The Ferocious Rabbit Devours Flesh ~Survival of the Fittest at a School in a Chastity-Reversed World~ - 32-33

Chapter 32: The Exam Results

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Midterm exams ended, and a new week arrived. Starting today, I no longer had to attend school from the morning, and breeding practices were set to resume. I headed to school at noon as usual, ate lunch, and began looking for a partner for the breeding practical in the classroom. 

Just then, our homeroom teacher, Haga, entered the room. This time, she was alone without the women in black suits, so the male students around me looked relieved. The number of male students had dropped from ten to six, but it felt like our usual daily routine was returning.

“Breeding practices will resume as normal starting today, but before that, I will announce the test results.”

It seemed the results for the tests we took just last week were already out. The faculty and staff might have had a very difficult time over the weekend.

“Normally, you would be notified via smartphone. However, for this midterm exam, there was a competition among the male students, and since the lowest-ranked individual faces a penalty of having their points halved, I will announce the rankings orally.”

The atmosphere in the classroom turned heavy all at once. I knew this was coming since she mentioned the results, but having it explicitly stated made me more self-conscious than I wanted to be.

“I will only announce the rankings for the males. 6th place, Yuuto Usami.”

(…Hmm? …Wait, what!?)

I looked at the classmates around me. Let’s see… There were five other male students in this classroom, and if I included myself, that made six. Right… six…

(Wait, does that mean I’m in last place?)

I broke out in a cold sweat as that thought crossed my mind.

“82nd place, Yuga Higashiya.”

The moment the next student’s name was called, I felt a wave of relief.

(Oh, it’s the ranking for the entire grade.)

I had panicked, thinking I was the 6th out of the group here. Until middle school, my mother had always told me I must stay within the top three of the grade, so these results weren’t exactly great, but I wouldn’t have a chance to see her until graduation, so I figured it was fine.

(I’ll do my best to aim for the top three next time.)

6th place: Yuuto Usami

82nd place: Yuga Higashiya

88th place: Kosei Minamino 

91st place: Ao Kitahara

95th place: Kai Kuraishi

96th place: Rui Nishiyama

Those were the names Haga, the homeroom teacher, read aloud. I didn’t know the rankings of the other four male students who weren’t in the classroom right now, but they likely occupied the bottom slots. Looking at the surroundings, only Kuraishi-kun and I seemed relieved. The other four had a suspicious air about them. Well, I was just glad I didn’t get hit with the point reduction.

I left the classroom to head to my breeding practice.

~*~*~*~ 

The atmosphere was terrible. Haga, the homeroom teacher, left the classroom immediately after relaying the results, and Usami-kun and Kuraishi-kun stepped out as well, leaving only the four of us who usually hung out together.

Minamino-kun remained quiet, perhaps sensing the tension, but the other two were different. Higashiya-kun had said he was bad at studying, and he had claimed he gave up on this midterm and would accept the point reduction to focus on the breeding practical, yet his result was near the top among the boys, making him look awkward.

On the other hand, Nishiyama-kun, who had actually suffered the point reduction penalty, hung his head, his shoulders trembling.

“W-well, it didn’t go well this time, but let’s do our best next time.”

“…………”

Even when spoken to, Nishiyama-kun showed no reaction. An oppressive silence filled the room. It was almost time for everyone to head out for their breeding practicals. The moment I tried to stand up…

“…You lied about giving up on the test just to lower my guard.”

Nishiyama-kun muttered.

“No, that’s… A girl gave me test preparation data during the breeding practical, and that’s why…”

Higashiya-kun answered, looking sheepish.

“You conspired with the girls to trap me.”

“No! That’s not…”

“Fine, whatever. I’m going to the breeding practical now.”

Speaking as if to push him away, Nishiyama-kun walked out of the classroom. Higashiya-kun looked depressed by that display.

“Is it true you got data from a girl?”

“Yeah, I got it during the breeding practical over Golden Week, but a lot of what was written there actually showed up on the test…”

His rank was even higher than Minamino-kun, who was the smart one among us, so it must have been some incredibly well-made test prep data. Usami-kun was always a bit strange, like during the New Male Student Welcome Recreation, so I decided not to worry about him.

“Maybe I should have shared the test prep data with everyone…”

Higashiya-kun said, but if we had received it ourselves, would we really have shared it with the others? Neither I nor Minamino-kun could react to that question, and we both fell silent.

For the time being, we decided to disband and head to our practicals, with the plan that I would contact Nishiyama-kun later. I wondered if the day would ever come when the four of us could get along again.

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Chapter 33: How to Use the Duel Room

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By the time night fell, the test results had arrived on my smartphone. There were no detailed scores; it simply listed the rankings for the first-year students.

1st Place: Sumire Misasagi

2nd Place: Yui Shizukuishi

3rd Place: Mio Natsuno

…………

And so the names continued. I felt like I had seen the surname of the top student somewhere before. I forgot exactly where. I seemed to recall having a mating practical with the girl in second place around the time before Golden Week. As I idly scrolled through the rankings, a message arrived.

『 1st Semester Midterm Exam 6th Place Reward: 1,000,000 Points』

Along with that brief sentence, 1,000,000 points were added to my balance. I wondered how many points those in the higher ranks received. While I was thinking about that, two more messages arrived in quick succession. 

The sender of the first one was Shinozaki-senpai. The content said that since her pregnancy had been confirmed, she would be graduating from this school at the end of May. Since Shinozaki-senpai had helped me out by telling me various things about the school, I sent her a congratulatory message. It felt a bit lonely to think that, from here on, the girls I had mating practicals with would disappear once they became pregnant. The second message was from Yui Shizukuishi. The content stated that she wanted to challenge me to a duel.

The following day, after school. I was currently in the elevator. I cut the breeding practice short today. Even though I said “short,” I still enjoyed myself until the end of the sixth-period class. The digital display inside the elevator showed “4,” and the doors opened. As I stepped out of the elevator, a female student came running toward me while waving her hand.

“Usami-kun, it’s been a while!”

“Shinozaki-senpai, it’s been a long time. Congratulations on your pregnancy.”

This was the first time I had been invited to a duel, but I was interested, so I decided to come. When I consulted Shinozaki-senpai about it, she said she would accompany me just in case anything dangerous happened. Therefore, we decided to meet before the time designated for the duel so I could ask her a few things. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was pregnant, but Shinozaki-senpai looked even more beautiful than the last time we met. I pulled her close and stroked her belly with my hand.

“Ah…♡ This is the child of you and me, Usami-kun. I’ll raise it with great care.”

Since she said that while looking at me with moist eyes, I pressed my lips against hers and we entwined our tongues. After enjoying each other’s taste for a while, we headed straight into the dueling room.

Inside the dueling room, there was only one woman in a black suit and no one else. The room was reasonably spacious, with many devices that looked like terminals placed around. On shelves in the corner of the room sat board games like chess, shogi, and go, as well as various dictionaries, history books, and other educational materials.

“Basically, the person who was challenged gets to pick the event for the duel, but sometimes both parties discuss it and decide together. I once played Othello against a friend with ten thousand points on the line.”

It seemed one could duel quite casually. The amount of points was small, and the content of the duel was a board game rather than academic ability.

“Also, there’s a ‘Dueling Right,’ which is the right to force a match against someone of the same sex. You can get Dueling Rights as prizes for things like Sports Day or the Culture Festival, but since you’re a boy, Usami-kun, it probably doesn’t really matter to you.”

Since I possessed an Unrestricted Dueling Right, I had assumed that restricted ones existed as well. Since it was basically a matter between girls, I figured I didn’t need to worry about it. When I tinkered with a terminal placed in the dueling room, it appeared that I could set the details of the match quite minutely. 

Various conditions like academic tests, current events, or trivia seemed possible. If you specified the scope of a test, it would generate questions accordingly. As a test, I entered a request for questions regarding the birth years and ages at death of warring states period warlords, and it produced exactly that.

“Let’s try a match for practice. Let’s do something simple for about five thousand points until your opponent arrives.”

I wondered what counted as a “simple” one. As an experiment, I entered “Coin Toss” and a wager of 5,000 points, and a coin appeared on the monitor. My name was displayed for heads, and Rin Shinozaki for tails. When I tapped the monitor, the coin began to spin and stopped on tails. The screen displayed “Winner: Rin Shinozaki.” My smartphone vibrated, and when I opened it, five thousand points had been sent to Shinozaki-senpai. It seemed this part was handled automatically.

“Yay, I won! This is how a duel is carried out. Oh, also, be careful because wagering points outside of the dueling room is prohibited except for school events. You can send points to people, though, so I think the rules are a bit ambiguous.”

Well, certainly, even if one had some sort of match outside of the dueling room and sent points as a result, there was a possibility that the school wouldn’t know. If the amount was large, it would definitely be better to do it in the dueling room. 

While we were doing that, the door to the dueling room opened. A female student with short pink hair entered. It was Yui Shizukuishi, the student who took second place in the first-year midterm exams. The very person who had challenged me to a duel had appeared.

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