That was also in line with expectations.
Classes C and D had indeed been left far behind.
However, Classmate Ryuen hadn't explained which year the blackboard showing the highest score, A2330, belonged to. Shirogane had sent him a message asking about it afterward, but Ryuen hadn't replied.
He seemed to be a little angry.
Still, no matter which class A2330 belonged to, it was clear that the highest score was only 2,330. In other words, the competition during each month's Special Exam was fierce. They might not earn points, but they'd certainly have a chance to lose some.
So it was difficult to rack up a high score quickly.
Looking at it that way,
the 1,000 points new students received upon enrollment seemed especially important.
Thinking this, Classmate Shirogane looked toward Classmate Ryuen.
Classmate Ryuen had already arrived in the classroom. He had propped both feet up on a desk, resting them on the desk of the boy in front of him. Not only was that posture rude, it was arrogant.
According to the criteria for deductions that the upperclassman had given him, Classmate Ryuen's behavior would cost him points.
Did that mean Classmate Ryuen had given up?
Or was he testing whether he could immediately bring the student in front of him under his control?
"Ryuen!"
The boy whose desk was being stepped on decided he'd had enough.
"If you've got a problem, wait until after school," Ryuen said. "Now shut up!"
"Damn it—"
Shirogane watched them.
Classmate Shiina turned around and spoke to Shirogane.
"That boy's name is Ishizaki Daichi. He was a famous little brawler back in middle school."
Oh.
But this sort of scene might play out in this class for the next two or three days.
Before the teacher arrived, Classmate Shiina stood up and walked over to the podium.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Shiina Hiyori."
"This is a class group chat I just set up. I don't have everyone's contact information, so please join on your own."
"I know some people don't like doing this sort of thing, but this school is a little strange. We've received some information, and if we don't take certain steps, we might not get 100,000 points for living expenses next month."
"This is important."
Unlike Ryuen, Hiyori stood at the podium and spoke eloquently. She was graceful and beautiful, yet efficient.
The students who had been unhappy with Ryuen's violent behavior began to feel some goodwill toward her.
It seemed that Ryuen was the violent troublemaker, while Classmate Shiina was the reasonable, gentle one.
"..." Shirogane.
But this made Shirogane realize that the class seemed able to carry on without him. It seemed as though they could manage just fine.
So what could he do?
Shirogane did have something he needed to take care of.
He had to deal with the contents of the SD card he'd found the previous night.
So,
Classmate Shirogane decided to head to the Student Council after school and, while he was at it, investigate its situation.
If this school really put strength above all else, what about the Student Council President?
Although most of his attention that day had been on going to the Gymnasium with Classmate Sakayanagi, Shirogane had still paid some attention to the opening ceremony. The Student Council had run it, and not a single school administrator had gone up to give a speech.
That was completely unlike a typical school.
Only the Student Council President had spoken.
He hadn't understood it then, but now he seemed to get it. The school appeared to give its students tremendous authority—even entrusting them with organizing the opening ceremony.
More precisely, it had entrusted the task to the Student Council.
Could that mean the Student Council here had more authority than those at ordinary schools outside?
And if he could get into the Student Council, perhaps he could help his class.
With that,
Classmate Shirogane began to take action after school.
Chapter 13: First-Year Class B—That's Not a B, Is It?!
Lunch was udon, and the side dishes in it were delicious.
Of course, as someone who studied, Shirogane knew that what mattered wasn't what he'd eaten for lunch.
Shirogane had noticed that the school's teaching staff was indeed quite strong. The teachers were very serious in class, but they never asked questions. There was nothing to be said about that. The students were being assessed on their conduct during the first month, so the teachers were presumably aware of it and didn't stop students from doing whatever they wanted in class.
But the textbooks had changed. They were updated editions, and the difficulty seemed to have increased as well.
And unlike at ordinary schools, where you studied the material in the textbook and did its built-in exercises, only to find that you couldn't answer anything on the test if you'd only learned the textbook material and exercises, this school was different. At ordinary schools, simply mastering the textbook wasn't nearly enough. You had to buy plenty of workbooks and drill questions on your own, raising the difficulty from Level 1 to Level 3 before taking the test.
Here at Ikusei High School, the textbooks came with exceptionally difficult companion workbooks. If you could master those exercises, you could go straight to Level 3.
Of course, that was the sort of thing Classmate Shirogane, who was used to studying, would pay attention to.
And now,
Classmate Shirogane was standing in the second-year area.
Before heading to the Student Council office, he'd chosen to investigate the upperclassmen's area first.
Of course, he also wanted to confirm which year the scores on the two blackboards in the photos Classmate Ryuen had taken belonged to.
The students in each year lived in separate dormitory buildings. Each year had its own building.
That meant the students from all three years were separated.
Their classrooms were separate, too.
On the one hand, the school had enough land. On the other, Shirogane thought it might be to reduce interaction between students from different years.
For example, if first-years began interacting with students from the other years right away, wouldn't that undermine the school's customary assessment of new students' conduct?
New students could easily get information from the upperclassmen.
Besides,
the longer students stayed at this school and the more they experienced, the more likely it became that an upperclassman could use their information advantage to defeat and manipulate an underclassman.
This wasn't just a matter of fairness. It probably wasn't good for the school, either. The school provided so many resources and such an environment not just to benefit one class of students, but to develop every year of students.
From a student's point of view, though, didn't that mean the lower years were all easy pickings for the upperclassmen?
Their already meager living expenses might get exploited, too.
How miserable.
Still, Shirogane was curious about the strange fact that a voice recorder he'd seen at the Electronics Store yesterday was more expensive than a computer.
He felt the school wasn't necessarily trying to raise upright children.
A voice recorder could supplement note-taking in class, but it could also be used to record what other people said and gather important information at any time.
Phones had built-in recording functions, but they weren't as convenient to carry around as a voice recorder.
Could it be that voice recorders could be used to gather information and the like?
On the first day, he'd heard the Narrator System describe Classmate Ryuen as leading his class upward like a tyrant, using underhanded methods.
At that point, Classmate Ryuen most likely hadn't been expelled.
So,
Shirogane suspected that perhaps the school wanted to cultivate people who could be shrewd and accomplish their goals by any means necessary.
And people like that... were highly valued in the real world.
In other words, the school wanted to cultivate "talents" who could make it in society.
Now, Shirogane stood in front of the blackboard in the second-year area.
A1210
B780
C430
D200
The scene was exactly the same as in the photos Classmate Ryuen had taken the day before, confirming that these were the evaluation scores of the four second-year classes.
And this Class A had risen from Class B. In other words, they'd successfully climbed over the class above them and had pulled more than 400 points ahead of Class B.
Even so, the highest score after a whole year was only 1,200 points. That showed how difficult it was to handle each Special Exam.
"Um, upperclassman?"
While Classmate Shirogane was thinking, a curious voice suddenly came from behind him.
Upperclassman?
Shirogane looked toward the source of the voice, startled.
A pretty girl had come over.
Not only was she pretty, her figure was striking, too.
Her long, silky blonde hair was dazzling, and the confident, sweet smile on her face made it hard not to be captivated.
Even after seeing several cute or beautiful girls, anyone would still be moved by her.
Because she was an extraordinarily beautiful girl.
This school really was incredible. Even though Shirogane had kept to himself and focused on studying like crazy in middle school, he knew there hadn't been this many cute girls at his old school.
From the cute Classmate Sakayanagi, to the elegant and sensible Classmate Shiina, to Kushida, the angelic D-Class girl he'd met in the elevator, and the Student Council President's younger sister, Horikita Suzune. Girls like them were rare outside this school.
And now there was another one.
Though his heart had started beating a little faster,
Shirogane quickly realized that this girl was probably a first-year.
The dark circles under his eyes made him look fierce, so she'd probably mistaken him for an upperclassman.
"Can I help you?" Shirogane asked. "This isn't somewhere students from the lower years should come, is it?"
"Um, well..."
The energetic girl rubbed the back of her head, a little embarrassed. "I'm actually a new student. I enrolled yesterday. I'm Ichinose Honami."
"I received 100,000 points for living expenses, and I know that's probably because everyone has to buy things they need when they first enroll."
"But I still feel uneasy, so I came to see how things are for the upperclassmen."
"I don't think the school will keep giving us 100,000 points every month for living expenses."
In other words, she'd recognized that something was wrong with the school and come to look around.
To see how things were for the older students.
She wasn't a student who accepted the school's generosity without a second thought and had no concerns at all.
"Which class are you in?" Shirogane asked.
"First-Year Class B," Ichinose Honami replied. "Um, upperclassman, what does this blackboard you're looking at mean?"
As she spoke, she looked at him with curiosity and eagerness to learn.
P.S. Thanks, everyone, for the stats. I'm not getting the full-attendance bonus this month, so there's no need to send knives. Give them to an author you like instead. Boohoo.
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