Classroom of the Elite, I Can Add Points Infinitely Chapter 8

According to the hidden rules provided by the seniors, the school assigns 160 students into four classes—A, B, C, and D—based on a hierarchy of excellent, good, average, and defective.

Aragaki Shun did not care why he had been assigned to Class B.

Because the moment he saw that even Sakayanagi Arisu could be placed in Class A, it should have been clear to everyone that this sorting was actually something the school's top brass could manipulate at will.

In any case, he didn't believe the school had anyone with more significant defects than that sickly girl who needed a cane just to walk; it wasn't as if the entire Class D of the first year was paralyzed, right?

"I don't like playing the ostrich once I'm aware of a hidden danger, pretending that if I don't pay attention to it, the problem won't happen."

Aragaki Shun said this without hesitation, "What's more, if my foster parents found out that I was acting as a study companion for a little girl at school—especially the only daughter of the Sakayanagi Family—they would definitely drag me back to take care of Ayase."

His name in this world was no different from his previous life; in essence, he had transmigrated into this world, and after his golden finger awakened, he automatically acquired this identity.

The Aragaki clan, originating from the Ji surname, was a very ancient lineage, with Bi Gong Gao, the fifteenth son of King Wen of Zhou, being enfeoffed at Aragaki.

According to his foster parents, their branch were Han immigrants to the Ryukyu Kingdom who only gradually integrated into Sakurajima later on.

Twelve years ago, they went to the mainland to visit relatives and found that Aragaki Shun, a distant relative in an orphanage, was exceptionally intelligent, so they brought him home as an adopted son.

Though they called him an adopted son, according to the customs of Sakurajima, it would be more accurate to call him a son-in-law-to-be.

Having personally scouted him out and brought him home, only to cultivate him into a future heir with such difficulty, his foster parents would absolutely cough up blood in rage if he were easily snatched away by the sickly girl from the Sakayanagi Family.

And given Ayase's personality, it might even escalate into a "School Days" style ending.

Regardless of how clever Sakayanagi Arisu was, her frail constitution definitely wouldn't be able to withstand the kitchen knife in Ayase's hands.

Kanzaki Ryuji: "?"

The boy was a bit confused. Who was Ayase, and what did being dragged back mean?

"The Aragaki Family doesn't fear the Sakayanagi Family, yet here I am in this school having to bow and scrape to the young lady of the Sakayanagi Family. How do you think my foster parents would feel about that?"

Aragaki Shun explained calmly, "By the way, Ayase is my foster sister and also my fiancée."

Although he was a child-husband in a certain sense, he didn't have any complaints about it.

After all, Ayase was very cute, and having raised her for so long, he had no intention of handing her over to anyone else.

So he was a son-in-law-to-be of the Aragaki Family!

Kanzaki Ryuji understood.

In that case, he certainly couldn't easily bow his head to Sakayanagi Arisu.

According to what he knew, Chairman Sakayanagi only had one sickly daughter to date, and in the future, he would likely have to follow the path of recruiting a son-in-law to inherit the family name.

But then again, given Sakayanagi Arisu's sickly constitution, how desperate would someone have to be to become his son-in-law?

If the root of the illness wasn't resolved, let alone having children, the Sakayanagi heir might just kick the bucket the morning after the wedding night.

He had heard that Chairman Sakayanagi had been searching for a way to cure his only daughter's heart condition for years; otherwise, the Sakayanagi family name and the position of the next chairman would have to be passed to an adopted son from a collateral branch.

"It's just that while the Aragaki Family can afford to ignore Chairman Sakayanagi, my family's business has been trying to make political progress ever since I enrolled."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Aragaki Shun rolled his eyes at Kanzaki's troubled expression, "In their eyes, this is just children playing around. Do you really think it has that much of an impact?"

Is the squabbling between children important?

It is not!

Because the relationship between enterprises is maintained by interests; as long as the interests remain, the connections will always be useful.

But to say it's completely unimportant wouldn't be accurate either.

At the end of the day, people have an instinct to show off, and this kind of competition among peers sometimes influences the previous generation's evaluation of their own children's abilities.

"Kanzaki Heavy Industries might want to be on good terms with the Sakayanagi Family, but that's just being on good terms, not bowing and scraping. Kanzaki, if you go and compete with Sakayanagi and manage to gain the upper hand, wouldn't that better prove your own ability?"

"Furthermore, the relationship with Chairman Sakayanagi is something for your elders to worry about, but shouldn't you be focusing on your relationship with me right now?"

Kanzaki Ryuji: "?"

He was full of question marks at first, but then he immediately reacted; it seemed that was indeed the case.

As fellow students in Class B, his relationship with Aragaki was much closer. If he were to stand on Sakayanagi Arisu's side at a time like this, he would be completely out of his mind.

13. Whoever causes the loss is responsible

And so, Kanzaki Ryuji finally agreed to Aragaki Shun's request and would go to find Chairman Sakayanagi to voice his opinion later.

"...So, actually, Aragaki and Kanzaki, you two are both young masters from prominent families and well-known enterprises?"

Shibata Sou, who had been unable to get a word in and could only watch them discuss such high-level topics, finally squeezed in with a somewhat awkward expression once their conversation had come to an end.

"Does that mean I'm the only one in this trio who doesn't fit in?"

"It's fine. Now that you've entered Advanced Nurturing, you can try to become a first-generation wealthy person after graduation and let your son or daughter be the second generation."

Having brushed him off with a casual remark, Aragaki Shun gave Shibata a pep talk with a look of complete trust.

High school boys and girls haven't been beaten down by society like corporate slaves yet; they still harbor various naive, self-centered fantasies, so they don't have a very deep sense of such realistic gaps.

It's just a mere difference in family background. Once I truly step into society, I'm going to change the entire world!

Just like now, Shibata's first reaction upon hearing this rallying cry was to nod, stating without hesitation: "That's true. As long as we can get the school's recommendation, everyone in Class B will have a bright future."

However, he immediately recalled that the various benefits promised by the school were only available to those who graduated from Class A, and that to pull Class A down, he would have to face the Board Chairman's daughter, causing his confidence to waver.

Even Shibata, who was always helpful and generally didn't judge others with malice, subconsciously felt that the Board Chairman would show favoritism toward his own daughter after learning about the relationship between Sakayanagi Arisu and the Board Chairman.

This was human nature; one could even call it a form of prejudice.

Mainly, in Shibata's eyes, classmates like Aragaki Shun, Kanzaki Ryuji, and Ichinose Honami were all remarkably capable peers, yet they were all stuck in Class B.

The Sakayanagi Arisu he met that afternoon didn't seem any stronger than the three of them, and her body was even frailer than an average person's—she had nearly collapsed just from playing a single game of chess with Aragaki. For someone of that level to still be assigned to Class A, and judging by the A-class students surrounding her, she was likely the core of Class A.

With someone like that blocking the path, could everyone really obtain the conditions promised by the school?

"Aragaki, Kanzaki, you two are going up against the school's Board Chairman. Is that really okay?"

"It's not 'going up against' him; it's just offering a suggestion and expressing our stance."

Seeing Shibata Sou looking so lacking in confidence, Aragaki Shun sighed inwardly. He knew that these connections were the most troublesome.

If this problem wasn't solved, whenever there was class competition in the future, Sakayanagi Arisu only needed to drop the line, "My father is the Board Chairman," and the morale of all the opposing classes would automatically be slashed by a significant margin.

After all, competing against the Board Chairman's daughter—what kind of international joke was that?

Was there really no fear that the young lady would feel wronged and go crying to the Board Chairman?

Even if they managed to graduate from Class A, so what? Weren't they afraid the school might pull some strings while helping them realize their dreams of further education or employment?

This had nothing to do with the Board Chairman's personal character; it was primarily about what the students who knew Sakayanagi Arisu's identity would think.

No one dared to bet on whether the Board Chairman would uphold impartial justice between his sickly daughter and a stranger.

Because the reward for winning the bet was simply too disproportionate to the cost of losing.

"This school isn't a dictatorship run by the Board Chairman. I'll submit a suggestion to the Board of Directors to have them limit the Board Chairman's power—at the very least, to ensure he doesn't interfere with the competition between this year's freshmen. They will agree to such a simple request."

Because this was, after all, a reasonable request.

Given the optics, wasn't he helping the Board Chairman by asking him to avoid a conflict of interest?

Arranging for Sakayanagi Arisu to be in Class A was one thing, but as for the future competition between students, you old geezer should stay out of it!

Of course, this only worked because people like Aragaki Shun, Kanzaki Ryuji, and Koenji were the ones stepping up to make the suggestion.

If they questioned the fairness of the Advanced Nurturing High School, and the Board of Directors failed to provide a satisfactory response in the face of clear signs of nepotism, they could simply transfer out and have their families ask the Advanced Nurturing High School exactly what they were trying to pull.

It wasn't as if they had to demean themselves to coddle the Board Chairman's daughter just to keep her happy, right?

In Aragaki Shun's experience, to crush force, one must use greater force; to overwhelm wisdom, one could also use fists. But to check the authority of those in power, one had to summon equivalent authority.

It was just that ordinary students couldn't even find the right person to make a request to, so naturally, they shouldn't expect the school to specifically cater to their feelings.

"Alright, Kanzaki and I will handle this matter. Shibata, you are responsible for sending the information we traded from the upperclassmen to the class group chat. Let everyone in Class B know the truth about the school, and warn them to attend classes seriously for this month. No violations, no breaking rules—show the quality expected of an excellent high school student."

"After the Behavioral Standards Exam ends next month, I will buy the point deduction records for this month from Hoshinomiya-sensei. Whoever intentionally causes trouble for me will have to compensate everyone with their own Private Points!"

As Aragaki Shun's cold words fell, cold sweat broke out on Shibata Sou's face. He no longer dared to think about anything else and immediately picked up his phone to start uploading the intelligence to the class group.

One had to know that 1 point of class points was worth 100 Private Points, and there were forty people in a class.

In other words, causing the class to lose 1 class point meant compensating everyone, including the person paying, for a total of 4,000 Private Points.

Once the lost class points exceeded 25, even if someone didn't spend a single point of their 100,000-point monthly allowance, it wouldn't be enough to pay the damages.

Kanzaki Ryuji took out his phone, watching the messages in the class group chat pile up due to the school's various hidden rules and Aragaki Shun's notification. After pondering for a moment, he looked at Aragaki Shun.

"Is it appropriate to place the burden of class point losses entirely on individuals?"

"Knowing the truth about the school, we should be able to preserve our class points to the greatest extent, perhaps even surpassing Class A directly. There's no need to add more pressure on everyone, is there?"

Aragaki Shun was surprised. "I've already published the answers. Are you saying there will still be people who intentionally cause trouble?"

"If they didn't know the rules today, that's one thing, but from now on, whoever causes the loss is responsible. I don't think there's anyone in this class who would be a black sheep intentionally making trouble for everyone, right?"

If there really were, then he would have to find a way to correct them; if they couldn't be corrected, he'd just kick them out.

He was willing to lead everyone in Class B to progress together, but he wasn't a nanny for a bunch of losers or vermin!

14. Suppressing Ichinose's Superfluous Kindness

The second day after enrolling in the Advanced Nurturing High School, inside the classroom of Class 1-B.

Seeing that everyone had arrived and there was still a bit of time before the first morning class, Aragaki Shun walked directly to the podium, his gaze sweeping over his classmates, who all wore strange expressions.

"Regarding the truth about this school, Shibata already sent it to the class group chat yesterday. Does anyone have any questions or additions?"

Everyone in Class B perked up at that moment.

Whatever shock they felt, they had already spent the whole night processing it. Now, everyone had tacitly arrived at the classroom early; in truth, it was more because they felt lost regarding future class competition and wanted to find a direction forward together with everyone in the classroom.

Looking around at his classmates, who seemed to have many questions but didn't know what to say, the pink-haired girl rose from her seat and spoke to Aragaki Shun: "Regarding the hidden rules of the school that Aragaki-kun posted, everyone should be clear on them. So, I'd like to add some thoughts from the gathering I was invited to with students from other classes yesterday afternoon."

"First, the students from Class A—they were the fewest in number, and while they were polite when interacting with everyone, they didn't seem very enthusiastic. Among the students from Class C, there seemed to be quite a few boys who spoke rudely and were prone to fighting. Among the girls, the most eye-catching were the groups of 'gals' who stuck together. As for Class D..."

Ichinose Honami hesitated, as if she didn't know how to describe them well. "Kikyo and Hirata-kun were very easy to talk to, Shinohara-san and Karuizawa-san were quite tough, and a portion of the people were rather quiet, but there were a few boys who seemed a bit too noisy."

Ichinose was, after all, a bit too gentle and didn't like speaking ill of others behind their backs, but the others in the class didn't have such a good temper.

"What's that about? Honami-chan is just too kind. Those boys in Class D aren't just 'noisy'—they could be called perverts. Especially that Yamauchi Haruki, who only knows how to brag while acting like he's something special. That jerk has zero self-awareness and goes around making comments about girls' figures and appearances."

"Exactly, and that Ike Kanji next to him—how could such a person even exist in this school? Can't he see that Ichinose Honami is clearly bothered? He just keeps hovering around, chattering away endlessly."

"That girl named Shinohara is a total weirdo, too. She started arguing with the boys from Class C for no reason, and when we tried to break it up, she even cursed at us."

"Ishizaki from Class C was actually bragging about who he fought back in middle school. It seems like that whole group of theirs is made up of delinquents. Did the school just dump all those types into Class C?"

"Oh, right, and that person from Class D..."

It seemed everyone really had a bellyful of things to say. Once someone started, the group began to chime in one after another, complaining about their interactions with the other classes yesterday afternoon.

Overall, the students who came from Class A were fine, the ones from Class C who attended the gathering were basically delinquents or gyaru types, and Class D was simply a chaotic mess of monsters—everyone was so eccentric that there wasn't a single standard to describe them.

Clap, clap.

Aragaki Shun clapped his hands twice, and only after seeing everyone quiet down did he nod with satisfaction.

"It seems everyone has already gained an understanding of the situation in the various first-year classes. So, please remember: from here on out, they are our opponents!"

"There's no problem with making friends, but don't leak any class information. Especially since we are still in the Behavioral Standards Exam phase this first month, the one thousand points issued by the school will determine the different starting lines for the four classes. Whether we can gain an advantage at the start of this competition and create a snowball effect where one step ahead leads to every step ahead depends on everyone's performance this month."

To be honest, although he had anticipated the approachability of Ichinose Honami and her group, the social ability to get to know so many students from other classes on the very first day of school was, in Aragaki Shun's eyes, nothing short of terrifying.

At the very least, he certainly couldn't manage to organize a gathering on the first day of school and invite students from all four classes to attend.

At most, he would be like someone crashing various clubs, heading to three different classes just to issue a provocation like, "I think everyone here is trash."

Scanning everyone's reactions, he saw that they all understood just how important this exam involving one thousand class points was, so no one...

Wait! Someone actually had an objection?

Aragaki Shun raised an eyebrow, looking at the pink-haired girl who was listening to the surrounding classmates' discussions with some hesitation, a look of reluctance on her face.

"Ichinose-san, do you have a different opinion?"

"Um, actually," Ichinose Honami stammered, looking embarrassed, "I was wondering if, by the middle of the month, when Class C and Class D have already had many class points deducted, we could give them a heads-up?"

The discussion in the classroom stopped abruptly. Everyone looked at Ichinose Honami in disbelief, though no one stood up to directly express opposition.

Most people wore expressions of trust, as if to say, "Little Honami must have her own reasons."