End-of-Month Assessment

A month had passed in the blink of an eye, and as the end of the term approached, Chabashira Sae walked onto the podium early that morning, clutching a stack of exam papers.

The students in the class continued to go about their business, completely disregarding the teacher, which only served to fuel the fire of her irritation.

Every year it was the same... mud that couldn't be plastered onto a wall.

However, she had clearly cursed them too soon; this year's Class D was, in fact, even more "mud-like" and even more "impossible to plaster" than she had imagined.

Ike even whistled at her, his tone dripping with frivolity:

"Yo, little Sae-chan, looking at your expression, is it that time of the month?"

The classroom fell into a deathly silence; no one had expected this guy to be bold enough to harass their homeroom teacher.

Clearly, Chabashira Sae herself hadn't expected it either.

But years of keeping her composure allowed her to remain expressionless. She thought about how, in a few days, these idiots would realize exactly what kind of hell they were living in, and their faces would be filled with regret and complaints.

And when that time came, she wouldn't need to endure it anymore; instead, she could openly mock them to her heart's content.

"We are having a pop quiz this period. Keep your mouths shut. Any form of cheating during the exam is strictly prohibited. Once discovered, the school will impose severe disciplinary action!"

"Wait, teacher! You didn't say anything about a quiz beforehand."

Chabashira Sae snorted with annoyance:

"What, did you never take exams when you were in school before? Or have you forgotten the fact that you are students since arriving here?!"

"Ah, this..."

Hirata wanted to say something more, but he understood that he didn't really have a leg to stand on, so he could only sit down obediently and wait for the exam. Besides, his usual grades were quite good.

Shintō Katsuya looked at the test paper in his hand and fell into a brainstorm, agonizing over what score would be appropriate to aim for this time.

The difficulty of the questions wasn't high; if he wanted to, he could score at least 90 points. But doing so wouldn't be cost-effective.

After all, a high score meant raising the class average, which would be equivalent to dragging those poor-performing students along while carrying the weight for them.

Although it sounded awkward, in Shintō's view, since someone in the class had to be dragged along by others, why couldn't he be the one being dragged?

Scoring low enough to be unremarkable but high enough that no one could pick a fault with it meant that if there were any competitions or the like, no one would set their sights on him.

Therefore, he decided: for this exam, he would aim for around 60 points.

He began answering the questions with fluid ease. Once the score on the paper was roughly where he wanted it, he tossed his pen aside, rested his chin on his hand, and waited quietly to hand it in.

This action naturally caught the attention of Chabashira Sae. She had, of course, been observing the students during class; among them, Hirata, Horikita, Kushida, Shintō, and a student named Yukimura were performing quite well.

At least from the look in their eyes, it was clear they were actually understanding the material.

Although she had used special means to check all the students' grades and backgrounds previously, Shintō's exam scores had been mediocre. But now, it was obvious he was intentionally not answering, rather than being unable to.

Could it be that he discovered something... No, if that were truly the case, handing in a blank paper would be the safest course of action. So why would he do this?

Shintō Katsuya naturally noticed the person on the podium observing him, but he didn't overthink it; after all, his actions were indeed a bit strange right now.

Horikita Suzune, sitting to the side, glanced at him with disdain. To think she had previously assumed Shintō was a hidden expert—in the end... was she just overthinking it?

This guy was just an idiot with low academic ability who had chosen to slack off!

For the subsequent subjects, Shintō's approach was exactly the same as the first: he stopped writing once the score was around 60 or slightly above.

Even if he wanted to pretend to be an ordinary person, he had to make it look convincing!

So, he put a bit more effort into English, intentionally controlling the score to around 75, while suppressing his Sociology score to around 50.

Even the gods themselves couldn't find a flaw in my performance!

As the bell rang, the final exam was declared over.

While collecting the test papers, Chabashira Sae "accidentally" dropped something onto his desk, then walked away as if nothing had happened.

[See you on the roof.]

To be honest, Shintō Katsuya really wanted to ignore the invitation, because he had a vague premonition that this probably wasn't a good thing.

But the other party was his homeroom teacher, and since they saw each other every day, he couldn't hide forever.

Therefore, he deliberately dragged his feet for a while, and only after the other students had mostly left the classroom did he put on his backpack and head to the roof alone.

Chabashira Sae was still wearing her black-stockinged office attire, a thin lady's cigarette dangling from her lips. Seemingly sensing someone had arrived, she slowly exhaled a ring of smoke:

"Tell me, why did you hold back today?"

"I thought the teachers at this school didn't care about the students' attitudes toward learning at all."

Shintō Katsuya didn't answer her question directly, instead choosing to be sarcastic about the teaching environment here.

"I am the one asking you a question now."

"I don't know, couldn't think of it, didn't know how to write it, didn't know what to write. Are you satisfied with that?"

Chabashira Sae sneered upon hearing this, clearly unsatisfied, but helpless to do anything about it. However, one thing was certain: the student in front of her definitely knew something.

And precisely because of this, Shintō Katsuya, the student she had ignored all this time, was finally being taken seriously by her.

"Lying isn't a good habit. Every teacher wants their students to achieve good results; that's only natural."

"Oh? Is that so? Then I truly apologize, Chabashira-sensei. While lying isn't a good habit, I don't think saying one thing while hiding another is a good habit either."

Chabashira Sae's eyes flashed with a sharp glint for an instant, but she replied calmly, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Playing dumb... even if you're a teacher, I'm a professional when it comes to this.

"Ah, could it be that you didn't give Horikita and the others special tutoring? Then it must be that the gap in our natural talent is just too vast, so they happened to perform quite well. I'm truly sorry for misunderstanding you, teacher."

The two of them stared each other down for three minutes until, in the end, Chabashira Sae admitted defeat and sighed, saying:

"Fine, I give up. Tell me, what exactly have you discovered?"

"Discovered? Oh? Could it be that you really did give someone special tutoring? If that's the case, it would be a bit of a violation of professional ethics, wouldn't it~"