"Nothing much."
"I just feel that, if it were you, it would be impossible for you to be here simply 'expecting' a mistake from your opponent."
That gaze held obvious confusion and a trace of disappointment.
Based on what Subaru had shown so far, Horikita felt that he was completely relying on the massive amount of personal points he had obtained through various coincidences to suppress others with brute force.
There was no wisdom or strategy to it whatsoever.
However... this feeling was completely different from what her older brother had said.
Just the night before.
Horikita had met with Manabu Horikita in a slightly secluded corner and had a conversation.
Ayanokoji had happened to witness the scene where Manabu Horikita was persuading Horikita to leave the school. Because Manabu looked like he was about to get physical, Ayanokoji had stepped forward to stop him.
The reason Horikita had taken such a high interest in Subaru again was precisely because her brother, Manabu, had mentioned him. He had said that if it were Subaru, perhaps it wouldn't be impossible to have some expectations.
But, if that didn't work out, it would be better to just withdraw from school directly.
Horikita felt that she might be able to learn something from Subaru—something that could truly gain her brother's approval—rather than this current state of doing nothing and merely 'unilaterally' 'expecting' Yamauchi to make a mistake.
'Suzune Horikita, you are thinking about things too superficially.'
Ayanokoji looked at Horikita, whose disappointment was almost exposed on the surface, and shook his head in his heart.
'Right now, there is no need to do anything superfluous; one only needs to wait for the final result.'
'Taking it upon oneself to do extra things will not make the result develop in the direction one anticipates.'
In Ayanokoji's view, the reason Horikita was not looked upon favorably by Manabu for continuing at this school included this aspect: she always wanted to do more, without caring at all whether it was already appropriate or sufficient.
She also completely failed to realize the viewpoint that doing more might lead to more mistakes.
Regarding the matter of Yamauchi, this was about enough; there was no need to do anything more.
"But, there is no need for me to do anything anymore."
Subaru looked at Horikita's eyes, which held some inexplicable expectation for him, and smiled gently.
As he spoke, Subaru glanced at the other side of the classroom, where Yamauchi was triumphantly waving a copy of the exam paper and discussing with Ike and Sudo what they would do after the exams were over.
Although Ayanokoji's deduction process was not correct, the result was not problematic.
Subaru did not think he needed to do anything specific because of Yamauchi's behavior. When the time came, if the points were sufficient, he would expel Yamauchi. If the points were not sufficient, he would deal with it then.
There was no need to rack his brains thinking of countermeasures for things that had not happened yet.
Possessing the rollback ability, Subaru had ample room to 'regret'.
There was no such thing as an irrevocable result caused by certain actions.
"Aren't you going to expel Yamauchi?"
"If you do nothing now, won't there be no way to get Yamauchi expelled?"
Unable to understand why Subaru was so highly praised by her brother, Horikita saw that Subaru remained in that state of indifference and imperviousness, and her tone took on a trace of urgency.
Horikita simply wanted her brother's approval too much.
"Horikita-san, you seem to easily confuse two different concepts."
Looking at the bewildered expression on Horikita's face, Subaru shook his head slightly and said, "Me doing nothing does not equal me being unable to expel Yamauchi-kun. These are two different things."
'Subaru's meaning has been expressed very clearly.'
Listening to the sporadic idle chatter between Subaru and Horikita, Ayanokoji also let his thoughts drift.
'Horikita, you can understand it this way.'
'Even if... even if Yamauchi performs very well, making the cost of expelling him very high, he still cannot escape the fate of final expulsion...'
'This is a manifestation of being full of confidence in all outcomes, not the expectation of an opponent's mistake that you spoke of, Horikita.'
Regarding the matter of Subaru wanting to expel Yamauchi, Ayanokoji also maintained a high degree of attention.
After all, the very fact that one could use personal points to expel a person was a not-so-small threat to Ayanokoji as well. Ayanokoji still wanted to continue studying here for three years.
The most important thing was, if Subaru suddenly turned the spearhead toward him at this time, Ayanokoji believed he had almost no possibility of resistance, other than improving his own strength evaluation... scoring high marks.
'Just in case...'
'And this time there are past exam papers. If the exam papers ultimately really are all the same, then I'll just score a high mark. Scoring high at this time won't be considered particularly conspicuous...'
'I will try to improve the school's evaluation of me to avoid being expelled.'
"..."
Horikita was sulking a bit.
She didn't know why, but every time she spoke or chatted with Subaru, she felt an inexplicable sense of suffocation.
"Since that's the case... then I have nothing left to say..."
"I will just look forward to seeing how you expel Yamauchi after the midterm exams, Natsuki."
Dropping those last two sentences dryly, Horikita paid no more attention to Subaru.
Since saying anything now was useless, she could only wait—wait for the day the midterm exams ended and the results came out, to see how Subaru would expel Yamauchi. That would suffice.
As long as that day arrived, Horikita would be able to see through the reason why Subaru was so praised and valued by her brother, and then apply what she learned to gain her brother's approval.
"There is nothing to look forward to either."
"It's just forcibly expelling Yamauchi-kun using personal points, that's all."
Subaru looked at Horikita, who had suddenly become sulky, and smiled, saying, "There is no technical content to it."
To this, Horikita made no further response.
As for Ayanokoji, who was sitting in the seat in front of Subaru, he was deep in thought.
'The point isn't how to use personal points to expel Yamauchi...'
'The real point is exactly how to obtain enough personal points to expel Yamauchi...'
'Not having enough personal points is still a bit too dangerous...'
Ayanokoji began to ponder preparing a little extra personal points for himself to deal with emergencies.
For the next week, nothing special happened.
Subaru's activity trajectory remained much the same as usual: classroom, cafeteria, library, dormitory—a four-point line.
Occasionally, he would also sit alone by the seashore to empty his mind for a while.
Subaru was relatively satisfied with his current life.
Next, he just needed to quietly wait for the day when Hiyori Shiina and Kikyo Kushida bore fruit.
On Hiyori Shiina's side, there was no difference from usual. She read books with Subaru in the library every day and chatted. It was unclear what Year 1, Class C was busy with.
The situation where Hiyori came looking for trouble, as mentioned by herself, did not occur.
Kikyo Kushida, on the other hand, was unexpectedly willing to go all out.
Even though Hirata had already said that he would hold the targeted study group alone, Kushida still insisted on going to the study group to provide tutoring.
Yamauchi, Ike, and Sudo were the key targets.
Because Sudo's studying attitude was very good, he even took a break for two days. Yamauchi, as the object openly targeted by Subaru, was naturally paid high attention to by Hirata.
Even though they already had the exam questions, the targeted study group continued day after day without missing a single one.
Yamauchi's dissatisfaction with Hirata grew day by day.
Unlike Sudo's gratitude, Yamauchi felt that Hirata was completely meddling. They clearly already had the past exam questions; they just needed to memorize them casually to pass.
Yet he insisted on staring him down and used various pretexts to stand on the moral high ground to suppress him. It was annoying to death.
Time quickly reached May 22nd, Friday.
"Yamauchi, how were your results this time?"
"Sure enough, not a single question was changed; they were all exactly the same."
After school in the afternoon, while packing his schoolbag, Ike said with a face full of excitement:
"This midterm exam, our class will definitely be able to obtain almost one hundred class points. I answered with all my might to get a high score."
Because Hirata's tutoring had never stopped, coupled with the factor that the past exam questions remained unchanged, Ike made a rough estimate for himself: he could score over eighty points this time.
His grades were already considered among the worst in the class.
If he could score over eighty, then higher scores would be everywhere. Maybe this time, the average score of Year 1, Class D could reach ninety-five, or even higher.
An average score of ninety-five meant that ninety-five class points could be added, resulting in nine thousand five hundred personal points every month.
Accommodation cost no money, and daily necessities were free. Eating the mountain vegetable set meal every day was fine once one got used to it.
Anyway, it was nutritionally rich.
If the personal points worth nine thousand five hundred yen were all used on personal expenses other than the above... although it couldn't compare to the first month, it wasn't unacceptable.
The most important thing was that this was merely a beginning.
There would definitely be more ways to obtain class points in the future. The future was promising!
Speaking to the end, Ike's face was filled with unstoppable anticipation.
He didn't ask to have one hundred thousand personal points every month in the end. To be able to recover to half, or even thirty thousand personal points, would be a godlike life he previously hadn't dared to imagine.
"My results were just average."
"That guy Hirata was staring too tightly during this period. I didn't answer too many questions."
After hearing Ike's words, Yamauchi said somewhat indifferently:
"However, passing is definitely no problem. I estimated roughly; it's about fifty or sixty points."
Perhaps because Hirata had been staring too tightly.
During the exam, Yamauchi had a mentality of retaliation, or rather, 'letting it rot'.
After feeling that his score was definitely enough to pass, Yamauchi simply lay down and slept.
He completely failed to act like Ike, who tried to score as high as possible to raise the class average and obtain more class points. Instead, his attitude was 'long live sixty points'.
As for Subaru's remark back then about using personal points to expel him...
Although Yamauchi was scared into a cold sweat by Subaru's words at the time, after a short while, all of Yamauchi's fear had disappeared, replaced by a feeling of humiliation turning into anger.
He just felt that Subaru was completely scaring him.
The school's claim that personal points could do anything was totally exaggerated behavior. How could it be possible to use personal points to arbitrarily expel a student whose performance had no issues?
Because of such a thing, he was targeted in various ways and forcibly coerced into studying. Hirata was really making too big of a fuss over a trivial matter.
"Huh?"
"You didn't answer too many questions?"
After hearing Yamauchi's answer, Ike was somewhat flabbergasted.
"In that case, you will drag down the class average, won't you?"
"If you score a bit higher, the class average will be a bit higher. One point equals one hundred personal points per month!"
Even Ike hadn't expected Yamauchi to actually have this kind of attitude.
Clearly, for the sake of making the class average higher and getting more class points, he himself had been racking his brains every day to memorize exam questions. Yet, Yamauchi had just let it rot like this.
Ike felt a sense of unworthiness.
"I didn't get zero points. I have at least over fifty points. I calculated it; how much could I possibly drag down the score?"
Hearing Ike's tone, which carried a bit of complaint, Yamauchi rolled his eyes fiercely and said:
"Could it be, Ike, that you can guarantee your score in every subject is a full one hundred points?"
"Uh..."
"One hundred points, well, not really..."
Ike froze for a moment, then said:
"Probably around eighty points."
"If it's eighty points, then what are you talking about?"
Yamauchi said disdainfully:
"Assuming everyone except me gets full marks, and I only scored fifty points, then I might possibly drag the average down by one or two points."
"In reality, I couldn't have just scored fifty, and it's impossible for everyone else to be at one hundred percent."
"So, my influence can be almost ignored. I really don't know what you are surprised about here, Ike."
Saying this, Yamauchi rolled his eyes at Ike once again.
"If you put it that way, Yamauchi, it seems that is indeed the case..."
Hearing Yamauchi's explanation, Ike scratched his cheek.
Calculated by Yamauchi like this, it seemed indeed that Yamauchi not trying his best in the exam had a minimal impact on the class points.
"That's just how it is!"
"In a few days, points will be credited to the account again. Let's go, let's go~"
Saying this, Yamauchi hooked his arm around Ike's neck, and they left the classroom together.
___
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