So This Was How He Would Push Class D to the Brink

Three days later, during the lunch break, in the hallway outside Class A.

"Kagihara, here are the Points you asked for. Fifty thousand, not a single Point short."

Kushida Kikyo held her phone close. With a soft chime, a sizable sum appeared in Kazehara Tetsu's account.

The fundraising in Class D had gone remarkably smoothly in the face of Kushida Kikyo's promise that "everyone can be saved."

Almost no one had objected. Everyone had agreed willingly.

"Thank you, Kagihara. The materials you gave us have helped our class so much!"

Her face shone with gratitude as she bowed to Kazehara Tetsu.

"It was no trouble."

Kazehara Tetsu put away his phone. "I'm glad I could help. After all, seeing a cute girl worrying over an exam would make anyone feel bad."

"Don't say things like that... It's a little embarrassing."

Kushida Kikyo's cheeks turned faintly pink, and she sounded a little coy. "Anyway, thank you so much! I'd better get going. My classmates are waiting for me to study with them!"

With that, she walked off briskly and disappeared at the end of the hallway.

Kazehara Tetsu stayed where he was, watching her go. The smile on his face slowly faded.

Fifty thousand Points, secured.

But the money had never been his main objective.

It was merely the least important appetizer in this plan.

The main course was only just beginning to take shape.

The Original Work hadn't revealed the past exam questions too early because the undisciplined students in Class D would get the mistaken impression that memorizing the answers was all they needed to do, and completely give up reviewing the basics.

Students like Ken Sudō and Kanji Ike might not even bother memorizing the answers properly.

That was a weakness of human nature. It couldn't be avoided.

In the Original Work, Class D only learned about the "Exam Scope Change" by chance during a confrontation with Class C. That relied far too much on coincidence.

Besides, now that Class D had the past papers, most of them probably wouldn't attend the Study Group, making a clash with Class C even less likely.

Kazehara Tetsu didn't like coincidence. He liked to control the situation.

He needed someone to tell Class D about the "Exam Scope Change" at the crucial moment.

For that, Sakayanagi Arisu would have to get a few people to pick a fight with students from Class D.

Then, once the confrontation reached its peak, some "kind passerby" would "casually" let slip the news about the Exam Scope Change.

And the most crucial link in all this was Chabashira Sae.

That woman, a "Flawed Product" trapped in This School just like the students, who only wanted to claw her way back to Class A.

She had known from the beginning that the Midterm Exam's scope would change, yet she had chosen to keep quiet.

Chabashira Sae had done it so they would learn the rules and understand the Special Exam sooner, rather than mindlessly studying.

But that was precisely where the problem lay. It gave Kazehara Tetsu's plan an unfixable loophole.

What a foolish, pitiful strategy.

Once he had brought the Exam Scope Change to Class D's attention, the past exam questions they'd received early would take on a different significance.

Since the past papers had appeared before the Exam Scope Change was announced, the students in Class D would assume that the change applied to last year's past papers.

They'd instinctively think the past papers were no longer much use now that the exam scope had changed, and wouldn't spend much time looking at them—especially the students with poor grades.

But in reality, this year's Midterm Exam was almost identical to last year's.

That was a blunder Chabashira Sae had made herself.

At the same time, this alone wasn't enough. It wouldn't put enough pressure on Class D.

The Passing Score wasn't a fixed number.

Class total score / number of students / 2 = Passing Score

It was adjusted dynamically based on the class's average score.

The students in Class D thought this exam would be like a Quiz: they just had to memorize the answers, score somewhere in the thirties, and then they'd be home free.

But they would never have guessed that the "Passing Score" might be forty, or even higher.

That meant that even if some students memorized the past papers, the more of them who did, the higher the Passing Score would rise—putting the weaker students in the class at risk of Expulsion.

Those who had slacked off and memorized only a few answers, those whose foundations were so poor they couldn't even remember the answers correctly... would fall below the Passing Score in droves.

Then came the final step.

The real objective Kazehara Tetsu had spent so much time working toward.

When the list of students who'd failed came out, Class D would face a hellish choice.

Save them, or don't?

If they didn't, those students would be expelled, and Class D would become a class with fewer students.

Their Class Points would be penalized. Any Points they'd hoped to earn through their daily conduct and the Midterm Exam would be Zeroed Out again because of the expulsions, wasting an entire month's efforts.

And there was no telling when they'd be able to earn Class Points again. They might go several months without any Points being added to their account.

If they chose to save them, they'd have to spend an enormous amount of Personal Points.

According to the Original Plot, saving Ken Sudō cost one hundred thousand Points for a single point.

One student, one hundred thousand Points.

What if this time it wasn't just Ken Sudō who failed, but three students? Five? Even more?

The students in Class D, who had spent nearly all their savings in their first month, would have no choice but to hand over every last Point they had—or even borrow from one another—to fill that enormous hole.

And the teacher responsible for all of this was Chabashira Sae, the true "Flawed Product."

She couldn't offer a deal like the one in the Original Plot: "One hundred thousand Points for one point." Class D didn't have that many Personal Points.

Although Chabashira Sae, as the class's homeroom teacher, could lower the number of Points required for the deal, she couldn't make it too cheap. The School Authority was still watching.

If too many students needed saving, such an obvious loophole in the rules would inevitably alert the School Authority.

The room she had to negotiate would shrink to almost nothing.

So she could lower the cost of saving them, but it would still be far higher than the one hundred thousand Personal Points in the Original Plot.

In the end, after spending all their money, the students of Class D would look at the "Underachievers" who had been "saved" and become a burden to everyone.

Would they be glad their classmates hadn't been expelled?

Not a chance.

All that would remain was endless hatred and resentment.

In that moment, the class's unity would be shattered completely—and as long as the students who'd failed remained in the class, there'd be no hope of restoring it.