Volume One Wrap-Up

Let me chat with everyone for a moment first. By the end of the first forty chapters, Class D had completed the first stage of its transformation: from the initial chaos and having their points reduced to zero, to gradually establishing a division of labor, dealing with the Sudo incident, and finally reaching the end-of-phase settlement. Many readers might feel the story could have ended after those first forty chapters, but I still wanted to keep this chapter as a transition between what came before and the exams ahead.

The reason was simple: the settlement being over did not mean the characters had completely changed. Gu Heng would not suddenly become someone who never made mistakes just because he had made the right calls a few times; Horikita would not immediately become a perfect leader; Hirata was willing to look after everyone, but he could get tired too; and Sudo certainly would not stop being impulsive forever just because he had gone through one incident.

So what I wanted to write in this chapter was not simply about snatching water, nor was it about making Sudo and Ishizaki fight again. I wanted to see whether, when old problems resurfaced in a different form, Sudo would walk down the same path again.

Ishizaki knew exactly what could provoke Sudo. He deliberately stood there, not necessarily because he truly wanted to take the water, but because he wanted Sudo to lose control first. As long as Sudo threw the first punch, Class D would have to spend more time explaining, filling out reports, and dealing with the consequences. Sudo choosing to hold back in the end did not mean he had suddenly become especially clever, nor did it mean he would never act impulsively again. It meant he had finally understood that what the other side wanted was his impulsiveness.

For someone with such a straightforward personality, being able to stop himself when he wanted most to throw a punch was already significant growth. I did not want to write that growth as a sudden moment of enlightenment, much less turn Sudo into a completely different person overnight. He would still get angry and still speak bluntly, but he was beginning to understand where his strength should be used.

In the first forty chapters, Class D had not built a class held up by Gu Heng alone. Gu Heng was responsible for identifying problems, breaking down risks, and proposing solutions, but he could not act in everyone's place. Horikita, Hirata, Yukimura, Ayanokoji, Sudo, and the other students all needed to shoulder part of the responsibility from their own positions. The upcoming exams would put that division of labor to the test again in a more troublesome environment.

I also wanted to respond to readers who said this book felt like it had been written by AI. To be honest, when I got stuck, I really did ask AI how I should write. Sometimes I asked how the plot should continue; sometimes I asked what choices the characters might still have in their current situation. There was nothing to avoid about that. But that did not mean I simply had AI generate the entire book and then published it. The directions AI gave were not necessarily suitable for this story. Whether the characters would really act that way, whether the rules could hold up, whether the emotions and relationships connected smoothly from before to after—all of that still required my own judgment and revision. After reading many of its suggestions, I would delete them outright, and rewrite anything that felt out of character.

If some parts really do seem to have an AI feel, then that means my revisions were not good enough yet. I will continue working on that. More precisely, I was responsible for the main plot, the characters, and the final draft of this book myself. When I got stuck, I treated AI as someone to discuss things with and as an auxiliary tool, rather than handing over the entire creative process.

Thank you all for reading this far. The first forty chapters were about Class D finding its footing; the story ahead would be the true beginning of their confrontation with the pressure of the entire grade. I hope this chapter showed everyone that what happened before would not simply be discarded, and that the characters would not start over just because the exam environment changed. Please keep reading.