Wrong Exam Scope

"It's a riddle based on the fibonacci sequence, isn't it?" Amasawa Yuto knew the answer at a single glance.

The fibonacci sequence was the key to the very first puzzle in The Da Vinci Code.

"You're right. Because Amasawa-kun was watching, I couldn't help but want to chat with you a little longer," Shiina Hiyori said, looking quite happy.

Amasawa Yuto looked at the characters she had written; the handwriting was elegant and delicate.

The numbers above and the letters below corresponded to each other. As long as the numbers above were arranged into the fibonacci sequence:

"1·1·2·3·5·8·13·21·34"

The letters below would align to spell out:

"Sh Hi"

Which was the romaji for Shiina Hiyori.

"If that one with the writing on it bothers you, feel free to throw it away. I brought a blank one for you, too," Shiina Hiyori said.

"That won't be necessary. I'll take this one," Amasawa Yuto shook his head and handed the blank bookmark back. "Keeping this one is enough for me."

"Eh?" Shiina Hiyori looked surprised.

"After all, it's a bookmark gifted by a friend who shares my love for reading. The writing on it holds special significance," Amasawa Yuto replied.

"I see... that makes me a little shy. If I had written it a bit slower, I could have made the characters even prettier," Shiina Hiyori said, her eyes darting away. She picked up a book and opened it to cover the lower half of her face, leaving only her lively eyes visible.

"But... it turns out Amasawa-kun likes reading just as much as I do... I'm... a little happy."

"I'll be coming to the library often. I look forward to seeing you again, Shiina."

"I look forward to it too, Amasawa-kun."

With only a week left until the midterm exams, the number of people in the library had increased.

Not only Class D, but even Class B was holding study sessions.

There were quite a few familiar faces in the library today.

Students from all four classes—A, B, C, and D—were present.

Amasawa Yuto and Arisu Sakayanagi were playing chess by the window on the second floor, as they did every day.

Class B and Class D were organizing their respective study sessions.

The Class B study session was being led by Ichinose Honami and Kanzaki Ryuji.

Ever since Ichinose Honami became a member of the student council, she had become noticeably more popular both within her class and across the grade. Walking down the hall, she would run into someone she knew every two or three steps to exchange greetings.

The study session for Class D was being led by Yosuke Hirata and Kushida Kikyo.

Horikita Suzune and Sudo Ken were nowhere to be seen, though Kanji Ike and Haruki Yamauchi seemed to have been brought along to the study session by Kushida.

Tsubaki Yuki had joined the dance club and was not at the study session either.

Come to think of it, ever since her confession, Tsubaki Yuki seemed to be intentionally pouring more energy into club activities to reduce the time she spent alone with Amasawa Yuto.

She was unexpectedly maiden-hearted.

Shiina Hiyori from Class C was sitting by herself, quietly reading a book.

However, the library was once again met with a commotion today.

"Yo, yo, if it isn't the idiots from Class D?" A boy and a girl from Class C barged into the Class D study session boisterously. "The super idiots who managed to blow through all one thousand points on the first day of school and ended up with nine failures on their first exam?"

They were like catfish thrashing into a refrigerated truck of sardines, throwing the entire study session into a state of agitation.

With that said, the students of Class D didn't have much heart left to focus on their studies.

Yosuke Hirata seemed to want to smooth things over, but his girlfriend, Kei Karuizawa, had already stood up without hesitation to snap back: "Mind your own business, you muscle-brained morons!"

Before the situation could escalate further, Shiina Hiyori stepped in to block the two students from Class C. "Alright, that's enough. Stop it, Komiya, Kinoshita!"

"Shiina?! Tch, what are you doing here?" The two couldn't help but click their tongues when they saw Shiina was actually here.

After all, it was clear at a glance that these two had never been to the library before and didn't know Shiina Hiyori's usual haunt.

But they still had no intention of leaving. "Stay out of this, this is Ryuen's order!"

"Ryuen's order?" Hearing Ryuen's name, Shiina didn't know what to do for a moment.

Her status in the class was rather unique; Ryuen let her act freely, but she wouldn't interfere with him or comment on his violent methods.

"Alright, you two, let's end this here!" Ichinose Honami finally put an end to the farce. "Your noise is already affecting the studies of other students. I don't think Ryuen would want to receive a disciplinary action from the student council, would he?"

Sure enough, as soon as the student council was brought up, the two immediately fell silent. It seemed Ryuen had given them instructions.

However, Ichinose knew that Ryuen wasn't truly afraid of the student council. He just didn't have information on the council and didn't know what advantages Class A and Class B might have now that they had members on it, which was why he had been slow to act.

Once he figured out the limits of the student council, he would definitely start making moves.

Komiya and Kinoshita eventually left while grumbling curses. Before they left, they dropped one final remark: "You idiots in Class D, you're studying the wrong material and you don't even realize it."

This sentence did not escape the ears of the Class D students.

Kushida Kikyo tried to call out to them: "Wait, what do you mean by studying the wrong material?"

"We're following the student council's orders, we're leaving now~" Komiya and Kinoshita slipped away immediately.

"Let me take a look." Ichinose said, walking over to the Class D table to inspect their study materials.

Ichinose wore a troubled expression: "Um, you guys have definitely been studying the wrong range for history. None of this is going to be on the test... Chabashira-sensei is your homeroom teacher, didn't she tell you?"

"Eh? But this is the exam range Chabashira-sensei marked out for us?"

"She told us about the change in class two weeks ago and gave everyone a new range." Ichinose looked uneasy: "She didn't tell your class? Could she have forgotten?"

This was undoubtedly a bolt from the blue for the students of Class D.

"What? What is Chabashira-sensei doing? Doesn't this mean I studied for nothing?"

"Damn it, give me my money back!"

"To think we only found out because Class C told us; otherwise, we wouldn't have known until the exam!"

Yosuke Hirata was busy trying to calm everyone down, looking utterly exhausted: "Ichinose-san, could you please tell us the correct range? And Kushida-san, we also need to tell Horikita-san; she'll likely have to redo her practice tests as well."

That was right. Although they had asked Tsubaki Yuki to create the questions at the time, and she had indeed done so, Tsubaki Yuki hadn't considered the range at all. She had produced a super-comprehensive paper spanning from the third year of middle school to the third year of high school.

A lot of the material hadn't been covered yet, making it impossible to solve.

Horikita had volunteered to take on the responsibility of creating new questions herself.

And now that the range had changed, her questions would have to be redone as well.

The next day, everyone went to demand an explanation from Chabashira-sensei, but Chabashira Sae only replied coldly:

"Ah, that did happen. The exam range changed, I forgot. Why didn't you come and ask me?"

At this point, there was less than a week left until the midterm exams.