Chris stifled a yawn and pushed open the back door of the classroom. The moment he glanced up, his gaze came to a halt.
The usual delinquent trio — the three most academically hopeless students in the class, Sudou Ken, Yamauchi Haruto, and Ikebe Koji — were actually sitting quietly at their own desks.
Not only that, each of them had their phone propped up in front of them, furiously copying down the contents of the Horikita study notes Chris had uploaded the previous night into their own notebooks, pens flying.
Watching them scribble away like their lives depended on it, you'd almost think they were model students cramming for the University of Tokyo entrance exams.
'Huh...'
Chris thought to himself.
'I guess people really do rise to the occasion when there's a gun to their heads.'
"Looks like those notes are earning their keep."
Horikita Suzune had stepped into the classroom at almost exactly the same moment as Chris, and she'd caught the same scene. Standing there with her arms folded across her chest as usual, the faint, almost imperceptible nod she gave was enough to betray her true mood:
"As long as they can keep this sense of urgency alive, Class D will turn itself around before long."
"Easy to say."
Chris made his way to his seat and tossed out a casual question:
"By the way, Horikita — that thing I brought up with you at the library a while back. How far along are you with it?"
Horikita turned her head to look at him, clearly not placing what he was referring to right away.
Chris rapped his knuckles against the desk and gave her a hint: "The midterm exam... the answers."
Horikita's brow furrowed instantly.
"I've already abandoned that idea. At this point, I don't need something like that anymore."
"Why?" Chris was mildly surprised.
"People only find the will to work when their backs are against the wall — when the pain becomes real and personal."
Horikita glanced over at the trio still frantically copying notes:
"They've only just managed to get their act together. If I hand them a shortcut like a cheat sheet right now, I wouldn't just be crushing the resilience they're barely beginning to build — I'd be spitting in the face of the effort they're putting in at this very moment."
"I'll use my own methods to get them through the exam on genuine merit."
It was a thoroughly principled declaration.
The only problem being — this was not a large classroom.
Ikebe Koji, who hadn't exactly been hanging on every word, caught a certain keyword drifting past him in the conversation.
His head snapped up:
"Answers?! What answers?! Horikita, do you have the answers to the midterm?!"
Horikita fixed him with a cold, flat look:
"Chris suggested earlier that I find an upperclassman and purchase last year's midterm questions and answer key — so that you dead-weight slackers could just memorize everything and skate through the exam."
"Huh?!"
Yamauchi Haruto's jaw practically unhinged: "You can actually do that?! Buy old exam papers?! A-and the answer key?! Did you get them?! Did you?!"
Sudou Ken, who had been nursing a quiet grudge against Chris up until this point, was visibly moved.
"Chris! So you've been looking out for everyone behind that ice-cold front this whole time... you're a real stand-up guy, man! I had you all wrong — I owe you a real apology! I'm sorry, seriously, I'm SO sorry!!"
Watching all three of them instantly revert to their true colors.
Horikita let out a cold laugh:
"Of course I didn't get them."
"Setting aside the fact that it's been an entire semester — there's no guarantee last year's answers would even align with this year's exam. But more to the point, given the attitude the three of you have been showing just now, I believe that if you keep it up, you won't need those answers at all."
With that, she turned away from the trio without another word and walked straight back to her seat.
"Huh?!"
The problem trio stared blankly at one another.
After a moment of stunned silence, all three let out simultaneous groans and slammed their foreheads down against their wooden desks, producing a series of dull, hollow thuds.
"Why is our luck so absolutely rotten?!"
"Why do we have to suffer like this just to get through high school?! We don't wanna die!!"
Chris shook his head at the unfolding spectacle.
He turned to Horikita, who had just retaken her seat, and asked:
"Didn't you go see Student Council President Horikita before? Since your wounded pride apparently stopped you from getting the answers — couldn't you at least have taken one step back and asked about the specific format of the midterm?"
"What if this school does something unusual with the exam structure? Without knowing in advance, even if your notes are flawless, we could still easily get caught off guard."
At the mention of "Horikita" — her brother — Horikita Suzune visibly stiffened. The surrounding air seemed to drop two degrees.
But the question Chris had asked this time was genuinely pointed, and impossible to dismiss.
She forced down her irritation and frowned slightly:
"Special format?"
Chris was still giving her the look of someone watching a person miss something blindingly obvious.
At that moment, Karuizawa Kei walked in alongside Matsushita Chiaki, surrounded by a cluster of girls all laughing and chatting.
Chris's gaze drifted past them in a casual sweep — and landed right on Karuizawa Kei just as she stepped through the door.
It made her heart jump.
'He's looking at me? That expression... what does it mean?'
Is he trying to signal something? No, wait — he seemed to be talking to Horikita just now...
She turned it over in her head for a while and couldn't figure out what Chris was trying to communicate. To cover her flustered state, she made a show of turning to Matsushita Chiaki beside her and casually asking:
"Hey, Chiaki — I thought I saw Chabashira-sensei heading toward our classroom in the hallway just now. Was that her?"
Matsushita Chiaki gave a small nod:
"Yeah, I saw her too. But she doesn't have a class with us this morning..."
"She's probably here about that test this afternoon."
As if on cue.
Chabashira Sae strode in, heels clicking, a stack of documents tucked under one arm, expression completely unreadable.
She swept the classroom with a brief, practiced glance.
Then she extended one curled finger and tapped it twice, lightly, against the blackboard.
Tap. Tap.
Once everyone had drifted back to their seats and was watching her with nervous attention, she spoke:
"Since we're mostly all here, I'll use the time before class to fill you in on the specifics of this afternoon's Preliminary Test."
Every person in the room felt their heart climb straight up into their throat.
"This test is called 'Club K.'"
"Each class must select four representatives before four o'clock this afternoon."
Chabashira's gaze swept across the room:
"This time, there will be no system-enforced random selection. In other words, every one of you has the opportunity to volunteer. Of course, Chris — as a permanently eligible participant — does not count toward these four slots."
"Additionally, the single slot for tonight's official Special Exam remains unchanged. Both rosters must be submitted to me before four o'clock."
She paused, deliberately letting a few seconds of silence hang in the air.
What mildly surprised her was this:
In the past, the moment she announced something life-threatening like this, these defective students would immediately erupt — wailing, complaining, crying about unfairness.
But today, even as the faces of Class D's students went pale and drawn, they all remained sitting properly at their desks. Not a single one was screaming or talking out of turn the way they had right at the very beginning.
'It seems that confronting genuine fear head-on — combined with the existence of those two anomalies, Chris and Ayanokoji...
Maybe this Class D of mine really can go further than any class before it.'
With that thought, Chabashira decided to spare them a little patience today.
"Any final questions?"
The classroom fell quiet.
After a moment, Matsushita Chiaki raised her hand and broke the silence:
"Sensei, I'd like to ask... why did the school send a system message to certain specific students this morning?"
"The notification said 'Resurrection Count reduced by one'... what exactly does that mean?"
Chabashira's brow creased slightly at the question.
But then, as if she found the whole thing almost amusing, a thin smile tugged at the corner of her mouth:
"The school made it perfectly clear on your first day — this institution operates under a fully sealed, residential system. All unofficial contact with the outside world is strictly prohibited."
"During the previous crisis, some of you attempted to violate that rule."
"Under normal circumstances, per school regulations, conduct of that kind results in immediate expulsion."
"However, taking the unusual nature of the situation into consideration, the school chose to be lenient — it did not directly classify those individuals as 'uninvited participants' and leave them to fend for themselves."
"But breaking the rules still requires a penalty."
"So the school has decided to deduct one Resurrection Count — within the Black Sphere Space — from those who violated the rules. That is the price of their transgression."
Matsushita Chiaki fell into silence.
Though she herself had been careful enough not to be among those penalized.
In her peripheral vision, however, Karuizawa Kei, Mori Ninini, Sato Maya, and several others had gone deathly pale — their bodies trembling faintly.
There was no question about it. In the initial wave of panic, far too many students had instinctively reached for their phones, desperately trying to reach the outside world.
Most had assumed that since no punishment came at the time, the whole matter had simply been buried and forgotten.
Nobody could have imagined the school coming back to settle the score this much later.
Faced with the sudden, suffocating silence that had descended over the classroom.
Chabashira didn't spare a single thought for whether any of these students' mental defenses were crumbling.
She glanced at the clock on the wall and issued her final ultimatum:
"The roster of four students for the Preliminary Test, and the one student for tonight's Special Exam. Decide among yourselves and have it to me before four o'clock."
"I won't be waiting."
With that, she turned on her heel — click, click, click — and walked out.
With the homeroom teacher gone.
The suppressed tension in the classroom finally gave way, spilling over into a rising tide of murmurs and complaints.
"You've got to be kidding me! We get penalized just for making a phone call?!"
"This school is playing with our lives! How can they just strip away our Resurrection Counts in the Black Sphere like it means nothing?!"
There was resentment toward the school's heavy-handed authority. There were bitter curses aimed at Chabashira Sae's cold indifference.
But notably — not a single person dared to complain about the Black Sphere itself, hanging directly overhead.
No choice, really.
That thing was the most dangerous, the most irrational, and the one force they had absolutely zero leverage against.
What if the sphere had thin skin and decided to make things personal once it caught wind of their grumbling?
After all, Ayanokoji right there in the same classroom — selected three consecutive times — was a living, breathing cautionary tale.
Don't poke that thing. You truly, genuinely just don't.
During the break between classes.
As the noise level climbed back toward normal.
Hirata Yousuke stepped briskly up to the front of the room, clapped his hands, and called out:
"Everyone, listen up!"
"The Preliminary Test this time isn't system-enforced random selection — but it still requires four people. No way around it."
"And based on everything we all witnessed in the upperclassmen's exam... the Special Exam tonight is almost certainly going to be significantly harder."
Hirata took a deep breath and laid the truth plainly on the table:
"Last weekend, Ayanokoji-kun was forcibly pulled into the upperclassmen's exam. He witnessed firsthand the kind of monsters capable of nearly wiping out an entire class of upperclassmen..."
"That level of threat will very likely appear in our exam tonight."
"So... is there anyone willing to step up and take on the responsibility of tonight's Special Exam?"
Dead silence from below.
Nobody was willing to walk into what could be a death sentence — not even with the Combat Suit as bait.
After a brief pause, Horikita Suzune closed the book in her hands:
"I'll do it."
As Chabashira had been announcing the rules just moments ago, an unbidden thought had surfaced in Horikita's mind.
'Brother... when he told me to withdraw back then, was it because he genuinely thought I had no worth — or was it some roundabout way of protecting me? Trying to keep me out of a spiral like this one?'
Horikita Suzune couldn't quite shake the doubt, her thoughts momentarily unsettled.
But compared to unraveling her brother's true intentions, an opportunity to prove her own abilities was — clearly — more immediately pressing.
So she pressed that uncertainty quietly back down.
With the most critical single slot resolved.
Hirata Yousuke picked up the blank sign-up sheet Chabashira had left on the podium and swept his gaze across the class:
"Then — the four slots for the Preliminary Test?"
"Fair warning: if you lose, you enter the main exam without a Combat Suit. It's every bit as dangerous."
At that moment.
Koenji Rokusuke — sitting in the corner by the window, having just confirmed on his phone one final time that his family truly had no way to intervene — finally accepted the reality that he, too, was a lamb headed for slaughter.
If resistance was off the table, then he would face it with absolute style.
"Heh heh... for a stage like this — one that calls for the display of true ability — how could it possibly go on without a being of my perfection?"
Koenji swept a strand of hair away from his forehead:
"The Preliminary Test — I'll take it."
With someone stepping forward first, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka raised his hand:
"Add me."
Hirata Yousuke filled in two names on the sheet, then wrote his own in the third slot:
"That makes me number three. Anyone willing to fill the final spot?"
One slot left.
Matsushita Chiaki watched the hesitating faces up at the front, her gaze flickering with something unspoken.
She was quietly weighing whether to use this opportunity to get a closer look at the inner workings of the Black Sphere exam.
Then, from the back rows, a few boys were already starting to grumble loudly:
"Come on — us guys have already put up three people, and even the main exam slot is going to Horikita!"
"Shouldn't the girls contribute something? You can't just hide at the back and let us cover for you every single time, can you?"
Watching Karuizawa Kei open her mouth and then stop herself, Sato Maya bristled — she was already half out of her seat, ready to fight back on behalf of the girls.
To prevent a class civil war from breaking out before the exam had even started.
Matsushita Chiaki sighed, and raised her hand just before Sato Maya could detonate:
"Alright, stop arguing. The last slot — I'll take it."
Karuizawa Kei's head jerked up. Matsushita Chiaki's expression was perfectly calm — she clearly wasn't joking.
Karuizawa wanted to say something — ask if she'd completely lost her mind — but the words never made it out.
Because Sato Maya, robbed of her moment, had already turned her fire squarely on the boys who'd been talking the loudest:
"See that?! A pack of cowards who can't even own up to their own fear, just sitting there taking passive-aggressive digs at everyone!"
"If you're scared, just say so! Why all the snide remarks?! Do you think everyone is as gutless and pathetic as you lot?!"
Being publicly humiliated like that, Yamauchi Haruto felt his pride flare and snapped back indignantly:
"You're so loud about it — so how come YOU didn't volunteer just now?! Drop the righteous act!"
Karuizawa Kei, hearing that, gritted her teeth and made a snap decision:
"Fine! I'll take a slot in the next test! You coming with me or not?!"
Sato Maya blinked at Karuizawa, clearly not having anticipated the sudden outburst.
"You — !"
Yamauchi Haruto was momentarily at a loss for words.
But under the combined stare of Ikebe Koji and Sudou Ken sitting on either side of him — a stare that communicated 'don't you dare back down, bro' —
He had no choice but to puff up his chest and shout back:
"If you're going, I'm going! Who's scared of who?!"
And so, amid all the bickering and noise.
Class D's Preliminary Test roster was finalized.
As for Kushida Kikyo — who had three extra lives to burn through?
She had remained beautifully invisible throughout the entire proceedings, and now that the dust had finally settled, she glided smoothly into the conversation, doing exactly what she did best:
"Alright, alright, everyone calm down~"
"Whether you're headed into the Preliminary Test or unlucky enough to end up as an uninvited participant — in a crisis like this, all we have is each other!"
"There's really no need for any of this to damage the class's bond. If anything, this is exactly when we should be pulling closer together~"
All you could say was — nobody worked a room quite like she did.
Even Chris was struggling to keep a straight face.
Right at that moment, his phone buzzed.
A private LINE message from Ichinose Honami.
She was asking him to meet on the rooftop at noon — she wanted to use the window before the exam to put in one more round of sword training.
With the Combat Suit's enhancements, Ichinose had reached the point where her blade could cut through virtually anything — easily capable of going one-on-one against Parasytes or ape-type monsters and coming out on top. But against Goto or Yakigi Sorao, it was still too close to call; she was stuck in that frustrating middle ground — not quite able to close the gap, but far from out of the fight.
Without sustained, consistent training — without any system-granted edge — real, lasting improvement wasn't going to come quickly.
But Chris had no intention of discouraging her effort.
Regardless of outcome — a girl who kept pushing herself for the sake of protecting others, who gritted her teeth and refused to give up no matter how hard it got...
In the moments when she was giving everything she had, there was always something radiant about her. Wasn't there?
[No problem.]
Chris tapped out a quick reply.
— End of Chapter —
____
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