Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Kiro
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 27
Morning came.
Kikyou-chan wanted to spend her day with us, but it seemed she ended up having to act separately.
She had a disgusted expression when she looked at her phone earlier. It seemed that something occurred in her class.
“Ah… all of them should die, seriously. Like Hirata, who does he think he is?”
After clicking her tongue loudly, Kikyou-chan began to prepare for the day.
I always thought that being able to do her makeup carefully while venting her frustration was seriously an amazing skill. Seeing the spectacle of her appearance being arranged while she uttered insults like ‘fool’ or ‘scum’ was overwhelming in many ways.
“Please come to us anytime you like. Make sure you don’t accumulate too much frustration.”
“Thank you. Haruto-kun is really kind.”
Being praised like that made me embarrassed.
Arisu-chan seemed to feel something off about Kikyou-chan so she tilted her head.
“Kikyou-san, did something happen?”
“…It’ll be a lie if I say nothing happened. I’ll definitely tell you about it next time.”
“I understand. I will be waiting then.”
“Thank you, Arisu-chan. I love you.”
Kikyou-chan smiled as she embraced Arisu-chan tightly.
Around 1 p.m., Honami-san came to our guest room.
She already secured the victory in this exam, but she had a complicated expression about it.
“I wonder if I went too far…”
With the exception of classes with Class A as VIPs, all other 9 groups had concluded their exam. Most students would spend the next 3 days freely.
Perhaps Honami-san became afraid of herself which led to this result. How to say this, it was in line with Honami-san’s personality.
Discussing the content of the exam with students from other classes after concluding the exam with either result 3 or 4 was considered a prohibited act.
That said, both of our groups had concluded the exams, and since many students were released from the exam at the same time, it would be hard to restrict all interactions between classes, so it should be okay… but did she really want to talk with us despite the risk?
“No, Honami-san just did your best. There’s no need to blame yourself.”
“Y-you’re right. I’m not at fault…”
In response to Arisu-chan’s words, Honami-san muttered as if to make a self-suggestion.
Her eyes were cloudy. She did put on a fake smile for the time being, but it looked somewhat painful. Was she really alright?
“Of course it is. Besides, it’s not like the other classes didn’t have their chance. They lost, so it’s their own fault. In fact, wasn’t there another group who sent their answer ahead of you?”
“The monkey group alone concluded their exam before I got the chance to send the message. Perhaps somebody noticed our intention?”
“It’s unclear whether that person noticed the ruling or managed to uncover who the VIP was through the group discussion, but I think they indeed noticed.”
It was probably the handiwork of Kouenji of Class D. Upon seeing the messages informing everyone of the end of the exam being sent one after another, he most likely went along and sent his answer as well. I guess that man already knew who the VIP was from long ago…
In terms of ability alone, he was very competent. His personality made it questionable, though.
I wasn’t acquainted with him at the moment, but I also got interested in Kouenji. Should I talk to him next time?
Arisu-chan was a girl who would declare “those who are defeated are at fault” in situations like this. I got so used to her usual kind and cute behavior that I forgot she originally had a different personality.
It was an aggressive way of thinking, completely different from Honami-san’s excessive kindness.
I never really thought about it, but these two were incompatible at their core.
Arisu-chan had presented Honami-san with the best course of action one after another free of charge. The current situation of continuing to receive such favors might have a bad influence on Honami-san’s mentality.
Up until now, the help Arisu-chan gave had always been aimed at improving themselves, such as preempting class point information and cross-examining the past questions for the midterm exam.
But that wasn’t the case this time. The ruling of VIPs was revealed and the VIP students of every class were named early. It was an aggressive tactic that the original Honami-san wouldn’t do. Even though it was done under Arisu-chan’s instruction, she ended up pushing Class B and Class C by reducing their class points by 150 by her own hand.
Could she convince herself it was an obvious thing because it was a match?
Perhaps the result of accumulating anxiety took form in her current expression.
“What should we do with the VIP of our class?”
She changed the topic in an easy-to-understand manner.
Although I had no idea what she thought inside, Honami-san tried her best to behave with a smile.
…It looked painful. Unlike Kikyou-chan, Honami-san wasn’t used to putting up a façade. That was why I could tell she was really in pain. Looking at her now, even I feel dull about it.
“Let’s see. If Honami-san doesn’t mind, can I ask you to let it be used by Kiyotaka-kun?”
Arisu-chan chose to follow the topic, which softened Honami-san’s atmosphere a little. Perhaps by talking with us the pain of her heart could be somewhat alleviated.
“I don’t mind, but can I ask why?”
“Because if things are left as they are, Kiyotaka-kun won’t be able to achieve his goal. The movement in the monkey group should be something he didn’t expect after all.”
I understood. I see… so that was how it was.
Kiyotaka’s goal was to make Karuizawa stand out this time. To achieve that, he wanted to give the impression that Karuizawa was the only one who managed to succeed in her class. However, because Kouenji had named the VIP in his group, it was possible Kouenji would stand out more than her. Result 4 was more of the error of the other party. While inciting that result could be considered a skill, it was clearly lacking in comparison to result 3, which could be considered an active victory.
In addition, because of Manabe, the discussion itself had almost rendered unsuccessful.
In order to make sure that the 50 points from the rabbit group was Karuizawa’s achievement, another background work was necessary, like having Kanzaki perform an act.
“In other words, would they be used as Kiyotaka’s follow-ups?”
“Exactly.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
Honami-san also seemed to understand somehow.
Based on this conversation’s premise, I tried to deduce how Kiyotaka would move from now on.
Considering Kiyotaka’s purpose, perhaps… he would have Karuizawa explain the ruling of selecting the VIP students. Then they would immediately name the VIPs of Class A. If that happened, it would show that Karuizawa managed to guess the VIP correctly with her own abilities, and they would be spared defeat.
That should have a greater impact than result 4 in the rabbit group.
[“Karuizawa might appear to be an incredible idiot, but she is actually a very smart woman.”]
That was the illusion that would spread to the surrounding people. If she managed to turn around the situation where they piled up defeat alone, the people of her class would have no choice but to admit she was the worthy person to be the leader of Class D. That would achieve the goal.
…It would be scary if a person with Karuizawa’s behavior was actually someone like Kiyotaka inside actually existed.
It would make it seem that her silly big yawn and snoozes were actually part of her calculation.
Karuizawa would be in charge of Class D from now on.
However, all of that was nothing more than illusions created by Kiyotaka.
Only a few people, including us, knew the truth.
I couldn’t imagine how it would turn out from now on. Hey, wasn’t this getting interesting?
Arisu-chan took out her cell phone, dialed Kiyotaka’s number, and hung up.
It must be the signal to start the action. It seemed that everything would be settled soon.
I have nothing more to do with this exam.
Since there was no more group discussion, today was just a chat time.
“Listen, Arisu-chan!”
“What is it, Honami-san?”
Honami-san talked about her recent situation very happily.
She became too exalted of a person in her class, so there was nobody she could chat casually with like this.
“Chihiro-chan asked sensei, ‘How many points do we need to build a bronze statue of Ichinose-san?’ I can’t understand that! Is there anything more embarrassing than that?”
“I see, that’s amazing.”
Rather than being embarrassed, please think about the feelings of Hoshinomiya-sensei who received such a question.
The girl named Shiranami Chihiro was one of the students with the greatest loyalty to Honami-san within Class A. Perhaps it would be better to call her the extremist faction of the Honami-san cult? She also loved Honami-san romantically, so she clearly saw Honami-san differently from other students.
She kept pestering us with various things… Actually, there was a period of time when Arisu-chan was the object of jealousy to her because Arisu-chan was close to Honami-san.
At that time, there was a dispute between us, but I’ll leave the details aside.
We were on pretty good terms now, so there was no need to recall it.
“I really want to be spared from that, but what should I do?”
“It’s not a bad way to increase the control over masses, but it doesn’t seem to be cost-effective.”
“…Is that the problem?!”
Arisu-chan’s remark made it hard to judge whether she was serious or joking.
I was actually curious how many points were necessary to achieve that. The school mentioned that anything could be purchased with points, after all.
Perhaps it was actually possible… wasn’t it?
No no, that really wasn’t the problem here. Things proceeded in a very dangerous direction.
The current Class A had the terror where they would accept any order from Honami-san.
It might be an impossible example, but let’s assume that Honami-san asked them to “force someone to drop out.”
What would they do then?
They would surely think doing so was something necessary and really put them into action.
This was just my personal opinion, but if they were forced into a close match in the future, I think they could easily resort to methods dirtier than what was done by Class C.
For them, the justification of protecting Honami-san became the indulgence that allowed them to resort to anything,
It was an overheated faith. I have a feeling this would rob them of their gentleness in the future.
…But that might be one of Arisu-chan’s goals.
Around evening, Honami-san seemed to have to attend the class meeting.
She stood up with a gloomy expression, completely different from when she was chatting with us.
“I have to go back. See you later.”
“Ou. Make sure to take a rest, okay?”
“Ahaha, you’re right. I guess… I’m a little tired.”
After saying that, she slowly left the room.
Because many people put their expectations on Honami-san, she had to respond to that.
I couldn’t comprehend how much of a burden it caused her.
Her big, beautiful eyes, which were her charm point, remained cloudy in the end.
Our cell phones rang in the quiet room.
We received three messages informing us that the rest of the groups had completed their exams.
At the same time, an announcement was made onboard that the final result announcement would be moved up to this evening as the exam for all groups was concluded. We will be completely free tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.
Everything happened as the geniuses wanted, while nobody else could do anything.
For the first time in a long while, I felt scared of Arisu-chan’s cute smile.
Author Note:
Something felt off about Honami-chan.
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