Tuesday, 30th June.

The final day of the month was here, meaning tomorrow we'd get our monthly allotment of private points and find out how our class points changed.

However, what everyone was more excited about were the summer holidays that were just around the corner. The 3rd of July would signal the end of our first semester, and our holidays would officially start next week.

I walked into class, taking my seat. Now that finals week was over, everyone was able to relax, and conversations about plans for the summer flew around the class. The anxious air that had been plaguing us disappeared, replaced with a lively atmosphere.

"Good morning, Yuu!"

Yukina greeted me with a smile as she sat down next to me.

"Hey, Yukina."

"Today's the day we get the results of the special exam. How are you feeling?"

"...nervous."

Yukina laughed.

"It's not like you to be so upfront about things."

"It's better than lying and saying I feel confident."

"I guess that's true. Still, you shouldn't be underestimating yourself so much."

"If I keep my expectations low, I won't be hurt when the results are disappointing."

"You've worked really hard to get to this point. You should take more confidence in these upcoming results."

"I wouldn't say I'm a superstitious person, but things usually go wrong when I become confident."

"But being nervous won't help you either."

"I suppose..."

The door opened abruptly, interrupting our conversation. Strolling into class was Chabashira-sensei, carrying a stack of brown envelopes under her arm.

She slammed the stack of envelopes on the teaching podium, catching everyone's attention. Dread filled the air as we realised that she was going to be handing back our grades on the finals.

"Good morning, E Class. Today, I have two sets of results to give to you. The first are these, your personal results."

Chabashira-sensei picked up the envelopes and showed them to everyone.

"Keep in mind that you wrote papers that D Class made, so the grade printed on the letter won't be exactly reflective of where you are right now. However, it is a good indication of your academic level in comparison to their class."

Then, she went around the class distributing them in gojuuon order, meaning Ayano and Ikesugi received their results first.

"Hopefully, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results."

Chabashira-sensei passed by me, dropping an envelope on my desk. I picked it up and opened it, looking inside.

Takanori Yuuto
Japanese: C+
English: A*
Maths: C
Science: C
History: C+

My results were as expected. I had done extremely well on English, but basically got average on everything else.

I looked around the class to see everyone else's reactions. There were lots of sighs of reliefs and cheers of joy as everyone saw they had successfully (or barely) passed D Class's brutal English exam.

"Oh thank the gacha gods, I passed!"

Mitsuba screamed to the heavens, clutching the letter closely to his chest. However, not everyone was as happy as he was.

"Damn it..."

In particular, Yukimura looked at his results with narrowed eyes. Did something bad happen?

"Phew... I managed to pass."

Yukina breathed a sigh of relief, showing me her results. Like me, she had mostly gotten Cs, but managed to get an A in Japanese.

"Yeah, me too. If we keep this momentum up, then we'll definitely be able to preserve our class points."

"...I wouldn't keep your hopes up, if I were you."

Overhearing our conversation, Kouji chimed in.

"Why's that?" Yukina asked.

Kouji shrugged his shoulder in the direction of Yamaguchi, who openly displayed his results on the table. Yamaguchi looked relaxed as he leaned back in his seat, not caring for his grades.

From where I was, I couldn't see it very clearly, but Yukina was able to make out what was written on the letter. She turned to me with a worried look.

"Yuu... Yamaguchi-san failed the English exam..."

Well, I suppose this was inevitable. Given how hard D Class's English exam was, it didn't surprise me to hear Yamaguchi got an F on it. However, he wasn't the only one to fail.

"I-I'm sorry, guys..."

Katsumi meekly apologised as she showed us her results. Like Yamaguchi, she had failed on the English paper.

"Kou-chan... there, there, it's okay."

Yukina pulled Katsumi into a hug, consoling her. Katsumi was devastated that she had let the class down, but it wasn't her fault. That was just how difficult the English exams D Class made for us were.

With their failures, that means we know E Class have lost 100 Cl so far. It's fine though, we only had 20 Cl to begin with. The difference between one failure and two failures didn't matter to us.

However, this meant that D Class secured themselves 60 Cl, meaning C Class would need to fail two of them in return to negate their bonus. Already, I could see how the results of this special exam was shaping up.

"Kouji-san, what about you? What did you get?"

"Eh, these aren't my best results, but... they're good enough."

When Yukina asked, Kouji showed us his results. Despite not being in education for two years and slacking off in the first two months, Kouji had managed to get low Bs across the board, rivalling Matsushita in terms of academics.

After seeing these results, it's no wonder why Alice held such a grudge against him. Kouji was a natural genius when it came to academics, like Nora. If he had more time to study or put in more effort to revise, he probably could've gotten As on these exams.

"My best friend, what did you get?"

Speaking of Nora, Mikitaka peered over his shoulder to see what he got.

"Oh, um... they aren't really impressive..."

"What?! What do you mean, they're not impressive?! Look at them again!"

From behind Nora, I also peered over his shoulder to see his results. As expected, he had gotten A* in history and As in all his other subjects.

However, knowing Nora, he was probably unhappy with the result. He was fixated on getting A* across the board so he could live up to his parent's expectations, so anything less than that wasn't good enough.

"This is average... I can do better."

"I don't think you can do better than this, Takayuki-san. If got those results, I'd cry from joy!"

In comparison, Mikitaka had barely scraped by, getting Ds in all his exams. He did get one single C though, and that was in maths.

"Takayuki-chan, let me see~"

Shouko, interested by his results, joined in on peering over Nora's shoulder. Her eyes widened when she saw what he got.

"N-no way! I knew you were smart, but not this smart! Oh my god... how did you get A on everything?!"

"I-it's not that impressive..."

"No, no, no, it totally is! Mikitaka-san's right, there's no way you can top those grades! Mayuri-chan, look at this!"

"Hmm? What is it?"

Dragging Suzuki into the conversation, Shouko showed her Nora's result. Her jaw dropped when she saw what he got.

"Y-you're joking... right?"

"No, this is legit!"

Suzuki stared at Nora in confusion.

"How are you in our class...?

"P-please stop, t-this is really embarrassing...!"

Nora snatched his results from Shouko and hid them, not letting anyone else see. I guess he wasn't used to being praised so much for doing well on his exams.

I wondered if Alice held a grudge against him for that reason. In middle school, she wanted to be praised by her peers like how Nora was right now, but wasn't able to get any because of Kouji. He scored higher than her, leading to people praising him instead.

As I thought about Alice, my eyes naturally drifted towards her. She sat in her seat like a zombie, looking at her results with an empty stare.

Even though she tried to keep up her bijin facade, for the past few days it had eroded away, revealing the husk of a broken girl that was inside. A few people asked if she was okay, but she shrugged them off without an answer.

It was incredibly damaging to her social life, as lots of her friends started to leave her the moment she started acting weirdly. I know Taiga and Misogi have stopped hanging out with her altogether.

"Alice-chan, what did you get?"

Hearing Hono's voice, Alice snapped out of her mindless trance. These days, Hono was only person who still approached her. Not even the bubbly Katsumi had the courage to talk to a depressed Alice.

"...huh?"

"What did you get? I got C on basically everything."

"Oh... here."

"Oh wow, you got A in science and Japanese! That's amazing!"

Despite Hono's praise, Alice didn't respond. Even though she got what she wanted, it wasn't much compared to Nora. I looked over to Matsushita, who was sharing his results with Misogi.

"Ah, I really thought I would've gotten a B in maths... that C+ is really disheartening."

"You were super close though! Unlike me, who only got D..."

"Hey, that's fine. You passed, that's all that matters."

Unlike Alice, he was able to keep up his front flawlessly, even discussing his results with her. His resilience to setbacks must stem from having to rebound from nearly killing someone. Living with that trauma made him a tougher person.

After handing out the results, Chabashira-sensei let us murmur amongst ourselves for a few minutes before returning to the front of the class and grabbing everyone's attention.

"Alright everyone, return to your seats. I shall now be announcing the results of the test shuffle special exam. Keep in mind the rewards and punishments depending on well you did on the finals."

Everyone scrambled back to their places, waiting in suspense. After two weeks of hardship and preparation, and a week straight of stressful exams, the outcome of it all was now finally upon us.

An eerie dread crept upon us as the entire class went silent in anticipation. It was clear that relief we felt from seeing our results was only meant to be brief.

Once that moment of relaxation passed, the air became heavy with suffocation. Unease filled the tense atmosphere. It didn't help that Chabashira-sensei looked over us without saying a word, adding to our stress. Her silence kept us on the edge of our seats.

Everyone's restlessness was understandable though. Not only were we the weakest class, but we had to fight against the two strongest classes in our year, A Class and D Class. Our chances of winning might as well have not existed.

For A Class, they were the academically strongest class, so no matter what we threw at them, they'd ace the exams. There was no chance for us to put a dent into their Cl, nor was there any chance for us to gain Cl either.

For D Class, while the majority of their exams were passable, it was their English exam that proved to be the most strenuous hurdle for us. Not only was it our worst subject, but it was clear they had poured everything into making those papers as hard as possible to pass.

And it had worked. Two people in our class had already failed because of that exam, while everyone else seemed to scrape a pass, getting either a grade of E or D. Even before the rankings were announced, it already felt like we'd been setback.

However, I didn't see any reason to worry. My premonition of the outcome between our classes was clear.

We would win this special exam.

OST: Youkoso Jitsuryoku Main Theme 2

"All of you have fought well not to let your class down. I'm genuinely impressed. I didn't expect a bunch of defects like you lot to pass such difficult finals, so imagine my surprise when I saw your grades."

Chabashira-sensei continued to delay announcing the results. She had a beautiful yet sadistic smile as she spoke to us.

"Just by looking at them, I could tell that all of you have made significant progress since the midterms, so well done. You must've revised hard."

Everyone was waiting for her to insult us afterwards, but it never came. It made the class feel perturbed, since this was the first time she'd ever praised us before. Noticing how strangely quiet we were, Chabashira-sensei raised her eyebrows.

"There's no need to be so anxious. Relax."

As if to address our jittering faces, Chabashira-sensei tried to ease our worries. However, her kind words only made things worse, as it was also the first time she's ever treated us this gently before. It only reinforced the idea that something was wrong.

"Alright, that's enough teasing. I've kept you all waiting long enough."

Seeing our apprehensive reactions, Chabashira-sensei let out a small laugh. She then turned on her tablet to read out the results.

"In last place, the worst performing class with a total of six failures—"

Our class held their breath.

This was it.

This was the moment of truth.

The best performing class would get +50 Cl.

The worst performing class would get -100 Cl.

Would all our struggle and suffering be for nought?

At the very least, we couldn't come in last place.

If we did, there would be no climbing back for us.

I shut my eyes.

"D Class."

Everyone released their tense breaths, murmuring in surprise and relief.

No one could believe what they were hearing. No one had expected this outcome.

It was unfathomable for the second strongest class in our year to have lost, especially since everyone was expecting us, the loser class, to come dead last.

With six failures and the special exam penalty, D Class would be forfeiting 400 Cl in total. Since they came last, it meant they were the class with most failures, meaning it was impossible for them to recoup their losses as this confirmed we had less fails than they did.

Even if we had five fails, they would only regain 150 Cl at most. In other words, they'd be losing at least 250 Cl, nearly wiping out all 297 of their Cl. It seems Suzune made good use out of the exams me and Nora made.

"In fourth place, with a total of three failures—"

Without wasting any time, Chabashira-sensei continued.

The class went silent, paying attention to her again. This time, everyone was expecting to hear our name get called.

After all, if we didn't come in last place, then we'd come in next worst.

However...

"A Class."

The class fell silent with shock.

Then, we burst into celebration, overjoyed by the result. Cheers exploded throughout classroom as everyone revelled in our victory against A Class and D Class.

At the same time however, there was also confusion hanging in the air as to how we managed to pull this off. Everyone thought we hadn't done anything special for our attack, and yet... we had somehow managed to beat A Class, the strongest class.

Unbeknownst to them, none of these events were by accident. There was a reason why A Class and D Class lost against us.

"In third place, with a total of two failures—"

Our celebration was cut short when Chabashira-sensei continued announcing the results.

We watched her, holding our breath yet again. We gained a huge amount of confidence from toppling A Class and D Class, so there was now hope that we could secure first place.

That'd be great ideally, but judging from everyone's skills, and the results I've seen thus far, it was clear to me that we still lacked the academic ability to beat out B Class and C Class.

At this point, winning the exam would just be a sweet bonus. Now that we've cleared all the hurdles, it didn't really matter where we placed now.

That's why, I wasn't surprised by the next result.

"It's you lot, E Class. Congratulations."

Everyone's excitement deflated hearing that announcement. After such a huge streak of success, we had to be defeated somewhere.

It was to be expected though, since we are the weakest class after all. We should just be glad that Katsumi and Yamaguchi were our only failures. We're lucky to not have taken anymore damage than that.

Still though, third place wasn't bad at all, especially after beating out the two strongest classes in our year. It'd be asking for too much to win the special exam on top of all that as well. We got what we wanted, so there was no reason to be greedy.

This meant B Class and C Class had defeated us in this special exam. I'm quite interested in seeing who came out on top between these two.

"In second place, with a total of one failure—"

After hearing where we ranked, the class became disinterested with the remaining results.

Despite that, Chabashira-sensei continued anyways, talking over everyone's whisperings.

Would it be a repeat of the war? Or would C Class scrape out a win this time?

"C Class."

Despite their best efforts, Suzune's class lost.

At the very least, they only had one failure. The outcome wouldn't be too devastating on them.

However, that meant...

"And finally, in first place, with a total of zero failures—"

The class tuned back in, wanting to know who won the special exam overall.

"B Class."

Despite the deep division amongst them and between their faction, they had managed to come out on top. A Class leaking their own exam must've been a boon to B Class.

I can only imagine how loudly they must be cheering in celebration in their class right now. Both Ichinose and Machida managed to achieve their goals, so B Class's victory must've been a rare moment of their factions getting along.

Now that this stressful waiting period was over, we could all relax. Overcoming this hardship, we could finally put the special exam behind us and look forward to the future.

"These are the changes going to made to the class points following the special exam, according to the results. Please look carefully."

Turning on the whiteboard, Chabashira-sensei displayed the list of rewards and punishments for each class.

A Class: -150 Cl
B Class: +80 Cl
C Class: +130 Cl
D Class: -340 Cl
E Class: -10 Cl

D Class lost all their class points, which means...

"It's safe to say... you lot, the bottom of the school scorned E Class, who we had no hope for... have just been promoted to D Class."

The class went silent with shock. Everyone looked at each other in disbelief, like they hadn't registered what had just been said.

"Well done. Sensei is very proud of you. I mean it."

However, seeing Chabashira-sensei's honest smile was all the confirmation we needed.

This was real. We were going to be promoted to D Class.

Everyone screamed in delight, the class erupting into cheers of happiness. In one fell swoop, we had overtaken D Class with an astounding victory.

B Class may have won the special exam and C Class may have gained the most Cl, but our class were the real winners. Neither of them managed to surpass the class above them, whereas we had.

Even though it seemed impossible when we first enrolled here, we were now slowly but surely climbing our way upwards. This was our first step forward in rocking this class from the bottom to the top.

Once the excitement from the announcement wore off, everyone began thinking clearly again. Still confused by the outcome, they put their heads together, scrambling their brains to try and figure out what happened.

Lots of people paraded around Matsushita and Alice, the class leaders, looking for an explanation. They seemed as overwhelmed as everyone else, and were unable to explain anything.

I decided to revel in our victory a little longer before getting up from my seat.

Slowly, the entire class turned their attention to me as I walked to the front of the class.

Chabashira-sensei, surprised by my forwardness, stepped back to give me some space.

"Takanori-san, what are you doing...?"

"Claiming what's mine."

I sat on the podium.

"Oi, listen up."

With a commanding tone, I ordered everyone in the class to look at me.

"You're all probably wondering how we managed to beat A Class and D Class, right?"

As I spoke, they began giving me shady looks and whispering to each other. The celebratory air from earlier turned cold and stale, replaced with an unnerving darkness that seeped quietly into the room.

"Yes! Takanori-san, do you know?"

Raising his hand, Mitsuba had the courage to speak up when no one else did. Some others, like Katsumi and Yukimura, nodded in agreement with him.

"I do. Allow me to explain."

I pushed my sunglasses up.

"Do you remember when the school first announced the special exam? While the rules were easy to understand, there was one thing in particular that bothered me. Can you guess what it is?"

"Uh... that it didn't involve Vanguard?" Kawaguchi said.

"I don't know, that we had to make the exams?" Shouko said.

"They were making us they go up against the two strongest classes?" Mitsuba said.

I shook my head at all the guesses given.

"Wrong. It was the rewards and punishment for failing. Isn't it strange that the school gave such a small payout compared to losses when a student failed? If failing an exam costed your class 50 Cl, then why did the class that failed you only get 30 Cl? It should be equal in worth, or at least the other way round, since it was that class's exam which caught you out."

When I brought this up, they began murmuring again. No one had really thought that deeply about the number of points being given out in relation to the task being asked of us. Everyone just knew that failing would let down your class more than it helped the other class.

"Isn't it incentive so we actually study? If the punishment was only 30 Cl, a lot less people would take it seriously." Taiga said.

"Yeah, but what if it wasn't the exam the other class made that caught you out? What if you're just dumb and failed it? It'd make less sense to give that class 50 Cl then." Yukimura said.

I shook my head.

"That's what the school wants you to think."

"Huh? The hell do you mean by that?"

"Your line of thought is what the school tricked everyone into thinking when they announced the rewards and punishments. It's even reflected in the overall results, where B Class got 50 Cl and D Class lost 100 Cl. If one person in your class failed, you'd need to fail two in another class to recoup the losses. Their emphasis on losing more by failing made everyone subconsciously prioritise defence over offence. This led to nearly all the classes to adopt a defensive strategy, including you two."

I pointed at Alice and Matsushita. This was their first mistake. They believed that, as E Class, we had no chance in winning in the first place, leading them to fall back on a defensive strategy. They tunnelled in on protecting what little Cl we had, leading to their strategy of group study.

"As such, you guys tried to preserve the meagre 20 Cl we had left, but I went into this special exam forgoing those points the moment I began strategising. I was almost sure that we'd get one failure, so I worked under the assumption that we'd lose all our class points."

Since the punishment was 50 Cl, one failure meant losing everything, and because I knew people like the old Kouji and Kita were in our class, I figured that it was better to give up on protecting it and try to gather as much Cl as possible instead. That way, in the best case scenario, we could end on more than what we started with, or in the worst case scenario, we could at least negate any failures do that happen.

"Ultimately, it was for the best, because what the school was trying to hint to us with those disproportionate rewards and punishments was the best way of approaching this special exam. Instead of trying to conserve Cl by preventing failures from happening, they wanted us to turn failing other students into a weapon that could crush opposing classes."

That was our form of attack in the special exam, the only way for us to gain Cl rather than lose it.

"However, the issue lies in the fact they made the cycle of attack go in descending order, meaning we were facing A Class, and not D Class. This is another contradiction in the exam, since we gained no immediate benefit from failing A Class students. An enemy, B Class, would gain more from our success than we would. Once again, the school was trying to guide us towards a defensive strategy."

"So... what are you getting at exactly?" Matsushita said.

"We had to flip the thinking on it's head. Instead of attacking A Class, we had to attack D Class."

"But... isn't that impossible? C Class was tasked with attacking D Class, not us."

"Only in name. Really, it doesn't have to be someone from that class who made the exams. The rules don't state that you have to make the exams yourself. If you really wanted to, you could've taken past papers from the internet and submitted them as your own. Essentially, the class's role in the special exam is to submit the papers their assigned class will do. Since that was the case, we could attack D Class by using C Class as a proxy. Do you see where I'm getting at?"

This special exam was testing us on multiple aspects. It wasn't looking at just our academic ability, but it was also looking at our judgment and teamwork skills. If you could cooperate with another class, you could essentially attack whichever class you wanted.

"Wait... does that mean... you teamed up with C Class?!" Mitsuba said.

"That's right. By looking a bit deeper into what the school was actually asking of us, I was able to determine that they were also seeing whether or not we could cooperate with other classes, even if they were our enemies, by creating this backwards set-up of attack. This led to me and Yukina working behind the scenes to make a deal with C Class while everyone else was busy revising. Conveniently, they had their war against B Class coming up, and their leader, Kinoshita-san, wanted to focus on that. As such, we offered to create their exams so they could concentrate on preparing for that, using Nora-san as a bargaining chip to convince them to team up with us."

Everyone's eyes widened, and their attention was briefly drawn to Nora, who hid his face in embarrassment. Alice and Matsushita were especially shocked to hear this, since I had directly gone behind their backs as leaders to make this happen.

"Nora-chan, you knew about this?" Alice asked.

"U-um... y-yes... I was helping out Takanori-kun making the exams for C Class..."

"It wasn't just him, I knew as well."

To divert attention away from Nora, Mikitaka raised his hand and spoke up.

"I was also involved in making this. Takayuki-san asked me to help test run the papers before they handed them over to Kinoshita-san since my academic level was the closest to D Class."

The other person who knew, Rinbayashi, kept quiet about her involvement since she didn't want to draw any attention to herself either.

"No way..."

Alice's shoulders slumped. The more about me that was revealed to her, the more scared she became of me.

"Wait, how did you even get Kinoshita-san to agree to this when you're not even the leader of E Class? Shouldn't Alice-chan or Isogai-kun have handled this?" Hono said.

"Yeah, from the sounds of it, it looks like they didn't even know you did this." Yamaguchi said.

"I didn't tell them about it because the last time I tried to act independently, a civil war broke out in our class. I wanted to avoid a repeat of that."

From the corner of my eye, I could see Matsushita narrow his eyes at me.

"Besides, it's not like I was getting in their way. While they were building a solid defence, I was building a solid offence. It worked out in the end, didn't it? Making that deal with C Class clearly paid off."

I pointed at the results on the board.

"Thanks to Nora-san's hard work, we managed to fail six D Class students, causing them to go bankrupt and lose all their class points. This is what I meant earlier by weaponising failing students. Each class was aware of the fact, but no one managed to do it effectively... except us."

That was only one half of the plan, though.

"But then what about A Class? What happened there?" Suzuki said.

"Yeah, how did our crummy exams fail three of them? That makes no sense!" Katsumi said.

"About A Class..."

"Are you the one who made them give 50 Cl to us?"

Just as I was about to explain, Ayano cut in with that sharp question. Everyone turned their attention to him.

"Wait, what do you mean A Class gave us 50 Cl?" Mitsuba said.

"On Sunday, our class points went up by 50 and A Class's class points went down by 50. No one seemed to notice though, since it happened right just before the finals began."

Everyone began to check the class point rankings on their phone.

"Oh my god, Ayano-san's right... we have 70 Cl and they have 950 Cl!" Shouko said.

"What gives...?" Matsushita said.

"Bet mans like Taka cheffed dem rich donnies up and Audi wid deir bare Ps innit!" John said.

I turned to Ayano.

"If you knew, why didn't you say anything about it?"

"I didn't have a reasonable explanation for it at the time. There was no point in kicking up a fuss about it if I couldn't even give an answer myself. But now that I know you've been doing stuff behind everyone's backs, I can imagine this being your handiwork too."

"Well, you'd be correct."

I took out the contract Ryouta, Senzaki, and Shimada signed, and showed it to everyone.

"In reality, A Class will be losing 250 Cl from this special exam. The reason for this is here, in my hands."

"Woah, he's become a lawyer!" Mitsuba said.

"What the heck? Is that a contract?" Shouko said.

"Indeed. What we agreed upon is irrelevant, but what matters is that both A Class representatives signed it. What they agreed to was giving our class 100 Cl straight from their pockets."

"What?! 100 Cl?! They were willing to give away that much?!" Katsumi said.

"Huh? Where's the other 50 Cl then?" Yukimura said.

"So that -10 Cl is more like a +90 Cl..." Kawaguchi said.

"We agreed to split it over two payments. One before the special exam, one after the special exam. We should be receiving the second payment by tomorrow at the latest."

"Woah, that's amazing!" Mitsuba said.

"If this is a dream, I don't want to wake up from it... this is seriously awesome, brother!" Mikitaka said.

"That's great and all, but it doesn't help explain how we managed to beat them. I want to know how you did it." Matsushita said.

"Yeah, me too. If Nora-san was busy working on the exams for D Class, who was handling the ones meant for A Class?" Ayano said.

"It could've been you, but you got pissy at us and stopped helping..."

From the other side of the room, Alice muttered disparagingly towards Ayano.

"Sure, but I didn't abandon the class though. I made sure Hana-san attended school for the finals week and tutored her so she wouldn't fail the exams. Can you say the same for Katsumi-san or Yamaguchi-san?"

When Ayano singled out Katsumi, she looked away in embarrassment. Alice snapped her head towards him.

"Their strength lies in physical ability, what are you on about? Your strength is academics, yet you refused to help us. Poor Nora-san had to pick up your slack all by himself, and you want to sit there and pretend that you made a contribution by making that shut-in weirdo Kita-san come to school for a week? No, piss off with that!"

This was the first time in awhile I saw Alice act like her usual self, even if she was misplacing her bottled up anger at Ayano, and not me.

"You did nothing to help us in this special exam! You didn't even bother to tell us about A Class giving us 50 Cl either! The only thing you care about is Kita-san, and she offers literally nothing to the class! She's dead weight, Ayano-san! She's literally worse than Ikesugi-san and K... K..."

The more passionate she got, the higher she rose from her seat. However, when Alice tried to say Kouji's name, her throat froze up.

"You do realise it's your fault why I didn't help, right? There's no reason for me to help a girl as entitled as you are. You think that if you can shout louder than the other person, you can get what you want."

"What? Do you wanna say that again, you piece of—"

I swung my fist down on the podium with a loud bang, silencing Alice. She gulped and looked at me with scared eyes.

"I'm speaking, don't interrupt me."

"S-sorry..."

A cold chill ran through the air as Alice kowtowed to me. Ayano sighed and also stood down.

"My bad."

"That goes for the rest of you as well. Keep quiet and pay attention if you want me to explain."

I addressed the rest of the class, warping the atmosphere even further.

"Don't you think Takanori-kun is acting different than usual...?"

"Yeah, I've never seen Yuu-yuu act so bossy before..."

"I didn't know Takanori-san could raise his voice like that..."

"I-it's kind of scary..."

I ignored everyone's whispers and continued with my explanation.

"I was the one handling all the exams for A Class. While it may seem nonsensical for me, an average C grade student, to handle making their exams, my academic ability is practically irrelevant in this case. I went into making A Class's exams under the assumption that we would fail none of them. That was how large the gap in our abilities were."

You didn't even have to compare data sheets. Academics was A Class's biggest strength. Regardless of us being E Class, any class chosen to face them would struggle against them."

"That's why it'd be a waste for Nora-san to make their exams. It may sound ironic, but him being on the same level as an A Class student meant that, whatever questions he could come up with, they'd be able to answer. It'd be pointless to have Nora-san fight an uphill battle like that, so it was better to concentrate his limited resources into defeating D Class, especially when B Class would gain more from failing A Class students than we would. At the same time, I couldn't just make their exams easy and give them a free pass."

Plus, with the contract I signed, there had to be a sufficient enough level of difficulty for Ryouta and Shimada so they could properly carry out their challenge. I didn't bring it up to the class though, since they don't need to know about that.

"With all these variables in mind, I had to use a more... unconventional way of creating their special exams. One way that wasn't hindered by my lack of academic ability. The solution I came too?"

I took out two papers. One written in Chinese and one written in Korean.

"Foreign tests."

Everyone's eyes widened in surprise.

"F... foreign tests?" Mitsuba said.

"That's right. As you know, China and Korea have even more stressful exams than we do. The gaokao and suneung. The gaokao is one of the hardest exams in the world and the suneung is a continuous eight hour marathon of back to back exams. If anything would stump A Class, it'd be these two. However, the issue is... I can't read either of these languages. It'd be different if I were using exams from England or America, but their syllabuses are actually easier than ours."

Even though Mitsuba would be considered an idiot here, if he went to school in England, he would probably be considered a genius.

"As such, I had to employ some help in translating the questions. That's where two upperclassmen come in. Xuelan Lingling-senpai from 3rd Year A Class and Siyeon Moon-senpai from 2nd Year E Class."

"You got that hot secretary with the huge boobies to help you out too?!" Mitsuba said.

"Dude, this is not the time to be caught lacking!" Yukimura said.

"Yeah. I asked these two lovely ladies to translate the exams for me in their spare time."

"Woah, lucky...!"

Regardless, the class was still impressed that I managed to get help from an A Class student, an upperclassman no less.

"How'd you get them to cooperate?" Yukimura said.

"I asked nicely."

"Cap."

"Super cap." Taiga said.

"Mega cap." Mitsuba said.

For some reason, the class didn't believe me, especially Alice and Matsushita. Those two stared at me with pointed eyes, probably thinking that I blackmailed Xuelan and Siyeon to get their help or something.

"Well, to be more specific, I asked for Siyeon-senpai's help through a mutual friend who I'm close to. As for Xuelan-senpai, since she's part of the student council, I got her help by making a request through them."

These two really came in clutch for me. Despite how heavy translating the gaokao and suneung was, both of them managed to get it done within a day.

"Once I got the translated versions, I compiled them together and submitted it to Chabashira-sensei as our exams. However, the obvious issue is, our syllabus isn't the same as China's and Korea's. If I gave the exams as they are now, a majority of the questions would be rejected."

"So you needed to get rid of the questions not relevant to us, right?"

"Yep. But going through and doing that manually would be tedious, since it'd take too long and be a pain in the ass. So instead, I exploited a rule in the special exam to make the teachers do all the hard work for me."

When I brought this up, Chabashira-sensei sighed. She knew exactly what I was on about.

"When you submit exams with questions not suitable for the finals, the papers get rejected and the teachers tell you which questions should be taken out. So, when I submitted the gaokao and suneung in its entirety, it was up to them to decide which questions were allowed for the finals."

"Takanori-san was especially cruel and did this on the last day of the submission deadline, forcing all of us to look through that insane paper on our day off. Honestly, couldn't you have done it earlier so we had more time to work through it?"

"Sorry, sensei. But it was worth it in the end, wasn't it?"

"I suppose."

Chabashira-sensei chuckled slightly.

"Anyways, when Chabashira-sensei returned them back to me, I supplemented the allowed questions with ones Nora-san made for D Class to create a full exam, then resubmitted them. This time, it was accepted, and that was the exam A Class had to work through. I have a copy of both A Class's and D Class's exams for those curious."

I took out my personal copies of the papers and handed them out to the front, letting everyone flick through them and pass it along.

"What the hell... I don't get any of this..."

Yukimura muttered, skimming through D Class's science paper. Ayano, who had A Class's science paper, covered his mouth and narrowed his eyes as he looked through it.

"My head hurts just from reading this... here."

Alice sighed, handing A Class's Japanese exam backwards. John was looking through A Class's English exam and nodded his head at the questions.

"If mans had better Japanese skills, mans could prolly ace dis test bare innit. Mans can fill dis and dat, dat and dis, correct da grammar on dis ting..."

Unsurprisingly, John was confident at answering the exam due to being fluent at English, even though his way of speaking wasn't exactly proper dialect.

"Bro, if this was D Class's exam, no wonder six of them failed... Nora-chan, you smashed this outta the park!"

Mitsuba exclaimed, looking at D Class's math exam. Katsumi nodded in agreement.

"This test is amazing Takayuki-kun! How did you come up with some of these questions?"

"T-thanks... um... it wasn't just me, Takanori-kun helped out a lot too..."

"I didn't do much. D Class's exam was mostly Nora-san's doing."

I cut in, giving most of the credit to Nora. The only part I helped out in mostly was the English exam, which Mikitaka had just finished reading.

"Man, I remember doing this... I'm surprised I didn't fail at this one." He laughed.

"Which one did you fail in?" Taiga asked.

"Science, sadly."

Meanwhile, Shouko was flipping through D Class's Japanese exam.

"Uwa... Mayuri-chan, do you get any of this?"

Suzuki looked through the paper for a few minutes, before shaking her head.

"Not really..."

"Ehh? But I thought you were good at Japanese!"

"I-I'm just okay at it."

Suzuki mumbled, passing the paper backwards to Kouji. My mind wandered back to the time where I caught her with a notebook and pen in the swimming pool.

"The arts subjects were never my strong suit... Kazuraba-san, think you can answer this?"

After flipping through A Class's Japanese paper, Kouji reached over and handed it to Yukina. Meanwhile, Tadokoro was immersed reading D Class's math exam.

"Maybe, with great difficulty, of course."

Yukina laughed, looking through the paper. Her best subject was Japanese, so I bet she could get at least a C on it. D Class's Japanese exam would be more in her comfort zone though.

"Umm... T-Takanori-kun..."

Nora meekly raised his hand.

"Yeah?"

"T-there's one thing I don't understand..."

"What is it?"

"Well, um... you said that you submitted the exams..."

"I did."

"I thought that, um... I-I mean, um... i-isn't the rule that... o-only class representatives can submit exams...?"

"That's right."

"But... Takanori-kun isn't a class r-representative..."

When Nora pointed this out, everyone turned to look at Alice and Matsushita. They squirmed uncomfortably as the spotlight was being drawn to them. It seems nearly everyone had forgotten about this rule in the special exam because it didn't apply to them.

"Actually, yeah, wasn't it meant to be you guys who submit the exams?" Mitsuba said.

"Did you guys seriously give Takanori-san permission to submit the papers?" Yamaguchi said.

"That can't be possible, they looked just as surprised as we were when the results were announced." Taiga said.

"Are you saying Isogai-kun and Alice-chan didn't know about this...?" Misogi said.

Everyone broke out into feverish speculation as to how I managed to submit the exams.

Alice and Matsushita went silent, unable to answer their questions. They were trapped in, boxed in a hole they couldn't escape from.

It almost made me want to laugh.

"...I'm glad you asked, Nora-san. Here's why I could submit the exams."

As if on cue, Yukina got up and walked to the front of the class, standing next to me.

Together, we each took out a card from our pockets and showed it to the entire class.

Laying witness to what was in our hands, everyone's whispers slowly died down as their gazes transfixed onto us.

"Matsushita-san and Alice-san relinquished their roles to me and Yukina."

Everyone stared at us with wide eyes. Now that the truth was out, the two of them hung their heads low in shame.

"As such, we're the class representatives now. And that means from this moment forward..."

I raised my left hand in a crushing motion.

"I'm the new leader of E Class."

The classroom went speechless.