Shun Aragaki wasn't surprised by that answer, but he still shook his head and sighed. "I can't understand it, but I can respect your choice."
To endure this humiliation and still maintain her usual kind image—even if it was all an act—in Shun Aragaki's eyes, the girl was nothing short of divine.
He had to admit, this was something he could never do!
It was just that Kushida Kikyo didn't seem happy to receive his respect.
Seeing the strange look in Shun Aragaki's eyes, the girl's delicate face nearly twisted. If not for the acting skills she had honed over the years, she really would have cursed him out right then!
What on earth are you thinking? I don't need this kind of respect from you!!!
At the same time, Shun Aragaki raised an eyebrow slightly. His talent, Danger Sense, had triggered again. His intuition told him that the girl in front of him had already cursed him out in her heart, yet there wasn't a hint of anything out of place on her face.
Shun Aragaki could more or less guess why Kushida Kikyo, like Chie Hoshinomiya, was one person on the outside and another on the inside. To be able to hold it in without exploding was one thing, but just keeping it bottled up was a skill in itself.
He just didn't understand—what was the point?
Other than making yourself feel awful, what did you get out of it?
Shaking his head, Shun Aragaki decided to stop trying to understand the thought process of people like that. What if it contaminated his own logic?
Just then, the bell rang again, and the homeroom teacher for Class D, Sae Chabashira, came in. She glanced deeply at Shun Aragaki, who was surrounded by the Class D students, her somber, downcast expression concealing emotions no one could read.
But she soon suppressed those complicated feelings, then struck the lectern several times with a book, making a loud racket.
"Class has started. Those of you who want to pay attention, take out your books and turn to where we left off last time."
Clearly, very few of the people surrounding Shun Aragaki were interested in studying seriously.
But he didn't want Class D's behavior to lower its Class Points, so he waved for them to return to their seats before resuming his own attentive posture.
With Class D being this much of a mess, however, Shun Aragaki had begun to consider whether he ought to change his approach toward the class.
At the very least, he couldn't let them really lose all their Class Points!
38. Class D Must Not Fall into the Zero-Point Hell
As the saying went, "A man with nothing to lose is not afraid of taking risks."
There were forty people in a class. If they were completely free from the constraints of Class Points, Shun Aragaki couldn't even imagine what they might do.
After all, aside from suspension and expulsion, there were no other punishments at this school that they would care about.
When a class still had a hundred or two hundred points, it was a gathering place for defective students that the other three classes could look down on.
But once a class fell into the zero-point hell, the other three classes would be the ones getting nervous.
Who knew when this bunch might blow themselves up and drag the other classes down to zero with them?
A group of desperate people who could completely ignore increases or decreases in Class Points and cared only about the bottom line of expulsion—that was a dangerous group, practically a bug in the system. Shun Aragaki only had to give it a little thought to come up with dozens of ways they could drag the other classes down with them.
So over the next few classes, Shun Aragaki observed all kinds of information about the students in Class D while urgently thinking about how he should change his strategy toward them.
By the end of the day's classes, he had completely given up on the idea that Class D could hold on to even fifty or sixty Class Points through its own efforts.
He even suspected that, given how these students treated the classroom like a marketplace, they were still capable of dropping Class D's Class Points below five hundred by the end of only the second week.
If they were allowed to act without restraint for a whole month, then even the extra thousand Class Points the school gave them wouldn't be enough for them to squander—not to mention the thousand they'd received at the start of term!
After reaching that conclusion, Shun Aragaki felt inexplicably exhausted. He never would have thought he'd have a day when he had to step in and give his opponents a safety net because they were too stupid.
Of course, not intervening and using Private Points to hire them as mercenaries once Class D fell into the zero-point hell was also a viable strategy.
But after thinking it over, Shun Aragaki dismissed the idea. He still had uses for Class B's Private Points; there was no need to waste them here.
Besides, if he could buy them off, so could the other classes. If the classes started competing to hire them, the only ones who would benefit would be these unstable factors in Class D.
So he'd let them try to hold on to whatever Class Points they had left. At the same time, he could put a leash on the whole class and strengthen his control over them.
And so Shun Aragaki made his decision.
When all the classes for the day had ended, he didn't return to Class B as planned. Instead, he walked straight to the lectern in Class D.
"Everyone in Class D, could you wait a few minutes? Class B has some information about the truth behind the Private Points the school will distribute later, and we'd like to discuss it with you."
His reputation around school and the support of the girls in Class D meant that no one objected when Shun Aragaki motioned for them to stay.
Some of them probably already had their own doubts and wanted to hear what he had to say. Others might have had objections, but didn't dare speak up.
Only Rokusuke Koenji gave him an interested look before lowering his head and going back to fixing his hair.
"Aragaki, is there something important you want to tell us?"
Yosuke Hirata stood up and asked on behalf of the students in Class D, voicing what everyone was wondering. "What do you mean by the truth behind the Private Points the school will distribute later? Doesn't the school give us a hundred thousand Private Points every month?"
"None of you ever questioned that? I'll be blunt. Given the way you've behaved today, the school absolutely won't give you even a single Private Point next month!"
Shun Aragaki's words rang out like thunder, and Class D exploded in an instant.
"That's impossible! Are you saying the school is deceiving us?"
"Is that a joke? How are we supposed to live without Private Points? Is the school going to starve us to death?"
"No way! Chabashira-sensei said at the start of term that we'd get a hundred thousand Private Points every month!"
Shun Aragaki ignored the people shouting back and forth. He merely said coldly, "Whether you believe me is up to you. If you want to spend your days eating nothing but free meals from now on, you're welcome to leave right now."
An inexplicable pressure filled the classroom again, and all the noisy voices suddenly vanished, as if someone had cast a silence spell.
"There are free items in the supermarket that don't cost anything, and the cafeteria has a counter serving free meals. Judging from these unusual things, it's clear that some people at this school will end up in a situation where they have no points to spend."
"Aragaki." A slender figure stood up from her seat and stared coldly at the boy on the lectern. "Get to the point. What exactly are you after?"
"Oh? Looks like there are at least a few smart people in Class D. At least not everyone is completely unaware of their situation."
Shun Aragaki looked at the student council president's younger sister with some surprise. She was quite observant.
But if she had already noticed something strange about the school, why hadn't she investigated further? And why hadn't she brought her discoveries up in class to discuss them with everyone?
"Horikita?"
After seeing Horikita Suzune's reaction, Kushida Kikyo stood up too, putting on her usual helpful expression. "Did you discover something? Could you tell everyone? It'd be awful if no one in class got any points and we had to eat free meals."
"Yeah! I don't want to eat the Mountain Vegetable Set Meal every day. I tried it once because I was curious, and it tasted awful."
"I still want to buy more makeup. What am I supposed to do if I don't have any points?"
At Kushida Kikyo's prompting, everyone in Class D turned their attention to Horikita Suzune. But the girl wasn't moved by the commotion around her at all. She swept an impatient, cold glance over the classmates who were making too much noise in her eyes, then looked back at Shun Aragaki.
She had no good impression of the person who had openly embarrassed the student council president at the club orientation.
But thanks to the girls in her class, who spent every day talking about all sorts of gossip, she had also heard about his exploits challenging various clubs. It seemed like teaching him a lesson would be rather difficult.
"You wouldn't have brought this up if you were just trying to do a good deed. Cut to the chase and tell me what you want. I'll decide whether to agree based on the circumstances!"
Shun Aragaki: "..."
"So Horikita is actually the leader of Class D? You can make decisions on behalf of everyone in the class?"
"This is a deal between you and me. What does it have to do with the rest of Class D?"
Looking at Horikita Suzune's unapologetic expression, Shun Aragaki could more or less guess why she had been assigned to Class D.
"Forget it. I'll call Hoshinomiya-sensei over and have the school witness the contract."
"I'll tell you all the truth about the school, and each of you will pay Class B five thousand Private Points every month."
39. Class D Learns the Truth About the School
Shun Aragaki had once asked Chie Hoshinomiya how many Private Points it would cost to buy all the school's hidden rules directly from a teacher.
Her answer had been two million.
Naturally, gathering information by asking upperclassmen directly, as Shun Aragaki had done, was another option.
Although the school had been keeping a tight rein on contact between upperclassmen and first-years during the first month of term, as long as you were willing to pay enough Private Points, there would always be seniors willing to take the risk and make secret deals.
Unfortunately, the students in Class D hadn't even thought of asking upperclassmen for information after a whole week. It was hard to tell whether the entire class lacked the awareness, or whether those who had thought of it lacked the ability to negotiate.
Horikita Suzune, for example, was definitely the sort who could notice something unusual but, due to her poor negotiation skills, couldn't find a way to gather information.
So when Chie Hoshinomiya arrived and she directly asked the teacher how much the information would cost, Horikita was reluctant, but still agreed to the deal.
Among the rest of the class, there were some who wanted to give up and didn't want to pay anything. But Shun Aragaki simply said, "Do whatever you want. So many second- and third-years have already been expelled. It's only a matter of time before the first-years follow suit. We just don't know which class will be unlucky."
For some reason, Yosuke Hirata became extremely agitated. After he, Kushida Kikyo, and the others worried about being expelled and losing their points talked them into it, most of Class D finally signed their names on the contract.
Shun Aragaki watched coldly as the group argued and fussed with one another for a long time before making a decision. In contrast, he—the one who stood to benefit—seemed utterly unconcerned about a deal that would bring him two hundred thousand Private Points every month.
He had actually prepared himself for the deal to fall through.
Unfortunately, even after every student in Class D except Rokusuke Koenji had signed the contract, he still hadn't seen anyone unexpectedly step forward and show the class a completely different path.
"Hoshinomiya-sensei, the contract is still missing Koenji's signature. Can I pay his share for him?"
Yosuke Hirata handed the contract to Chie Hoshinomiya, a little embarrassed. It spelled out both parties' responsibilities and included a confidentiality agreement. He'd offered to pay Rokusuke Koenji's five thousand Private Points every month, and didn't seem reluctant at all.
"No need. For a contract made with a class as a whole, it'll go through as long as more than ninety percent of the class agrees. This is enough."
Chie Hoshinomiya smiled in a particularly strange way.
When she'd heard that Shun Aragaki wanted to sell Class D the school's hidden rules, she had almost lost her temper. But after hearing his explanation, she hadn't known what expression to make.
Just as expected of a student in Little Sae's class!
She really wanted to let them become the first class in Advanced Nurturing High School history to hit zero Class Points after their first month!
But she couldn't!
What if this was all part of Little Sae's scheme, meant to push them into hell and then spur them to improve?
The Zero-Point Strategy—putting them in a desperate situation so they could rise from the ashes... Little Sae really was always trying to find ways to turn the tables on her superiors. Chie couldn't let her plan succeed.
"Is that so?" Yosuke Hirata didn't look happy, though. Instead, he apologized to Rokusuke Koenji. "Sorry, Koenji. I'll transfer the corresponding points to you every month from now on."
"No need, Hirata boy. Save that concern for someone who needs it. For someone destined to shoulder the burden of all society on Sakurajima, these points have no value."
Rokusuke Koenji didn't even raise his head. "But this school really is unaesthetic. It's gone and tied me to this class without my permission!"
Shun Aragaki took the contract from Chie Hoshinomiya and noticed another hidden school rule that hadn't been made public.
Though calling it a new discovery wasn't quite accurate. From the fact that the school used Class Points to evaluate everyone in a class, one could infer that the school preferred to have classes compete as whole units. In that case, it made sense that contracts could be made on a class-wide basis.
Compared to this discovery, he was actually more amazed by how short-sighted the students in Class D were.
They hadn't agreed to pay two million up front to buy information from the school. They wouldn't each pay fifty thousand in one go.
But when asked to pay five thousand each month, for three years, they had accepted without hesitation.
Could it be that after only a week, they had nearly run out of the Private Points they'd received?
Or did they simply think that five thousand a month, paid out of future points, wasn't much compared to the fifty thousand they had on hand right now?
"Stop wasting time and tell us everything you know. I want to know the truth about this school!"
Perhaps because she felt she had already paid, Horikita Suzune made her demand of Shun Aragaki without any hesitation.
The boy didn't seem angry. He was more curious about what sort of expression this seemingly arrogant girl would wear after learning that the school had rated her as defective.
"Then listen carefully. I may not have the patience to tell you a second time."
With the air of someone ready to enjoy the show, Shun Aragaki told them all the agreed-upon information: how the four classes, A through D, were ranked from best to worst; the Behavioral Standards Exam; the relationship between Class Points and Private Points; and the news that it took twenty million points to transfer classes.
Sure enough, the Class D students, who still thought of the school as a paradise where they could have anything they wanted, exploded in the classroom as soon as they heard the truth about Advanced Nurturing High School.
"How can that be? Class D is the worst of the four classes?"
"The guarantee of higher education and employment is a lie? Only Class A gets that? The school's committing false advertising! It's a scam!"
"Being late, leaving early, talking in class, and littering all cost Class Points. What are we supposed to do? How many Class Points do we have left? We're in trouble if we don't have enough points to spend next month."
"And there are Special Exams, which can even get us expelled..."
"..."
Shun Aragaki leisurely watched the Class D students reveal all their different sides. Once he'd seen enough, he clapped his hands and got them to turn their attention to him.
"That's all the hidden rules covered by the contract. Hoshinomiya-sensei, as the school's representative, can you confirm that I've fulfilled my part of the contract?"
"Yes," Hoshinomiya replied, her face flushed. She seemed to be enjoying the Class D students' panic quite a bit. "Shun Aragaki has completed his part. He should head back to Class B now."
"Wait!"
It was Horikita Suzune, her face still showing anger and disbelief. "The school really didn't make a mistake? I consider myself one of the best in this year when it comes to both academics and physical ability. How could I possibly have been placed in Class D with these people?"
40. Send Yamauchi and Ike to Class A and Class C
Horikita Suzune seemed especially unhappy about being assigned to Class D.
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