Oblivious

Kamuro irritably picked up a fresh sheet of drawing paper and a paintbrush and slapped them down in front of him. "Stop moping and draw it again! If you don't produce a normal painting today, don't even think about leaving this room."

Kazami's eyes lit up. "I can stay the night?"

Kamuro: "..."

What a piece of work. Her initial instincts had been right after all. She should never have agreed.

In the end, when it was nearly five in the afternoon, Kamuro kicked Kazami out of her room.

Kazami muttered as he walked away, "Fine, no staying over, but did you have to physically throw me out? You could at least have kept your own apprentice for a simple meal."

Today was a little different. Chabashira-sensei walked into the classroom carrying a stack of test papers and gave them a quiz.

"Huh? Seriously?"

"Why are we having a test today?"

The students grumbled nonstop, but Chabashira-sensei maintained her usual attitude. "Don't worry. This quiz is only to assess your current academic level. It won't count toward the class rankings or affect your individual points. Even a zero is fine."

As soon as she finished speaking, most of the tension in the classroom vanished. Many students breathed sighs of relief, their earlier panic instantly dissipating. After all, most of the class's attitude toward studying lately... well, it couldn't even be called studying anymore. They were simply here to enjoy themselves.

The papers were handed out. Kazami looked over the contents, able to write down the correct answer immediately after a single glance at a question.

He owed this effortless experience to the support of his dear friend Ayanokoji. Although Ayanokoji hadn't called him Big Brain very many times, every ability he had copied had been useful.

He was long past being the ordinary student with average grades in every subject he had once been. The Math Lv4 and Physics Lv4 subject abilities he had copied from Ayanokoji, along with his Japanese Language Lv3 foundation from Matsushita, had brought him straight to the top level in three core subjects.

In just over ten minutes, Kazami put down his pen early. So this was how easy answering questions became when you were good at studying.

The quiz ended, the papers were collected, and the classroom instantly became lively again.

Kazami sidled up to Ayanokoji and asked with some curiosity, "How did it go, Ayanokoji? Can you get full marks?"

Ayanokoji shook his head. "Not a chance. There were lots of questions I couldn't answer. I'll probably only get an average score."

Suzune Horikita overheard their exchange from beside them and joined in. "Aside from the final two major questions, the entire paper covered basic middle school material. It wasn't particularly difficult. Anyone with a solid foundation should be able to score highly."

Kazami opened his mouth. Ayanokoji was... never mind. If he wanted to keep a low profile, let him. My friend's hobby is keeping a low profile, so I'll play along and leave his disguise intact.

Kazami turned to Horikita. "By the way, Horikita, did you think the last two questions were difficult?"

Horikita recalled the two questions. With her ability, she had only solved the first subquestion of the first one. "Very. The question formats were novel, and the material was completely beyond what we're currently studying. They were very difficult. But why do you care? You didn't answer them anyway. And since when have you been so interested in studying?"

In Horikita's established impression of him, Kazami was an immature weirdo.

Hearing that, Kazami couldn't help letting out a couple of awkward laughs, inwardly marveling that this was probably the happy predicament of the strong.

He hadn't felt anything in particular about the final two questions. His math and physics had always been average before. Whether a question was hard or easy, it had been a hard question in his eyes. He couldn't distinguish between their difficulty levels at all, because they all felt difficult.

Now that he had acquired the abilities, he still couldn't feel a difference, because they were all easy.

Horikita looked at the strange smile on his face, her tone somewhat puzzled. "Come to think of it, you're quite interested in grades and how difficult the questions are. I've never seen you work seriously in class or during self-study. Why do you suddenly care about these things?"

It was exactly as Horikita said. He really didn't usually put much effort in and looked every bit like a student who disliked studying.

But he was already at the top level in these subjects, so naturally, he didn't put much effort in. Although he hadn't put much effort in back in middle school, either.

Faced with Horikita's confusion, Kazami explained, "It's a student's duty."

Horikita was very surprised to hear those words come out of Kazami's mouth.

She looked Kazami Saku up and down, the puzzlement in her eyes almost overflowing, as though she were meeting him for the first time. Had he eaten something strange? How else could he possibly say something so serious?

Her stare made Kazami uncomfortable all over. "Hey, don't look at me like you've seen a ghost. You can ask Ayanokoji. He probably cares quite a bit too. This is a perfectly normal reaction."

Ayanokoji: "..."

He actually didn't care. All he wanted was to get through his school life uneventfully.

Ayanokoji nodded in agreement. "That's right. I do care quite a bit. I wonder if Chabashira-sensei will lecture me if I fail."

Kazami studied Ayanokoji's expression. He was saying he was worried about his grades and afraid of being lectured, but there wasn't the slightest trace of anxiety on his face. He didn't look remotely flustered.

His mental fortitude is incredible. He can lie without batting an eye. He'd definitely fool young girls.

With the end of the quiz, April quietly drew to a close, and May arrived on schedule. The slight chill of early spring faded, and the foliage on campus grew ever lusher. But for the students of Advanced Nurturing, the most anticipated event at the start of each month was none other than their monthly points arriving on time. These were the key to sustaining everyone's leisurely school life.

Yet today, the classroom lacked its usual lively chatter and playfulness, replaced by an irritable atmosphere. Most people kept opening their devices to check their account balances, once, twice... as the number of checks increased, the anticipation on their faces faded entirely, replaced by utter confusion.

Only after asking one another did they discover that not a single person in all of Class D had received this month's 100,000 points.

Voices rose and fell throughout the classroom as everyone discussed it, and the atmosphere of confusion spread.

Suzune Horikita stared down at the records on her device, where her points still hadn't increased. Frowning slightly, she turned to Kazami Saku, who had only just arrived after taking his time. "Have you received your monthly points?"

Kazami put down his bag, took out his phone, and swiped through a couple of screens to check his balance. "Let me see. Nope. Why?"

"Wait, you actually didn't know about this?" Watching him only now discover that his points hadn't arrived, Horikita sounded somewhat exasperated. "The whole class is discussing the problem with the points, and you're the only one who hasn't noticed."

Kazami scratched his head, looking completely unashamed. "Uh, I really wasn't paying much attention. I stayed up gaming until the early hours last night, and I got to class just in time this morning. My brain's still half asleep."

Suzune Horikita: "..."

At that moment, she was completely at a loss for words. Could someone really be this oblivious?