In books, the main character of the story is always guaranteed to win. But what happens in a battle of wits when a man who already knows the future fights a super-genius who can calculate a completely flawless strategy—and the author refuses to help either of them? If nobody has plot armor to keep them safe, who is going to lose?
Only the cold, unforgiving logic of Mathematics will calculate the victor.
But before that epic clash of minds could happen, the board had to be set. Long before Mark possessed the meta-knowledge to challenge a flawless mastermind, he was just a teenager desperately searching the shelves for a distraction from his own failing life.
The rain hit the pavement in heavy, rhythmic drops, mirroring the dull pounding in Mark's head.
He was first year high school, standing outside the local bookstore with a damp backpack and a failing grade in mathematics. The midterms were exactly three days away.
If he failed, he would be held back a year. His parents had given him enough cash to buy a highly recommended study guide, a thick, boring manual meant to force formulas into his average brain.
Mark walked through the glass doors. The smell of old paper and coffee washed over him. He wiped the rain from his face and walked toward the educational section. But he never made it to the study guides.
On an endcap display, catching the fluorescent light, was a stack of light novels. The title printed in bold, silver letters read:
'Welcome to the High School of Meritocracy.'
Mark stopped. He didn't know why, but he picked up the first volume.
The cover art featured a girl standing against a sterile, white classroom background. She had flat dark reddish-brown hair and a neutral, almost blank expression.
At first glance, she looked like a background character, someone completely ordinary who wouldn't stand out in a crowd.
But as Mark looked closer, he noticed the intense, mathematical symmetry of her features. Her eyes were cold, sharp, and entirely devoid of panic. She looked like someone who had never lost control of a situation in her life.
Her name, according to the back cover, was Reine Asakura.
Mark looked at the price tag. It was exactly the amount of money his parents had given him for the math guide. He looked back at the cold, calculating eyes of the girl on the cover. He walked to the cashier, handed over the money, and took the novel home.
He didn't sleep that night. He read Volume 1 from cover to cover for 2 days over the weekend. Then he read it again.
Reine Asakura was a revelation. She was a high school student in a ruthless, point-based academy, but she didn't win through the power of friendship or luck. She won because she treated life like a data set, stripping away emotion, analyzed the rules, and manipulated the board from the shadows.
Three days later, Mark sat at his desk in the silent classroom. The math midterm was placed face down in front of him.
The bell rang. Mark flipped the paper over.
The numbers blurred together. It was a calculus problem he hadn't studied for. His chest tightened.
The familiar wave of panic, the exact feeling that always led to him failing, started to rise in his throat. He gripped his pencil until his knuckles turned white.
He closed his eyes, taking a slow, deep breath. He pictured the cover of the novel. He pictured the flat, cold stare of the girl who treated everything as a simple equation.
If Reine were facing this kind of problem, assuming she has no knowledge of the syllabus, what would she do?
The panic stopped. It was like a switch had been flipped in his brain.
Reine wouldn't panic over an unsolved equation. She would look at the structure of the test itself.
Mark opened his eyes and looked at the multiple-choice options. He didn't know the exact formula, but he noticed a pattern.
Two of the answers were statistically impossible based on the absolute values provided in the first line. He crossed them out. He looked at the remaining two, substituted the baseline numbers, and found the contradiction in option C.
He circled D. Then he moved to the next question. He didn't let frustration cloud his judgment and treated the exam not as a test of knowledge, but as a puzzle of probability and elimination.
When the teacher handed back the math midterms a week later, Mark sat quietly at his desk and stared at the red ink on the top right corner of the paper. He didn't score a perfect hundred because he wasn't a genius but he scored an 82. It was a solid, calculated pass. It was the highest grade he had ever received in the subject.
The classroom around him was loud with students complaining or bragging about their scores, but
Mark tuned out the biological noise. He reached into his damp backpack, pulled out the first volume of "Welcome to the High School of Meritocracy," and placed it flat on his desk right next to the exam.
He looked down at the cover, staring directly into the flat, cold amber eyes of Reine Asakura. She stared back from the glossy paper, completely unbothered, her expression a perfect mask of control.
Mark sat there in the middle of the chaotic room and realized something fundamental. He didn't need to be born a genius and he didn't need to naturally understand the equations of the world. He just needed to borrow the processing power of someone who did.
Reine Asakura became his inspiration.
---
One year had passed.
The dirt path crumbled under the rubber soles of his sneakers. The air was thick with the smell of damp pine needles and rotting wood.
It was supposed to be a simple nature hike for the second-year students. A structured, supervised walk through the prefectural park.
But someone took a wrong turn.
Mark stood near the base of a huge, moss-covered tree. He wiped a streak of dirty sweat from his forehead. His legs ached. Around him, the remaining five students in his assigned group were rapidly descending into a complete panic.
The sun was dipping dangerously low behind the mountain ridge. The shadows stretched long and black across the forest floor.
"I told you this wasn't the trail!" Merry cried. She dropped her backpack onto the dirt and buried her face in her hands. "We're going to freeze out here!"
Joshua, the self-appointed leader of their small group, kicked a loose rock into the brush. He held his smartphone high in the air, desperately pacing in a tight circle.
"Shut up, Merry! I'm trying to get a bar of service!" Joshua yelled. He smacked the side of his phone against his palm. "There's zero signal. Nothing. The GPS is completely dead."
A boy named Arnold grabbed Joshua's shoulder. "You said you knew a shortcut to the suspension bridge! You led us down that steep ravine an hour ago!"
"Don't touch me!" Joshua shoved him back violently. "You followed me! Nobody told you to follow me!"
As Mark watched the argument escalate, his chest felt tight. A cold, heavy knot formed right in the pit of his stomach.
He was just a regular teenager. He didn't know survival skills and he didn't know how to navigate by the stars. The temperature was already dropping rapidly, and the reality of spending a freezing night lost in a dense, hostile forest was terrifying. His breathing grew shallow and his hands shook slightly.
He crouched down by the roots of the tree and unzipped his cheap canvas backpack. His throat was completely dry. He just wanted a drink of water to force the panic down.
As he pushed aside a crumpled wind-resistant jacket in his bag, his fingers brushed against a smooth, glossy surface right at the bottom of the bag.
It wasn't his water bottle.
He pulled the fabric back. Resting flat against his spare notebooks was the very first volume of "Welcome to the High School of Meritocracy."
He had bought it a year ago. Since then, he carried it everywhere.
Mark stopped digging. Not pulling the book out. He just stared at the printed ink.
A slow, deep breath filled his lungs and the shaking in his hands stopped.
If Reine were standing in this forest, what would she do?
The frantic noise of Joshua and Arnold shouting at each other faded into the background. His mind shifted gears. The panic dissolved, replaced by a cold, mechanical clarity.
She wouldn't cry, Mark thought, keeping his eyes on the book cover. She wouldn't waste calories yelling at an idiot who got them lost. Instead, she would assess the board and look at the terrain and the available pawns.
Mark's gaze shifted past the book. Crushed into the bottom corner of his bag was a neon-orange rain poncho. A highly visible asset. He zipped the canvas shut and got to his feet.
He looked at the immediate environment. They were trapped in a deep, narrow ravine. The tree canopy overhead was incredibly thick, blocking out most of the sky.
If the teachers send a search party, they will use flashlights and whistles. If we stay down here, the thick trees will block the light. The acoustics of the ravine will muffle the sound. We are completely invisible.
They needed to move to higher ground. They needed an exposed ridge.
But he couldn't just tell them to climb.
I am a nobody, Mark calculated quietly. We are not that close yet. If I give an order, Joshua will reject it just to protect his own bruised ego. He will definitely argue. He will force everyone to stay here out of spite.
He needed Joshua to move the group. He needed to plant the idea directly into the loudest fool's head.
Mark walked toward the edge of the clearing. He kept his shoulders slouched and dragged his feet slightly, playing the part of a terrified, helpless student.
He spotted a broken, dried tree branch resting on a flat stone. He stepped squarely onto the wood.
Crack.
The sharp sound echoed in the quiet ravine.
Joshua spun around, his face flushed with anger. "What are you doing? Stand still!"
Mark flinched backward, perfectly simulating fear. He raised a shaking finger and pointed toward the top of the steep, rocky incline.
"I... I thought I saw something!"