Kazuma had no idea about the two old men chatting away in Kabukichō.
He still had one last period to go.
Because of that whole post-graduation pathway survey incident in the morning—getting humiliated by Yamada Yōichi—Kazuma was feeling particularly annoyed today. As a result, he was unusually focused in class.
Sure, compared to college entrance exams back in China, Japan's tests seemed simpler.
But the problem was, he hadn't transmigrated right after finishing high school.
He'd crossed over many years after graduating college.
Thinking he could get into the University of Tokyo without any review was basically a pipe dream.
So he had to pay attention.
The contrast was strange—he'd just finished beating up a yakuza boss, and now here he was, an obedient student taking careful notes in class. It felt surreal.
Word had spread quickly through the third-year classes—"The underachiever from Class 3-B is aiming for the University of Tokyo!"—and by break time, Kazuma was getting stares even when he went to the bathroom.
Of course, the culprit behind it all, Yamada Yōichi, took every opportunity between periods to gather near Kazuma and loudly chat with his little group.
"Oh man, during my last mock exam at cram school, my deviation score was **, but even with that, getting into Todai is risky... might have to aim lower instead..."
Stuff like that.
More than once, Kazuma felt the urge to grab his bamboo sword and smack Yamada Yōichi right across the face.
But then he thought better of it—if the guy was mocking him academically, then the proper response was to beat him academically.
When the test scores came out, Kazuma planned to wrap a higher-scoring exam paper around his bamboo sword and give Yamada Yōichi a good whack on the head.
So, for now, he endured.
Besides, with the yakuza still observing the situation—no telling how long that would last—there ought to be a brief period of relative peace. Kazuma needed to use that time to adjust to the Japanese education system. Outside of class, most of his time would be spent on kendo training, so classroom time was his main chance to study.
But if an opportunity came up to publicly humble Yamada Yōichi? Kazuma would welcome it.
For once, he was actually looking forward to the next exam.
Ideally math or English.
Japanese history would also be fine—he was pretty well-versed in it, especially Sengoku-era history.
But anything except kokugo—please, no Japanese language tests.
His Japanese level was just as poor as the original Kiryu Kazuma's—bottom of the class.
In his past life, he'd only had a superficial grasp of Japanese. "Onii-chan," "ikutsu"—that was about it.
And with only one period left today, it looked like his plan to stomp Yamada Yōichi with a pop quiz would have to wait.
When the chime sounded for class, Kazuma found himself once again staring out the window, daydreaming about the moment when Todai admissions results would be posted.
College admissions in Japan were very different from China.
First, you had to pass a nationwide standardized test in January—kind of like a high school graduation exam.
Only after clearing that could you register for the university you wanted.
Then came the real challenge: entrance exams set by each university, held at their own testing sites.
Public and national universities all held their exams on the same day.
So realistically, you had one shot—you picked your school and went all in. If you applied for Todai, you couldn't hedge by applying to other national universities.
You could apply to private universities as a fallback, but private tuition fees in Japan were insane.
The Kiryu family probably couldn't even afford a national university's fees, let alone a private one… unless they wanted to sell Chiyoko.
And sure, their current string of misfortunes had all started because of Chiyoko, but after that beating he'd given her, she'd done some serious self-reflection.
Yesterday, the two siblings had even fought side by side—in fact, Chiyoko had practically saved his life.
Kazuma didn't want to see anything bad happen to such a good little sister.
What's done was done. The focus now had to be on getting the best outcome from here on.
Sell the dojo, invest the money, and get into the University of Tokyo through his own effort—that was the optimal plan.
Once he graduated, he'd be a nouveau riche elite—a leader among the rising wave of the new era.
To make that happen, he needed both kendo and academics to be top-notch.
As Kazuma was silently firming his resolve, the English teacher walked in.
Kazuma's eyes lit up when he saw the stack of papers in the teacher's hand.
A pop quiz!
The teacher set the papers down and adjusted his glasses. "We'll be doing a short quiz today. One period. Iinchō, please pass these out."
The class rep stood, went to the podium, and began handing out the papers.
Kazuma was practically itching to start.
Come on, I used to be a senior business rep at a foreign trade company! Chatting up foreigners and selling products was my daily bread.
English was his bread and butter—his commissions and bonuses had all depended on it.
The paper reached him.
He skimmed it quickly and grinned.
Then he heard Yamada Yōichi whispering to his seatmate: "Heh, the underachiever's smiling at the quiz—maybe he can't do any of it and just gave up?"
"Or maybe he's seen this type of question before?"
Kazuma ignored them and got to work.
Time flew. Kazuma filled in the last blank and glanced at the clock—more than ten minutes left in the period.
His instinct was to pick up the paper and hand it in immediately—he'd always preferred to turn in tests right after finishing. If he reviewed them, he'd often second-guess himself and change correct answers to wrong ones.
But then he caught himself.
This was Japan. Handing in a test too early might make the teacher and classmates think he was weird.
So instead, Kazuma laid his head on the desk for a nap.
He'd barely closed his eyes when the teacher thwacked him on the head with the textbook. "Kiryu-kun! Take the quiz seriously!"
Kazuma sat up, glanced at the teacher, and smiled. "I am. I've finished."
The teacher frowned, glaring at him, but Kazuma met his gaze calmly.
Suspicious, the teacher picked up Kazuma's paper and began reading.
And just then, Kazuma noticed a mental tag pop up above the teacher's head: Daydream?
Focusing on it, he saw the expanded description: I must be dreaming.
—Holy crap. Was the original me really that bad? I've scared the teacher so much he's questioning reality.
In less than a minute, the teacher had finished reading the entire quiz—not because he was especially fast, but because the quiz itself was short.
Kazuma was used to long, densely packed Chinese-style exams that could be folded multiple times.
This Japanese quiz was just a single folded sheet with giant text.
He'd finished quickly, and so had the teacher.
Setting the paper down in front of Kazuma, the teacher glanced at the girl sitting to Kazuma's right—the student he was most likely to have copied from.
But her paper wasn't even done yet. Clearly Kazuma hadn't cheated off her.
The teacher turned back, frowning. "Did you… attend a cram school over winter break?"
Kazuma was about to share the story he'd prepared to explain his sudden improvement when the teacher shook his head. "No... no cram school could have caused such a change. You…"
Kazuma was curious to see what conclusion the teacher would reach about his miraculous new English skills.
But it seemed the teacher's mental processing was running out of steam.
"You… um… you did very well," he said finally. "But to confirm that this perfect paper is really your own work, I'd like you to translate something for me—out loud."
Then the teacher launched into a string of rapid-fire English.
Kazuma frowned.
From behind, he heard Yamada Yōichi laughing loudly.
Clearly the class's golden boy thought Kazuma was about to embarrass himself.
Kazuma, too, felt a bit awkward.
His English was strong—especially his spoken English. In fact, it was unbeatable.
The problem was, Japanese pronunciation of English was... awful.
Japan's English education system used Japanese phonetic guides to "localize" English pronunciation.
Think of that old Once Upon a Time in China joke: "Ai rao hu yoo"—a mangled version of "I love you."
The Japanese system basically treated "Ai rao hu yoo" as standard pronunciation.
And the teacher's string of katakana-accented English… well, even with Kazuma's business-level fluency, he could barely understand half of it.
The only part he caught clearly was the last bit—something about a star shining on a boat.
Yamada Yōichi shouted, "Sensei, don't make it so hard! Even I couldn't catch that…"
The class rep scolded him. "Yamada! We're still in class. Don't cause a disturbance!"
Kazuma glanced at the class rep—and couldn't help but sigh. She really is a beauty... Wait!
An idea struck him.
This morning, he'd tried reciting poetry after seeing the class rep, hoping it would trigger some kind of mental buff.
Poetry?
Could that string of mystery sounds just now have been a poem?
A star shining on a boat… and maybe something about a winter's night?
Could it be Shelley's "To Wordsworth"? A favorite for wannabe literary types.
Sure, Kazuma might have seemed like an uncultured corporate drone in his past life, but who hadn't dabbled in poetry in their youth?
So he cleared his throat and fluently recited the passage—in crisp American English.
He'd wanted to recite the whole poem for extra flair, but unfortunately, he only remembered the most famous lines.
When he glanced at the teacher again, the Daydream tag was gone. In its place: Utterly mortified.
—Uh-oh. Maybe I overdid it? Better give the teacher a way to save face...
That was what Kazuma was thinking.
But what came out of his mouth was: "Sensei, your pronunciation was really hard to follow. It took me ages to realize it was Shelley."
(End of Chapter)