Gifted Academy: The Perfect Student

The bell rang, signalling the end of classes for the day.

There were a few students who entered the classroom for the purpose of engaging in the special exam. However, it appeared there were quite a few people who didn't see the profundity of the situation.

It was probably a mixture of an inability to comprehend what was happening and a lack of care for the outcome that caused some students to completely ignore the special exam. To be fair, this did seem to be out of the ordinary for some people.

Still, there were many more people in the classroom compared to the past few days.

Furukawa made his way to the front of the class just as the teacher left. He stood up on a slight pedestal and began speaking to everyone.

"I think we should decide on the package we are choosing for this special exam."

Itsuki walked to the front of the room and stood next to Furukawa. She moved her body close to him. It appeared she was just there to support him.

"I believe we should select the first package," he said.

The class went silent. Then after a little while, there was a little bit of chatter. After some discussion, someone else finally spoke up.

"I only have 1400 points! I'm definitely going to be one of the people who are going to be expelled!"

There was agreeance amongst some of the other poorer students who didn't control their point expenditure very well. Furukawa decided to try to gain some knowledge in terms of the opinions of the class.

"Alright, let's have a preliminary vote. Everyone who wants the first package, please raise their hand," he stated.

Six people raised their hands.

"All for the second package raise their hand."

Four people raised their hands.

There were a lot of people who did not raise their hands for either.

Furukawa spoke up again.

"Everyone who didn't raise their hand for either, please tell me why."

"We don't really know what's going on..." was the theme.

That seemed to be a relatively common consensus between the members of the class. I could tell that this was a relatively difficult concept to grasp in most people's minds. There were too many conditions and variables to account for.

However, this exam basically boiled down to two sides. It was up to either side to simply convince the majority.

1. Richer students like Furukawa, Itsuki and Hamasaki would prefer the first package as it involves the least amount of financial backlash after the exam. There is also very little risk for them as they are near the top in terms of wealth, so it would be unlikely that they would be expelled.

2. Poorer students would prefer the second package because, with a little bit of point exchange, it is possible that every student would be able to pass the exam without being expelled.

I was more for the first package. However, I also saw a third, hidden option.

It appeared that there was a lot more discussion to be had before our class could come to a decision about the package.

The tension in the room grew as more and more students became conscious of what was at stake. People began staring at each other, looking at their own points and becoming stressed. The air became more and more humid...

This was going to be a hassle.

*

The time was 4:13 pm.

Someone stood up from their seat and confronted Furukawa and Itsuki.

"You guys know how Furukawa ran a birthday party for Itsuki yesterday? He was definitely plotting against us. They manipulated us into giving them our points. They definitely knew about this exam."

He was a large, quite muscular boy. He had a point. The birthday party yesterday was quite obviously trying to extort points from us. I managed to figure this out a day earlier.

"Yamada is right! I gave Itsuki almost 800 points yesterday at that birthday party. They're definitely selfish bastards who are trying to get us expelled to save themselves," one of Yamada's friends added.

Now that this had been released, it was going to be a lot more difficult for Furukawa and Itsuki to gain supporters. However, it didn't look as if they were fazed at all—like they had planned this all out already.

"First of all, the birthday party was a complete coincidence. There was no way for us to know that there would be an exam on this. Secondly, the students who have the least amount of points should have to take responsibility for their rash spending. Choosing the second option will only damage the financial status of every student in the class. Do you want to take the fall for all the students who are too immature to make good decisions?"

The class went silent once again after hearing Furukawa's argument.

"You bitch! Are you saying that we should be expelled?" Yamada exclaimed in outrage.

"I'm only saying that those who have poor spending habits should take responsibility for themselves."

"That's completely unfair. We had no idea something like this would happen. If we picked package two, we could all pass and stay in this school. Are you saying that we're worth less than a few points?!"

"Even considering we do end up picking the second package, what about all the students who have less than 2000 points?"

After hearing this, Takeuchi decided to speak up.

"It is possible that other classes, such as class B or A, may lend us points, they have consequences for holding too many points, and it wouldn't be too difficult to request loans from them."

"Yeah, that's true!" shouted Yamada.

There was another period of silence as everyone considered what they had just heard.

I decided to use this opportunity to look at the Cooperative Reliability scores of some of the students. It took a while to scroll through all of them one by one; however, they provided some useful insight.

- Furukawa had a rank of: 387/480 (F)

- Itsuki had a rank of: 151/480 (C+)

- Yamada had a rank of: 308/480 (E)

- Takeuchi had a rank of: 37/480 (A)

I decided that I was going to make a deal with Takeuchi.

I pulled out my phone and began discretely texting him.