Part 2
Soon, the bonding session between the two groups ended (for now) and they returned to their respective seats in time for morning homeroom. As soon as the last student sat down in their seat, Chabashira Sae, the teacher for their class, entered the room and looked at her students.
She gave a small smile that was barely noticeable to people who looked closely, like Kiyotaka, and walked to the front of the classroom. Standing at the front desk, she turned to the students and began speaking.
"Looks like everyone is here again so no need for me to do a register. I'll go straight to the announcements this week then. Firstly, let me congratulate all of you. You've all managed to reach Class B status and are now 50 points ahead of the previous Class B. The Talent Show really did good for you all."
Everyone turned to look at the band members who performed in the talent show - Kiyotaka, Kei, Akito, Haruka, Satou, Airi, Matsushita and Mori. The students under their gazes, minus Kiyotaka with his usual apathetic looking expression, all wore embarrassed yet happy smiles.
"But remember that while you all are now Class B, you must continue to do well in order to keep that status and become closer to reaching and beating Class A. Doing well in your upcoming midterms, special exams, even the upcoming sports festival and cultural festivals will give you chances. I'm hoping for the best from all of you."
Chabashira looked at every student in the room as she said this. A small smile, that actually looked more like a smirk than anything, was plastered on her face as she did this.
"Sensei? Is there any news on the sports and cultural festivals? You said we would get more information this week."
Hirata Yousuke, one of the class leaders, raised his hand and asked such a question. Chabashira nodded as an answer and continued again.
"Yes, Hirata. That was actually the next thing I was going to announce. Regarding the sports festival, like I said last week, it will follow a similar nature, but with some changes and some attachments alongside it. I can't exactly give you any more information than you should expect elements from a previous special exam in this new sports festival."
All the students in Class B showed expressions of confusion and interest. Last year's sports festival was pretty normal with no strings or elements from a special exam attached to it. But it seemed that this year was different. What confused the students was that they didn't know what parts of the previous special exam Chabashira might be referring to.
"Of course, more of what the sports festival will hold will be announced when the training sessions for it begin, which will be in a few weeks. What I can give you all though, is information on the cultural festival. We're not just going to be doing any normal cultural festival. There are a few strings attached to it."
If it wasn't at an all time high already, the attention on Chabashira from Class B definitely was now. They all kept quiet and portrayed serious eyes and ears as they paid extreme attention to the next explanation.
"Just like a normal cultural festival, there will be a large number of invited guests that will enter the campus and take part in the many events being held. These events will be held by you, the students of all years. You will need to plan what event you would like your class to do within the budget that we have set for you. I will go into more detail about this shortly. As students from all years will be taking part in providing events for the guests, that also means that you will be competing against each class and year for the total amount of sales you can make."
Everyone nodded in understanding, prompting Chabashira to continue.
"Of course, for the event you will be doing you will need items and equipment. You can apply for as many items as you like, but the budget is limited. I shall be sending you all the general outline of the cultural festival to your tablets. Please look through that for more details."
The students turned on their tablets and opened up the "school email" app. There was a certain email from Chabashira titled "Cultural Festival Outline". Alongside everyone else, Kiyotaka tapped the banner and opened up the email. There, he read the details on the screen.
Outline of the Cultural Festival
Each second-year student will be given 5,000 private points that can be used only in preparation for the festival.
First-year students will receive 5,500 points and third-year students receive 4,500 points.
Additional funds will be given for social contributions such as student council service, and for contributions made through club activities.
Details will be announced for each class once they are finalised.
The initial cost and additional funds will not be reflected in the final sales, and will be confiscated if unused.
100 class points will be awarded to the 1st through 4th place classes.
50 class points will be awarded to the 5th through 8th place classes.
Class points for 9th to 12th place will remain unchanged.
Reading the outline, it seemed that there were relatively large rewards at stake. Class points were available for those who made it to the top 8, and there appeared to be no penalties for finishing lower.
Seeing all this information, despite not knowing the full scale and experience of a cultural festival, Kiyotaka began to understand why information about this school's one was being announced this early, while more details on the sports festival were held off. Preparations for the cultural festival were going to be bigger, and from the details, it was going to be more rewarding.
Therefore, it was important that the information on the cultural festival was received as early as possible, almost similar to their recent Talent Show albeit with longer preparation time.
"It really does feel like a middle school cultural festival," Shinohara exclaimed in surprise.
She wasn't exactly wrong with that point. If one were to ignore the special exam nature of the cultural festival, it would pretty much be like any other school cultural festival. However, Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School was different. Because of the structure and purpose of the school, the festival had to feel different to a lot of the other students. Kiyotaka noted this was probably why the school never did a cultural festival.
"You will need to reserve an area around the school to hold your event. These will be split into certain sections, currently being shown on your tablet if you enter the school special exam app and navigate to the cultural festival information. If you want to set up your stall near the main gate, where visitors will definitely pass by, for example, you will have to pay the school a certain amount for the space."
Kiyotaka followed Chabashira's instructions and brought up the information on the tablet. There was a map of the school grounds with a title 'List of Possible Stall locations' and the names of them combined with numbers. There was also a price listed for the area.
Using Chabashira's example, the location closest to the main gate was labelled "Main Gate 1" and the cost of the location was 10,000 points. Considering that the budget for Class B was 195,000 points in total, 10,000 points probably was a little too much, even if it would attract quite a lot of guests for sales.
Kiyotaka looked at a further away location to compare pricing and saw an area by the special building labelled "Special Building 1". It was a little further away from the main gate but not too much. He reviewed the area and noted the price to be around 7500 points. It seemed if the location was further away from the main gate, it had a lower overhead cost.
"Now, keep in mind that it is possible that there will be conflicts with other classes and years over the location of the stall being picked. Only one class per location can use a labelled location. If there is a conflict over a certain area, the school will hold an auction system to determine who will gain the rights to use that location. It's self-explanatory, but the class that offers the highest bid will get the right to use that space."
In other words, it was important for classes to consider their location carefully. If they happened to pick an area that another class wanted, and they were stubborn about picking that area, it was possible that the budget would be hurt if the auction system got the class to pay too much. Therefore, it was important to consider not just the area location and possible conflict, but the budget they had too.
"And just to let you know, the school will not disclose which class will be doing what kind or where their stalls will be located until the day of the festival. While the school will protect information that way, be aware that verbal information can't be controlled. If the information is leaked, you should expect to be faced with consequences. So I advise you to be careful what you say and where while you plan your event."
Some students shivered at the warning. Loudmouths like Ike and some of the girls were not the best at keeping quiet. Luckily, Class B had a groupchat with most people in it, so they could make use of that in dire situations.
"Now for the items, most of them you can probably get on campus. But there may be certain items and props that aren't available here in the school's campus stores or from the school itself. If that happens, you can apply for and get it from outside if you gain permission. As long as it's within the terms of the agreement, you're free to use the budget however you want. Any questions so far?"
No student raised their hands as everything either seemed self-explanatory or Chabashira had explained it well enough that there was no need to question it further.
"I see. Well that's all the information you need to know about the cultural festival. Further details can be found in that email and in the special exam section of the app. The specific preparation and set-up period will start after the sports festival, but please start discussing today and use your own time to decide what the events will be and how the budget will be allocated. Since there are no other announcements and since there's some time left right now before you begin your first lesson, why don't you take 5 minutes right now to discuss a general idea roadmap."
With that all said, Chabashira packed up her belongings and made her way out the room. Seeing that as a signal to take on her advice, Hirata stood up from his seat and walked to the front desk, ready to act as the representative.
"Well. In terms of what sensei said, I think it's a good idea to discuss what exactly we should be thinking about as an event idea. Based on cultural festivals at other schools, serving food and drinks at a small cafe or a food stall, and having something like a haunted house, a play or a live music show are pretty common."
Tablet in hand, Hirata typed down a small list of what he knew from cultural festivals on a note document. Everyone watched and listened carefully as he continued speaking.
"According to these details, the festival will be held from 10am in the morning to 3pm in the afternoon. And as for the budget, we have 39 students in our class. That means that the budget we are looking at right now is 195,000 points. Honestly, it's not a lot to work with considering the different options we have available."
It seemed as though Hirata was at a standstill. There was only three and a half minutes left until the next lesson began.
"Hirata-kun. I have a suggestion. The 3 minutes we have left isn't enough time to completely list off ideas and decide on one. So I suggest that we continue this discussion after school, when we have the most time and when most people in this class are available. In the meantime, I also suggest everyone think of a few ideas that we could list down as being ideas and we'll work through them in the after school discussion."
Luckily, Horikita Suzune, another representative in Class B, took over and pledged her suggestion for the planning of Class B's cultural festival event.
"Yeah. You're right, Horikita-san. I agree with that plan."
Hirata agreed with that plan, prompting many other students to nod their heads in agreement. The discussion of the plan would continue later but the rest of class would need to come up with some suggestions for events. Hirata then sat back down in his seat, just as Mashima entered the room to begin the first lesson of the day.
A/N:
What will they plan for the cultural festival? And how will Kiyotaka get involved? Find out in the next episode of All or Nothing Z... Yeah, let's just move on.
- rainy26541 (G-String)
P.S. I am one of the two creators of the G-String theory if you haven't figured it out already. Can we even call it a theory anymore if it's pretty much proven to be true?