COTE : Oh No, I've Become the Substitute Chapter 60: Where Is the Mastermind?

On the afternoon of the day after the midterm exams, during the break between classes.

Near the window side of the first-year Class A classroom, several Class A students had gathered together, exchanging intelligence on how each class had fared in yesterday's midterms.

"A student from Class D was expelled."

The usually steady Katsuragi set down the notebook in his hands and, unexpectedly, was the first to speak. It seed he had been quite shaken by the news that a student had actually been expelled.

"A student nad Ike Kanji." Hashimoto leaned askew against the window fra, his fingers nimbly spinning his mobile phone as he added, facing outside.

"Is there any intelligence on the specific details of how the expulsion occurred?" Katsuragi furrowed his brow and pressed further.

Yesterday, so Class D students had also co to borrow points from Class A students. Since the amounts requested were small—just ten or twenty thousand points each—Katsuragi hadn't paid much attention. Then, that very night, he had received word that a student had been expelled.

Furthermore, the timing of the point borrowing had seed off. Why wait until the very last class period to co and borrow points? And most importantly, a student had still ended up expelled in the end.

This situation left Katsuragi deeply uneasy.

"No, it's strange this ti. I discreetly probed the Class D students for a long while, but they refused to say a single thing about it. In the past, just a few points would have been enough to extract the information." His phone ceasing its spin, Hashimoto's expression grew several degrees more serious.

Leaning in a corner with his arms folded, Kito warned in a low, deep voice, "There's a Class D student who hasn't shown up for class since the midterms ended. His seat has been empty since yesterday."

Katsuragi's frown deepened. After a mont of consideration, he reached a conclusion. "It's necessary to investigate the situation in Class D more thoroughly."

"I'll keep probing into that one," Hashimoto said, smoothly slipping his phone into his pocket and nodding in agreent.

Outside the window, the midday sun blazed fiercely. The roadside trees lining the school path drooped sowhat listlessly.

"I heard that two students in Class C also failed the exam, but the situation was resolved." Hashimoto shifted gears, his gaze withdrawing from outside the window as he steered the topic toward Class C.

"Did you hear anything about who resolved it?" Katsuragi imdiately followed up. His prudent nature kept him highly attentive to the movents of every class.

"Didn't manage to find that out either." Hashimoto shrugged, looking sowhat helpless. "The mouths in Class C have been pretty tight these past couple days."

"It was likely that Ryuen Kakeru." Katsuragi gave his own deduction. "Intel that could normally be gathered has suddenly vanished, and the person who resolved the matter can't be identified. This suggests that Class C has been consolidated to so degree."

The situations in Class C and Class D seed similar on the surface but were, in fact, completely different. One had resolved its problem, the other had not. The outcos they led to were entirely disparate.

"As for intel on Class D... Fuyuji-san said we don't need to concern ourselves with it anymore. He knows the specifics." Kito, who had been focused on pressing his phone, suddenly interjected.

"Sasuga Fuyuji-san," Hashimoto praised from the bottom of his heart.

"Indeed, just what you'd expect from Fuyuji-kun," Katsuragi likewise nodded in admiration.

The problem was...

Hashimoto and Katsuragi simultaneously turned their heads toward Fuyuji Mikage's seat, only to find it utterly empty. In unplanned unison, they voiced the sa question:

"Where is he?"

Kito tilted his head to gesture for them to look in another direction.

The two turned their heads again. They looked at Morishita Ai's seat, equally empty, then at Yamamura Miki's seat, also devoid of any person.

A brief silence hung in the air. The droning of cicadas outside the window seed especially grating.

The clever minds had already deduced the truth.

....

The blazing sun was so fierce one could barely keep one's eyes open. Squinting into the distance, several of the originally straight buildings on the Advanced Nurturing High School campus appeared to bend and warp, as though they might lt on the spot.

Within just a few short days, temperatures in Tokyo had skyrocketed. Coupled with the heat island effect generated by this sprawling tropolis, the entirety of the Advanced Nurturing High School was being baked like a giant furnace.

Since the extravagantly funded school had central air conditioning installed everywhere on campus, the students' lives within the buildings remained largely unaffected.

This, however, did not stop Fuyuji, in cahoots with Morishita Ai and Yamamura Miki, from running out during the break to buy popsicles.

"Ah, I live again."

Fuyuji held a popsicle in his mouth. He returned the phone, from which he had just finished sending a ssage, back into his pocket, and stepped once more into the school building. The cold air wrapped around his entire body, seeping into the gaps between his bones, making him feel as if every single cell was cheering.

The situation in Class D was indeed difficult to probe. Helplessly, though, the other side had a certain internal bully nad Sakayanagi Arisu.

Before he, her good pal, had even started asking, Sakayanagi had already, like a leaky sieve, eagerly blurted out everything in its entirety.

The reason it was so hard to gather clear intel was that Class D's original de facto leader, Hirata Yosuke, seed to have fallen into a withdrawn state after his classmate's expulsion. Because he was usually so well-liked, the Class D students had tacitly agreed to keep the matter a secret for his sake.

"Why go out of your way to buy popsicles when you could just sit tight in the classroom in this kind of weather?"

"Because I wanted to eat a popsicle." Walking beside him, Morishita was focused on her popsicle, her little pink tongue lapping at it intermittently. She shot Fuyuji a sideways glance. "If you have an objection, please voice it, Fuyuji Mikage, receiver of misdelivered love letters."

"..." If you'd actually seen the real love letter, wouldn't you be kicking up an even bigger fuss?

Having actually received a real love letter, Fuyuji had no desire to speak.

"You should be full of gratitude and say thank you to the great Morishita, who, to comfort you, took the initiative to propose treating you to a popsicle." Morishita smugly waggled her popsicle. "Otherwise, you'd have no choice but to run off to so dark corner and secretly wipe your tears."

Fuyuji stopped walking, turned his head, and stared at her, speaking in a somber tone. "A certain soone just now stated it was because she herself wanted to eat one, didn't she? And if I recall, when this certain soone left, it seed to be on a whim, and she didn't even bring her phone. In the end, Yamamura paid for it."

"It's fine, really." Yamamura, walking cheerfully at the front, seed quite happy. "As long as you both liked them."

Morishita was utterly unfazed. "In any case, the great Morishita comforted you, ungrateful Fuyuji Mikage." She poked Fuyuji's arm with her free hand. "Hurry up and say thank you to !"

"..."

"Ryuen, what business brings you to the Class A classroom?"

A steady voice caught the attention of the three passing by. Without prior agreent, they all stopped in their tracks and stretched their heads out in unison, peering toward the Class A side.

"Don't be so on guard, Katsuragi. I just want to get acquainted with that nesis of mine. Even though we haven't officially t face-to-face, he seems to have forgotten—there's still soone who saw him in the restroom."

Ryuen Kakeru revealed a cold, harsh smile. He angled his body, revealing the iron-tower-like, massive figure of Albert behind him, and then, with his scant few underlings barged straight into the Class A classroom.

"Right now, I've got no interest in you. Let enjoy myself a few days from now. I'm just here to take a look at all you Class A honors students."

Having spoken, he twisted his head around and swept his gaze across every person in the classroom like a blade.

The Class A students, each previously doing their own thing, watched Ryuen barge in with his re two or three hangers-on. The silence persisted for an instant, and then the whispering imdiately began.

"Hey, isn't he that... that whoever from the restroom?"

"Ah, ah, Restroom War God. I rember now. Ryuen Kakeru. Super easy to rember—Ryuen Kakeru, the one who flew up and got shot down, right?"

"What Ryuen Kakeru? That's the King of Crap-eating. I hear he feels absolutely miserable if he goes a single day without eating so."

"So what's he doing in our class?"

"What else could he be doing?"

After another brief silence, a few students subtly shifted their rears closer to their chairs.

"..."

Amid his drama-feasting, Fuyuji witnessed the entire process of Ryuen's face turning from black to red, and then from red to a livid shade of iron.

"If there's nothing else, please leave." Even the perpetually straight-faced Katsuragi had a hint of mockery in his voice now.

Several veins bulged on Ryuen's forehead. Suppressing his fury, his fingers cracked audibly as he clenched them.

"A trashy place like this... once I've grown tired of toying with it, I'll naturally leave."

After grinding these words out from between clenched teeth, Ryuen turned his head to look at the fully attentive Yamada Albert.

"So? Is that bastard here or not?"

During yesterday's Class C expulsion crisis, Ryuen had demonstrated his capability and subsequently recruited a handful of underlings. Finally free from the endless cycle of either being in a fight or on his way to one, he had taken the first step toward his goal of dominating the Advanced Nurturing High School.

And the very first thing he intended to do—

Was to drag out that goddamned mastermind!!

After the midterms ended, the frequency of his history of humiliation circulating on the forums had shot up yet again.

He could figure it out with his toenail—it had to be that guy, trying to prevent him from unifying the class by ramping up the spread of that video.

He had finally, with great difficulty, managed to cow that bunch in his class with the brutality of this school, and a small fraction of the students had pledged allegiance to him. Now, the mont that video resurfaced, things were about to swing back into uncertainty again.

Holy hell, that goddamned Mastermind X, how could he be so despicable!

He, Ryuen Kakeru, already considered himself cunning and treacherous, yet he'd never imagined soone could be a level above even that. He absolutely had to find him and take him out!

Most importantly, that bastard hiding in the shadows—who the hell was he?

The only thing that could be confird was that this guy was a first-year male student at the Advanced Nurturing High School!

Students from other grades had no conflict of interest with him. That restroom was also typically used by first-year boys. And the guy wasn't a Class C student—otherwise, Albert's mory wouldn't be so vague.

In order to track down this guy, he had solemnly gotten on his knees and apologized to Yamada Albert, exchanging that for his help in finding any trace of the guy.

According to Albert's recollection, before him, there had been a sowhat good-looking student who had entered the restroom first. However, all he had seen was a back view, and since he had been wearing sunglasses he couldn't distinguish the color of his hair.

Every ti his thoughts reached this point, Ryuen couldn't help but clench his fists. He had been far too enraged at the ti, and had forgotten to check whether a third party had been present at the scene.

This had led to him brushing right past the mastermind.

Yamada Albert stepped up onto the lectern. Through his sunglasses, he slowly and ticulously scrutinized every single boy in Class A.

Only after a long while did he look toward Ryuen beside him, his manner slightly hesitant.

"NO."

Ryuen swept his gaze across the whole class once more. His sharp eyes lingered on the small handful of empty seats.

"Let's go. We'll wait outside for those few to co back!"

Having said that, he found a comfortable spot by the door to lean against, putting on an attitude that declared, "I'm going to wait right here until the end of ti."

He was going to confirm them one by one. As long as there was even the slightest possibility, he absolutely would not pass up any chance to find that mastermind.

The mastermind, Fuyuji, nodded to himself. So that's it. He's looking for soone.

"Let's go."

"Let's head back. Class is about to start," Yamamura softly chid in, tugging at Morishita's sleeve.

"Fine." Morishita, having failed to witness any explosive drama, looked a little disappointed.

Fuyuji walked straight over. He stood in front of Yamada Albert, who was guarding the doorway, and stared at his face. He opened his mouth and asked, "Can I try on your sunglasses?"

Yamada Albert was clearly taken aback for a second. In a gruff, muffled voice, he replied, "NO!"

"What a pity."

With the popsicle still in his mouth, Fuyuji returned to his seat, a trace of disappointnt on his face.

Ryuen, right after consolidating Class C, imdiately cos to each class to conduct a dragnet-style search to flush out the mastermind?

Yeah, right. Just give that thod a listen and leave it at that.

Who would rember the back view of so passerby they brushed past two months ago?

If he actually did rember, then why over these two whole months had there been no action whatsoever, but the very mont he'd gotten a preliminary hold on his class, co swaggering into other classes with such fanfare?

It was highly likely that Ryuen was using this thod to bluff and bluster, watching to see who would panic at this precise mont and give themselves away, thereby conveniently locking onto a suspect.

Even in the most improbable scenario, if Yamada Albert really could recognize him, there'd be no use in hiding. A place as big as the Advanced Nurturing High School—they were bound to run into each other sooner or later. Far better to just stride up confidently and let him have a look, turning the tables from passive to active.

But still, Ryuen sure had a lot of free ti. He'd only just gotten a preliminary grip on his class, still had a bunch of opposition within it, yet couldn't wait to co and try to smoke him out.

He could only wish him good luck.

After lingering by the classroom entrance a while longer and confirming that all of Class A's students were present, Ryuen once again looked toward Yamada Albert. The reply he received remained NO.

Leaning against the wall, Ryuen let out a cold sneer.

"I thought the probability of that guy turning up in Class A was the highest, so I put your Class A at the top of the list. Seems you lot are nothing special after all."

"..."

The Class A students shared a knowing glance, then turned back and resud their whispering.

"What weird stuff is he spouting? Are all Class C people like this?"

"Isn't that just how your average chuunibyou is? Every class has one, you know."

"No, no, no. The one in our class is way better than him."

"Maybe... eating too much of that stuff has affected his nerves?"

"That's indeed possible. I hear his grades aren't very good normally, either."

"Ah, is that so? Then what's so random stray doing here?"

...

The veins on Ryuen's forehead bulged once more. He let out a cold huff. "How arrogant, Class A. Just you wait. Once I've dealt with that mastermind, I'll slowly drag you down from your Class A throne."

After delivering his parting threat, he shoved his hands into his pockets and, with his handful of underlings in tow, headed off toward the other classes.

Silently licking his lting popsicle, Fuyuji watched Ryuen's swaggering figure depart. He then shifted his gaze toward Hashimoto.

This Advanced Nurturing High School does not permit the existence of soone so full of himself!

Ti to put on a little show for our dear Ryuen!

Hashimoto revealed a look of complete understanding and raised a hand, flashing a hand signal.

OK!

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