Although Class A did not win the special exam this time, the other classes were in the same boat.
The class members treated this assessment as if it hadn't happened and moved on.
Only Ichinose was still biting her finger, staring at the information she had written in her notebook.
There were no surprises this time, but who can guarantee there won't be any next time? With this thought in mind, Ichinose was determined to find the White Cat.
Just as Ichinose had a flash of inspiration, she felt a heavy weight press down on her head.
"Honami~ Still thinking about this class assessment?"
Red's magnetic voice sounded above Ichinose's head.
As Ichinose nodded, her head rubbed against the underside of Red's chin.
Placing his hands under Ichinose's armpits, Red lifted Ichinose from her seat like a kitten, turned her around, and placed the girl next to Airi.
Pinching Ichinose's frowning face, Red laughed: "Let's go, accompany me to buy ingredients for tonight. I'll explain it to you later."
Seeing this, Airi puffed out her cheeks, looking just like an angry little pufferfish.
Only the crying child gets the candy.
I, Airi, know a lot!
Enjoying Red's face-pinching service, Airi narrowed her eyes happily.
...
Teacher's Office,
As soon as school was over, Hoshinomiya rushed back to her desk, threw the documents she was holding onto the desk, and raised her small hand high: "Woohoo Work is over"
Tomonari Mashima, Kazuma Sakagami, and Sae Chabashira, who had already returned to the office, looked at the happy Hoshinomiya in surprise.
Every homeroom teacher had received the final results of this special exam.
None of the four first-year classes had found the answer to this special exam, so they didn't understand what Hoshinomiya was so happy about.
"Chie, want to go to the bar for a drink tonight?" Uncharacteristically, Sae Chabashira proactively invited Hoshinomiya to drink at the bar.
The result of this special exam deepened the gloom in Sae Chabashira's heart.
Sae Chabashira became suspicious. She now strongly doubted whether Kiyotaka Ayanokoji's identity as the White Room's masterpiece, which she had investigated, was true.
Could she have been deceived...?
Depressed, Sae Chabashira took the initiative to invite Hoshinomiya to drown her sorrows in alcohol.
Hoshinomiya clasped her hands together in an apologetic gesture, smiling as she declined Sae Chabashira's drinking invitation: "Sorry, Sae, I have a date~"
As Sae Chabashira's number one "anti-fan," Hoshinomiya naturally knew the reason for Sae Chabashira's invitation.
If it were before, even if Hoshinomiya had a date, she would have canceled it without a second thought to follow Sae Chabashira and watch her suffer.
But things were different now!
Sae, nobody wants you, but Chie is wanted.
Sae? That's in the past.
What Chie needs most right now is,
Red!
...
Carrying two large plastic bags full of ingredients back to the villa, Red saw that the guests hadn't arrived yet, so he threw the items directly into the kitchen.
Shaking his hands, which were still wet after washing, Red returned to the living room and sat next to Ichinose.
The two cats raised at home:
Mochi was already held in Airi's arms, constantly being rubbed by Airi.
Seeing Red sit on the sofa, Koharu also walked over gracefully and lay down at Red's feet.
"My good girl~"
He vigorously rubbed Koharu's large head. Only after drying the water from his hands did Red withdraw them.
Pulling out paper and a pen from the cabinet, Red wrote down all the text sent by the S-System for this special exam on the paper, then asked Ichinose as usual.
"Honami, any clues?"
"Also, Airi, do you want to listen?"
"Mmm... no."
Hearing Red call her, Airi, who was teasing Mochi, waved Mochi's two paws at Red: "Airi will pass~"
Red, who treated Airi as a mascot anyway, didn't force the girl to listen and began to explain the doubts to Honami alone.
"Honami, you were misled by this assessment from the very beginning."
Circling "Black Cat" and "White Cat" on the paper, Red wrote the word "student" under Black Cat, but put a question mark under White Cat.
"The hint only said the White Cat would appear in the class; it didn't say the White Cat would appear as a student identity."
"This is both a hint and a misdirection, reminding you that the White Cat is an anomaly. What is an anomaly? Being different from the crowd counts as an anomaly. It told you from the start: the White Cat is not a student."
"The misdirection also appears here. Black Cat and White Cat use the same species term here, so your subconscious will conflate the two. Since the Black Cat identity appears on students, your subconscious creates the illusion that the White Cat is also a student."
After breaking down the exam question and Rule 1, Red didn't continue; he was giving Ichinose time to process.
"But if the White Cat isn't a student, why did the second and third years finish so quickly?"
Ichinose, whose CPU was running wildly, grasped a key point: "Is this also a misdirection?"
The two upper grades ending the special exam on the first day was a very strange point.
"Why not? The upper grades finishing quickly on the first day brought you pressure and false information, Honami."
"And this false information, to the greatest extent, made you, who were already misled by the question, sink deeper into it."
Chuckling, Red wrote down the information about the end of the second and third-year assessments in the blank space on the other side. He drew a vertical line, creating a boundary to separate the two sides.
"Human fixed thinking is very scary. Because of the rapid conclusion in the upper grades, your thinking would subconsciously make you assume that students with the White Cat identity appeared in two classes of the upper grades."
"And the appearance of Rule 2 and Rule 3 is to give you an illusion, an illusion that a class would hide the student chosen as the White Cat in their own class."
"Honami, as Class A, you certainly wouldn't risk hiding the White Cat, but if the White Cat was in another class, it's not certain..."
"This is another layer of misdirection, misleading you to think that the White Cat not appearing in Class A is just bad luck on your part, and the reason the exam hasn't ended is because the White Cat is being hidden by another class."
Drawing a horizontal line under the rules he had explained, Red circled the beginning of Rule 4.
"Competition. This rule clearly creates a competitive relationship between classes."
"It makes the four classes operate on the basis that the White Cat identity appears on a student. They will pretend the White Cat is in their class and deliberately reveal flaws to make the other three classes waste their only chance to accuse."
"They will also try every means to find out which student in the other three classes the White Cat has appeared on."
"Testing back and forth, everyone, misled too deeply, won't think deeply about the most important thing..."
"Did the White Cat identity ever say it must appear on a student?"
Red playfully drew a rough cat head on the paper and wrote a huge question mark next to the pattern.
All of Ichinose's thoughts were shattered by Red's analysis at this moment.
"But... if the White Cat isn't a student, why could the upper grades end the exam immediately?"
Staring into Red's eyes, Ichinose urgently needed to know the answer that could connect all the clues.
The prerequisite for proving Red's analysis completely correct was that the exam rules must be misleading everyone.
And why the upper grades were not misled was the most important piece of the puzzle.
Ichinose's question made Red's eyes light up, and he couldn't help but praise: "Honami is quite smart."
As a reward, he rubbed Honami's head, then leaned into Ichinose's ear and whispered a truth that made the girl's pupils shrink.
Why?
Because I told them.
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