Classroom of the Elite: Standing Firm in Class A — Chapter 107

Chapter 107: The Exam That Shatters the Peaceful Routine

By the third day aboard the luxury cruise ship, the grueling memories of the deserted island had finally begun to fade. The students of the Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School had fully surrendered to the illusion of a leisurely summer vacation.

Kaedehara Tetsu sat reclined in a shaded lounge chair on the upper deck, a thick hardcover book resting comfortably in his lap. He savored the crisp coolness of the ocean breeze as it swept across the ship. High above, sunlight filtered through the scattered, drifting clouds, casting a shifting, dappled mosaic of light and shadow across the crisp pages of his novel. It was a picture of perfect, undisturbed tranquility.

Ring—ring—

The sharp, synchronized trill of mobile phone alarms shattered the quiet.

Tetsu calmly closed his book, marking his page before reaching for the smartphone resting on the small glass table beside him. The screen glowed with a priority notification. A new email had just arrived in his inbox, and the sender was listed simply as the school administration.

Almost simultaneously, the cruise ship’s public address system crackled to life, the speakers projecting a crisp, authoritative voice across every deck and corridor.

“This is a notification for all students. The school has just dispatched an email containing critical contact information to your designated mobile devices. Please check your inboxes individually and follow the attached instructions to the letter. If you have not received this email, report to the nearest faculty member immediately. The contents of this message are of the utmost importance. Ensure you do not miss it. I repeat…”

The broadcast echoed relentlessly across the massive vessel. In the restaurants, the opulent lounges, and across the sun-drenched decks, the carefree atmosphere evaporated. Students who had been laughing over iced drinks or lounging by the pools hurriedly dug into their pockets and bags, the synchronized chiming of notifications ringing out like a chorus of bad omens.

Tetsu unlocked his screen and casually scanned the text.

The Special Exam is about to begin. Students are instructed to gather at their designated rooms at the specified times. Anyone who is more than ten minutes late will face severe penalties. Please report to Room 204 on the second floor before 6:00 PM tonight. The briefing will require approximately twenty minutes. Ensure your mobile phone is set to silent or powered off upon entry.

All around the deck, wails of absolute despair began to rise.

“No way! Are you kidding me? We just survived that hellish deserted island!”

“Why the hell is there another exam already? This isn’t fair!”

“I thought we were finally getting a real break…”

The sunlight still spilled beautifully across the polished teakwood deck, and the sea breeze remained just as gentle as before. It should have been a flawless afternoon for a luxury cruise. Yet, the tranquility had been ruthlessly executed by a single digital notice.

The relaxed, smiling faces of the first-year students twisted into expressions of dread and exhaustion. Some buried their faces in their hands, letting out heavy, defeated sighs, while others immediately clustered together, anxiously debating what fresh psychological torture the school had prepared for them this time.

Tetsu simply stood up, his movements smooth and entirely unhurried.

The panicked wailing of his peers washed over him, as meaningless and distant as the cries of the seagulls circling the ship’s wake. It had absolutely no effect on his pulse.

He had known this exam was coming from the very beginning. The rules, the hidden mechanics, the psychological traps—he already possessed a flawless blueprint of the entire board. To him, this wasn’t a test of survival; it was merely a tedious formality.

Straightening the collar of his shirt, Tetsu turned his back on the panicking crowds and walked casually toward the ship’s interior.

There were still a few hours left until the mandatory gathering time. It was technically enough time to prepare, though in reality, there was nothing he needed to do. He only had to sit through tonight’s mandatory briefing, play his assigned role, and by tomorrow night, he would be reaping a massive harvest of points.

Time bled away minute by minute. The sun began its slow descent into the western horizon, bleeding brilliant shades of gold and crimson across the endless expanse of the ocean.

At exactly 6:00 PM, Kaedehara Tetsu arrived outside the heavy oak door of Room 204.

He raised his hand and knocked twice, the sound sharp and measured.

“Please come in,” a deep, familiar voice answered from within.

Tetsu pushed the door open and stepped inside. The layout of the room was stark and utilitarian, a sharp contrast to the ship’s usual luxury. Several chairs were arranged in a wide, rough circle, with a simple wooden lecture podium positioned at the front.

Mashima Tomoya, the homeroom teacher for Class A, sat stoically behind the podium, carefully organizing a stack of printed documents.

A handful of students had already arrived, sitting in tense silence in their randomly chosen seats. Tetsu’s dark eyes swept the room, instantly cataloging the pieces on the board.

Takemoto Shigeru from his own class was slouched deeply into the back of his chair, looking thoroughly drained. Nearby, Machida Koji kept his head bowed, nervously picking at his fingernails. Across the circle, Ichinose Honami sat with perfect posture. Upon seeing Tetsu enter, her signature warm, gentle smile bloomed across her face, and she offered him a polite little wave. Tetsu acknowledged her with a faint nod before taking a seat of his own.

Over the next ten minutes, the remaining students trickled into the room, the atmosphere growing heavier with each arrival.

Just as the clock ticked past the deadline, the door was shoved open, and Karuizawa Kei rushed in, breathless and slightly flushed.

“Excuse me…” she panted, her eyes darting around the room before landing on the unexpected mix of faces. “Huh? What’s going on? Why are Yukimura and the others here? This isn’t just Class D.”

Mashima-sensei looked up from his papers, his expression stern and unforgiving. “The school explicitly instructed you to be punctual, yet you are late. Take your seat immediately.”

Karuizawa bit her lip, looking a bit unconvinced and defensive under the teacher’s harsh reprimand, but she wisely kept her mouth shut and hurried to an empty chair.

“Now that everyone is here, I will explain the rules of this Special Exam,” Mashima announced, his voice carrying an authoritative weight that demanded absolute silence.

“In this Special Exam, the school has categorized all first-year students according to the Chinese zodiac, dividing the entire year into twelve distinct Zodiac groups. The upcoming exams will be conducted entirely within these designated groups. The primary purpose of this test is to evaluate your critical thinking and deductive reasoning abilities…”

Tetsu leaned back slightly, his expression perfectly neutral as he listened to the familiar script. For someone who already knew the original plot inside and out, this lengthy exposition was painfully redundant. He found himself idly wondering how long Mashima would take to finish talking.

The core premise was simple: the four classes were fractured and reorganized into twelve Zodiac groups, each containing roughly three to five students from every class. The entire exam revolved around a single hidden role assigned to one student in each group—the VIP.

The school would send an automated email to every student at 8:00 AM on the day the exam officially commenced. That email would secretly notify the chosen individuals that they had been selected as their group’s VIP.

The exam schedule would span from tomorrow morning until 9:00 PM four days later. During this period, the members of each Zodiac group were mandated to gather in their designated rooms twice a day for a strict one-hour discussion period.

“Regarding the answering phase,” Mashima continued, his gaze sweeping over the tense faces of the students, “once the exam concludes, the school will only accept official submissions regarding the true identity of the VIP during a strict thirty-minute window between 9:30 PM and 10:00 PM on the final day.”

Mashima then outlined the four possible outcomes of the exam.

Outcome 1: If everyone in the group—excluding the VIP and the students belonging to the VIP’s own class—submits the correct answer at the end of the exam, the school will reward all group members with a payout of Personal Points.

Outcome 2: If anyone in the group—excluding the VIP and their classmates—fails to submit an answer, or submits an incorrect answer at the end of the exam, the school will award the VIP a massive bounty of 500,000 Personal Points.

Outcome 3: If a student other than the VIP figures out the identity early and submits the correct answer to the school before the exam officially ends, the traitor’s class will be rewarded with 50 Class Points, and the traitor themselves will receive 500,000 Personal Points. Conversely, the class whose VIP was exposed will suffer a penalty of 50 Class Points. The exam for that specific group will immediately terminate upon a correct early submission.

Outcome 4: If a student attempts an early submission before the exam ends, but guesses incorrectly, the traitor’s class will be penalized with a deduction of 50 Class Points. The VIP will receive 500,000 Personal Points, and the VIP’s class will also be rewarded with 50 Class Points. The exam will immediately terminate upon the incorrect submission.

After Mashima finished laying out the cutthroat mechanics, he stepped out from behind the podium and handed each student a postcard-sized slip of heavy paper.

Printed neatly on the card was their assigned group name, followed by a roster of fourteen students.

Just as Mashima had stated, the group was a volatile mixture of all four classes. Their designated Zodiac group was named “Mao,” with the translation “Rabbit” printed neatly in parentheses beside it.

The roster read as follows:

Class A: Kaedehara Tetsu, Takemoto Shigeru, Machida Koji

Class B: Ichinose Honami, Hamaguchi Tetsuya, Beppu Ryota

Class C: Ibuki Mio, Manabe Shiho, Yabu Nanami, Yamashita Saki

Class D: Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, Karuizawa Kei, Sotomura Hideo, Yukimura Teruhiko

Tetsu stared at the names, a faint, knowing smirk playing at the corners of his mind. He understood the hidden algorithm the school used to assign the VIPs. It wasn’t random; it was based strictly on the Japanese syllabary order—the gojūon.

The VIP was always the student whose name fell into the fifth position when the group’s roster was sorted alphabetically.

Originally, the underlying logic of the school’s sorting system would have naturally placed him in the Dragon group. However, if he had been placed there, his surname would have disrupted the alphabetical order, pushing Kushida Kikyo into the sixth slot and depriving Class D of a crucial VIP position. To maintain the delicate balance of power and ensure the syllabary rule remained intact, the system had to shift him.

Thus, Kaedehara Tetsu was placed into the Rabbit group.

And when the names of the Rabbit group were sorted by the Japanese syllabary, the surname “Kaedehara” landed perfectly in the fifth slot.

Tetsu quietly slipped the roster card into his pocket. The game hadn’t even officially started yet, but he already held the most dangerous piece on the board. He was the VIP of the Rabbit group.