The Little Exam at the End of the Month / Third period was social studies with Chabashira-sensei, who, as usual, arrived in the classroom right as the bell rang...

Chapter 25: The Little Test at the End of the Month

After swimming class ended, life returned to normal. The students in Class D grew bolder by the day. Sleeping in class and chatting loudly had become commonplace.

For example, Ike and Yamauchi were talking and laughing loudly in class right now, while Sudo, sitting nearby, was fast asleep with his head on his desk. How could he even sleep in such a noisy environment?

Thanks to that, the class had privately dubbed the three of them the Three Idiots, or the Three Fools for short.

Faced with this chaos, the teacher lecturing at the front of the classroom made no attempt to stop them.

Kamio Tatsuya could even see pity in the substitute teacher's eyes.

Meanwhile, the groups of girls nearby were already enthusiastically discussing their plans for after school.

The teachers didn't even say much about students arriving late or leaving early. The students in Class D were practically free to do whatever they wanted.

On top of that, the school had given them 100,000 Private Points. It was safe to say life was pretty great.

And great times always seemed to fly by. In the blink of an eye, it was the end of the month.

The third class was Chabashira-sensei's social studies lesson. As usual, she arrived in the classroom just as the bell rang.

Even after the teacher arrived, however, the classroom remained a mess, the students' excitement showing no signs of fading.

But Chabashira-sensei ignored the situation, prompting Kamio Tatsuya to silently shake his head.

"Quiet down. I need you to pay a little attention in class today."

"Teacher Sae-chan, what's going on?"

Some students had already started calling her that, but even so, Chabashira-sensei didn't react at all.

To Kamio Tatsuya, Chabashira Sae's outward demeanor was a lot like Horikita Suzune's.

Just imagine if someone called Horikita Suzune "Suzune-chan" one day...and she didn't react.

There were only two possibilities. Either the person was close enough to her that she didn't mind—like her much-admired older brother, Student Council President Horikita Manabu.

Or, while you were calling her that, she was already thinking about how to deal with you.

Kamio Tatsuya figured the current situation was probably closer to the second possibility.

Chabashira-sensei wasn't going to kill the students who called her that, but she'd probably get a little revenge.

"It's the end of the month, so we're having a short test. Pass the papers back."

After dividing the papers into five stacks, she handed them to the students in the first row. Before long, Kamio Tatsuya had received one, too.

He got it from the student in front of him and quickly scanned it. It was a short test covering the five main subjects.

"What? No one told us we were having a test. That's so unfair!"

Students were naturally afraid of tests, so it was no surprise someone complained.

"Don't say that. This test is only for future reference. It won't affect your grades, and even if you get zero, there won't be any consequences. So just do your best, but no cheating."

Usually, grades were the only thing tests affected. Otherwise, there'd be no point in having them.

And based on what he'd seen over the past month, the school probably wouldn't do anything pointless.

In other words, although this test wouldn't affect their grades, it wasn't meaningless.

Kamio Tatsuya remembered that Chabashira-sensei had said at the start of the school year that, as a teacher, she couldn't lie. That meant everything she said was true.

It was just that the real meaning was hidden in what she'd said.

So the important part of that sentence wasn't that there wouldn't be any consequences, but...that it was for future reference?

That was a little complicated, so Kamio Tatsuya decided to leave it at that for now.

Then he started answering the questions.

There were four questions per subject, twenty in total, with each question worth five points, for a total of 100.

But the questions were really strange. Some of them were easy enough for even Kamio Tatsuya, who hadn't studied much, to answer.

The three questions on the back of the test, however, were clearly on a whole other level.

They'd even included calculus. There was no way students who had only been in high school for a month could answer that.

What the hell? Kamio Tatsuya hadn't learned calculus until college in his previous life.

And now it was on a high school test.

You've got to be kidding me.

But since it was a test, he might as well give it his best shot.

Kamio Tatsuya was very familiar with exam-oriented education.

Even if I don't know the answer, I can still get it right.

By the end of the lesson, Kamio Tatsuya had answered everything he could.

He figured he'd get around fifty points.

There was no helping it. Some questions looked really easy, but his predecessor's foundations were just too weak. Japanese, for example.

When the bell rang, Kamio Tatsuya handed his test to the student in front of him to pass up to the teacher's desk.

Then he stretched and relaxed properly.

Ever since he'd beaten Yamauchi up in the classroom, quite a few people in the class had kept their distance from Kamio Tatsuya, albeit subtly.

For the past two weeks, Kamio Tatsuya had eaten lunch alone. Even Ayanokoji, whom he'd once invited, had kept his distance.

"Pathetic, isn't it?"

Kamio Tatsuya turned around. Horikita Suzune had taken her bento out of her desk.

It still looked pretty substantial, but compared to the start of the month, it was clearly a lot more meager.

"Yeah? Someone about to run out of food money has no right to say that about me."

What was the point of hitting someone without hurting their pride, or insulting them without bringing up their sore spots?

Kamio Tatsuya liked rubbing salt in other people's wounds.

Horikita Suzune seemed to have gotten used to his routine, though. She simply took out her chopsticks and began eating by herself.

Ignoring me? Fine. When you run out of Points and can't afford ingredients, I'll sit across from you with a lobster set while you eat the Mountain Vegetable Set.

That'll make your mouth water, you idiot.

Perhaps because the month was coming to an end, quite a few people were lined up at the window serving the Mountain Vegetable Set—more than at the other windows.

As usual, Kamio Tatsuya ordered a serving of tonkatsu rice.

To be honest, there were quite a few dishes in Japanese cuisine that were similar to Chinese food. Tonkatsu rice was one of them.

In China, it would probably be called a pork cutlet rice bowl.

After thinking it over, Kamio Tatsuya took out his phone, snapped a picture, and sent it to Horikita Suzune.

He added a message, too.

[Tonkatsu sure is delicious.]

He'd gotten Horikita Suzune's contact information when he sold her some information earlier.

The thing was, he'd sold her that information ages ago, and she hadn't done anything with it.

What exactly was she up to?

Didn't she believe the information he'd given her?

Chapter 26: Restlessness in Early May

Early in the morning, after his alarm clock had worked overtime, Kamio Tatsuya opened his eyes. It was May 1st, the day the school distributed Points.

Kamio Tatsuya rubbed his eyes, then opened the student ID page on his phone.

Student ID: S01T004915

Name: Kamio Tatsuya

Date of Birth: October 2

School: High-Spec Cultivation High School

Private Points: 3,158,755 ppt

Unfortunately, even though the number looked pretty large, it was exactly the same as when he'd gone to bed the night before.

In other words, Class D had indeed received no Points at all. As expected, its Class Points had dropped to zero.

They shouldn't be in the negatives, since none of Kamio Tatsuya's Points had been deducted.

After washing up, Kamio Tatsuya noticed an unread message on his phone.

It was from Sakayanagi Arisu, thanking him for keeping his promise and not selling the information to Class B or Class C.

She'd also sent him information about how many Points Classes B and C had received.

Each student in Class B had received 65,000 Private Points, and each student in Class C had received 49,000 Private Points.

Man, you work fast.

It was information about other classes, and she'd found it out already.

[Oh, one more thing. Class D didn't receive any Points, which means its Class Points have dropped to zero. Aren't you happy?]

When Sakayanagi Arisu saw Kamio Tatsuya's message, she frowned in her seat.

Was he saying that out of anger?

Of course not. What was there to be angry about?

[Congratulations. I'm not particularly happy, though. This is all so boring. I'd actually been looking forward to Kamio-kun giving me a surprise.]

[You're expecting too much. I'm just an ordinary person. I can't pull off something as difficult as a surprise. Besides, Class D's Points dropping to zero isn't exactly something to congratulate me for.]

After replying, Kamio Tatsuya packed up and headed to school.

The teachers didn't care if students were late, but Kamio Tatsuya felt that since he was a student, he should act like one and do his job properly.

Being too lax wasn't a good thing.

As he walked, Kamio Tatsuya suddenly remembered something. He hadn't asked how many Private Points Class A had received that month.

So he took out his phone and sent Kamuro Masumi a text.

[How many Points did you get today?]

She replied almost immediately.

[99400]

99400. In other words, Class A had 994 Class Points?

Impressive. Now that was an elite Class A.

Absolutely terrifying.

The moment he arrived in Class D, Kamio Tatsuya noticed that the atmosphere was clearly different today.

At first glance, it seemed just as noisy as usual, but this time it wasn't just Yamauchi and Ike making a racket. Quite a few other students in Class D were making a fuss, too.

"Why haven't the Points been deposited? Isn't today the first?"

"Exactly! I ran out of Points ages ago, too. I've had the free Mountain Vegetable Set several times lately. The taste is impossible to describe."

Kamio Tatsuya ignored them and returned to his seat. They'd spent 100,000 in a month, and he didn't know what to say about these people.

That was 100,000—more than many working people in Tokyo had to spend in a month after entering the workforce.

And yet a bunch of high school freshmen had burned through all of it in less than a month.

The school really was too good to them.

Just because it was free, they thought it was fine to waste it?

"Did you get any Points?"

As soon as he sat down, Horikita Suzune, on his left, turned and asked him.