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 the 3rd-year classes were assembled into small groups of 3 by Nagumo. The exact number of 3rd year students within these free groups or the total number of free groups present in the exam is unknown. It was made certain to have the total quantity of the students capped out at 3, to guarantee 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 them in advance that they would not be expelled if they abided to his plan.

Operating method
Two members of every group would accompany the 'major' large groups of 3rd Year Students. This was done to safeguard and exhaust the slot capacity from the respective tasks present within the exam. The two members would then make sure the participants of the major groups won the task they were participating in to provide maximum points. The third member would then make sure to fulfill the arrival points rule by going to the designated spots without their own free group members, achieving 1 point. This was done to ensure that none of the students from other years would suspect Nagumo was using this strategy. Normally, having 0 total points would beget attention since the bottom 10 groups are publibly available for anyone to check. Eventually, Kiyotaka Ayanokōji and Sakurako Tsubaki managed to figure out this strategy and informed it to the various leaders of their respective years. The latter even managed to use it to implement a variation of the Free Group strategy within the 1st year students for a short time.

New Incentive
On the tenth day of the exam, Ikuto Kiriyama called 6 of the free groups he had in his disposal and decided on a new aim in place of their original plan to aid the major large groups of the 3rd Year. Their new plan would be to make sure Rokusuke Koenji's small group would not achieve 1st place over Nagumo's large group. Koenji had 230 points at that time, just 6 points behind 1st place Nagumo. Furthermore, both Kiriyama and Class 3-B's Mikitani (another third year student who was part of a free group) were concerned about Nagumo's lack of response to Koenji's advances and decided to take matters into their own hands. They would not implement any sort of violence for fear of punishment from the school and decided on using peaceful methods to subdue Koenji. However, Koenji was unfazed by their attempts. This caused Kiriyama to abandon the plan altogether letting Koenji go in the process. Kiriyama thought that since Koenji had already outmaneuvered the free groups once, he would lower his guard and underestimate them which would allow him to strike later on.

Outcome
During the final day of the exam, it was revealed that the free groups and Nagumo had a plan to neutralize Koenji to prevent him from reaching first. However, due to Nagumo being knocked out at I2, the plan ultimately was not carried out. This allowed Koenji to secure first place. Kiriyama's large group failed to get a top 3 finish as he was busy with Koenji and the 3rd place was claimed by Arisu Sakayanagi's large group. While Nagumo's large group did secure 2nd place, the free groups missed out on their goal of having him be first. Furthermore, Nagumo also did not keep his initial promise of helping the 3rd year free group students pair up with the high scoring groups to prevent their expulsions. As a result, 5 free groups in the bottom 5 overall ranking were expelled. Even it was known Nagumo had betrayed the free groups, those who survived continued to obey him as this was made clear when they continued to trail Kiyotaka Ayanokouji through 2nd Year Volume 4.5 and beyond.