It was 6:00am when both of our phones beeped with a notification. Haruto was also awake at this point so we decided to check them together. The notification was on the Preseqta app—Special Exam Notification. I pressed on it to reveal a message.

-

Balanced Society Special Exam

Exam

In this special exam we will be imitating the struggles of the lower-class and the exploits of the upper-class. The details are below:

Condition A) In two days, 40000 points will be loaned from every single student's bank account. The points will be deducted on the 21st of January at 6:00am and returned on the 22nd of January.

Condition B) At the same time, any student with more than 80000 points will lose 90% of their excess points. E.g. If a student has 89000 points then 8100 points will be deducted and not returned.

Students are free to send any number of points to each other, however, in these two days the maximum number of points able to be spent at any school-registered store is 5000.

If at any point, a student has less than 0 points in their accounts, they will be immediately expelled.

Packages

Every class also have two options which they are allowed to choose from via a majority class vote.

1. Every person in the class will pay 2000 points and the class will be allowed to skip the special exam, however, the 5 students with the lowest number of points in the class will be expelled regardless of how many points they own.

2. Every student in the class will be given a loan of 20000 points, however, after the exam, every student must give up 50% of their total number of points at the end of the exam and 4000 points will be deducted from every student's account at the start of every month for five months.

Once your class decides on an option, every student in the class will be forced to comply with the requirements. For a vote to be valid, at least 61% of students must vote. If less than 61% of students place a vote, neither option will be selected and 5000 points will be deducted from every student's account. Any student who doesn't vote will have a further 5000 points deducted regardless of the result. Students must be in the classroom to vote.

A vote must occur before 8:00pm tonight otherwise it be be consider invalid.

The total number of points of the three students with the most points in each class will be displayed at 8:00am every morning for one hour until the end of the exam.

-

This was a lot to unpack.

'So this is a special exam.' Haruto finally spoke after after we finished reading the message.

'Yeah, it's really complicated.'

'So what are your plans? How many points do you have?' He asked.

'Well I don't have enough to pass this exam.'

'I'm going to fall victim to condition B, so I'll lend you my points.'

I thought about it for a little bit. Haruto's trustworthiness was concerning, however, as long as he was lending me points, we'll be fine. It seemed he noticed my hesitation.

'You probably saw my Cooperative Reliability score didn't you?'

'Yeah.'

'Well we can talk about this a bit more in the afternoon. I still have to see what option my class pick for the packages.'

It was true, if Haruto lent me a large amount of points and his classed picked the first option then he might be expelled due to the condition. Even if it seemed the packages were made to help the classes with people who lack many points, they were just as much made to cause problems amongst the richer classes.

It was truly an exam which challenged both the poor and the rich.

I prepared to go to class for the day—however, there was likely going to be a lot of chaos.

*

It was 8:00pm. A huge crowd of students were gathered in front of the board. The highest point owners were displayed, as explained in the exam.

-

Class 1-A

1. Raijin Kurol - 132,822 points

2. Inoue Akiko - 122,009 points

3. Amaya Ami - 121,655 points

Class 1-B

1. Naegi Saka - 90,177 points

2. Aya Linda - 87,233 points

3. Ester Hamasaki - 87,022 points

Class 1-C

1. Lucy Fujiwara - 76,222 points

2. Kaoru Hiroto - 75,901 points

3. Touma Suzuki - 74,565 points

Class 1-D

1. Andria Katsuki - 55,090 points

2. Aya Akasaka - 54,377 points

3. Kohei Tachibana - 54,002 points

Class 1-E (My class)

1. Akane Itsuki - 46,027 points

2. Rin Takamiya - 38,901 points

3. Aiko Hamasaki - 38,800 points

Class 1-F

1. Yogi Fukuda - 512,009 points

2. Yahiko Nakamura - 15,677 points

3. Hayashi Yoshida - 245 points

-

I was able to infer that Class A get 120 thousand points per month, Class B get 100 thousand points, Class C get 80 thousand and so on.

Class F has something very interesting, Yogi seemed to be holding onto all the points in his class for some reason. However, now wasn't the time to be worrying about other classes.

As expected, Akane had the most amount of points in our class due to the birthday party yesterday. I guess both Aiko and I were lying about our spending habits, unless she's getting points from another source.

It didn't take long to figure out what this special exam was about. The best way for the lower classes to pass is to hold onto the points from the students in higher classes who wanted to keep their wealth. This way both sides are benefitted and both sides are able to pass the exam with no repercussions. However, the packages threw a spanner into the works.

The first major decision we had to make was what package we picked. I wasn't quite sure which one our class would decide on. I would prefer either package one or no package as it wouldn't be too difficult for me to get past the 40,000 point quota and I was currently second in the class in terms of total points.

I guess I'd think about this a bit more after school.

The class more restless than normal.

*

The bell rang signalling the end of classes for the day.

Kai made his way to the front of the class, just as the teacher left. He stood up on a slight pedestal and began speaking to everyone.

'I think we should decide on the package we are choosing for this special exam.'

Most people who were still in the class looked up and turned their attention onto Kai. However, it appeared there were quite a few people who didn't see the profundity of the situation.

It was probably a mixture of inability to comprehend what was happening and a lack of care for the outcome that caused some students to completely ignore the special exam. To be fair, this did seem to be out of the ordinary for some people.

It wasn't that hard for me to grasp however, expulsion and heavy financial burdens were on the line.

Akane walked to the front of the room and stood next to Kai. She moved her body close to him, it appeared she was just there to support him.

'I believe we should select the first package.'

The class went silent, then after a little while, there was a little bit of chatter. After some discussion, someone else finally spoke up.

'I only have 11,400 points! I'm definitely going to be one of the people who are going to be expelled!'

There was agreeance amongst some of the other poorer students who didn't control their point expenditure very well.

'Alright, let's have a preliminary vote. Everyone who wants the first package raise their hand.'

Six people raised their hands.

'All for the second package raise their hand.'

Four people raised their hands. There were a lot of people who did not raise their hands for either.

Kai spoke up again.

'Everyone who didn't raise their hand for either, please tell me why.'

'We don't really know what's going on...'

That seemed to be a relatively common consensus between the members of the class. I could tell that this was a relatively difficult concept to grasp in most people's minds. There were too many conditions and variables to account for.

However, this exam basically boiled down to two sides, it was up to either side to simple convince the majority.

1. Richer students like Kai, Akane and Aiko would prefer the first package as it involves the least amount of financial backlash after the exam. There is also very little risk for them as they are near the top in terms of wealth so it would be unlikely that they would be expelled.

2. Poorer students would prefer the second package because with a little bit of point exchanging, it is possible that every student would be able to pass the exam without being expelled.

I was more for the first package, however, I also saw a third, hidden option.

It appeared that there was a lot more discussion to be had before our class could come to a decision about the package.

The tension in the room grew as more and more students became conscious of what was at stake. People began staring at each other, looking at their own points and becoming stressed. The air became more and more humid...

This was going to be a hassle.