I went to bed early, but I woke up in the middle of the night and sat myself up.

From what I could see through the gap in the mesh fabric of my tent, the world outside was veiled in total darkness, so much so that you couldn’t even see an inch in front of you.

The only things I could hear were the buzzing of insects and the occasional sound of something running through the grass.

When it came to camping deep within the forest, the entire experience was a battle against solitude.

It was probably a fairly harsh environment for a lone girl like Horikita or Ibuki.

Just to go to the bathroom, they’d have to dedicate time and effort to assemble an improvised toilet outside somewhere.

I sat in my tent, quietly holding my breath.

For me, the harshest thing about this was that… Acting Director Tsukishiro would undoubtedly come after me at some point, looking to have me expelled from the school.

If his plan was to come at me head-on, he would need to have me drop down to the bottom five groups somehow.

However, that strategy would be far too unrealistic.

The student was in nearly complete control over whether they’d earn points or not. Even though everyone was doing what they could to survive, I probably wouldn’t have to worry about placing in the bottom five as long as I stayed diligent about my area movements and Tasks. With that being the case, the Acting Director would most likely come at me with a different, more indirect strategy.

There was a chance he might try to make me lose out on points by making my watch break or malfunction, but an approach like that didn’t seem very practical. Though, it was also possible that he might have put some sort of system in place to prevent me from scoring points altogether. If both my watch and tablet had been tampered with, then I’d have to consider the possibility that the points currently reflected on my tablet might not really be there at all.

Of course, if the discrepancy between my watch and the school’s internal logs was large enough, I’d voice the issue with the school, and I don’t exactly think that’s something Tsukishiro would want. Hypothetically speaking, even if he had me lose out on three day’s worth of points, I would still be able to recover from it. If his plan was that careless, Mashima-sensei and other involved parties would start to suspect something. Instead of carrying out such a half-assed strategy, it made more sense that he’d try coming at me from another angle.

So, looking at it from Tsukishiro’s point of view, what would be the best way to get me expelled from the school?

Well, if I could make use of the White Room student, then I’d probably have them force my retirement through illness or injury. After all, with something serious like a broken arm, the school would instantly deem you unfit to continue with the exam.

In other words, I’d have them launch an attack on me here in the vast, unmonitored forest.

It would be a straightforward, surefire way to get me expelled.

It would be difficult for the school to tell whether or not my injuries had been caused by another human.

As someone from the White Room myself, I felt pretty confident that the enforcer had the skills to make it all seem like an accident.