Free Groups

In the 2nd Year arc, the Free Groups (フリー グループ) are teams of 3rd year students from all classes with the exception of Class 3-A. They were created and assembled by Student Council President Miyabi Nagumo to help his own large group achieve first place in the Uninhabited Island Exam, and also to make sure other Class 3-A large groups as well as Ikuto Kiriyama's group of students from Class 3-B maintain a podium finish (top 3) or a high rank (top 10). These groups are consisted of students from Class 3-B, 3-C and 3-D who formed small groups of 3.

Formation
Before the start of the Uninhabited Island Exam during the events of Volume 2 of 2nd Year Arc, various students from 3rd-year classes were assembled into small groups of 3 by Nagumo. The exact number of students within the free groups is unknown. However, according to Kiriyama, at least 15 students (5 groups of 3) were formed to aid the major 3rd Year large groups. It was made sure to have the total quantity of the students capped out at 3 to make sure the small group limit was filled without losing out on members. The reason for this was because the Free Groups would not be able to win any of the slots from completing tasks scattered accross the island. As a result, their overall slots would remain at 3 which was the original maximum capacity to begin with. Taking advantage of this, all the free groups were occupied with 3 students to achieve maximum efficiency for the 3rd year large groups. The students agreed to form Free Groups because Nagumo promised initially they would not be expelled.

Operating method
Two members of every group would accompany the major large groups of 3rd Year Students. This was done to take away slot capacity from the tasks present within the exam. The two members would then make sure the participants of the major groups won the task they were participating it to provide maximum points. The third member would make sure to fulfill the arrival points rule by going to the designated spots of their own free group to achive 1 point. This was done to make sure none of the other students from various years would suspect Nagumo was using this strategy as having 0 total points would give it away since then they would be placed on the bottom 10 list of groups which were publibly available for everyone to check. However, later it was revealed Kiyotaka Ayanokōji and Sakurako Tsubaki managed to figure out this strategy and informed about this to the various leaders of their respective years. The latter even managed to use it to implement a variation of the Free Group strategy with the 1st year students for a short time.