My Friend and I Reincarnated Into a Tragedy Dating Game-Chapter 5: Cheating?

Harold proceeded to leave the classroom.

From there, a woman came in, her defining feature being her black hair. Upon reaching a podium she clapped twice.

"Hello, my name is Karin. I will be blunt. Some of you will be able to do this easily, while others will have great difficulty. This is simply the nature of how they decided to create the school."

She mumbled a complaint under her breath. I was able to make out just enough to tell that she didn't like the system. Karin proceeded on without waiting.

"Don't think that things will be easy just because this is your first class. All of your desks have chalkboards and chalk, so we will be having a test to evaluate your level of skill in math."

For reference, this school was basically considered a university or college because people had to be at least eighteen to participate. The reason being that was when one's magical talent awakened. Before that age, all one could really do was study theory. It shouldn't be too bad considering both me and Nathan were grade 12 students, but we still hadn't learned the full curriculum and weren't exactly... experts at school.

But we did both get around a seventy, which I was honestly quite proud of.

Yet, considering I was supposed to be a genius student, I couldn't help but feel a little afraid. As a game, it obviously skipped over all the boring test stuff, so I wasn't sure of the level here.

Karin cleared her throat, not caring about any of my worries.

"I will write several questions on the board, labeled by the number and dot next to them. Don't be a dumbass and label your answers with the question number as well."

With that, she began writing questions.

The first one...

29 + 47 = ?

Huh?

5 x 8 = ?

Um...

11 x 12 = ?

I guess that one's a little bit harder, but-

15 + ? = 22

There's also... basic algebra I guess.

What? Isn't this way too easy? I guess maybe since this is only the starting test, she wanted to get a basic grasp of our abilities. All things considered, it would definitely get harder from here.

If this was all it was, then getting full marks would be easy.

I got my chalkboard and used the chalk in my hand to list off the answers. It took less than a minute for me to finish. I then double-checked my answers by going over them again. No mistakes.

Afterward, I shot a glance at the teacher.

She looked back, and before I could say anything she had spoken up.

"If you have already finished, then just wait. There will be up to twenty minutes for this test, but if everyone puts their chalk down beforehand, then we will take it up earlier."

A few people in the class looked rather stressed from what I had seen. Though, Natan was obviously not one of them, considering he was actually Nathan. Even if we weren't the best at math, this kind of stuff was still very easy for us.

There were definitely a few other people that had similar completion times compared to us, but it looked like us two were the fastest. To my surprise, a whole seventeen minutes had passed by before everyone had put down their chalk.

Some people looked a bit anxious.

Karin raised her eyebrow.

"Alright then, I shall grade them."

She walked up and picked up a chalkboard. A few seconds later, she spoke.

"One."

The person in question froze up. I could faintly recall only because I had watched the prologue a few times that Natan was supposed to get a zero on this test. The teacher would walk up and say as such, thus giving him his score. In other words, that person had gotten one of the four questions correct.

...Must've been someone that had high magical talent or something.

Karin continued to list off numbers, going one by one.

"Three."

"Four."

"One."

"Two."

"One."

As she continued to list off numbers, I was quite surprised at how poorly everyone scored. Most of the scores were at one, with the maximum being three. Nobody had gotten zero, while only one person so far had gotten a four.

Once it finally reached Natan, I watched intently. Karin picked up the board and looked at it for a few seconds. Her brows furrowed rather intently.

"Zero."

For a split second, I thought that he just did that to stay consistent with the story. However, Natan's eyes flew wide open in surprise, making mine do the same.

Shit! Did this world go by a different type of math? Were we actually doing derivatives this whole time?

It took Natan a second to realize what had happened and quickly called out.

"My answers are incorrect?"

Karin, who was about to leave, crossed her arms.

"You haven't shown any work in your answers. It's obvious that you cheated."

Natan furrowed his brows. We seemed to have the same question running through our minds.

How the hell were we supposed to show our work? The only one I could kinda see was the algebra one, but that was only one line at most.

"...I cheated?"

Karin gave a quick nod.

"Yes. Report to the office once the class is over. We will be talking about it over your break."

I cursed under my breath. It seemed that Nathan had realized going along with the flow of the story obviously wasn't going to work at this point, thus probably wanted to make a good impression of his intelligence at this stage. However, it backfired.

Should I help him?

But I'm supposed to be his bully.

No, I was not Bryson. I knew I could not pretend to be him anyway, so...

"How do you know that he cheated?"

I stood up from my seat in one swift motion and looked the teacher dead in the eye. Karin looked a little surprise, but replied without getting flustered.

"I have personally seen his answers to the math questions. I already know that he is not capable of this."

I raised an eyebrow.

"In other words, you have no hard evidence that he has cheated? It is one thing to make a claim, but to act upon it without sufficient evidence is simply tomfoolery."

Everyone looked at me quietly. As for Karin, contrary to my expectations, she began to smile.

"I see. You sure do not like cheaters, Bryson. Very well, if you can find evidence of him cheating then I will expel him from the school."

My eyelid twitched.

Huh? What the fuck? Wasn't I defending Natan? How did it become me wanting to expel him?

I replayed the events that happened in my mind a few times, trying to understand how this misunderstanding happened. I had to stand there for a few minutes to mull over it but finally realized how.

I suppose Karin was confident that Natan was cheating despite not knowing how. With such a prestigious school, the rules were surely strict, so cheating probably meant expulsion. Her letting her meet up with him was probably actually because she wished to talk to him about it.

Then me asking how he cheated apparently had the underlying meaning of, 'prove that he's cheating so he can be expelled'.

All things considered, me bullying him could be considered following the script. However, we were already so off-script at this point, I didn't care anymore.

"If he is not cheating, then he should be able to easily answer similar problems. That is good enough proof that it is his own ability."

Karin looked rather confused, but after a few moments, she nodded.

"Alright, that makes sense."

She tapped her chin a few times.

"Then why don't you create the questions, Bryson? Marking them and determining whether or not he cheated is up to you."

There was a strange smile on her face. What was she freaking out about?

After a bit of hesitation, I nodded.

"Alright then."

From there, I thought of putting harder questions that I knew Nathan would be able to answer, but that might make it seem like I was bullying him further, so I put similar questions.

54 + 37 = ?

8 x 9 = ?

13 x 12 = ?

7 + ? = 18

I then turned to look at Nathan and gave him a look that only we would understand. He chuckled after seeing that. He stared at his board for a few moments before sighing. Nathan had given up on trying to stick to the script.

As for whether or not that was the right decision, I suppose we would find out later.

He wrote all four answers quickly enough. He did take a few moments to mull over thirteen multiplied by twelve, but it was still easy enough.

I walked over, took the chalkboard, and briefly scanned the answers. They were all correct, which was only natural.

Karin also looked at the board and had her brows furrowed.

"...Using thirteen is out of the range that one should be tested on, yet he got it correct?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I guess he didn't cheat then."

Karin had a rather serious expression on her face. She then glared at Natan.

"How were you able to get the correct answers?"

I tilted my head to the side.

"Is it really so strange for him to get the right answers?"

Karin gave a quick nod.

"Of course, it does not make sense for someone to suddenly improve like that."

Natan shrugged.

"Maybe so."

I crossed my arms.

"Is it really so strange for someone to improve when the content is so simple?"

Karin slowly turned to me, and from what I could tell she was ticked off. Though her expression made me nervous, I stood my ground. She frowned and crossed her arms as well.

"Are you trying to say math is trivial? Just because you have practiced to a high level doesn't mean you are allowed to undermine it."

I sighed.

"Some people learn faster than others."

Karin frowned further. She was starting to scare me.

"He has had eighteen years to learn this subject, yet could hardly answer a single question right. How am I supposed to believe he has gotten to this level in only a few days?"

I almost forgot that I had even been transmigrated at this point. I ended up speaking without thinking.

"Some people aren't given the proper opportunity to learn. More often than not, it's not that a person is stupid, but that they haven't been given the chance to learn properly."

Karin blinked a few times. Nathan was also sending me signals with his eyes, asking if what I was doing was really ok. Those signals instantly got rid of my hotheadedness as I realized where I was. I coughed awkwardly.

"My point is that we shouldn't assume someone has cheated simply because of their past performances."

Karin took in a deep breath.

"I see. Though I must say, my initial impression of you seems to be incorrect. Strangely enough, you don't even resemble the rumors..."

She quickly glanced at Natan.

"Never mind my earlier request. You may use your recreation time as you wish. Also, I will count your score as a four."

Natan gave a quick nod.

"Thank you."

He shot me a bitter smile that was partly a, 'thank you' and also a, 'you went too far'.

Hm. I may have overreacted. Ah, whatever, it's too late to worry about it now.