The school uses a three-term system, and right now it's the first two months of the first term. So next month can basically be treated as the end-of-term test for this semester.
As usual—
The first term's final exam lasts longer, usually around 10 to 14 days.
It's taken pretty seriously.
But.
It's also a big chance.
After all, if the test wasn't important, the points wouldn't be worth much. With exams like the last one that only give up to 100 points a month, trying to close the gap is just too hard.
And looking at the current scores of the four classes…
Class D's 110 points can be ignored.
Class C, where Ichinose is, got 670 points—but that score doesn't really matter.
What matters is—
Shirogane's Class 1-B got 845 points.
And the target, Class 1-A, scored 1094 points.
That's a gap of 249 points.
If every exam only gives 100 points, then who knows if it'll take three, or maybe even four or five exams to catch up completely.
So, it'd be great if a single test could be worth 300 points or something.
"We couldn't get any details. Every year the exams are different, and some things they just can't tell us," said Ryuen.
"And they still want 20,000 points for the info."
So basically, we have to count that as an expense.
Is Ryuen really that stingy?
But right now, Ryuen isn't bringing in much either, so Shirogane turned to Shiina.
"I'll write it down in the book,"
Shiina said as she took out her notebook.
See?
Shiina is always reliable like that.
And so, everyone waited for the details of the next day's exam.
...
The next day, at 7:00 a.m.
[Your personal account has received 84,500 points. Your current balance is 146,900 points. Sender: XF12000.]
XF12000 is the school's account.
And that's not all.
[Your personal account has received 30,000 points. Your current balance is 176,900 points. Sender: XSH223040.]
XSH is the student council's account, which means the student council just paid out salaries.
However—
While Shirogane was eating breakfast, around 7:10 a.m.,
he checked the group chat—
and saw the usual updates.
Shiina Hiyori started tagging the class members.
Shiina: The school allowance has been sent out.
Shiina: Like we agreed, 60 points worth of class evaluation rewards go to those who helped the class. So everyone needs to pay a fixed amount of 6,000 points.
Shiina Hiyori: On top of that, there's an extra 30% class fee. That means each person needs to pay 23,550 points.
Shiina Hiyori: The total payment is 29,550 points. Everyone, please send it to Kaneda. This is Kaneda's account. Don't forget to write your name when sending.
Then came a payment QR code.
In other words, the class was collecting money.
As a member of the class, and to make it easier for Shiina to handle the accounting, Shirogane also paid the same amount as any regular student.
Total: -29,550 points.
His account balance soon dropped to a little over 140,000.
About 10 minutes later, the numbers updated again.
[You received 52,100 private points in your personal account.]
[You received 20,000 private points in your personal account. Current balance: 219,450 private points.]
The first transfer was probably payment for Shirogane's contribution—his solo achievement of earning 40 class points from last month's exam, after costs were deducted.
It's not much now, but next month it'll be a fixed 160,000 points, which is pretty decent.
The second payment was a bonus for the think-tank group—a share of 5% from the 30% collected from the whole class.
Right now, Kaneda is in charge of collecting the money, and Shiina handles the transfers.
Even though the class doesn't have many standout talents, it's still running smoothly, which is nice.
By 8:00, all the students had arrived in the classroom, waiting for the special exam announcement during the homeroom period.
No one complained about the early collection of money today, and for the first time, Ryuen's usual rough methods weren't needed.
But that makes sense.
After all—
The results they were seeing now couldn't be achieved by students working alone. Someone had to take the lead.
Otherwise, they'd end up like Class D.
First-Year Class D.
It was only the beginning of the month, and this month's living points had just been issued. Based on their class evaluation score, each student received 11,000 private points.
But the students in Class D were instantly broke again, because they had borrowed money earlier with no income until now.
So now that they had income, the debt collectors came knocking.
And once they paid those debts, another problem popped up.
"For last month's exam materials, Ayanokouji paid up front."
"The cost was 65,000 points. Split across the class, that's 1,625 points each."
Hirata started collecting the money.
"I didn't take part, though."
But Kouenji didn't agree to pay.
And it's true—he hadn't signed the confidentiality agreement, and he never got the old test materials.
So it seemed fair that he didn't have to pay.
Also, the scores Chabashira-sensei showed made Kouenji's performance look completely crazy.
He got exactly 70 points in all five subjects.
In other words, he got every answer right based on what was in the current textbooks.
No doubt about it—he was a real top student.
"Then it's 1,667 private points."
Hirata's mom gave a new price.
It looked like just a 40-point increase.
But for the students in Class D, they really weren't that eager to pay.
Because—
"But I'm out of money this month, I already paid Sotomura back."
"Same here, I paid Kushida back."
"Hey, Kushida, can I borrow another 2,000 points? Just 2,000, that's all I need."
"Wait, no one told me we had to pay anything."
"And the exams are already over."
Yeah.
The exams are done.
So now you're chasing people for money? Doesn't that seem a bit off? Why look back on the past? Can't we just move forward?
"..."
Ayanokouji.
"Um…"
If possible, Hirata's mom actually didn't want to go around collecting money directly like this.
She had already posted about it in the class group chat, but out of 40 students, only 14 paid on their own.
So over half still hadn't paid, and now she had to go around again.
After all, the money wasn't even hers—15,000 points were borrowed from Kushida, and the 50,000 used to buy the answer sheets came from Ayanokouji Kiyotaka.
Basically, there were two lenders.
Right now, she could maybe pay Kushida back in full, but the bigger debt to Ayanokouji hadn't even been covered much.
The best plan would've been to collect the money as soon as everyone got their living allowance, but the problem was the money went straight into each student's account. There was no way to stop that, so this was the only way to do it afterward.
And sitting below—
Even though Hirata was the one doing the asking, it was Ayanokouji who had paid. And even though he'd been living very frugally these past two months, he still had just enough points to barely get through this month.
As the other lender,
Kushida didn't seem too worried.
She had lent out a total of 42,990 points, and had gotten back 22,000 so far.
Still a loss on paper.
And she was only expecting about 11,000 points in income this month.
That extra 1,000 came from her stepping in during the complaint against the 2nd-year Class A, which earned her a little bonus from "Mother Nature," so to speak.
But—
Even if she mentioned that, people would just say, "Wow, Kushida is amazing."
And that'd be the end of it.
No one really showed any thanks.
But that's probably all there is to it.
Kushida just wants the reputation. If she really wanted to be paid back, she wouldn't have lent out money in the first place.
Also, the 20,000-point paycheck from the student council had already been deposited.
Not bad for her.
"Alright, everyone back to your seats. Put your personal stuff aside for now."
Right then, their homeroom teacher, Chabashira-sensei, walked in with a stern face.
She had actually arrived ten minutes earlier.
She'd just been standing at the classroom door.
She was also aware of the whole thing with Ayanokouji buying the test answers and Hirata collecting the money.
After all, she had already been added to the class group chat.
To her, this was a good chance to test the students' honesty and values.
But sadly, it didn't go so well.
Just like how Hirata's mother always looked disappointed, she felt the same way.
When Hirata asked everyone in the group chat to pay up, only 14 students paid willingly.
So with a class like this, how are they supposed to move up?
Still.
That doesn't mean it's hopeless.
Take last month's test for example—Class D managed to get through it just fine, which meant Ayanokouji clearly had some skills.
He helped carry the class through once, enough that they didn't fall behind the others. And at the same time, Kushida, thanks to her student council connections, gave the class a small boost by earning them 10 class points.
That clearly came from her slacking off while acting like she was doing council work.
That's also why Chabashira was willing to bet on this group.