The Point

Watching the two walk away on bad terms, Zhuge Linghao was already grinning from ear to ear.

"Horikita, don't go! Come eat in the cafeteria with me!"

"Get lost."

"Sure thing~"

"Kushida, don't go! Come eat in the cafeteria with me!"

"Ugh, you're awful!"

"Right away!"

[System, open my personal status panel.]

[Beep... Opening.]

School: Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School

Class: Class 1-D

Name: Zhuge Linghao

Alignment: Kindness (Progress: 1%)

Emotion Points: 192

...

Academic Ability: S

Intelligence: S+

Emotional Intelligence: A

Physical Ability: D-

Judgment: S+

Identity or Skills: Politician, Triple Slide-Kneel Kowtow (System-Bound, Random Ability.)

Personality: Bad at everything but loves to argue, hopelessly dense, lots of inner monologue.

[Wait, could my C-level judgment affect the odds of which options I choose? Maybe picking C really isn't the best choice?]

[Seems like picking B would make for a better show!]

[Yeah, Politician is amazing. It gave me so many skill points, and my head feels so clear now!]

[I feel like I can get full marks in every subject!]

[But one thing really went just like I thought. When I did something scheming, annoying, or malicious, my kindness progress went down!]

After lunch, Zhuge Linghao chatted with Ayanokoji on and off.

A pink-haired girl approached them. If Zhuge Linghao remembered correctly, she was Ichinose Honami, the leader of Class B.

Zhuge Linghao had no intention of greeting her. After all, this was their first time meeting, and she might not even notice an unremarkable guy like him.

Hmph. He'd deal with her when it was time to stir things up.

As they walked, Zhuge Linghao asked Ayanokoji, "How many points do you have left?"

Ayanokoji looked a little listless. "Over ninety thousand. Why?"

Zhuge Linghao's eyes widened. "What? You still have that much? Have you been living like a caveman?"

"Don't you think a hundred thousand is an unusually large amount? I thought something was off, so I've been careful with it."

"Being careful is one thing, but you still need to spend some. You should at least have the basic necessities, right? Come on, what are you missing? I'll buy it for you, okay?"

With that, Zhuge Linghao dragged Ayanokoji to the supermarket.

Zhuge Linghao gave him an enthusiastic smile. "Nani, you don't even have the most basic necessities? That won't do!"

"Come on, pick out some expensive stuff. Don't worry about saving points for me!" Zhuge Linghao said, thumping his chest.

[Let's see: imported face wash, affordable laundry detergent, a few changes of pajamas, milk to improve his health, and other daily necessities...]

[It came to 5,325 points. Not bad, not too expensive!]

Zhuge Linghao stared at his phone, now showing just over sixty thousand points, and fought back tears.

[Ayanokoji, since I went to all this trouble for you today, please, if I ever get into trouble, come to my aid! I'm really counting on you to help me rank up!]

Ayanokoji said nothing. He simply accepted Zhuge Linghao's kindness like an ordinary student and promised to treat him to a meal next time.

[That's the spirit, Ayanokoji! Let's hang out more. First time, strangers; second time, friends; third and fourth time, real brothers!]

Another two weeks passed.

Zhuge Linghao realized most of his classmates still hadn't grasped how important points were. They continued enjoying carefree school lives, spending their hundred thousand points lavishly every day.

The teachers still did nothing to maintain discipline in class. The students talked, slept, watched videos on their tablets, and played games, and no one stopped them.

Being late or absent from class had also become commonplace.

Class D was especially bad. Everyone was a character in their own right, living an even lazier, more spoiled, more debauched "happy" life.

[No matter how you look at it, this class is beyond saving!]

On the morning of May 1, the sun failed to come out. Dark clouds loomed over the classroom, and for the moment, the birds' pleasant songs were nowhere to be heard.

A chorus of complaints rang out in the classroom.

"What's going on? They didn't deposit our points?"

"Yours didn't come in either?"

"Why? Can somebody tell me what's going on?"

"This is so annoying! What the hell happened?!"

Zhuge Linghao watched the class's defective specimens with great interest, then glanced at his own points on his phone: 44,627.

He leaned over to check Ayanokoji's and nearly jumped: [As expected of you. You've still got 82,235 points! I bet Horikita has eighty or ninety thousand too.]

[Such frugal and thrifty deskmates! I should learn from you guys!]

Just then, Chabashira Sae walked into the classroom in black high heels. In her distinctive, hoarse yet clear voice, she said, "Return to your seats. Homeroom is starting."

Yamauchi Haruki, with his horse-like face, had been unable to hold back any longer. He was the first to raise his hand. "Teach, what's going on with this month's points? Why haven't they been deposited yet?"

Kanji Ike, with his punk hairstyle, raised his hand too. "Yeah! Weren't they supposed to come in on the first of every month?"

Their homeroom teacher, Chabashira Sae, folded her arms and said without a trace of emotion, "No. This month's points were deposited long ago."

The students below began to grow restless and chatter.

"But that doesn't make sense!"

"Yeah, yeah! Did the school forget to pay our class or something?"

Chabashira Sae reiterated that there was no way the school would forget to pay just one class.

Suddenly, Zhuge Linghao seemed to hear a stirring, yet strangely ominous BGM begin to play. Here it comes, here it comes! The iconic scene was about to start!

Sure enough, the next moment, Chabashira Sae gave them an utterly mocking smile.

"You really are a bunch of hopeless trash."

"Together, you were late or absent ninety-nine times, and you broke the rules 402 times by using your phones, talking, and getting distracted in class."

"You've had a pretty comfortable month, haven't you?"

"At this school, each class's grades and evaluation are reflected in the points deposited every month."

"After a unanimous decision by the school, you've lost the 100,000 points you should have received."

"This month, the number of points deposited into your phones is zero!"

Chabashira Sae leaned both hands on the podium and spoke word by word, her voice icy cold. "In other words, you're trash with an evaluation of zero!"

Completely ignoring the despair on the students' faces, Chabashira Sae turned up the mockery another notch.

"Did you think a mere high school student could spend 100,000 points without restraint every month?"

"Anyone with common sense would know that's impossible, wouldn't they?"

Chabashira Sae's voice was like the whisper of a demon from the abyss.

"But why didn't any of you bother to investigate these questions or the rules?"

"On the first day of school, I emphasized that this school values students' abilities above all else."

No one dared look Chabashira Sae in the eye. Calm and composed, she raised the pressure to its limit!

"Little pieces of trash, welcome to the Classroom of the Elite!"