Volume 6, 4: Intro - "Means of Survival"

Volume 6, Chapter 4: Intro - "Means of Survival"

After the start of homeroom at 18:00, Chabashira-sensei left the classroom immediately.

The students of the class were sitting there in wonder, Hirata shot them a side glance as he went to stand up at the podium.

We weren’t looking to play any games now. A serious discussion was about to begin.

“For today’s homeroom, I would like to hold a meeting for tomorrow’s quiz. I have gotten permission from Chabashira-sensei, who has told me that today's homeroom time is free for us to use. First of all, Horikita-san, would you please?”

As if waiting for Hirata’s words, Horikita got up quietly and stood next to Hirata.

For her to go and stand side by side with Hirata, some of the students probably began to feel a sense of incompatibility. Many may not have realized until now that “Horikita” and “Hirata” made up Class D’s strongest team. Hirata had always welcomed her, but Horikita had never allowed for it. Horikita always fought alone and acted with the belief that she could win without the help of others.

However, after the failure she suffered at the sports festival, she understood the limits of fighting alone, and it was as if she was reborn.

Of course, not everything has become perfect.

The Swiss biologist A. Portman has said that humans are physiologically premature. He argues that, from the point of view of zoology, humans are born about a year early compared to the developmental states of other mammals. Although human beings are classified as large animals, when a baby is born, its sensory organs have already been developed, while it’s athletic ability is immature and they’re not able to walk on their own. Other large animals on the other hand, such as deer, are mature when they are born, and there are many other isolated creatures who leave their nests and live on their own.

As is the case with this example, now Horikita has just been reborn, and is not able to move around on her own yet.

However, although very immature, she also contains infinite possibilities.

She could grow up in any way moving forward.

Perhaps Horikita’s heart is still conflicted. She’s probably trying desperately to struggle against it.

It would be for the best for her to surrender herself to this change and commit to it.

“……First of all, although this is a thing of the past, I hope you will let me apologize for something.”

I thought she would start talking about the final exam right away, but she didn’t. There seems to have been something smoldering in Horikita’s heart for several weeks now.

“During the sports festival, I didn’t manage to bring us any results. I always have a tough attitude with everyone, but I was ultimately unable to do anything for Class D. Please allow me to apologize.”

After saying so, Horikita bowed her head deeply. Of course, many students were shaken by this appearance.

It was as if Horikita had accepted the blame for the reasons behind Class D’s defeat.

After the three legged race, Onodera had become a little estranged from Horikita and quickly spoke:

“It’s not Horikita-san’s sole responsibility for the loss. You don’t need to lower your head.”

“That’s right, Suzune. After all, Haruki and Professor weren’t much help either.”

Although it’s pitiful, it was also true. Yamauchi glared at Sudō, but there was no objection.

“A humble attitude can make any outcome acceptable, regardless of whether we won or lost. But that’s not the case here. At least, my contribution to the sports festival had hardly any positives.”

After saying so, Horikita glanced at Sudō’s face for a moment. It was probably nothing other than to supplement that she had made a friend of Sudō. It would be impossible for Sudō to not understand the mood. He shyly scratched his cheek a little, quietly revealing a smile and his white teeth.

“But this is the end of the apology. I would like to fully commit to challenging this next quiz and the final exam. I believe that unless the class is to fight as a unit, it will be insurmountable.”

“I can understand that, but do you have a solution or something? Like how the partners are chosen. We don’t know about that, do we?”

“No, the rules for how partners are chosen have already been made clear. If we handle this well, it is possible for all of us to have an ideal partner. Hirata-kun, if you would.”

Hirata, who had turned to the support role, received her signal and wrote out the pairing rules on the blackboard.

The rules of pairing

When looking at the class as a whole, the person who scores the highest and the person who scores the lowest on the quizzes will be matched with each other.

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Then the second best and worst students, the third best and worst students and so on.

For example: The student who gets 100 points will be matched with the student who gets 0 points. The student who gets 99 points will be matched with the student who gets 1 point.

“This is the meaning of the quiz and the pairing principle. Simple, isn’t it?”

“Oh, oh my! This is the rule of pairing! You’ve done it, Horikita! You’re amazing!”

“This is something that many of the students should have also discovered. The important thing is this. Based on this rule, we can also see that students who get lower grades will be partnered with those who get higher ones almost by default. However, exceptions can always happen. Due to this, I’m going to start explaining the strategy for reliable and precise pairings.”

Although she said that many students should have discovered this already, this was not the case. Compared to past hints, this one was indeed easy-to-understand. But she might have noticed it only because of her experience with her past failures.

Horikita walked next to Hirata and turned back to face the classroom.

The feeling of embarrassment and dislike for speaking in public.

She had no such resistance at all in her heart, only the drive to move forward.

“Taking into consideration the results from our classes tests so far, I’d like to focus on having the students who are worried about their scores make plans with the students getting good grades. Although in the end there will be some students who are uneasy, the reality of the situation is that we cannot support everyone.”

11 students were averaging 80 points or more, with the exception of those who attained perfect marks on the midterms. If that average was increased to 90 points, the number of students would be reduced to 6. It’s a sad thing to think about the content of the tests which have been comparatively easy. The number of students with excellent grades was less than half the class.

On the contrary, even if you take into account the number of scores averaging over 60 points, not everyone would be able to be matched with an ideal partner… In other words, it’s impossible for every pair to have a high-scoring student.

Therefore，Horikita appears to be aiming for stability by creating mandatory teams of 10 people at the top and bottom of the class.

The names of the students with lower grades were listed on the blackboard one by one.

“Well, I don’t quite understand. What should we do?”

Asked Yamauchi, who knew his name would be written.

“The 10 students written here can just write their names on tomorrow's quizzes. Since your scores will not be reflected on your report card, taking a 0 on the quiz doesn’t have any disadvantages. Conversely, to the top 10 people, please be sure to score 85 points or more. The remaining 20 students are equally divided into 10 people. For the upper half of these students, your grade should be aimed at a maximum of 80 points, while for the lower half, you only need to score 1 point. With this method, the optimal balance for the final exams should be automatically achieved. However, I will confirm the details of this later since there is also the possibility that accidents will happen.”

The important thing here is to make sure that the students taking a 0 and the students scoring a 1 are not paired with each other.

The students with differences in academic ability must be paired up as much as possible.

“I also think this strategy is very good. We shouldn’t challenge the exam without having taken any countermeasures.”

Hirata had discussed this with her beforehand, so there should be no negative comments about the plan. His aim was to create a favorable atmosphere.

Kōenji usually didn't consent with things like this, but he showed neither affirmation nor denial.

Rather, he seemed uninterested in the chain of conversation. His ability to integrate into the class was even worse than Horikita’s. But this time he maintained his typical attitude which is probably for the best.

Although Kōenji usually doesn’t take the special tests seriously, he would always avoid situations where he would be at risk for dropping out.

This time, for the case of the "mandatory pairing", he wouldn't get poor grades. While the chances of it are low, there is a chance you might get expelled even you get a few perfect marks on the finals, depending on the capability of your partner.

Due to this, though he would pretend not to be interested, he would probably be willing to cooperate with the exam.

No, Kōenji’s behavior might not be readable. There’s the possibility that he’ll end up doing something unpredictable.

“Kōenji-kun. Do you have any objections?”

“I have no objections, that was really a nonsense question. Of course, I have already mastered the contents of this exam.”

He stretched his long legs onto his desk as usual and smoothed his hair back.

“Well, can I expect you to indeed score more than 80 points?”

“What do you think? Wouldn’t that depend on the content of the test?”

“If you deliberately score 0 points and get matched up with another student with high grades, there will be a risk of a breakdown in the overall balance for the class. Could you at least understand this, if anything?”

The only thing to be afraid of for these quizzes is an abnormal score. A highly-capable pair like Horikita and Kōenji being created must be avoided.

“I’ll consider it carefully. Girl.”

Even though Kōenji’s answer was really suspicious, she couldn’t pursue the topic now.

Because we have to control the points of the official final exam.

(Intro End.)