Target: Nagumo Miyabi! He's So Impressive, Mastering the Second Years at Such a Young Age! / Ryuen: Damn It! I Didn't Make a Single Penny Again!

That was exactly what he wanted to establish.

If Class C immediately withdrew the lawsuit, it would mean they were admitting that they'd witnessed the other class and Sudo fighting each other.

Even if they tried to explain themselves, it would be hard to make themselves understood.

If you had nothing to hide, then why withdraw the lawsuit as soon as someone produced an eyewitness?

So this was his backup plan?

He could sue Class C for making a false accusation. The penalty for that wasn't light—and it would only make people more dissatisfied.

Then it wouldn't be a case of both sides getting punished. Only Class C would be taking the hit.

Still, although it would be hard to argue their way out of it, that didn't mean there was no chance to explain.

As he thought this, Ryuen heard Nakano Yuu continue.

"I told you I was an eyewitness. And an eyewitness like me—you think I wouldn't have a backup plan? So I recorded it at the time."

"And this Ishizaki, when he left, he didn't have a wound on his face. Unlike the other two students, Sudo didn't even land a single punch on him. So how did his hand get injured, and where did that wound on his face come from?"

"Don't tell me he fell while playing hide-and-seek," Nakano Yuu said.

"Big Brother Ryuen!" Ishizaki Daichi finally realized what was going on, his face turning panicked as he looked at Ryuen.

Ryuen said nothing. He knew Nakano Yuu hadn't finished.

And sure enough, Nakano continued.

"I'm thinking of selling the video I recorded of the three Class C students leaving the school building without a single wound on their faces or bodies to students in Classes A and B. I'm sure they'd be willing to pay for it."

"Then Class C will lose 50 points... no, maybe even 100 points from its class rating," Nakano Yuu said. "It's not easy to save up 100 points, but once you lose them, you'll be another 100 points behind Classes A and B."

"..." Ryuen said, "The students in Class B are close-knit and naive. They won't go along with your idea."

"What if I publicize the way you operate? You and your classmates go around looking for people to fight, and that's far too dangerous. If attacking you would protect them, I think they'd be willing to do it," Nakano Yuu said.

Ryuen couldn't deny that.

But he could still argue his way out of it.

"And Class A? Class A paid me to do this. You think they'll pay you?" Ryuen said.

In other words, Class A was the mastermind. If Class A kicked them while they were down, then any future cooperation would be cut off completely. It wouldn't be worth it.

"But only some of the students in Class A hired you, right? Class A has two factions. If one faction arranged for you to do this, then the other would definitely be willing to pay a high price for the video and use it against you."

"After all, this is a factional struggle. Until they decide who the real leader is, they'll pay for anything that gives them an advantage," Nakano Yuu said. "Let me think—which faction would have arranged for you to do this? You were stabbing Class A in the back just last month, but some of its students still came to you for help."

"I'm sure it was Totsuka Yahiko, the one you attacked! Only someone who'd been attacked would understand what you're good for."

"And Totsuka is Katsuragi's follower. In that case, the Sakayanagi Faction would definitely be willing to pay. That way, Totsuka and the others would spend their money, but in the end, the Sakayanagi Faction would be the one to make Class C lose points. That'd look like a pretty good result, wouldn't you say, Ryuen?"

Right, Ryuen?

Right, my ass.

Shit.

At that moment, Ryuen fully understood that he was about to lose the 500,000 points he'd earned from that private job.

P.S. Today's update. That's 5,000 words. Please support me with your votes, please, please!

P.S. There'll be one more update at midnight. Two more tomorrow morning at seven.

Target: Miyabi Nagumo! So Young, Yet Already So Impressive at Second-Year Level!

Class A was the strongest class among the first-years, but it had one fatal weakness: it couldn't have just one representative speak for the whole class.

It was divided into two factions, the Sakayanagi Faction and the Katsuragi Faction.

The factions attacked each other directly not only to make the other side lose, but also to improve their own faction's record.

And now, the Class C controlled by Ryuen was exactly the kind of opportunity Nakano Yuu had described—one that would let the Sakayanagi Faction make a show of strength.

Ryuen was furious, but he'd rather let the matter die down than actually get targeted by the Sakayanagi Faction in Class A.

From what Ryuen knew of Nakano Yuu, whenever the guy made these alarming claims, he had just one goal.

To demand hush money from him.

And a lot of it.

Now he understood the meaning behind that message even better.

[Bro, now that you've found a way to make money, don't keep it all to yourself. Share half, will you?]

Or had this bastard figured out ages ago that Class C had been paid off by Class A to attack the other classes?

Rather than get squeezed for even more points later, Ryuen decided to be honest.

"Totsuka was the one who came to me," Ryuen said. "The goal was to attack other classes, like we did to them last month."

"On the one hand, he wasn't sure if this month would have another Behavioral Norms Exam like last month's."

"On the other, he wanted to use me to lower the rating points of my class and the others."

"And the fee he offered was 500,000 points."

So Totsuka hadn't been sure whether there'd be a Behavioral Norms Exam this month. That was why he'd decided to test the waters.

If a fight broke out, and it happened during the Behavioral Norms Exam period, then they'd be penalized again.

But Totsuka wasn't very sharp. Given how this school arranged its students, an exam like the Behavioral Norms Exam could only benefit the upper classes.

If they kept using this system, the lower classes wouldn't even get a chance to take part in the monthly Special Exams. They'd be held back with no chance to struggle, and probably give up from the start.

And the four classes already differed in their overall abilities.

The school might as well stop talking about how students grew through competition and just send Classes A and B on ahead.

And if the only targets were Classes A and B, then there'd have been no reason to waste resources enrolling students in Classes C and D in the first place.

If the school had enrolled them, then they must have had a purpose.

So Totsuka hadn't understood that. There would only ever be one Behavioral Norms Exam.

As for Nakano Yuu, Katsuragi had bought the position of Student Council secretary from him for one million points. But Katsuragi had only paid 500,000, and still owed him another 500,000.

He'd said he didn't have enough money and would pay the rest next month. Yet now he had money to use against another class.

He'd delayed paying off the 500,000 he owed, then used the money to attack Class D.

Looks like Class A had too much spending money.

The current ratings for the four classes were as follows.

Class 1-A: 836 points

Class 1-B: 710 points

Class 1-C: 503 points

Class 1-D: 0 points

Each student in Class A had more than 80,000 points in spending money. Katsuragi, as the faction leader, could reasonably take half from around twenty students. But even then, he'd need at least twenty-five students to scrape together a million.

It seemed the Sakayanagi Faction in that class was still somewhat weak.

"I know Totsuka wanted to lower my rating points and those of the other classes."

"So I prepared a backup plan too," Ryuen continued. "Take Class D, for example. I had three students accuse one student and file a lawsuit with the Student Council, but I was going to withdraw it before the hearing."

In other words, he'd gone through with it, but didn't want to take the punishment for nothing.

And he'd achieved his goal too. For example, if the Student Council allowed a hearing over such an outrageous claim of three students against one, then maybe they could pull off a few minor schemes as well.

In the end, he'd still get the 500,000-point fee from Totsuka in Class A.

It had been a perfect plan.

But not anymore.

Nakano Yuu would take at least half of those 500,000 points.

"What about Class B?" Nakano asked.

That was what he wanted to focus on.

As for Class D, it didn't matter what happened to it.

"Class B..." Ryuen, however, seemed to have a good opinion of them.

"Actually, I used a similar plan last month," Ryuen said.

Ryuen's plan over the past two months had really only been one thing: have students from his class pick a fight with students from other classes, then provoke the other students into striking first.

"But unfortunately, those Class B bastards may look like do-gooders, but they're still pretty cautious," Ryuen said. "More precisely, their class representative, Ichinose Honami, is very wary."

Since the students in Class B hadn't taken the bait, Ryuen hadn't been able to make them lose a lot of points in last month's Behavioral Norms Exam.

That had left him a little disappointed.

But that also showed that Class B might really be different.

They'd definitely gotten stronger. And by stronger, he meant Ichinose Honami?

Nakano Yuu pondered it.

"Still..." Ryuen seemed ready to leave, but something about him seemed off. "How did you figure out Totsuka was the one who paid me off, and not someone from the Sakayanagi Faction?"

"Because Sakayanagi wouldn't be stupid enough to have you attack Class D," Nakano Yuu said.

That made it sound as though the Sakayanagi Faction were the more sensible ones.

Or maybe the people in the Sakayanagi Faction let Sakayanagi make the decisions.

And since Class A suddenly needed to gather hundreds of thousands of points, they'd have to collect them from their classmates. So if the Sakayanagi Faction wanted to make a move, they'd have to get Sakayanagi's approval.

Totsuka's rash move was probably approved by Katsuragi too, as a way of testing the other classes.

Class A's students really were more dangerous.

Ryuen had thought the students in Class A were nothing special—like Totsuka, who'd deliberately tried to make Class C lose points by offering them points.

But now it seemed the students in Class A really were different.

After all, they'd only been at the school for a short time, and there was a Special Exam every month. The second month's exam might have been worth very few points, but what about the third month?

That was anyone's guess.

So it would be ideal to find out what the other classes could do first, or even inflict some damage on them.

And that was Katsuragi's thinking.

As for the Sakayanagi Faction...

Nakano Yuu's point was that Katsuragi's actions were foolish, so the people in the Sakayanagi Faction wouldn't act—and more precisely, Sakayanagi wouldn't do it.

Could that mean that, despite being weaker at the moment, the Sakayanagi Faction was more dangerous than the Katsuragi Faction?

And why had the Katsuragi Faction in Class A risen so quickly?

It was because Katsuragi had secured the position of secretary. And the Student Council secretary position was one Nakano Yuu had sold.

So the Katsuragi Faction wasn't as strong as it looked.

If his class wanted to get promoted to Class A, then the one they'd have to face probably wasn't Katsuragi. They'd have to defeat Sakayanagi.

"You think Sakayanagi's a problem too?" Ryuen asked, testing the waters.

Of course she was.

In Nakano's gaze, he'd already spotted Sakayanagi Arisu.

P.S. Two more updates at seven tomorrow morning.

Chapter 40: Ryuen: Damn It! I Didn't Make a Single Point Again!