บท 15: Chapter 15
A/N: Comrades! I decided to do a special chapter once this fucking island arc is over! Be prepared for greatness!
Hikigaya Hachiman POV
Currently, Hikigaya was waiting at a spot that was currently occupied by Class B.
There was 5 minutes left, and he would wait for 15 minutes before leaving. There was no guards in sight, and the only possibility that Class B would do to prevent the leader from getting discovered by someone like Hikigaya was to arrive in a group.
If no one arrived in 15 minutes, he would just take the unoccupied spot for himself and do it tomorrow.
He still had an hour before he had to start his night rounds.
He was on top of a tree, and was waiting for people to come.
Hikigaya naturally had a reduced presence if he activated one of his 108 skills: Stealth Hikki but during the night time it evolved into Presence Concealment.
It wasn't a copyrighted skill name so who cares?
Hearing noises up ahead, he saw six people walking up to the spot.
He only remembered two of the names. Katsuragi and Totsuka.
Totsuka was Katsuragi's second in command if he remembered correctly.
Hikigaya stopped breathing to hear the conversation better.
"I can see the spot, Katsuragi! Do I wait or do it now?"
"Lower your voice Yahiko. Let the other 4 inspect the surroundings before we do anything."
That was easier than he expected.
It seemed that Yahiko was a brash second in command. His voice as annoying to boot.
He felt like the type of guy who would only glaze Katsuragi yet not have a single coherent thought of his own.
Hikigaya disliked those type of people the most.
Other than popular people who acted like nice people but actually only cared about their own friend group.
Hikigaya knew that he wasn't going to get discovered, so he would have to wait until they left.
After unsuccessfully inspecting the surroundings, the 6 huddled into a group before dispersing.
'That would have been effective if Totsuka wasn't a dumbass,'
Hikigaya thought.
All he had to do was to make his rounds and then relax for the rest of the time, occasionally helping the class out.
But the rounds were still relatively physically demanding of him.
Now that he had a total of 29 locations he had to occupy every 8 hours.
There was an average distance of 400-500 meters that he had to jog to get there before the timer ran out, and then after the timer ran out, he would jog to the next one to prevent a long time gap between it being occupied and unoccupied.
He had stolen a few from Class B when they didn't have the timing down yet, and Class D wasn't active in looking for spots.
But that meant that he had to jog 14.5 km across the island terrain every 6 hours, and it was pretty tiring.
By pretty tiring, Hikigaya meant extremely exhausting.
He would finish downing the liter bottle that Ichinose always gave him by the 25th spot, and then after that he would finish the remaining 2 kilometers without any water.
Hikigaya regretted it a little, occupying so many locations. While the journey was originally an hour and a half on average with 26 spots, it bumped it up to an hour and 45 minutes with 3 more spots that he stole from Class B. That number would probably increase with every round. But he was still on his 5th round, and he would need to complete a maximum of 18 rounds.
Hikigaya assumed that by the 10th round, the time would increase to 2 hours.
But if he was doing 14.5 km 13 more times, he would have to jog around 4 marathons for the rest of the week.
Just thinking about it was extremely daunting.
But Hikigaya had to do it.
For free money!
It was like getting paid to run!
If from the 3th round it was 29 S-Points per round, and he had accumulated 46 S-Points before that, as long as he didn't mess up, he would get a staggering 481 S-Points by the time the island exam ran out!
This wasn't even including the points for guessing Class B and Class C's leader, adding it up to 581, and if A Class didn't spend any more S-Points, that would be an additional 190 points, bringing it up to 771 Class Points! There would be a 30 point decrease once he resigned, but that was stull 741 Class Points!
It was an extreme increase in Class Points, to the point that it was an insane amount!
Class D weren't occupying spots, Class B and C's leader was already known, so occupying spots didn't do them any good, so Hikigaya expected the gap to increase significantly!
This didn't even include the possible gain from the next exam!
If Ayanokoji actually did something this exam, Class B and Class C would get 2 leaders wrong, and that was if they even voted for Class A's leader, which Hikigaya was sure of that they would.
If it resulted in an allowance increase of 74,100 private points, added on to the 104,000 private points he was already getting, then it would be 178,100 private points every month!
Such results were enough to motivate Hikigaya even further to keep jogging.
Hikigaya didn't tell Ichinose how grueling the rounds were, but if she found out she would probably worry.
—+—
Ichinose Honami POV
Ichinose was grateful that despite being so observant, Hikigaya didn't understand the female brain as well.
When Ichinose was sniffing Hikigaya's towel and got caught, despair had grasped her heart, with a spoonful of embarassment.
Thankfully, Hikigaya hadn't realized, as everyone had the exact same towel.
When Ichinose had noticed that Hikigaya didn't notice, she thanked the gods that were looking over her.
Ichinose expected an expression of disgust on Hikigaya's face, but he instead had an expression of understanding and pity?
Ichinose assumed that Hikigaya had misunderstood that she was wiping her sweat instead of purposely sniffing in Hikigaya's scent.
Ichinose thanked the gods once more that she was on fire and cooking duty.
Hikigaya hadn't realized a thing, and had started talking about his findings.
'Impressive as always,'
Ichinose thought, as Hikigaya had explained the entire scheme of Class C in the few hours of just watching them.
Hikigaya's intellect was one of his many appeals.
Ichinose trusted Hikigaya to have the optimal solution to anything she asked.
It was why when Hikigaya had proposed switching leaders right before the exam ended, she had seen the benefit and agreed to it, despite her reservations in using underhanded tactics.
But if it was Hikigaya?
She would probably do anything.
She remembered when they had celebrated her birthday privately in her room in the morning, as she had a party in the evening.
He had gifted her a panda plushie and a fountain pen.
Ichinose hadn't remembered telling Hikigaya about her favorite animal, but Hikigaya hadn't realized said that he assumed that it was from her handkerchief design.
Ichinose also liked that side of him.
It was more appropriate to say that she liked every part of him, even ones she didn't even know about.
Despite starting their friendship awkwardly, it was the relationship Ichinose valued the most.
She hugged the panda plushie every night, putting Hikigaya in it's place in her dreams.
But she was worried for Hikigaya. What if he got injured when he was by himself in an island with no way of getting help?
She knew that the watch had features to prevent it from happening, but it still didn't stop her from worrying.
From what she had overheard about the spots, Hikigaya would occupy 26 spots, and it looked physically grueling. She didn't know if he had started occupying more after that, but still.
She still remembered when Hikigaya ran to make it to morning roll call that day, drenching in his own sweat.
His clothes were stuck to his skin, giving a good view of his well built physique underneath, and when he had greeted her, his tired voice was even more alluring.
His half soaked hair and an expression of exhaustion were just the cherries on top.
He had no idea how jealous she was of Kanzaki when he had asked him to smell him.
But Ichinose could still smell him from a distance, his normal scent added with an earthy smell of grass and dirt was enough to stimulate her.
She had glanced at her female classmates, who looked like they had similar reactions.
'Why are they looking at him like that?'
and
'You guys understand now, right?'
Were the two thoughts in her head. One possessive, and one of mutual understanding.
But such possessive thoughts was what led to her sniffing his towel.
She knew that it was wrong.
Disturbing, even.
Yet she couldn't help it. Hikigaya was like a drug.
A highly addictive and potent one.
—+—
Hikigaya Hachiman POV
Hikigaya had to admit, his night rounds were the most dangerous ones.
He couldn't even recount how many times he almost tripped on a stray root, cursing every time he encountered one.
But the night rounds were the ones that he had to go faster on.
It was crucial to get more sleep and rest so he could start the next day.
…It seems that he was going to have to tell Ichinose about napping during the day if she was awake.
Arriving back at base camp, bottle empty, the first thing he needed was some water.
After he had occupied the last spot, he would put the card in his shoe.
Disgusting? He was supposed to be the only one who could even use it, so it didn't matter.
After taking multiple greedy gulps of water, he quickly stretched his hamstrings and calves, before laying down in an empty hammock to get some sleep.
As exhausted as he was, he immediately fell asleep when he closed his eyes.
"Hikigaya-kun?"
It was Ichinose once again.
This time he was prepared.
He immediately got up from the hammock, slapping his cheeks to get out of his grogginess faster, surprising Ichinose.
"Sorry, I had to get the grogginess out of me,"
Hikigaya apologized, stretching his entire body and warming it up.
Nights in Japan, a naturally humid country were warmer than other countries, so that was something to be grateful for.
He checked his watch.
5:50. It was pretty optimal as he had 10 minutes to get to the next one.
Ichinose walked up with a bottle of water in her hands.
"Thanks for waking me up and the water, I'll see you at roll call."
Ichinose smiled.
"Yeah, I'll see you at roll call."
Hikigaya left the camp, 14 kilometers ahead of him.
Now that he had thought about it, the Morning rounds were the most physical grueling ones, because those were the ones that had strict time limits because it was right before the morning roll call, so no matter what, he would have 2 hours to jog 14 kilometers.
Already from the rounds yesterday, his calves and ankles were relatively sore. This could be reduced with a large water intake and ample rest, so Hikigaya didn't think of it much.
Ignoring pain was one of his 108 Skills, it was why he didn't mind getting punched by the likes of Sudo and Ishizaki.
It was something he had picked up when he was getting bullied back in Junior High.
That was depressing now that he had thought about it.
Hikigaya wondered how much weight he would lose by the end of the exam.
The average male intook around 2000 to 2500 calories a day, and he wasn't an adult, so he would lower it to 1800 to 2300.
On top of that, he only consumed an average of 3 fish a day, assuming it were trouts, a freshwater fish, it would be 500-600 calories for only eating the main meat, eating only breakfast and dinner. That amounted up to around 1500-1800 calories, added with 1 cob of corn with was another 100 calories for 1600-1900 calories consumed a day.
If a 42 kilometer jog removed an average of around 2500 calories, not including the passive loss from using his brain which was 1300-2000 calories lost, he would lose at most 4500 and at the least around 3800 calories while only consuming 1600-1900 calories a day, causing a minimum calorie deficit of 1,900 and a maximum calorie deficit of 2900.
These numbers were much higher than the healthy calorie deficit of 500 a day.
And since 1000 calories lost roughly translated to a pound lost, Hikigaya was losing 2-3 pounds a day from running.
That was definitely not healthy.
And if the fish that he didn't know the species of had even less calories than a trout, that was even worse.
There were still 4 days until August 7th not including today.
So unless Hikigaya ate a shit ton of food to make up for it, Hikigaya might lose 8-12 pounds by the time the exam ended.
Hikigaya would have to ask for more food, despite not being a heavy eater himself.
Either that or eat more than 2 meals a day.
But eating right before a round wouldn't benefit Hikigaya at all.
So he would just have to ask for more when he did eat.
Then after that he would have to digest it by doing some actions for 15 minutes after a meal, and then was he able to sleep.
Hikigaya lamented his position, but money was money.
Since he had relatively memorized the path back to the ship, unlike the previous day, Hikigaya would arrive earlier.
That was a saving grace.
—+—
A/N: While I was writing, I realized the absurdity of how much Hikigaya is actually jogging. He's basically running a marathon every day.
But I did buff his physical abilities anyways, so I guess it's kind of realistic?
It's like david goggins level of tenacity. But Hikigaya is doing it for money.
Also Ichinose kinda freaky on god. But who cares?
Sometimes, people need a bit of freaky in their lives.
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