[I've arranged for my little dog to handle it. Oh, she's coming now, so I'll leave it to her.]
[I'm going to go look around somewhere else.] Sakayanagi's message came quickly.
But Shirogane felt that she must have contacted Kamuro earlier. After all, some things are better handled by someone specifically assigned.
But.
"Didn't you say you were the only one who could move freely right now?" Shirogane texted.
[Originally, I was the only one free to act. Katsuragi's students might be more than happy to have me separate from my own group.]
[But Katsuragi made a deal. He'll keep the class in Class A during the first semester, and if that happens, my Sakayanagi faction will be disbanded.]
[On the other hand, if he fails, his Katsuragi faction will be disbanded.]
Hmm.
This must be about the leadership of Class A.
When Katsuragi realized Class A was in danger, he immediately chose to deal with the internal class conflict in the fastest way possible.
This way, the power from the split class factions can be united into one.
Although, in the end, it might be the Katsuragi faction on his side that gets disbanded, for the class as a whole, it will still result in one leader calling the shots.
Then, Class A's strength will be what it's supposed to be.
One could say.
Katsuragi is truly a real Class A student.
Shirogane kept reading the messages Sakayanagi had sent him.
It was a strange feeling.
Even though he usually talked with the narrator system a lot, he realized that today, he had chatted more with Sakayanagi than he had with the system over the past month.
Maybe it was because everyone else was in class while Sakayanagi was out by herself, feeling relaxed.
[Katsuragi's suggestion isn't bad, but I haven't agreed to it yet. I did manage to get Kamuro to go out though, and he agreed to it,] Sakayanagi messaged.
Sakayanagi added a funny emoji.
[The price for Kamuro coming out now is that tonight, Kamuro has to go to the student council with Katsuragi to officially claim the 50-point class reward.]
[In other words, Shirogane, the gap between Class A and Class B isn't just under 200 points anymore — it's even bigger now.]
In short, this just made it harder for Shirogane to move up to Class A.
Class A really was something else.
But since Katsuragi was now the representative of Class A, with his calm personality, it was only natural that once he noticed Shirogane's Class B aiming for them, he started getting anxious.
If they could get another 50 points for their class, it would definitely make him feel a little safer.
As for that 50 points — Shirogane had it, and so did Kamuro, who had once snuck out the SD card with the evidence of the store worker's violation.
Kamuro just kept denying it on his side.
"Well, let's just wait for more info from her," Shirogane said, putting down his phone.
It was then that he noticed something different in the classroom. A few seats were empty, and a bunch of students had gathered around Ryuen.
Even Shiina, who sat in front of Shirogane, was part of the group.
When Shirogane looked over at Ryuen, Shiina happened to glance his way too and gave him a playful smile.
She probably meant to call him over too, but since she saw he was busy texting someone, she decided not to bother him.
Still—
The group forming around Ryuen was worth paying attention to.
On the girls' side, there was Shiina and another girl with short hair that Shirogane hadn't really talked to — Ibuki.
On the boys' side, there was Albert, who looked like a bodyguard, Kaneda Satoru, a smart guy with glasses whose academics were at B-level, and Ishizaki Daichi, who had a reputation for fighting.
These were the students Ryuen had gathered yesterday to deal with the special exam.
It looked like they were working on strategies now.
In this class, some students just fooled around, some didn't listen to anyone, and some were just plain rebellious.
They weren't exactly the type you could rely on to think seriously.
But since there was a special exam every month, they couldn't just ignore it.
And if they wanted to aim for Class A, they had to do something.
So Ryuen split up the roles.
The smart and capable ones were the main force, while everyone else just needed to listen and follow orders.
That was how things worked in Ryuen's class.
"I think there's a way we can take a shortcut with this exam," Ryuen said.
"I've thought of a way to get through it," he said.
"But the scores might end up pretty low."
That meant when Ryuen heard what Sakagami-sensei said earlier, an idea suddenly popped into his head.
"The key is controlling our scores. For this exam, the main thing is whether everyone can keep an average of 70 points across all subjects. If we don't hit that, the reward points will be small. But if we just mess around without a plan, someone's definitely getting kicked out."
"Especially since our class is full of people who suck at studying."
"So my suggestion is to control the scores for everyone. Bring them down to a safe range, so no one gets expelled, and we can do it without cheating. Clearly, the highest we can do is to choose A or B for all the multiple-choice questions, which won't give us very high scores. So the average score for each subject will definitely be below 70, and in this exam, the class evaluation score will probably only be a few points."
"That's my idea. If you have any other thoughts, keep them to yourselves." Ryuen said.
Then, Kaneda and Shiina shared their opinions, but Ibuki, Ishizaki, and Albert didn't speak.
Clearly, these few were students with average thinking skills, but they got into the first tier because of their strength.
"…"
Shirogane didn't immediately join in.
He had something he wanted to confirm. If Chabashira-sensei really had broken the rules, she would probably say something she shouldn't while explaining the rules to the students, something that could get her in trouble.
So, he had to wait for the information to come in before acting.
As he was thinking, the time to go to class arrived. It was then that Shirogane noticed that Sakayanagi had finally sent over a file.
So,
During lunch break when the other students went to eat, Shirogane took out his headphones and opened the video that Sakayanagi had forwarded.
As soon as the video opened, he immediately saw Chabashira-sensei's figure.
Chabashira-sensei brought two rolled-up papers and a stack of documents.
These were things that Sakagami-sensei hadn't brought.
But soon, the mystery of what it was became clear.
Chabashira-sensei stuck the two long rolled-up papers to the blackboard, and they showed the exam results for math and English for the students in Class D.
"These are your entrance exam scores."
"Obviously, they're terrible scores."
Chabashira-sensei's words made people take notice.
Because were these the actual entrance exam scores? How could such terrible scores beat anyone?
But the standards for entering this school definitely weren't just based on the entrance exam, so Shirogane calmed down.
After all, his class also had a lot of underperforming students. It was unrealistic to think that relying solely on academic scores could crush the 800 other applicants.
Soon,
"Kushida, pass these applications along." Chabashira-sensei quickly mentioned a name Shirogane recognized.
"Huh? What's this about?" Kushida asked curiously.
She obediently went to take the application forms.
But when she saw what was written on them, she was shocked.
"W-why is this a withdrawal application?"
Yes.
Chabashira Sae brought forty withdrawal applications to Class D.
ps: Fourth update.
ps: I'll update in the evening from now on. Probably two updates per day.
Update time: 21:20-21:30.
ps: The reward data has come out. It didn't exceed 40,000 words, but after thinking it over, I decided to make it over 40,000. Don't bail on me, guys.