Classroom of the Elite, I Can Add Points Without Limit

"Classmate Sakayanagi, I wanted to ask: what's your relationship with Chairman Sakayanagi?"

"...He is my father."

"I thought so. It's getting late, so I'll be going."

10. How to Limit the Board Chairman's Power?

Sakayanagi Arisu watched without expression as Aragaki Shun and the others left, a faint shadow crossing her delicate features.

Even though the other party hadn't said anything, that look that treated her as a nuisance had said it all.

But as the Board Chairman's daughter, even after being so blatantly looked down on, she couldn't find a reason to argue back.

To be defeated on the field where she was strongest, then tell the victor that despite her frail health, she hadn't been placed in Class A out of consideration but because of her own ability...

That would be nothing but humiliating herself!

She could only wait and let the facts speak for her later!

Back at the Dormitory Building, in Shibata Sou's room.

After finishing the fourth deluxe meal he'd brought back, Aragaki Shun finally felt full from head to toe. Satisfied, he stood up and stretched his arms and legs.

"So, why has my dorm room suddenly become a meeting room for the guys to exchange information?"

Shibata Sou sat at the head of the bed. Seeing that the core member of Class B finally had some free time, he couldn't help making a complaint.

"Your room's closest to the elevator, so everyone just popped in. If you don't like it, we can go to my room next time."

Kanzaki Ryuji was copying something down beside them. Without looking up, he replied earnestly, making Shibata feel a little awkward.

"I'm just saying. Kanzaki, you really..." The cheerful boy, as optimistic and outgoing as Ichinose Honami, shook his head, then looked at Aragaki Shun, who was tidying up the trash on the table. "By the way, Aragaki, is it really okay for you to eat so much at night? One deluxe meal is enough for me for lunch, and you just ate four."

"Focusing on chess takes a lot of energy. If that's hard to understand, just think of it as me playing soccer all afternoon."

"Oh, then I guess it's fine."

Seeing Shibata Sou so easily fobbed off, Aragaki Shun couldn't help feeling a little troubled.

The excuse he'd given wasn't false, but the main reason he'd eaten so much this time was that he'd added points to all four of his basic attributes at once.

His physical abilities had suddenly improved by a huge margin. Combined with the fact that his chess match against Sakayanagi Arisu had indeed taken a lot out of him, those two factors were why he'd eaten so much tonight.

After tonight, he'd still eat a little more at regular meals than he used to, but not so absurdly much every time.

But right now, only his mental attribute had reached 10. If all four attributes eventually reached or even surpassed "10," the limit for an ordinary human, how would he get enough energy to keep his body functioning?

Would he become a big eater who spent several hours a day eating?

Or would he have to find a way to evolve the ability to photosynthesize, like a plant?

At the thought that he might turn into a giant solar battery in the future, all sorts of strange images popped into Aragaki Shun's mind. Somehow, it all seemed rather amusing.

Did this world have some kind of universal energy, like spiritual energy in cultivation stories or mana in Western fantasy? Would he really have to keep relying on meat, fruit, and vegetables to fuel his body?

Would he end up following the same path as the dinosaurs and growing gigantic?

Just as Aragaki Shun was silently musing to himself, Kanzaki Ryuji, who had been looking down and copying some of the notes in his hands, raised his head and passed him several pages of copied material.

"This is probably all the information in the notebook about the school's hidden rules. Most of it overlaps with what we found out from the various clubs. The additional information is mainly about how Private Points can be used. For example, if you accumulate twenty million points, you can transfer classes at will or cancel one expulsion penalty."

Kanzaki had found the notebook in the Billiards Club.

His phone had been left in the Billiards Club's changing room. When he went back to get it, he found an old notebook on the lid of the trash can beside it. He had no idea which upperclassman had deliberately left it there.

In keeping with his admirable spirit of thrift, and at the Billiards Club president's pointed glance from outside the changing room, Kanzaki chose to slip the notebook into his uniform and take it home.

Only after bringing it back to his dorm and reading through it did he discover that it contained all sorts of scattered drafts from upperclassmen. Most of them were useless; only a small portion contained information about the school's rules and complaints about the so-called exams. So Kanzaki had to spend time going through it page by page and compiling the useful information.

Aragaki Shun took the pages and carefully scanned them from beginning to end. After a few minutes, he casually passed them to Shibata Sou, who had been waiting impatiently.

"So only students who graduate from Class A get the school's employment and college admission guarantees. That's how Advanced Nurturing gets its nearly one-hundred-percent college admission and employment rates?"

Aragaki Shun wasn't particularly surprised. Since enrolling, he'd seen plenty of students behaving terribly: some kicking trash cans in the street, some clenching their fists to intimidate other students, and some who were obviously delinquents...

Would the school really let these rare specimens get into prestigious universities or companies through its recommendations? Wouldn't that be bad for Advanced Nurturing's reputation?

As for the rest, the first month after the new students enrolled was the Behavioral Standards Exam. Each class was assigned one thousand Class Points, and multiplying that number by one hundred determined the Private Points given to everyone in the class on the first day of each month.

During that month, the teachers wouldn't warn students about their discipline, but every student's behavior that violated school rules would cost their class Class Points, depending on the severity.

The school did indeed assign students across the four tiers of classes, from the excellent to the defective, to Classes A through D.

If students didn't accept that placement, they could earn Class Points through the Special Exams held every month and use the totals to change the class rankings.

Finally, the notes emphasized that Private Points could buy anything. To defeat the other classes in exams, they needed to find a way to unite the whole class and gather as many Private Points as possible as weapons for the exams.

"The senior who gave us this information was pretty thorough. I thought he might pretend not to know anything, or only give us superficial information. After all, the three hundred thousand points I used to buy the information were actually won from them."

Comparing the notes with the information he'd gathered since enrolling, Aragaki Shun could confirm they were reliable. He couldn't help trusting this senior a little more. If he got the chance, they could work together long-term.

"He's a senior in Class A of the Third Year. He's probably accumulated quite a lot of points over the past two years, so there's no need for him to get petty over a little thing like this."

That was Kanzaki Ryuji's guess.

"Maybe. I wonder if there'll be exams between different year groups in the future. If we get the chance, making friends with the upperclassmen might bring us an unexpected reward."

"Of course, that's not the most important thing right now!"

As he spoke, Aragaki Shun's expression turned more serious.

"What we need to do now is figure out how to limit the Board Chairman's power."

11. Everyone's Background Is Unusual

Reality was a crappy game!

So, naturally, it followed the rules that free-to-play players couldn't beat pay-to-win players, unlucky players and lucky ones had completely different experiences, and hardworking, skilled players couldn't stop cheaters from pulling off a deus ex machina...

But everyone knew that no matter how chaotic the players got, there was still one kind of being who truly stood above them all: the privileged players with connections to the game's official staff!

If a relative of the people who made the rules personally joined the game, they could get advance access to the game's information and casually alter their own stats with administrator privileges.

Even if a cheater with godlike skills managed to sneak into the lucky players' ranks and beat them despite being saddled with a mountain of debuffs, they'd still have to worry that the other party might get so angry they'd call in the game's official staff to ban their account.

Without a doubt, in Aragaki Shun's eyes, Sakayanagi Arisu was exactly that kind of troublesome player with administrator privileges.

The worst part was that she was in the same year as Aragaki Shun. He couldn't just pretend not to see her and ignore her.

What's more...

Aragaki Shun looked at the extra messages on his Personal Panel—

[Achievement complete: Defeated the four clubs at Advanced Nurturing on his own. Source Power +1.]

[Achievement complete: Shattered Sakayanagi Arisu's fantasy of being a genius. Source Power +1.]

[Source Power: 10 → 12 (Current rate: 3 points gained per month.)]

There was a lot of ore to mine from Sakayanagi Arisu. Just making her lose her composure had earned him as much as defeating the Billiards Club, Judo Club, Shogi Club, and Chess Club combined.

This wasn't strange to Aragaki Shun.

For one thing, as the Board Chairman's daughter, the girl had more resources at her disposal than all four clubs combined.

For another, the world was simply unfair. Some people were born with far more Source Power than others. There was nothing to be done about it.

Over the years, Aragaki Shun had made countless attempts to understand Source Power. He still hadn't figured out its true nature, but he'd more or less determined that it was a special origin that existed widely among all living beings.

It was connected to a person's influence after birth, so the higher someone's status, the greater their wealth, and the more famous they were, the more Source Power they carried.

But that was only the general rule. There were also plenty of people with humble status who carried a great deal of Source Power.

Those people, however, usually had something special about them. They might be handsome or beautiful, have distinctive personalities, suffer tragic fates, or have experienced all kinds of things that ordinary people never encountered.

It was difficult to find anything all these people had in common, so Aragaki Shun could only assume they were blessed with good fortune and drew more of the world's attention. That was why they carried a huge amount of innate Source Power, even if their influence after birth wasn't great.

Aragaki Shun wasn't jealous of them at all. Good fortune wasn't the same as luck, let alone being lucky. The world's attention wasn't necessarily a good thing. Perhaps it just wanted to see how much more tragic their lives could get.

In fact, ever since enrolling, Aragaki Shun had noticed that students at Advanced Nurturing Senior High School carried considerably more Source Power than the average person outside. Yet most students here were perfectly ordinary.

So the extra Source Power they carried probably came from changes in their fortune. But that didn't change the fact that students in Classes C and D often didn't have enough points each month and regularly had to make do with free meals.

Aragaki Shun didn't have to worry about ending up in that situation.

But if he wanted to gather the abundant Source Power at Advanced Nurturing, then leading Class 1-B into Class A was a path worth trying. After all, the competition between year groups at this school revolved around the benefits of being in Class A.

In that case, Sakayanagi Arisu, who had been assigned to Class 1-A as the school's most privileged student, was quite the eyesore.

Of course, the problem wasn't Sakayanagi Arisu. It was the Board Chairman behind her.

"...Limiting the Board Chairman's power? Do you really think that'll be easy?"

After Aragaki Shun made the suggestion, Shibata Sou was left gaping, at a loss for words. Kanzaki Ryuji, on the other hand, only frowned and thought for a moment before turning to Aragaki Shun with some curiosity.

"We're only limiting his power to interfere with the first-year exams. We're not replacing the Board Chairman. What's so difficult about that?"

Aragaki Shun made the suggestion as casually as if it weren't a wild fantasy to most people at the school. But Kanzaki Ryuji didn't think he was bragging. Instead, he thoughtfully asked a question:

"The Aragaki Family... So, your family is that of the former Speaker Aragaki, now Councilor Aragaki?"

"Then is your family the Kanzaki of Kanzaki Heavy Industries?"

Aragaki Shun shot back. The two exchanged a glance, each confirming the suspicions they'd formed.

"Before I enrolled, my adoptive father introduced me to a board member of the Advanced Nurturing High School Council. He also gave me a file on the school's senior staff, including the Board Chairman, the principal, and several board members, along with their contact information."

If he had to study at a closed-off school for three years without communicating with his family, Aragaki Shun's adoptive parents never would have agreed to it without someone at the school looking out for him.

Japan had a population of over a hundred million, which sounded like a lot, but the upper circles were small. Even if people hadn't met face-to-face, they'd surely have heard of one another. With the right connections, they could always get in touch.

Aragaki Shun hadn't yet taken over the family business, so there was no need for him to inherit the previous generation's connections. That was why the Sakayanagi Family, which had established Advanced Nurturing, and the Kanzaki Family of Kanzaki Heavy Industries were people he knew about but didn't personally know.

But just because he didn't know the Sakayanagi Family didn't mean he couldn't interfere with Chairman Sakayanagi.

After all, the Board Chairman was only a representative elected by the board. His authority exceeded that of the other board members, but if he did a poor job, the board could still impeach him.

On top of that, Advanced Nurturing was a special institution. It was a social experiment school created by certain people at the top of Japan's social hierarchy, essentially a showpiece project, and so it was also subject to strict government oversight. The Board Chairman couldn't just do whatever he wanted.

Or rather, the school's various positions were themselves like government posts. The Sakayanagi Family had inherited the position of Board Chairman thanks to its seniority, but the other positions were also extensions of government functions. The Sakayanagi Family couldn't simply do whatever it liked with them.

Given Advanced Nurturing's unusual nature, the children of powerful officials and members of wealthy conglomerates often came to study there. Their families would certainly get involved to protect their children. Under those circumstances, the Board Chairman had to remain neutral and impartial.

Honestly, it was surprising to see him blatantly playing favorites like this.

Among the students he'd learned about so far, both he and Kanzaki Ryuji had unusual backgrounds. He'd also heard that the only son of the Koenji Conglomerate was here.

Did Chairman Sakayanagi expect everyone to act as companions for the Sakayanagi Family's little princess?

12. The Aragaki Family's Adopted Son-in-Law

Of course, the idea that they were all supposed to act as companions for the Sakayanagi Family's little princess was obviously a joke.

As the saying went, the county magistrate was no match for the official on the ground. Chairman Sakayanagi was playing favorites with his daughter at his own school. Anyone would just think he doted on her. Normally, no one would be foolish enough to challenge the Sakayanagi Family's authority.

After that, all he had to do was maintain the appearance of fairness in public. If no one complained, no official would investigate. Sakayanagi Arisu could leave whenever she got bored. She didn't need the benefits of graduating from Class A, anyway. Who would make a fuss over such a small matter and find fault with the dignified Board Chairman of Advanced Nurturing?

Having more or less figured out what Chairman Sakayanagi was thinking, Aragaki Shun decided he should fix this bug first.

Otherwise, there was no point thinking about the competition between classes. He had no interest in being suppressed by the highest authority at the school while carefully avoiding making any bold moves that might scare the young lady, who seemed to have heart problems.

"Kanzaki, who's your contact at the school? Let's see if we can file a joint complaint with the board."

Aragaki Shun looked at Kanzaki Ryuji, who was deep in thought. He didn't know much about Kanzaki Heavy Industries, since they weren't from the same region.

"...Actually, it's Chairman Sakayanagi."

After a moment of silence, Kanzaki gave an unexpected answer. No wonder he'd looked so uneasy.

Aragaki Shun: "..."

"So you're actually on Sakayanagi Arisu's side?"

"My family has some connections with the Board Chairman because of certain projects, but we're not particularly close. I only remembered after meeting him and learning his name that I'd seen the Sakayanagi Family's daughter a few times at banquets when I was a child."

Kanzaki Ryuji shook his head. His family had established itself in high society through its enormous wealth, but it had always been weak in the political sphere. So his family was very keen to invest in various political projects to make up for its lack of political connections.

"Forget it. I'll talk to the only son of the Koenji Conglomerate tomorrow. Once we've spoken with the board, you can go to Chairman Sakayanagi and help us get some compensation, okay?"

Aragaki Shun looked at Kanzaki, who seemed hesitant, and gestured for him to ask any questions he had instead of agreeing and then failing to deliver.

"Do we really need to go this far?"

Sure enough, the thought of facing the Board Chairman of the school made even someone as composed as Kanzaki feel uneasy.

"Do you want to bet that the Board Chairman won't abuse his power for personal gain? Don't be ridiculous. He already put Sakayanagi Arisu in Class A."