Chapter 15: Surprise Test

[Chapter 15: Surprise test.]

After getting senpai's injury treated, we sent each other off and now finally returning to our classrooms... Although it has already been 20 minutes since the last bell rang for the first period in the afternoon...

While walking down the hall, my mind is filled with thoughts, recollecting everything that has happened thus far.

'After switching into a normal student character, everything seems to be falling into place just like the ones in the shows.'

'No one is avoiding me anymore so that must mean I've already blended in with the crowds pretty well. '

'That's what I thought. However, even though I think I blended in pretty well, the student council president Shiori-senpai somehow still managed to see through my vasaud.'

Passing through the halls, some students secretly take a glimpse of me at their window. But I paid it no mind as I was lost in my thoughts.

'So I take what happened was: at first they thought I was their enemy,' [Referring to when they were trying to catch the weird person.]

'And now they're unsure. As senpai let me go even after catching me.'

'I also got to save the good guy so, technically speaking, Phantom helped the good guy from the shadows as I helped in my side character form.'

'And when she laughed at the end... It must have meant that she's now marked me as her target. It's basically like saying the line of "We will meet again." foreshadowing... I'll take this as Operation: [Blend in with the crowds.] is proceeding just perfectly.

It was kind of disappointing there's no spy though... It would have been much cooler if I found another chuunibyou.

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I finally reached the door of our classroom. And, at that moment I opened the door... When I entered the classroom, the air inside felt somewhat heavy.

All of my classmates have papers on their desk, seemingly putting on a troubled expression on their faces.

When I looked in front of the classroom, there was already a teacher standing.

Well, I've been gone for a while so it's only natural for the teacher to be there. However...

'It's teacher Tsubasa!'

I suddenly realized the source of this discomforting feeling.

In contrast to Teacher Kyoshi Hageshi, who's always asking questions at the end of the lesson, Teacher Tsubasa is known for giving out quizzes at the beginning of his class, after finishing his lesson from previous days.

Of course, there was no school yesterday so what is he giving? I suspected that this is a test to see if we retained our knowledge after having our summer break.

The second and third years might have expected this, but as freshman we didn't see this move coming.

Seeing that he handed a full blown test paper to my classmates, I suspected that the solving time we had was about an hour.

"You there, where have you been?"

"S, sorry Sir. I fell down the stairs so I had to go to the infirmary." I explained, thinking, 'Technically I didn't lie.'

I technically didn't lie since I also fell on the floor directly on the staircase as well.

"Wait a minute. Who are you anyway?" inquired Tsubasa-sensei, seeing an unfamiliar face.

"It's Yukiya Saito, Sir."

"Yukiya? ...wait, Saito!? That strange student who always wearing that edgy looking customized uniform? That Yukiya Saito?!"

"Strange?"

"...Ah, nothing. Just take a seat and grab a test paper, there's still time for you to take it."

Even though I arrived this late, he still insisted on making me take the test.

The class was already taking the test, and judging by their expressions. The test seems to be quite hard.

I grabbed a test paper then quickly returned to my desk. I then proceeded to take the test and started answering.

There are twenty-five minutes left before the papers are submitted. It was supposed to be forty-five minutes, but since I came in late, I only have about that much time left to answer.

The test has a hundred items. This test I assume must not be graded. This is just probably an assessment for Teacher Tsubasa to get a hold of how much we know, that's why he put that much as he can. Ah, but I don't think that doesn't mean it's not recorded.

Within twenty-five minutes, I have to answer all one-hundred questions on this sheet of paper.

I sat down and hurriedly answered, as the clock ticked fast and time running out.

I flipped through the pages first and skimmed through all three pages before answering. I'll tell you why later.

'He's really making him answer this late?'

'At this rate, he won't have time to properly answer.'

'Sucks to be him.'

'He's gonna fail for sure... At least I know now someone in the same boat.' [The guy who accepted his fate.]

'Teacher Tsubasa sure is still as ruthless as ever.'

Everyone had the same thought of just how unreasonable it was to start answering this late at the test.

Minutes passed... about twenty or so.

Every now and then, when we have quizzes or exams. The teacher goals for a role call, saying "Raise your hands if you're finished answering."

After twenty minutes passed, the teacher called for exactly just that.

"Raise your hand if you're finished."

Most of the class raised their hands but there's still a few who haven't finished answering.

Only 5 minutes before it's over. Along with the students who raised their hands, there was me.

"He's already raising his hand?"

"How bold"

"So he has already accepted his fate.'

"Did he just power through the exam and hope for a lucky guess?"

"He's lost it"

"He's doomed"

They silently thought to themselves, not believing I answered everything properly cause I finished it at a rate to finish at the same time they did, despite taking the test this late in the game. They thought it would mostly be just random guesses and bs my way through.

Well, I couldn't really say I didn't.

The reason why there was only 45 minutes to take Tsubasa-sensei's test was, instead of an hour like normal teachers do in exams, it was because of the Teacher Tsubasa the ruthless also included the time to check the papers, which take away about ten minutes, and use the remaining five to verbally announce the scores in front of the class.

That's a total fifteen minutes subtracted to the supposed one hour of test time.

So now, after exchanging papers at random, checking the papers and returing it to sensei. It's now time to give out our scores.

"Soba Hito, 75/100."

"Yukiya Saito."

Everyone is now anticipating how I did in the test, that I bull my way through to some extent.

"67/100"

The passing grade is 60 so just being above that is enough to make them shocked, even if it wasn't as amazing as having the 90+ score.

It's not like I was the only one who passed. The majority of the class passed and only a few failed. They were surprised about the little time I used and still manage to pass.

The secret to me passing is by calculated risk.

Not by randomly guessing but for almost half the question was true or false.

During my time as a student, I statistically noticed that teachers tend to equalize giving true or false statements on the questions, so I assumed Tsubasa-sensei follows the same principle as well, judging by the previous exam he gave.

So I took a gamble.

In the true or false category, I made all of my answers true.

It could only lead to three ways on how it could end.

Either it would be just as I predicted with me getting half the score of that category barely surpassing the 60 mark; The majority of it will be true and get more than I expected; or loose mostly of the points and fail if the majority of the answers are false.

Luckily, it happened just as I predicted.

You may have already been aware that I study in advance so I'm confident enough to have at least more than half of the multiple choice and identifications correctly.

It wouldn't be a lie if I said that the test was hard even if I did study in advance. What truly made it hard was answering all one-hundred questions properly in just twenty minutes is just impossible. That would mean you have to answer four questions per minute.

So by writing true to everything that makes up almost half of the test, that would only take me less than two minutes. Now, I would have enough time to think about answering two or more per minute seriously, so it lightens the burden by a lot.

The reason I raised my hand early was... No particular reason. I just wanted to blend in with the crowds.

I noticed that if you finished the last, attention was given to that person because some are annoyed, feeling we have to waste time waiting for that person to finish.

Finally, it was over. The heavy atmosphere from before lifted after finishing announcing the scores.

And so, again, class proceeded normally. By normal I meant the one that happened earlier this morning, where the teacher was surprised to hear my introduction as Yukiya Saito, picking me in recitation because I stood out too much, though I wasn't aware of the reason why.

But I did start to get annoyed by the repetitive reactions, and constant calling for me in recitations.