had gradually dismantled Advanced Nurturing’s long-standing structure of inter-class competition, attempting to turn the entire second year into his personal echo chamber.

In response, second-year Class B, which had been pulled nearly four hundred points behind second-year Class A, and the other classes too, though half-doubting the promise, would still carry out the tasks he assigned with a “try it, no loss” attitude.

And this time, the task was to deliberately go easy on the final day of the exam, drag down the large group’s average score, take last place, and find a way to make Ryuen’s group’s average score fall below the school’s set passing line, so that the leader, Ryuen Kakeru, would be expelled.

Judging by the current situation, whether Ryuen got expelled or not, he didn’t know. But he himself was probably about to be expelled.

In this highest-scoring [Road Relay], the second-year group had been utterly crushed by Ryuen’s group like a stray dog on the roadside. Even if the large group really did take last place, the one who’d die would be him, not Ryuen.

To go easy and still score higher than Ryuen’s group was utterly impossible!

“Give up?” The Class B student beside him clenched his fists unwillingly.

“Of course not!”

He kicked a branch beside him until it snapped. Mikitani steadied his breathing a little, closed his eyes to think for a moment, then reopened them and fixed his gaze on that wailing figure in the distance. A cold smile curved at the corner of his mouth.

“Isn’t there still one dragging them down? Let him put in a bit more effort. I’ll thank him properly…”

The moment the words landed, Mikitani’s expression suddenly changed. A churning, roiling feeling came from his stomach, and at the same time, a thunderous gurgling sound exploded.

“What’s going on?” He widened his eyes and bent over, clutching his stomach in disbelief.

At this moment, the stomach of a second-year student beside him made a sound too.

“I feel it too… did we eat something wrong?”

“Impossible. Today we only ate breakfast. But that was everyone scooping from the same big pot. There’s no way he poisoned even himself, right?”

Another second-year student spoke, trembling. “Never mind that. Mikitani, what do we do now?”

“…”

Instantly, the entire second-year group fell into a dead silence.

The two second-year students exchanged a glance, each seeing the other’s despair. This was a desolate wilderness a full five kilometers from the school. There was no bathroom at all!

“Achoo!”

At the very front of the line, Fuyuji, walking as if on flat ground, suddenly sneezed. He muttered under his breath:

“Strange. Could Ai be thinking about me?”

He rubbed his nose, glanced quietly at the few people around him with an unchanged expression, secretly let out a breath of relief, and then proudly puffed out his chest.

See, I told you. The supernova of the dark culinary world or whatever was definitely a joke.

This is totally fine, right? Fake news!