COTE: The Quiet One Can Be Dangerous

Vol. 11 Chp. 5: Class A vs Class C

The time came for them to choose the second event. The result of the drawing was...

Typing 

Required Participants: 1

Time: 30 Minutes

Rules: This is a competition of speed and accuracy in three different formats of typing skills: vocabulary, Short Passages, and Essays.

Commander Intervention: The commander may notify the participant of one mistake they made during the test.

Once again, Class C devised a one-on-one competition. Fortunately, luck was on our side with the draw. The Professor proposed the event and was the most proficient person in our Class regarding anything related to computers. 

His typing speed was second to none among everyone in Class C and even faster than the national average. However, we had no way of knowing how many students in Class A were proficient at typing and how skilled they were.

We had to rely solely on The Professor's skills, and that's why he was chosen for this project. Nonetheless, there was still a good reason why he was selected for this task.

"Class C's gone and chosen another interesting event. Although it may look like a game at first glance, typing is one of the most fundamental skills in information technology. You could even go so far as to call it essential. I suppose it's only natural that the school would accept it as an event."

When it comes to academics, Class A was at a significant advantage.

Horikita probably wanted to choose skill-based competitions that things like that wouldn't influence.

"Everyone has one or two things that they're good at. However, when it comes to competing over such things, it's hard for anyone to say whether or not they're better at them than somebody else. It seems like someone in your Class has quite a lot of confidence in their typing skills."

In general, students possessing special skills that can help them win a one-on-one competition have the potential to succeed in other events as well. This is why we chose to include Onodera, who specializes in swimming, in the basketball match. 

However, allocating a student like The Professor, who is only good at doing one thing, to the one-on-one match would give us an advantage in the following events.

Therefore, I chose Professor Sotomura Hideo for the one-on-one match, while Sakayanagi selected Yoshida Kenta, a student I knew practically nothing about. 

We tried to limit the commander's ability to intervene as much as possible for this event. Our strategy was to allow The Professor to do his thing without giving Sakayanagi much chance to get involved.

The school provided a pre-prepared computer application to judge the event's outcome. Finally, the results were...

"Class C, Sotomura Hideo: 90 Points. Class A, Yoshida Kenta, 83 Points. Class C wins."

After the test had ended, Sakagami-sensei declared their scores. The gap between their scores was only 7 points. Although the results were terrifyingly close, even being ahead by a single moment was a triumph.

"While it's only a bit, we still fell short. Things aren't going to be that simple, are they?"

Losing two events in a row was unexpected for Class A, but it was inevitable as both events were proposed by Class C. 

As a result, Class C had won the first two events. So far, luck had been on our side, and all of Horikita's plans were coming together beautifully.

Eight events were left for the drawing to choose from. It would've been great if it had kept selecting events that Class C had suggested, but...