The Goddess Needs A Break!

After two hours passed, all of the groups returned to the rendezvous point with their items in hand.

Takei's group had managed to only collect about 15 items out of the 100 items that the teachers had spread all around the forest.

It wasn't entirely a bad result since there were several other groups that were also competing to collect the 100 scattered items.

Besides the initial item that we found, everything else was found pretty easily without hints. It still irks me how complicated that sundial item was to get...

While Takei was contemplating the difficulty of that item, the teachers began calling up every group one by one and examining the item.

"I'll go as the representative," Akari said to everyone in the group.

With Akari gone to present the items to the teachers, the group now had some downtime to relax.

"Ahhh, I'm soooo tired..." Eiji moaned in anguish.

Rikka karate-chopped him on the head for being so lazy. "You only got three items. What were you tired from? Slacking off?"

Out of the 15 items found by Takei's group, the trio of girls ended up finding the most items.

The trio found seven items, Takei and Akari found five items, and Ryuto and Eiji found a total of three items.

"To be fair, we had to move the farthest from the starting point," Ryuto pointed out. "Although you are right about Eiji being lazy, I found two out of the three total items that we found."

"Oi, you weren't supposed to say anything about that! My sister's gonna kill me now man!"

Eiji frantically tried to run away from his sister, but she already had an iron grip on his neck.

"Idiot brother of mine, would you like to enlighten me on why you only found one item?" Rikka asked him with a menacing aura surrounding her.

"I was busy trying to help Ryuto get the-"

"Tell the truth," Rikka interrupted.

"...My waifu was calling for me in my mobile gacha game..." Eiji confessed.

Hearing his friend come up with such a weak excuse, Takei couldn't help but burst out laughing. "Pfft! Dude you doomed yourself."

A similar situation had happened to Takei in the past, so he already knew what fate was awaiting for Eiji.

"Hahahaha, let's have a talk over here. I'll make sure to thoroughly discipline you," Rikka glared at Eiji as he dragged him to a nearby location.

"Eeeekkkk! Someone help me," Eiji cried as he was being dragged away.

Ryuto reached out his hand to try and save Eiji, but Takei stopped him before he could be tortured as well. "You don't want to suffer the same fate as he will."

"W-What will happen to him?" Arisa anxiously asked.

Takei shuddered as he remembered a certain event that happened in the past between him and Rikka. "You don't want to know."

"Oh, um. Okay..." Arisa questioningly eyed him.

Takei shrugged and refused to elaborate any further. "Oh, I see Akari coming back right now. Let's hope that we get some good results."

Their group ended up being the last group for the teachers to examine, so the teachers promptly announced the results.

"Without further ado, the results of the scavenger hunt are ready to be announced. Third place came in with 13 items found, so please congratulate them. Now, this is where it gets a bit complicated. The top two groups both found 15 items each, so they tied for first."

Tied for first? That wasn't what I was expecting, but I'll take it!

Takei was already ready to leave the competition behind with a smile on his face, but the teachers had one more thing to reveal.

"They would be tied for first, however..."

A suspenseful silence entered the air as the teacher announcing the news paused to build the suspense.

"...One of the teams found a special item that is worth more than just any normal item."

Eh? A special item? Does that mean...

"Takei Tanaka's team found the special sundial item that was hidden behind a difficult riddle that the teachers came up with. Since the difficulty of locating the item is greater than normal, the amount of points awarded will also be greater than normal. Therefore, that certain item will be counted as two items."

"Wha-?" Takei gasped.

He turned and looked at Akari who was also frozen still in shock.

It seems that even the goddess couldn't predict this situation.

One of the students in the crowd muttered in astonishment. "Then that means..."

"Yes, it's exactly as you think," the teacher nodded. "Please congratulate Takei's team on their first-place victory."

The entire crowd was dumbstruck by such an odd victory, but two specific people were the first two to break out of the mold.

"Congratulations, Takei! I knew you could do it!" Hasebe merrily laughed as she slapped him on the back.

"Your team did good. Good job," Ike patted him on the shoulder.

Once the initial shock wore off, all of Takei's group got riled up and ready to celebrate their hard-fought victory.

"Yahoo, we did it!" Eiji screamed in delight.

"It was so worth sprinting to some of those items," Helena noted.

"We should celebrate over some food and drinks tonight!" Arisa proposed.

"That sounds delightful," Ryuto nodded.

"I'm all in favor, how about you two?" Rikka asked the remaining two members.

"This sounds like it'll be a lot of fun!" Akari smiled. "How about you, Takei?"

"Can't say no to a celebration when we all put in hard work, right?" Takei shrugged. "Let's go all out!"

And so, the members of team Takei had a very fun and enjoyable party to end off a successful day scavenging items in the forest.

—

No meter since Akari was gone for most of this chapter.

As for the reward for the scavenger hunt, they all won gift cards.

Serious-san: Next chapter is the last one for this volume!

Sugar-chan: Yahoo! Another end of a volume!

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