A Smooth Passage! But Chabashira!

"But you were lucky, too. Normally, the school doesn't allow upperclassmen to voluntarily reveal this information to you," Miyabi Nagumo said.

"I see." Nakano-kun nodded. "Then what kind of punishment would an upperclassman face for revealing it voluntarily?"

"..." Nagumo.

Nagumo's brow twitched slightly. He almost grew wary.

But then he remembered that he was the Student Council Vice President, so it was perfectly normal for this underclassman to ask him questions. After all, the other boy had just said he wanted to find the president and return the test paper to the upperclassman in front of him.

"The penalties include confiscating Private Points. In more serious cases, the class's evaluation points can also be deducted," Miyabi Nagumo said.

"I see." Nakano Yuu nodded. "It sounds like this school is pretty strict."

Mm.

Nagumo nodded, agreeing with that assessment.

"Do second-years take the same kind of test?" the younger Nakano continued.

"I asked the third-year seniors about it. They don't take the joint exam with us," Nakano Yuu said. "But as for the second-years..."

He trailed off.

Nagumo smiled.

"You guessed right. We second-years take the same kind of exam. It tests us on old questions."

"And you want to buy the test paper for this time next year, when you're a second-year, right?" Senior Nagumo seemed quite amiable.

"You're not bad. Once the exam's over, I can just give you the paper," Miyabi Nagumo said. "I won't charge you."

What a deal.

Seeing that the second-year senior had not only answered his questions in person but had also offered him the test paper, even Nakano Yuu gave him a second look.

But Nagumo quickly moved on from the subject of the exam.

His gaze had already begun to wander.

"What about this classmate?" Senior Nagumo asked, turning to Horikita.

Horikita's brow furrowed slightly, but she didn't respond.

"Oh, she's my girlfriend. Suzune," Nakano-kun answered for her. Since Nagumo was the vice president, saying Horikita's surname would make him wary. Besides, Nakano-kun didn't think there was any need for Horikita to interact with someone like him.

Senior Nagumo had only one real use: as a walking wallet.

In the original story, Miyabi Nagumo was a second-year senior who had even taken over as Student Council President after Horikita Manabu graduated.

Once he became president, Nagumo fully embraced the principle of meritocracy. He valued individual ability over the strength of the class, and united the entire second year under his rule. He not only extorted points from the students across the whole year, but also turned the school's monthly Special Exams into opportunities for the second-years to divide up the rewards.

The arrangement was simple.

Representatives from all four classes sat down together. The school set the questions, then Nagumo chose how they would respond, effectively making it an open-book exam.

What should have been a competition between the four classes became a show staged by the second-years under his direction. He assigned who would take first place, who would take second, and so on, then seized as much of the school's reward money as possible in every Special Exam.

In a sense, he had turned the school's Special Exams into welfare payouts.

Naturally, such a reckless move was bound to bring about his downfall. After the school warned him, he had no choice but to resign as Student Council President at the end of the first semester of his third year.

In other words...

Senior Nagumo and Ryuuen were similar in some ways.

Ryuuen extorted points from the students in his own class. Nagumo went even further: he extorted points from the entire year, forcibly requiring all students to pay him 30 to 50 percent of the living expenses their class received from the school. He even forced all students to keep their points below 500,000.

If they exceeded that amount, they had to hand over the surplus to him.

And to unite the entire year, he forcibly expelled every student who opposed him.

He was a domineering dictator.

Aside from being a dictator, he was also a very capricious person. He wanted to create a student council made up entirely of beautiful girls, with himself as the only exception.

In other words, he had quite a weakness for pretty girls.

And now...

He was here, and the server had packed up several cups of milk tea for him. They were all the kinds of drinks girls liked.

He was obviously bringing them for the girls.

"Suzune, huh? That's a lovely name." Senior Nagumo's tone was a little flirtatious. He seemed to have noticed that Horikita didn't want to talk to him, so he immediately added, "Still, you two have impressed me."

"As your second-year senior, I can offer you some help."

"Let's exchange contact information for now. If you run into any problems, you can ask me."

As he spoke, he took out his phone and opened his contact details, then looked at Nakano Yuu.

In other words, he was inviting Nakano Yuu to add him.

He seemed very easygoing.

But was he really just offering to help Nakano Yuu?

Obviously not. The person he wanted to add was probably Horikita, but she was ignoring him, so he'd chosen an indirect approach.

Still...

Nakano-kun had already introduced Horikita as his girlfriend, yet Senior Nagumo still wasn't giving up?

Even so, exchanging contacts was a good idea.

Because once they were friends, Nakano could track Nagumo's location with GPS at any time.

PS: Today's update.

PS: Please support me with your votes! Please, please, please! I'm completely out.

I'd planned to write 4,000 words today, but ended up with 5,300. I went over my limit again.

Chapter 34: Getting Through It Smoothly! But Chabashira...

Nakano-kun added Senior Nagumo as a friend. Senior Nagumo had finished packing up his milk tea, and left looking quite dashing as he carried it away.

Nakano Yuu and Horikita stayed in the shop.

Horikita Suzune sat with her knees together and her hands resting on them. Based on what he'd learned about her over the past few days, Nakano Yuu thought she seemed a little irritable.

As for Horikita right now...

"..." Horikita.

"I don't really like that senior's gaze or the way he carries himself," she said.

Mm.

Horikita really did have one advantage. She seemed rather innocent and was easy to fool, but her intuition was genuinely sharp.

Even though Miyabi Nagumo had presented himself as a kind, gentle, helpful senior, she had still seen right through him.

"Senior Nagumo really isn't a good person."

"And just now, he was probably trying to get close to you."

"After all, you're beautiful," Nakano Yuu said.

As he spoke, he noticed Horikita Suzune had raised her eyes. Her lovely, foxlike eyes had turned sharp.

Mm.

That was it.

She must have remembered how Nakano Yuu had introduced her to Senior Nagumo, saying, "This is my girlfriend, Suzune."

And she had never given him permission to say that.

But Horikita wasn't difficult to deal with.

"I already knew what kind of person Senior Nagumo was, so I introduced you as my girlfriend without asking," Nakano-kun said. "I didn't expect it not to work, though."

"And you still exchanged contact information with him." Horikita's resolve seemed to weaken again.

She realized that Nakano-kun had just protected her.

Once she understood that, she naturally felt a little less forceful.

"Having his contact information means I can check his location. Doesn't that make you feel a little safer?" Nakano Yuu said.

So he'd added Nagumo as a friend to... protect her?

Horikita was probably experiencing something like this for the first time, and her heart wavered despite herself.

In the past, she had always been the weak younger sister chasing after her exceptionally talented older brother. She had followed him to this school, hoping to show him that she was no longer as weak as she used to be.

But now, she was being protected by Nakano-kun.

She really hadn't made any progress at all.

Horikita Suzune's hands had been resting on her knees, but now they shifted slightly, as if she were wavering.

She tried to lift her head, but when she opened her mouth, she realized she didn't know what to say.

Then, she quickly heard Nakano-kun's voice.

"You're my partner, so of course I'll protect you," Nakano Yuu said. "Besides, Senior Nagumo is someone I've already chosen as a target."

"Because of the school's rules, the main way students can earn points legitimately is through the school's monthly Special Exams. We first-years are poor, but that's not true of the upperclassmen. They've already taken plenty of Special Exams and built up some savings."

"I don't have any plans for the third-years yet, but I've got some ideas about the second-years."

"So what I just said about Senior Nagumo being the class representative for Class 2-A isn't the whole story. He's actually already taken control of the entire year. Students from all four second-year classes listen to him, and they have to hand over a large number of points to him, too."

"I imagine he's close to gathering 20 million. Even if he hasn't reached that amount, he should still be worth somewhere between five and ten million," Nakano Yuu said.

"He's really that impressive..." Horikita sounded a little surprised.

"When it comes to seizing opportunities, he's certainly impressive." Nakano Yuu didn't dismiss Nagumo's abilities entirely. "His successful move to another class earned your brother's approval, so he was brought into the Student Council and made vice president. You know how this school works: students are judged by merit, and the Student Council is at the very top. Once he entered that position, he immediately gained access to all the resources that came with it."

"At the same time, his position as vice president made him untouchable in the second year."

"So it wasn't difficult for him to seize that opportunity and bring the entire year under his control," Nakano Yuu explained.

"So after hearing all that, what do you think?" Nakano Yuu asked, looking at Horikita Suzune.

"..." Horikita. "I suppose..."

She seemed about to speak, then stopped, before starting again. "I suppose he's very strong."

"..." Nakano Yuu.

6

Nakano-kun felt like he'd been talking to a wall.

"Looks like you still don't understand me, Horikita-san." Nakano-kun placed his hands on Horikita's shoulders. It was a little forward, but Horikita knew he was making a serious point, and Nakano-kun indeed said earnestly, "You have to understand what my goal is. I don't like doing anything beyond completing the task at hand. So after hearing my explanation, shouldn't your takeaway be that Senior Nagumo is a fat target?"

"He's gathered the resources of the entire second year under himself, and his assets have grown as a result," Nakano-kun said. "Other ways of taking points might break the school's rules, but there's no need to worry about that when it comes to taking points from Senior Nagumo, is there?"

"I see." At last, Horikita-san nodded.

She finally understood why Nakano-kun had said all those things about working for Class D at the milk tea shop.

He was setting up a trap.

He had probably already marked Miyabi Nagumo as a target before Senior Nagumo even approached them.

"Then all those things you deliberately said to me earlier were probably meant to draw Senior Nagumo's attention," Horikita Suzune said, her thoughts growing clearer.

"That's right," Nakano-kun said. "And the result was pretty good."

As he spoke, Nakano-kun pulled his phone out of another pocket and set it on the table. Horikita noticed something was off about it.

To be precise, it was recording.

And the recording's duration was hard to ignore: over twenty minutes.

That covered pretty much the entire conversation he'd just had with Senior Nagumo, and possibly his conversation with her as well.

"Could it be..." Horikita Suzune had an idea.