In the video—
Kushida took the documents handed over by Chabashira, only to be shocked when she realized they were withdrawal forms.
But for now, only Kushida had said that, so everyone waited. Then the most popular and best-looking boy in Class D, Hirata Yosuke—with his light green hair—finally spoke up.
"Sensei, what are those?" he asked.
Seeing that Hirata was speaking up, Chabashira glanced in his direction.
It was a pity. She had once thought highly of Hirata and had high hopes for him, but he had no sense of competition for the class.
Sure, Hirata was well-rounded and came across as the perfect classmate in the eyes of most students.
But—
When it came to class competition, he seemed to care more about maintaining good relationships with others than actually helping the class move forward.
Chabashira already knew why Hirata acted this way—she had read his file early on. Most likely, he just wanted to move on from his past.
So now, as someone who cared deeply about his classmates and friends, Hirata sensed something was wrong.
"They're withdrawal forms," said Chabashira Sae. "There are forty in total—one for each of you. If anyone can't accept that, then leave now. This is a school for elites. We don't need weak-willed trash here."
"No way!" some of the students shouted from their seats.
No one wanted to drop out just a month and two days after school had started.
So the students in the front row refused to take the forms.
"Then you're choosing to stay?" Chabashira asked.
"We're all staying!"
Hirata Yosuke quickly stepped forward and answered for everyone. "None of us are quitting."
But what Hirata said didn't reflect how everyone actually felt.
Hirata's words caught the attention of several students.
Kouenji Rokusuke, who had been sitting with his arms crossed when the teacher entered, now put his hands on his hips and looked at Hirata with some confusion.
Kushida also glanced at Hirata in surprise.
Although Hirata had spoken up for the class and shown determination to Chabashira-sensei, he had also… spoken on everyone's behalf without asking.
But the thing is—
There was no living allowance this month. And starting from yesterday, some students had already begun living in hunger and cold.
So a few of them were starting to think about quitting.
Even though tuition was free, if they dropped out, they could still go to another high school. Their parents would pay the fees, and they'd get allowance money again.
So the truth was, some students were already losing heart.
Now Hirata was basically forcing everyone to stay? Who gave him the right to speak for the whole class?
"Then let me show you the truth." Chabashira Sae stared at Hirata for a few seconds, then finally put away the withdrawal form. "There's one more thing I can tell you. Class points are extremely important. They not only affect your monthly allowance, but also your future after graduation. Only students who graduate from Class A can freely choose which schools to apply to for further studies, or which jobs they want."
She had actually said something similar the day before, but not in this much detail. And it seemed like the students hadn't realized how serious this was, so she added:
"During your interviews, the examiners probably told you that this school has a 100% employment and college acceptance rate, right? That part isn't a lie. The reason it's 100% is because the bottom three classes are expelled. Their student records are transferred to another school," Chabashira said flatly.
So basically, they just get rid of the weaker students to keep that perfect success rate.
This kind of method… this approach—
"W-what? That's not fair—"
Some students were already having trouble accepting it.
"Sensei, we can't accept this!"
A boy stood up right away.
This guy… oh, right, it was Yamauchi, the one who bragged about being great at ping-pong during his self-introduction at the entrance ceremony.
"Is that so? Well, it's still not too late. Regular high schools outside are just starting now. So, Yamauchi Haruki, do you want to drop out now?"
Chabashira Sae looked at him without a hint of emotion. "You can fill out the withdrawal form and give it to me right now. Don't worry, the school does allow students to drop out on their own, so I can guarantee your withdrawal will go through."
"Eh? I-I wasn't saying I wanted to quit—" The boy who had just stood up so righteously sat back down immediately.
"..."
And once Yamauchi sat down, everyone else understood exactly where their homeroom teacher stood.
She…
She really didn't care if they dropped out. In fact, it kind of looked like she wanted them to.
Wait a second—Chabashira-sensei just said the school only considers Class A students as the real students. So does that mean… she actually wants to get rid of the weak ones in the class?
Yikes.
At that moment, everyone realized just how terrifying their teacher, Chabashira Sae, really was.
Terrifying, indeed.
Shirogane watched everything unfold, saw how Chabashira came prepared with report cards and withdrawal forms—something no other class had.
It was clear she was here to make a strong first impression.
And her attitude made it obvious—she didn't care if some students quit.
In fact, if the weaker ones left, Class D might actually get stronger overall.
So in a way, this was a pretty shady method of boosting the class's strength.
But if the students decided to stay, they'd probably be more willing to follow instructions.
This was a well-played mind game.
No wonder she had once climbed from Class D all the way to Class B—just one step away from Class A.
Shirogane now fully understood how obsessed Chabashira-sensei was with this.
It might actually help improve the overall performance of the class if the weaker students were removed.
Take written exams, for example. If there are too many students who perform poorly, then removing them would naturally raise the class average when scores are calculated.
But there's a downside—if there's a test that requires a lot of students to participate, the class would be at a disadvantage due to the smaller number of people.
Still, it's important to remember that this is a competition between classes, and -sensei isn't allowed to force their own ideas onto the students.
[She definitely broke the rules, but since it's already a month after the school year started, saying something like this out loud wouldn't get her punished anymore.]
Right now, since Shirogane wasn't in contact with Sakayanagi, the system voice echoed in his mind.
Shirogane quietly nodded.
He also wanted to find out where Chabashira-sensei's salary had been docked for the next three months as punishment for breaking the rules.
But for now, it didn't feel like enough.
So he kept watching.
Chabashira looked around at the students in the room. Anyone who met her eyes quickly looked away.
But—
Shirogane noticed that Chabashira glanced in the direction of Horikita Suzune. She didn't stop at Horikita, though, and instead looked at the boy sitting next to her—a good-looking student with delicate features.
From the D Class student records, it was clear that this boy, who seemed like an average student, was actually Ayanokouji Kiyotaka.
One of D Class's top two students. But unlike Kouenji, he seemed to be hiding his abilities, acting like just another ordinary classmate.
Shirogane also noticed a girl sitting on Horikita's right.
She had long pink hair tied up in messy pigtails and wore pink-framed glasses. Her appearance was a bit plain, and she didn't really stand out.
Still, Shirogane wasn't completely unfamiliar with her. They had run into each other at least twice. In fact, she had even followed him once.
As for her name, Shirogane remembered it—Sakura Airi.
The system narration had mentioned that Sakura was actually very attractive and had even worked as a model. So her current low-key look was probably her way of avoiding attention.
After all, if her idol background got exposed, she'd probably draw a lot of attention from other students.
Of course, now wasn't the time to focus on the girls in D Class.
"I'll continue," Chabashira said.
Because of the earlier distraction from Yamauchi, the students were now fully paying attention.
Chabashira Sae said,
"The one good thing for you is that class rankings are not fixed. That means if your class score passes Class C, then your class will be Class C. So you actually have a chance of becoming Class A students someday. And if that happens, you'll be able to call yourselves elite graduates of this school."
Then Chabashira-sensei wrote the current class evaluation scores for the four classes on the board.
They were all pretty intense numbers.
1st Year Class A: 924 points
1st Year Class B (Shirogane's class): 735 points
1st Year Class C (Ichinose's class): 560 points
1st Year Class D (Hirata's class): 0 points
But aside from these numbers, the students also noticed that Chabashira-sensei had written a note next to each class.
For example, Class A was marked as Sakayanagi's class.
Class B is the Silver Class.
But why is their own Class D being called the Hirata Class? Does that mean Hirata is their representative?
"Horikita, you answer. What's with these class nicknames?" Chabashira didn't give anyone else a chance to complain and directly called on Horikita Suzune.