Your Majesty, Why the Rebellion?

"..."

I see.

Once the gap was wide enough, no amount of improvement would make a difference. It would only change the deduction from five thousand points to one thousand.

By that logic,

there was no telling whether the students in Class D would believe Hirata Yosuke and the others. Some might even cling to wishful thinking and assume it was all a lie.

At that thought,

Kijima Tsukur furrowed his brow. This had indeed come as a surprise.

His goal was for everyone to graduate from Class A, so naturally, the more Class Points and savings they had, the better.

Based on his original estimate, after the information was made public,

all four classes' Class Points

should have been at least five hundred.

Classes B and C had met expectations. Class B had even nearly surpassed Class A. Only Class D was lower than expected.

The plan needed to be adjusted.

Class D being this useless was both good and bad.

The downside was that Class D was worse than expected. The upside was, naturally, that Class D was worse than expected.

"Yamamura."

"Yes~"

Yamamura Miki hurriedly picked up a chair and trotted to the podium to set it down.

She was almost used to it by now. Whenever Kijima Tsukur called her, it was usually for something like this.

As Kijima Tsukur stood, the people around him unconsciously moved aside. He walked to the podium, sat down, and held up two fingers as he looked at the people below.

"Two things. First, about the midterms."

"I trust that with your grades, none of you need anyone to push you to study. Still, to be safe, Sakayanagi will lead everyone in study sessions."

"..."

No one said much.

After all, they were Class A. Kijima Tsukur didn't need to explain the importance of studying; they already understood it.

There were no students in Class A who would fail an exam!

Even if they were failing now, they would catch up on their own by the next test.

"Next."

Kijima Tsukur turned to Katsuragi. "Katsuragi, buy last year's quizzes and midterm exam papers from the upperclassmen. The budget is capped at five thousand personal points. Any objections?"

"Hm?"

Katsuragi stood and frowned. "Buy exam papers? What do you mean?"

"Do you remember what Mashima said just now?"

Kijima Tsukur explained calmly. "He said, 'I believe there's a way to avoid failing and make it through the exams.' Simply taking the exams as usual won't guarantee that no one fails."

"I suspect there's a way to pass the exams with a hundred percent success rate. The only thing I can think of right now is buying last year's exam papers from the upperclassmen. Any objections?"

"Hold on."

Totsuka Yahiko furrowed his brow, looking displeased.

"If that's the case, isn't five thousand personal points too little? Aren't you taking advantage of them?"

"Totsuka, five thousand is a reasonable amount."

Katsuragi shook his head and reassured him. "I don't have any objections."

"If needed, I can pay those personal points myself."

Kijima Tsukur explained calmly:

For Class A,

spending five thousand personal points was perfectly reasonable.

After all,

with Class A's academic performance, they didn't need these exam papers.

The stronger you were, the more bargaining power you had, so the fewer personal points you needed to spend.

If it were Class C or Class D instead,

the upperclassmen would surely judge them by their circumstances and demand more personal points.

No one had any objections. As long as Katsuragi thought he could negotiate a good deal, that was fine.

"The second thing."

Under the confused gaze of the others, Kijima Tsukur spoke in an indifferent voice.

"You're now allowed to hand your personal points over to me!"

Chapter 39: Your Majesty, Why the Rebellion?

"Huh?"

Hashimoto Masayoshi and the others were dumbfounded.

They weren't unwilling to pool Class Points, as long as it was for something that benefited the class.

Otherwise,

they could save the points themselves. Why hand their personal points to someone else? The students in Class A had that much self-control.

But the problem was...

What did Kijima Tsukur mean by saying he was allowing them to hand over their personal points?

"Hm?"

Katsuragi looked at Kijima Tsukur and asked with a frown, "What do you need personal points for?"

"To give them to Class D."

"Huh?"

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Except for a few people, the entire class stood up, staring in astonishment at Kijima Tsukur on the podium.

Katsuragi's brow furrowed even more deeply.

"Kijima, what does this mean?"

"Don't worry. I'll explain the rules."

Kijima Tsukur stood and walked to the front of the podium. Looking at the people below, he raised a finger.

"You can choose to hand your personal points over to me, but the amount must be a multiple of thirty thousand. For example, thirty thousand, sixty thousand, ninety thousand, and so on."

"You'll need to think carefully. Once you decide to give me those personal points, you'll have to hand over the same amount every month from then on."

"Then I'll give the personal points to the people in Class D who need them, in thirty-thousand-point portions per person."

"Based on my estimate, since Class D is this bad, quite a few of them have probably already spent all their personal points in the first month. They must be very short on points right now."

"Of course, I'll make a contract with them. From now on, any personal points Class D receives from the school will be handed over to me first, and I'll redistribute them."

"If they have more than thirty thousand, then the excess points will belong to us. Any surplus will be returned to you. If they have less than thirty thousand, you'll have to accept the loss."

"So the amount we need to spend may not be very high."

"The points will be returned on a first-come, first-served basis. Whoever hands their personal points to me first will have priority when it comes to getting points back."

"If you want to hand over your personal points, do it soon."

"..."

Silence.

All of Class A fell completely quiet.

The students stared at Kijima Tsukur on the podium in astonishment.

It was over.

This wasn't a case of "I'm ready to fight to the death, Your Majesty—why have you surrendered first?"

This was the Emperor rebelling against himself!

At that moment,

Hashimoto Masayoshi and the others could think of only one question.

What made him think they would hand over their personal points to him so he could give them to students in another class?

What on earth was going through this guy's head?

"I object."

Sakayanagi Arisu raised her hand.

The cheerful smile she usually wore was gone.

After all, she couldn't read Kijima Tsukur at all. She had never met anyone like him.

But Sakayanagi Arisu knew one thing.

She needed to plant a flag and stand against Kijima Tsukur. If she did that, everyone who opposed him would naturally gather on her side.

"Heh..."

At that moment, a member of the Sakayanagi Faction scoffed. "I object too. I can't see what good this would do at all."

His name was Morishige Takuro.

He wasn't as influential as Kamuro Masumi and the others, but he was still one of the Sakayanagi Faction's core members. He had a short temper, but knew how to keep it in check.

He had held back ever since the start of the school year, but now he couldn't take it anymore.

"No, there are benefits."

The one who answered wasn't Kijima Tsukur. It was Katsuragi, who frowned as he spoke.

"If we can gain the power to redistribute some of the points belonging to students in Class D, we could use that to control them. After that, it would be nearly impossible for Class D to unite and oppose the upper classes."

That was one of the advantages of Class A.

Even without Kijima Tsukur, they could tell the difference between benefits and drawbacks.

"Heh... Katsuragi?"

Morishige Takuro pounded the desk and snapped, unable to hold himself back. "Let's say you're right. Then answer me this: is it necessary?"

Exactly!

The question wasn't whether there were benefits. It was whether it was necessary!

A useless class like Class D, which had known the rules and still managed to lose all one thousand of its Class Points—

Was there any need to control them?

And they were supposed to spend Class A's personal points every month to support that bunch of trash?

Expecting to get their money back?

They couldn't even imagine it.

A class that pathetic probably wouldn't make its money back even by graduation.

Even Katsuragi thought it was hardly necessary. A useless class like Class D wasn't even on their radar.

Class A's rival should obviously be Class B.

Even now, no one believed Kijima Tsukur's policy of getting everyone into Class A. It was something they simply couldn't believe in.