Classroom of the Elite: Surviving with the Intel System — Chapter 64

Chapter 64: What? Only Our Class C Is Still In The Dark

The fluorescent lights of the faculty office hummed a low, steady drone at eight-thirty in the evening.

Mashima Tomoya sat at his desk, methodically turning the crisp pages of a massive English dictionary. As the homeroom teacher for Class A, he cultivated an aloof exterior, maintaining a calculated, professional distance from the student body. But those who truly understood his methods knew that beneath his strict facade lay a deep dedication. Before taking the reins of a new class, he spent three agonizingly thorough days dissecting every student’s profile, memorizing their quirks and flaws. He poured at least three hours into daily lesson preparation. If the school held a genuine ranking for the most competent first-year instructor—barring any underhanded politics—Mashima would undoubtedly claim the top spot.

Closing his lesson plan with a soft thud, he noticed his thermos had run dry. He pushed his chair back, standing to fetch some hot water from the dispenser.

The moment he turned around, he froze.

The faculty office, usually a ghost town by this hour, was occupied. Class B’s Hoshinomiya Chie was hunched over a stack of test papers, her red pen scratching away. Class C’s Sakagami Kazuma leaned back in his leather chair, lazily twirling a silver fountain pen between his fingers. Most jarring of all, Class D’s Chabashira Sae sat at her desk, her manicured fingernail tapping a slow, rhythmic beat against the wood.

Mashima glanced at the wall clock. He should have been the only soul left in the room.

He might occasionally cross paths with Sakagami after hours, but seeing the entire first-year homeroom roster gathered like this was an absolute rarity. His gaze lingered on the Class C teacher for a few seconds. As colleagues, they exchanged superficial pleasantries, but a true friendship was impossible. Mashima despised Sakagami’s hyper-protective, morally bankrupt teaching style. The man blindly shielded his students regardless of right or wrong, perfectly willing to employ underhanded tactics in the shadows to secure an advantage. Yet, Mashima had to concede one point: Sakagami fought viciously for his class’s interests. Whether that obsession stemmed from a twisted sense of duty or a greedy eye fixed on the lucrative year-end promotion bonus, the results were clear.

His attention shifted to the two women. Hoshinomiya Chie and Chabashira Sae were old acquaintances. The three of them had shared the same high school grade, albeit in different classes. Now, after years of winding paths, fate had dragged them all back to the Advanced Nurturing High School as colleagues.

But if Mashima were forced to give an honest assessment as a friend, he couldn’t call either of them competent educators.

Hoshinomiya’s private life was a chaotic mess of indulgence. She cycled through boyfriends faster than the school changed its elective schedules. Mashima had no interest in policing her personal affairs, but her habits bled into her work. She frequently sneaked out for mid-week drinking binges, dragging herself into the classroom the next morning with heavy, mascara-smeared bags under her eyes and the faint, sweet reek of alcohol clinging to her clothes. Teaching effectively in that state was a pipe dream.

Chabashira Sae sat at the absolute opposite extreme. She was a wall of ice. Aside from a doomed high school romance that had withered to nothing, she hadn’t dated in years. Mashima suspected the perpetual cigarette pinched between her fingers drove away potential suitors; few men wanted to kiss an ashtray. Her teaching attitude? Even more apathetic than Hoshinomiya’s. She arrived at the exact second the bell rang and vanished the moment class dismissed. No class under her jurisdiction had ever clawed its way to promotion. She was less a teacher and more a phantom clocking hours.

Yet, their raw academic capabilities matched his own. The school’s draconian hiring standards wouldn’t have tolerated them otherwise.

Mashima remembered a time when Chabashira first joined the faculty—she had been careful. Her lesson plans were flawless, her after-school tutoring sessions relentless. But then that incident happened. Hoshinomiya, smelling blood in the water like a starved shark, began sabotaging Chabashira at every turn. Their open warfare and covert spite dragged both their classes into the gutter, anchoring them to the bottom of the grade. Mashima had inadvertently reaped the spoils of their war, securing his iron grip on Class A for years. But looking at the expulsion lists, he knew the truth: the real casualties of this bloodless war weren’t the bitter women at the podium, but the teenagers sitting at the desks.

He had tried to mediate, privately pleading with them to stop. It failed. Chabashira tanked every annual assessment until she was permanently exiled to Class D, her former brilliance ground down into cynical complacency.

And Hoshinomiya… she hadn’t always been this way either. She used to grade papers until midnight. Only after Chabashira surrendered did Hoshinomiya let herself rot, her pristine lesson plans gathering dust while her perfume grew heavier to mask the scent of her own self-abandonment. Mashima knew that if the old incident were dragged into the light, Chabashira was the one at fault. Seeing the dark circles hidden beneath Hoshinomiya’s makeup, he couldn’t bring himself to judge her.

Strangely, as long as class rankings weren’t on the line, the two women still drank together on weekends. But the moment the S-System was invoked, those buried grudges flared back to life, eclipsing any final exam.

Shaking off the ghosts of the past, Mashima addressed the room. He hadn’t seen them all this focused in a long time, but cramming now was useless.

“Class A will maintain its position at the end of this month,” Mashima stated, his voice cutting through the quiet office. “Those children deduced the hidden rules within days of the entrance ceremony. Our total deducted Class Points haven’t even breached the eighty-point mark.”

It wasn’t unheard of for freshmen to crack the S-System early. The true filter was timing and unity. Discovering it too late was fatal. Discovering it and hoarding the truth was equally useless. Forcing a classroom of arrogant teenagers to strictly obey the rules eliminated ninety-nine percent of the student body.

But his Class A had executed it flawlessly, led by the dual leadership of Sakayanagi Arisu and Katsuragi Kohei. For the first time in his career, Mashima felt absolute certainty in the second week of April.

“Hmph. Isn’t Class A always like this?” Sakagami pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, a cold sneer twisting his lips. “A glorious start, a miserable end. The semester just started. The real bloodletting hasn’t even begun.”

“Oh dear… what a coincidence!” Hoshinomiya chimed in, her voice dripping with a saccharine, singsong sweetness. “Our kids just happened to figure out the hidden rules too.”

Sakagami’s pen stopped twirling. He sat up straight. “Wh-what… how did you manage that?”

It was expected for Class A’s elites to unravel the system, but for Class B to match their pace…

Hoshinomiya merely smiled, offering no explanation. Instead, she pivoted in her chair, leaning toward the woman beside her. “Sae-chan, stop playing dumb. Your Class D must have spread the news already, right?”

Chabashira didn’t stop tapping her desk. She slowly turned her head, fixing Hoshinomiya with a freezing, sidelong glare. “…You talk too much.”

That quiet, understated dismissal hit the room like a bomb. Sakagami’s complexion turned a sickly shade of pale.

Class D… the defectives… they knew about the S-System too?!

A suffocating dread settled over the Class C homeroom teacher. Historically, the school hierarchy divided neatly: A and B feasted at the high table, while C and D fought for scraps in the dark. But right now, Class C was the only one left completely blind.