Okabe's last words contained a very important piece of information: any class that lost four matches would be eliminated first.
"Teacher, what happens if we lose a match?"
"For every match a class loses, fifty class points will be taken from it and given to the winning class. If the losing class has fewer than fifty class points, the school will make up the difference.
"Also, class points will not go into the negative during this exam. The class that wins in the end will receive an additional two hundred class points."
Losing a match costs fifty points, while winning one earns fifty points. That part was the same as what they had seen before, but the final winner's bonus had been increased from one hundred points to two hundred.
Kamio Tatsuya nodded to himself. This was not entirely bad news.
"Besides these rules, there is one more very important rule."
As he spoke, Okabe wrote a few more words on the blackboard.
Commander.
"Because this exam may involve the entire class, every class must choose one commander to coordinate the class's efforts.
"However, the student chosen as commander cannot directly participate in any of the events.
"In exchange, the commander can interfere in every event and provide support, such as replacing students or solving problems they cannot handle. You will decide the exact form that interference takes.
"For example, in the boxing event I mentioned earlier, you could set a commander's privilege that allows them to replace a contestant at any time."
"Heh. In other words, these are extra rules for the events themselves, right?"
"That's exactly what it means."
Okabe nodded.
"Finally, when a class wins, the commander can personally receive some private points. But if the class loses, the commander must also accept the corresponding responsibility.
"That's right. If a class loses, its commander will be required to take responsibility by withdrawing from school. The winner will be determined by which class wins the most matches."
The entire class erupted in an uproar. Even the corner of Kamio Tatsuya's eye twitched.
The previous exam rules had never included withdrawal from school as a punishment for losing. There was no need to think about it—the rule had been added by Tsukishiro.
After making us spend twenty million points to buy protection points, was he going to take them back right away?
His greed was showing far too clearly.
A battle between four classes meant there could be only one winner. The other three classes would either lose their protection points or have one student expelled.
Tsukishiro really was disgusting.
But Kamio Tatsuya quickly realized something.
Could Tsukishiro's rule changes have been aimed specifically at him?
It was certainly possible.
To ruin Tsukishiro's plans, Kamio Tatsuya had obtained protection points for himself and Ayanokouji. Tsukishiro had responded by creating an exam that would force at least three students to leave the school.
He really was shameless. Didn't this completely go against the school's educational philosophy?
This school had been established to develop talented people who would be useful to society.
Yet this exam forced each class's most capable students to risk expulsion by becoming commanders.
To win this exam, a class had to put one of its best students in charge of coordinating everyone. But among the four classes, only one could win.
That meant the other three commanders would pay the price by being expelled.
If nobody had protection points, this would be an exam designed to expel outstanding students on purpose.
Previous exams had generally targeted students who were not particularly capable. If those students fell behind, it was not a major loss. They could only blame themselves for not working hard enough.
But this time, if you wanted to win, you had to risk having one of your best students expelled by making them commander. If every class did that, three excellent students would be expelled.
Tsukishiro was willing to do anything just to reclaim the protection points held by Kamio Tatsuya and Ayanokouji!
If this had been the final exam of the third year, Kamio Tatsuya would have welcomed it. Losing would basically mean losing any chance of graduating with your class.
But they were only first-years, and the competition between the classes was still intense. Losing even one outstanding student would be a huge blow.
You bastard, Tsukishiro. Who the hell are you trying to screw over with this disgusting rule?
It had to be Sakayanagi, right?
It was definitely Sakayanagi, wasn't it?
What kind of grudge did he have against her? Taking down Chairman Sakayanagi was not enough for him—now he had to go after his daughter too. What a complete piece of trash.
The rule was not too bad for Class A or Class C. The students with protection points were Ichinose and Kamio Tatsuya, and both of them were capable of becoming commanders.
Class D did not have much to worry about either. Kamio Tatsuya would give them instructions anyway, so they only needed to make the person with protection points their commander.
But Class B was in a terrible position.
Although Kamuro was close to him, Kamio Tatsuya had to admit that she did not have what it took to be a commander. He was not even sure she knew all the names of the students in her class.
Even Katsuragi would be better than her. Of course, the best choice for Class B's commander was obviously Sakayanagi.
So, Sakayanagi…
Would she risk expulsion to become the commander?
It was quite intriguing.
"Remember, a commander is essential in this special exam," Teacher Okabe emphasized again. "Without a commander, the exam cannot begin. If you cannot reach an agreement, the school will randomly appoint one for you."
Of course, that would not happen in Class C. For one thing, Kamio Tatsuya's protection points meant he had no reason to fear expulsion.
Ryuen and Kamio Tatsuya each had more than twenty million private points, while Class C currently had 501 class points.
Even if they lost all four matches in this exam and lost 200 points, they would still have 301 points left—enough to pay the 300 points needed to avoid expulsion.
Still, Kamio Tatsuya did not believe that he or Ryuen could lose four matches in a row.
On the other hand, if they could win twelve matches in a row, they would receive eight hundred class points directly.
Their class points would rise to 1,301, which would be enough to move straight from Class C to Class A.
Well, that was only the ideal scenario. Winning every match would still be difficult, and Class A and Class B might not even choose Class C as their opponent.
Even if they did face Class A or Class B, victory was not guaranteed.
"As for the final battle rules… On the day of the exam, the commanders from all four classes will gather in the multipurpose classroom.
"Starting with Class A, each class will choose one event from the events it prepared. Its commander will then choose which class to challenge.
"The process will continue in the same way. An event will be selected from Class B, and then its commander will choose an opponent.
"The class being challenged has one chance to refuse in each round. If it refuses, the challenging class must choose another opponent.
"If all three other classes refuse, the class that was chosen first will become the opponent and the match will begin."
Oh, this was interesting.
Were they playing a game of cards here? Hahaha.
Still, this rule had both advantages and disadvantages. For Class C, though, it was obviously advantageous. Since Class C controlled Class D, the two classes could work together and eliminate one class first.
Even Class D had events it was good at.
And if they won their matches, they would benefit as well.
Class D could also serve as a shield. If they encountered a troublesome event, Kamio Tatsuya could refuse, then have Class D's commander accept it instead and take the hit for him.
"By the way, Teacher, what happens if two classes submit the same event?" Kamio Tatsuya asked. He had not seen anything about this in the materials he had read earlier.
"The event will proceed normally."
"So it is possible for the same event to be held twice?"
"That's right." Teacher Okabe nodded. "You should have a good understanding of the basic rules by now. Spend the rest of the time thinking about how to deal with this exam."
"You still have some time left, so I'll leave you to it. This is the rulebook for the exam. Feel free to read through it if you need to."
After saying this, Teacher Okabe left the classroom.
The rulebook he left behind quickly ended up in Ryuen's hands.
Ryuen was not stingy. He immediately pushed his desk together with Kamio Tatsuya's and began reading the exam rules with him.
The materials Kamio Tatsuya had read before were only a rough summary, so he did not know the detailed rules.
He leaned over and carefully read the specific rules of the exam.
First were the facilities that could be used for the events.
On the day of the special exam, the four commanders would take the exam from the multipurpose classroom. They would assign students to the events and directly interfere with the matches that were about to take place.
The gymnasium, sports field, music room, science room, and most other school facilities could be used, although there were some exceptions.
Next came the event rules.
If two events were judged to be essentially the same, each class could only use one of them. For example, five-on-five basketball and one-on-one basketball would count as the same event.
Events that lasted too long, or events with no time limit, might also be rejected.
The number of participants required for each event, excluding substitutes, had to be different for all five events submitted.
The minimum number of participants was one, and the maximum was twenty.
Heh. So there was no way to crush the other classes by preparing five one-person events.
Also, including substitutes, each class could prepare only two events that required more than ten participants.
Furthermore, until every student had participated in an event, students who had already competed could not participate again.
Once everyone in the class had taken part in an event, however, students could participate in a second round. The same rule applied in the second round: no student could participate twice.
The commander could interfere with ongoing matches. The class that submitted the event would decide how the interference worked, but it would only be accepted after being approved by the school.
Kamio Tatsuya and Ryuen finished reading the exam rules at almost the same time. Both of them smiled.
"This is really interesting. The school sure prepared a fascinating special exam." Ryuen leaned back in his chair with an unreadable smile.
"Definitely. So, are you going to be the commander, or are you going to compete as a contestant?"
Kamio Tatsuya had no interest in becoming commander.
In fact, the commander would have to keep track of the number of students remaining in the class while also calculating all kinds of unexpected situations. The amount of thinking involved would be huge. It was basically exhausting work.
"We'll see. If the opponents are too weak, I'd rather compete in the events myself."
Although Ryuen said that, this exam was probably the most interesting one Kamio Tatsuya had encountered since coming to the school.
First, knowing yourself and knowing your enemy was the key to winning battles. The first thing every class had to do was understand the strengths and traits of its own students.
It was not enough to know your own strengths and weaknesses. It was also important to figure out what the other classes were good and bad at.
Next came gathering information about the other classes. If possible, they needed to find out which events their opponents planned to choose so they could prepare in advance.
Then came the commander's challenge on the day of the exam: assigning the right people to the right events.
The exam would probably go smoothly at first. But as the events continued one after another, fewer and fewer students would remain available near the end.
When necessary, it would be better to give up on certain events and send students who were not useful to the class into the second round rather than reach the point where there were no suitable pieces left to use.
However, this was not always an advantage. If too few students remained at the end, the class would not be able to adjust its strategy properly when facing the opponent's attacks.
After all, not everyone was good at everything. Sometimes, one person's strength could make up for another person's weakness. The commander's judgment would be tested when deciding who to sacrifice and when to do it.
Besides that, there were the dirty tricks Ryuen was best at. If they could prevent their opponent from competing, they would naturally be declared the winner.
That was Ryuen's specialty. But if he were caught, he would not only lose the exam—he would probably be expelled on the spot.
So Kamio Tatsuya decided to warn him in advance.
While Kamio Tatsuya was thinking, Ryuen seemed to have received a message and took out his phone to look at it.
"Ryuen, you're not planning to use some underhanded trick this time, are you?"
Hearing this, Ryuen put away the phone he had just taken out and smiled.
"What? Are you going to stop me? Since when did you become so obsessed with morality?"
As expected, the reason he had been silent for so long was that he had been thinking of some dirty trick.
Kamio Tatsuya's mouth twitched.
"This isn't about morality. I just don't want to watch you get caught and expelled on the spot.
"There's an old saying: if you stand by the river long enough, your shoes will eventually get wet. If you rely too much on dirty tricks, sooner or later those tricks will come back to hurt you.
"Besides, Class C can win this exam even without using underhanded methods."
Hearing this, Ryuen gave him a sly smile.
"Since you put it that way, I'll leave this exam to you. Do your best. Oh, right—the commander's position is yours too."
As he spoke, he patted Kamio Tatsuya on the shoulder.
Damn it, this bastard had been waiting for me to say that.
Why was it so hard to coast through things for once?
And hadn't he just said he would decide later whether to become commander?
How had I suddenly been appointed commander?
Wait, Ryuen had just received a text message…
Looks like he had learned something.
Still, Kamio Tatsuya was not actually opposed to it. He genuinely thought this exam was very interesting.
Although the expulsion rule might go against the school's educational philosophy, the exam itself was undeniably well designed.
In that case, he might as well enjoy it.
Let's have some fun.
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