Chapter 4: Ichika’s Test
Intro
It was already Wednesday, the third day of the special exam.
OAA was refreshed for the second time at 8 AM, and naturally, the number of choices had gone down yet again.
“34 new pairs have been formed, huh?”
Combined with Tuesday, that meant 56 pairs had been formed in total.
Considering that the maximum number of pairs was 157, this meant that over thirty percent of students had already decided on their partners.
Class 2-B had driven the partner formation yesterday. Therefore, many of these probably had to do with Ichinose.
It seemed like the first-year students had carefully considered their options after the meet-and-greet and decided to form pairs.
Essentially, I could confirm that most of the first-year students with low Academic Ability ratings had paired up with students in Ichinose’s class.
Aside from that, several of the first-year honor students had found partners now along with several students from Class 2-C. From this, I could infer that they had been successful in their negotiations. In our class, starting with Kushida, five people had settled on their partners. I checked the page for Class 1-B and found that Yagami Takuya had found a partner as well. It was possible that he had joined hands with Kushida.
But the strange thing was, not even a single person from Class 1-D had partnered up yet.
This was completely unprecedented when compared to the rest of the first-year and the entirety of the second-year.
If I didn’t make my move soon, it seemed like I might not be able to do anything when the time finally arrived.
In the first place, there was no way that somebody would take an objective look at my rating and ask me to join up with them. It’s only natural that students would want to pair up with somebody smart, regardless of how good or bad their own rating was. Unlike the second-year students, who had reached the point where they were capable of taking action for the sake of their own class, the first-year students probably wouldn’t take the time to worry about their surroundings. They’d probably be more inclined to see their very own classmates as rivals instead.
For them, I would be put on the back burner. That is, at least until everybody with high ratings was taken already.
For that reason, Tsukishiro must’ve instructed his enforcer to not let this chance slip by.
Naturally, anybody who would reach out to pair up with me, or who would allow me to pair up with them, would be a big red flag.
That said, if I kept hesitating without deciding on a partner forever, the chances of being paired up with Tsukishiro’s enforcer would only continue to go up. I needed to be absolutely certain that the student I chose wasn’t the enforcer, but that probably wasn’t going to be easy.
At the end of the day, I had no idea what kind of performance they were putting on to disguise themself.
I had memorized the names, faces, and ratings of everyone on the app, but I hadn’t been able to glean any hints from that.
If all 160 of the first-years were against me, I would be facing an inescapable, sure-fire checkmate.
But, that would be absurd. That would be impossible for somebody to pull off, even for Tsukishiro, but…
No, that wasn’t the right way to be approaching this.
The important thing here was for me to come up with a way to survive, even if everyone was against me.
At any rate, for now, I’d track down somebody safe from the 104 students that were left.
There was no gender bias in the children raised within the White Room. Since their pedagogy treated boys and girls equally, it was impossible for me to narrow down my selection with that in mind.
In which case, how should I go about checking people off the list? One possible way to do so was to check their body type or physique.
The meals provided within the White Room were controlled down to the smallest detail. It was basically impossible for the children growing up in that environment to be obese. Thus, a simple plan came to mind… If I were to choose an overweight student, I’d be able to avoid the White Room student.
However, this plan was not without flaws. It was more than possible that the White Room student began preparing for my expulsion several months ago. Thinking about it that way, it wasn’t out of the question for them to have taken the time to gain or lose weight accordingly. Doing something like that would be trivial for those who had endured the relentless curriculum of the White Room.
But, even if I were to put all of that aside, it’s doubtful whether or not I’d be able to select a student with a sub-standard body type. I couldn’t say for sure since the OAA app doesn’t provide a full-body picture, but there were only about two students in the first year who were obviously overweight.
Even so, I still couldn’t discount the possibility that both of them had been sent by Tsukishiro. After all, I’m assuming that it’s not only the White Room student who had been sent as an enforcer, but ordinary students as well.
They could’ve been approached with promises of admission to a better college or university if they were to get me expelled.
My next thought was whether or not I could narrow it down based on Academic Ability rating, but that, too, would be difficult.
For a student from the White Room, getting a perfect score on the entrance exam wouldn’t be difficult in the slightest. They’d be able to get an A or A+ rating in Academic Ability with ease. Put in other words, that meant that they’d be able to control their rating however they wanted.
They must’ve been informed about the introduction of the OAA system as well.
It wouldn’t be surprising by any stretch of the imagination if they were patiently lying in wait, equipped with an E rating in Academic Ability.
Similarly, it was also impossible to narrow it down based on class affiliation, such as being a member of Class 1-A or Class 1-D.
I had known this from the very start, but there was simply no way I could narrow down my list of suspects right now.
I knew what I needed to do.
I needed to investigate each student with my own eyes and verify their authenticity myself. If I could confirm that someone wasn’t an enemy, I’d be able to partner up with them, or perhaps even get them to cooperate with me moving forward.
I proceeded to set a rule for myself.
Today, from when school started, through lunch, and all the way until school was over, I would reach out to each and every first-year student I came across. From there, I’d try and get them to cooperate with me. Since there was no way Tsukishiro had sent in an opponent who’d be identified through mere observation, I had no choice but to fight with the element of luck to minimize any potential interference.
With a C in Academic Ability, my rating was by no means high, so I couldn’t exactly use it as a weapon. However, it’s not like nobody would be willing to partner up with me. If I searched around long enough, I’d probably find at least a few people.
Part 1
I left the dorms and started making my way to school.
Soon enough, I spotted two first-year girls chatting with each other as they walked.
Their names were Kurihara Kasuga and Konishi Tetsuko. Both of them from Class 1-A.
Unfortunately, both of them were academically excellent students who had found partners on the first day of the exam. Asking one of them to be my partner wasn’t a viable option.
Well, the fact that they had already decided on their partners wasn’t that much of a problem.
In fact, you could even say they were the best choice available for me to collaborate with. It’s just, how do I put this, it was kinda hard to call out to them…
Even though we had no choice but to find partners due to the special exam, what would a second-year boy approaching two girls look like from an outsider’s perspective? I found myself getting caught up thinking about that.
I didn’t have the courage to just call out and wish them good morning like Y?suke would, but having said that, confidently asking them to introduce me to someone who’d pair up with me was out of the question as well.
Be that as it may, I had to at least try. Giving in now wouldn’t get me anywhere. I hardened my resolve to reach out to them, but I found myself wondering what I should do about the timing. Instead of interrupting them while they were happily chatting with each other, I felt like I should patiently wait for a lapse in their conversation.
“Good morning to you, Ayanok?ji-senpai.”
As I was watching them, a voice called out to me from behind.
The third first-year student I ran into today was Nanase Tsubasa, the girl who had been together with H?sen just a few days ago.
She looked at me with a carefree smile on her face.
“Ah, good morning.”
I certainly hadn’t expected anyone to call out to me, so there was an awkward pause between the two of us for a moment.
ILLUSTRATION = null
“Do you need something from those two? Would you like me to call out to them for you?”
Despite Nanase’s proposition, as a first-year student herself, the conversation the two girls were having would most likely turn into a conversation between the three of them. That would only serve to increase the burden for me.
“No, it’s alright.”
“Oh, is that so?”
Nanase pondered out loud, walking along at about the same pace as me.
An unexpected conversation with Nanase had begun while I was thinking about when to reach out to the girls. I was quite thankful that she had spared me the trouble of being the one to reach out to somebody, but…
There was no way that a first-year student had called out to me by coincidence. It was quite possible that she had been waiting for me to go to school and timed her approach accordingly. This wasn’t just restricted to Nanase either. This should be the baseline assumption for any and all students who take the initiative to talk to me. Just like Amasawa yesterday, this wasn’t someone I approached, but someone who approached me.
“I do apologise for H?sen-kun’s rudeness the other day.”
“No, I wasn’t directly affected by it, so you don’t need to apologise to me.”
“But there is no doubting that we caused a nuisance. While I had come along with H?sen-kun to stop him from acting out like that, I’m now fully aware of just how powerless I truly was.”
Compared to H?sen’s rough, violent nature, Nanase spoke with a very sociable, polite tone, which gave off a very good impression. And with her B Academic Ability rating, she was essentially the ideal partner. It wouldn’t be strange if somebody other than me had scouted her already either, but as of now, on the third day, she still hadn’t partnered up with anybody yet.
However, that was probably due to Class 1-D’s plan.
In addition to Academic Ability, her ratings were all high and well rounded, as her Physical Ability, Adaptability, and Social Contribution ratings were all at a C+ or better. At a glance, I couldn’t find any problems with her at all. For that reason, I found myself wondering why Nanase Tsubasa had been placed in Class D. At a fundamental level, there was a strong tendency for the students assigned to Class D to have something wrong with them. For example, on the surface, people like Y?suke and Kushida didn’t seem to have a single flaw. However, once I actually found out more about them, I came to understand that that wasn’t the case.
In other words, I couldn’t reject the possibility that Nanase had some sort of latent problem like that. Then again, as of now, there was no guarantee that this year’s Class 1-D would fall under this same tendency.
In my opinion, I’m perfectly fine with someone having a few problems with their personality or sense of values. Even if I asked her to partner up with me or asked her to collaborate with me, the only thing that mattered was whether or not Nanase Tsubasa was on Tsukishiro’s side. Back when she was together with H?sen during our first meeting, she had looked at me with eyes that worried me a little, but… Now, those eyes were nowhere to be seen; Her gaze completely natural.
“Have you decided on your partner for this special exam yet?”
I decided to pick up the conversation in order to learn more about this person known as Nanase.
“Me? No, I haven’t decided on anyone yet.”
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