Chapter 5: Quiz results
Several days passed since my encounter with Inogashira and any kind of rumors about me had yet to spread, convincing me that she doesn't have a big mouth. It also seems like she didn't just carelessly warned her handful group of friends about the shady part of the private points.
Despite it being several days, we didn't even exchange any words not to mention a greeting, however, our eyes did meet a few times a day during the school periods. To me, it looked like she was interested in befriending me but didn't know where to start.
The hardest time of finding a new friend is usually during the time groups are already formed and defined. After all, befriending someone your friends might not be too fond of isn't that great of an idea. Obviously, we are talking about those "friends" who only look like one on the outside.
I couldn't slack on my studies since I had a lot of catching up to do regarding some subjects. Thankfully, there were several subjects I was confident in scoring at least around 60% of the points without even preparing for them some examples were math, English, and chemistry. It might not sound that great but I was never really THAT studious type of person in the past. Honestly, back in high school, I was a real troublemaker, always getting into fights over the smallest things, it wasn't because I was hot-headed but...I just used to like fighting. I used all kinds of excuses to get into fights just to justify it, though I have no idea whether I was trying to justify it for myself or for the adults around me at that time. During my last years, I finally stopped that foolish behavior after I could finally notice how disappointed my parents were with my constant brawls.
I almost became a reason for a divorce but after they saw my efforts to change, they somehow started getting along again even if slowly. It was at that time I realized that I wasn't even fighting for the sake of "winning" or to become the strongest. I lost so many fights I can't even count them...it was for that feeling of thrill during the fights.
As I was thinking about my past while sitting in the classroom a teacher arrived and announced a small quiz.
'It's almost the end of April...everything will begin from the first day of the next month.' I sighed quietly because I quite enjoyed this carefree and easy-going atmosphere, however, that is going to quickly change with the announcement of the S-system.
I quickly received papers from Yamauchi so I took one and passed the others to Sudo who was dozing off behind me. This time, it was a math test...I mean quiz.
The questions on this one were...surprisingly easy? Though I could see several more complicated ones. I wasn't one hundred percent confident in solving them even if I knew the steps to do it. I had a tendency to make even the smallest mistakes like exchanging signs. I always had to re-check my answers several times which took a lot of my time during the tests.
While this quiz was practically useless and it wouldn't matter much if I were to flop it, I could use it to see on what level my knowledge is, though I was slightly afraid of causing a scene if the results are revealed for the individual quizzes. If I remember right, Chabashira is going to show the results after informing us of S-system, however, those results should be combined points from all quizzes.
As I began filling the paper with my answers, I could faintly hear cursing both from the front and behind me.
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Finally, the first school day of May arrived and the moment I arrived in front of my classroom I heard quite a commotion.
"Ike! Did you receive any points?!" Yamauchi asked the moment I walked in.
I inwardly sighed and took out my cell phone to make it look like I am checking my balance.
[Private Points: 58.700]
"Eh? Not a single point" I said while looking at the display in a daze. It seemed like Yamauchi and the others bought my act, however from the corner of my eye, I noticed Inogashira giving me a faint smile. The moment she noticed she had my attention, she slowly and silently moved her lips as if she was trying to tell me something.
I wasn't exactly great at lip-reading but I guessed she said "thank you" so I just showed her a friendly smile in return.
---Kokoro Inogashira---
Affection: 4
???
???
My quest wasn't finished yet and Chabashira's affection actually got stuck at 3.5 points so I was now honestly contemplating whether I should finish the quest with Inogashira since I already gained 3 points from her despite almost zero interaction with her.
.
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I took my seat and waited for Chabashira to arrive for the homeroom period. I didn't engage much in the discussion of why we didn't receive any points and simply waited till the person in question finally arrived.
Then just as in the original she explained everything and recited the number of absences while adding a few insults here and there before explaining the S-system and how the classes are divided. There were no differences in class points from the original just as I expected.
Class D: 0
Class C: 490
Class B: 650
Class A: 940
"I have one more piece of bad news I have to tell you" Chabashira said with a ridiculing smile and just as I expected, she showed us the results of recent quizzes, and just as I hoped for, the scores seemed to be the average score of all quizzes we took.
"From looking at these numbers, I came to understand that there are a lot of idiots in this class-" Her line was almost the same just as I remembered so I listened to her with closed eyes but what happened next slightly surprised me.
"-however, there were a few of you that truly managed to surprise me" Upon her words, Yamauchi noticed something wrong with those results.
"Hah?! How come Ike has 58 points?!" He got off his seat and shouted in disbelief, thankfully, not many people seemed to pay attention to me despite having my name just shouted out by Yamauchi. There indeed were a few who seemed impressed by my score of 58 but honestly, it wasn't that high. It's just that I have a fairly high score despite previously behaving like an idiot who hated anything related to studying.
'I actually most likely blew through history and civics since I had a little time to learn everything from scratch.' I had an odd feeling that Chabashira's remark was aimed at me, not because of my rapid improvement from my entrance exam, but because of the scores on individual quizzes. I bet my life I scored below 20 in history and civics but probably scored high in math and English, that would explain her remark.
"Sit down" Chabashira glared at him, making him shut up and silently sit back down.
I noticed Inogashira turn back at me to discreetly give me thumbs up.
'Phew, it seems like I managed to already make a "secret" friend' I couldn't help but close my eyes and release a smile with a relaxed expression.
The teacher continued talking and finally warned us about the results of failing a single subject in the midterms.
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Later the same day, something happened that caused me to panic a little.
Both I and Ayanokoji were called to the staff room by Chabashira.
"H-Hey, are you ready to go?" I asked Ayanokoji with a shaking voice. Some might think that I was called because I was suspected of cheating but I had other reasons to be afraid.
"...? Yeah" He seemed puzzled by my behavior but he nodded his head nonetheless.
As we were walking towards the staffroom, I started sweating a lot.
'Please don't get me involved in this! Please just accept it as a fluke! I knew it, I should have just stayed an idiot forever!' I literally felt like crying and no words on Earth could ever express the regret I was feeling about my recent actions.
[Iron Will lv. 1 (5/100) -> Iron Will lv. 1 (6/100)]
'At least something positive is happening.' I faintly smiled and wiped away a single tear from the corner of my right eye. I must have looked like a madman in Ayanokoji's eyes who was glancing at me from time to time.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone