The Odd One Out

Chapter 3.1 - Classroom of The Poor

It was finally May 1st.

The bell rang for our first class of the day. Soon afterward, Chabashira-sensei strode into the room, holding a rolled-up poster. Her expression today was even more stern than usual. Nobody else but me knew the reason behind her behavior. Today was the day she will probably reveal the truth behind the S System.

"Hey, sensei, did you start menopause or something?"

Chabashira-sensei completely ignored Ike's joke.

"All right, your morning homeroom is about to begin. Before we get started, does anyone have any questions? If so, now is the time to speak."

Several students raised their hands.

"Um, I checked my points balance this morning, but I didn't see any deposits. Points are given on the first day of every month, aren't they? I couldn't buy juice this morning."

How many points must you have to not be able to be juice?

"Hondou, I already explained this before, didn't I? Points are deposited on the first day of the month. I've confirmed that points were wired this month without any issues."

"Um, but... nothing was deposited into my account, though."

People around the classroom exchanged glances. Everyone was seemingly confused.

"Are you kids really that dumb?"

"Dumb? What?"

"I'll explain once more, since you kids didn't understand. Points were deposited. That much I know for certain. There is absolutely no chance that we forgot about anyone in this class. To think so is ludicrous. Understood?"

"Well, even if I tell you that we understood, we haven't received any points..."

"We received our points. It's just that we received zero points," I spoke up.

"What?" some girls were reasonably confused by what I said.

"Are you dumb?" Yamauchi asked me.

"The school said that it measures its students' true abilities. The 100,000 points we received last monthly were purely because we all got accepted into this school. This month, the school deemed us as worthless, hence why we received exactly zero points."

"Ha ha ha! As expected of perfect existence number two, I've come to the same conclusion as you, Masterpiece boy!" Kouenji propped his feet up on his desk.

"Ayanokouji is exactly right," Chabashira-sensei continued, "For crying out loud, has anyone else noticed the hint I have you? How deplorable. A total of ninety-eight absences and late arrivals. Three hundred and ninety-one incidences of talking or using a cell phone in class. That is quite a few infractions over one month. In this school, your class's results are reflected in the points that you receive. As a result, you wasted all of the 100,000 points that you should've received. That's what happened."

The classroom turned dead silent.

"Sensei, I don't recall hearing you explain that to us befo-" Hirata spoke up but got cut off by Chabashira-sensei

"What? Are you incapable of understanding something unless it's explained in detail? Us teachers purposefully left this out in our explanation on the first day of school, but seems like no one other than Ayanokouji and Kouenji figured it out."

"But had that been explained to us beforehand, I'm sure we would have avoided being late or talking during class."

"That is a rather bizarre argument, Hirata. Didn't you all learn in elementary school not to be late or talk in class? Was that not taught throughout your elementary and junior high schools?"