April 15th, Monday
It was the third week of school. The students slowly tested the boundaries of the school by breaking rules one by one. To their surprise, they found none.
Most people made groups during the class, playing games, reading manga, gossiping, and many other things. There were only a few students like Hirata, Horikita, and Yukimura who came on time and actually studied.
Well, not like I was complaining. Thanks to that, I got plenty of free time to complete my daily missions.
While walking towards my class, I mentally commanded, "Status."
[Name: Yamauchi Haruki
Physical stats:
Stamina - 75 (-10)
Strength - 73 (-10)
Combat technique - 70 (-10)
Average physical stats - 72.67 (-10)
Mental stats:
Academic ability - 94
Memorisation power - 93
Critical thinking - 164
Average mental stats - 117
Available points: 0
Abilities:
(A Grade) Eye of Jealousy, (C- Grade) Intermediate cook.
Disabilities:
Memory lock, Weakness]
I sighed. Although I planned to focus on physical stats, I couldn't increase them as quickly as my mental stats. Not only because the tasks were really demanding for my body, but also because exceeding them meant sacrificing my free time. To top it off, the tasks kept getting gradually more difficult and time-consuming as the stats increased.
While I had plenty of free time in classes, I obviously couldn't exercise there. So most of that time was spent reading novels, which had really increased my critical thinking and had me gotten quite close to Hiyori, too.
Due to that, I mostly had to spend all my available points on physical stats. The progress was, of course, really good when compared to normal people, but that didn't take away much of my disappointment.
Anyways, tomorrow I would achieve a big breakthrough since my average physical stats would cross 75 and my 10-pointer penalty would get removed. I had sacrificed my free time for today, and also came late to the class for the first time.
When I entered the class, it was the end of the second period, and the whole class was covered in murmurs. Apparently, Hirata and Karuizawa Kei had become the first couple of our class.
And there were all kinds of rumours going on about them. And the source of it all was my friend, Ike, along with his gang.
Soon, the bell rang and Chabashira came in. It turned out today was a surprise test, though she assured us that its results wouldn't be shown in the report card.
Although my academic stats should normally have been below average, I was confident I would get in the top 15. That was because I had found one of the school's secrets. With the help of my skill [Eye of Jealousy] and spreadsheets, I had probably the most accurate data about most of the students in my year.
Just as I was thinking about that, a screen appeared in front of me.
[Mission: 'Ace the test.'
Description: Get in the top 5 for the test in your class.
Difficulty: A-
Rewards:
New ability - [(B Grade) Gifted]
+30 available points
Penalty: None]
…Another near-impossible mission. Koenji, Hiarta, Ayanokoji, Yukimura, and Horikita could easily grab the first 5 spots. To top it off, there were students like Matsushita, Mii-chan, and Kushida who were also far more academically ahead than I was.
The rewards seemed quite tempting too, even though I knew nothing about the ability, just 30 points could really boost my stats.
Anyways, the test had 20 questions, each of 5 marks. The whole test was really easy, except for the last 3 questions about which I didn't understand a thing. So without hesitation, I skipped all three of them and smoothly completed all other questions.
———
Thanks to my cooking club friends and Hiyori, I had visited all four classes a few times and had stats of all 160 students in my year.
Excluding the top few students, my class's average academic ability stood at a shameful 88. Class C at 97, class B at 141 and class A at 148. The students were sorted into classes with respect to their academic stats.
Although this wasn't very rare, I was still not exactly sure about it. Because there were students like Hirata, Koenji, Horikita, Ayanokoji and Yukimura in my class who all had more academic stats higher than I could detect. There were also Hiyori in class C and Kanzaki in class B, all of which should have easily made it to class A. More to that, there were a couple of students dumber than the average of our class in class A.
In fact, Koenji, Ayanokoji, Horikita, Kanzaki and Ichinose are the only ones in our year who still have all their stats higher than I could detect.
"Hey Ayanokoji, did you solve the last three questions?" I asked.
"Uh, no, not really. I just skipped them because I didn't understand anything." He said with his usual tone.
Oh well, if he didn't get them, then I have a long way before I can even hope to understand them.
"This test was really weird. All the questions except the last three were at a middle school level. While the last three were maybe even university-level questions. I managed to solve one of them, though."
Ayanokoji's neighbour, Horikita, spoke up. Well, it wasn't impossible for her to solve it. I didn't know the difference between Ayanokoji and her skill level, so it could be possible.
"I know, right? Until I saw the last three questions, I thought I would ace the test. It's quite impressive that you managed to solve even one of those, really."
"By the way, Yamauchi, what suddenly happened to you? When I heard your introduction on the first day, you were like a totally different person." Ayanokoji spoke with a slightly curious expression.
This guy… he still had to go ahead and remember that, didn't he? Why couldn't he just go around and memorise some of these questions instead?
"Ughh… well, I don't know what kind of ghost possessed me that day, to be honest. It almost felt as if I was drunk and kept saying whatever got into my mind." I said, scratching the back of my head.
Sadly, I couldn't find a better lie than that, but not like it would matter much.
"Hey Ayanokoji-kun, Yamauchi- kun and Horikita-san! What are you guys talking about?" Kushida joined in our conversation.
This girl was perhaps the most popular one in our whole year. The only one who even came close to her was probably Honami Ichinose, as I had heard from Kaito.
Kushida was strangely attracted to Ayanokoji and Horikita, though it was likely because of the latter one. She was one of the few people who didn't share her contact with anyone and hadn't even joined the class group. The only other two being Koenji and Sakura Airi.
Horikita glared at her with her crimson red eyes. If looks could kill, the whole school would have been massacred by now.
"Nothing of your concern, you don't need to interrupt." She said in a ruthless tone.
Horikita was known for being rude to anyone who tried to approach her, but she seemed to specifically hate Kushida a lot more for some reason.
"It was you who interrupted the conversation between me and Yamauchi, though," Ayanokoji spoke casually.
Hearing that, Horikita grew silent for some time, seemingly left without any response. Eventually, she just grabbed her bag and stood up.
"Hmph, whatever. I don't want to waste any more of my time here." She replied, walking away.
"Uh… what's wrong with her?" I asked, glancing at Ayanokoji.
"Oh, I am sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted," Kushida said in a sad tone. "Anyways, I am going to hang out and check out the school campus with some of our classmates. Would you two like to join?
Noticing an awkward moment, she quickly changed the topic. Since I had already completed my tasks, I had no reason to decline.
After hesitating a bit, even Ayanokoji agreed.
Soon me, Ayanokoji, Ike, Kushida, Hirata, Karuizawa, Matsushita, and Mori were leaving the lobby.
The whole time, Karuizawa hung closely to Hirata, not making any effort to hide their relationship. While Hirata seemed a bit embarrassed, he didn't stop her. This made Ike rant all the time in a low voice, only heard by me and Ayanokoji.
I glanced at the brown haired girl with blue eyes. Despite being one of the top students in class, she mixed well with everyone and wasn't really as famous as someone of her league would be.
[Name: Chiaki Matsushita
Class: 1-D
Physical stats:
Stamina - 139
Strength - 135
Combat technique - ??
Average physical stats - ??
Mental stats:
Academic ability - ??
Memorisation power - ??
Critical thinking - 319
Average mental stats - ??]
If I had to say, she was a bit similar to Ayanokoji. Though she did represent her emotions and personality much more than him, neither of them seemed the type to want to attract attention. More to that, after the only three unknowns of my class, Ayanokoji, Koenji, and Horikita, she easily grabbed the fourth spot and was hiding her abilities.
"Kushida-chan, do you have a boyfriend?" Ike suddenly asked after glancing at Kei hugging Hirata's arm.
"Me? No, I am not dating anyone." Kushida replied, as if she had already expected this question.
Ike was so relieved and happy upon hearing that, and made no efforts to hide his grin.
"By the way, do we have any specific location to go to, or are we just checking out the campus?" I asked, changing the topic.
Suddenly, there was an awkward silence in the group. For a moment I thought I had asked something wrong, but then I realised that they simply hadn't planned anything.
In the end, we went to a clothes shop where Karuizawa spent more than 30k of her private points in one go, while most of us were just looking around. Ike wanted to buy some clothes too, but he was already low on balance.
Thinking about it, I took out my phone and glanced at my private points. It read: 46,790. I had cut down on all the expenses I could, since I wanted to buy the laptop next month, I would only have 10k more points for other things.
After that, we went to a nearby cafe and spent quite some time talking about the school's functioning and comparing our life in school to before. All in all, everyone agreed that the school was a complete paradise, in one way or the other.
I had my fair share of doubts about the school dividing students based on something into different classes, but in the end, that didn't matter. Why? Well, we all got the same amount of private points and were also promised a guaranteed position in any job or college. What else would one ask from a high school, right?