There is Something Wrong with This Game

[Kyoto Academy VR-Space]

What happened next was very simple.

The exam permit procedure ran smoothly and was immediately approved by the Central Ministry of Education.

This was normal, because nowadays the education system in this country has been equipped with AI and is very well integrated, so most of the work was done by AI and the people working there just had to supervise.

When a permit application appears, its validity will be checked, and if there are no problems, it will be forwarded to the supervisor who is authorized to approve it or not. In fact, as long as the permit request has a valid reason and was requested by a valid person, it will normally go through.

After that, it depends on Ruri's efforts to complete the exam.

Before the exam started, Ruri asked permission to log out for a moment.

She reasoned to go to the bathroom and prepare all kinds of things ranging from mental matters and so on. But in fact, Ruri went to her workshop in the garage, took 10 rings from the drawer and put them on her fingers.

These rings are called Wisdom Rings, whose function is to increase INT by decreasing STR, the opposite of Bravery Rings which increase STR by decreasing INT.

Ruri always relies on these rings to help her in things that require heavy thinking, such as exams.

Even though wearing these rings had the side effect of reducing STR which makes Ruri's body weak and lethargic, the addition of INT that almost reaches +50 makes her thinking brighter and more easily inspired, making her better at memorizing or remembering all kinds of study material.

But, Ruri doesn't stop there.

She also drank a bottle of INT Potion and ate INT enhancing foods, which added another +20 INT. Of course, she doesn't forget to also use STR Potion and STR enhancing foods to mitigate the effects of STR reduction. Luckily this morning she only had a light breakfast, so there was still plenty of room in her loli stomach to accommodate it all.

Naturally, Ruri could have increased her INT even more by wearing more equipment. But she prefers to leave her real body naked in the real world. The thought of her body being covered by something actually made her feel uncomfortable, and might even interfere with her performance in the exam later.

After the preparations were complete, she logged back into the exam room, ready to face the exam.

"I'm ready, teacher." (Ruri)

"Okay then... Usually, the exam takes 1 hour for each subject and a 15 minute break in between. But because your situation is special, I have asked the Minister of Education for special permission, you can take your time and rest whenever you want." (Naoki)

“Uhm, teacher… With rules like this, aren't you worried that I might cheat?” (Ruri)

"No, there's no problem, but okay, maybe I'll tell you first how it works. Basically, every time you take a break and log out, all the answered questions will be locked and you can't change them anymore, and all the unanswered questions will be reshuffled from the question bank." (Naoki)

"I see..." (Ruri)

Ruri nodded showing her understanding.

It seems the teacher was so concerned about her health that he adjusted the exam procedure to suit her needs(?). Not only did he remove time limits, he also allowed Ruri to rest at any time but with conditions.

This concern was understandable, as the number of courses Ruri took was 11 courses, namely 3 compulsory courses, 4 specialty courses, and 4 advanced specialty courses, so the number of questions she had to face in the exam reached ~900 questions. Not to mention, this loli chose to face them all at once in one day.

For a loli who apparently suffers from leukemia, an exam like this could be said to be too overwhelming.

At first glance, the exam procedure customized by the teacher seems too lax and could be misused by Ruri to cheat easily, such as logging out and checking the answers from the internet. But this was allowed because even if Ruri did that, she wouldn't be able to change the answers to the questions she answered before she took a break.

And for unanswered questions, just treat it as a separate exam after the break, and of course students are allowed to reopen their notes or search for information on the internet during the break.

'Doesn't matter.'

Anyway, whatever the procedure, her original plan did not change.

Ruri planned to finish the exam in one go as quickly as possible. There were still many things to do in Ascension, and she didn't want to spend too much time on this exam.

And then, Ruri sat alone in the room, concentrating on the holo-screen on her writing desk.

This was normal for VR-based exams, because students had to take their own exams separately from other students, so there was no cheating or copying answers, and students just had to concentrate on the exam without any distractions.

In addition, to make it easier for students to concentrate, students are allowed to change the room environment, from the default classroom to a garden, forest, or whatever they like within the list. Ruri had always used this right to change the classroom into various places in previous exams, but this time she ignored it just to save time. 

'It's better to finish this before the food buff expires.'

The stylus in her hand continued to move non-stop, tapping the answer boxes on the multiple choice questions rapidly.

It didn't take long for Ruri to finish all the multiple choice questions, then she continued working on her essay, which she also finished quickly without many problems.

♠♠♠

In the monitoring room.

Naoki was a little surprised when he watched the loli solving the exam questions at high speed. Even though he already knew that Ruri had high intelligence which could be seen from her good academic grades, he didn't expect that she could solve the questions so quickly.

Fast movements like that would certainly make her tired if done in the real world, but fortunately, the feeling of body fatigue was not replicated here. Still, the mental load on the brain to solve exam questions should still be there.

"Looks like she's doing just fine." 

Looking at the timer, it was only a little over 30 minutes, but she had almost finished 700+ out of the 960 questions. And from the expression on her face, she doesn't look like she's having a hard time solving them.

But what about the accuracy of those answers?

Each question from the exam was generated by AI and collected in the question bank, where during the exam, questions were randomly assigned to each participating student. And of course, the scoring system for these questions was also carried out automatically and in real-time.

And seeing a series of "Correct Answer" notifications on the monitor, Naoki could only widen his eyes in amazement.

"Hey, that's more than 700 questions, how much IQ does she have?"  

The answers Ruri chose from all the multiple choice questions were correct, while the answers to the essay questions required human assessment so they could not yet be graded, but when compared to the standard answers given by AI, they were more or less close to correct.

This girl is undoubtably a genius!

"Is this the student you mentioned in the chat?"

“Oh, did we arrive late? Looks like she's almost done!”

Suddenly, two familiar voices was heard from behind Naoki.

Without even looking, he already knew the two people. One of these people is the dean of the 3rd year of high school, Mr. Ogami Yoshio, and another is Dr. Wakamatsu Ito, the doctor who treated Ruri's leukemia in the past.

"Hahaha, yeah... You two are late." (Naoki)

It was Naoki's initiative to contact those two people to help supervise Ruri in her exam. After all, he didn't want to take the risk that something untoward might happen.

He also wanted to send an ambulance and a team of special doctors directly to Ruri's house, but after thinking about it again, that wasn't necessary because it was redundant with the function of the Health Manager app installed on Ruri's bracelet.

Once her health indicator drops to below 50, an ambulance equipped with robots controlled remotely by doctors will arrive at her house in less than 5 minutes.

"As you both can see now, she is almost done, probably in less than 10 minutes." (Naoki)

"Oh my goodness, that's pretty… fast, and this score… all the answers are correct?" (Yoshio)

"Yes, and she doesn't even seem to be having any trouble at all, it's like she's doing kindergarten questions." (Naoki)

The dean was a bit surprised after hearing Naoki's words.

If what he said was true, then there was no need to doubt that this student was a genius. And again, the proof was already right before his eyes.

“What a pity! Why was this girl never noticed until now? If I had known, I would have sent her to the Academy Competition months ago!" (Yoshio)

"Ogami-sensei, I'm afraid that's impossible. Have you forgotten that she has leukemia and is not suited to doing stressful activities?" (Naoki)

"Ah, yes, that's right... Poor thing, what a shame!" (Yoshio)

Yoshio could only sighed in regret.

If only she had participated in the Academy Competition last month, she would have been able to bring glory to Kyoto Academy, which would later result in the Ministry of Education providing additional funds, resources, and incentive for the Academy.

Meanwhile, Dr Ito didn't pay attention to their conversation at all, and was more concerned with something else.

“To be honest, I don't think my presence is needed at all." (Dr. Ito)

"Oh? Why did you say that, Doctor?" (Naoki)

"It's true that this girl was my patient two years ago and I personally installed the Health Manager app on her bracelet. But until now, the app has always shown stable health indicators and has never sent any emergency signals to the hospital.” (Dr. Ito)

With that said, his eyes were fixated on Ruri's health indicator number, which still showed a number above 80. This number was obviously a sign of a healthy person and not a sign of someone suffering from a chronic disease.

"...What does that mean?" (Naoki)

Regarding Naoki's question, Dr Ito answered while scratching his head awkwardly.

"Well, I'm just a doctor so I shouldn't comment on what my patients do, but I suspect this girl has long since recovered from her illness and is in good health, but maybe she's too lazy to update her health status at the hospital." (Dr. Ito)

"...No way! So, she was lying to the Academy all this whole time?" (Naoki)

"Hmm, that makes sense, after all sick students have their own special rights at the Academy." (Yoshio)

Naoki found it hard to believe what Dr Ito said.

After all, it wasn't long ago that she asked him to do this test because of her health problems. However, after careful thought, this girl never seemed to say that she was sick, she only said that she didn't know whether she would be healthy or not during the exam.

Even if he confronted her with this matter later, she would be able to evade his words easily.

Naoki could only give a wry smile.

"What a clever girl..."

Meanwhile, the dean calmly analyzed what benefits this girl could gain if what Dr Ito said was true.

It was true that students who have a doctor certificate can get exceptions to various things, such as being allowed to attend the academy completely virtually, having less mandatory attendance, and they don't even need to attend Academy events.

As for Dr Ito himself, he could only make complicated expressions.

What he didn't say was how it was possible for leukemia patients to recover without undergoing hospital treatment and not updating their health records. Even if she manages to recover at another hospital, her health records in the data center should still be updated.

Even if this girl managed to recover but her records were not updated, then there is one explanation.

'Was she cured by an illegal doctor?'

Coincidentally, Dr Ito had the same speculation as Astrid.

But there was no way for him to verify the truth of his speculation. He couldn't ask the girl about this openly, and even if he could, he judged that getting in touch with things that belonged to the dark side was dangerous.

After careful consideration, he decided to forget and pretend he didn't know anything about this at all.

At that moment, the girl's voice came from the monitor.

“Teacher, I'm done! May I go now?” (Ruri)

"...Sure, go ahead. I will send the results to you after the exam period is finished." (Naoki)

"Okay, see you later, teacher." (Ruri)

With that said, the girl disappeared from the room.

Silence filled the monitoring room, but after a while, Naoki's voice broke the silence.

"...Now, what is your decision, Ogami-sensei? Should we filed a report about this?" (Naoki)

"No, let her do what she wants." (Yoshio)

The dean just smiled while answering Naoki's question.

He looked at the scoring panel, which showed a quick score on the exam questions that Ruri completed.

"They say geniuses have 'unique personalities' and we shouldn't interfere too much with them. Rules? As long as this girl can remain a genius like this, rules don't matter!" (Yoshio)

"...I see, then so be it." (Naoki)

"Although it was a shame that she was not sent to take part in the Academy Competition last month, there are still other opportunities at the college level later." (Yoshio)

The dean couldn't help but imagine that there would be a new genius emerging from this Academy, and the achievements that this genius could achieve in the future.

It has become common knowledge that Kyoto Academy uses an escalator system.

This means that every student who graduates from each section level can choose to continue their education to another, higher section at the same Academy. If nothing went wrong, after this genius little girl graduated from high school section, she could immediately choose to continue her studies at university section.

But unfortunately...

What he didn't know was that the genius he dreamed of, would choose not to use the escalator system and instead transfer to another university.