In Classroom of the Elite, Ichinose You Will Regret This

Hoshinomiya-sensei distributed the materials while she spoke.

Special rules, huh.

Uesugi Gen had not forgotten the various anomalies he had discovered since arriving at the school.

It was precisely because he had been too focused on that aspect that he had allowed Ichinose to find an opening and take advantage of the situation.

Uesugi Gen clenched his fists in frustration at his seat.

Uesugi Gen took the materials passed down from the front row, offered a word of thanks, and began to flip through them quietly.

The general format was that of a handbook detailing matters related to the school.

Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School boasts a 99.9% employment and college acceptance rate, possesses educational resources that surpass any other similar institution, and is equipped with the latest, most comprehensive teaching facilities.

In terms of its overall appearance, it would be more accurate to call it an artificial island city rather than a school. Beyond the school itself, the institution includes facilities such as karaoke bars, cinemas, cafes, and clothing stores—it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it a small commercial district. According to the introduction, the grounds cover at least 600,000 square meters.

The content was mostly various introductions to the school; there was no need to linger, as a quick glance was enough to grasp the general gist.

Suddenly, the finger Uesugi Gen was using to flip the pages paused.

There was only a short paragraph, with the heading "S-System" at the top, followed by just a few sparse sentences.

[Is this the "competitive evaluation system" used by the school to judge students?]

Uesugi Gen stared at this short passage with a meaningful look.

"What I am handing out now are your student IDs, which also serve as your mobile phones. The school refers to them as terminals. You will need to use these for all purchases, dining, and entertainment. Simply place them on the designated sensors or show them when prompted. It's very simple. I believe the students who made it into this class are very bright, so you'll understand once you try it out in practice."

Hoshinomiya's praise flowed as if it were free, and a small number of students lowered their heads in shyness.

"But remember, using them consumes points, so be careful not to overspend when buying things."

Hoshinomiya-sensei's tone shifted, and she warned them with a serious, earnest expression.

"Within the school, there is nothing that cannot be bought with points. As long as it exists within the school grounds, you can buy anything."

That last sentence felt a bit superfluous. Or perhaps, was there something the teacher couldn't say directly, so she was using this method to intentionally warn us?

Uesugi Gen rubbed his chin, watching the somewhat childish teacher on the podium.

"Anything can be bought," huh? If that simply meant that money could buy everything, then the school wouldn't need to go to such great lengths to create points to replace the yen; they could have just used yen directly.

Just like in a game where you can only buy specific items with in-game currency, there must be a similar reason for these points. The most likely scenario is that points can purchase things that yen cannot.

Considering that she specifically pointed out that everything could be bought, it implied that even more abstract concepts beyond physical objects could be considered—for instance, rules.

Thinking this, Uesugi Gen's doubts did not diminish; instead, they grew heavier. Spending such a massive amount of money and manpower to orchestrate something like this—what was the goal?

"If you accidentally lose it, you will have to spend extra points to have it reissued."

"Within this school, your daily living expenses are covered by the school. Points will be deposited into your accounts promptly on the first of every month."

Uesugi Gen took the phone and tapped on the points page—100,000.

"Now, please check your accounts. Each of you should have been issued 100,000 points. One point is equivalent to one yen. Please check that the amount is correct; if there are any errors, tell me now."

"One, one hundred thousand?!"

"How, how much?!"

"Is this for real? One hundred thousand?"

The atmosphere in Class B became excited. After all, 100,000 was not a small sum for a student; the annual income of most white-collar workers in Tokyo was only in the 4 million to 6 million range.

The students of Class B were excitedly venting their enthusiasm to those around them, though even in this moment, they showed enough respect for the teacher not to shout, keeping it to hushed whispers.

Uesugi Gen flipped through the booklet, tilted the front two legs of his chair, leaned back, and asked Shibata in the seat behind him.

"Shibata, I'm not very familiar with this, but let me ask: generally, how much is your monthly allowance?"

Shibata scratched his head, finding it strange that Uesugi Gen would ask such a question, but he gave an answer nonetheless.

"It's usually around 5,000 yen a month. Sometimes my family gives me a bit more, but it's mostly in that range. Do you think there's a problem, Uesugi?"

Uesugi Gen didn't answer Shibata's question, but instead continued to ask him, "Shibata, do you play games?"

"Hmm, games? I played things like Pokémon when I was very young. Later, because I had to do soccer training all the time, I didn't really play much."

"When you play games, there's usually a trope, right? The protagonist enters the game, and a guide character like a village chief gives the protagonist an initial sum of money so they can develop better within the game server."

"Are you saying, Uesugi? That these 100,000 points are just the initial capital the school gave us to develop, and there might be none or only a small amount given afterward?"

"Yeah, after all, Hoshinomiya-sensei never said she would give us 100,000 points every month, right? She only said that points would be deposited at the beginning of each month."

Uesugi Gen looked at the smiling Hoshinomiya-sensei in the distance and reminded him, "Indeed. That is certainly the most logical explanation."

A cold, sharp voice interrupted the conversation between Uesugi Gen and Shibata.

The speaker was the handsome boy sitting next to Uesugi Gen, who had sleek purple hair, a dashing face, and a tall, upright build.

"By the way, who are you? Eavesdropping on other people's conversations is not very polite behavior."

Uesugi Gen cast a dissatisfied glance at the purple-haired boy.

"Kanzaki Ryuji, nice to meet you."

Kanzaki Ryuji reached out a hand across the aisle toward Uesugi Gen in a friendly gesture.

"Uesugi Gen."

Seeing Kanzaki Ryuji take the initiative to show goodwill, Uesugi Gen readily let the matter slide.

"As for how to verify this theory, we can just ask the person in charge directly. Leave this to me."

Kanzaki Ryuji raised his hand to signal that he had a question for Hoshinomiya.

It wasn't just Kanzaki Ryuji; Ichinose, who was sitting to the front-right of Uesugi Gen, raised both hands at almost the same time.

Hoshinomiya placed one hand on her hip and pointed casually with her fair, delicate finger.

"Ask whatever you want. My class is very casual; as long as everyone follows the rules, it's fine."

Ichinose stood up and got straight to the point.

"Teacher, although our school has national backing, a class of 40 students means 160 students per grade. That's 16 million points a month. To distribute such a large sum of money without any strings attached—though I hate to admit it—I don't believe we provide enough value to the school to justify this."

Listening to Ichinose's poised and articulate speech, Uesugi Gen curled his lip. I thought this girl was the type to be all chest and no brains, but it turns out she's not only well-endowed, she's also sharp.

Seeing that Ichinose had finished, Kanzaki also stood up to add, "Hoshinomiya, will these 100,000 points be issued every month, or is this month a special case? If it's just for the first month, I could understand it as the school providing funds for students to cover their initial living expenses. But if we receive 100,000 points every month, then just as Ichinose said, I don't think we possess that kind of value."

After hearing their questions, Hoshinomiya wore a satisfied smile and nodded.

"These 100,000 points, just as Kanzaki said, are not necessarily deposited every month. They are determined by the school based on your own value."

Value, huh?

Uesugi Gen's pupils contracted slightly as he precisely captured the key point in Hoshinomiya's statement.

"Then, Teacher, what are the criteria for evaluating these points?"

Ichinose continued to press Hoshinomiya.

"That is a prohibited topic."

Hoshinomiya crossed her arms over her chest and made a large 'X' sign.

Hearing Hoshinomiya's explanation, both Kanzaki and Ichinose lowered their heads, lost in thought.

Seeing that Ichinose and the others had fallen silent, Hoshinomiya comforted them.

"Alright, alright, you'll gradually come to understand these things once you get used to life here."

Seeing this, the others tactfully refrained from asking further questions.

After a moment of silence, Kanzaki turned his head.

"Uesugi, what do you think?"

"Me? I'm just sitting here watching. There's too little information available right now to draw any conclusions. We'll just have to wait for the school to release more news."

"True. It seems that's all we can do for now."

Uesugi Gen watched this exchange quietly, having no intention of getting involved.

It seemed Hoshinomiya had been instructed by the school not to disclose specific details, so no amount of questioning would yield answers. Even if they did manage to pry something out of her, it would likely only cause trouble for her.

Uesugi Gen could see that Hoshinomiya had the desire to tell the students the truth, but was constrained by the school and could only provide hints. If not for that, the students wouldn't have known so much information from the very start, so he didn't want to make things difficult for his newly acquainted homeroom teacher.

As for intelligence, there were plenty of ways to get it if one really wanted to.

The simplest method would be to tell Shibata to squat in the second or third-year restrooms for a day and eavesdrop. He didn't know about the first years, but the upperclassmen definitely knew something. Men were a species particularly fond of sharing secrets while taking a leak; in a day, he would surely hear something.

However, that would be no different from cheating. It was better to follow the school's arrangement and see what kind of tricks they had up their sleeves.

"Remember to go to Gymnasium 1 in an hour for the entrance ceremony. I have some faculty meetings to attend, so I won't be joining you. You are free to use this time as you see fit."

After leaving the class with a sweet smile, Hoshinomiya walked out of the room.

"Well then, during this time, let's do a simple self-introduction so we can spend these three years happily together."

Ichinose said, full of energy, while standing at the podium.

When did you get up there?

Watching Ichinose, who had somehow flashed to the podium, Uesugi Gen was speechless.

This woman's social skills were maxed out. It was terrifying; she was an unstoppable force.

Although it wasn't obvious, from the perspective of Uesugi Gen, the quality of the students in each class from A to D showed a clear disparity.

Class A didn't need any guidance from teachers; they had already consciously lined up and were waiting quietly for the entrance ceremony to begin.

Class B had also lined up on their own, but they were still whispering to the new friends they had just met nearby.

By the time it reached Class C, there was no such thing as a line; the students were standing around casually, chatting away with new classmates.

Uesugi Gen even spotted bruises from fighting on a few of the students.

As for Class D, they were even more bizarre, loudly discussing how to spend their 100,000 points, boasting, lying, and cracking lewd jokes without any regard for the occasion.

They were even laughing boisterously, appearing quite proud of themselves.

Although a very small number of students were desperately trying to stop such behavior, it was clearly a lost cause.

Such a distinct arrangement could clearly not be a coincidence.

With the four classes of A, B, C, and D, the school must have categorized them by some form of merit when they were first sorted.

Although the specific criteria for this division were unknown, student quality clearly accounted for a significant portion.

Looking at it this way, he was actually quite lucky to be assigned to Class B; Class A was too serious and dull, which didn't suit him.

If it were Class C, the students were too energetic, getting into fights on the very first day—it wouldn't be good if they accidentally damaged the flowers or plants.

As for Class D, in the eyes of Uesugi Gen, some of them couldn't even be called students; they lacked the basic qualities required to be one.

Therefore, Class B was the best; although he had been cursed by the wicked Ichinose, overall it was still quite good, with harmonious classmate relationships, a willingness to help, and a decent level of quality.

The entrance ceremony was no different from that of a typical school.

After Uesugi Gen drowsily listened to the principal's speech, it came to a smooth conclusion.

In the morning, after a general overview of the school's relevant information, the class was dismissed, leaving the students to their own devices.