I had forgotten much of the beginning of this story and it is making me question why I read as much of the manga as I did. The plot through this episode dealing with his classmates just feels so contrived. One thing that I was a bit surprised by is that I don't remember any of the classmates having names in the manga. They are usually just referred to by the clique name (Gal A, Jock B, etc.). However, we got two named classmates this episode: Tanaka that is traveling with the delinquents (against his will it seems) and Oda, leader of the Otaku.
In any case, I might give this one more episode to refresh my memory on how the situation with these jerks is resolved. @rikka@ani.social