After explaining the basic rules, Kamio Tatsuya raised his hand. Mashima then asked, "Does anyone have any other questions?"
"I just thought of something," Kamio Tatsuya said. "Let's say one class is the first to be eliminated with a record of zero wins and four losses. Then let's say the second class is eliminated with one win and three losses.
"In that case, the two remaining classes might use up all their events without either of them reaching four losses. What happens then?"
It wasn't impossible.
Let's say that in the first round, Class A chooses one of its own events and loses to Class C. Then the other three classes continue choosing Class A, making it lose four matches in a row. In that case, Class A would be eliminated with zero wins and four losses.
Class B would have one win and zero losses, Class C would have two wins and zero losses, and Class D would have one win and zero losses.
Class A would have used up four events, leaving only four events for each of the other three classes.
Now, if Class B lost all four of its next matches, it would be eliminated with one win and four losses. Class C and Class D would both remain undefeated, with seven wins between them.
At that point, only six events would remain, and Class B would still have two events it had not used.
That could lead to a situation where the last two classes both had three losses. As for their wins, they would have thirteen between them.
In the worst case, Class C and Class D could end up with records of six wins and three losses, and seven wins and three losses. It would be difficult to decide who had actually lost, since their head-to-head record would be tied at three wins each. No matter which class was declared the loser, the other side would surely object.
So what would happen in that case?
They wouldn't keep using that ridiculous rule where the class with more wins is declared the winner, would they?
This extreme situation probably wouldn't happen, but what if it did?
What if Class D were directly eliminated with zero wins and four losses? In this exam, Class A and Class B, as the higher-ranked classes, could very well take points directly from Class D.
After Kamio Tatsuya roughly explained the situation, Mashima understood what he meant.
"Although the odds are very low, that could happen. If it does, we'll randomly choose one event from the eliminated class's events and use it as an official event."
Tch. So that meant none of the twenty events could be taken lightly?
Heh. There was no way Kamio Tatsuya would let things develop in that direction.
Besides, how terrible would you have to be to lose every single event? The events Class C had chosen were all ones they were good at. How could they possibly lose?
Of course, just because Kamio Tatsuya thought that way didn't mean everyone else did.
When he saw Ichinose and Kamuro's expressions, Kamio Tatsuya realized that the two of them seemed to be thinking exactly the same thing.
Good.
Go ahead and jump obediently into the trap I've already dug for you. The more events you have to defend, the harder it'll be for you to focus.
As for Ayanokouji, he still had that same dead expression. There was no way to tell what he was thinking.
"I don't have any more questions."
Since there were no further questions, Kamio Tatsuya and the others were told that they could leave. The students in the room then filed out of the multipurpose classroom.
"Please take care of me in this exam, Masumi, Ichinose, and Ayanokouji."
After leaving the multipurpose classroom, Kamio Tatsuya smiled and greeted the three of them.
"I should be the one saying that."
Ichinose was the first to respond. When she saw that Kamio Tatsuya would be acting as the commander, she had felt relieved because she wouldn't have to face Ryuen.
Kamio Tatsuya's strategies were also difficult to defend against, but compared with Ryuen, she still preferred having Kamio Tatsuya as her opponent.
"Tatsuya, did something happen to you? You seem a little different from before."
After Ichinose finished speaking, Kamuro looked at Kamio Tatsuya suspiciously.
"Do I?" Kamio Tatsuya rubbed his chin and pretended to think. "Maybe. I wasn't very interested in class battles before.
"But now, I want to help Class C rise to Class A."
The other three people present were left speechless.
He hadn't even been interested in class battles before, yet he had already caused them so much trouble. Now that he had a goal, who knew how much worse things would get?
"So you're saying you weren't using your full strength before?"
"Who knows?" Kamio Tatsuya smiled. "Anyway, you'd better do your best. This exam is pretty interesting, after all."
Ayanokouji agreed with that, though of course, it would be even better if the losers didn't have to leave school.
When they returned to their class, the students of Class C had already dispersed. Kamio Tatsuya had no idea whether they had managed to come up with anything useful.
After returning to the dormitory, Kamio Tatsuya began organizing everything he knew about the exam.
This exam would not be a series of one-on-one matches. It would be a free-for-all. Although Class D would follow his orders, depending on the situation, it wasn't impossible that Class A and Class B might join forces.
Besides, in a battle where he had to command the entire class, Kamio Tatsuya was limited to fighting with whatever abilities the class possessed.
Unfortunately, Class C's overall strength was not especially high. Although they had worked hard to make up for their shortcomings recently, they were still weaker than Class A and Class B.
No matter how skilled the commander was, victory was impossible if the soldiers were useless.
Fortunately, this exam would not be based entirely on academic ability. Since each class could choose events that suited its strengths, Class C still had a very good chance of winning.
Also, because this was a free-for-all and any class that lost four matches would be eliminated, they needed to prepare for defense as well as offense.
That made it important to understand the abilities of the students in each class—who was good at what and who was not.
So the first thing Kamio Tatsuya needed to do was figure out what his classmates were capable of.
He wasn't worried about that, though. As the person who truly controlled the class, there was no way Ryuen didn't know what each of his followers was good at.
If the king of a class didn't know the strengths of his subjects, he might as well step down and hand the position to someone more capable.
It was also important to find out what events Class A and Class B were preparing. They could only plan their defenses properly if they knew what weapons their opponents had.
According to the rules, they would not learn what events the other classes had prepared until the following week, and the exam itself would take place the week after that.
Under normal circumstances, they would have only one week to prepare their defenses.
But if they could find out ahead of time, they would have more time to practice defending against those events. They might not need it, but it was better to be prepared.
Depending on the situation, they could even spread false information to confuse their enemies.
Of course, they also had to guard against false information from the other side. Ichinose might not do something like that, but Kanzaki and Sakayanagi were absolutely capable of it.
Classes ended early again the next day. After school, Kamio Tatsuya attended Class C's strategy meeting for the first time.
"How are the event preparations going?" Kamio Tatsuya asked Ryuen, wanting to understand the current situation.
"What do you think Class C's advantage is?"
Our advantage…
Kamio Tatsuya rubbed his chin. "Well, we can fight?"
When it came to physical strength, the boys—Ryuen, Ishizaki, and Yamada—were all very strong. Besides them, Komiya and Kondo were also capable fighters.
Among the girls, Ibuki was pretty strong too. At the very least, she was a remarkably good fighter for a girl.
Wow. Class C really did feel like a gathering place for delinquents.
Most of these people also had average academic ability. Apart from fighting, they had almost no special talents.
So if they wanted to make use of these students, they had to include several fighting-related events.
"Heh. You've identified the problem accurately."
As he spoke, Ryuen handed him a notebook.
Kamio Tatsuya smiled and accepted it. When he opened it, the first page listed the events Ryuen had prepared for the exam:
Judo, karate, taekwondo, women's kickboxing, wrestling, and tag-team elimination matches.
How should he put it? This was so damn typical of Ryuen. You're planning to fight from beginning to end, aren't you?
The events themselves did not surprise Kamio Tatsuya. What surprised him was the final competition format—the tag-team elimination matches.
Actually, that format suited these events quite well. Except for women's kickboxing, which required only one participant, all the other events required multiple participants.
Judo required three people, karate required four, wrestling required two, and taekwondo required five.
That made sense. If too many people had to compete, even Yamada might eventually run out of steam.
This was good, though. It meant they would have plenty of people left to handle the defense.
"What do you think?"
"I think it's fine." Kamio Tatsuya put the papers down. "We can figure out what Class A and Class B will choose without even using our brains."
"Heh. They'll probably choose nothing but written tests. Compared with us, that's the only weapon they have left."
Ryuen's voice was full of contempt.
Unfortunately, Kamio Tatsuya thought the same thing.
Class A might choose a few athletic events, but as far as he knew, no one in Class B had any particular specialties.
Kamio Tatsuya continued turning the pages, looking at the notes Ryuen had written about each student's strengths and weaknesses.
Every student in the class except Kamio Tatsuya was included—all thirty-nine of them—and the information was extremely detailed.
As expected, this guy knew his classmates' abilities inside and out.
Kamio Tatsuya nodded to himself. With this information, he already knew exactly how to assign everyone.
Once he had confirmed the students' abilities and the basic strategy for the exam, Kamio Tatsuya took Ryuen's notebook and walked up to the podium.
"Now I'll explain the events our class has prepared."
As he spoke, Kamio Tatsuya wrote down the names of five events. Looking at his handwriting, he nodded to himself.
I didn't know my chalk writing was this good.
"Women's kickboxing requires one participant. Our opponents will only be Class A and Class B. Class B's Kamuro Masumi is their commander. As for everyone else… Ibuki, you can handle it, right?"
Ibuki froze for a moment when Kamio Tatsuya called on her. She quickly recovered and glared at him from the podium.
"Who are you looking down on!? Put me in the match and I'll win!"
"Good. Then it's you."
"Let's see. Next is wrestling, which requires two participants. Let me think…" Kamio Tatsuya scanned the classroom before his eyes landed on a man with his hand raised. "Ishizaki, you can do it, right?"
"Of course! Even if I had to fight two people at once, I'd have no problem!"
Ishizaki looked extremely excited after being chosen.
"I wasn't saying you had to fight two people at once." Kamio Tatsuya smiled, then turned around and wrote a few words on the blackboard.
Tag-team elimination matches.
"All five of Class C's events will use tag-team elimination matches. Fighting several people at once might cause problems, but in one-on-one matches, Ishizaki, I'm sure you're confident, right?"
The students of Class C finally understood.
So that was the plan.
No wonder Ishizaki's teammate was a weakling who wasn't good at sports. That was the whole point.
"But will the school really allow elimination matches?"
"If it's a simple contest or a ball game, probably not. But in competitive sports like karate and judo, elimination matches are very common.
"Even if one or two events are rejected because they might be too dangerous, I have backup plans ready. In any case, you don't need to worry about the events."
Most of the students in the class breathed a sigh of relief, but some were still worried.
"But what if we run into Ayanokouji from Class D…?"
That was true. If they faced Ayanokouji, they would be in trouble. That guy really had a record of defeating four opponents by himself.
"He's Class D's commander. You don't need to worry about him."
This time, most of the students in Class C relaxed.
That was good.
In reality, Ayanokouji was not the only person they needed to watch out for. There was also Kito Hayato from Class B.
Just looking at his face, he seemed like someone who was very good at fighting. They absolutely couldn't let their guard down against him.
After Kamio Tatsuya finished explaining, the students of Class C quieted down and waited for the next event to be announced.
"Next is taekwondo, which requires three participants. Who wants to volunteer?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Kondo, Komiya, and several others raised their hands. Kamio Tatsuya nodded and wrote the names of Kondo, Komiya, and Yamasaki next to taekwondo.
Next was karate, which required four participants. The main fighters would be Suzuki Hidetoshi and Ryuen Kakeru. For the remaining two spots, he casually picked two students who were not especially capable.
Finally came judo. The obvious ace was Yamada Albert. As for the other four, well, they just needed to let themselves be carried by him. They weren't good for much else.
That assigned fifteen students to events.
The commander's rule for all five events was simple: the commander could invalidate one match and have it played again.
This rule gave the events some room for error.
Even if someone was caught off guard and lost unexpectedly, they would have another chance.
"We'll arrange things this way for now, but something unexpected could happen on the day of the exam. If the actual situation doesn't match these assignments, don't panic."
Kamio Tatsuya gave the students below a warning in advance.
At that moment, a girl raised her hand. It was Manabe Shiho.
"Um, Kamio, we've decided on all the events, but what about the rest of us? Even if we aren't good at fighting, we should still be able to help, right?"
Kamio Tatsuya glanced at Manabe and immediately understood what she was thinking.
Heh. This girl was worried that she might not be useful.
Was she afraid that if she couldn't contribute and another exam involving a class vote came up, she would be finished?
Kamio Tatsuya looked at the students below. Manabe was not the only one who seemed worried. Several other students had similar expressions.
Class C's train was picking up speed, and everyone could see that entering Class A's territory was only a matter of time. No one wanted to be left behind.
Everyone wanted to do something for the class. Otherwise, they might really be abandoned.
It was entirely possible that another exam requiring someone to leave school would appear in the future, so everyone felt they had to start planning ahead.
"As for the rest of you, spend this week reviewing your first-year subjects. Class A and Class B will probably prepare events similar to written tests. When the time comes, I'll be counting on you to defend against them."
After Kamio Tatsuya said this, the students in the class immediately looked miserable.
They had thought the final exams were over, but now they had to study again.
That was seriously giving them a headache.
Still, no one complained. In fact, some of them were excited. Among the students Kamio Tatsuya had chosen for the fighting events, only Suzuki Hidetoshi had good grades.
That meant most of Class C's best students academically were being left behind to fight in their own area of expertise. Naturally, they were happy about that.
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