Chabashira Sae's icy voice, like a wind blowing in from the Arctic, froze the entire Class D classroom in an instant.
"Zero points?"
"Are you kidding me? Why is it zero?!"
"What happened to our 100,000 points? Are we not getting any this month?"
"The school must have made a mistake!"
The silence lasted less than three seconds before it was drowned out by a deafening uproar of protests and questions. Yamauchi Haruki's face was filled with disbelief and anger. Kanji Ike joined in, shouting as if that could make the points appear out of thin air. Most of the students looked confused and panicked, at a loss after their dreams had shattered.
"A mistake?" Chabashira's lips curled into a scornful smile. Her gaze was like that of someone looking at a pile of irrecyclable garbage. "No, there's no mistake at all. In fact, you managed to squander all 1,000 Class Points in a single month, without leaving a single point behind. You've set a record—an unprecedented one."
"What gives you the right to say that!" Ken Sudō roared, clenching his fists.
"What gives me the right?" Chabashira snorted, as if she'd been waiting for this moment. She picked up one of the poster tubes she'd brought in, unfurled it with a snap in front of the whole class, and pinned it to the blackboard. It displayed a few letters and numbers.
A: 950 points B: 890 points C: 490 points D: 0 points
The blood-red "0" stung the eyes of every Class D student.
"Can you see it clearly? This is the 'result' of your efforts." Chabashira's voice held not a trace of warmth. "Talking during class, being late or leaving early, sleeping in class... The list goes on and on. Classroom discipline? Did any of you even know what that was? If Class Points could go below zero, I don't know how far you'd have fallen."
Her gaze swept over the students who'd been shouting the loudest, sharp as a knife. "Does anyone still think the school made a mistake?"
At almost the same time, in the Class A classroom.
Their homeroom teacher, Mashima Tomoya, announced the point rankings as well. When "Class A: 950 points" and "Class B: 890 points" appeared clearly before them, even the usually composed and confident Class A students couldn't help letting out a low gasp.
"Class B... has that many?"
"They're only 60 points behind us? You've got to be kidding!"
"How did they manage that?"
An invisible pressure swept through the room. They didn't know what the points represented yet, but since their homeroom teacher had gone out of his way to announce them during homeroom, they clearly weren't insignificant. Some students had already connected the points on the board with the personal points they'd received that day. Seeing a rival close on their heels, every Class A student wore a grave, anxious expression. For the first time, they truly felt that the gap between them and the other classes wasn't as wide as they'd imagined.
Mashima watched his students' reactions with a serious expression, but his thoughts were in turmoil. Class B... That's Ichinose Honami's class. He'd had a hunch. With just one transaction and a piece of information, they've brought Class B's points so close to Class A's... That Natsukawa never even stepped into the spotlight. He only gave things a little push from behind the scenes, and nearly stirred up the entire first year... He's no ordinary person. I wonder how he ended up in Class D. Could he have some flaw serious enough to conceal this kind of talent...?
In a corner of the Class A classroom, Sakayanagi Arisu sat with the delicate perfection of a doll. Her fingertip tapped lightly on the desk, and a flicker of interest passed through her violet eyes. "Ichinose... Honami, was it? To lead her class this far is certainly more interesting than that rock, Katsuragi." She tilted her head and whispered to Kamuro Masumi beside her, quietly enough that only she could hear. "Kamuro, please look into Ichinose's daily life for me sometime."
Kamuro nodded, looking thoroughly unwilling.
In sharp contrast to Class A's tension and Class D's despair, Class B's classroom erupted after a brief silence in a wave of relief and barely contained astonishment!
"8... 890 points?! We're in second place? We're only 60 points behind Class A?!"
"Thank goodness! We didn't lose too many points!"
"It's all thanks to Ichinose!"
Their teacher, Hoshinomiya Chie, beamed with delight. She clapped her hands and spoke in a sweet voice. "Congratulations, everyone! What an incredible result! You're just one step away from Class A! I've always had faith in Ichinose, you know. Just as I thought, under your leadership, Class B can definitely reach Class A!"
Amid the cheers, everyone looked toward Ichinose Honami, who stood in the center of the classroom. She was smiling, but more than anything, she looked relieved.
Information worth a million points...
It was worth every point!
The thought rang through the minds of every Class B student who knew the truth. Only now did they fully feel a chill run through them: without that information, they would have fallen far behind first-ranked Class A.
Kanzaki Ryuji, Shibata Sou, and the other core members were delighted too, but they also saw deep astonishment in one another's eyes. The school had assigned students to classes according to their supposed "ability," and the point totals of the other classes looked like a neat sequence. It wasn't hard to conclude that without this information, their class would probably have had just over 600 points. Now they'd shot straight up to 890—a huge difference. And that was after they'd spent a week losing points without knowing the rules. If they'd learned about them a few days earlier, they might even have been able to take Class A's place.
And the person who'd provided the information... that mysterious "Friend A"...
Who were they?
A mix of gratitude, reverence, and intense curiosity spread through Class B. Friend A had not only predicted the school's rules with uncanny accuracy, but had understood everything from the very beginning of the school year. Their foresight and methods made the students feel fortunate—and deeply respectful—that they'd had the chance to make a deal with someone like that. It was as if a player hidden in the mist had changed the course of the entire game with one casual move.
Unlike the warm, cheerful atmosphere in Class B, the classroom in Class D was filled with despair so thick it seemed almost tangible.
"So... we won't get any points from now on?"
"How could this happen..."
"Everyone in the other classes is going to look down on us!"
"Damn it!" Sudō kicked a desk with all his might. The loud crash vented the anger and humiliation he had nowhere else to direct.
"You want people to respect you?" Chabashira looked on coldly. "Simple. Climb the ranks. The rules are simple. As long as your Class Points exceed Class C's, you become the new Class C. Exceed Class B's, and you become Class B."
A faint glimmer of hope returned to the eyes of some students.
"But," Chabashira continued, dousing it like a bucket of ice water, "that all depends on one thing—"
She took out a second poster, rolled into a tube. It showed the rankings from their last quiz. A thick red line had been drawn in front of one name.
"—you not getting expelled." Her voice dripped with undisguised sarcasm. "If this had been a midterm, seven of you would have been expelled in that exam—and it's only the start of the school year. What did you even learn in middle school? Or did you actually learn anything at all?"
"What? The school never said we'd get expelled for failing!!!"
"Seriously? You get expelled for failing an exam?!"
The students whose names had been marked with red lines, along with several others whose grades were dangerously low, went deathly pale. Their voices brimmed with disbelief.
"Listen carefully," Chabashira said, her voice firm and unquestionable. "At this school, failing even one subject in the midterms, final exams, or any other exam will get you expelled!"
"If you don't want to be expelled, then show the attitude and ability needed to prove you're not 'defective goods.'"
With those final words, she ignored the cries and panic of her students as if the world were ending, turned around, and left the classroom without a backward glance, leaving all of Class 1-D in utter chaos and despair.
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