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Volume 13, Chapter 3: Summer’s almost here, a premonition of a fierce battle Part 2

“A special exam on an uninhabited island for the second year in a row. Although it’s not like I haven’t thought about this…”

“I thought it was coming, and it really has.”

After returning to the classroom, our routine conversation on the topic of the special exam began.

Everyone, along with Yosuke, gathered around Horikita’s front row seat, sorting out the current situation.

Kouenji also returned to his seat, looking at his mirror as usual, revelling in it.

“The most important part of this exam is, although there are certain conditions, we can form groups with anyone in the same year at will.”

This was a new rule that had never existed in the special exams up till now.

And in the end, the appearance of such a rule was beyond what had been expected from the school.

“But, what about the distribution of class points when you win? Although it was a load of gibberish, and I didn’t really understand, there’s little to no benefit in grouping up with other classes, right?”

Exactly. Sudo’s thoughts were just a matter of course, as he delved into the point at hand. This special exam was not just a competition across the year groups, but also a battle between classes of the same year. Forming groups consisting of members of just your own class was the only way to efficiently complete this exam.

Even so, the school had prepared some interesting rules.

Grouping up with strong students within the school year would make it easier to get into the upper rankings; Low risk, and low reward. On the other hand, grouping up with only members of the same class would present a high risk but high reward opportunity.

The ideal situation would be forming groups of 2 or 3 within the class, and then combining into bigger groups later.

However, it was not easy to form big groups after the special exam began. If there had been no guarantee of being able to freely form a big group before, then the danger of failing would be exponentially higher. Despite this, it was also true that this special exam was more destructive than the ones preceding it. If one class took all three top spots, they’d receive 600 class points. If Class 2-D achieved this goal, it’d be an express ticket to Class 2-B.

“But if we rely on only our class, we’ll be missing out on the talents available in the other classes. Also if it’s only our class that forms groups within our own class… What if the other classes join forces? The worst-case scenario would be that only Class D falls behind as the gap widens.”

It would be ideal to win only with Class D, but at the end of the day, that’s just naive thinking.

If any class chose to challenge the special exam by their lonesome, that class would run the risk of getting targeted by the other three classes working together. If that class lost, there wouldn’t be any sort of reward waiting for them.

“If it’s just that we can’t win, then it’s a different story, but if we withdraw too early, we’ll run the risk of expulsion. In other words, if we aren’t confident… No, if we can’t be certain of victory, then we’ll simply have to form groups of 6 with the other classes.”

A special exam like this one, in which the other classes were both comrade and enemy, would be even more difficult than anything that came before.

When considered this way, wouldn’t it also be a good strategy to form groups with the students from the other classes right from the get-go? However, there was no guarantee that their thinking would be aligned with each other. Even if you knew that there was no advantage in relying only on your own class to form a group, as long as the Class Points didn’t change too much, you would generally think, ‘If possible, I don’t want to think about the other classes’. The classes at the bottom especially.

And so, under the premise of having to form groups, which direction should we start turning the rudder? Answering that would allow us to stand at the starting line.

“How will Sakayanagi, Ryuuen, and Ichinose act?”

In order to decide on the teams, Horikita used Yosuke’s words as a basis to speak to everyone.

“Class A, who was in the leading position, probably wouldn’t be troubled by the allying of the other classes. It doesn’t matter which group wins, as long as the gap between class points doesn’t narrow much. On the contrary, the remaining three classes that rank below them, which includes us, would like to narrow that gap.”

“Then how about an alliance between the three classes? Lets first establish an alliance between classes B to D, to prevent any further extension of the gap between Class-A and us. Also being able to narrow that gap with Class A wouldn’t be bad.”

Sudo, who was listening to the conversation, came up with a good idea.

Joining forces against a common enemy, to besiege Class A together.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend, is what you mean. It’s not a bad idea to isolate Class A. Ichinose would probably accept this proposal.”

“But if we propose to isolate Class A, we have to be prepared for retribution. Knowing Sakayanagi, it’s fair to say that she would mercilessly use her resources to deal with even us, the bottom-most class.”

Normally, Class A’s energy would be focused on the 2nd place belonging to Class B that was trying to catch up.

But, as Yosuke said, Sakayanagi tended to never let her prey escape, once she had targeted them.

“We still need to quietly get closer to the top classes as soon as possible.”

“Even if the three classes were to fight together, it’s better if it’s not us who makes that proposal.”

This would allow the other proposers to face Sakayanagi’s wrath.

Easier said than done.

The most troublesome thing about this special exam is that negotiating only within your class couldn’t solve all the problems.

No matter how heated the discussion got here, nothing would be achieved. If we couldn’t grasp what Class B and Class C were actually thinking, if there would be no unified guidelines being implemented, then it’d end up as nothing more than meaningless talk.

That being said, it wasn’t so easy to get the three classes to talk together without any trouble.

Ichinose aside, it’s hard to imagine Ryuuen readily agreeing to it.

If Sakayanagi became aware of this information, she would naturally make her move as well.

“Seems hard to make a judgement…”

Although there was more than a month to form the groups, if you went about it slowly, the classes would act one after another, for the purpose of forming groups. If that was the case, we wouldn’t be able to steadily do our work.

“It would be a great help if another class were to raise a similar proposal…”

The students of Class D were having a hard time with this.

“Just trying to figure out how to form a group by itself is quite a headache.”

Besides the crucial formation of a group, there were other important things.

That was the existence of the cards with various effects. Tomorrow morning, the school would give each student a unique card that couldn’t be transferred between classmates. Also because cards that have been transferred once would be locked in place, they couldn’t be returned to the original owners’ hands. In other words, you could only trade, or buy, or sell them with students outside your class.

“If it’s like that, most people will make their move tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Gathering effective cards into the groups is also a key point to consider.”

The day had come when the prohibitions of forming a group for the next special exam were to be lifted.

Of course, there would occur a significant change in the situation of the classes, including Class D.