167 Midterm Exams—Of the Four First-Year Classes, Who Will Graduate as Class A?
Time flew by, and soon the day of the midterm exams arrived.
Every student in Class D, including Yamauchi Haruki and Ike Kanji, was bracing themselves, looking quite confident. The reason was simple: they had already memorized the midterm exam papers from the previous year's seniors until they knew them like the back of their hands.
This included Sudo Ken. Although he wasn't fond of studying, simply memorizing a test paper was something he could manage. After all, failing meant expulsion. Furthermore, his two best friends, Yamauchi and Ike, had practically dragged him into memorizing the papers under Kushida Kikyo's instructions.
During the third week, Shimizu Akira had specifically attended one of Kushida Kikyo's study groups where Sudo was present.
Kushida had made Sudo focus specifically on memorizing the English multiple-choice questions; he had mastered them so well that he was guaranteed at least 50 points. With a maximum score of 100 per subject, Sudo's English grade was essentially guaranteed to pass. While this might drag down the class average, at least he wouldn't be expelled for failing.
It is worth noting that during the second month, Hirata Yosuke's study group had the highest attendance. Shimizu figured this was likely because Yukimura Teruhiko's trio had joined Hirata's side.
Since Karuizawa Kei's group had been with Kushida all along, and the two factions had some friction previously, this division was only natural.
This indirectly led to Kushida losing three potential votes and Hirata gaining three. Excluding Koenji Rokusuke and Horikita Suzune, who joined no groups, Hirata had 20 people in his group while Kushida had 18. Consequently, Hirata Yosuke was elected as the class representative for the second month.
At the time, Kushida maintained a perfectly natural smile and accepted the result gracefully. But behind the scenes? She had likely cursed him out countless times.
Shimizu understood this well—he knew her personality all too accurately.
In truth, to be fair, if Karuizawa's group of four hadn't suddenly cast four votes for Kushida on the final day of the first month, Hirata would have been the representative from the start.
As for the second month, this outcome was, in a sense, the "normal" progression of events.
It should be mentioned that for the past few weeks, Shimizu Akira hadn't touched those past question exam much. These were just first-year exams, after all; his monthly test scores were quite good in every subject except Japanese. Regarding Japanese, since he was free during the last two weeks, he had been attending the study group organized by Horikita Suzune.
He wasn't the only one attending.
Shinohara Satsuki and two or three other girls from the class had shown up a few times.
These were likely students whose perception of Horikita had shifted after she proposed using surveillance footage to identify the biggest point-deductors in the first month. Of course, besides them, no one else came.
Later, even these girls migrated to Hirata or Kushida's study groups and didn't vote for Horikita—primarily because, strictly speaking, she hadn't explicitly stated she was running for class representative.
Horikita Suzune didn't show any particular reaction to this. At least from Shimizu's perspective, her expressionless face made it impossible to tell what she was thinking. However, Shimizu suspected she wasn't in a bad mood. After all, being recognized by one's classmates is always a reason to be happy.
His own Japanese grades had improved rapidly, and he could now score around 50 points. In other words, even if the rest of the class scored perfect marks, he could comfortably avoid the failing threshold.
As for the movements of the other classes over these weeks, things were relatively quiet. There was no movement from Class A. In Class B, Ichinose regularly organized study groups in the library. As for Class C, Shimizu later heard from Shiina that they were studying desperately—everyone was putting in every ounce of effort, frantically hitting the books under Ryuen Kakeru's violent pressure.
For the midterm exams, this school had a rigid rule: failing a single subject resulted in mandatory expulsion. For a class, losing even one student was an undeniable blow to their combat strength. Put simply, regardless of a student's ability, as long as they remained in the class, the school would calculate the class points based on that extra head. If the school ever launched a dangerous Special Exam, that person could be used as a scapegoat—much like Yamauchi Haruki's "importance" to Class D.
Such roles were like emergency rations; they proved highly useful at critical moments.
The more Shimizu thought about it, the more he felt this was a bit disrespectful to Yamauchi. After all, strictly speaking, Yamauchi had helped him—he had put in effort to help Shimizu secure that successful date with Kushida Kikyo.
Kushida didn't organize any recruitment competitions this month like she did in the previous one. Yesterday, Yamauchi and Ike had approached him with frustrated faces, quietly complaining about it for a long time. Shimizu didn't have any specific thoughts on the matter.
As he was thinking, the exam time arrived.
The first period was Mathematics. Shimizu sat in his assigned seat, checked his pen to ensure it worked, and the papers were soon distributed. With the ring of the bell, the first exam officially began.
He scanned the front of the paper; it was all basic questions to which he could almost blurt out the answers. Turning to the back, the questions were significantly harder, but manageable for him; with a little thought, he could calculate the correct answers.
However, when he saw the final short-answer question, he almost lost his composure:
[Among the four first-year classes, which one will ultimately graduate as Class A?]
This clearly wasn't a math question, nor a linguistics one; it felt more like a casual inquiry. Yet its point value was staggeringly high—a full ten points.
'So, they really did choose to tamper with the test?!'
He suddenly remembered that two weeks ago, he had personally told "Miao Miao Cat" that exam questions could be modified. Of course, while he suspected the person was Sakayanagi Arisu, he hadn't been absolutely certain out of caution.
Notably, Miao Miao Cat had sent him the "answer" yesterday.
Miao Miao Cat: If you encounter a question you don't know, just pick "C."
It sounded more like a riddle at the time. Only now, seeing this question, did he realize in hindsight—was the "correct answer" the other party set actually "First-Year Class C"?
One must remember that midterm papers aren't permanently confiscated by the school; they are returned to the students later. At that time, other students would naturally see which questions they got wrong.
Just imagine: what would the students of the other classes feel when they saw that the "correct" answer to this question was "First-Year Class C"?