It was lunch time, I found myself sitting on a bench, beside Akechi-san and Shimizu-kun, the only two people who tried to befriend me. I was holding a can of coke which cooled down my hands, although I realised that the roughness of my palm made it a little less noticeable—it was weird, it was something so irrelevant, yet it was the first time I ever noticed it.
Akechi-san shook her bottle of orange juice a little, bringing the pulp to the top.
"So, Kizutaka-senpai, what do you think about the new Preseqta system? Did you take a look at your Core Attributes?"
I took a sip of my drink.
"It's interesting, I suppose."
"Aha, were you happy with your attributes? Were they what you expected?"
"I guess so. There was nothing surprising about it."
Akechi-san wiped her mouth with a little handkerchief.
"That's good. My scores weren't that good, although I kind of expected it… Shimizu-senpai seemed happy with his though."
Shimizu-kun laughed a little.
"Hey, I was just happy about my intelligence score. It was the only one I cared about anyways. Why on earth did they add a combat attribute? It seems so out-of-place for a school to add something like that."
"Who knows, maybe they'll make you boys fight to the death!"
"If they did that, the school would be shut down before we even got to experience the Preseqta system!"
Despite how irrational it seemed, the school seemed to have some sort of immunity conventional laws. The school might just be able to get away with doing some rather crude things.
"Anyways, what do you guys think about the tokens we were given. What the heck are special exams."
"Haa, I honestly don't even know what's going on at this point. All this stuff about tokens and exams and attributes, it's all just flying over my head."
"Hana-san, this is probably going to be very important! It would be good for us to discuss it. If the school is throwing the word expulsion around, it probably means they've got lots of other things planned. Although, you're right that all of this seems to not make much sense."
It might not make much sense at first, but I could clearly tell what the school's final goal was. This was the beginning of the next generation of education, one that was much closer to what the Ideal Human Project was trying to achieve.
It was one that was cruel but effective.
"Kizutaka-senpai, tomorrow, meet us in the same spot, okay? This way we don't have to go looking for you every time!"
"Yeah Rin-kun, we should stick together, especially during a time like this."
…
"Okay, I'll meet you guys here."
• ───────────────── •
At Kansaki High School for Gifted Students, all students were given accommodation and meals on the school premises, it was the standard for boarding schools in the area. Although, this school was clearly a few steps above when it came to the quality of everything. We were allowed to go to the cafeteria to get warm meals prepared by a team of cooks whenever we felt like it, free of cost.
The school even had its own private mall.
It was truly a utopia for students—at least it appeared like one on the surface.
…
It was pretty late in the day, I was just scrolling through the Preseqta app that the school provided us with. Suddenly, I heard a notification on my phone.
This time, it was something much more interesting.
—Special Exam Details Released
It seemed that the school was wasting no time to begin implementing its strategies. I opened up the app, instantly to be greeted by a bright yellow screen.
-
{The First Special Exam}
Tonight at exactly 9:00 pm, all students must spin the virtual roulette wheel. Details of the wheel are given below.
5% - Your Appearance Attribute will be revealed
15% - One of your Core Attributes will be revealed at random (Excluding Appearance)
25% - Lose two tokens
55% - Nothing happens
…
[Token Benefit]: For the cost of one token, the student may skip this special exam.
[Note]: Any student who does not spin the virtual wheel by 9:30 pm will automatically lose two tokens, along with the reveal of a random Core Attribute.
-
The exam seemed pretty malevolent in general. There were no benefits, but the consequences of bad luck were quite troublesome.
Considering the fact that we were only given ten tokens, people would most likely try to save them, especially when they seemed to be this useful. But just weighing the two options, paying a token in this exam definitely was the better choice.
From what I could tell, the school had a reason for making such an exam at this time.
The time right now was 8:47 pm.
There was only a 42 minute window to roll the wheel or pay the token.
The school was sending a message to everyone—the school's messages are extremely important—don't miss them. The punishment for not rolling the wheel was worse than even the harshest punishment on the wheel itself.
This was a message to all of the students who had yet to realise the profundity of the new system. It was a bucket of cold water poured straight into their face.
…
The time was 9:00 pm
I paid the token and was able to avoid spinning the wheel.
A few minutes later, I received a message. It was on a newly-created group chat with Akechi-san and Shimizu-kun.
—Guys, did you all see special exam? Don't forget to make a decision, otherwise there's a penalty! It's like two tokens and some other stuff.
—Yeah, I saw it too, Hana. Rin, did you see the special exam?
—Rin?
It seemed that they genuinely cared about me.
—Yeah, I saw the exam too.
I decided to reply.
…
A few more minutes passed and eventually it got to 9:30 pm.
The app displayed a large number of new notifications.
[149 New Updates]
Scrolling through, it seemed that many students had a Core Attribute revealed.
I was finally able to get something to base the scaling of the scores off of.