Classroom of the Elite: Surviving with the Intel System — Chapter 36

Chapter 36: So NaiveYou're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

‘Say more… how could those average losers ever compare to the blood and sweat I pour into this?’

As early as the previous week, Kushida Kikyo had used her carefully woven social network to fish for the swimming schedules of the other classes. The moment she learned the physical education teacher planned to organize a freestyle race during their period, she immediately recognized the golden opportunity.

So, throughout the entire weekend, while the rest of the student body leisurely enjoyed their time off, she remained alone in the indoor pool. She spent hours repeatedly drilling every minute detail of her strokes, regulating her breathing, and perfecting her turns. Her arms burned with lactic acid from the relentless training, but she merely wiped the chlorinated water from her eyes and submerged herself once again.

‘I have to execute this perfectly…’

And now, having this deeply hidden effort suddenly dragged into the light by Shimizu Akira, a twisted sense of satisfaction welled up in her chest. It felt exactly like building a careful, grand stage, only to finally find a single audience member capable of seeing through the grueling backstage labor. The slight embarrassment of being completely read intertwined with a dark, secret pleasure, causing her heart to beat just a fraction faster.

The toxic, venomous thoughts that usually clouded her mind quietly faded into the background, replaced by a subtle rush of exhilaration.

‘Heh… Shimizu-kun certainly knows exactly what to say. I suppose I’ll spare him from my nightly venting. As for that stuck-up bitch… she won’t be getting off so easily.’

The physical education teacher’s booming voice echoed across the humid air of the pool area, cutting through her thoughts. “Girls’ group, get into position! The fifty-meter freestyle race is about to begin. First place takes home five thousand Private Points!”

A few minutes later, Kushida stood at the edge of the starting block, her gaze subtly sweeping over the floating lane dividers.

‘Swimming isn’t exactly my strongest suit… but those two days of hellish practice weren’t for nothing.’She adjusted her posture, her mind drifting back to the boy on the sidelines.’Originally, I just wanted to extract some information about Horikita Suzune from him. I didn’t expect to get dragged into such a long conversation. Still, talking to him felt surprisingly relaxing.’She narrowed her eyes slightly, a faint, sweet smile tugging at the corners of her lips.’But… since Shimizu-kun is so naive, I’ll save the interrogation for next time.”Kushida is truly naive.’

Standing a short distance away, Shimizu Akira watched her with dry amusement. Just a handful of well-placed, calculated compliments had caused Kushida to visibly drop her guard. She had even unconsciously slipped into a state of deep self-admiration. Although he wasn’t entirely sure what angle she had originally planned to play with him, her rhythm had been completely shattered.

Praising someone effectively required a specific kind of surgical precision. The key was to strike at the exact insecurity or pride the other person cared about most.

For someone like Kushida, the word “effort” carried an almost magical weight. When Akira accurately pointed out her secret weekend training, the complex psychological high of being seen and validated proved far more effective than any standard flattery.

As for his remark about her being the only one in the class who practiced beforehand? It was a complete fabrication. He wasn’t some forensic expert capable of analyzing microscopic changes in human skin tone, nor did he possess X-ray vision. The truth was entirely mundane—he simply knew she had visited the pool over the weekend because his Daily Intel System had refreshed that exact piece of information last Saturday.

Still, a white lie of that caliber was entirely harmless. It was no different from a street vendor casually calling a passing customer ‘handsome’ to secure a sale. Even when you knew it was just an empty polite script, human nature dictated that it still felt good to hear.

The sharp blast of the whistle signaled the end of the race. Ultimately, Horikita Suzune and Onodera tied for first place, both clocking in at an excellent twenty-six seconds. Kushida took third place with a time of thirty-one seconds.and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

As the swimming period drew to a close, Akira noticed Kushida repeatedly casting heavy, lingering glances toward Horikita. Those eyes, which she usually kept curved into bright, friendly crescent moons, were now dim, cold, and entirely unreadable. Although her lips remained upturned in her signature smile, the sheer discord between her expression and her gaze was chilling.

‘Is she really that obsessed with the class rankings?’Akira mused to himself, shaking his head slightly.’Looks like her dorm room door is going to suffer another beating tonight.’

Advanced Nurturing High School, despite its extreme isolation and unique rules, was fundamentally no different from the vast majority of ordinary high schools across Japan when it came to academics. The curriculum adhered to tradition, covering core subjects like Japanese Language, Mathematics, English, Social Studies, and Natural Sciences. Each subject was strictly graded on a standard one-hundred-point scale.

After a week of adjusting to the environment, Akira had completely mastered the pacing of the Mathematics and English courses. To say he handled them with ease would be an understatement. He barely needed to pay attention to keep up with the instructor’s rhythm.

Part of this effortless cruise was due to the rock-solid academic foundation he had built during his grueling education in his previous life. The other factor was the massive disparity between the teaching pace of standard Japanese high schools and the ruthless academic meat grinder of his homeland.

If one were to compare their educational progress, the Mathematics curriculum of his past life was a speeding bullet train, violently hurtling toward the university entrance exams. In contrast, the teaching rhythm here felt more like a leisurely sightseeing trolley.

Japan’s education system had been operating under a “relaxed education” policy for years, and the effects were obvious. In his previous life, students endured a schedule that could only be described as demonic—dragging themselves out of bed for morning self-study at six o’clock, and not leaving the evening cram classrooms until nine at night, their bodies entirely drained.

Compared to that, the schedule at Advanced Nurturing High School was practically heaven. Classes began at a highly reasonable eight-thirty in the morning, and students were free to grab their bags and leave the building before four in the afternoon.

Akira wasn’t necessarily criticizing the Japanese system. He knew perfectly well that in the outside world, the real academic bloodbath only began after the final bell rang. Those brightly lit, expensive cram schools scattered across the cities were always packed with exhausted students desperately fighting for a spot in prestigious universities. That outwardly relaxed but inwardly suffocating ecosystem was arguably just as punishing as the brute-force memorization tactics he was used to.

However, inside a fully enclosed facility like Advanced Nurturing High School, the students didn’t even have the luxury of attending cram schools. Isolated from the outside world, every basic avenue for extracurricular tutoring had been completely severed.

Yet Akira understood a universally applicable truth: whether in his past life or his current one, as long as a student could solidly master the three core pillars of Japanese Language, Mathematics, and English, they would easily maintain an above-average standing in any class. These three subjects formed the golden triangle of education. Mathematics honed raw logical processing, English tested memory retention and linguistic adaptability, and Japanese Language cultivated perceptual cognition and structural writing.

For Akira, however, that final pillar remained a massive, looming wall he simply could not scale.

Even after a full week of classes, the obscure, archaic rules of classical Japanese grammar continued to entangle his brain like a mess of barbed wire. The endless variations of inflectional forms and classical verb conjugations completely eluded him.

Sitting at his desk, staring blankly at the textbook, he had to admit he was probably disgracing the proud lineage of transmigrators everywhere. In his previous life, he had never even brushed against the edges of classical Japanese literature. Trying to force this ancient syntax into his head now felt exactly like asking a modern citizen to casually decipher ancient oracle bone script. No matter how hard he tried to analyze the patterns, he was doomed to remain utterly lost.You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.