The Classroom of the Elite World.
Class D, Year 1.
Their homeroom teacher, Sae Chabashira, pinned the grade rankings for each subject to the blackboard, then thoughtfully drew several red lines.
"Ike, Sudo, Yamauchi, Hondo, Sato, Shinohara, Inogashira."
"You failed one or more subjects in the midterm exams. You'll be expelled from school."
There were five subjects in this exam.
Fail even one, and you were expelled.
"Heh."
The usually stern, icy beauty suddenly laughed.
It would have been better if she hadn't.
Her laugh sent shivers through the class.
"You lot... you really know how to amaze me!"
Sae Chabashira slapped the desk hard, her smile growing a little unhinged. "Seven students facing expulsion after just the first midterms."
"You've surpassed your seniors with ease."
"I don't think I'll ever forget you."
As she spoke, Chabashira laughed in fury and even began clapping.
Though she was mocking them, she was genuinely furious.
This was ridiculous.
It was only the midterms, and already seven students were facing expulsion.
Back when she attended Advanced Nurturing, she had also started in Class D. By the final Special Exam of her third year, only six students had been expelled.
But the class she was teaching now had already reduced its class points to zero in the first month, and now so many students had failed their midterms, too.
You weren't defective products at all. You were straight-up garbage!
At Chabashira's jeering, the students in Class D began to stir.
"B-but the past exam papers were fake!"
Muraki Yamauchi stammered, but he spoke loudly. "If I hadn't spent so much time memorizing those past papers, how could I have failed?"
"Exactly!"
Once someone had spoken up, the others joined in with their complaints.
This time, Kanji Ike spoke. "Weren't the midterm questions the same every year? So why were the questions on our test completely different from the past papers?"
"Who told you that?"
At Ike's words, Chabashira looked at him with such contempt that it was as if she were looking at a clown.
"I don't remember ever telling you that the same questions came up every year," Chabashira said with a cold laugh. "And even if the students in previous years really did get the same questions, that doesn't mean this year's test would be the same."
"It's like working with a client. Even if you're dealing with the same client, you sometimes have to adapt to changes in the times and circumstances."
"Instead of arguing about that, you should go back to your dorm and pack. Get ready to leave the school."
Her words landed.
Ike was devastated and slumped limply in his chair.
"How pathetic."
Watching Ike and Haruki Yamauchi looking like such losers, Horikita Suzune, seated at the back of the classroom, quietly shared her opinion.
"I told them long ago they'd regret it if they kept this up."
Horikita spoke softly, her words dripping with sarcasm.
After learning from Dokuho Kouya that there was a way to pass the midterms, she had focused on finding it.
After getting past exam papers from the upperclassmen with Ayanokouji, Kushida, and the others, she had stopped tutoring the Three Idiots of Class D.
If she hadn't known those past papers existed, she might have swallowed her pride and taught the Three Idiots of Class D.
But once she learned those past papers were available, she stopped caring about them and left them to their own devices.
If they had the answers and still failed, they deserved to be expelled.
She just hadn't expected... the past papers to be fake.
Or rather, they'd been unlucky, and the questions had changed the year they took the exam.
"Teacher, you're responsible for so many students facing expulsion, aren't you?"
Just then, Maya Sato stood up, indignant.
"If you hadn't marked the wrong topics for the exam, how could so many of us have failed history?"
In the original story, Class D only realized the teacher had marked the wrong topics after Class C provoked them.
However, because the school rules had changed, provoking other students was now harshly punished, with penalties such as suspension and fines.
Losing class points was a minor issue.
But if a suspension caused someone to miss an exam, they would be expelled outright.
No matter how unruly Class C was, they didn't want to provoke Class D now, so they left them alone.
As a result, the students in the class only found out the teacher had marked the wrong topics at the very last minute.
For the top students, it didn't matter whether the topics had been marked correctly; they could get high marks either way.
But for struggling students like Maya Sato, just learning the topics that had been marked was hard enough. They had no time or energy left to study anything else.
"Sato, I really should apologize to everyone for that."
"I forgot."
Chabashira admitted her mistake honestly, but her smile remained cold.
She showed not the slightest remorse.
"What a terrible teacher."
Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, seated at the back, silently grumbled to himself.
Everyone said Class D's students were defective products.
And it was true. Most of them either lacked ability or had personality flaws.
But why did it feel like even their teacher had serious problems?
From the way things stood, Chabashira-sensei seemed to want every student in Class D dead.
If Chabashira hadn't forgotten to warn them that the exam topics had changed, there wouldn't have been so many students failing.
At most, only the Three Idiots of Class D would have failed.
"This is outrageous!"
"Why should I be expelled when it was the teacher's fault?"
Some Class D students were breaking down.
They were problem students, used to causing trouble for their teachers. They'd never had a teacher create problems for them before.
Even Ayanokouji, who had read widely, was stunned by Sae Chabashira.
A teacher this unbelievably awful actually existed.
Was there something wrong with Advanced Nurturing's selection criteria?
Ayanokouji wanted to understand how the school chose its staff, but he knew this wasn't the time.
"Horikita, are you going to keep quiet?" Ayanokouji asked the black-haired girl beside him.
The previous night, he had already discussed the plan with Horikita Suzune. Now, all that remained was for her to put it into action.
"I'd rather see these slackers leave school as soon as possible."
Horikita Suzune slowly rose from her seat, gazing straight ahead with a piercing look. Her clear, forceful voice rang through the classroom.
"Chabashira-sensei, I'd like to use my personal points to buy passing scores for the students who failed."
"How many points will it cost?"
Before you continue