Even if she wanted money, she shouldn't have to earn it like this!
"Relax." Perhaps he'd noticed how tense she was. Asakusa Toru smiled and pulled the bills back from in front of her. "I'm not going to make you call me 'Daddy,' and I don't need you to do anything extra."
"All I want is your time."
He casually pulled a single bill from the stack, put the rest away, then took Ichinose Honami's hand and placed it in her palm.
"This is cheap labor for 416 yen an hour. That's all."
She didn't have to compromise her principles or give anything up. It was simply an impulsive invitation, just as Asakusa Toru had said. Nothing more than a part-time job.
A cheap part-time job, at that—one that paid only 416 yen an hour.
"So? Interested?"
"..." Ichinose Honami froze.
She held the Fukuzawa Yukichi in her hand, unable to bring herself to let go. A ten-thousand-yen bill might have seemed light, but to her it felt surprisingly heavy.
With this ten thousand yen, Mom wouldn't have to apologize.
With this ten thousand yen, her little sister wouldn't have to be disappointed.
—If only she had this ten thousand yen.
"C-can I trust you?" she couldn't help asking.
If it had been anyone else, she never would have said something like that. She wouldn't even have hesitated; she would simply have returned the money in her hand, however reluctantly.
But the person in front of her was Asakusa Toru, the man who had just resonated with what was in her heart.
...No, "man" might not be quite right. Now that she'd calmed down and looked closely at Asakusa Toru, she realized he was surprisingly young.
Young enough that he might even be a student her age...
Huh? If he was a student, then this money...
No, no, she couldn't think that way. It wasn't right.
Besides, he didn't look like that sort of person.
"Whether you trust me is up to you. You just have to tell me what you choose." Asakusa Toru waved his hand. "Will you take it, or give it back to me?"
He didn't need to offer any guarantees.
After a moment's hesitation, Ichinose Honami saw her mother and little sister as they'd been a short while ago, and made up her mind.
"Then... can I ask why?" In the end, there was one thing she still wanted to confirm.
"Self-satisfaction." Asakusa Toru tilted his head. "Meaningless self-satisfaction."
Chapter 22: Off to Be a Simp in Another World
"What I'm about to ask you to do with me is also just meaningless self-satisfaction."
"So don't feel obligated. Ten thousand yen may seem like a lot, but it's actually cheap for part-time work."
After gazing at Ichinose Honami for a moment, Asakusa Toru stopped hesitating and turned to leave.
As he walked, he raised a hand. "Come on."
Watching his back as he walked off without the slightest uncertainty, and feeling the weight of the bill in her hand, Ichinose Honami gritted her teeth and stepped forward.
"C-can you tell me your name?" Ichinose Honami caught up with him.
Without looking back, he gave her his name:
"Asakusa Toru."
Looking back on it, what he'd done had seemed a lot like luring someone away.
Deliberately sitting beside a girl who was clearly having some kind of trouble at a hospital, then using ambiguous words to gain her trust. Once he'd won her over and led her away from the scene, he could do this or that to her...
Ahem. Anyway, it was a good thing he was a decent person. Aside from taking Ichinose Honami around tearing down other people's missing-person posters, then going straight to the missing person's house and getting yelled at, he hadn't done anything.
Well, it wasn't like he'd torn down random missing-person posters. Every poster he took down was looking for the same person.
A guy named Natsuki Subaru, wearing a tracksuit, with black hair, 172 centimeters tall, and weighing 66 kilograms.
The reason he'd been yelled at was that he hadn't just torn down all the posters. He'd also gone to the family's house and told them the guy had been dragged off to another world to be a simp and probably wouldn't be coming back.
Asakusa Toru thought everything he'd said was true, but unfortunately, his Rhetoric Skill wasn't high enough. He hadn't convinced the family at all; instead, they'd given him a thorough scolding.
Even now, though, he thought that ten thousand yen had been worth every bit of it.
After all, Ichinose Honami had stood in front of him and taken the scolding for him.
With a beautiful girl standing in front of him, the amount of abuse directed his way had dropped by more than a little.
So, just as he'd said, Ichinose Honami had no reason to feel indebted to him, and no need to keep the incident on her mind.
It wasn't that he had some kind of weird sexual orientation, or that he was too awkward to accept repayment.
It just wasn't necessary.
What could Ichinose Honami repay him with? Transfer ten thousand Private Points to him now?
Never mind whether he needed the money; Ichinose herself wouldn't accept that kind of repayment.
Skip straight to offering herself to him?
What a lunatic. You think a beautiful girl will offer herself to you just because you spent ten thousand yen? Who do you think you are?
Even the purest Chu Nan wouldn't entertain a fantasy like that, would he?
"..."
Before long, the third period of the morning ended, and the students' lunch break began.
Ichinose Honami had wanted to keep talking with Asakusa Toru, but after thinking it over for a long time, she raised her hand.
"Um, everyone, could you stay for a moment? There's something I'd like to tell you." She announced loudly:
"It's about the school."
First-Year Class C.
"Listen up! Do whatever you want after class, but once class starts, you'd better all follow the Behavioral Norms!"
"Y-yes!!!"
After learning the truth about this school from Asakusa Toru, especially the details of the exam taking place during the first month, Ryuen Kakeru had no intention of keeping it to himself.
Come on, what kind of idiot would pay two million for information and then not use it?
But how to use it was another question.
The first step was to use force to make the students in his class, whose behavior ranged from decent to terrible, mind their words and actions during the first month and behave like model students.
Now that he knew it was a points-deduction game, he had to make sure they didn't lose any more points than necessary. Only then could he discuss what to do next.
Of course, the quality of Class C's students was plain to see. There was a reason they'd been assigned to Class C.
Ryuen Kakeru didn't accept the school's assessments at all, but he had to admit that it would be difficult to make the class keep up their good-student habits for long.
Fortunately, the Behavioral Norms Exam only lasted for the first month. A rule enforced through violence could just barely keep them in line.
Still, he couldn't expect to get by on so few Class Points.
A class-transfer privilege in exchange for twenty million?
If that was the case, Private Points would become very important.
To get the entire class promoted to Class A, they would need... 800 million Private Points.
Heh. What an astronomical figure.
"..." Ryuen Kakeru shook his head, setting aside thoughts of transferring classes for the moment. Instead, he recalled the final extra piece of information Asakusa Toru had left him.
During this exam, the lowest score they could reach was zero.
Did that mean they might be able to get negative scores in future exams?
Still, surely no class would be stupid enough to lose all one thousand points in a single month... right?
Ryuen Kakeru had considered simply having Class C give up on the first month's class exam, dragging everyone down with them and reducing every class's Class Points to zero.
But if he did that, the Private Points they received the next month would also be reduced to zero.
If they hadn't handed over the two million, that might have been fine. They could make do with one hundred thousand if they were careful.
But after spending two million, they couldn't do that.
He didn't have enough control over the class to make everyone obediently act while going without money for several months in a row.
So Ryuen Kakeru had to abandon the incredibly tempting idea of dragging everyone into the water with him and consider other options.
Before long, the beginnings of a plan gradually took shape in his mind.
"..."
Under the threat of Ryuen Kakeru's glare, First-Year Class C made it through a model morning without incident.
Of course, that only lasted until noon.
When midday arrived, the rare corners of Advanced Nurturing High School that weren't covered by cameras became the site of a fight.
"Thud—"
No. Rather than a fight, it was more like a vicious, one-sided ambush.
"Ryuen—"
Ishizaki Daichi, who'd been dragged into an alley without warning and slammed against the wall, wore a fierce expression.
"You've gone too far!"
"—And I can go further!" Seizing his opening, Ryuen drove his knee up. The heavy blow landed in Ishizaki Daichi's stomach, sending pain through his entire body.
He lost his strength almost instantly and collapsed to the ground.
"I told you, no matter where you go, I'll find a way to make you obey." Looking down at Ishizaki Daichi as he clutched his stomach with a twisted expression, Ryuen spoke one word at a time.
Chapter 23: Ichinose Honami's Soliloquy
Although Ishizaki Daichi had appeared to submit to Ryuen the day before, he'd only done so because their homeroom teacher had been standing right beside them. Considering all sorts of factors, he'd had no choice but to comply.
It was true that he'd obediently paid for the information, and that he felt the information was worth the price.
But when he thought it over carefully afterward, he soon realized something was wrong.
The homeroom teacher supported Ryuen not because he accepted him as the class leader, but because he thought pooling the class's resources to buy the information would benefit them.
Ishizaki Daichi had no reason to submit to Ryuen.
So after school the day before, he'd openly declared his opposition.
And Ryuen's declaration now was the result of that defiance.
Whether it was a sneak attack from the shadows or some other underhanded tactic, no matter how devious or despicable it was, he would do it again and again, over and over, without getting tired of it.
—Until Ishizaki Daichi submitted.
"...I-if you've got the guts, go fight Yamada!" After huddling on the ground for a while to catch his breath, Ishizaki Daichi couldn't help shouting. "You cowardly bastard!"
If they fought face-to-face, Ryuen Kakeru had absolutely no chance against him!
And if it had been Yamada, even an ambush like this would never have worked!
"So you're saying that if Yamada submits, you will too?" Ryuen Kakeru sat on Ishizaki Daichi's body, pinning him down so he couldn't get up, and asked with interest.
"Guh—"
Pinned beneath Ryuen, the bit of strength Ishizaki Daichi had managed to muster drained away again.
He gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, and shouted:
"So what if I am! It's not like you could beat that guy anyway!"
Before you continue