As he stepped onto the Second Year floor, an atmosphere completely different from the first-year floor washed over him.
The hallways were no longer empty. Nearly every classroom window stood open, and quite a few students lingered inside.
Some bent over their desks writing, some stared blankly out the windows, and more were hunched over their phones or speaking quietly with one another.
On the surface, it was just an ordinary stretch of free time on the afternoon of the first day of school.
But Mazumi Mami keenly sensed an indescribable heaviness hanging in the air.
It wasn't the tension of a heavy workload. It felt more like... a deep-seated sense of helplessness and exhaustion.
Most of the students lacked energy. Their eyes were blank or carried a faint, hard-to-detect numbness, as if they had lost interest in everything around them and were left with nothing but the inertia of going through the motions.
An eerie, collective gloom hung over the entire floor.
"What a strange atmosphere..."
Mazumi Mami slowed his pace and observed without drawing attention to himself.
"If it were pressure from schoolwork, more people should be studying hard or discussing their lessons. But here, hardly anyone is reading seriously, and there aren't piles of reference books or test papers on the desks."
His gaze swept over one young face after another, none of them bright with life.
"It feels more like... they've been living under some invisible, suffocating set of rules or system of evaluation for so long that they've lost their goals and motivation, and are even starting to give up on themselves?"
It piqued his curiosity.
Could this school's so-called "meritocracy" and mission to "cultivate the elite" ultimately produce such a listless state of mind?
Or was this just a temporary phenomenon limited to a particular year or class?
His thoughts were interrupted by a prominent announcement board at the end of the hallway.
Above the board, bold lettering read "Live Class Points Rankings (Second Year)." Below it, four classes and their corresponding scores were clearly listed:
Class A: 1400 points
Class B: 600 points
Class C: 400 points
Class D: 250 points
Mazumi Mami stopped in front of the board, his amber-gold eyes fixed on the figures.
"Class Points?"
He immediately ruled out the possibility that these were the students' Personal Points. The gap between these three-digit figures and the 100,000 in Starting Funds each student received was simply too large.
"This seems more like a score assigned to an entire class... or perhaps a way of quantifying certain resources or privileges?"
The gaps between the numbers were staggering.
Class A, with the highest score, had more than five times as many points as Class D, the lowest. And the gap between Class A and Class B—classes that should have been fairly close—was a whopping 800 points.
"With such a huge disparity, it's unlikely to have formed solely through the natural accumulation of individual students' academic or behavioral records. It seems more likely that some powerful external system is at work, granting or deducting points from the classes on a large scale."
He analyzed the figures quickly.
"And why is Class D's score so low? Did they break some serious rule, or does the standard for awarding these 'Class Points' differ from the usual definition of 'excellence'?"
Another question came to mind.
"Why doesn't our first-year have a ranking board? Have they not started calculating the scores yet? Or do we have to meet certain conditions to activate this evaluation system? Could this be one of the hidden rules Majima-sensei hinted we'd need to 'discover' for ourselves?"
He couldn't make sense of it, and there was no one he could ask.
Mazumi Mami took out the smartphone provided by the school and, in a seemingly casual but precisely angled motion, snapped a picture of the rankings board.
He decided to keep exploring.
The atmosphere on the Third Year floor was clearly different from that on the Second Year floor.
Although they were also in their final year, there was less of that near-desperate oppression in the air. In its place was the restlessness and anticipation of youth nearing its end, along with even the faintest hint of competition.
The students' expressions were livelier, and their conversations seemed to cover a wider range of topics.
"It seems the different years may have vastly different reactions and circumstances under this 'Class Points' system."
Mami thought to himself as he continued along the hallway. It didn't take long for him to find the announcement board for the Third Year.
As expected, the numbers were much higher than the Second Year's:
Class A: 2500 points
Class B: 2000 points
Class C: 1270 points
Class D: 850 points
"The points are on a whole different scale. And Class A is at the top, with Class B close behind. Classes C and D are trailing, but the gap isn't nearly as hopelessly wide as it is in the Second Year."
Mazumi Mami quickly compared the two rankings.
"This further confirms that 'Class Points' have a huge impact on students' lives at school, and are likely accumulated year by year or changed according to some set of rules."
"Class A in the Third Year managed to save up 2500 points, which shows that this system isn't a dead end with no way out. But Class D in the Second Year... did they suffer a major setback along the way?"
"Sooner or later, our first-year will be incorporated into this point system too. And we'll probably start with something other than zero—a certain initial value... How much will it be? 1000? Or even more, like the Third Year?"
He considered the matter in silence.
"I have to figure out how this system works as soon as possible. It may be the key to understanding the true nature of this school."
Mazumi Mami continued thinking in silence.
"Hmm? Isn't that Classmate Sakayanagi? Good afternoon."
As he pondered, a soft but clear voice came without warning from behind and to the side, accompanied by the familiar, rhythmic tap... tap... of small shoe heels against the floor.
Mazumi Mami had already sensed someone behind him. Without betraying his awareness, he slowly turned around.
The first things to catch his eye were the slender legs wrapped in white knee-high socks and the unmistakable metal telescopic cane.
He looked up and met Sakayanagi Arisu's calm purple eyes.
She tilted her head slightly as she regarded him. Her delicate face wore a faint smile, just right for someone who had happened to run into a classmate.
Her silver hair gleamed softly in the light streaming through the windows. The beret sat slightly low on her head, further accentuating her fair skin and distinctive air.
"Good afternoon, Classmate Sakayanagi."
Mazumi Mami returned a warm yet slightly distant smile, fitting the persona of "Mazumi Mami," and gave a small nod.
"That's right. I was curious about this ranking. It looks like the upperclassmen are engaged in some kind of... competition between classes?"
"Do you happen to know anything about it, Classmate Sakayanagi?"
He didn't hide the fact that he'd been looking at the board. Instead, he deliberately steered the conversation toward something she might know about, while carefully watching her reaction.
How much did the chairman's daughter know about this apparently crucial "Class Points" system? And how much would she be willing to reveal?
This brief encounter might offer him an important opportunity to learn more about the hidden rules of this school.
And Sakayanagi Arisu's decision to strike up a conversation was intriguing in itself.