Sasami-san @ Ganbaranai Vol 1 Chapter 8

VOLUME 1

PART 2: YAMATA NO OROCHI (1)

Chapter 8: Real World Problems

“I’m so bored…”

Cla.s.ses were in session at Konohana Sakuya Academy, and in the cla.s.sroom belonging to the right-hand-side first-year students, Tsurugi let out a child-like yawn.

And then, completely nonchalantly…

“Tsukuyomi, take your clothes off.”

She said something ridiculous to my brother, who was sitting with unusually correct posture in front of her.

“I’m really not sure why you’re asking that…”

My brother seemed happy just to be able to talk with Tsurugi, and was almost trembling with excitement.

“But I think taking off my clothes in the cla.s.sroom would get me arrested.”

“Get arrested then. I want to see you, scorned by the students, abandoned by your coworkers, getting lectured at a police station… and then I’ll go on a variety show and be in tears as I tell them: ‘Oh, he always used to be a bit strange… but to think he would do such a thing…’ wha, whoops, that was close.”

Just to let you know, Tsurugi and my brother were playing Jenga in front of the cla.s.s, completely ignoring the students.

Tsurugi clumsily reached her hand out, and nervously slid a piece out.

The Jenga tower was already completely filled with holes and began to sway from left to right, but it just barely managed to stay standing.

“Alright! It didn’t fall! Don’t forget that there’ll be a penalty game if you lose! You were foolish to challenge me, and I’ll make sure you understand that when I crush your spirit!”

“That was quite a nice move…”

My brother lifted himself slightly from his folding chair, reached out and easily pulled another piece out. The Jenga tower didn’t even budge.

“Uwah?! What the h.e.l.l?! How the h.e.l.l did you do that so easily?!”

“I’ve been pretty handy since I was young. I’m pretty good at these kinds of small games that test dexterity.”

“Ugh, aren’t you c.o.c.ky today, Tsukuyomi?! I thought you were the kind of character who fails at everything and ends up running to me in tears going ‘Uwaaah, Tsurugi-sensei! Help me please!!’”

“I don’t really remember ever behaving like No*ta-kun…” (2)

“Ooooooo…”

Tsurugi groaned, and looked like she was having a really hard time picking which piece to try and pull out next.

She tried to pull a piece for a bit, but it seemed like it wouldn’t work, so she began to sway from side to side with tears in her eyes.

“But anyways, is it really alright for us to have so little to do like this…?”

My brother glanced at the students in the cla.s.sroom.

Due to declining birthrates, Konohana Sakuya Academy didn’t have many students, and there were only three cla.s.ses in the first year. They were called the “right-hand-side cla.s.s,” the “left-hand-side cla.s.s,” and the “center cla.s.s.”

Despite that, the government pointlessly poured tax dollars into education-related things, leading to an excess of teachers.

Mid-morning was for “practical” cla.s.ses, and were taught by teachers who were specialists in their fields. But the morning, the afternoon, and the last homeroom were dedicated to “fundamental learning,” and were taught by each cla.s.s’s homeroom teacher and a.s.sistant homeroom teacher.

On paper, the a.s.sistant homeroom teacher was supposed to support the homeroom teacher, but my brother had all the work pushed on him by Tsurugi, so he actually ended up with more responsibilities.

“Leaving aside the morning cla.s.ses when you actually have to have specialized knowledge, there just isn’t anything difficult in the afternoon.”

Tsurugi said that while very, very slowly trying to pull out one of the pieces.

“Also, the old custom of the teacher teaching the students anything and everything is wrong. If they don’t have the motivation, they’re not going to get anywhere. The students themselves have to want to learn for there to be a point. The traditional educational system was just ma.s.s producing idiots, so an educational revolution happened, and schools as we know it were changed from their very cores.”

She behaved like a child, but she had the weary atmosphere of an old woman about her.

“School isn’t some sort of amus.e.m.e.nt park. There’s no need for us teachers to think that we have to get the students to have fun, and there’s really no value in that either. It really doesn’t do anything for the students. You try to give them knowledge in everything far and wide, but even if you force them to memorize things, all you’ll end up doing is ma.s.s produce students who ‘seem smart.’”

Tsurugi didn’t really seem annoyed. She just continued talking nonchalantly.

“They can solve problems from textbooks, but they can’t think for themselves, they can’t apply what they’ve learned, and they can’t make their own judgments. You just end up churning out wave after wave of lazy, directionless kids. But the teachers from the past just looked away and tried to smooth it all over on the surface. What incompetence.”

Tsurugi clicked her tongue, and sat cross-legged on top of her folding chair.

“School became pointless, education became meaningless, and schools became just like prisons, places where you just waited for time to pa.s.s. The modern schooling system is the result of people thinking about how to at least make that ‘prison term’ not go to waste.”

Taking a glance around, one could see the students slowly absorbing a “fundamental learning” textbook.

“Fundamental learning” was a time when the students strengthened the areas that formed the foundation of all varieties of scholarship… areas like j.a.panese language, mathematics, or physical fitness. Students who used up all their concentration during the morning would sleep through most of their cla.s.ses in the afternoon (and it seemed that there really were a lot of students like that), so the afternoon cla.s.ses would be put to waste.

And so, the solution was to have afternoon cla.s.ses consist of simple work that wouldn’t use up too much brainpower.

If they wanted to improve their j.a.panese, then they could work on transcribing kanji or writing out sentences. Or they could read, or edit other people’s writing.

They didn’t have to read serious works of literature, or memorize random grammatical rules.

No, the best way to hone your j.a.panese ability was just to write some text, and feel your hands moving as they produced the words.

Students who want to study something more in depth are allowed to choose a topic and pursue it vigorously during the morning “practical” cla.s.ses.

“Well, when we were young, cla.s.ses were just times for sleep. When the teacher asked questions, we would just find ways to deal with it, and we would get through exams by just cramming at the last minute. And we did really well like that. But I can’t help thinking though that wasting our precious childhoods like that wasn’t great, and we should have spent more time working hard and learning real skills…”

Maybe it’s because Tsurugi was trying to do something that took a lot of concentration while she was talking, but her fingertips shook and the entire Jenga tower came quickly crashing down.

“Ah, c.r.a.p!”

Tsurugi held her head in frustration, and my brother did a little dance.

“Hooray, I won! Now Tsurugi-sensei is the one who has to make the lesson plan for tomorrow! That was the deal!”

“Shut up! Moron! Don’t get so proud of yourself! I lost this game, but I definitely win in the game of life, you moron! Also, what kind of grownup gets all worked up over winning a game?! Moron! Idiot!”

And right when Tsurugi began raising a fuss…

–

“Funyaa.”

–

Kagami, who had been boldly sleeping, sprawled out on her desk in the front row, gently raised her head.

“Sensei, neesan, you’re being noisy. Please shut up.”

Kagami had on her usual vacant expression that made it very difficult to guess what she was thinking.

“We are in the middle of cla.s.s. Aren’t you ashamed as teachers when you act so disrespectfully like that? As a student, and as your little sister, I don’t think I can face society anymore after seeing that.”

“For some reason, it feels weird getting told that by someone who was completely asleep up until a second ago…”

Tsurugi watched her ghostly (3) sister with irritated eyes.

“Funyaa.”

Giving our her usual meow (I guess you could call it a meow?), Kagami showed us the thick book of arithmetic exercises she had been using as a pillow.

“More importantly, neesan. I don’t have anybody to check answers with today.”

It would be pretty annoying for the teacher to have to check answers on all the arithmetic exercises and things like that, so usually the students checked answers with the people sitting next to them.

But just as Kagami said, the seat next to hers was empty.

“Actually, there sure are a lot of empty seats today…”

My brother looked around the cla.s.sroom.

It wasn’t enough to force a school closure, but one out of every four students was missing.

Kagami gave off a rather astounded sigh.

“Lately it’s always been like this.”

“Oh really?”

“You should pay more attention to these things. Remember, you’re still a teacher.”

“I don’t think students know exactly how uninterested teachers are in them.”

“I really didn’t want to know the existence of such a bleak reality.”

“Ugh, dammit! I’m getting p.i.s.sed just listening to you two! Just get on with it already!”

It seemed a fire had struck within Tsurugi as she listened to my brother and Kagami’s relaxed conversation.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?! It’s clearly weird! It’s not like spring started today or something, so why are so many people missing?! If they don’t meet their fundamental learning quota, they’ll be mercilessly held back a grade, so the students really should be trying to make it to school as much as possible…!”

Tsurugi’s white coat swayed from side to side, she jumped onto her chair, and surveyed the cla.s.sroom.

“Is there some strange disease going around…? Or is this some kind of special alteration…?”

“It’s probably not a disease.”

Kagami muttered and took our her laptop from her bag.

“The cause of this all can probably be found within this.”

As long as they didn’t bother their neighbors, students were allowed to listen to music with headphones or watch movies during fundamental learning time, so there were quite a few students who were fiddling with their laptops or cell phones.

In fact, the reason more people didn’t complain when my brother and Tsurugi were making so much noise was because they were busy listening to music while doing their arithmetic drills, and weren’t really paying attention to what was happening around them.

“Please look here.”

Kagami turned her computer towards my brother and Tsurugi, pointing to the screen.

And on that screen was…

–

The Reverse Side of the First-Year Right-Hand-Side Cla.s.s

–

Those words were written in ominous-looking, dark-brown gothic font.

Right next to those words was a small area, and inside that area you could see a miniature cla.s.sroom.

Inside that cla.s.sroom were muscular giants randomly wearing armor, pretty girls with pointed ears, completely mysterious creatures that had many tentacles sprouting from their bodies… and they were exchanging jumbled up messages. “I wish cla.s.s would end sooner!” “Seriously, is fundamental learning really useful? Will it actually help me in the real world?” “Ahh, Tsurugi-chan lost. She’s so cute when she’s angry~~.”

The words were displayed on screen in speech bubbles, like you would see in manga, and there were also conversations here and there that weren’t publically visible, which were displayed with the message “This message can only be read by friends.”

“… What’s this? A game?”

Tsurugi liked games, so she seemed pretty interested in this, but Kagami shook her head in denial.

–

“This program is called ‘Yamata no Orochi SNS.’ It’s incredibly popular right now with younger people.”

–

Kagami looked pretty proud of herself.

“A social networking service… it’s a virtual society created on the internet, where you can find friends, chat, and engage in various other social activities. Yamata no Orochi SNS comes with a lot of functions and is quite sophisticated, to the point where you really can feel like you are living in a virtual society, so it’s become very famous. There’s an estimated three hundred thousand users online, including the current Prime Minister and many famous actors, so it is incredibly popular everywhere.”

Kagami remained mostly expressionless as she gave her sister a suspicious stare.

“But neesan, did you really not know about this? It’s quite famous, you know?”

“I use my computer to play games, so this type of communication-based stuff is a bit… but also, what is all this over here?”

Tsurugi scowled, but Kagami didn’t move a single eyebrow.

“To put it simply…”

Kagami pointed to the little group of people on screen who were exchanging secret messages and quickly continued.

“This person and this person and this person are students who didn’t come to school today. They use fake names on here so I don’t know what their real names are, but for someone like me it would be easy to find that information out. These people are on Yamata no Orochi SNS from day to night, even forgetting to do commonsense things like going to school… or rather, they choose to ignore such things in order to play on the internet.”

“If that’s true, then as a teacher I really can’t overlook that…”

Tsurugi stared at the computer screen with distrust.

“Is this Yamata no Orochi SNS thing really that fun? Sure, school hasn’t been that interesting lately, but if you don’t go and graduate, no company will want to hire you… is this thing really so addictive that it would get people to go as far as to ruin their lives?”

“Who knows…”

Kagami seemed pretty drowsy.

“I don’t have the ability to judge whether something is ‘fun’ or ‘interesting.’”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

Tsurugi sighed, and her face suddenly became a bit serious.

“So, can anybody use this Yamata no Orochi SNS service? How about I go and try it out a bit and see what it’s about?”

“Neesan, to think you would be interested in this…”

Even Kagami became a bit quiet.

“… Is this the work of an alteration?”

“Who knows. But if we don’t stamp out every suspicious thing from one end to the next now, there’ll be nothing we can do once it’s too late. But if there’s really three hundred thousand people using this… if it’s an alteration, that would be a pretty big-scale alteration, so we can’t be careless about this. I’ll get Tama to join us, and the three Yagami sisters will combine their forces to deal with this.”

And then Tsurugi turned to my brother, who had been closely following the conversation.

“Hey, Tsukuyomi? If I remember right, your little sister has a lot of computers, yeah…?”

“Eh? Ahh, yes. I think she has around ten… why do you ask?”

“Lend us a few computers… or no, you and your little sister should help us out too. If this really is an alteration, you two are definitely the cause of it all, so you’re going to be sticking with us until everything is nice and settled… ufufufu.”

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

(1) Yamata no Orochi is an eight-headed serpent from j.a.panese mythology.

(2) Reference to n.o.bita-kun from Doraemon. Credits to jorgelotr for catching this reference.

(3) Literally, she had “no sense of presence.”