The starting point of the cross-country training is outside Tokyo. The scene is cluttered with protective gear and weights that freshmen need to wear. The starting point is marked with a thick red line, and colorful triangular flags and ropes along the way guide the direction.
The instructors said: "The whole course is five kilometers, and one round trip is exactly ten kilometers. If you don't finish the race within an hour, you will never have to run it. You will be eliminated and will have to live the life of an ordinary person on the bus."
One of the instructors looked at Ichijō Mirai a few times and added, "If there aren't enough people to be eliminated, then the number of people in each class who managed to stay alive will be compared, and whichever class eliminates more people will be punished."
Onidzuka Hachizo promptly added, qualifying this additional rule, "That is, the worst class will be punished."
Otherwise, Onidzuka's class would be penalized for being the bottom class.
Ichijō Mirai puts on his protective gear, carries his weights, and clicks on the archive before starting his weighted run.
Unlike a normal running race, the key to cross-country weightlifting is not speed, but endurance, and the only way to be successful is to keep going the whole way and finish the 10 kilometers in the allotted time.
It would have been logical to consider the issue of stamina at the beginning and make the opposite choice of a sprint race, reserving energy for the sprint.
Unfortunately, after a few minutes of running, Ichijō Mirai sent most of the freshmen running out of their minds with a look of awe, and watched as the freshmen sprinted as if they were running the 1,000 meters, sprinting until they ran out of energy, stopping to catch their breath, and then resuming their sprints without thinking about their brains.
It's an eye-opening behavior.
Ichijō Mirai asked Morofushi Hiromitsu next to him, "Am I mistaken?"
Or are there really people who are that stupid?
There were only a few of the new students who didn't sprint in a frenzy at the start, trying to beat the clock and finish the ten kilometers as quickly as possible, and Morofushi Hiromitsu was one of them. He maintained his own running pace, which was about the same as Ichijō Mirai's, and sniffed with a bemused grin, "Most of the people are just normal college students before they enter the police academy."
"It can't be helped, they only have tournament experience at best."
And races, in general, don't have weight requirements, and the course is a standardized track without the ups and downs and debris of the wild.
"But," Morofushi Hiromitsu added, noting Ichijō Mirai's demeanor and slowly calling out the name, "'Ku'jō-san,"
Ichijō Mirai gave a tone of voice that signaled he was listening, "Uh-huh."
"Kujō-san seems to be very experienced," Morofushi Hiromitsu took a pause without observing the difference, then used the title again and smiled as he went on, "Have you run cross-country before?"
He hadn't run cross-country before, that was something that only serious police or military personnel had experience in, and Ichijō Mirai didn't have any, but he did have experience in running away from police pursuits with weights on his shoulders, and thought for a moment to come up with a reasonably appropriate adjective, "I've had experience in parkour with weights on my shoulders."
He asked, "Do you have experience running cross-country?"
"No, but my family has police officers, so I have an idea of some things," Morofushi Hiromitsu maintained the rhythm of his breathing and glanced around the neighborhood, "I didn't realize that Jinpei-san and the others knew quite a bit about it as well."
Matsuda Jinpei and Kenji Hagiwara didn't follow the rest of the freshmen in an emergency sprint, but rather lagged some distance behind, accompanied by Furuya Rei and Wataru Date.
Much more lively than the conversation between Ichijō Mirai and Morofushi Hiromitsu, Matsuda Jinpei is licking his teeth, grimacing and whispering something rather unpleasantly to Furuya Rei.
Furuya Rei's forehead pops up in red ikari maaku and he whispers something in return.
In the center of the group is the calm Wataru Date, who is adjusting his running pace, trying to shield his left and right sides from each other's eyes in case of a trail running fight.
Kenji Hagiwara tries in vain to persuade him, but when he meets Ichijō Mirai's eyes to the rear, he shrugs his shoulders and quickens his pace to catch up and get away from the quarrel behind him, "I've just taken a look at it from a distance, and it looks like there's a mountain in front of us."
"I saw it too," Morofushi Hiromitsu retracted his gaze and smiled, "It's a coincidence that all three of us have police officers in our families."
"Is it because we revealed some information about ourselves yesterday that Kujō-san woke us up in the wee hours of the morning?"
That's a little hard to explain.
"Is there a police officer in your family?" Ichijō Mirai looked over at Kenji Hagiwara, skipping the explanation and asking keenly, "Do you have any Unknown Pasts? Why did you choose to enter the police academy?"
On the first day, four of the five NPCs had triggered quests, and only Kenji Hagiwara hadn't popped up with a 'Unknown Past' yet, and a player never forgets a quest that's been kept private by an NPC.
He turned his head to Morofushi Hiromitsu and asked in a rainy day style, "This student, why did you choose to enter the police academy?"
The two men slowed their pace by half a beat, and then caught up again.
Kenji Hagiwara was the first to speak, "I don't have a Unknown Past, right, compared to me, Kujō-san is the one with a mysterious past, right?"
"Your scent is very attractive, it's a strong scent that arouses curiosity and a desire to explore."
At the same time, a system alert popped up: [Quest detected: 'Unknown Past-Kenji Hagiwara'.]
[Quest details: Justice is a foolish epidemic, as long as one person is sick, it will quickly spread to the whole group, it is a crisis from within the group in the long dark night, but it is also a very different awakening, from now on, even if you are strangers to the first acquaintance, it is also a reunion of old friends.]
[Mission Reward: Low-level Painkillers+1.]
[Note: Each individual completion of a 'Unknown Past' series of quests will receive a separate quest reward of 'Low-level Painkillers+1', and completion of all quests will receive a special reward and a special title.]
There are five NPCs and five 'Unknown Past' quests in total.
Ichijō Mirai's eyes fell to the end of the prompt, lingered on 'Special Rewards and Special Titles' for a few seconds, and decisively filed, "Let's exchange secrets, you two!"
"I lost my mom and dad when I was seven," He said, "I ran away from the organization when I was eight, and I've been on the run ever since."
"At seventeen, I killed my enemies and joined the organization, and at twenty, I was targeted by my ruthless boss, who was a tattletale, and kicked me to the police academy as an undercover agent."
"Meeting you guys is a perfect match!"
"I'm sorry for using the wrong words, but this is Japan, you should be able to understand, and I'm in a hurry, so please understand if you can't."
"Come on, it's your turn. What's your Unknown Past?"
Hurry up.
Morofushi Hiromitsu and Kenji Hagiwara:"?"
"…"
"???"
"?????"