The heavy wooden door of the dormitory room clicks shut behind me and seals away the quiet hum of the hallway.
I stand in the small entryway and let out a long breath. My fingers ache. I am gripping three large, semi-transparent plastic bags so tightly the thin handles are cutting off the circulation in my knuckles.
I haul the bags over to the compact laminate counter of the kitchenette and drop them. They land with a loud, heavy slump, the plastic crinkling sharply in the silent room.
Inside those bags sits my survival. Piles of the absolute cheapest, most depressing ingredients the campus supermarket offers.
Huge, unbranded bags of dry gray rice. Slightly bruised root vegetables wrapped in thin mesh. Cheap rock salt and large bottles of generic soy sauce. Everything in those bags cost exactly zero private points.
I open the small refrigerator and start shoving the vegetables into the bottom crisper drawer. The appliance hums a low, metallic tune.
I will endure this tasteless garbage for as long as it takes. The culinary experience on this campus will be a nightmare, but the nutritional value of the free food is surprisingly decent. The school clearly calibrated the vitamin content to keep poor students physically functional, even if the taste mimics wet cardboard and dirt. Enduring this diet means my starting balance of one hundred thousand points stays completely untouched while the rest of Class D bleeds their accounts dry.
Pushing the fridge door shut, I turn my back on the kitchen. I take three heavy steps across the carpet and let myself fall forward.
My chest hits the mattress. The bedsprings groan loudly under the sudden impact. I roll over onto my back and stare straight up at the blank white ceiling tiles.
It is late afternoon. The very first day of school is finally winding down. The chaotic introductions, the arrogant displays in the classroom, and the overwhelming rush of Keyaki Mall are over.
Today is April 1st.
A sudden, sharp bolt of adrenaline pierces right through my exhaustion. I sit up slightly, propping my weight on my elbows.
Wait. That's right.
The day cannot end yet. I cannot go to sleep without solving it.
In my previous life, across endless forum threads, chaotic discord servers, and late-night fan debates, one single, maddening mystery drove the Classroom of the Elite community absolutely insane. It was the ultimate chronological puzzle.
What exact day of the week, and what specific calendar year, is April 1st in Volume 1?
When I woke up in this universe exactly one week ago, I made a strict, borderline psychotic rule for myself. I refused to know the current date. I actively, desperately dodged it.
During my final week of freedom before the semester started, I mostly stayed locked in my room. I spent hours just smiling like an idiot, staring at the walls, buzzing with the sheer, terrifying excitement that I was actually breathing the air of this universe.
Whenever I went outside the house, I kept my eyes pinned to the pavement. I refused to look at anything that has calendar. I never checked the printed receipts from the convenience store when I bought my free hygiene items. If my peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a calendar on a television screen, I forced my brain to scramble the numbers. I used cheap hypnotic techniques on myself, silently repeating random digits in my head to overwrite short-term memory, burying the data under layers of denial.
I didn't even look at my school-issued smartphone. I tossed it into my bag the moment they handed it to me and left the screen totally black.