Quote of the day: "A frog in the well, seems not to know the depth of the ocean, Ayanokouji-kun." [Classroom of the Elite Light Novel Year 2]

>>Bonds and Betrayals<<
◇Explanation◇

Back to real business, huh? As we then finally got to this huge luxury cruiser, called Athena, we were told that everything on here is all-inclusive.

This means everything here is completely free for us to use.

And to be honest. The sight was incredible. Even though it was just the ocean, the refreshing breeze, and the warm temperature just had something to it.

I always wondered how it is to be on a luxury yacht and well, it's great.

And the school was generous with us this time. Everything in here was made with expensive materials. Even the door knob was made with carbon fiber.

The shampoos here are the most expensive ones on the market. And planning this all alone, without any help, it would surely reach the high 8 digits.

And that is no joke for a school to pay for 160 students each. Naturally, there was of course a problem with all of this.

Why should the school gift us this?

Haven't we already learned?

But well, apparently not. Nobody is preparing themselves for the worst, well, I can't judge them, after all, this is only to be expected by the most luxurious and famous school in the country.

So all of the students went on to have fun, waste their time, get unfit by all of the food, and lose their athletic form.

Just surprised by the random announcement made today in this morning.

Our first-ever special examination.

And well, what shall I say? Am I excited? Nervous? Thirsty?

No, not at all. I just don't really wanna participate, but there is no way around it.

What do I mean by no way around? I have to participate now, after all, there was a deal made with Chabashira. And if I do not participate, I will be expelled unconditionally.

But what I am asking myself is; Was it worth it?

I seriously do not know. But I guess I should ask myself this once the time comes around when it gets relevant.

And until then, I still have time.

I am already sorry for Yuki and Alisa for all of this, but there is nothing we can do about it anymore, can we?

The island exam. First, it sounded very simple, but the chances on there are huge in terms of injury, violence, or maybe other things.

The first years' island examination.

To explain the rules of this exam is a bit complicated and hard. But I guess I will try and rewind everything that was told to us on the way to the island.

It is an all-around exam, you will get tested on your capabilities, on your teammate's capabilities, and then finally on the whole class's adaptability.

How?

Well, every class is divided into 20 duos. Means everybody has one partner. But there is one rule. Every class is perfectly divided into 20 guys and 20 girls.

And well, to balance things out, every duo is consistent of each, one girl and one boy.

It is only natural for it to be like that. A duo of the two most capable guys would have no problems in climbing the leaderboards.

But what is the goal of this exam?

Across the island, there are many games, more like events spread. Each event has a system. First place receives 1 million points.

These points aren't private or class points, these are event points.

1 million EP for 1st place.

And this goes on to tenth place.

After that, it's only a jump of 10.000 points instead of 100.000 Event Points.

The last ten places, however, will get a decrease in points.

-100.000 for last.
-90.000 for the second last and this goes on.

If you are one place from the bottom ten, you will neither receive nor get a deduction in points.

All these event points will add up with the duos in your class.

The Classes Event Points will be quite easy to calculate. It's all the EP from all the duos in the respective class.

The top 10 duos will receive from 5.000.000 private points to 1.000.000 private points.

And the last 5 will get Expelled.

The first-place class will receive 300 class points. The second will receive 150. Third will lose 150 and last will lose a whole 300 CP.

This will surely shift at least one placement across the class rankings.

The classes won't suffer from expulsion, no class will get deducted by expulsion of a team. However, retirement is allowed.

But, there is a trap in that, if both teammates retire, the team will get disqualified and their points will be frozen.

In the worst case, if they get both injured, they are forced to retire, thus their teammate will be forced to fight alone and if he doesn't, the team will probably face the punishment called expulsion.

Violence is prohibited. But there are no cameras on this island. Due to that major security problem, our watches are equipped with several features, which will call an emergency once a huge threat to life or a major injury is detected.

Also, once you get caught in an act of violence, you will get disqualified, but not expelled. Your teammate is allowed to continue the exam.

This means, there will be at least 10 expulsions. And well, there is a high chance of our class suffering from such.

But right now, the main priority, is how we are going to survive on that island. After all, the only way to get food is to get some yourself.

Or, you will buy food, water, and other stuff in the center of the island with the event points that you just won.

Several events are hosted at the same time. Each event is located in the north, the south, the west, and the east.

Means 4 events at a time.

But the times are different and some events will only exist once.

In a really interesting way, if you are physically weak and get an event that is pushing your academic knowledge, you will have an easy run.

But what if you get only physical ones due to bad luck?

Well, let's hope that you won't get the bad events all the time. There is a chance, that some events will be even held during the nighttime.

And there is always a countdown when the next events start on your watch. And if you are unlucky, they will start at a very bad time such as rain, heat, or other natural hindrances.

Picking your teammate is pretty hard. After all, we need to balance it out perfectly. If not, we might face a problem afterwards, since we are not allowed to change our teammates.

And we only have the first hour to decide our teammates.

A true hell of stress.

But what I am asking myself is, who will come out on top? There is a huge chance that everyone could come out on top.

This means in fact, every team here is an underdog.

》》Bonds and Betrayals《《

As we finally arrived, there was one thing that I have noticed. Everyone is freaked out that we were caught 'off guard' with this special exam.

Our first one will be probably one of the most pushing ones for sure.

"Everyone calm down. We do have not enough time to panic or stress out. I believe that with enough composure, we will eventually end up first."

Of course, she can believe in unicorns, doesn't mean it will turn out well. But something tells me that she came up with a strategy.

And well, I won't act accordingly as always. Since that is not against any rules. Maybe I will cause some distrust between me and the class. But of course, this exam is also an opportunity to check some things.

In the end, I am quite troubled about the feeling of Class C coming up with a strategy that involves violence of course.

"I of course paid attention and was lost deep in thought until we arrived here eventually. This exam will balance the entire first year. This means they want to get rid of the ones who couldn't prove themselves here. To avoid being hit in that regard, I propose a strategy. We probably won't have anybody in the leaderboard due to this."

"Huh?! And why should we give our best here then?! Isn't winning the most important thing for Class D!?" Sudou spoke out. And he wasn't wrong about that.

But out of all people, he was speaking. Physical strength alone won't help him out here.

"Hear me out first. Then yell at me for stupid things okay? I thought of pairing the weaker with the stronger ones. In both parts. Academically weak ones will get placed in a duo with a Physically strong one, which will at least help to reduce the probability of expulsion. Same goes the other way around."

An elimination of chance. But with that, Class D certainly won't achieve the best possible numbers.

But if you achieve the best numbers, what cost will haunt you once the exam is finally over?

"But it still isn't completely perfect, is it? That alone won't work on here." Horikita worded out her thoughts.

And just as always, Alisa is a bad friend of critique.

"Don't worry about that. I already thought of perfect duos on this island, who will balance out each weakness that the duo possesses. And with a bit of luck, I am sure some of our duos will end up in the top 10."

However, Alisa, luck isn't a 100% probability. With a bit of bad luck, some of us will get expelled.

The logic applies on both sides.

However, everyone came to agree here. But Horikita was still a little skeptical.

But there was a small problem.

Koenji exists. But well, the more I think about it, the less worried I get about him. He will be fine with every partner. Since Koenji wouldn't care and not cooperate, either way, he would get a random teammate.

The random teammate is the lucky one and could go on to immediately retire after 5 minutes. Since then, Koenji will have to carry the way to the end of the exam. And Koenji is just like Hirata, Kushida, and Horikita, a perfect all-rounder.

He is one of the few students who will be fine all alone for sure.

And with that, the huge doors to the examination opened.

Alisa was currently assigning everybody to another person, forming the perfect duos for her.

And well, she did great not gonna lie. There wasn't one unbalanced pair. But one thing is funny. Out of all people she decided to have me in her team.

I think there is a good reason for that.

She was completely unsure of my capabilities and didn't wanna risk anybody else's expulsion by placing me with somebody random.

Impressive.

And just shortly after she ended it. Chabashira went on to register everyone's watches with their teammates.

"You two in one team is weird to see."

"Sensei. Who are you betting for?"

"(Haah... As much as I wanted to forget the talk we had back then, you ruined my whole mind with that. I seriously cannot think of a realistic universe where you would get expelled.)"

She lowered her voice, to avoid anybody to eavesdrop on our conversation. And with this. There are only six minutes left until we are allowed to leave the east.

Ah, I probably forgot already. Class A will start in the west. Class B in the North. Class C is in the south and we will start in the east.

Chabashira went on to quickly register the last few duos and the confident Alisa was nowhere to be found.

She was quite nervous, judging by her expression. And I couldn't blame her. If this strategy fails, she runs the risk of huge problems.

Her role in the class will be demolished. But that is not my problem right now.

"Confident?"

"Not a bit. But you seem to be excited Kiyotaka-kun."

"Please remove that honorific from my name. It is annoying."

"If you want to...Но я уважаю Вас больше, чем кого-либо другого." [But I respect you more than anyone else]

It came unpredictably, and I am really confused as to why someone respects me that much.

After all, I haven't done anything great for her at all. But well, I am accepting the honor of being a person she respects.

"Hmm?"

"I meant we should wait a little until everyone leaves the south. Waiting longer should give us a bit of an advantage. After all, we won't need to even move until the first event is going to start."

"Ah. I guess we should do that." And well, it seems like only she thought about saving energy from the start.

I would have started right away, after all, saving these few hours of energy is completely useless.

Since we are stuck here for two weeks.

"Alisa. Is there a reason you placed me with you in one team?"

"...Well I thought it would be a good balance-"

"If that would be like that, you wouldn't have placed Sudou with Matsushita in one team."

"What has their placing to do with ours?"

"If you meant to balance it perfectly, Sudou would have been the optimal option. Placing me and Matsushita, both of whom are average would be the much better option. Any reason?"

"Honestly... I have no idea about either you or Matsushita. You both have the same scores. And I can't judge the physical ability of either you or Matsushita-san. It feels like you two are holding back constantly and so I thought of placing you both in a save duo, to avoid any surprising developments."

But that is an embarrassing and stupid mistake, my girl.

The fact that I am holding back is no secret. She never asked me to go all out, or to at least do more than I usually did.

So why should I try to achieve the best results possible? Nobody asked me to do that.

"Ah, sounds quite reasonable. But well, Alisa-"

"You know, usually we use nicknames in Russia. If you are close to someone, you are allowed to give them a respectful nickname, which isn't that different from the original name. And I guess you should also start to use one right?"

A nickname? Huh? I won't judge but I think that is quite unusual.

So what is a good name to call her instead of Alisa, a name that isn't too long and still sounds similar?

My brain was running massive research to every single forum I have ever seen or read. And well, I found a quick result.

It is quite close to Alisa but is even shorter.

Alya.

"Should I call you Alya then?"

"W-What?! How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That's exactly what my sister and my family called me!"

"Well...It was just a random name in my head... You have a sister?"

I only know for a fact that Horikita has a sibling in this school. And well me.

But Alis- Alya as well?

I assume that she also is in this school. But she will confirm it anyway.

"Y-Yeah...She is in this school as well."

"Ah. I assume she is older right?"

"Yeah...But well, you will find out about her another day. Let's focus a little. Besides... There wasn't anything said about sleeping right? I assume that we won't have set times to rest, but can rest whenever we want."

"But we will run in danger of missing out on a lot of events. Alya, if you get tired, we will take a break. Don't worry about that, after all, the most important thing currently is holding our stamina until the last day. And we shouldn't fall too far to the bottom."

"Kiyotaka, wasn't it said that we would get huge rewards if we got to the top?"

"Indeed it was. However private points will not benefit the entire class. Getting second place will happen automatically if all our duos will survive. After all, it will then hit the other classes and lower their total event points. But when necessary, we will push to the leaderboards."

Judging by Sudous spirit, he will surely try and claim the first place, and with Matsushita's ability, which is still unclear to me, I am sure they will eventually end up in the top 10.

And we should forget Horikita, Koenji, and Hirata, who will eventually build up momentum as well.

My main goal right now is to just not lose anybody here. And if I don't win this exam. My expulsion is settled.

And there is no realistic world, in which I will go back home without any huge achievement.

But partially, it's just my fault.

Either way, right now, we have 26 minutes until our first event starts.

"Alya. We should now start to move. The event comes earlier than expected. The compass on my smartwatch tells me the closest event is 236 meters in the western direction. We are still far from the center which is five times as far to the west."

We were still on the beach, after all, which means the eastern event is insanely close. And well, as we were sitting here a whole hour, it would be no wonder if everyone else already is in a completely different direction.

We will probably only meet Class D members, but there is still a chance we will meet others as well.

"A-Alright. But Kiyotaka. Are you somewhat strong?"

"I wouldn't say so."

It depends on the mood after all. But this time, it's not that I want to, or that I am motivated.

I just have to. There is no other option after all.

"So I guess it wasn't that smart to pair us two huh?"

"I wouldn't say it was dumb or bad. But let's say things won't turn out as you would have expected it."

"Y-You mean that this will be changing later on?"

"No, that's not what I exactly meant. I don't think I will last the 14 days. But if I don't, I think you will not get expelled due to my retirement. Don't worry as of now."

"...So even you, out of all people, are unsure of their placement?! W-Where did your confidence go?"

Sometimes I ask myself why I am still living when getting asked such questions.

These types of questions are just making it worse.

"Confidence? I can't remember a single day since I enrolled in this school, that I showed any glimpse of confidence. Don't be that stupid, but now, let's spare that topic for when the time comes. As of now, this event is our top priority now."

"T-That is...трясет меня..." [Shaking me]

As we finally arrived at the event, it was quite interesting to see what kind of structures were built up here.

Despite it being a little wet, due to the rain of yesterday night, it was still enough traction towards our feet.

In this kind of flat, which seems to be quite rare on this island since this is a jungle with some types of mountains, was a 'big hut' built, and was with that, the only source of light once it becomes dark.

There was a staff member, who stood at the entrance of the hut, and well, apparently the event will then be revealed once it starts.

And in addition to that, my suspicion about only Class D members being here was correct. Not a single opponent spotted, yet.

However, what was quite surprising to me, was that there were barely eleven teams. Out of 20 Class D duos, there were barely 11 present.

I assume that the other 9 went straight to the centrum, or probably to another event. Or failed to reach it.

Regardless of that, the duos here were the ones, who were mere average. The 'stronger and smarter' classmates of mine, weren't present for an unknown reason. Just one person which was quite funny to find.

"Sudou?"

"Ah! Dang, you scared me, don't creep up from behind!"

"Sorry about that. Where is Matsushita by the way?"

"Well, she is talking with your partner right now it seems."

He pointed his index finger right behind me, and well, he was right. Alya and Matsushita were just talking with each other.

I guess something is seriously off with me today, that I miss such obvious details and zone out