This made Ryuen Kakeru, who had just collected protection money from his class, sick to his stomach. He'd been collecting protection money all this time, so why had the day finally come when he was the one being asked to pay?
"Don't make that face. You should know that even last-minute information can be put to use," Nakano Yuu added. "There are still more than three days left in the Behavioral Norms Exam. Your class is definitely far behind Classes A and B in points, since their students are all good kids—the ones who best fit the definition of excellent students. But as long as the exam isn't over, there's still a chance to turn things around."
A chance to turn things around? What a load of crap!
Ryuen had figured it out. Nakano was saying they should use the Behavioral Norms Exam to target Class A and drag down its score, giving lower-ranked classes like theirs a chance.
After all, the four classes weren't equal in overall ability.
So they could only make a move from this angle.
But if he really did that, wouldn't he be playing right into Nakano Yuu's plan?
Class D might end up with zero points, but if their fellow lower-ranked class, Class C, dragged down Classes A and B, then even if Class D got zero, it wouldn't fall too far behind.
At the same time,
Nakano saying this meant he wouldn't do it himself. He was making Ryuen do it. And if Ryuen actually did, he'd also have to keep Nakano from tipping off the students in Classes A and B. So all he could do was pay him protection money.
"..." Ryuen.
He realized he was the prey.
"Why didn't you start by making a deal with a student from Class A?" Ryuen asked coldly.
If Class D was beyond saving, then sure, they could become Class A's dogs and even charge them protection money in exchange for not attacking them.
"Probably because there's someone over there I can't handle. I don't want to get any more involved with them for now." Nakano, however, suddenly sounded melancholy.
From the fragments of his memories, he could tell that something dangerous had happened during the year he'd lost his memory: he had an ex-girlfriend.
And her name was Sakayanagi Arisu.
A frail silver-haired girl, a black cane, and white thigh-highs.
She was at this school too, a first-year student in Class 1-A.
And this girlfriend of his wasn't exactly kindhearted. She had a little-devil personality. If she found out what he was doing, she'd probably cut off his source of income the moment he tried to sell her last-minute information.
PS: Please bookmark, please bookmark, please bookmark, please bookmark!
Class 1-D, You Really Are Something Else! Absolutely Ridiculous!
After parting ways with the gloomy Ryuen, Nakano started checking the information on his Student ID Card.
[Name: Nakano Yuu Student Number: ST1045666090 Class: Class 1-D Gender: Male Private Account Points: 380,156 points.]
Ryuen really was a straightforward guy. He had 326,000 points in his account in total, and after paying 50,000 points, he transferred another 250,000 from his account.
That was the protection money for not tipping off Class A.
Points were cold and impersonal, but seeing them pile up warmed his heart bit by bit.
At this school, a normal monthly budget of at least 60,000 points was enough to live well. He had enough points now to last half a month.
So Nakano immediately ordered a bottle of corn juice for 500 points.
But he still opened his phone to check.
Ryuen hadn't even finished his meal before leaving. He was probably planning to use that last-minute information to stir up trouble—to get the students in Class A penalized while the Behavioral Norms Exam was still underway.
That would lower Class A's starting score. It was good news for the lower-ranked classes.
It didn't matter to Nakano, who only wanted to make it on his own, but someone else was surprisingly stubborn about it.
Nakano Yuu sent the Student Council President a mosaic-covered image of Horikita Suzune's transfer to him and his own transfer to Horikita. But more than an hour after he'd sent it, nothing had happened.
Did that mean Chabashira-sensei had given him the wrong number for the Student Council President?
Or was the Student Council President too busy to check his messages?
But—
[Read]
[Read]
Both photos he'd sent were marked as read, which meant the other person had seen them.
But there was no response at all. He'd even sat here for another half hour and still didn't feel like anyone was watching him.
The guy had that much patience?
So Nakano added the other person's contact. He chose to add him as a friend; according to the phone's features at this school, once two people added each other as friends, they could check each other's GPS locations. The GPS could pinpoint various facilities on campus, which was incredibly useful.
It was great for finding people or keeping tabs on them.
Just as he was thinking that,
a notification suddenly popped up on his screen.
[The other person has added you as a friend. Would you like to add a note?]
"..." Nakano Yuu.
Well, well. He'd just said the guy was stubborn, and now he'd taken the bait so quickly?
Still, since the other person had made the first move, Nakano could leave him on read for now. After all, the school's rules wouldn't be announced for another three days, and there were some things the other person couldn't say out loud yet.
So, at eight o'clock the next morning, Nakano arrived at class right on time.
Homeroom ran from eight to eight forty every day, but the homeroom teacher never enforced attendance, so some students didn't show up until homeroom was over.
Click.
Nakano pulled out his desk. It was by the back window.
Looking out through the window really gave him the feeling that the whole world was his.
"Flip, flip—"
The sound of pages turning came from the desk beside him. His deskmate was Horikita Suzune, a beautiful girl with straight black hair.
He glanced over at Horikita, who continued reading without changing expression.
Horikita looked incredibly aloof.
But as long as her points warmed his heart, that was fine.
So Nakano put down his bag.
As the students gradually arrived, they started forming their own little groups and doing their own thing.
For example, a few desks in front of Nakano's, several boys had gathered together.
They were discussing who was the cutest girl in class.
Oh.
High school boys that age really were into that topic. And after nearly a month of getting used to life at this school, they'd gathered quite a bit of information.
Specifically, a boy nicknamed Doctor had pulled out a notebook and opened a file. It listed the names of all the girls in the year.
They'd even started a betting pool over who was the cutest.
Apparently, they'd put up a poll on the school forum, and every boy could vote.
The results would be out in two days.
"A ranking of the girls you'd most like to date, huh—"
Pretty straightforward.
"Who cares about cute? I want a ranking of their bust sizes! Let's do it, let's do it!" a boy suddenly said. "I think Hasebe would definitely win."
"..." Nakano, who'd been listening, was instantly speechless.
Then he heard someone mention Sakura Airi.
Sakura Airi.
She sat in the last row, Horikita Suzune's deskmate. Horikita gave off such a strong I-don't-want-anyone-near-me, I-want-to-be-alone vibe that anyone with sense wouldn't sit beside her. So what kind of student sat next to her?
Someone ill-intentioned, like him, or... someone with nowhere else to sit.
In other words, someone introverted and lonely.
And that person was Sakura Airi.
In the original story, she was a very cute girl. Her appearance was plain, but that was just a disguise. She worked as a fashion model, and because she was afraid people would stare at her strangely, she dressed down.
"We're guys, after all. Our heads are always full of that stuff!" said the boy who'd brought up Sakura earlier.
Nakano-kun couldn't agree with that.
Because he was different. He liked black stockings.
He looked down on them.
"I want to play too." "Me too, me too."
The boys had already gathered in a noisy huddle, enthusiastically discussing the girls' bust sizes with no shame. Some of the girls in the classroom looked at them like they were trash, their eyes full of even more contempt.
No matter how well those guys did in the future, they probably wouldn't be able to get a single girl in class to date them.
Nakano made that judgment in his mind. At the same time, he felt lucky that although there was only one female teacher in his contacts, he'd still managed to stick to his decision to keep his distance instead of wanting "friends" so badly that he'd settled for guys like them.
Just then, a boy squeezed his way over. He looked pretty scruffy and had once bragged about being great at table tennis. "I want to bet too. By the way, I'm betting on Sakura."
Yamauchi seemed to think of something, then began whispering.
"I'm only telling you guys this, but Sakura confessed to me yesterday," Yamauchi said.
"What? Really?!" The others didn't believe him, of course.
Yamauchi seemed determined to prove it. "It's true, it's true. But keep it a secret! Even though she's the kind of girl nobody notices, I turned her down, obviously. I saw what she looked like in her civilian clothes. But if she's not at Kushida's or Hasebe's level, I'm not interested. I don't like plain-looking girls."
Yamauchi said this smugly.
But he was probably just running his mouth because Sakura hadn't come to class yet.
As for Kushida and Hasebe, who he'd mentioned, they were both very attractive girls in the original story. Kushida was like a little angel, a pure-hearted saint, while Hasebe had a curvy figure and was pretty too.
They were the type of girls most boys admired.
But was that really the case?
Nakano Yuu had already noticed Sakura Airi near the back door. She must have heard Yamauchi's nonsense, and now she didn't know whether to go in or leave.
He wasn't sure if her face had gone red with anger.
She looked so pitiful.
"..." Horikita didn't even spare the boys a look of contempt. She continued reading.
No one had noticed Sakura's predicament yet.
Nakano spread his hands in a ╮(╯▽╰)╭ gesture.
Right? Right? In a class like this, only the original male protagonist would be forced to try to lead them to the top. As someone going solo, there was probably only one thing he needed to do.
That was—
Bang!
A loud crash suddenly rang out in the classroom, instantly drawing everyone's attention.
Someone had kicked over a desk, and it lay at Yamauchi's feet.
Before you continue