It was a special exam where we partnered up with a classmate and tackled a written exam together.
Essentially, this meant that we'd be partnering up with one of the first-years this time instead of partnering up with a classmate.
Even though that seemed to be the only difference, it was quite a large one.
"You're free to partner up with anyone you want from the first-year students. The testing period will last until the end of the month, which is about two weeks from now. You'll have plenty of time to both carefully choose your partner and focus on your studies."
With a special exam like this, it made sense why they had us install the OAA app.
The first-years wouldn't be familiar with the names and faces of the upperclassmen.
And naturally, the second-years wouldn't be familiar with the names and faces of the underclassmen either.
During the Paper Shuffle exam last year, we were able to freely choose our partners after coming up with some workarounds thanks to the fact that the exam's partnering system was handled from within the class.
In other words, students who weren't very good at studying were able to just rely on someone else to survive the exam. However, the exam this time around would be different. Partnerships would be made on the premise that both sides would be looking for excellent students to pair up with. Moreover, instead of partnering up with our peers, we'd be partnering up with underclassmen we had little to no relationship with. The circumstances we were facing now in our second year were different from our first.
Above all else, it takes a fair amount of time to build up a trusting relationship from scratch.
Without the app, it would almost certainly be impossible to establish a meaningful relationship in just two weeks' time.
But thanks to OAA, some shortcuts could be taken since you could just match someone's face to their name in the app.
Furthermore, since the app also provides you with a rough idea of a prospective student's academic abilities, it'd be easy to use it as a reference when making your decision on who to partner up with.
"You'll be tested on five subjects on the day of the exam. Each subject will be worth 100 points, for a total of 500 points. Now for the most important part… this time, you'll be evaluated based on two different standards. The first being your results as a class, and the second being your results as an individual."
Chabashira tapped on the screen of the blackboard, bringing up the details for the special exam that she had just talked about.
Class Rewards (Split Based on School Year):
The inter-class competition will be based on the average score of each class in your school year. This will be derived from the combined scores of each person in the class added together with their respective partners.
Each class will be rewarded with either 50, 30, 10, or 0 class points, based on how their overall average score compares to the other classes in their school year.
Individual Rewards:
You will be graded based on the combined score of you and your partner.
The top five pairings will each receive a special reward of 100,000 private points.
The top 30% of pairings will each receive 10,000 private points.
In the event a pairing's combined score fails to exceed 500 points, the second-year student will be expelled from the school and the first-year student will not receive any private points for the next three months, regardless of how many class points they might have.
Additionally, any student judged to have deliberately marked questions incorrectly or otherwise found to have manipulated or lowered their scores will be expelled regardless of their school year. Similarly, in the event a third party is found to have forced a student to lower his or her score, said third party will be expelled from the school as well.
"You should already be somewhat aware of this, but in this exam, the students with high Academic Ability ratings will be sought after first."
If OAA didn't exist, nobody would've been able to find out the true abilities of the other students. But now, with the advent of the app, that information was exposed for all to see. The lower your Academic Ability rating was, the harder it'd be to find a partner.
In all likelihood, the students who seemed weaker academically would get left in the dust.
Smart students would naturally join up with a smart partner and aim for the top rewards. Academically insecure students would also seek out intelligent partners in order to survive. The students with weak academic abilities would inevitably partner up together and, in the end, probably fall below the 500 point baseline. In which case, the harsh reality is that second-year students would then be expelled from the school.
The second-year students understood how the school worked and had developed lasting friendships with many of the people in their class.
Even if they didn't go after the top rewards, they would probably still move to help support their classmates.
The first-year students, however, hadn't had the chance to get very close to their class yet. As a result, the concept of somebody that they're not very close friends with having to go without private points for three months probably wouldn't seem like a very big deal. It would be just like at the beginning of last year when most of Class D was fine with abandoning Sudō… No, it would be even more extreme than that.
"Partnerships will be formed once both sides agree to it, and you can finalize the process by confirming it on the app. You're allowed to form your partnerships whenever you want after this, but once you've confirmed who you're going to pair up with, you won't be allowed to change to someone else."
With that being said, it would be difficult to make an immediate decision unless your partner's academic abilities were insanely high.
A careless decision could lead to regret later on.
The monitor on the blackboard updated, presenting us with information on choosing partners.
Rules and Regulations for Choosing a Partner:
Once per day, you are allowed to send a partnership application to a prospective student through OAA. (If the other party does not accept, the application will be reset after 24 hours.)
If the other party accepts your application, the partnership will be finalized and you won't be allowed to cancel it thereafter.
※ The only exceptions being extenuating, unavoidable circumstances such as expulsion or serious illness.
Once a partnership has been finalized, the information displayed on the OAA app will be updated at 8:00 AM the next morning and no new applications to either student will be accepted.
※ The details about who a person has chosen to partner up with won't be listed on their profile.
Due to these restrictions, one couldn't just send out a large number of applications at random. And, even if you sent an application to somebody, you wouldn't know if they ended up partnering up with another student on that same day until 8:00 AM the next morning, meaning that it was possible for you to waste an application entirely.
To be fair, I don't know if anyone would actually accept an application from a student they didn't know all that well anyway.
It's possible that these rules were implemented to help obscure who partnered up with whom. After all, if the information was updated as soon as a pair formed, it'd be rather easy to analyze the overall strength of each class.
"Sensei! There's no way that one of the first-years is gonna wanna pair up with me! Is an idiot like me really supposta rely on communication skills in order to get through this!?"
Ike's lament was understandable.
Unless all of the good partner options were taken already, the probability that somebody would actually want to pair up with someone with a poor Academic Ability rating was very low.
Or at least, that's how it should be as long as nothing shady happens.
"Don't worry. It has been set up so that, no matter how many of you are unable to find partners, nobody will be left without one. This is because, in the event that you don't pair up with somebody, a partner will be randomly selected for you at 8:00 AM on the day of the exam."
Upon hearing that there were protective measures in place, Ike breathed out a sigh of relief.
"That being said, those who aren't able to find themselves a partner before the deadline shouldn't expect the same level of treatment as those who do. Therefore, pairs formed past the deadline will be subject to a 5% penalty to their overall score."
This short reprieve lasted only a second, as the class collectively groaned the moment Chabashira mentioned the penalty.
While you'd still be allowed to take the exam, you'd be put at a fairly painful disadvantage.
"Sensei, there have been three expulsions amongst the second-year students so far. Won't the first-year students have three people left over?"
Upon hearing Yōsuke's trivial question, Chabashira replied indifferently.
"The three extra students will have their exam scores doubled to make up for their missing partner. However, they'll also be subject to the very same 5% penalty, so there probably won't be very many of them who would want to face the exam alone."
Essentially, one person would be playing out both roles. It seemed that the three first-year students leftover at the end wouldn't have anything to worry about as long as their academic abilities were good enough.
Either way, I couldn't afford to be worrying about just Ike and Sudō during this special exam.
After all, this was going to be an exceedingly difficult special exam for me as well.
The reason it was going to be so difficult was the rule where, if my partner and I didn't score over 500 points, I'd be expelled from the school. Put another way, this meant that my partner absolutely had to score at least 1 point in order to clear the special exam. Even if I were to get full marks in each of the five subjects, if my partner scored a 0, my expulsion would be set in stone.
Under normal circumstances, this would be an extremely pointed, dangerous rule. Because the first-year students aren't at risk of expulsion, if they purposefully took a low score and threw the exam, this rule meant that the second-year student would be unreasonably forced out of the school… However, in order to prevent that from happening, the school had come up with another rule.
[Any student judged to have deliberately marked questions incorrectly or otherwise found to have manipulated or lowered their scores will be expelled regardless of their school year. Similarly, in the event a third party is found to have forced a student to lower his or her score, said third party will be expelled from the school as well.]
This rule was probably an extremely indispensable factor behind the legitimization of this special exam.
It was designed to protect against unfair behavior such as threatening the other party that you'd cut corners or demanding for them to hand over private points. It made it impossible to blatantly misbehave during the exam. In a sense, it meant that the average student would be more robustly protected by the rules.
However, even though the rule would usually be more than enough, it still fell short of ensuring anything.
Because─ for the White Room student, it was a completely different story.
The White Room student was setting up on the premise of being expelled later anyway, so this rule wasn't a deterrent to them at all.
If they successfully managed to pair up with me, they'd most likely end up taking a 0 without even the slightest hesitation.
In other words, if I chose the White Room student as my partner, I'd be done for. Even though the special exam only just started, I already had at least a 1 in 160 chance of being expelled.
Typically, there'd at least be a rule stating something like: 'In the event one student is expelled from the school due to dishonest conduct, the other will be treated as though they passed the exam without any further penalty.' However, based on everything I had heard so far, there was no way of guaranteeing that.
The reason why nobody bothered to ask about it is because everyone was under the same self-serving assumption, convinced that nobody would dare do something that would deliberately get themself expelled. No, that wasn't the only reason.
In the unlikely event that somebody actually did, the school itself would probably deal with it quickly.
After all, the school most likely felt that it would be far too harsh to expel a student who simply got caught up in their partner's unfair behavior. However, if I was the one who ended up getting caught up in it, that man would probably force me out of the school without batting an eye.
He'd say it was my fault for partnering up with somebody who didn't take the exam seriously.
He had set up a small loophole in the rules so that he could react flexibly depending on the student in question.
The image of that man, Tsukishiro, rose up in the back of my mind. I had no doubt that he was the one who had concocted these rules.
There was no way he wouldn't take advantage of this opportunity. If I was too slow at finding a partner, the regular students would start getting chosen one after another and my chances of ending up with the White Room student would go up.
It'd be nice if I could act quickly and pair up with somebody that doesn't seem like they came from the White Room, but according to the OAA app, my Academic Ability rating was a C. I didn't have the luxury of being able to choose whoever I wanted.
Having said that, even if I wanted to choose someone with an extremely low Academic Ability rating, my C rating wouldn't be enough to dispel their worries about the exam, so they probably wouldn't be willing to partner up with me.
In which case, the logical conclusion was to find a partner with a rating similar to mine that I wouldn't have any issues pairing up with, but it's possible that my opponent was already lying in wait in anticipation of that.
Even though we had only just been told the rules, it was already clear that this exam would be more challenging than any other special exam we had taken before.
"Sensei. How difficult are the exam questions going to be?"
With the raise of her hand, Horikita asked Chabashira a crucial question that most of the class was probably wondering about.
"To tell you the truth, there are many extremely difficult questions on the exam. It'll definitely be one of the most challenging exams you've taken so far. But… that's only the case if you're looking to get a high score on it. The exam has been designed so that even students with an E rating in Academic Ability can score at least 150 points without any prior preparation. With a couple days of studying under your belt, 200 points should be more than manageable. This is only a rough estimate, but─"
Chabashira cut off mid-sentence as she displayed a table of estimated scores for the exam split up by Academic Ability rating.
E Rating - Between 150 and 200 Points
D Rating - Between 200 and 250 Points
C Rating - Between 250 and 300 Points
B Rating - Around 350 Points
A Rating - Around 400 Points
"If you study properly, you should be able to get a score close to those shown here. However, don't forget that if you're conceited and neglect your studies, you may end up with a lower score than this."
Chabashira was saying that we shouldn't just blindly trust the scores being shown to us on the monitor.
"In addition, as you can see from the part of the table that says that students with an A rating are expected to score around 400 points overall, it's unlikely that anyone will score over 90 points in each subject, let alone get a perfect score."
This was probably what she was talking about back when she said it would be one of the most challenging exams we had taken so far.
In any case, this simply meant that, if two students with E ratings were to pair up with each other, the second-year student would be at risk of facing expulsion.
"That should be everything for the overview of the special exam you'll be taking in April. Get ready to buckle down and do your best."
At this point, Chabashira began to explain the scope of topics that'd be covered in the test for each subject.
According to her, as long as we went back over the material we learned last year, we should be fine for the most part.
Once the break between classes began, many students inevitably went and gathered around Yōsuke.
Upon seeing that, Horikita quickly got up from her seat and joined them.
I decided to listen in on their conversation as well, for the time being.
"W-w-w-what should I do, Hirata!? My Academic Ability rating is an E! I'm screwed!"
With his head in his hands, Ike begged Yōsuke for help.
Yōsuke looked out over the whole class as he tried to calm Ike down.
"Let's calm down first, and then we'll settle on a course of action."
"Yes, there's no need to panic in the slightest."
"B-but!!"
"This certainly won't be an easy exam, that's for sure. A second-year student with an E rating in Academic Ability needs to pair up with a first-year student with at least a B to ensure they'll score above 500. But, conversely, this exam should be fairly low-stakes as long as they pair up with somebody with at least a B rating."
She made it seem like the condition required to overcome the exam wasn't very complicated, perhaps to calm him down.
"Furthermore, we've gone through similar exams together as a class over our last year here. If we coordinate and study as best we can like we've done in the past, it shouldn't be impossible for you to score over 250 or 300 points."
"Yes. It's exactly as Horikita-san says. If we work together, we should all be able to get through the exam safely."
Yōsuke echoed Horikita's standpoint and the people around them gradually started to calm down.
"The important part of all of this is that you don't partner up with someone without thinking it through first. Even if you think it's urgent, you shouldn't rush the process unless a first-year student with at least a B rating is willing to pair up with you."
It was true that, if you got ahead of yourself and partnered up with someone early on, your decision would be set in stone for the rest of the exam.
You had to make sure that you and your partner would definitely score above the 500 point baseline.
"As for those of you with a B+ rating or higher, I'd like for you to take a good objective look at the situation. It might be important for us to reserve a certain number of our more skilled students in order to save everyone. At any rate, regardless of whether you're good at studying or not, if something comes up please consult either Hirata-kun or me."
Horikita only asked them for the bare minimum: to avoid making a panicked decision. The honor students such as Keisei and Mii-chan nodded along without hesitation, indicating their willingness to cooperate. Horikita could've taken on the responsibility of sorting out the negotiations for everyone in the class, but that would've made it more difficult for the partner-making process to run smoothly. There would be lots of competition for every prospective partner, so every second would be essential.
"For now, I'm going to try and negotiate with the first-years who joined the soccer club. It seems like some of them are good at studying, so I'm thinking we might be able to get them to partner with us."
After Horikita finished talking, Yōsuke proposed his own idea to her. It was a good strategy to approach problems with more numbers.
"Can I count on you for that? It'd be reassuring to have your support."
Nevertheless, club activities were outside of Horikita's zone of influence. Yōsuke smiled kindly and nodded.
"Additionally, I think we should consider holding a hearing for the students with Academic Ability ratings below a C-, just in case."
"That's a good decision. Let's work together to help everyone find partners."
Explaining the plan of action to the entire class at such an early stage would probably make all the difference. Not only would the weaker students receive helpful feedback, they'd also feel assured that nobody would be abandoning them.
"Horikita-san, just one more thing. Some─"
"Some of the students who have ratings above a C aren't very good at communicating. I'll also follow up with those of us who'd struggle to find partners for reasons other than poor academics."
Their thoughts were so in tune that they understood each other without even needing to discuss it in detail.
Only a few words were needed for the two of them to be in perfect sync with each other.
"Thank you. That'd be very helpful."
Horikita and Yōsuke continued their conversation without any hiccups, sorting out the situation into a form that they were both satisfied with.
At one point, they used to butt heads with each other, but now they worked unbelievably well together.
It wasn't just that Horikita had become more amiable, Yōsuke's flexible way of thinking had also played a part in it.
"By the way, Sudō-kun, what about the basketball club? A few first-year students must've joined by now as well, right?"
Horikita inquired of Sudō, who was utterly devoted to his club.
However, Sudō seemed somewhat uncomfortable as he looked away.
"Y-yeah. But…"
"But?"
"Club started a few days ago and all, but, well, we've kinda gone full-on Spartan on 'em… or how should I say it? We've been pretty harsh on 'em, ya know?"
"You mean you've been intimidating them?"
"Well, I guess it might be like that. Basketball can be pretty hardcore, aight?"
The point was that he might've already gotten himself into a position where his underclassmen didn't like him.
Of course, this was all because of how seriously he took basketball.
Underclassmen had a tendency to be very divided on seniors who are strict during practice.
"Alright. Just focus on your studies and don't worry yourself too much about the special exam."
"O-ok."
It would be counterproductive if Sudō tried to do something and messed it up, so Horikita gave him a firm warning to focus on something else instead.
Later on, during the lunch break, Horikita called me out to the hallway after I finished eating.
"I want to talk about something that isn't suitable for the classroom. By talking out here, we'll know if someone is listening in on us."
"So? Does it have to do with the new special exam?"
"Yes. Chabashira-sensei said that this new special exam will be considerably difficult. It'll be problematic for the academically weaker students, but it's an ideal setting for our competition."
She must've intended to get our personal business out of the way first, so she started with that.
During the spring break, Horikita and I had promised something to each other. Namely, that we'd compete to see who got the higher score in one subject of a written exam. If I won, Horikita would join the Student Council, and if she won, I'd use, without reservation, the abilities I'd been hiding this past year for the benefit of our class. They had announced that even students with an A rating in Academic Ability would struggle to get more than 90 points. With an exam that difficult, we wouldn't botch the competition with a draw because both of us got perfect scores.
"I trust you have no complaints?"
She wanted to confirm that I had no objections to settling it with the next written exam.
"Of course."
As there was no point in dragging it out any longer, I naturally agreed with her.
"That's great. Then, let's move on to the next topic."
Satisfied with the reaffirmation of our agreement, she took out her phone.
Then, she launched the OAA app we had installed just this morning.
"I looked up the number of students in the first year with Academic Ability ratings of a B or higher. There are 17 in Class A, 13 in B, 13 in C, and 11 in D."
54 in total. A reasonable percentage, you could say.
"There are 4 students in our class that have an E rating in Academic Ability. Make that 12 if you include those with D ratings. There should be more than enough firepower available amongst all the first-years to cover for them."
"The question then becomes, how many of the first-year honor students can we draw to our side?"
Even though there were 54 of them, they would inevitably be hotly contested. The slightest opening could lead to all of them getting snatched away from us.
"Yes. The class that ends up with the most of those 54 students will naturally have an advantage. On the other hand, the class that ends up with the students with a D+ or lower will be at a disadvantage."
The app they just introduced to us was packed with extremely useful functionality.
The class that made the best use of it would probably have the best chance of coming out on top.
"Sakayanagi-san, Ryūen-kun, and even Ichinose-san. Odds are that they'll all make their first move today see."
Of all the leaders, Class A's Sakayanagi would probably go on the attack straight away.
Thanks to the fact that her class had the fewest number of students who weren't confident in their academic abilities, the only thing she had to do was entice the smarter first-year students over to her side. The overall stability of Class A was easy to see with just a glance at the app, even for the new students. If they worked together, they could rake in the rewards for the top scorers all in one go.
Meanwhile, that simply wasn't an option we had available to us.
"First and foremost, we need to prioritize helping our classmates with Ds or Es get paired up with higher ranking students."
Horikita nodded lightly in agreement.
"I won't say it's perfect or anything, but I tried making a list for who we should prioritize finding partners for. Either way, I think we need to start by taking care of Sudō-kun first."
"Hold on. It's true that Sudō was given an E in Academic Ability, but is that really the case?"
Sudō's grades were so horrendous when he first enrolled here that he had received an E rating as a result.
However, in the latter half of his first year, his academic performance slowly began to improve.
In other words, his current abilities were probably better than what was reflected for him by the school.
"Right… He's certainly grown by leaps and bounds compared to how he was before. Even during spring break, he spent his time studying in order to make up for the stuff he missed earlier in the year."
"Were you tutoring him the entire time?"
"Of course not. I don't have the time to keep him company every day. He's already learned how to study by himself to a certain extent. I just checked in on his progress every so often and gave him feedback on how he was doing."
"Hoh…?"
I thought Sudō was only studying due to Horikita, but this was an honestly admirable development.
"To be honest, Sudō-kun is at a slightly higher level in my book… When I compare him to other students, I feel like he's between a D and D+."
Of course, this was nothing more than optimistic speculation.
However, as someone who knew just how Sudō was a year ago, he had indeed matured quite a lot.
"If I'm not mistaken, Sudō used to panic a lot more when he heard about a new special exam. I'd expected him to be upset this time, but he was pretty composed instead."
Then again, he did make quite a fuss about losing to Kōenji in the Social Contribution category.
"You think his Academic Ability ratings are above a D, and yet you placed him above Ike in priority on your list?"
"His personality and outward appearance had a large role to play in that. What he said this morning about how he's heavy-handed with the newbies in the basketball club had a part to play in it too."
Apparently, it seemed like she wasn't being partial to Sudō after all. She had reached this conclusion after properly analyzing all the factors.
"If you were a first-year student who knew nothing about any of the second-years… who would you find it easier to pair with, Ike-kun or Sudō-kun? Considering that, on the surface, they both have the same rating."
"Well, it would have to be Ike."
The combination of Sudō's tall stature, red hair, and harsh tone of voice gave off a terrifying impression.
If I had to pair up with someone at their academic level, I'd prefer to go with Ike, who was easier to deal with.
"Nevermind finding a partner that would compensate for his lack of academic skills, it'd probably be difficult to find him a willing partner in the first place."
This was the exact reason why she chose him as the student she wanted to sort everything out for first.
"Got it. If possible, we want to get him paired up with a first-year with at least a B- in Academic Ability, right?"
"Yes. I think he'll definitely make it through that way. I'd like to get moving as soon as possible, so will you help?"
"Help? I don't think there's anything I can do, though."
"Just stay by my side and tell me what you think. Having someone I can trust close by would be great."
"So, you're saying that you trust me?"
"I trust you the most out of our classmates who act independently."
With the way she phrased it, I couldn't tell if she trusted me much or not…
"Or, perhaps sparing even a single minute from your studies makes you worried about losing your match with me?"
Her provocation was rather counterproductive.
It was like she had given me a perfect excuse to avoid helping her. All I had to do was say that I was worried and study in my room.
"I'm very worried about─"
Just as I was about to gratefully take advantage of that excuse, my cell phone vibrated.
It was because Ichinose Honami, the leader of Class 2-B, had posted a message in the global chat the school had provided for us in the app. The message was─
[I have been given permission to host a meet-and-greet for the first and second-year students in the gym today from 4:00 to 5:00 PM. If you can spare the time, please feel free to join!]
This message was undoubtedly a lifesaver for the students who had been racking their brains about how to make contact with the first-years.
"As expected of Ichinose-san. She acted with due consideration for everyone, not just her own class."
Although it's unclear just how many students would attend, it'd be safe to assume that there would be a decent turnout.
It was more than possible that some people might establish partnerships on the spot.
However, instead of joy, a hint of frustration could be seen on Horikita's face.
Perhaps she had been planning a similar strategy.
"What's wrong? The special exam only just started, you know."
"Yes, you're right. It seems like our first order of business has been decided for us."
By that, she must mean participating in this meet-and-greet after school.
And before I knew it, I was being roped into helping her out.
Well, I suppose it's not that bad if I'm just keeping her company…
It seemed Horikita knew exactly what I was thinking, as she looked me in the eyes like she was testing me.
"Alright, I'll go."
"Oh? You're actually going to lend a hand? I thought you've been avoiding me lately, but… you've become awfully cooperative, haven't you?"
Brazenly imposing on me like this despite being aware that I've been avoiding her was really quite the feat.
"I was just thinking of taking a closer look and seeing what kind of strategy you come up with."
"I see. It was premature of me to say you'd be cooperative."
Even so, Horikita seemed to be willing to accept this, relatively satisfied with me coming as a compromise. This was all just as front, however, as this was an exam where I had no other choice but to take action myself in order to survive. Acting together with Horikita simply made a bunch of things easier.
"In which case, you can just treat what I say next as though I'm talking to myself. While it's true that our primary goal here is to get students like Sudō-kun and Ike-kun over the finish line, competition between outstanding students is one of the fundamental principles of this special exam. So naturally, we have to pay close attention to the movements of Ryūen-kun and Sakayanagi-san… That is to say, we have to pay close attention to their strategies."
Although what she was saying was obvious, the Horikita of the past wouldn't have thought it through to this point.
She would've focused solely on helping Sudō and the rest of her class survive, neglecting to pay any attention to her enemies' strategies.
This time, however, she was being very cautious from the start.
"Of course, at this point, there's no way to know what kind of tricks those two will pull. That being said, I believe private points will play a key role in their strategies."
Private points, or in other words, money. Horikita believed that, in this school, the power of private points spoke for itself. For the time being, there was no common factor connecting the first and second-year students. This meant that using private points would be the best way to quickly settle discussions with them.
"I don't know how much financial power Class A and Class C have right now, but if it turns into a competition over the excellent students, they might very well take up the strategy of just buying them outright."
"Right. Private points will be the easiest thing to understand as far as the first-year students are concerned."
Anybody could imagine the process of taking private points and exchanging them for the assistance of students with study skills. Though, if you irresponsibly used piles of money to fight this battle, you'd probably run out of private points in the blink of an eye. This was especially true for us in Class D as we had a sluggish financial situation for the past year. It was incredibly obvious that the amount of private points we had, our financial power, was significantly lower than that of the other classes.
"Under normal circumstances, we should invest our funds to secure a fixed number of students for ourselves as well."
The reason I said this was because, fundamentally, the only way to fight money is with more money. We had to play the money game, asking ourselves who can stack the bills higher.
However, the fact that Horikita seemed frustrated about the message Ichinose posted in the global chat earlier must mean…
"Let's start by scouting out the meet-and-greet. I can take action if the opportunity presents itself, but I have no intention to rush things. Are you fine with that?"
It seemed like she still hadn't settled on a course of action herself, as she didn't say anything further than that.
"As an aside, Ayanokōji-kun. Can I safely assume that you'll find yourself a partner on your own?"
"Would you find me one if I asked you to?"
"Objectively speaking, your Academic Ability rating is a C, so it pretty much doesn't matter who you pair up with. It should be easy enough for me to take care of while I'm at it, though."
"Well then, I'll reach out to you if I'm in trouble."
If a first-year student decides to pair with Horikita or Yōsuke, I could rule out the possibility of them being from the White Room. It wouldn't be impossible for me to reach out just before the pairing is finalized and switch places with them. However, if my opponent knew all about this ahead of time, it was also possible that they might predict that I'd choose to do that if I'm in trouble. Since I'd have to watch out for them outmaneuvering me, it'd be hard to say that this would definitively keep me in the clear. Furthermore, the first-year student who decided to pair up with Horikita or Yōsuke wouldn't be very happy with having me replace them, so they probably wouldn't accept the change very easily either.
"It'd be better if you didn't take your time with it. It's not like there's nothing to be worried about. The 5% penalty for running out of time won't come cheap.
"Yeah, that's true," I replied.
While I wasn't exactly planning to take my time, I was worried about
the person from the White Room. I was sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that whoever it was had already blended in amongst the first-years.
(Chapter 2 End)