Chapter 157: Volume 4.5 Chapter 5 Part 3

It’s been slightly less than an hour since the treasure hunt started. Most participants have scattered. We can no longer see several tens of people gathering in one place. But what we can still see are their figures earnestly searching in similar places.

Psychologically speaking, scanning the first code one finds is difficult.

Even if it were the hardest 2D code to find, there’s no basis to judge it on but that. Including us, there’s probably a number of students who have found the 500,000 or 1,000,000-point 2D codes but have put them on hold and ignored them.

“Good morning, Ayanokouji-senpai.”

“Hm? Aah, good morning Nanase.”

When I thought that I was being called by a presence behind me, it turned out to be Nanase.

This one being for today, this marks another time she bumped into me since vacation started. It’s still continuous.

“…Who is this?”

For some reason Satou showed obvious wariness towards Nanase and glared at her.

On the other hand, Nanase lowered her head without feeling any unpleasantness from her gaze.

“I am Nanase Tsubasa from Class 1-D.”

“Hmmm… I didn’t think you’d be a 1st year.”

Satou looked at a certain place and spat those words out. Nanase tilted her neck in curiosity.

“Is that so? I do not think I usually look splendid enough to be seen as a senior.”

“Ha, haa? What are you saying isn’t splendid?You’re definitely splendid!”

“Is that-true? I’m happy to be praised by you. I will devote myself daily to becoming more splendid.”

“It can’t be helped if you become more splendid from now on can it? I mean, how do you intend to become more splendid?”

As if she herself wanted to become splendid, Satou leaned forward a little and asked.

“It’s difficult to give a concrete explanation but… yeah, I think it’s vital for your heart to keep growing.”

“Hea-heart? It’s not drinking milk or getting a massage everyday?”

“Of course, things like that which enhance physical growth have something to do with becoming more splendid, but sure enough for me it’s from the heart.”

“Hee… this is the first time I’ve heard this. Maybe you’re good at explaining.”

It’s fine to praise her, Satou, but I don’t think you’re on the same page as Nanase…

“Are you in the treasure hunt too?”

“Eh? Ah no, I am not. For some reason I was just in a mood to take it easy for today.”

Looks like she wasn’t a participant. But then why did she show herself in a place like this?

“It’s wonderful that Ayanokouji-senpai seems to be in good health today as well. Now then, I will soon excuse myself with this.”

After Nanase left, Nakaizumi passed by behind us.

“Nakaizumi huh.”

“Hm? Is there something about Nakaizumi-kun?”

For the past few days, I tried not minding it but as I thought it looked like it wasn’t a coincidence.

It wasn’t a simple coincidence that I was seeing Nanase everyday.

First of all, Nanase had been seeing me directly in order to see how I was doing in detail.

On the 3rd day Nanase saw me on the deck as she was eating lunch, but even if I hadn’t gone on the deck on that day, Nanase would have met me anyway, wouldn’t she.

Then Nakaizumi tailed Nanase from behind.

I don’t know if he was tailing her every time, but what’s for certain is that they’re planning something. And in 9 cases out of 10, Ryuuen’s shadow slips in and out of view behind Nakaizumi.

I thought he may have been examining my relationship with Nanase, but he hasn’t shown any signs of minding me even once. With that in mind, I should look at this as them marking Nanase.

I can guess the reason they’re doing so just a little bit. Ryuuen is looking for the culprit who injured Komiya. If it’s related to that then Nanase is completely innocent. Even Sudou’s and Ike’s testimonies clearly say the same thing. Then why are they looking at her? On that day, we both saw Amasawa. But if Nanase was hiding information aside from that, the story changes. Then, even if I think about it now I wouldn’t learn anything. I placed it in a corner of my mind.

“I-It’s here Ayanokouji-kun! It was a bit hard to find here!”

Satou happily called out and thrusted her finger.

That was on the other side of the standlight, which wasn’t really visible.

It looked like a 2D code seal stuck there in hiding.

The good thing was that at the moment we didn’t see anyone else.

“But we won’t know how many points this is worth if we don’t scan it right?”

“Unfortunately.”

I feel like it’s not one of the most common 2D codes, but although spotting it has been slightly difficult, the place it’s in wasn’t very much so. I’m troubled on how to judge this.

“What should we do?”

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“Yeah…”

Nevertheless, there’s no mistake that it would be a waste to throw it away.

I produced my phone, turned it to camera mode and faced it to the seal.

“Eh? I-is that okay? Just scanning it.”

“No, I won’t scan it.”

“Hee?”

I pushed the camera button and preserved the magnified 2D code within a picture.

“What are you doing?”

“For 2D codes that look like they’d give a lot of private points, I’ll take a picture of them for later like this. If we don’t find any other good 2D codes from here, you can use your phone to scan my picture.”

“Eh? Is-is that how it works? It reacts to pictures too?”

“If you take it clearly then it’ll work without a problem.”

It would be inefficient to return to this place in order to look for 2D codes that we’ve found in the past. Other rivals could come before us, but if we preserve several seals then we could scan whichever of them are still usable in case we’re in a pinch. If even one of them is a hit, we would profit.

Even if we only had one phone, you could face your camera to the 2D code and have it display the URL.

But considering the functionality, we cannot copy a URL for later in case we cannot access it. So when I thought to save a URL I instead ended up wanting to use it.

And in a 1-in-100 chance, if I touch the URL by accident, it would get scanned and the points would be transferred already.

“The school said that there was nothing but merits to pairing up, but it’s not just being able to share points. If you can use two phones then you can employ some time-shortening techniques and avoid some accidents.”

I don’t know if the students who were dashing around in a hurry at the start overlooked that, but most students should be putting techniques like these.

What will happen later aside, now we just have to hope that no one will find this 2D code.

If someone else sees what we see on that stand light, this place would be exposed right away.

“Let’s move.”

“Yeah.”

From there we changed floors and started looking for 2D codes again.

I was looking under a certain sofa with my hand and felt something.

“There was one here too.”

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“It’s an easy pattern to understand. To think that there was another one under a sofa.”

“Satou. Could you please look around us for a bit?”

“That’s fine, but why?”

I stood in front of the sofa and lowered my head to peek.

“Don’t you think we can’t trust a 2D code like this?”

“Yeah, a 2D code here.”

I didn’t touch the floor underneath the sofa but its underside.

Usually, even if you peek on the floor underneath it, you won’t see the other side of the sofa.

More than not seeing it, not being able to see it is the more correct way to say it.

But when I touched it with my hand I noticed that it felt different. Sofa undersides should be made out of cloth and flat. It would be unusual if not. As a matter of fact, I caught something small, about 5×5 centimeters.

In other words, there was a seal here.

I put my phone underneath the sofa and took a picture.

Along with the light from the flash, the dark 2D code was stored within a picture.

“Wah, it’s true. A 2D code…! This usually wouldn’t be found would it!”

If I had participated in this treasure hunting game alone, it probably wouldn’t have been simple to scan this 2D code. If I turned on my flash I would have been able to preserve the 2D code as it was, but I wouldn’t have been able to scan it alone.

Even if I turned the sofa over, it would stand out and attract attention from other students who would see it. Considering that, I would have had to be really resolved to scan this 2D code.

But with a pair, I can have Satou scan the picture so things can proceed smoothly.

“It looks like the school is also thinking of a lot of things.”

After discovering a new candidate for scanning, we went on ahead.