Humans are creatures of habit. Ever wondered why many people keep themselves in abusive situations even when you, as an outsider, can easily see a method to escape.
It has nothing to do with the intelligence or capabilities of the victim. In the end, an effective abuser understands that to control someone is to make someone rely on them. Humans are naturally afraid of change—in the same way, that humans are naturally afraid of the dark. Both of these fears are simply the symptoms of a much larger fear—the fear of the unknown.
The future a victim is separated from society, the less they know about the safety and protective measures of the outside. Ultimately, they may develop an attachment to their captor because they feel as if their captor is the only one that understands them. As such, it's the only place they feel 'safe', as ironic as that term becomes.
The fear of the unknown is a powerful tool to protect oneself, but in some circumstances, it is the protective tool that ends up trapping one further in a perilous situation.
Scientists have often wondered why I was able to develop so well in the Ideal Human Project.
They would study me non-stop for years.
I found it odd. Wasn't it obvious?
They should've seen that there was one big difference that Hasegawa-san and I showed in comparison to the rest of the subjects. Well, I showed it to an even greater degree than Haseagwa-san.
I lacked this fundamental fear of the unknown.
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Unlike during my time in 2-E, there were actually a decent number of students attending class. For the most part, basically, the entirety of 2-C was seated, listening to the lessons of the teacher. Seeing this view, one might forget that we were in such an unconventional school. For an outsider, it would appear to be no different from any other high school.
"By the way, the school will be having its annual cross country soon. However, this event will be fought in classes, pitting one class against another. You'll receive the details about it soon."
Sure enough, a notification appeared.
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National High School
We welcome you to our annual school cross country. Every student will participate unless there are extenuating circumstances. The details for the event are below.
Annual Cross Country Event.
In two weeks, every student will be running a 5km course around the school. There will be staff members standing around to guide you and ensure that there are no cheaters. This event is to encourage support between your peers in your class.
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Placements (Second-years)
ƥαṇdα-ηθνε|·ƈθm 1st: +100 score for your class + 20,000 points + a 10-mark addition on the next exam
2nd: +70 score for your class + 15,000 points + a 7-mark addition on the next exam
3rd: +50 score for your class + 10,000 points + a 5-mark addition on the next exam
4th-20th: +25 score for your class + 1,000 points + a ribbon
21st-50th: +15 score for your class + 500 points
51st-100th: +5 score for your class
101st-140th: +1 score for your class
140th-145th: -5 score for your class + a 5-mark deduction on the next exam
145th-151st: -25 score for your class + a 10-mark deduction on the next exam
~~
Class Rankings
1st ranked class: All students will receive 10,000 points and will receive a significantly easier exam
2nd ranked class: All students will receive 3,000 points and a 1-mark addition on the next exam
3rd ranked class: All students will lose 1,000 points
4th ranked class: All students will lose 3,000 points and a 2-mark deduction on the next exam
5th ranked class: All students will lose 5,000 points and receive a significantly harder exam
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There were definitely a lot of clauses in this event. The most interesting difference was that you could receive deductions and additions of marks to your next exam. For many students, this could be the difference between staying in the school and being expelled.
I guess this was the school's demonstration that athletic ability was, in many ways, just as important as academic ability. We were given a week of preparation, which wasn't a great deal of time but definitely enough to get some improvement if students tried hard enough.
The bell rang for recess. However, Kaoru-san made her way to the front of the class. Everyone stayed in their seats.
"Everyone, as you can see, there are very big rewards for winning classes. I think that we all agree that this is a very important event. As such, I believe that we should train every morning and afternoon until it."
"I think that that's a good idea, especially for some of the students who struggled on the last academic exam; it will be really important that they get some additional marks. Unlike the last academic exam, students will get expelled for a failing mark on the midterms," added Furukawa-kun.
There was some light chatter around the room.
"I-I'm not sure I'll be able to handle so much exercise all of a sudden..." said one of the boys.
"That's fine. I'll make it mandatory that everyone has to attend at least one training session a day. If you want two, then feel free to come to both. Let's have a show of hands."
Most of the class was in agreeance. I also raised my hand.
"Well, it looks like it's settled. I'll be at both sessions, making sure that everyone participates. There will be serious consequences if you skip out. Come to me if you have any concerns."
After some more chatter, everyone seemed to be happy for the most part. With that, our class left a little later than usual for recess.
It was clear that the fastest runners at the year level were going to be very big contributors to the overall class scores. However, there were also some pretty big deductions for those at the end. If a class wanted to optimise their results, it would need to make sure that everyone is at least in the top 140 and also maximise its number of place-getters. However, there was no way for a class to train a place-getter in two weeks, so the best method would be to train their slowest members to avoid the deductions.
Well, I'll leave this up to Kaoru-san.
I was somewhat interested to see how she'd handle something like this.
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