Classroom of the Elite, Oh No, I've Become a Stand-in

"Cough, cough..."

Mikage Touji gave two dry coughs and hurriedly let go of Morishita Ran, who was radiating a chill, felt soft, and carried a faint scent of honey peaches, as he looked toward the outside of the classroom.

The Ichinose Honami he recognized and a male student with a serious expression were standing outside the classroom, observing every move of Class A.

Chapter 26: You're actually flirting with a girl from the next class?

Such an obvious action could clearly not be hidden from the students of Class A; in just a moment, Katsuragi Kōhei quickly led people to meet them.

"Well, are we going to go over and get involved?"

Hashimoto Masayoshi stretched his body, eager to try, while Kito Hayato silently stepped forward.

"You guys go, I'll pass." Mikage Touji pushed up his non-existent glasses. "I'm the weirdo of Class A; in such a serious situation, it's obvious that it doesn't fit my persona."

Morishita Ran curled her lip; clearly, that title should have belonged to her.

Mikage Touji took out his phone, connected to Hashimoto Masayoshi's call, and had him place the phone in his own jacket pocket.

"Besides, I'm satisfied with my current life and don't want to be watched by a large group of people everywhere I go."

After the S System was announced, it was inevitable that the core figures of each class would attract attention. This could be seen from that blond senior and the senior girl; don't let the blond senior's greasy appearance fool you, he had bewitched a large number of female students in his second year.

This was not what Mikage Touji wanted. Not only were there no benefits, but even his own use of abilities would be greatly restricted.

"The masterminds in movies are always this type, and then they always drop the ball at the critical moment, finally losing spectacularly to the protagonist."

Morishita Ran chimed in at the right time to tear down his facade, and her rubber bands continued to launch, avenging the bump from when Mikage Touji had suddenly stopped.

"..." Mikage Touji looked over with a gloomy gaze. Big sister, we're on the same side...

"Is there a problem? If there is, please give me a reason within one second." Morishita Ran pretended not to receive Mikage Touji's hint and continued her attack on him.

"This is also fine; we don't need to expose our true combat power from the start, and we can use Katsuragi to confuse our opponents. Kito, let's go..."

Hashimoto Masayoshi expressed his agreement with this plan and strode toward where the few were talking.

Mikage Touji also took the opportunity to leave the classroom through another door. In just that short while, several subtle gazes had already turned toward Mikage Touji's direction.

Just now, gathering with Hashimoto and Kito could be explained as watching them, but if he were left alone...

Mikage Touji could not guarantee whether Ichinose Honami's observational skills would allow her to see through anything.

Finding a hidden corner in the stairwell, Mikage Touji took out his earphones, intending to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"Give me one."

A small, fair hand opened up in front of Mikage Touji.

"Aren't you uninterested in class competition?" Mikage Touji placed the other earphone in Morishita Ran's palm.

"I'm interested in decryption." Morishita Ran declared in a flat tone.

"..." That really is a statement that fits her style.

Finding a comfortable position leaning against the wall, Mikage Touji put on the earphones.

Morishita Ran silently looked at the white wired earphone hanging in mid-air. Her height was just about at Mikage Touji's chin level; if they put on the earphones like this while connected...

It felt like those discounted items in the supermarket where you buy a big one and get a small one bundled with it.

"Mikage Touji!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Morishita Ran pulled Mikage Touji by his clothes toward the stairs and pointed at the steps. "You sit there!"

"Huh?" Mikage Touji was a bit bewildered.

"Sit down." Morishita Ran stood on her tiptoes and pressed on Mikage Touji's shoulders, forcibly pushing him down.

"Fine, fine, fine, I'll sit down." Mikage Touji didn't want to tangle with Morishita Ran and surrendered at light speed.

Looking down at Mikage Touji sitting on the stair step, Morishita Ran nodded in satisfaction, then sat down and put on the earphone.

"The situation in Class A is as you can see; is there anything worth your attention?" Katsuragi Kōhei's steady voice rang out.

Mikage Touji nodded in satisfaction. Sure enough, Katsuragi was still reliable. If he had shown a refusal or any unfriendly attitude from the start, it would have only aroused their suspicion.

"Not at all, I was just curious about what the atmosphere is like in the other classes of the first year, and by the way, I wanted to make some friends." A vibrant voice—without needing to think, one knew this was Ichinose Honami's speech.

"Ichinose-san, who has more friends than you? Please, do us a favor and let the boys in our class go. I don't want to see them following you around all day like the person next to you." Hashimoto Masayoshi's helpless voice came through; he was trying to change the subject.

"You can't say it like that; you can never have too many friends."

"Since you're happy to, we have no reason to stop you, provided you don't disturb the students of Class A."

Katsuragi Kōhei very straightforwardly lifted the restrictions to let Ichinose Honami take a look. He had already notified the students in the class a while ago; as long as it wasn't intentionally leaked, with him watching from the side, it would be difficult for Ichinose Honami to obtain any useful information.

"Then thank you, Katsuragi-kun... Strange? Where is Mikage-kun? I think I just saw him here a moment ago."

"He... went to the restroom." Kito Hayato spoke in a lower tone than usual; a normal person wouldn't want to continue chatting with him after hearing his voice.

"What a pity, I wanted to say hello to Mikage-kun too. I feel like I get along quite well with Mikage-kun." Ichinose's voice sounded slightly troubled.

"That's not necessary," Hashimoto Masayoshi teased, "He was just having a great time with the person sitting behind him; if you went over, he might not have time to pay attention to you."

Hashimoto, you guy, are you targeting me? Mikage Touji felt his teeth itching.

Next, footsteps were heard in the earphones one after another, followed by some routine greetings and a bit more small talk. Since the break time wasn't long to begin with, after chatting for a few moments, Ichinose Honami expressed her thanks and left.

"How was it?"

Mikage Touji took off his headphones and turned to ask Morishita Ran.

"...You actually managed to pick up a girl from the neighboring class?"

Mikage Touji nearly face-planted on the stairs. "That's not what I asked. And it's not 'picking up,' we just happened to know each other, added each other, and chatted a bit."

Morishita Ran withdrew her scrutinizing gaze and handed the headphones back to Mikage Touji. "The guy standing next to Ichinose Honami didn't say a single word."

"You think Ichinose is just the bait, and he's the one actually doing the observing? If I remember correctly, his name is Kanzaki Ryuji."

"Yeah." Morishita Ran wrapped a rubber band around her hand and snapped it directly at Mikage Touji. "Your answer?"

Mikage Touji caught the rubber band with one hand and sighed. "I'm afraid we lost from the very start."

"Before coming to our class, they probably checked out Class C and Class D. Class D is a mess; they'd likely swarm them the moment they saw them. Class C is busy fighting for leadership, either talking trash or brawling, so they wouldn't have time for them. Compared to those two, our class acted too normal."

"It won't be long before they realize the four classes are divided by student aptitude, and it wouldn't be impossible for them to further deduce that there is competition between the classes."

Should I say it's expected of Class B, the only class second to Class A? Or is Ichinose Honami's social ability just too overpowered?

Chapter 27: End-of-Month Quiz

Exams!

The nightmare of students, the magic weapon of teachers, and the root of all evil used to measure academic performance and rank students accordingly.

"We are having an end-of-month quiz today. Students in the first row, pass the papers back."

Mashima Tomoya was as stern and humorless as ever. After distributing the stack of papers, he walked to the podium and sat down.

Mikage Touji let out a mournful cry in his heart. Has this day finally come?

Back in the day, he had studied until his hair stood on end and his eyes burned, living a miserable life of rising earlier than the roosters and sleeping later than the dogs. He had honed his skills to a state of perfection, reaching the pinnacle of exam-taking mastery.

Yet, one month before the college entrance exam, he was dragged into this other world by that evil System-chan.

Repeating his first year of high school!

Damn it, how can a system be so wicked!

It even ditched its host and ran off, leaving him with no one to take revenge on.

Every time he thought of this, the fire of vengeance in Mikage Touji's heart burned fiercely.

Picking up the test paper, Mikage Touji performed his routine inspection. The five main subjects were concentrated on a single sheet, totaling one hundred points, with a few questions for each subject.

He wrote his name on the paper and nodded with satisfaction. He thought his handwriting looked quite neat, so why did everyone always say it looked like chicken scratch?

First, he tackled the math and English sections he knew.

At the end of the day, these subjects weren't much different from those in his previous life; the principles were the same. As long as he could read Japanese, a little bit of review was enough to keep up.

Next were social studies and science.

Social studies covered geography, history, and politics. Although he didn't know everything—especially Japanese history, which he was completely clueless about—Mikage Touji managed to scrape by on most of it thanks to his general knowledge.

Science consisted of traditional subjects like physics, biology, and chemistry. While the focus was slightly different, the core concepts were largely the same, and Mikage Touji actually found these easier than the math section.

As for the final subject, Japanese...

Mikage Touji stared blankly at the returned paper.

Should he say Mashima-sensei had nothing better to do, or should he praise his diligence? The papers collected in the last class had already been graded and returned after only two periods.

Japanese score: 9 points.

Mikage Touji silently flipped the side of the paper with the Japanese score face-down on the desk; he didn't want to look at it for a while.

The test was out of 100 points, with 20 points per subject. A 9 in Japanese meant... 45 out of 100.

I used to score way higher than this even with my eyes closed, Mikage Touji thought, filled with resentment.

It's all the System's fault!

"This score... it really suits you."

Behind him, Morishita Ran held her own paper out in front of Mikage Touji, mercilessly mocking him.

Japanese score: 20 points.

Mikage Touji felt exhausted; he didn't want to talk to her.

Why does this woman, who plays around all day, score higher than me!

A small, snow-white hand reached onto the desk and snatched away Mikage Touji's paper.

"Hmm..."

Shiraishi Asuka tapped her chin with her finger, her eyes slowly scanning Mikage Touji's paper. She smiled, her eyes shimmering with amusement:

"This really doesn't look like a score Mikage Touji would get. And this handwriting, it looks like an elementary schooler's..."

Mikage Touji looked at Shiraishi Asuka in disbelief. "How can even you..."

What happened to love at first sight?

"Mikage-kun, you're not good at classical literature, are you? You didn't get a single point." Shiraishi Asuka continued to share her observations while looking at his paper.

Mikage Touji let out a long sigh, "Forgive me, but I really can't wrap my head around those classical auxiliary verbs."

The 12 conjugations of "nu": zu, ne, nu, nuru...

"Ba" can express a hypothesis, a reason, or a parallel...

And then classical Japanese is a combination of kanji and hiragana...

Put it all together, and it's basically Morse code encrypted with hiragana!

During the exam, Mikage Touji had even wanted to throw his test paper away and shout, "Can you speak like a normal human being!"

"Then... would you like me to tutor you?" Shiraishi Asuka suggested.

"This... wouldn't that be a waste of your time?"

Mikage Touji was somewhat tempted; scoring nine points on the Japanese exam was truly humiliating, and he had to wash away this disgrace!

"Not at all, because it's you..." Shiraishi Asuka looked at Mikage Touji gently, if it's you... no matter how long it takes, it's fine...

"Then when are you free?"

"Anytime is fine, as long as you are available." Shiraishi Asuka's eyes curved into crescents.

"..."

"Shiraishi-san, your attack power is way too high..." Mikage Touji muttered.

"That's not right, it's Mikage-kun's attack power that is too high," Shiraishi Asuka corrected him softly.

At that moment, Mikage Touji felt as if he saw a pair of wings slowly unfolding behind Shiraishi Asuka.

It appeared, the archangel of Class A!

"Yo, Mikage-san, I heard you only got nine points on your Japanese exam?" Just then, Hashimoto Masayoshi approached, pulling Mikage Touji out of his hallucination.

"How do even you know about that?"

"It's not just me; I'm afraid more than half the class knows by now." Hashimoto Masayoshi delivered another blow without changing his expression.