Exam Coverage

"Horikita, if you keep acting like that, no one's going to want to study with you, you know?"

"...I don't care. It's better for those people who drag everyone down to leave now." Horikita Suzune sounded a little down.

She remembered Kamio Tatsuya's reaction yesterday. The look on his face had clearly said he thought she couldn't do it, and in the end, she really hadn't.

Kushida still tried to persuade Horikita, but it clearly wasn't working, so she soon left too.

As for Kamio Tatsuya, he had already looked away and gone back to studying the things he didn't know.

A couple of days ago, the teachers had set the scope for this exam, and Kamio Tatsuya planned to start with that material.

As for the parts he'd missed earlier, he'd just have to do his best.

Before long, the morning had passed. When he looked up again, Horikita and the others were gone.

"I'm heading back. I won't come by this afternoon."

As he packed his things, Kamio Tatsuya spoke to Kamuro Masumi beside him.

"Oh. Okay, then I won't come this afternoon either."

As she spoke, Kamuro packed up her textbooks and put them in her bag.

After leaving the library, Kamio Tatsuya looked at Kamuro Masumi, who had come out with him. "I'm going to get something to eat. Want to come?"

"Sure. What do you want to eat?"

What to eat...

Now that was a tough question. He couldn't just say, "Anything's fine. I'll eat whatever you want."

Was he supposed to come up with some brilliant idea?

"Is there anything you feel like eating? I'll treat you, as an apology for earlier."

As he spoke, Kamio Tatsuya's gaze involuntarily fell on Kamuro's legs.

"And you say you're not into legs?"

That was so unfair. Sure, he'd thought he was into legs before, but then he realized he was just plain lecherous! And couldn't control himself!

Of course, he couldn't actually say that. It'd cost him points.

"Ahem. So, what do you want to eat?"

"Then let's get barbecue."

Barbecue?

You're a girl, and you like barbecue?

"What's with that look?"

"Nothing. Barbecue sounds great. I like it too."

Barbecue was obviously delicious. As far as Kamio Tatsuya was concerned, it was practically flawless—except for how expensive it was.

Well, what could you expect when Japan was so poor in all kinds of resources?

Come to think of it, the weather had been getting warmer ever since May began. He really wanted some chilled watermelon, preferably seedless.

Just thinking about it made Kamio Tatsuya's mouth water.

He'd been reincarnated, and of all places, it had to be this lousy country, Japan. At the thought, all the feelings he'd been suppressing surged up at once.

"What's wrong?"

Walking beside him, Kamuro noticed that Kamio Tatsuya seemed a little off.

"I want watermelon."

"If you want some, why not just buy it? The school should be selling watermelon this time of year, even if it might be expensive. It's not like you're short on points, right?" Kamuro Masumi thought Kamio Tatsuya was acting strangely.

Kamio Tatsuya gave her a complicated look and shook his head.

He'd always thought of himself as someone who'd become independent pretty early, but he hadn't expected to find himself missing home one day. Unfortunately, he'd probably never be able to go back.

Noticing that Kamio Tatsuya was in low spirits, Kamuro Masumi didn't say much on the way. She simply followed him to one of the school's barbecue restaurants.

The overwhelming sorrow from earlier had seemed almost ready to spill out of him, and Kamuro seemed to have caught some of it too.

After they sat down, Kamio Tatsuya felt that something was off.

It was a table for four, so why had Kamuro made a point of sitting beside him?

He soon found out.

Kamuro took his hand and placed it on her leg.

Kamio Tatsuya's whole body stiffened.

Holy crap, what was going on?

Was she deliberately trying to make him mess up so she'd have an excuse to beat him up?

"Does this make you feel a little better?"

Kamuro Masumi asked Kamio Tatsuya, trying hard to suppress her embarrassment.

At that moment, Kamio Tatsuya felt as if an angel had descended to earth.

Exam Scope

After they ate, Kamuro quickly made an excuse and left, leaving Kamio Tatsuya still somewhat dazed.

What was that supposed to mean?

As he sat there lost in thought, his phone buzzed.

Kamio Tatsuya picked it up. He had a new message.

[Are you going to the library this afternoon?]

It was from Kamuro.

[I'm not going this afternoon. I'll be back at the library tomorrow morning.]

[See you tomorrow.]

Looking at the message on his phone, Kamio Tatsuya's doubts from a moment ago vanished, and his mood immediately brightened.

The next day, Kamio Tatsuya brought the subject he planned to review and went to his usual spot in the library.

"Morning, Masumi."

Hearing him suddenly call her by her first name, Kamuro made her trademark disgusted face.

"Why are you calling me by my first name all of a sudden?"

"If you don't like it, I can go back to how I was calling you before."

Kamio Tatsuya said with a cheeky grin.

Kamuro Masumi shot him a glare, then sat down beside Kamio Tatsuya.

There were five basic subjects in Japanese high school: Japanese, math, English, social studies, and science.

The Midterm Exam covered those same five subjects.

The subject Kamio Tatsuya planned to review today was history. Unlike back home, history in Japan wasn't a major subject; it was one of the smaller subjects under social studies.

But Kamio Tatsuya knew next to nothing about Japanese history.

He'd never studied it in his previous life, and he hadn't done much better in this one, so it had immediately become the biggest obstacle between him and a passing grade.

Honestly, he didn't want to study this stuff at all.

What was the point of studying lousy Japanese history? Especially the modern history after the twentieth century—damn, it was all made up.

"Are you studying history today?"

Kamuro leaned over to look at the textbook Kamio Tatsuya had taken out.

"Yeah. It's the subject I'm worst at."

"I have a practice test Sakayanagi put together. Want to try it?"

Kamuro Masumi took a sheet of A4 paper out of her bag and handed it over.

"Then I'll take you up on that."

Kamuro, you really are an angel!

Kamio Tatsuya had no doubts about Sakayanagi's academic ability. After all, her physical fitness was already at rock bottom. If her academic ability was bad too, what would qualify her for Class A?

But as soon as he got the practice test, Kamio Tatsuya frowned.

"What's wrong?"

"Did Sakayanagi really put this test together?"

"Are you saying you don't trust me?"

Kamuro snatched the test back, looking annoyed.

"That's not what I meant. It's just that the questions on this test... don't seem to be within the exam scope?" Kamio Tatsuya looked completely baffled.

He wasn't worried that Kamuro was lying to him. He was afraid Sakayanagi was pulling strings behind the scenes.

Had she somehow guessed that Kamuro would show him this test?

"Are you kidding?" Kamuro picked up the test and looked it over too. "No, this is the right section."

As she spoke, she took out her textbook, flipped to the table of contents, and marked the scope for this exam.

But... the scope she marked didn't match the one Kamio Tatsuya knew at all.

"You're not joking, are you?"

"I wasn't dozing off in class."

Kamuro Masumi sounded displeased.

If Kamuro was telling the truth, then one of them had the wrong exam scope. If neither Kamio Tatsuya nor Kamuro Masumi had made a mistake, then the teacher had.

Kamio Tatsuya immediately took out his phone and started typing a text.

[Could you tell me the scope of the history exam for this Midterm Exam?]

Then he sent the message to two people.

One was Horikita Suzune from Class D, and the other was Shiina Hiyori from Class C.

It didn't take long for him to get a reply.

Well, no need to call them, then.

But when he saw their responses, his expression immediately darkened.

Horikita Suzune had replied with the same exam scope Kamio Tatsuya knew, while Shiina Hiyori's reply matched the scope Kamuro had marked.

The test for First Year students had to be the same, so that settled it: Chabashira Sae had definitely given Class D the wrong exam scope.

And she'd definitely done it on purpose!

She was a teacher, not some rookie. How could she make such a basic mistake?

But why?

Kamio Tatsuya thought hard about everything Chabashira Sae had ever said, and soon figured it out.

On May first, the day she'd explained that anyone who failed the Midterm Exam would be expelled, Chabashira Sae had said something strange.

"I believe there's a way to avoid failing and make it through the exam."

Normally, for a student, the way to make it through an exam was to study hard and score above the passing mark.

So at a time like that, shouldn't a teacher have told the students to study hard and try to pass?

But instead, she'd talked about a way to make it through the exam.

And there'd been another hint in the earlier quiz—the last three questions had been completely beyond the syllabus.

Kamio Tatsuya had always believed that the purpose of the questions on a test was to give students questions they could answer.

So the answer was obvious: the purpose of this Midterm Exam wasn't to test what the students had learned. It was to see whether they could find a way to pass.