Chapter 4

Airi truly only had one real friend: Hasebe. Yukimura wasn't her best friend. He wasn't interested in girls and was focused on reaching Class A. But let me say this: a true friend would never betray a friend. True friends stood by each other through life and death. Just like Lord Guan battling his way through five passes and defeating six generals, would they really give in over 300 Class Points or the prospect of not making it to Class A? And before all this, there was the tragic love story between Chabashira-sensei and her boyfriend. It was all meant to highlight the word "strength," which Kinugasa Shogo wanted to express. What did strength mean? If Hasebe were a strong person, she could have saved Airi. Why? If they had stood by each other no matter what, even at the cost of Class Points and the whole class's resentment, Horikita and Ayanokoji would have judged Airi to be a person of strength. Remember? Being able to make friends was also a part of strength. If Airi had a friend capable of influencing the class, then her value—that is, her strength—would have risen considerably, and Horikita would have gone looking for someone else with the lowest value. Of course, if everyone in the class had more value than Kushida, who had given up and was now a lost cause, then Horikita, the author's darling, would have kicked Kushida out without a second thought. But sadly, Airi couldn't even find a strong boyfriend to protect her. Her "girlfriend" was Hasebe, who couldn't make a name for herself either. As a result, Airi's value in Horikita's eyes was even lower than Kushida's current value. It was pitiful and tragic. In conclusion, Airi's expulsion made perfect sense. If you still think she was wronged, I agree. When the city gates catch fire, the fish in the moat suffer too. She was simply a poor girl caught in the crossfire of Kushida, Horikita, and Ayanokoji's battle of wits. But Kinugasa Shogo wanted to tell everyone that this kind of thing happened all the time in real life. Everyone could get screwed over by life. Other than reflecting on their lack of strength and bad luck, all they could do was complain to the heavens. I once read a report that left a deep impression on me. A typhoon toppled a truck and crushed its driver to death. According to the security camera footage, the terrible accident happened because the driver got out of the truck and tried to stop it from being blown over by the typhoon. Many people commented that the driver was stupid for trying to fight a typhoon with his own body, risking his life in the process. But the driver had thought that if the truck tipped over, he couldn't afford to pay for the cargo, and he had a whole family to support. His wife and children would be left destitute, his parents would have no money for medical care, and his life would be over. If you were that driver, and one day you had to face the raging winds of fate, what could you do without the strength to fight back? Maybe such a heavy topic didn't belong in a light novel. But I think Kinugasa Shogo managed to convey what he wanted his mostly student readers to feel. He didn't care whether you liked it. As the author, he was satisfied, at least. And that's that. Finally, let's pay our respects to the kind old master Yamauchi. He was the one the author had really targeted, writing him as utterly worthless. At least Airi still had plenty of fans! Actually, old master Yamauchi did have some redeeming qualities. At the very least, he kindly suggested taking Mio in when she was kicked out on the Uninhabited Island! Maybe that was why Minya didn't give him a hard time? Haha!

Author's Note: Minya, have you seen the machine translation of the new volume? Ren-di's girlfriend is gorgeous! Minya: The art is pretty good. By the way, who's Ren-di? Which anime did he make a guest appearance in? Ren-di: ==

Note: Has Minya gotten dumber again today? (Discussing character development) The paid discussion you all love is back! Haha! First, I want to give a shout-out to all the readers who've commented on this book—except those who swear at me. I'm just an amateur writer who writes for fun. I'm even a science student who went off-topic in my Chinese essay for the college entrance exam, and I currently work in finance. It's obvious that my novels have all kinds of problems. Of course I'd rather have everyone give me feedback than write to an empty room, so I can keep improving as a writer. Today, I'd like to calmly discuss some of my thoughts on character development. There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes. Some people think I've made Minya stupid, and that it's toxic. I can understand that, because I never wanted to create a perfect character. It's difficult to keep Minya's intelligence in check without making it feel jarring. Part of the problem is that my writing is clumsy. What I imagine in my head comes out looking mediocre on the page. What can I do? This is just the level I'm at. I started writing because I couldn't find anyone else who shared my tastes. If any of you readers aren't satisfied, hurry up and start writing. I'm starved for something to read! On the other hand, Minya is the protagonist, and even the first-person narrator, so readers can't help but put themselves in his shoes. You know what's going to happen before he does, and you're even richer and more handsome than Minya. Naturally, you'll be unhappy when he makes a mistake, thinking that you'd never have ended up in his position. This happens all the time. Don't believe me? Take a look at the four great classics of Chinese literature, all of which are famous in the literary world. In Water Margin, Song Jiang's "Amnesty, amnesty—what the hell do we need amnesty for?" makes readers gnash their teeth, wanting to lead the one hundred and eight heroes themselves and "march on the capital and seize that damn throne." The same goes for Big-Faced Bao in Dream of the Red Chamber, Tang Sanzang in Journey to the West, and Liu Xuande in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. They're all protagonists, aren't they? But what do you think of them? Don't you ever feel like you could replace them? Nobody's perfect. If readers hate a character, that means the character was written well and feels alive. In my previous Irregular at Magic High School fanfic, lots of people kept saying they didn't like the lovestruck girl Mitsui and wanted me to stop writing her. But that was how she acted in the original, and I'd recreated her so well that I wanted to write more about her! Haha! I'd say you're only being so picky because the person she's infatuated with isn't you. Haha! Jokes aside, unlike Mitsui, who's a dispensable supporting character, Minya is the protagonist! Have I gone too far with the way I've written him? But... the protagonists of classic novels aren't exactly as handsome, brilliant, rich, and invincible as you readers are, either! I think it's definitely not because everyone's shallow. It's because my writing still needs work. For starters, stories about battles of wits usually take a while to warm up. (Let's just pretend Classroom of the Elite counts as a battle-of-wits story!) Fast-paced, mind-bending stories tend to be short. Their tightly packed pacing leaves no room for anything, so they're not suited to fanfiction. A familiar example is Death Note. Not many people have managed to write good fanfiction for it, right? The pacing is just too fast. Classroom of the Elite already has a slow pace, and the light-novel and school-life elements slow it down even more. That's true of the original author's pacing, too. On top of that, I'm writing a diary plus everyday life, so the pace is incredibly slow. That's why everyone used to fast-paced wish-fulfillment stories keeps complaining that the first payoff still hasn't arrived, and why they think it's toxic when Minya loses to Ayanokoji. Actually, that just proves Minya has staying power. Haha. It's true that a commercial work would have its first payoff within thirty or forty chapters, no matter what, so readers would feel that following the story was comfortable and worthwhile. As the saying goes, thirty years east of the river and thirty years west of it, if you want to rise...