Chapter Forty: Sakayanagi: What a Pity / Chapter Forty-One: How About Some Protection Money?

An hour later, Kamio Tatsuya closed his book, feeling dizzy from having absorbed too much knowledge that day.

"Just a fair trade."

Horikita Suzune did not choose to wait around today. As soon as the time was up, she packed her things and left.

Kamio Tatsuya also left his seat, planning to find an extracurricular book to read and relax.

The school library had an incredibly rich collection. It had not only all kinds of famous manga and light novels, but even past issues of Jump. Kamio Tatsuya truly had not expected that.

The school probably wasn't encouraging students to get addicted to this sort of thing, was it?

But then again, after thinking about it, there had been so many generations of students. Perhaps some of them had aspired to become manga artists or light-novel authors.

If the books were there to provide them with reference material, then it wasn't entirely unreasonable.

After coming up with this idea, Kamio Tatsuya suddenly felt that it made perfect sense.

Chapter Forty: Sakayanagi: What a Pity

Although the school had a large number of light novels and manga, Kamio Tatsuya had no intention of reading them.

No matter how you looked at it, reading those things was far too relaxing. He was currently in the middle of preparing for his exams, so he planned to find a few extracurricular books that required some brainpower and use them to relax a little.

After narrowing down his choices, Kamio Tatsuya felt that detective novels might be a good option.

Since practically all the First Year students were busy preparing for their exams, these extracurricular books were mostly available. Kamio Tatsuya easily found what he wanted.

Murder on the Orient Express. Looking at the book in his hand, Kamio Tatsuya shook his head, put it down, and picked up the one beside it.

Neither of these was the book he wanted. He wanted to find And Then There Were None, but it seemed they didn't have it here. Had someone else borrowed it?

There was a backup copy, but it was entirely in English, and Kamio Tatsuya admitted that he couldn't understand it very well at the moment.

In the end, he left the area with The ABC Murders and returned to his previous seat.

Before he knew it, it was six o'clock. Kamio Tatsuya put down his book and began packing his things. He decided to borrow The ABC Murders so that he wouldn't have to look for it again tomorrow.

After returning to the dormitory, Kamio Tatsuya took out his phone and checked it. Still, no one had stepped forward to extort the classes above them.

Class D really was rather boring.

Whatever. They were enemies in the future anyway. Why the hell was he being polite to them?

The next day, as soon as Kamio Tatsuya arrived in class, Horikita came looking for him.

"Do you know about what happened on the forum?"

"What happened on the forum?" Kamio Tatsuya asked curiously. "You mean that anonymous post?"

Horikita nodded at that.

"Someone used Class D's name to send a request for assistance to the three higher-ranked classes, hoping that, out of humanitarian spirit, they would provide each student in our class with ten thousand Private Points as living expenses. If they refused, someone might imitate what Yamauchi did yesterday and harass them."

Kamio Tatsuya nodded to show that he knew about it, because he was the one who had done it.

Besides, he hadn't threatened them. He had merely asked them to provide living expenses and explained one possible outcome—if Class D continued to have no living expenses, then its students might do something irrational.

Although it was essentially a threat, he had done a very good job of keeping up appearances. Even if they took the post to a teacher and complained, the teacher would have no way to punish him.

After all, the students of Class D had not done anything yet.

Judging from the wording alone, Kamio Tatsuya had done no more than describe a possible unfriendly action that might be taken against the higher-ranked classes in the future.

Moreover, he wanted to use this incident to conduct an experiment: would the school really reveal an anonymous user's personal information so easily?

"Do you know who made the post?"

Horikita Suzune shook her head.

"I heard the other classes have already reported it to the school and demanded to know who made the post, but the school hasn't revealed the person's identity."

Kamio Tatsuya nodded, then suddenly smiled.

"Who do you think did it?"

The sudden question made Horikita Suzune pause. She then looked at Kamio Tatsuya with suspicion.

"Could it have been you?"

Well, damn. She really had him pegged.

Kamio Tatsuya was just about to deny it when Horikita Suzune immediately shook her head again.

"Probably not. You aren't short on Points, and you aren't the sort of student who would work hard for the sake of the students in your class."

At that, Kamio Tatsuya spread his hands and pursed his lips, silently expressing his speechlessness.

The other classes also had their own reactions to Kamio Tatsuya's anonymous post.

"He made his move so quickly, and just as I expected. How interesting."

Ryuen looked at the post on the school forum, the corners of his mouth curling into a smile.

Since the school had only been in session for a short time, he knew very little about the students in Class D. Therefore, even if Ryuen wanted to find the anonymous poster, he had no place to start.

After realizing this, he had immediately dragged Class A and Class B into the mess.

And as a result, it had worked.

Naturally, the students of Class A had also learned about the matter.

"What are you planning to do?"

Looking at the post on his phone, Katsuragi asked Sakayanagi.

"What about you, Katsuragi?"

Sakayanagi did not answer. Instead, she responded with a question of her own.

"Class A is full of excellent students. We won't be provoked so easily."

"Is that so?" Sakayanagi's smile did not change. "Still, I think it would be better to obediently hand over the money."

"Are you afraid?"

"Think whatever you like." Sakayanagi clearly did not want to say much more to Katsuragi. "Masumi, let's go to the cafeteria for lunch."

Watching Sakayanagi walk away, Katsuragi's expression grew extremely solemn.

"Masumi, who do you think did this?"

"Huh? How would I know who did it?"

Kamuro Masumi looked thoroughly annoyed, as if she were on her period.

In reality, Sakayanagi had been ordering her around in all sorts of ways these past few days because, for some reason, she had found out about Kamuro Masumi's kleptomania.

Although Sakayanagi had not threatened her, Kamuro Masumi had somehow ended up being ordered around by her.

"It's simple. You should know this person."

"I know him?" Kamuro Masumi was stunned. "Wait, don't tell me you mean Kamio?"

"In my view, it's very likely him. This method of making people uncomfortable while forcing them to dance to his tune suits his style perfectly." Sakayanagi Arisu wore a delighted expression, as if she had found a new toy.

"But that guy shouldn't be short on Points either, right? What's the point of doing this?"

Kamuro Masumi knew that Kamio Tatsuya possessed more than three million Private Points, so she felt that he wouldn't care about a mere few tens of thousands of Private Points.

Sakayanagi couldn't figure it out either, but she vaguely felt that Kamio Tatsuya had done this on a whim.

Even so, his methods were tightly linked. The only way to break out of the situation was to completely restrain the students in one's own class, just as Katsuragi had said.

But students were people too, and people made mistakes.

Therefore, Kamio Tatsuya's scheme was unsolvable to a certain extent. There were only two choices: obediently pay up or obediently let him make trouble.

In fact, if Katsuragi had chosen to pay just now, Sakayanagi had another way to make Class A's position even more secure.

After paying the protection money, they could simply spend another sum to hire the students of Class D to cause trouble for Class B and Class C.

Unfortunately, Katsuragi was far too conservative, and he failed to recognize the situation... He was a fool not worth conspiring with.

Hopefully, no one in Class B or Class C would think of turning this around and targeting Class A.

No. Although Ichinose from Class B might not be capable of doing something like that, Ryuen from Class C was another matter.

Chapter Forty-One: How About Some Protection Money?

Soon, the bell rang, and Kamio Tatsuya entered study mode. Whether the other students in class wanted to listen or not, at least they looked quite serious at that moment.

Except for one person: Sudo Ken.

Although he had stopped arriving late, the moment he entered the classroom, he sprawled over his desk and slept without a care in the world.

Hirata had tried persuading him several times, but it had never had any effect.

After school that afternoon, Kamio Tatsuya packed his things and prepared to head to the library. However, before he could leave, a guest came to visit Class D.

It was Ryuen from Class C. This time, he had not come alone. Ishizaki and that muscular Black student had come with him as well.

After asking around, Kamio Tatsuya learned that his name was Yamada Albert and that he was mixed-race.

Tsk, mixed-race. Black genes really were absurd.

After arriving at Class D, Ryuen led the others straight into the classroom.

"What are you trying to do, Ryuen?"

Naturally, the person who stepped forward at that moment was Hirata Yosuke, Class D's leader.

Ryuen had obviously come with hostile intentions. To prevent another brawl like yesterday's, Hirata Yosuke stepped forward immediately.

"Don't be so tense, Hirata. I just saw something someone posted on the forum, so I came over to say hello."

As he spoke, he brazenly surveyed the students who were still in Class D.

Kamio Tatsuya was speechless. He wanted to go to the library, but this clearly wasn't the right time.

Being too conspicuous would make Ryuen take notice of him and grow suspicious.

It wasn't that he was afraid, but it would be troublesome.

And he hated trouble.

So he simply stood beside his desk and watched Ryuen's group, just like everyone else.

Ryuen swept his gaze across the faces of the Class D students one by one. When he passed Kamio Tatsuya, he did not pause at all.

Unfortunately, Ryuen Kakeru was not Edogawa Conan. He did not possess the ability to identify the culprit at a glance.

"Please leave our classroom. The person you're looking for isn't in our class."

Worried that things would get even more out of hand, Hirata immediately ordered him to leave.

But Ryuen was not about to be driven away so easily.

"Oh? You actually said that? In that case, can you guarantee it?"

"What?"

"Can you guarantee that the students of Class D won't harass the other classes?"

"I..."

Hirata wanted to give his guarantee, but he was not an idiot. He was willing to protect the students of Class D, but how could he not know what sort of people they were?

Yamauchi's incident had happened only yesterday. What could he possibly guarantee?

Moreover, he had no way to force the students of Class D to do anything, so he could not promise that they would behave themselves.

Ever since the method on the forum had been made public, even if the students of Class D did nothing, they still possessed considerable intimidation.

If Hirata gave that guarantee and demanded that the students of Class D behave themselves, he would be cutting off one of his own arms. As an honor student, Hirata Yosuke could not possibly have failed to realize that.

Although he rejected such methods, he actually knew very well that this was the best way to resolve Class D's current predicament.

The classroom of Class D briefly fell into a stalemate.

The person who broke that stalemate was the unrestrained man—Koenji Rokosuke.

While Ryuen and Hirata were talking, he calmly organized his things, completely unaffected. Then he picked up his schoolbag, passed between the two of them, and left the classroom.

Well done, Kouenji!