Chapter 35: I Want to Create Yanderes Through Test Studying!

Through the off-meet, I realized my own biases about yanderes, and I think I leveled up.

Now that I understand I need to look at not just women but men too, you could say I’ve reached a new frontier.

By simple math, the pool of people who might be hiding yandere talent just doubled.

With that, I should be able to find more and more people with those budding hints of talent—and there’s no way I won’t be able to create even more yanderes.

Alright! I’m gonna keep charging ahead and crank out yanderes like crazy! That was the mood I was in.

But the next day, I went to school and got hit with reality. Getting fired up was one thing, but I’d forgotten the true duty of a student.

Yeah—studying.

I’d been running around nonstop since enrollment, thinking I want to get a yandere girlfriend—no, I have to create yanderes—and I hadn’t noticed at all. Time had passed, and test season had arrived.

Already? It feels like I just enrolled the other day.

Also, who cares, but do tests even mean anything when we just started school? We just finished entrance exams. This is basically bullying.

Okay, complaints about tests aside—since enrollment, I’ve been struggling to create yanderes. So my test studying hasn’t progressed at all. Actually, I don’t even know the test schedule, let alone the scope.

In other words: I’m in trouble.

Like I’ve said before, to get along with yanderes, I try to have a wide range of hobbies—so I keep a lot of things within my “coverage.”

And studying isn’t an exception. I do study to some extent, because if I can teach a yandere, I can get closer to her.

If it’s for yanderes, I’ll even study the stuff I hate. I’d even run a full marathon.

Anyway—setting that aside—even if I’m in a pinch, it’s not so bad that I’m totally doomed. If I review the test scope and focus on what I’m bad at, I can probably score 70–80%.

I mean, I am the smart-character type, after all. Just kidding.

Even so, I have to study. If my grades drop, I’ll get stuck with makeup lessons and stuff, and then I won’t have time to hunt for yandere talent.

So I have to take these tests seriously. Which means, during that period, I’ll end up neglecting yandere talent-hunting and info-gathering…

But I’m the kind of guy who turns a pinch into a chance!

If I have to do test studying, then I want to use it as a foothold for awakening yandere talent. That way, I can turn this pinch—losing time to studying—into a chance for yandere talent to bloom.

I thought about it.

And I came up with one idea. It was extremely simple.

Instead of studying alone, I’ll study with classmates!

Not just “study with classmates,” either—by including people I don’t normally talk to in the study group, I can connect it to discovering hidden yandere talent or hearing new information, and things like that.

This is good, right?!

We get closer through teaching each other, and by learning what people are good or bad at, I can scout out the sprouts of talent…

Wait. Aren’t tests actually the best place to meet people?

On top of that, by getting involved with the girls who’ve already awakened their talent through studying too, I’d like to see even more growth from them, if I can.

Because I want to see them reach new frontiers.

At this point, I’ve got to run both in parallel—yandere talent-awakening and studying.

I don’t want to use studying as an excuse to neglect creating yanderes, and I don’t want to use yanderes as an excuse either.

You can’t really compare a student’s duty to my reason for living, you know.

Alright then—let’s head into the “test” arena: the ultimate yandere-manufacturing opportunity.

Chapter 36: Test Study Operation: Begin!

With one week left until the test, everyone felt kind of restless—like they were tense.

Maybe because it’s our first test since starting high school,

“What’s it gonna be like? Is it gonna be hard?”

“I heard high school has failing marks, isn’t that bad?”

“How far are we even supposed to study?”

Those kinds of “test season clichés” were everywhere, nonstop.

And in that atmosphere, I’m the only one thinking about something completely different.

Hmm. How do I invite classmates I don’t usually talk to into a test study session?

That’s all I’m thinking about.

This is the tricky part. For yanderes, I’m willing to do anything that isn’t a crime. But if you’re shy, inviting a bunch of people is hard.

So one idea I had was to get someone popular—someone with lots of friends—to do the inviting for me.

Using a well-connected friend as bait—no, more like having him be the one to propose it—so it feels less intimidating, that’s what I want.

I want even the shy types to join too, and honestly, those kinds of people are more likely to have talent.

I want nobody to feel uncomfortable, but I also want as many different people as possible to participate.

And the strategy I came up with to make the “have my friend invite people” plan work is—one of those classic high school fantasies.

“Guys and girls always end up doing study sessions together.”

I’m going to make use of that dream everyone’s probably had at least once.

You see it all the time in manga, right? After-school studying leads to friendship and romance.

Getting together after school to study is not something you’d normally do. Most people have clubs, and even if they don’t, after school is when you want to go home as fast as possible.

But there’s an exception.

Test season. Even people with clubs are free after school, and more than anything, it’s when you have to study.

In that situation, the dream of after-school studying with friends (and it’s even better if there’s someone of the opposite sex) is basically guaranteed to happen.

Yeah. It’s a good plan, right?

So first, I talked to my friend.

“Hey, want to study after school for the test?”

I asked. A suggestion like this is exactly his kind of thing. Just like I expected, his eyes lit up and—

“Sounds good! Should we invite more people too?”

—he said with energy.

That’s what I thought. I knew you’d be into it.

He immediately started inviting people around us one after another.

As expected—he’s not like me.

After school, the sound of desks scraping echoed through the room.

Our study group—dubbed “Yandere Study Group (Tentative)”—was going to be held in our classroom, and we were rearranging desks so everyone could study while facing each other.

Ten people showed up total.

Eight, not counting me and him.

Among them: two guy friends who are basically always around, two guys who are close with him but I haven’t really talked to much, and four girls. I’ve barely talked to those girls at all.

Yeah, nice!

Even setting aside the usual friends, I don’t really know the other six well, and I’ve only talked to them a handful of times.

So I want to get closer through studying and see whether they have any hints of talent.

Alright—let’s do this!