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Time flew by, and soon it was the day of the midterm exam.
All the students in Class D, including Yamauchi and Ike, were eager, looking confident.
The reason was simple: they'd already memorized the second-year midterm exam papers by heart.
This included Sudo.
Although he didn't like studying much, memorizing the test papers was something he could do.
After all, failure meant expulsion.
Moreover, his two good friends, Yamauchi and Ike, under Kushida's instructions, had dragged him along to memorize the test papers.
In the third week, Akira specifically attended one of Kushida's study sessions, and Sudo was also there.
Kushida even made him specifically memorize English multiple-choice questions, which he did very skillfully, guaranteeing at least 50 points.
With a perfect score of 100 for one subject, Sudo's English score was guaranteed to pass.
Although this would lower the class's average score, at least he wouldn't be expelled for failing.
It's worth mentioning that the largest number of people attended Hirata's study session in the second month.
Akira thought about it, and this was probably because Yukimura's trio joined Hirata's side.
After all, Karuizawa's group had always been with Kushida, and given the unpleasant incidents between these two groups previously, this situation was quite natural.
This indirectly led to Kushida's side having three fewer spots and Hirata's side having three more.
Excluding Koenji and Horikita, who didn't join any study session, Hirata's side had 20 people, and Kushida's side had 18.
Therefore, Hirata was elected class representative for the second month.
At the time, Kushida smiled naturally on the surface, readily accepting the result.
But behind the scenes, she'd probably cursed him countless times.
Akira understood this kind of thinking very well. He knew her personality all too well.
Actually, to be fair, if it weren't for Karuizawa's four votes on the last day of the first month, Hirata should've been class representative in the first month.
And for the second month! This result was, in a sense, a normal development.
It's worth mentioning that Akira barely touched the ancient scrolls in the first few weeks.
After all, they were just first-year test papers, and his monthly exam scores, except for Japanese, were actually quite good in other subjects.
As for Japanese, since there wasn't much to do in the last two weeks, he'd been attending Horikita's study sessions.
He wasn't the only one attending the study sessions.
Shinohara and two or three other girls from the class had also come a few times.
These students had probably changed their opinion of Horikita because of her suggestion in the first month to find the person who lost the most points by checking the surveillance cameras.
Of course, besides that, there was no one else.
And later, these people also transferred to Hirata's and Kushida's study sessions, and they never voted for Horikita. After all, strictly speaking, she hadn't explicitly stated she was running for class representative at the time.
Horikita had no particular reaction to this. At least to Akira, her expressionless face gave no clue as to what she was thinking.
But Akira felt that she was probably not in a bad mood.
After all, being recognized by classmates is always something to be happy about.
His own Japanese score had improved rapidly. He could now score fifty points.
In other words, even if other classmates scored full marks, he could still steadily avoid failing.
As for the movements of other classes these past few weeks, they were relatively calm.
Class A had no activity. Class B had Ichinose regularly organizing study sessions in the library.
Akira later heard from Shiina that Class C seemed to be studying desperately. Everyone was almost putting in their utmost effort, frantically poring over books under Ryuuen's violent pressure.
For the midterm exam, this school has a strict rule: if a student fails even one subject, they'll be expelled.
And for the entire class, losing a student undoubtedly means a loss of fighting power.
Simply put, no matter what that person's ability is, as long as he's still in the class, the school will at least count one more person's points for the class.
If the school were to hold some dangerous special exam, he might even be dragged out to be a scapegoat, just like Yamauchi's importance to Class D.
This kind of role is like emergency food, always useful at critical moments.
The more Akira thought about it, the more he felt that this way of speaking was disrespectful to Yamauchi.
After all, strictly speaking, this classmate had also helped him. Yamauchi had played a part in his successful date with Kushida.
Kushida didn't organize any recruitment activities or competitions this month like she did last month.
Yesterday, Yamauchi and Ike both came up to him, looking annoyed, and complained about it in silence for a long time.
Akira didn't have any particular feelings about this.
As he was thinking this, the exam time quickly arrived.
The first subject tested was Mathematics.
Akira sat in his exam seat, checked his pen, confirmed it was fine, and the test paper was quickly passed down. As the bell rang, the first exam officially began.
He quickly scanned the front of the test paper. It was all basic questions, and the answers almost came to him instantly.
Flipping to the back, the questions were noticeably harder, but still manageable for him. He could figure out the correct answers with a little thought.
But when he saw the last short-answer question, he couldn't help but tense up.
[Among the four first-year classes, which one will ultimately graduate as Class A?]
This was clearly not a math question, nor a Japanese question. It was more like a casual rhetorical question.
But its score was surprisingly high, a full ten points.
'So, she really chose to tamper with it?!'
He suddenly remembered that two weeks ago, he was the one who personally told Chattering Cat about the possibility of modifying the test questions.
Of course, even though he suspected the sender was Sakayanagi, he didn't speak too definitively out of caution.
It's worth mentioning that Chattering Cat had already sent her the answer yesterday.
{If you encounter a question you don't know, just choose C.}
This sounded more like a riddle.
It wasn't until he saw this question at this moment that he belatedly realized. Was the correct answer set by her perhaps Class C of the first year?
It's important to know that midterm exam papers aren't fully collected by the school. They're returned to students later, at which point other classmates will naturally know which questions they answered incorrectly.
Imagine, what would people from other classes think if they saw that the correct answer to this question was "First-year Class C"?