Chabashira's Classic Move: Making Things Hard for Class D

"I'll contact them on my phone right now. Let's keep the meeting spot at Pallet; there's a pretty good angle there." Kushida Kikyo picked up her phone.

"Okay." Shiraishi Makoto could handle this kind of simple fixed-camera recording by himself, so there was no need to trouble Kamuro Masumi.

Shiraishi ordered a drink, chose a seat, and placed his backpack neatly on the table. Unless someone looked closely, it would be hard to notice the miniature camera hidden in the gap of the backpack's opening, its lens aimed precisely at Kushida Kikyo's seat across from him.

Before long, Sudo Ken, Ike Kanji, and Yamauchi Haruki hurried over. Shortly afterward, two unfamiliar upperclassmen also entered the café discreetly.

The group gathered at a corner table and spoke in low voices for a while. The upperclassmen pulled a stack of study materials from their bags and carefully handed it over.

"This is great! We finally got them!" Yamauchi snatched the papers and shouted excitedly.

"Keep it down..." The others hurried to stop him.

Sudo and the others packed up their things, planning to return to the dorms to verify whether the Archived Exam Questions were genuine. Since Kushida Kikyo had also gotten the answers to the First Quiz, if they matched up, they would not have to worry about the upcoming exam.

Shiraishi reached into his backpack for the camera, opened the playback, and carefully checked the footage, audio, and full recording.

The video was clear and complete. The entire transaction and every detail of the conversation had been preserved without any omissions.

When he turned around, Kushida Kikyo, who had not yet left, was sitting directly across from him. Only after seeing Shiraishi give her an OK sign did she leave the café.

Monday arrived, and Horikita Suzune brought Kushida Kikyo and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka to the office.

"Teacher, there's something urgent we need to confirm with you."

"Keep it brief. I have other work to do right now." Chabashira Sae seemed to have work of her own to handle.

"Regarding the Midterm Exam scope you told us about during the first week of this month, was there an error? We asked students from other classes, and the scope they described clearly differs from what we've been studying."

Chabashira listened to Horikita's words expressionlessly before finally stopping her writing.

"Now that you mention it, the Midterm Exam scope was changed the Friday before last. Sorry, it seems I forgot to tell you."

"..." Horikita fell silent in the face of this revelation.

Chabashira pulled out an A4 sheet from the printer and smoothly wrote down the exam scope for all five subjects. What gave Horikita a headache was that while these topics had all been covered in class, they differed greatly from what everyone had spent the past week studying.

"Thanks to you, Horikita. Otherwise, I really might have forgotten about it."

"Isn't this too late...?"

"Isn't there still a week left? If you study properly, you can pass easily."

Chabashira apparently did not think she had done anything wrong. After saying that casually, she drove them out of the office.

Seriously, do they still not understand what I mean? After seeing the students off, Chabashira resumed her work. However, she noticed that Hoshinomiya Chie, who had been in the office just moments ago, had suddenly vanished during that brief interval.

"Horikita..." As they walked back to class, Kushida suddenly spoke. "Actually, you don't need to worry too much about Sudo and the others."

"Are you saying we should just give up on them?" Horikita stopped and turned to look at Kushida.

"That's not what I mean." Kushida looked around and lowered her voice. "Last weekend, I heard from some upperclassmen that the school has Archived Exam Questions. We also got the First Quiz questions to compare, and we found that the third-years' First Quiz questions were exactly the same as ours."

"You mean... there's a high chance the Midterm Exam questions are also the original questions from before?" Horikita understood what Kushida meant.

"Yes, so I had them go back and memorize the questions properly over the weekend. But the deal required that we not leak the questions to anyone else, so we didn't mention it before." Kushida explained.

For some reason, Horikita let out a sigh of relief. The anxiety that had been building up over the past two weeks seemed to ease considerably.

"In that case, let them memorize the Archived Exam Questions." She herself had not been confident she could teach Sudo and the others well enough within a week. Memorizing the Archived Exam Questions was the best option available.

"However, we still need to quickly notify the rest of the class about the change in exam content. I'll leave that to you, Kushida."

"Huh, me?"

"That's right. You're the most suitable person here." Horikita glanced at Ayanokoji as she spoke.

"All right, then. I'll take responsibility for informing everyone in class."

Ayanokoji paid no attention to their conversation. His gaze drifted into the distance, where he saw a familiar figure enter the infirmary.

Inside the infirmary.

"Hahahahahaha! Makoto, did you know? That idiot Sae actually forgot to notify her class about the changed exam scope. Their class was already terrible academically, so won't a huge number of them fail now?" Hoshinomiya Chie's laughter rang out the moment she entered the infirmary.

"I knew about it, Hoshinomiya-sensei." Shiraishi nodded lightly. "But Chabashira-sensei probably wanted to use this method to force the students in her class to quickly find another way to pass."

"Another way to pass... You mean?" Hoshinomiya's smile vanished instantly. She had thought of that method as well.

"Yes, the Archived Exam Questions."

"Hmph, Sae really is underhanded." Hoshinomiya pouted. Chabashira had always acted as though she did not care about her class advancing, and had nearly fooled her. Yet she had been pulling this kind of trick behind the scenes.

"But since you've figured out this much already, you should have a way to deal with it, right?"

"I got evidence of them buying Archived Exam Questions." Shiraishi took three photographs from his backpack, all screenshots taken from the video he had recorded.

Hoshinomiya took the photos and smiled. "You're amazing, Makoto~ What reward do you want from your teacher?"

Shiraishi waved off Hoshinomiya's teasing. "Buying Archived Exam Questions is something the school tacitly allows, but if someone reports it, even if the school doesn't punish them, they'll rewrite the exam questions, right?"

Giving different questions on the same kinds of test points would not have much impact on scores. Since the failing threshold depended on the class average, if the questions were a little harder and no one could answer them, the average would naturally drop.

However, for students who had only memorized the original answers without grasping the basic principles, changing the questions would be a devastating blow.

"If that happens, even a teacher like me without a subject to teach will have to work overtime to make questions for everyone." Hoshinomiya lightly punched Shiraishi's chest with her pink fist. "Good job. Keep it up next time."