He had no intention of telling Sakayanagi Arisu that this was a settled fact that couldn't be changed.
After all, it was just a game among a few children. As long as it didn't affect his daughter's health or mood, the outcome was of no consequence to him.
Arisu was nearly an adult, and he couldn't look after her for the rest of her life. It was a good thing for her to get the chance to test herself against outstanding peers in the small society of Kodo Ikusei Senior High School. Besides, she'd still be under his watchful eye.
He simply couldn't interfere with the first-year assessments anymore. That didn't mean he couldn't send someone to look after Arisu's health. The people on the Board of Directors weren't so lacking in tact.
"So, it's an off-the-board tactic that complies with the school rules?"
Sakayanagi Arisu pondered. "He has at least ten million points on hand. Could he have used the fact that 'points can buy anything at school' to negotiate with the school for a legal way to earn Private Points from outside?"
The girl discreetly studied her father's expression, but he only smiled without saying a word. She knew she wouldn't get any more information out of him.
That was fine, though. A small number of Private Points meant nothing to class leaders like them. On the other hand, if someone received a large amount of Private Points, no one could easily hide it. All she had to do was have someone keep an eye on Class 1-B's activities.
At the thought, another glimmer flashed in Sakayanagi Arisu's eyes.
After losing her match against Aragaki Shun, her support in class had once plummeted. Even now, it was difficult for her to stand against the other Leader of Class A.
She needed to find a way to take complete control of Class A.
Without enough pieces on the board, it would be difficult for her to compete with Aragaki Shun, who had fully united Class 1-B.
"Kanzaki, would you like to come with me to audit a class in Class D?"
The morning after Director Kanda's notification arrived, Aragaki Shun went downstairs for a morning jog. After picking up breakfast, he knocked on Kanzaki Ryuji's dorm room door.
After handing over Kanzaki's breakfast, Aragaki Shun opened his phone and showed him the Transfer Tickets, Employment Tickets, and Auditing Tickets he had bought for ten million points. He asked if Kanzaki wanted to go take a look at Class D with him.
He'd done so because, although he'd bought these special items with ten million points, he'd also used the compensation the school should have given Kanzaki Ryuji to secure the purchase.
Unlike Koenji Rokusuke, who didn't care what happened to his classmates, Kanzaki had fully integrated into Class 1-B over the past few days. He was now brimming with confidence and preparing to push for Class A alongside his classmates.
So he hadn't planned to do what Koenji Rokusuke had and use the school's tacit approval to get a large amount of Private Points from upperclassmen. Instead, he'd handed the compensation over to Aragaki Shun, hoping he'd use it to help the class compete.
"I can't believe the school actually agreed to this outrageous deal!"
Seeing the three special items Aragaki Shun had displayed, Kanzaki Ryuji couldn't help but exclaim. His understanding of the school rule that "points can buy anything on campus" had deepened.
He'd thought the school would refuse the deal for the sake of class competition.
The Employment Ticket and Auditing Ticket were one thing, but the Transfer Ticket was simply overpowered.
It let the holder temporarily join another class for one month. During that time, the holder enjoyed all the benefits of belonging to that class, including its Class Points.
In other words, if someone used a Transfer Ticket to join Class A, their Private Points allocation would match that of everyone else in Class A for the month. And if they broke any rules, the points deducted would come from Class A's total.
After a few moments' thought, Kanzaki Ryuji could come up with dozens of ways to use such an outrageous item.
The simplest example: if Aragaki Shun wanted to, he could use a Transfer Ticket during this Behavioral Standards Exam to transfer a Class 1-B student to Class A. Then all the student would have to do was show up late, leave early, and disrupt class every day. A month later, they could drag Class A's Class Points down to zero.
"Why wouldn't they agree?"
Aragaki Shun asked in return, then explained on his own, "Whether it's a Transfer Ticket, an Employment Ticket, or an Auditing Ticket, they're all items that can only be used at Kodo Ikusei Senior High School. They lose their effect as soon as you leave."
"If I used ten million Private Points to buy all kinds of daily necessities and real goods, they'd be worth the equivalent of ten million yen outside."
"But I've spent all ten million Private Points just to get twenty-eight digital tickets."
"Do you think the school had to give anything up?"
29. The School's Tolerance for Unconventional Ideas
To better regulate and guide its students, Kodo Ikusei Senior High School had established an independent currency system on campus.
All student income and spending revolved around Private Points, a currency unique to the school, rather than money from the outside world.
The only reason all the students accepted this independent currency system was that Private Points could really buy anything they wanted, just like money outside the school.
In other words, every Private Point the school issued had to correspond to goods purchased from the outside.
Otherwise, if it issued Private Points without securing enough goods to back their value, the so-called points would be nothing but a string of worthless numbers.
Therefore, even if Private Points were just numbers the school could alter at will, the school still had to manage them strictly within the budget provided by its investors.
The school could only obtain as many goods from the outside world as its budget allowed. Only then could it afford to issue Private Points to its students and staff.
That was how things worked when everyone used their Private Points to buy things.
But there was another special case: the school could directly take back the Private Points students held, without any additional expense in between.
To give the simplest example, suppose a student had earned twenty million Private Points, then suddenly decided to move from Class B to Class D.
Where would the school's budget corresponding to those twenty million Private Points go during the transfer?
The student had indeed gained the opportunity to transfer, but transferring only involved moving desks and chairs. No goods were consumed in the process, so in a sense, the school had gained another twenty million Private Points to spend.
"The school should be quite fond of deals that let it directly reclaim students' Private Points,"
Aragaki Shun said. "From both a public and a personal perspective, I think they should be thanking me. They can reclaim ten million Private Points or even more with hardly any effort."
Transfer Tickets, Employment Tickets, and Auditing Tickets all seemed as though they could play an important role in class competition. But what did that have to do with the school, which made the rules and acted as the referee?
Aragaki Shun could buy them, but that didn't mean anyone else couldn't. And if someone couldn't afford them, well, wasn't that their own problem?
Either way, the school had made a killing!
These three types of digital tickets only granted students the school's approval to do certain things. There was no expense involved, so the school had reclaimed ten million Private Points for free.
More importantly, Aragaki Shun had initiated this kind of deal. Once word of it spread, more students would surely try the same thing. Then the Private Points the school reclaimed would keep flowing in.
If these reclaimed Private Points were put toward general use, it would be like the school had recovered a huge amount of operating funds, giving it the leeway to arrange more exams. If it didn't plan to use them to educate students, there were far too many loopholes it could exploit.
"...So that's really how the school is looking at this?"
Kanzaki Ryuji pressed both hands to his temples, looking utterly conflicted.
As the heir to Kanzaki Heavy Industries, he could understand the logic Aragaki Shun had laid out. But having the school's harsh reality laid bare like this had shattered his rosy impression of it.
"Hard to say."
To Kanzaki's surprise, although Aragaki Shun had just analyzed the pros and cons from the school's perspective at length, he now gave such an uncertain answer.
Kanzaki Ryuji: "..."
"I'm just looking at it from a different angle and thinking it's possible. Who can say for certain what the school is really thinking?"
Aragaki Shun smiled casually. "According to what Director Kanda said earlier, the school welcomes students finding all kinds of uses for Private Points. As long as they comply with Kodo Ikusei Senior High School's rules, the school will generally support them, then observe the results and make adjustments."
"If I put forward a normal proposal, the school would probably accept it. It's just hard to say exactly how many Private Points it would cost."
Based on Aragaki Shun's research, the school was quite tolerant of students' unconventional ideas. Even if it thought something was inappropriate, as long as the students followed the rules, it wouldn't descend from on high and put a stop to it.
Instead, it would watch and wait, see how things developed, and only start patching the rules if it became clear that the school's goals were truly at risk.
The most obvious example was Miyabi Nagumo, the second-year Student Council Vice President.
Apparently, he was planning to control every second-year student and turn the school's exams into a group-wide milking scheme.
Even though that plan clearly ran counter to the school's original intentions, the school was still just watching and waiting.
Compared to Miyabi Nagumo's actions, Aragaki Shun had only bought a few Transfer Tickets. He was acting entirely within Kodo Ikusei Senior High School's rules.
When he'd first applied to the school to buy these three special items, it had only taken a moment's consideration before agreeing.
Kanzaki's compensation had actually been used to get a discount.
Deals like these, which allowed the school to reclaim Private Points, could be negotiated within a certain range. The first person to propose one also received a discount as a reward for giving the school a new idea.
According to the school, it had already considered items like the Transfer Ticket, but had never planned to actually put them into use.
Even so, the price the school had given him was quite outrageous.
Without the two discounts, the normal prices for the three items would have been twenty thousand points per day for an Auditing Ticket, two hundred thousand per week for an Employment Ticket, and two million per month for a Transfer Ticket.
Knowing that, Aragaki Shun had spent all ten million points at once.
The first discount had brought the price down to 75 percent, and the compensation had halved it again. Together, the two discounts had saved him ten million points.
The school had probably never imagined that someone could accumulate over ten million Private Points in their very first month.
But that was proof of his ability, and the school had nothing to say about it.
"Kanzaki, your compensation let me buy several more tickets in one go. I'll transfer one of each type of digital ticket to you."
In response to Aragaki Shun's offer, Kanzaki Ryuji just waved his hand. "No need. You bought those things with your own Private Points. Even if I made the same request to the school, I wouldn't have enough Private Points to buy a single Transfer Ticket or Employment Ticket."
The school's compensation was subject to the rules of Advanced Nurturing High School. Just like with Koenji Rokusuke, the school only tacitly allowed him to use the Koenji Conglomerate's reputation to get Private Points from upperclassmen. It didn't step in and give him anything directly.
Kanzaki figured that unless he tried to compete with Koenji, he couldn't think of any use for this compensation.
"But if you want me to go cause trouble in Class A, I don't mind taking a Transfer Ticket."
30. The Dangers of Using a Transfer Ticket; Himeno Yuki
Giving Kanzaki Ryuji a Transfer Ticket and sending him to cause trouble in Class A?
That was certainly a tempting suggestion.
But after only a moment's thought, Aragaki Shun shook his head and turned down Kanzaki's offer.
"Let's not. It's better to strengthen ourselves than weaken others. Using a Transfer Ticket that way would be such a waste, and it could put you in danger. We don't want something to go wrong."
"Using a Transfer Ticket could be dangerous?"
Kanzaki was surprised at first, then his gaze suddenly sharpened. He hadn't even considered what risks the ticket might involve before rushing to cause trouble in Class A!
Had the thought of overtaking Class A within a month made him restless?
"However useful a Transfer Ticket is, it's still just a special item. We can use one, and the other classes can buy one too. Have you thought about what you'd do if another class used a Transfer Ticket to come to Class 1-B and cause trouble, just like you suggested?"
"That's why the school is taking a wait-and-see approach. It wants to see how Kodo Ikusei Senior High School's students will respond when they face all kinds of unexpected situations."
In Aragaki Shun's view, if they treated the competition between the four classes like business competition between companies, then it wasn't difficult to counter a Transfer Ticket.
After all, if you used a Transfer Ticket, you'd have to spend a month in a class full of enemies. It wouldn't be easy to pull out early.
If Kanzaki really transferred to Class A so brazenly, it wouldn't be fun if he got expelled by accident.
"Is that what you mean by danger?" Kanzaki Ryuji looked conflicted. "You already know how to deal with a spy who uses a Transfer Ticket, so you think Class A might have someone like that too?"
"What, do you think everyone in Class A is an idiot?"
Faced with Aragaki Shun's question, Kanzaki actually wanted to say that even if none of them were idiots, they still might not be able to follow Aragaki's line of thought.
Just like now—Kanzaki himself still hadn't figured out how to counter the ticket.
"The danger you're worried about can't just be losing Private Points or Class Points. Is it suspension, or even expulsion?"
Kanzaki was practically tearing his hair out, but he still couldn't work out why causing trouble in another class could put someone at risk of expulsion.
He knew the school could hold expulsion exams, but in this first month, wasn't the Behavioral Standards Exam the only assessment?
"Can't figure it out? Then take your time."
Aragaki Shun said mischievously, "Come tell me when you have an idea. Then we can compare our approaches."
By the time he finished speaking, the two of them had eaten all their breakfast. The boy saw that it was nearly time to go, and being late and losing Class Points would be a real shame.
So, ignoring the self-doubt on Kanzaki Ryuji's face, he invited him again. "Want to come audit a class in Class D?"
"...No. Give me an Auditing Ticket so I can go to Class C. If I go today, the whole first year should learn about the Auditing Ticket's effects. If we want to gather information on each class, observing three classes in one day should be the most effective approach."
Kanzaki reluctantly pushed down his wild thoughts. Looking at the Auditing Ticket on Aragaki Shun's phone, he thought it over and decided to go as well.
His target wouldn't be Class D, though. It would be Class C.
Aragaki Shun didn't mind Kanzaki's choice. He planned to visit Classes A and C later anyway. Seeing things with his own eyes was more reliable than hearing about them from others.
"Sure. Then who should we send to Class A? It can't be Ichinose, right? We need to leave at least one respected core member in class to keep an eye on things."
"Wait, I think I have someone in mind. She should be fine."
Kanzaki Ryuji was a little surprised by Aragaki Shun's sudden change of mind. "Who do you mean? Isn't it inappropriate to send a girl to Class A alone? Maybe we should send Shibata instead."
"Shibata is too quick to trust strangers. We shouldn't give him a job like this, where he'd be acting as a scout. I'll ask her first. If she doesn't agree, we can pick someone else."
Still puzzled, Kanzaki Ryuji followed Aragaki Shun to the school building.
When they entered the classroom, all the Class 1-B students were already in their seats.
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