"You've only been here for a month, while the other classes still have three years to slowly catch up. Success once is certainly worth celebrating, but if you look down on the other classes because of it, you'll be the ones who end up in the abyss."
"The school won't go easy on students who take things as they come. The moment you let your guard down too much, it'll hit you hard. What you need to do is give everything you've got to improve yourselves."
Mashima Tomoya's words came down like a bucket of cold water. The students quietly wiped the smiles from their faces, sat up straight, and grew serious.
"I knew about this already, but hearing Teacher Mashima say it out loud is still hard to believe." Shimizu Naoki gave a wry smile. "I'd always thought there was still a sliver of hope, that the school wouldn't deceive us like this."
"Like there was ever a chance of that. I thought the ten thousand points a month at the start of school sounded too good to be true." Sugio Taishi propped his head up with one hand and joked.
"Teacher, going by what you just said, is there going to be another exam soon?" Matoba Shinji had picked up on the implication in Mashima Tomoya's words and raised his hand to ask.
"That's right!"
Mashima Tomoya glanced at the clock on the wall, spoke a little faster, and put another poster up on the blackboard.
Looking at the poster, the students seemed to realize what was coming. They all burst out laughing at once.
Are they going to put me through the wringer again?
Mikage Touji was so fed up he could barely stand to look at the poster. He loudly protested, "What are you laughing at? Look carefully—I got 83 points in total, not 9! There are plenty of people who scored lower than me!"
The names of every student in the class were listed on it, with their scores beside them.
"These are the results of the last quiz. No one failed, but a few of you were hovering around the passing mark."
Mashima Tomoya circled the bottom row with his pen, then discreetly glanced at Mikage Touji in the lower-left corner.
"You few need to be careful. If you fail any subject in the upcoming midterm exams, you'll be expelled!"
There was a rule like that?!
The laughter that had filled the classroom abruptly stopped, as if someone had grabbed it by the throat.
"Teacher, what's the passing standard for the exams?" Mikage Touji asked with a tremble in his voice, clinging to a sliver of hope.
Mashima Tomoya mercilessly crushed his last hope. "Fail any one subject and you'll be considered a failure. The passing mark is half the class average."
"Heaven wants me dead!"
Mikage Touji let out a long, anguished sigh and collapsed face-down on his desk. He was as good as dead...
"Mikage Touji, do your best from now on." Shiraishi Asuka smiled and poked his arm with a finger. "Let's work out a tutoring schedule later."
"Yeah..."
Mikage Touji lay on his desk and mumbled a reply.
Morishita Ran brought over a makeshift incense burner, made by sticking three pens into a pencil case, and placed it on Mikage Touji's desk.
She bowed reverently and pressed her hands together.
"We didn't have long together, but I'll remember you, Mikage Touji. Rest in peace. This time next year, I'll bring Yamamura Miki to pay our respects."
"Hey! I haven't been expelled yet!" Mikage Touji felt he could still be saved.
The students couldn't help laughing again at the sight of Mikage Touji.
It had to be said: having a student who didn't care about being an "air" in the class really did a great job of livening up the atmosphere.
"Mikage, rest in peace. We'll remember you." Nishikawa Ryoko got into character and waved goodbye to him with a look of deep sorrow.
"Mikage-kun, you're weird and chuuni, and it's always hard to find you when I want to eat with you, but... well, congratulations!" one of the boys in class took the chance to say something weird.
"Congratulations!" The whole class applauded.
"That's enough! Why are we suddenly doing a victory screen?"
Katsuragi Kōhei let out a breath of relief. The passing mark was half the class average, which meant that as long as it was over 50, there was nothing to worry about. The students in his class should be able to keep up after a little tutoring.
There weren't many students at risk of expulsion, and the class had students who were good at all kinds of subjects. They could ask them to help tutor anyone who was weak in a particular subject.
There was still a month before the midterms. The rest of the students weren't the type to slack off and give up on studying. If he kept a close eye on everyone and made sure they all scored at least 50, they'd get through this.
The Big Ben chimed leisurely. Standing at the podium, Mashima Tomoya gave his final summary.
"I've told you everything you need to know about the S System exams. If you have any questions, you can come speak to me in the teachers' office. That's all. Class dismissed!"
Many Faces
Class B classroom.
"That's basically how it works. The classes are ranked by points, with Class A at the top and Class D at the bottom."
Ichinose Honami looked dejectedly at the points for each class on the blackboard, then slumped over her desk, her ample chest almost spilling out.
"So that's how it is. I was still hoping for the best before we got our points."
"Ahaha, so Ichinose already knew?"
Class B's homeroom teacher, Hoshinomiya Chie, stood at the podium with a rosy face. The flush on her cheeks made it obvious she'd had plenty to drink the night before.
"Ugh!" Shiranami Chihiro, sitting in the front row, covered her nose. "She reeks..."
"No wonder Honami-chan told us to pay attention to class discipline," Amikura Mako said, suddenly understanding. "That's our Honami-chan!"
"Yeah, just like our little Honami."
Amikura Mako's words drew nods of agreement from the students in Class B.
"It's nothing. I just happened to guess right." Ichinose Honami scratched her cheek with a finger and waved to her classmates.
Kanzaki Ryuji sat calmly at his desk, staring at Class A's score above them. He murmured, "There's no way they got a score like that just by being conscientious. In other words, Class A discovered the truth about the school long before we did and took action." He closed his eyes and thought back to the prominent figures in Class A. Then he opened them. "Could it be Katsuragi?"
"Oh, right," Hoshinomiya Chie said, slapping her forehead. "The school's promise of a hundred percent college acceptance and employment only applies to students in Class A, so you'll all have to work hard."
The cheerful atmosphere in Class B instantly disappeared.
"Whaaat?!" The whole class was shocked.
"Hm?" Hoshinomiya blinked in confusion. "I thought you already knew."
"Isn't that fraud, Teacher?" Shibata Sou stood up in disbelief.
"Exactly! How can they do that?" the students of Class B chimed in.
After all, their main reason for enrolling in this school had been that promise. Now they were suddenly being told that the school would honor it only for students who graduated from Class A...
Kanzaki Ryuji rubbed his temples in frustration. "I knew the school wouldn't be that kind."
"That's the school's rule. There's nothing I can do about it," Hoshinomiya Chie said with a smile, unbothered by the students' objections. "If you want that privilege, then work hard and make it to Class A."
"Everyone..."
Ichinose Honami patted her cheeks and stood to face the whole class.
"Let's work hard together from now on. Three years from now, we'll all graduate from Class A!"
"Honami-chan..."
"I'm so glad I'm in the same class as you." One of the girls rushed over and hugged Ichinose, overcome with emotion.
"Yeah, I'm so glad I'm in the same class as all of you."
A smile bloomed on Ichinose Honami's face, and the radiance of the great angel once again shone over Class B.
Unlike the warm and cheerful Class B classroom, Class C was...
"Hmph! So that's the trick they're playing? This school just got a little more interesting." A cocky, slurred voice rang through Class C.
Ryuen Kakeru propped his legs up on the desk with a clatter and glanced at the students in Class C.
"You heard that, trash. If you want to graduate from Class A, you'd better obey my orders. I'll lead you in crushing the other classes completely!"
His words would've been pretty forceful, if he weren't sporting a pig's head, with bruises still on his face and wounds all over his body...
The voices in Class C fell silent for two seconds. Then a wave of insults surged toward him.
"Are you kidding? Aren't you the one who got our class into this mess by picking fights and getting into brawls every day?"
"You want us to submit to you? In your dreams. Or do you want to fight all of us again?"
"King of Red History wants to lead our class? Have you eaten so much of that stuff your brain's clogged up?"
"People in the other classes are already laughing at us, saying Class C has produced an unprecedented piece of trash. If you lead us, our class will be disgraced for generations!"
For once, the attitude of Class C was unanimous: they absolutely couldn't let that Toilet War God lead the class.
Veins bulged on Ryuen Kakeru's face. He forced down his anger. "I told you, I don't like that red stuff! I asked Albert, and it wasn't him. Someone's clearly framing me!"
The great Ryuen Kakeru had never needed to explain himself before. He'd bullied men and women alike and done every kind of evil; if anyone refused to obey him, he'd just use force to make them.
He'd never imagined that his tried-and-true methods would crash and burn at Advanced Nurturing. One misstep, and his attempt at a sneak attack had walked straight into the enemy's trap.
And then someone had posted it online, and he'd been cyberbullied!
It had definitely been a planned trap, but his excuses weren't doing him any good. Everyone who'd seen what he did could only laugh and yell:
Serves you right!
"Who cares? You didn't hold back when you ambushed Albert. Now that it's online, you're playing the victim?"
"Get lost, trash Ryuen Kakeru. If you've got any sense, expel yourself. This class doesn't need you. We'd rather end up in Class D than have trash like you lead us."
"Yeah! Get lost, trash!"
"Just you wait," Ryuen Kakeru sneered. "I'll be waiting for the day you come begging me."
As long as you still want to graduate from Class A!
As for the heavyweight of them all, Class D...
"You are all defective products, worth nothing!"
With both hands braced on the podium, Class D's homeroom teacher, Chabashira Sae, looked down on the entire class and made the declaration with a sneer.
"You were late or absent a total of 108 times. There were 451 instances of private conversations or phone use during class."
"The result is that you've lost every last one of the 100,000 points you should have received. That's all."
The entire Class D classroom fell deathly silent at Chabashira Sae's words.
"Wait, Teacher, I don't remember—"
"Do I really need to reteach you something even elementary school students know? If so, you might as well drop out and go back to elementary school." Chabashira Sae coldly cut off Hirata Yousuke, one of Class D's central figures.
"Did you really think you could use 100,000 points a month without any restrictions? Anyone with common sense would know that's impossible. Did you really think the school belonged to your family?"
"..." Sitting in the corner and watching with interest, Sakayanagi Arisu wore her usual elegant smile.
"Take a look."
Chabashira Sae stuck the poster on the blackboard.
"Even the worst class, Class C, still has over 20,000 points. And you lost all the value you had right from the start.
"How could this happen? Why do the other classes have points? I can't even make a living like this!" Kanji Ike, who'd been listening quietly until now, shouted.
The other students in Class D also burst into wails.
Quite a few students, faces dark, noticed what the poster revealed: the gaps in points were much too neat.
Chabashira Sae noticed their expressions too, and her face showed her delight.
"Do you understand why you were placed in Class D?"
"Wasn't it random?" Yamauchi Haruki demanded loudly. "I'm so outstanding. What other explanation could there be?"
"No! You're the worst class. There's no doubt about it, and the results prove the school was right to sort you this way."
With that, Chabashira Sae began clapping slowly, her applause ringing through the classroom.
"Still, you're impressive. It's the first time I've seen a class lose all 1,000 points in its very first month."
In the lower-left corner of the classroom, Horikita Suzune, a cool beauty with long, straight black hair, gripped her pencil so tightly it creaked. She'd been taking notes on everything Chabashira Sae said, trying to work out the pattern behind the deductions.
"Why did this happen? This school is a scam! I won't accept this!"
"How am I supposed to get by next month? I've already spent all my points."
"Why was I placed in this class? The school must have made a mistake!"
At that moment, the students in Class D had descended into chaos.
"Still, you don't need to worry about the lack of points." Chabashira Sae's smile grew kind.
Before you continue