Advanced Nurturing Survival Rules

"We should still be careful. It is an exam, after all."

"You scared me... It's only an evaluation."

"But the evaluation will have consequences too, right? Even if we make it to Class A, if our evaluations in between are bad..."

"Yeah..."

"Enough!" The bell rang, and Chabashira Sae straightened her expression, giving them no more time to think. "It's time for class!"

She had already set aside half a period for them to think things through, hoping they would figure out what they were doing.

Class A had the most basic grasp of student conduct.

Class B had plenty of empathy, but still understood the meaning of class competition.

Class C needed no explanation. Under the pressure of their violent rule, everyone kept silent about everything they already knew.

Only Class D was different.

Even though they had all chipped in to buy the information, they had little interest in keeping it secret.

After all, hadn't Classes B and C already gotten a head start? And wasn't Class A already at the very top?

With resentment in their hearts, they exchanged a few words here and there, in all sorts of ways.

Class D had no trouble leaking everything that had happened in their classroom that morning.

"...What a god-man." Asakusa Toru could only offer that strange assessment.

To be clear, he wasn't talking about Class D. He meant their homeroom teacher, Chabashira Sae.

The only reason Class D acted this way was that they had no central figure, so they let Yamauchi Haruki, the loudest idiot in the room, lead their thinking.

The crowd's opinions shifted like weeds in the wind, leaning whichever way the breeze blew.

If someone showed up who could put Yamauchi and Ike in their place, Class D would go from being an astonishingly flawed product to the same kind of useless flawed product as every other Class D before them.

You had to hand it to the Black Room's greatest masterpiece.

It had done what no one else could.

But unlike the Black Room's greatest masterpiece, Chabashira Sae was just plain rotten.

Her words and actions contradicted each other. Her logic was confused and upside down. She might not even know what she was doing.

She was obsessed with getting her class into Class A, but since she thought it was impossible, she'd given up and did nothing.

When she realized the Joker might have been assigned to the wrong class, she rushed over to drag out the Pseudo-human and show him off, telling Horikita that he was great, strong, and actually very capable.

Then she turned around and hid the correct exam scope for a midterm that could get students expelled.

Sure, you could say she thought the Pseudo-human Ayanokoji wouldn't put in any effort, so she wanted to force his hand. But during the Uninhabited Island exam, she used information about his father to threaten him into helping, then turned around and leaked information to the Two-Faced Person on the Sports Festival. She didn't just fail to inform them directly; she didn't even seem to think of warning them, apparently intent on watching them fall flat on their faces. It was hard to understand.

Did she want them to make it to Class A, or didn't she?

Knowing what ridiculous stunts she'd pull in the future, Asakusa Toru could look back at what she'd done today and understand it just a little better.

This woman was just a god-man.

Don't try to make sense of her actions, because there's no logic to them. Don't think too hard about her words, because she might not even know what she wants to do.

He had deliberately hidden key information in his diary, and Chabashira Sae had deliberately used "evaluation" as a euphemism for "Class Points."

But he was trying to stir up trouble. Chabashira? She was probably just trying to be funny.

"Coming here really was the right decision." Asakusa Toru stretched, then returned to his dorm early. "I wouldn't have seen a spectacle like this if I hadn't enrolled, would I?"

"It'd be too hard to find this many god-men out in the world."

He pulled out a chair and sat down, then took out his diary.

He'd already decided what to write today.

[Good morning, Advanced Nurturing.

Yesterday's diary was a full thousand words again, but today might be different.

Let me start with the conclusion.

I surrender.

I surrender with both hands and feet.

I can't really say why. Anyway, things have been a little tense lately, so I need to take some time to settle down.

I'll still write in my diary every day, but the content might not be very lively.

I'm burning through lighters at a rate I never imagined, but that's because of circumstances beyond my control. It wasn't my intention.

Only at times like this do I find myself wondering why I chose this vocational school instead of Shuchiin next door.

Come to think of it, there's plenty of fun stuff happening over at Shuchiin, too. Lots of material to write about.

Like the instant-noodle tycoon and the photographer heiress.

That's a legendary painting that'll be passed down through the ages.

I still can't forget Lady Shinomiya saying, "I want to become a photographer."

Unfortunately, I chose this vocational school in the end.

It's a shame, but that's life. You're bound to face all kinds of choices.

I don't have a time machine or a regret eraser, so now that I'm here, I might as well enjoy school life.

Still, the longer I stay at this school, the more I feel the difference in talent.

You were born for this. You've got talent. There's no competing with that. I'm the kind of person who never had the talent for this, but refused to accept my fate and forced myself into it. I didn't even get a decent meal out of it, and now I'm stuck in a miserable situation where I can neither advance nor retreat. Every day, I watch you all thrive at school, and my fists clench until they turn red. I'm grinding my teeth to dust. Jealousy, jealousy.

I'm dying of envy. I'm eaten up with jealousy.

Why couldn't I have been part of Class D?

I want so badly to join the Class D family. Then, no matter what I did, I could just tell everyone I was in Class D, and they'd understand.

Does anyone kind have twenty million points to spare so I can transfer classes?

...Never mind. If I don't have the talent, there's no point forcing it.

No matter how envious I am, people without talent can never beat those who have it.

I'd better focus on the present and get back to the diary.

A diary is supposed to record what happens each day, right?

No matter how I look at it, what I should really talk about today is Little Sister-chan.

Little Sister-chan wouldn't play Hide and Seek Game with me, and I'm sad.

But I think Little Sister-chan deserves praise for daring to stand up to the Black Room's greatest masterpiece.

So I've decided to give Little Sister-chan a little reminder.

Advanced Nurturing Survival Rules:

One: Advanced Nurturing is ruled by strength. Make sure you have enough strength.

Two: Watch what you say at Advanced Nurturing. Make sure nothing you say can be recorded by any device.

Three: The teachers at Advanced Nurturing cannot be trusted.

Four: The teachers at Advanced Nurturing can be trusted.

Five: Stay away from the Black Room's greatest masterpiece, because it brings misfortune.

Six: Private Points are extremely important. Make sure you have enough.

Seven: May you enjoy your three years at Advanced Nurturing.]

The words that had appeared in the diary stopped there.

As Horikita Suzune read the final lines, she fell silent.

"..." Were there really people who envied Class D?

If there were, she'd like to trade places with them. Any class would do, as long as it wasn't Class D.

Unfortunately, she couldn't trade.

She'd heard of Shuchiin. It seemed to be an impressive school for the nobility, full of outrageously powerful and influential families.

Honestly, it was surprising that someone like Koenji, the only son of a conglomerate, had come to Advanced Nurturing instead of Shuchiin.

But those were just idle thoughts.

What mattered was what came next.

Today, she had first confirmed with her homeroom teacher, Chabashira Sae, that the information in yesterday's diary was true.

Then she'd gone to the class to ask everyone for help.

...There had been a few hiccups, but at least things had worked out in the end.

Everyone had paid.

After taking their money, Chabashira-sensei had kept her promise and told them the truth about the Special Exam.

The Behavioral Norms Exam.

It was a demerit-based exam tied to the school's evaluation of them.

Although those Pseudo-humans like Yamauchi still seemed to have plenty of complaints, now that the exam and its scope had been confirmed, they would at least behave themselves in class.

But... who was the Black Room's greatest masterpiece?

Why did it say I'd stood up to him?

After she'd revealed the information, weren't the only ones who'd objected Yamauchi Haruki and Kanji Ike?

Yamauchi Haruki was a Pseudo-human, so... was Kanji Ike the "greatest masterpiece"?

And what was the Black Room?

Perhaps because yesterday's information had been verified, Horikita Suzune had regained a little more trust in the diary today.

So she instinctively began to think about what today's entry meant.

Today's diary had a lot in it, too. Ignoring the meaningless remark about taking some time to settle down, the important part came next.

"Little Sister-chan."

...He hadn't called her Low-Spec Yukino again.

Was it because he thought the name was insulting to someone called Yukino, or because he thought she'd done well today?

A feeling stirred in Horikita Suzune's heart, though she couldn't quite explain it herself.

"...Come to think of it, the first day's diary mentioned starting a game of Hide and Seek, too." Seeing it mentioned in today's entry reminded Horikita of that for the first time.

It hadn't seemed to have anything to do with her, and back then she'd been more concerned with what her brother thought of her, so she'd ignored it.

"Does that mean... I should pretend I haven't read the diary?" She didn't understand.

Why would she do that?

A clear, innocent look appeared in Horikita Suzune's eyes.

Hadn't the diary appeared in her possession so she could read it?

Weren't the words written in it meant to convey what the writer wanted to tell her?

Putting aside the fact that he'd deliberately made up a Trial to deceive her, the diary had actually helped her a great deal so far.

If he hadn't warned her about the Special Exam, she couldn't imagine how low Class D's evaluation would have fallen by the end of the month. She didn't even want to think about what her brother would have thought of her.

Without the diary, she probably wouldn't have understood the significance of being in Class D, let alone her brother's expression back then.

So even though she'd been deceived once, Horikita Suzune still thought the diary was important.

She needed to read everything written in it carefully.

Like this "Advanced Nurturing Survival Rules" he'd mentioned.