Classroom of the Elite: Starting with a Zero, I Know the Plot So I'm Just Going to Lay Flat!

"After entering the shop, I originally intended to relax with you, but I suddenly spotted Nagumo Miyabi, so I started recording right then and there," Nakano Yuu said. "Just as he said, for this written exam, their second-year exam format is the same as ours; both involve testing on old questions."

"And the way to pass is simply to buy the past exam papers from the upperclassmen."

"However, such matters can only be initiated by the lowerclassmen approaching the upperclassmen, as the school has issued a gag order forbidding upperclassmen from proactively approaching first-years or even informing them of this information," Nakano-kun said.

I see.

Horikita understood completely.

That explained why the conversation between Nakano Yuu, her, and Nagumo had been so strange; Nakano Yuu had directly obfuscated the talk of buying papers, even substituting it with terms like [review materials].

But.

In his conversation with Nagumo-senpai, Nagumo-senpai's own phrasing had been full of words like "exam papers," "old questions," and "I'll give you the papers."

He had deliberately feigned weakness earlier to lead Nagumo-senpai into a misunderstanding, making him believe they knew everything, so that when they asked for advice, the senior would end up leaking the information.

However, the content of the recording showed Nagumo-senpai simply leaking the questions himself.

In other words, just a moment ago, while no one was paying attention, Nagumo Miyabi of Class A in the second year had actually broken the gag order issued by the school.

If this recording were reported, Nagumo-senpai would face exactly what he himself described: "Normally, the school does not allow upperclassmen to proactively disclose this information to you." "Once a violation occurs, the punishment ranges from the confiscation of private points to, in serious cases, the deduction of class evaluation points."

"..." Horikita.

"..." Suzune.

Thinking this through, Horikita Suzune's expression began to turn bewildered.

Nakano-kun had come here with her, but had he actually started setting this trap the moment he saw Nagumo-senpai?

Or rather, to think you actually succeeded in baiting him—you have to realize that is the class representative of the second-year Class A, perhaps even the top student of the second year. To think you managed to trick him just like that.

"Are you that surprised?"

"This can only be called an unexpected windfall."

However, Nakano-kun said, "He is not my target."

"After all, Nagumo-senpai harvests resources from the entire second year; the recording file I just got could at most be traded for 500,000 to 1,000,000 points or cause him to lose some class evaluation points."

"I want more points than that," Nakano Yuu said.

"Then."

Horikita-kun also began to shift into thinking mode. "Your idea is..."

Nakano-kun smiled.

As a naturally handsome boy, this smile of his had a refreshing, spring-breeze quality to it.

It was just that the person here was Horikita Suzune; until she understood what love or having feelings for someone felt like, she would remain unaffected.

Even when he had just placed his hand on her shoulder, her heart had remained as still as stagnant water.

Therefore, Horikita-kun did not change her expression.

And Nakano-kun had no intention of using his looks to attack this block of wood, Horikita; after all, it would be useless. He continued his explanation, "Right now, the only chips we have are the papers for this exam. Among the first-years, Class A and Class B don't really need those papers; they don't have the worry of failing, so selling them to Ryuuen of Class C is the most appropriate move."

"But even that is just small change," Nakano Yuu said.

Is it really just small change, even after having already obtained 800,000 points from the first-years?

Horikita-kun felt she had a very deep misunderstanding of the concept of points.

But since this was considered small change, it meant Nakano-kun still had a bigger goal.

She continued to listen.

"My target is the second year."

"The second-year exam is the same as ours, testing on old questions, and while lowerclassmen can get papers from upperclassmen, upperclassmen are not allowed to proactively disclose information to lowerclassmen."

"This is a kind of tacitly permitted, two-way cooperation by the school."

"So, for the second years, the first semester's midterm written exam is equivalent to a bonus round."

"So, do you think they will still study seriously once they have the papers?" Nakano Yuu said.

Will they study seriously?

Actually, taking Class D as an example, one would find that the students of Class D weren't studying seriously even before they had the papers.

And if they did get the papers, they would probably just cram by memorizing them in the final three days before the exam.

"Therefore, this is a bargaining chip," Nakano Yuu said. "Once there is only one week left until the exam, and the second-year exam papers are leaked and spread throughout the school, the school will be forced to create new questions, otherwise, it will damage their reputation."

"And once such a situation arises, given the academic ability of the second-year Class A and Class B, they might be affected and see an occasional failure or two, but for the students of the second-year Class C and Class D, it will likely be a massive disaster," Nakano Yuu said. "I'm afraid there will be a large number of dropouts."

Ah.

So.

Nakano-kun, are you actually trying to flip the table?

Horikita understood what he was saying.

The second-year seniors were very confident about this exam, having prepared the test papers well in advance; as long as they could see the papers, they could easily pass. However, Nakano Yuu's move was to flip the table entirely. Since the school naturally couldn't lose face by continuing to use the test papers once they became public knowledge, the papers in the seniors' hands became useless. Consequently, they had no choice but to take the exam based on their own academic ability, which meant Class C and Class D would indeed be finished.

This was because they hadn't prepared seriously at all and hadn't been studying.

"But Nagumo-senpai is from Class A of the second year..." Horikita seemed to be struggling to process this.

She felt that such a maneuver wouldn't affect Nagumo.

"That's right. Even if the school issues new test papers, it still won't have much of an impact on the academically gifted Class A and Class B. But it's Class C and Class D that will suffer. And you haven't forgotten, have you? Nagumo Miyabi currently rules over the entire second year, and he has been demanding points from all the second-year students. If such a massive blunder occurs under his governance in Class C and Class D, he cannot escape responsibility. At the same time, if a large number of students are expelled, how is he supposed to harvest points? After all, the students who could continuously provide him with money would be gone," Nakano Yuu explained.

At this moment, Horikita finally understood.

This person wasn't just trying to flip the table; he was targeting the points Nagumo had collected.

With that decided, the only thing left to do was to contact Nagumo in the week leading up to the exam.

For now, he just needed to get through the days as usual.

Over the next three days, Hirata finally began arranging the study sessions, comparing the entrance exam scores of all the students.

He then screened the bottom 20 students in the rankings for remedial lessons.

Each top student was responsible for 4-5 students.

As a top student who scored over 95 in every subject, Nakano caught the eye of Yukimura, who scored over 87 in every subject—though, of course, this was the kind of attention one top student pays to another.

He was likely being viewed as a rival by the other boy.

Yukimura also participated in the plan to tutor the underachievers.

It was clear that while Yukimura was a bit selfish, he would still do what was required of him when asked.

As for Nakano, his side was simple; there were five members in his study group in total.

Two girls and three boys.

The girls were Sakura Airi and Matsushita Chiaki, while the boys were Sudo, Ike Kanji, and Sotomura Hideo.

Nakano had specifically messaged Hirata to have Sudo assigned to his group.

Nakano had no objections to this arrangement.

Because he knew that since it was still the first week of the exam announcement, Sudo and Ike wouldn't show up at all, despite their poor grades. And Sotomura, who usually hung out with Ike, naturally wouldn't awkwardly stay behind for tutoring alone.

Therefore, Nakano's real goal was likely to help out that poor child, Sakura.

As for Matsushita Chiaki, there was no need to worry about her at all.

The grades Matsushita displayed were around 50, which looked average.

But there was no need to worry about her grades. She could be considered a little monster in Class D; she had hidden her true strength during the entrance interview and was thus placed in Class D, but she possessed the comprehensive ability of a student who belonged in Class A or Class B.

So, as for her remedial lessons, one could just leave her to her own devices.

The fact that she was hiding at an average level was probably just to stay on par with the friends she had made, Karuizawa, Shinohara Satsuki, and Sato Maya.

After all, these girls were also on the list of students who needed to study and attend remedial lessons, and they had been assigned to Horikita's group.

However.

"By comparison, the shogunate system appears more rigorous..."

"What are the morphological characteristics of that era?"

"This content was covered ten minutes ago. Karuizawa Kei, you explain it."

During history class, the voice of the female teacher came from behind him.

A mature-looking female teacher was standing right behind him.

This wasn't the first or second time; counting today, it had already happened three times. During her own classes, Chabashira had abandoned the podium she usually favored and started walking among the students' seats, which put a lot of pressure on the students who could feel the teacher nearby.

Sakura, who sat two desks away from Nakano, was already trembling.

Chabashira was also different from the first month; she now actually asked students questions during class, so there were very few students left in the class who dared to continue playing on their phones or reading novels during lessons like they did last month.

When the bell rang for the end of class, Chabashira announced the end of the lesson.

However, she didn't leave immediately. She suddenly placed her textbook in her right hand and rested her left hand on Nakano's right shoulder. Her fingers tapped lightly three times in succession—tap, tap, tap.

Then, she clicked away out of the classroom in her high heels.

"..." Nakano Yuu.

Nakano Yuu didn't move.

Because.

Teacher Chabashira was definitely up to something.

ps: Today's update. Please support with data, please, please!

Chapter 035: Sudo-kun, study more—wait, you got beaten up!

Teacher Chabashira had already left the classroom in her high heels, and it was only then that the surrounding students let out a sigh of relief.

People began to whisper among themselves.

"Teacher Chabashira seems to have been excessively serious these past two days."

"I was so startled when Karuizawa's name was called just now. I'm right after her on the roll, so if I'd been called to answer, I would've been finished since I was zoning out the whole time."

"Right? I was so nervous too."

"After all, last month was that Behavioral Norms Exam—I think that's what it was called—so the teachers couldn't give us any hints and were just going through the motions. But now that the Behavioral Norms Exam is over, things have naturally returned to the standard classroom routine."

"It's not just Chabashira-sensei; even the math teacher has changed. She actually assigned homework! I was stuck doing it until 10 o'clock last night! It was so hard."

No, that wasn't it.

Students attending class and teachers assigning homework is actually a perfectly normal thing. Or rather, what kind of heavenly school would it be if there were no homework at all?

Besides, was that homework from last night even necessary to do?

Since there was no Behavioral Norms Exam, handing in a blank assignment would have been perfectly fine.

However, Nakano remained honestly in his seat.

He wasn't surprised by Chabashira-sensei's behavior over the past few days.

Whether it was her deliberately coming to the back of the classroom to read the textbook, the way she asked questions, or even the gesture of her pressing down on his shoulder as she left just now.

Everything pointed to one thing: Chabashira-sensei still hadn't given up on the class.

From the fact that she made the students retake the entrance exam, it was clear that Chabashira had designs on him.

And her goal was essentially to have him lead the class to success, just like the protagonist in the original story.

But this class was too terrifying, and Nakano had no intention of doing that.

Besides.

There was absolutely no benefit in it for him.