Katsuragi and Sakayanagi Arisu from Class A happened to be passing by.
Watching Nakano Yuu and Horikita disappear into the distance, Katsuragi suddenly spoke.
"That's Nakano Yuu from Class D," Katsuragi Kohei said to the silver-haired girl beside him.
Sakayanagi had a heart condition, so she walked very slowly, but Katsuragi courteously waited for her.
As soon as he saw Nakano Yuu, Katsuragi's attention sharpened. He had mixed feelings about Nakano selling him the secretary position in the Student Council, but he still felt he ought to warn Sakayanagi.
"The students in Class D took a test this morning. That boy named Nakano Yuu scored over 95 in every subject, and the black-haired girl with him scored over 90 in every subject as well. Her name is Horikita Suzune," Katsuragi said.
Though Katsuragi was a student in Class A, a month had already passed, and his faction had more or less taken shape. The students in his class had begun making their moves.
Some had reached out to students from Class D and gathered a bit of information.
For example, the students in Class D had apparently taken a test that morning and posted their scores in the class group chat.
Katsuragi had also bought his secretary position from Nakano Yuu in Class D, who had gotten it from the President. That meant Nakano had earned the President's approval. So even if he wasn't paying attention to Class D, Katsuragi felt he should at least keep an eye on Nakano.
And once he did, he discovered that Nakano's academic ability was astonishingly high. Even in Class A, it would have put him among the best.
"Never mind. I'll be going."
But Sakayanagi Arisu picked up her cane, looking completely uninterested.
"But I wanted to say—" Katsuragi started to press her, then shook his head.
Never mind.
He had wanted to warn Sakayanagi to be careful around that guy, but if she wasn't interested, there was no point trying to persuade her.
Still, Nakano Yuu was good-looking. Why was he so easy to overlook?
Katsuragi wondered.
Meanwhile, Nakano didn't waste any time. After returning from the shopping district with Horikita, he went straight to the dorms.
Not to his own room, though. He went to Horikita's.
It was the first time since enrolling that Nakano had visited a girl's room. The layout was the same as his: a twenty-square-meter, one-bedroom apartment with a living room.
Horikita seemed to know how to make a home for herself. She didn't spend much, but as soon as he stepped inside, the place felt... cozy.
It gave the impression that the owner was the sort of woman who would make a good wife.
The downside was that she hadn't considered the possibility of having a guest, so she didn't even have a spare pair of slippers. Still, it was her first time, so Nakano forgave her.
"You mean you want me to fill in all the answers?" The owner of the cozy apartment now sat with a completely straight face.
"The people who need this test are bound to be bad at studying. If you don't give them the answers, how are they supposed to fill it in? Nobody will buy it," Nakano Yuu said.
As he spoke, he looked over the second-year exam papers from last year, which he had bought from a senior student as well.
The midterm exams this time were the same for the first- and second-years: written tests. The second-years had assumed they would be tested on old material too, so they had prepared in advance. He had gotten the papers from a senior at a low price, paying only an extra 20,000 points.
His guess was that the senior's class had pooled several tens of thousands of points to buy the tests from an upperclassman, then shared them with all the students. So now she was making a little extra money on the side.
"Uh..."
Horikita Suzune had nothing to say.
They could take the test as it was and still get a score, but since some of the material was beyond the curriculum, nobody would score very high.
It would also increase the risk of failing.
Still, 70 percent of the test covered material in the curriculum, so as long as they studied hard, they could pass this exam.
But they probably wouldn't earn many class evaluation points as a reward.
Horikita felt like she had somehow ended up at the heart of this exam.
"Even if I fill in the answers, it'll take me some time to do the questions beyond the curriculum—"
The midterm exam covered five subjects: math, physics, chemistry, biology, and English. Horikita studied for over ten hours a day, and her academic ability was good, so she could quickly fill in the 70 percent of the questions that were covered in class.
But she couldn't answer the questions beyond the curriculum.
They hadn't been taught that material yet.
"Just do the ones you can, and leave the rest blank," Nakano Yuu said. "I'll fill in the rest myself later."
"..." Horikita.
Hearing that put Horikita somewhat at ease, but then she realized something didn't add up.
"You're saying you can answer every question?"
"Then why do you want me to do most of them?" Horikita Suzune asked.
"Because I'm lazy," Nakano Yuu said. "I found out from an upperclassman that this time, only the second-years and us are taking written exams. The third-years aren't."
"So the value of these papers has dropped. They're not worth my spending too much effort on," Nakano Yuu said.
It made such perfect sense that Horikita Suzune realized she couldn't argue.
Still...
"So the second-years got their solution to the exam from papers they bought from upperclassmen."
"But the third-years didn't, which means they're the most senior students at this school. They can't find any older students to give them test papers, unless they prepared back when they were still underclassmen," Horikita Suzune reasoned.
"No," Nakano Yuu said. He rested his arms on the back of the only chair in Horikita's room and turned to face her. "It's because the third-years are already in their final year and about to graduate, so they don't get included in this kind of perk."
"The school gives the first-years exams like this so they can learn how the school works, instead of being too rigid. They need to learn to be flexible."
"The second-years get exams like this so they can experience the benefits. Once they know the exams will be like this, they can pass this one without trouble."
"If only the first-years got exams like this and the second-years didn't, then the second-years might not sell their papers to the first-years. After all, some of them would think, 'I had to struggle through it, so why should you get to take a shortcut?'"
"So it's an arrangement that requires the two years to cooperate."
"As for why the third-years don't get exams like this, that's simple. They already enjoyed these perks before, and they're about to graduate. What they need is to prove themselves in their final year."
"So the third-years will face special exams of their own," Nakano Yuu explained.
"I still think this school is incredibly complicated," Horikita murmured with a sigh.
If she hadn't gone with Nakano to buy the papers and gathered information from the upperclassmen, her plan for dealing with this exam would probably have been to study harder than usual.
And when it came to earning points for the class as a whole, she might not have been able to contribute much.
"So once the answers are all filled in, you'll hand out the test papers to the students in your class, right?" Horikita asked.
"No," Nakano replied, looking at her. "More accurately, why would you think that?"
"Do you know why we bought these papers?"
"We bought them to sell. Do you think the students in Class D have that kind of money?" Nakano Yuu said. "They probably can't even scrape together enough to cover the cost of the papers."
Uh...
Horikita knew the financial situation of the students in her class.
And she wasn't some kind of saint.
Or rather, if she'd been just a little more cold-hearted and walked away when Nakano Yuu approached her, she could have held on to her 80,000 points.
But even if they were going to use these papers to make money, then...
"Who are you planning to sell them to?" Horikita asked.
"Obviously, the right people." At last, Nakano Yuu cracked his first smile of the day.
Since arriving in this world, Nakano had sold things a total of five times. One of his victims was right there: Horikita Suzune.
He had taken 80,000 points from her.
Then he had gotten 300,000 points from Ryuen, 1.5 million from Horikita's brother (Katsuragi still owed him the remaining 1 million), and finally a 500,000-point IOU from Kamuro.
He had built up quite a customer base.
And if he was going to do business, he should naturally look for people he had worked with before.
So now, his first choice was naturally an old customer.
Horikita was already more of a partner, so for now he wouldn't treat her as someone to fleece.
He didn't need to squeeze Horikita Manabu for more points just yet, either. His big moment in the original story was the Training Camp Exam in the forest, so for now it was better to leave him alone.
The test papers in his hands were a little disappointing. A full 70 percent of the questions were covered by the curriculum, so Class A students with excellent academic ability wouldn't need them much.
In that case, the most suitable candidate was obviously Ryuen from Class C, where the academically weak students were.
The evaluation points for the four first-year classes were currently as follows.
Class 1-A: 836 points
Class 1-B: 710 points
Class 1-C: 503 points
Class 1-D: 0 points
There was no need to consider Class D. But the students in Class C now received 50,000 points each in monthly allowance. If they wanted to live lavishly at this school, 50,000 points was about enough to cover their food and other expenses. If they were content with an ordinary lifestyle, around 30,000 points would do.
So...
Ryuen should have already collected this month's protection money from his classmates.
If he only took 10,000 points from each student, Ryuen would have 400,000 points. If he was more ruthless and took 20,000 from everyone, then he'd have 780,000. Ryuen himself also had 50,000, bringing the total to 830,000. Even if he kept 30,000 to eat, he'd still have 800,000 points.
It was only the second day of the new month, so he probably hadn't spent any of it yet.
As he thought about it—
"Ding! 500,000 Private Points have been deposited into your account. Transferor: Katsuragi Kohei, GCH1035013. Current balance: 1,329,980 Private Points."
An alert popped up on Nakano's phone, informing him that the money had arrived.
The sender was Katsuragi Kohei.
There was also a note.
Note: I've repaid 500,000 of the 1 million I owe you. I'll pay off the rest in full next month.
It was surprising for a student to transfer 500,000 points at once, but Katsuragi had probably gathered the points from people who trusted and supported him.
So Ryuen in Class C collected protection money, while students in Class A pooled their points too. They just didn't call it protection money. They called it a contribution to a big shot, in the hope that he'd help them succeed.
How nice.
But something like that would be hard to pull off in Class D. After all, none of them had any points.
How could you collect money from people who had none?
So they'd have to quietly make money off the other classes instead.
And so, in his second month at the school, Nakano chose Ryuen Kakeru of Class 1-C as his first big mark.
But before Nakano could arrange a meeting with Ryuen, he ran into someone unexpected.
It was three days after he got the test papers.
Nakano had come to the cafeteria alone, but unlike his usual luxurious lunches that cost 2,200 or 2,600 points, today he was being especially frugal. In other words, he hadn't spent any points on lunch.
He had gotten the free mountain-vegetable set.
The mountain-vegetable set was exactly as the students in Class D had complained: no salt, and not even a drop of oil.
Nakano's current balance was 1.292 million points. He was rich by any standard.
So why was he eating the free meal?
Was he doing it on purpose?
Of course he was.
Before you continue