Popping Champagne at Halftime

"Soccer is also a key area to watch out for. After all, although Sudo and Yamada in our class are both top athletes, their strengths don't lie in soccer. Class B, on the other hand, has a key player like Shibata in the Soccer Club."

"Actually, Class B is just an average class above average in everything they do, so their projects are actually a bit hard to guess. Besides, they did a very good job keeping things secret this time; we haven't heard any rumors about them at all."

Watching the seemingly lively but ultimately superficial discussions in the class group chat, and glancing at Sakayanagi Arisu picture, who had remained silent until now, Horikita Suzune, as the class Leader, felt a bit helpless, but still chose to speak up and puncture the sore spot:

"Actually, compared to categorizing students by academic ability or physical fitness, Class B will definitely prefer teamwork projects that test teamwork and camaraderie in this Special Exam. The simplest example is the mixed-gender three-legged race that everyone has seen at the Sports Festival."

Sakayanagi Arisu has always displayed high emotional intelligence and feigned ignorance on such matters, but Horikita Suzune is not like that. Even though she knew that the atmosphere in Class 1-A didn't really appreciate such remarks, she still chose to speak up:

"If you need to prepare in advance, I hope everyone can start from this aspect."

As soon as Horikita Suzune sent out those two sentences, the class group chat, which had been brainstorming and pooling their ideas, fell silent as if some great spell of silence had been cast.

Actually, this is a recurring topic: Class 1-A has never been a particularly united group. The most united time for the whole class was probably when they were still Class D with zero Class Points. After all, back then, everyone could only stick together for warmth, and no one could look down on anyone else.

After successfully turning the tables on the Uninhabited Island Special Exam, the atmosphere in the class began to change. This situation intensified when they were promoted to Class A at the Cultural Festival, which led to the incident during the Class Vote for the Special Exam.

Actually, there were more than one person who could see the signs and stop it, but one of them, Kitagawa, wanted to take this opportunity to transfer to another class, and another Ichinose, pretended to be deaf and dumb the whole time. All these factors combined made the situation get out of control.

The biggest impact of Kitagawa Ryo and Ichinose Honami's transfer to Class A was actually on the class atmosphere and interpersonal relationships. How did Class 1-A? The former was able to get along well with the boys, and the latter was the most popular among the girls. The two were truly of one mind, so the class was naturally able to unite and attack from all sides.

But now that both of them have transferred to other classes, not only has the boys and girls in Class A lost a reliable mediator, but the conflict between them has also intensified. After all, Ken Sudō has always felt that although Maezono Chiyo had dropped out of school, the others were not without responsibility. This rift was further widened by the competition between Sakayanagi Arisu and Horikita Suzune class Leader, which led to the current situation of superficial harmony but deep discord.

However, this is not exactly a new phenomenon. After all, apart from Class B, which is an oddity, boys and girls in other classes generally keep their distance from each other in the First Year. This can be seen from the fact that most students do not choose to date someone of the opposite sex in their class. Most of the time, they live their own lives. Not to mention Katsuragi Kohei, who once lost his leadership position among the girls, even Ryuen Kakeru sometimes has to rely on Shiina Hiyori to be able to command the class. These are all objective facts.

Even though she was perfectly aware of the situation, Horikita Suzune felt she had to try to change things. After all, it wasn't just for this Special Exam, but also for the future of Class 1-A. Otherwise, even if things didn't explode today, something would eventually happen because of it.

Of course, Horikita Suzune also knew that this kind of thing couldn't be accomplished overnight. It was best to first create a pair of role models as leaders and pioneers, and then promote it gradually from point to area.

After a moment's thought, Horikita Suzune quickly selected two candidates who were fairly suitable for the task:

"Sudo, Onodera, you're both top athletes in the class, you can try teaming up with each other first."

Unlike the other three classes, whose atmosphere was so intense that it felt like they were fighting against thin air, the atmosphere in Class 1-B remained as peaceful as ever. After all, even the class Leader could leisurely go out on a date at this time, and this unique sense of relaxation naturally spread. Apart from secretly practicing the scheduled events, everything was basically the same as usual.

"The other three classes are all so lively, each one is making a big fuss."

For Karuizawa Kei, the most convenient thing about being in the same class as Kitagawa Ryo was that she could just move a couple of steps to sit next to him after class. Today was no exception. She took up half of Kitagawa Ryo's desk as soon as she came over and lazily lay on it while talking to him.

"I heard things have been a bit tense in Class A lately because of this Special Exam."

"Yes, it's a problem that's been around for a long time, but Suzune wanted to take this opportunity to try to solve it, or rather, to push things forward."

"But the results seem rather mediocre. If it weren't for the fact that Sudo and Onodera, who were specifically mentioned, performed quite well, the other students would probably have used that as an excuse to give up long ago."

"The situation between Sudo and Onodera is quite special. It seems that the latter has some romantic feelings for the former. I heard from others that Onodera even planned to ask Sudo out on Valentine's Day, but Sudo himself didn't agree."

Ichinose Honami, who had somehow managed to pull herself together with a chair, was also quite well-informed in this area.

"Furthermore, Sudo himself is no longer the impulsive person he was when he enrolled. He must understand Suzune's intentions, so when you combine the two, you'll think that the two of them make a pretty good pair. But it's only the two of them."

"However, compared to Class A, I think Class C is more interesting. It feels like we're back to the old Katsuragi mode. I don't know what Ayanokoji has been doing lately. He doesn't seem to have participated much in this Special Exam. Ryo, you know that, right? Aren't you the one who knows Ayanokoji best?"

Although he sensed a hint of wariness and sarcasm in Honami's question, Kitagawa Ryo pretended not to notice and gave a perfunctory reply:

"Our opponents this time aren't Class C, so we haven't paid much attention. But since Ayanokoji chose to do this, he must have something more important to deal with. After all, even without him, Class C has a clear advantage over Class D."

In fact, he knew a little about Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's whereabouts during this period. In a sense, this was the last ripple that Tsukishiro offered to him before stepping down Acting Chairman. If Ayanokoji Kiyotaka could really seize these opportunities, then the outcome of this Special Exam would indeed be irrelevant to him.

However, just as he said, Class 1-C's advantage over Class D in this exam was only on the surface, especially since Ayanokoji Kiyotaka himself wasn't really interested in it.

The intentions of Class 1-D were crystal clear; it was a style completely different from the past.

If it really succeeds.

He was actually interested in going back there again.

Chapter 511: Opening Champagne at Halftime

March 14th is both the day when the first batch of projects submitted by First Year class to the school are made public, and also a full month after February 14th, a day known as White Valentine's Day.

According to the customs of the festival, today should be the day when the person who received the gift on Valentine's Day returns the gift. However, this situation is undoubtedly quite chaotic for Kitagawa Ryo. After all, his complicated emotional relationships mean that his behavior in this regard cannot be generalized.

Some people reciprocated their Valentine's Day gift early, some gave gifts that were essentially themselves as gifts, and others had already "advanced" their return gift a month later...

Fortunately, everyone's focus is on the End-of-Year Special Exam, which are only one week away. White Day doesn't receive as much attention as Valentine's Day, so Kitagawa Ryo doesn't need to go through the trouble of pushing three things at once like last time. After simply returning the gifts to everyone, he started looking up the ten projects for Class 1-A.

I glanced at the names of the events. There were only two academic events: [English] and [Encyclopedia Knowledge Quiz]. There were more sports events: [Basketball], [Kyudo], [Judo], and [Women's Swimming]. The rest were all multi-talent events: [Computer Typing Contest], [Singing (Karaoke Scoring System)], [Chess], and a somewhat entertainment-oriented [Group Jump Rope], probably just to fill up the numbers.

It must be said that although Class 1-A only has thirty-one students, the list of projects they put together looks quite impressive. It seems that they have good competitiveness and a good chance of winning in each project. It is difficult for their opponents to bypass the five projects that are just a smokescreen and find out the five real projects they are competing in.

After a moment's thought, Kitagawa Ryo marked a few of them as duplicates:

Basketball, Computer Typing Contest, Judo, Singing (karaoke scoring system), English, and rope skipping.

The reason for adding the final event, jump rope, is quite simple: if only the first five events were selected, Class 1-A would not be able to meet the rule that every student in the class must participate in at least one event.

Basketball is five-on-five, and although there are substitutes, there are still ten people in total. The Computer Typing Contest is one-on-one. Judo uses a ring match format and is set as seven-on-seven. The Singing competition is three-on-three with the score averaged. There are more people in English, but there are still only six.

It's not that Class 1-A didn't want to increase the number of participants; the main issue is that their approach is to have a single leader for each event. While each event does have a top performer, that top performer can't lead more people. Adding more Judo participants would require using female participants, and for English, Class A couldn't find more top performers, fearing that adding too many would lead to failure. Adding six already put a lot of pressure on Wang Meiyu and Yukimura Teruhiko.

As for the other projects excluded by Kitagawa Ryo, the Encyclopedia Knowledge Quiz seems to have a good priority. The students in Class A performed quite well on a similar topic on the Uninhabited Island last year, but the students in Class B are not much less competitive in this area. Given the school's question setting, it is definitely not a sure thing.

Kyudo and women's swimming are essentially competing with basketball and Judo. Compared to the dominance of Ken Sudō and Yamada Albert in these two sports, Miyake Akito and Onodera Kayano are undoubtedly inferior. Moreover, unlike Sotomura Hideo, these two are not only proficient in one sport but are also capable of competing in other sports.

As for Chess, although it looks like Sakayanagi Arisu's style, the one-on-one spot has already been taken by computer typing, and considering that he is the Commander, he can't Sakayanagi Arisu. Therefore, Kitagawa Ryo thinks it is unlikely.

Of course, he didn't completely rule that out either.

If we think about it the other way around, perhaps it's precisely because he was the Commander of Class 1-B that Class 1-A chose Chess.

After all, even though Kitagawa Ryo had played countless games with his opponent in both simulations and real life, he was also very clear that, just like the audience of drama among high school students, the popularity of Chess among students at ANHS was quite impressive.

Therefore, let alone finding a student in Class 1-B who could Sakayanagi Arisu, it's highly unlikely that they could even find an amateur who knows the basic rules of the game.

Thinking of this, Kitagawa Ryo glanced again at the Chess rules proposed by Class 1-A:

Chess: Requires two players, with a total playing time of one hour (the game ends when the pieces are used up).

Rules: After the game begins, the two participants will enter the playing area at the same time. Each move will be decided jointly by both players. The basic rules of the game are the same as those of general Chess, but after the forty-first move, the time limit will not be increased.

Commander: Can issue instructions at any time during the game's time limit, for a period of up to thirty minutes.

Upon closer inspection, although it appears to be a two-on-two rule at first glance, the fact that both players can enter at the same time makes it seem like it's a one-person show for Sakayanagi Arisu. Furthermore, the fact that the Commander has been given such extensive interference authority suggests that it might actually be aimed at him.

However, after just imagining a two-on-two Chess, Kitagawa Ryo couldn't help but smile. He unconsciously thought of the old men playing chess that he often saw while strolling in the park, always pointing and gesturing.

If he wasn't mistaken, Class 1-A probably initially wanted to try to genuinely replicate the chess-playing style of old men in the park, with four-on-four, five-on-five, and six-on-six matches. However, it was likely rejected by the school. Two-on-two was probably the bottom line they reached after trying it out. After all, there's a rule that you can't deviate too much from the basic rules of the game. What's the point of playing Chess with so many people?

Besides Kitagawa Ryo, the other students in Class B also immediately noticed Chess. After all, they were at least familiar with the other sports, but as Kitagawa Ryo thought, this was indeed a completely unfamiliar subject.

Are there any students in Class A who are exceptionally good at Chess?

A student from Class B quickly posted this message in the group chat, asking the question.

"Arisu is very good at this."

The person who answered her question was Karuizawa Kei. After all, Sakayanagi Arisu often came to Kitagawa Ryo's place to Chess when they were in junior high school, but the two weren't as close back then as they are now; it seemed like they were just friends.

"Liang is actually quite good at Chess, but the Commander intervention only lasts for half an hour. Someone still needs to hold the line for the other half hour. Are there any students in the class who are good at this?"

Ichinose Honami also sent a message in the group, clearly realizing that Class 1-A might choose this topic, and Class B also needed to prepare in advance.

However, as soon as she asked the question, Class 1-B fell silent. After all, Chess is not like Gomoku, and students who are good at it are indeed rare.

"I know a little bit, but it's limited to knowing the rules and having played it a couple of times."

"Me too."

After quite a while, Kanzaki Ryuji and Himeno Yuki finally appeared.

"Okay, it's alright. Come find me after school, and I'll give you a little training over the next week. Every little bit helps, since they might not actually choose you, and even if they do, you might not actually be selected."

After the two of them volunteered, Kitagawa Ryo also offered to help, speaking in a very relaxed tone, clearly not wanting to put too much pressure on them, implying that their efforts were worthwhile.

However, this is not always the case.

After putting down his phone, Kitagawa Ryo's thoughts drifted away, recalling a scene from the last simulation.

Actually, besides Sakayanagi Arisu, there was another student in Class 1-A who was equally skilled in this area.

If Class 1-B really wants to beat Class A in this aspect, the key to victory or defeat actually lies with that one person.

While Class 1-B was studying the ten projects that Class 1-A had initially submitted, Class 1-A was naturally doing the same thing.

However, compared to Class A, which was visibly struggling to gather enough people, Class 1-B was overflowing with participants. Not only did two of their programs reach the school's limit of twenty participants, but the rest of their programs also had around ten participants each.

The one-on-one event was given to Shibata Sō in soccer, with the specific rules being to dribble through obstacles and win based on speed and completion.

The two-on-two projects were limited to knowledge quizzes related to drama.

The remaining events were all team events with five or more participants, regardless of whether they were academic or athletic. The academic events were all about comparing the total score of comprehensive subjects, while the athletic events included a large number of events that tested teamwork, such as mixed-gender three-legged races, charades, word relay, back-to-back ball carrying, and the 1.5 yuan game.

To be honest, when Horikita Suzune saw these projects, she even wondered if she had received a list of small games for a company team building event.

Just as she was preparing to grit her teeth and have the students in Class 1-A continue to practice these publicly available projects, Amasawa Ichika took the initiative to send her a private message, offering a gentle word of advice.

"Cramming at the last minute like this will not only have limited effect, but will also make the class atmosphere and relationships between classmates more strained. I think we should play to our strengths and avoid our weaknesses in this Special Exam, and try to get all the points in our categories."

"What if we get the extreme situation of two against five?"

"Suzune also knows that this is an extreme situation. If it really comes to that, no one will blame the Commander. Besides, why didn't they want to choose the better option and ended up with a question bank where we had five opponents against two?"

Amasawa Ichika kept sending messages to Horikita Suzune:

"The atmosphere in the class is already terrible. It's only Sudo and Onodera who are keeping it in check. If this continues, it's bound to explode at some point. Didn't you notice that Arisu doesn't even comment on these kinds of things?"

"But some things just have to be done."

"I believe that the students in Class A will truly unite because of some opportunity, rather than completely disintegrating."

"Alright... then Suzune, be careful what you say, I'll help you too."

After concluding her conversation with Amasawa Ichika, Horikita Suzune took two deep breaths and decided to proceed with the pre-arranged plan, allowing the students of Class 1-A to continue their training and preparation in terms of teamwork around the announced topics.

The five events for Class 1-A in this year's end-of -End-of-Year Special Exam have already been decided. As Amasawa Ichika just said, apart from the jump rope to make up the number of participants, four of the five events in their class are almost guaranteed to win. If luck is on Class A's side and they draw all five events, they can indeed easily beat Class B.

Ken Sudō's basketball.

Yamada Albert's Judo.

Sakura Airi led the Singing.

And Chess, played by Sakayanagi Arisu himself.

Under the rule that the Commander can only intervene for thirty minutes, no student in Class 1-B could beat her. Karuizawa Kei couldn't do it, and of course, Ichinose Honami couldn't either.

Just as Class 1-B was starting to struggle with the Chess project, Class 1-C also discovered two unexpected topics among the ten projects submitted by Class D.

There is a [Modern Literature Exam] with 20 participants and a [Mathematics Exam] with the same number of participants (20 people).

The Class 1-D actually volunteered for an academically related project, and not just one-on-one or two-on-two, but a project with twenty students against each other—the largest scale possible?

Undoubtedly, upon seeing these two projects, the atmosphere inside and outside Class 1-C was filled with joy. After all, it sounded too unbelievable that Class D would actually compete with them, a former Class A, in a Written Exam of this level.

"Even if they had a month to cram for half a month, let alone half a month, they wouldn't have much hope of winning, would they?"

"And the questions they chose were all about modern literature and math. I could believe them if they chose some questions about anime knowledge, but this one is obviously fake. It feels like they just put it out to make up the numbers."

"After all, it's already difficult for students in Class 1-D to come up with ten decent projects. We can't force them to."

"If only they actually dared to choose the correct answer during the exam, they'd be giving us points for free!"

Watching the Class A students freely commenting on each other, laughing wildly, and with champagne already flowing freely, Katsuragi Kohei felt a vague unease in his heart.

He subconsciously glanced at a table and chair in front of him.

It's still empty there.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka is still not here today.

Bonus Chapter: About Children

Important Notes Before Reading: This chapter is the second Sakayanagi Arisu's second simulation, which is the epilogue to the last simulation. It is a story on the same timeline as the first epilogue, "The Chaser of Two Rabbits." However, this chapter will be told from the perspective of Amasawa Ichika. It also serves to supplement the story that takes place on the extended timeline of that simulation, so that readers can better understand the characters' mental journeys and actual actions in the past, present, and future.

Sometimes, simply living well is enough to Salvation someone else.

--Keigo Higashino