Before the ginkgo leaves from the Autumn Festival had finished falling, the notice for Advanced Nurturing High School's Sports Festival preparations had been sent to every student's terminal. On the first Monday of October, Chabashira entered the classroom carrying a packet far thicker than usual—the official Sports Festival plan. She adjusted her glasses and began explaining the rules in the same flat tone she used for every special exam announcement.
"The Sports Festival will last two days. Recommended events include the scavenger race, obstacle race, cavalry battle, and inter-class relay. Each class must assign a designated number of participants to every event, with final rankings determined by total class points. The top three classes will receive class point rewards, while the bottom two will have points deducted accordingly. In addition, the scavenger race in this Sports Festival will introduce a random cooperation mechanism from an Old System clause—participants' item lists may include the names of students from other classes, and those selected may not refuse to assist in completing the task."
Random cooperation mechanism. Those words made some hearts skip harder than the Silent Offense and Defense Project had last semester. Horikita Suzune stood and accepted the full rulebook from Chabashira. After checking it clause by clause, she found that this random cooperation provision introduced under the Old System framework was precisely the clause Sakagami had marked "pending activation" for the last time before retiring at the end of last semester. Turning toward the blackboard, she added briefly, "The random cooperation mechanism carries a weighting of roughly twenty percent of an individual event. If a selected person refuses to cooperate, the scavenger runner's result will not be voided, but the refusing person's class will lose additional points."
Sudo Ken cracked his knuckles. "I'm fast in a scavenger race, but what