Under the Veil of Night

Kanae arrived in the class early in the morning as usual. She noticed that Alice was also early today.

"Good morning Alice," she greeted.

Alice looked up as a smile bloomed on her doll-like face. "Good morning Kanae."

"You're early today."

As Kanae sat down, Alice took out a box filled with cookies. "I make this for us three. Do you want some?"

Seeing the expectant eyes on Alice's face, Kanae took a cookie and tasted it. Her eyes brightened in surprise. "It tastes good. You're amazing."

She knew that Alice was in the cooking club, but this was the first time she tasted Alice's food. The taste was definitely really good as she knew that this would not lose from the cookies in the store.

"Thank you," Alice beamed. She rarely shared the food that she made, so this made her felt extremely happy.

The two of them talked while eating the cookies when the door suddenly opened and Misae stormed in. Her face looked excited as she called the other two girls in front of her.

"The result for the test is out!"

Thankfully, they arrived early in the morning. There were not many students who have arrived in the school during this time. They could quickly search for their name.

"I got 71," Misae almost leaped in joy. Although in some lesson, she barely passed the passing grade, overall, her score was not that bad. After all, the additional class after school depended on their average score.

Alice looked towards hers. "I get 84, it's not bad."

"You're greater for over than 11 than me."

Kanae looked towards her average score with wonder. She was sure that she had done them well, but her score was still slightly lower than what she thought at first. Has the teacher grown stricter?

1. Kanae N. : 100, 99, 96, 100, 100, 100,… 98,87

"Kanae, I guess no other students can beat you like this," Misae sighed. The last number was the average score and also the most important one to decide their overall score.

Kanae merely smiled. "It seems I'm still not careful enough in the language test. I need to pay more attention to my selection of words."

"That's already very good," Misae commented.

"That one is even better."

1. Kevin K. : 100, 98, 100, 99, 100, 100,… 99, 76

2. Sakura N. : 98, 100, 96, 97, 94, 99,… 98, 23

"Your cousin is smart too?" Misae frowned. From what she remembered about Sakura was the fact that she was rather stupid.

Alice was surprised. "You know about her cousin?"

"Yeah, we're classmates since junior high school, so I meet with that girl a few times."

Misae didn't want to recall that experience at all. She didn't like Sakura at all and remembering that person already made her wanted to punch the other party as hard as possible. However, she could only do that inside her imagination because she didn't want to get into trouble here.

"So, the results are out?" Tommy appeared and walked nonchalantly. He peered towards his score as he sighed in relief.

"What do you get?" Misae quickly scanned the list.

"46, I manage to evade the supplementary class," Tommy grinned. He was already content that he managed to escape those classes as he didn't like to study. After all, he often skipped the class to sleep in the infirmary.

"…" even after learning with Kanae you still got that low?

"I think, you really need the supplementary lesson," Alice voiced out her opinion after a few seconds.

"You're right. Let's complain to the teacher about that."

"Don't!" Tommy didn't want to attend the supplementary class. Different from the usual class, that class has a strict teacher, so he would get a bigger punishment if he skipped.

Kanae giggled as she saw them argue. Her eyes locked to the other students who were below her. There were still a lot of them that has the score around 90. However, she didn't recognize their name at all.

"With that score, you may attract the student council to rope you in."

"What are you talking about?"

"Everyone who gets the first place in the first year always gets selected for the student council," Tommy grinned.

Kanae flashed a smirk. "Oh? Then let's hope they also set their eyes on the lazy student who skip class every day."

After enough banter with each other, they made their way towards their class. Another batch of students came and saw their score on the board.

"Wow, Sakura, you get such high score."

"Of course," Sakura smiled confidently. She glanced to the side where the score for the first year was posted and her smile stiffened. Her cousin got a higher score compared to her.

"What is it Sakura?"

"I need to go for a moment."

Leaving her confused friends, she stomped her feet towards the school office and opened the door.

"We need to talk," she said coldly.

One of the teachers beckoned her to come closer. "Is there anything wrong, Lady Sakura?"

"Why I don't get the highest score?" Sakura asked menacingly, "Are they cheating?"

The teacher shook his head. "They don't. All of their answers are correct and even after checking it countless times, there is no mistake."

The truth was, their answers were even better than the one they taught on the class. It seemed that the two of them already memorized the entire textbook and know the answer perfectly. It made the teacher had to give them the perfect score for most of the lesson.

"Didn't I pay you to correct my work better and have my cousin lower?" Sakura looked coldly.

"We already do that, but there are some questions that we cannot pass by since it's completely wrong," although the money was given, they needed to give reason to the higher-ups about how they conducted their scoring. Blatantly correcting a wrong answer would make them got into numerous troubles and losing their credibility. They could show leniency, but it didn't mean even the wrong answer turned correct.

Sakura really wanted to get angry at them, but they stood firm. No matter how powerful her family was, raising their hand against a normal citizen was a crime.

"I don't want this happen again," she threatened again.

The teacher watched the girl helplessly as he returned to his seat. She was really a typical lazy rich girl who only knew how to use her wealth. Since he already got the money, he might as well do as she asked.

Outside the door, a man was standing there calmly watching the furious girl stomped on the floor. He glanced inside.. "What a pampered young lady."