You Did It Too? / I Did It Too!

"Then I'll leave the specifics to Liang. I have other things to do myself, so I'll be going now."

"Hmm, there are still fifty minutes before class starts. It should be cool enough for me to take a nap. Sweet dreams--"

Okay, see you at school this afternoon.

As the energetic Ichinose Honami turned and left with a flourish, Kitagawa Ryo could only stare helplessly at the barely touched cup of cocoa in front of him.

Although he didn't know what Honami was planning, he definitely felt that Hui was now in great danger.

Chapter 287: You did it too?

For the students in Class 1-A, one thing that is very noticeable is that since the start of the second semester and the release of the rules for the Sports Festival, the atmosphere in the class has become somewhat subtle. It even gives the impression that although everyone has been promoted to Class A, they don't seem to be that happy.

The reason for this complex mentality is twofold. On the one hand, the title of Class A does put considerable pressure on them. After all, after just one summer, they went from being challengers in the arena to becoming the final boss guarding the arena, and anyone would need time to adjust.

Another problem naturally arose between Hoshinomiya Chie and class president Karuizawa Kei. As the Sports Festival closer, even the most oblivious students in Class A could sense the discord and disagreements between the two.

Unlike Kanzaki Ryuji and Himeno Yuki, who had previously approached Kitagawa Ryo about this matter, the vast majority of the Class A students maintained their characteristic of extremely poor initiative in this incident, remaining completely silent.

Of course, on the other hand, one could also argue that they genuinely believed Karuizawa Kei or Hoshinomiya Chie would voluntarily step down, allowing Class A to return to its former happy and harmonious atmosphere, after all, that's how they got to where they were before, and besides, they even rose to become Class A, didn't they?

As if to prove that friendship, class, and bonds truly exist, and with the heartfelt wishes of the students in Class A, a little over a week before the official opening of the Sports Festival, and two days before the start of the prediction contest, Hoshinomiya Chie and Karuizawa Kei, who had previously been somewhat estranged and distant, suddenly thawed their relationship and stood together on the stage as if they had reconciled, as if all the previous discord had been an illusion.

Sitting in the front row, Kanzaki Ryuji didn't show the same surprised expression as his classmates. Looking at the two people on the stage who seemed to have reached a consensus, he couldn't help but recall the scene he had witnessed after school yesterday.

As it turns out, Kitagawa Ryo's promise to them at the karaoke that day to temporarily divert Hoshinomiya's attention was not a lie. However, the method he used was quite cheesy, since it was really just a sarcastic remark to draw attention to himself.

"Ryo might officially transfer to Class D after this Sports Festival."

When Karuizawa Kei casually uttered those words yesterday, Kanzaki Ryuji, who had accompanied her to see Hoshinomiya Chie, could clearly see his homeroom teacher's facial muscles twitch slightly.

"Ryo and Class D' s homeroom teacher Chabashira Sae, had a private meeting at the Special Building. The next day, the two classes began joint training for the Sports Festival."

"Karuizawa, aren't you dating Kitagawa?"

"We've seen each other much less since summer vacation, after all, he's dating more than just me."

At this point, Karuizawa Kei herself pouted slightly in dissatisfaction. The changes in her expression and tone left Kanzaki Ryuji stunned. If he hadn't heard Kitagawa Ryo say in the karaoke that their lack of contact during this period was just for show, he probably would have thought that the CP he had been genuinely shipping for several years had really collapsed.

"He does have a lot of girlfriends, but none of them are in Class D, right? So what's the point of going to Class D? Is it for that Kushida Kikyo? It can't be because of that Chabashira..."

Hoshinomiya Chie instinctively retorted, but stopped herself halfway through her sentence. As the person who knew Chabashira Sae best (in her own opinion), she was quite aware of how much the other party still harbored resentment towards Kitagawa Ryo after the Uninhabited Island Special Exam. This was also clearly evident from their conversation about the 'class ace' on the cruise ship.

People tend to view and measure everything in the world through their own eyes and values, Hoshinomiya Chie is no exception.

As someone whose private life was so scandalous that it was almost common knowledge within the faculty, Hoshinomiya Chie herself had harbored some unspeakable feelings for Kitagawa Ryo in the past.

On one hand, Kitagawa Ryo's looks are indeed quite striking, so she's not at a disadvantage.

On the other hand, at that time, Kitagawa Ryo was relentlessly pursuing Class A because of Ayanokoji Kiyotaka. Hoshinomiya Chie liked students who were both willing and capable of helping her target Chabashira Sae. In essence, she also had some intention of using her, but the other party was always unyielding, so she made no progress.

Under this mindset, Hoshinomiya Chie never hesitated to assume the Malice about Chabashira Sae's thoughts, so her first thought was, 'She did it too!'

Although Hoshinomiya Chie herself didn't think Chabashira Sae was much prettier than her, she still had to admit that compared to herself, whose reputation was known with just a little inquiry, Chabashira Sae, who had completely closed her heart and kept herself pure after that one-day romance ten years ago, might, perhaps, possibly be more attractive?

What if Kitagawa Ryo actually likes her mature, sophisticated vibe?

Moreover, given Chabashira Sae's bizarre obsession after arriving on the Uninhabited Island— "I can't even imagine how many months I'd have to be the homeroom teacher of Class A if Kitagawa came to our class"—she probably wouldn't even need Chabashira Kitagawa Ryo to say a couple of classic lines like, "Chabashira, you don't want Class D to be Class D forever, do you?" Chabashira Sae would just walk right up to him.

Of course, Kanzaki Ryuji had no idea what his homeroom teacher, whose expression had suddenly become unpredictable, was thinking. He only heard the other person utter this sentence after a long silence:

"Kitagawa absolutely cannot go to Class D, not even if there's a one percent chance."

Perhaps she herself also agrees with the 'ace theory' proposed by Chabashira Sae, Hoshinomiya Chie said firmly. In any case, she would never allow Kitagawa Ryo to transfer to Class D.

Chabashira Sae and her class should stay in Class D forever; moving forward is something she cannot tolerate.

"I think so too, so in order to prevent this from happening, we should prepare in advance."

Following Hoshinomiya Chie's lead, Karuizawa Kei held up two fingers:

"We also need to prepare 20 million Private Points as quickly as possible, just like the Reversal Revolution in the Monopoly game. As long as the opponent makes the first move, we will use these 20 million points to turn the tide."

"You want to transfer him to our class, right, Karuizawa?"

As if sensing Karuizawa Kei's true thoughts, Hoshinomiya Chie suddenly smiled and asked Karuizawa Kei a question.

"It's better than letting Ryo stay in Class D, right, Hoshinomiya?"

The two smiled at each other and looked at each other for a while, until finally Hoshinomiya Chie spoke first:

"I won't get involved in this Sports Festival anymore, but Kitagawa absolutely cannot transfer into Chabashira's class."

"No problem."

Thus, the homeroom teacher and class monitor of Class A, who had reached a consensus on matters concerning Kitagawa Ryo, once again formed an unbreakable alliance, which led to the close cooperation between teachers and students that the students of Class 1-A see now.

Thinking of this, Kanzaki Ryuji couldn't help but sigh again.

After all, this incident made him realize one thing: that his class teacher was indeed a madman who would go berserk whenever it involved Chabashira Sae.

From this perspective, the class monitor in my class is also a love-obsessed person who becomes extremely stubborn when it comes to anything related to Kitagawa Ryo, determined to achieve her goal no matter what.

But Kanzaki Ryuji only had one sentence to say about it.

I'm the one who's hypocritical online!

When is Kitagawa coming to Class A? I don't need this vice class monitor position!

Unlike Kanzaki Ryuji, who was already lost in thought and completely absorbed in his own world, Karuizawa Kei remained absolutely calm and clear-headed.

Having previously persuaded Sakura Airi, based on their long-standing friendship, to freeze the crucial ten million Private Points that could absolutely change the situation, she had been pondering how to raise those twenty million herself.

The current Class Points Class 1-A are 601, which means that each student received 60,100 Private Points at the beginning of the month. The class has 39 students, for a total of 2,343,900 points. Last semester, the Class Points for Class A hovered around 500.

In other words, even if we start counting from April when school starts, assuming that all the students in Class A don't use any Private Points, the total number of Private Points that the whole class has obtained through Class Points is only about 12 million.

But in reality, even if she were to collect all the students' Private Points now, she could probably only get five or six million at most, since everyone living in Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School couldn't possibly not spend their Private Points.

Karuizawa Kei herself wasn't exactly flush with cash. Her group ranked third in the Uninhabited Island Special Exam, and she only received a reward of 300,000 Private Points from the school. Adding her past savings and the points she earned through winning competitions in the Drama Club, she only had a little over 500,000 Private Points.

However, this did not prevent Karuizawa Kei from choosing to try her luck with a small bet in this guessing game.

If she can successfully predict a major upset in a highly anticipated project, she has the opportunity to multiply her initial investment several times over.

In the two days leading up to the start of the guessing game, the school issued a new set of detailed rules to explain the specific gameplay to the students.

The school cited the following example:

A and B both bet on student C in the "Who do you think will be the top scorer in the entire grade at this year's Sports Festival?" contest. A bet 10,000 Private Points, while B bet 5,000 Private Points. Among the students participating in this contest, only A and B chose student C; the others voted for students D, E, F, and so on. The total prize pool for the entire contest eventually reached 5,015,000 Private Points.

However, student C unexpectedly became the overall scorer. A and B's bets were successful. After recovering their principal and paying a 5% handling fee to the school, they shared the remaining 4.75 million Private Points according to their betting amount.

That is, A, who bets 10,000 Private Points, will eventually receive two-thirds, or more than 3.16 million, in prize money; B, who bets 5,000 Private Points, will eventually receive one-third, or more than 1.58 million.

Simply put, the more Private Points you invest, the higher your share will be if your bet is successful.

From this perspective, it's clear the school is deliberately tempting students who want to gamble on an upset. Even if you invest your thousands of Private Points into seemingly risk-free options, the points you'll ultimately receive are minimal. So why not gamble on an upset?

If you're the only one who correctly predicted that upset, then you'll get 100% of the winnings.

For Karuizawa Kei now, what she wants to find is a betting project with high attention, a large prize pool, and the ability to make her feel completely satisfied.

It's probably true that all the students in the school are looking for this kind of project right now.

However, unlike them, Karuizawa Kei certainly didn't think that such a good thing, like a pie falling from the sky, would just fall straight into her head.

What she actually did was to artificially and proactively create such an opportunity, which is what is known as manipulation.

Creating hype, attracting funds, and then swallowing them all at once—it all feels like a scam.

As the school itself has pointed out, the top scorers in each grade and even the whole school will naturally attract much more attention. Judging from the popularity of the forum these past few days, they will also be the ones with the largest prize pool after the guessing game officially begins.

Thinking of this, Karuizawa Kei also glanced at Shibata Sō in the class with a subtle look. If there was any student in Class A who had the hard power to compete for the top scorer among the First Year students, it was only Shibata. He was also one of the candidates who had received a lot of attention on the forum recently, and was compared with students such as Hirata Yosuke, Kitagawa Ryo, Ken Sudō, and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka. There should be quite a few people betting on him.

However, Karuizawa Kei still felt that Shibata Sō's strength was a bit ambiguous, and if she were to choose, she might prefer to vote for Amasawa Ichika. It wasn't that she thought Ryo couldn't compete with Amasawa, but rather that the two tracks were completely different. She had witnessed Amasawa Ichika's physical abilities, and such a person, placed among a group of girls, seemed to have a greater gap than Kitagawa Ryo and all the other boys. After all, there was also Ayanokoji Kiyotaka among the boys.

Just as Karuizawa Kei was thoughtfully preparing to wait for the official start of the contest before taking any further action, Himeno Yuki from her class suddenly forwarded her a website address in a private message.

"Including our class, some of the entry forms from all four First Year classes were anonymously leaked on the forum!"

Chapter 288: I did it too!

As part of the competition application information from the four first- First Year classes was successively exposed on the school forum by an anonymous account, many second- and third-grade students also cast curious glances in this direction with great interest.

After all, compared to the First Year participating in the Sports Festival for the first time, the overall situation of the second and third years has been largely stabilized. Unless there are any major unforeseen events, the leading position of Class 2-A and Class 3-A is basically rock solid, and the students in each class know each other very well.

To put it bluntly, just like freshmen can ask upperclassmen for past exam papers for their Midterm Exam, even though this year's Sports Festival has added a new prediction game, it doesn't stop the current third-year students from digging up the participation lists of each class from the two Sports Festival they participated in over the past two years.

After all, you can't expect a sprinter who's been running the 100m and 200m for two years to suddenly switch to another event. It's no exaggeration to say that the entire third grade is well aware of the competition situation of other classes. They've already competed in two Sports Festival, so everyone knows who in your class will run which event. It's just that the specific order is not clear.

However, things are always a bit different in the First Year. Even after the Uninhabited Island Special Exam, the students' understanding of each other is limited to who has good physical fitness. But in fact, everyone has their own strengths. For example, Hirata Yosuke and Shibata Sō are rated equally by the school, but the latter has a higher short-distance burst of speed, while the former has better endurance. This kind of difference in track is the key factor that determines which event they participate in this Sports Festival.

In a sense, this is something that can only be understood after seeing the competition schedule, since apart from the B and D classes that are in joint training, the other classes are unaware of each other's actual training situation and data.

However, most students didn't think much of it, because the anonymous account that leaked the information seemed to have prepared in advance. The leaked content consisted entirely of the most discussed student-on-student conflicts on the forum in recent days, especially the first one, which he heavily highlighted in red:

"List of participants for the First Year boys' 100-meter event, Group 1:"

"Class 1-A: Shibata Sō,?"

"Class 1-B:?, Ken Sudō"

"Class 1-C: Ishizaki Daichi, Komiya Yogo"

"Class 1-D: Hirata Yosuke,?"

Of the five fragmented pieces of information released by the anonymous account so far, this one is undoubtedly the most attention-grabbing. After all, if the exposed list is true, it means that the three players who are considered by the forum to be candidates for the top scorer will face off in the first round.

Just when everyone was still skeptical, Ishizaki Daichi threw in a few curse words in the comments section with a rather shocked tone. Considering his usual level of intelligence and style of behavior, this subtly added a bit of persuasiveness.

However, other students quickly raised a question:

"While the entry forms for each class have indeed been finalized, they haven't been officially submitted yet. Even if what you've revealed is true, the classes could easily modify their entry forms and then submit them to the school."

A few seconds later, someone replied to him:

"Idiot, if everything the poster revealed is true, doesn't that mean he has the means to get information about all four First Year? Unless the class Leader the only ones who can prevent leaks, but even then, the students won't agree. After all, there are penalties for being in last place this time. What if someone uses him as a second-rate horse to throw him out on the field to trade with others?"

More students also expressed their opinions in the comments section. Under the influence of some Akito, the trend quickly shifted to the hope that each class would submit the competition forms in this way, without changing the order of each person's submission.

The reason is simple: this way, they can place their bets more accurately. Having information to calculate is much better than gambling on pure luck in the dark.

Of course, they wouldn't say that openly. They would use phrases like "I really want to see a fierce battle in the first group of the men's 100-meter event" and "Let's compete fairly and let our strength speak for itself." They would also intersperse some encouragement and sarcasm like "Whoever changes their partner is a coward and a grandson" and "I'm Ishizaki Daichi from Class C. Do you dare to race me? If you don't, call me grandpa next time we meet." Kitagawa Ryo himself couldn't help but chuckle at this.

It was lunchtime, and thanks to the fact that most students at Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School prefer to eat in the cafeteria, there weren't many people in the classroom. They were gathered in twos and threes, eating their homemade bento boxes or bread bought from convenience stores.

Kitagawa Ryo and Horikita Suzune were classmates, and since they both cooked their own meals, they eventually got used to putting their tables together and sitting opposite each other for lunch at this time.

However, what Horikita Suzune found a little uncomfortable was Shiina Hiyori, who had suddenly and forcefully squeezed into her and Kitagawa Ryo's lunchtime these past two days.

"Um, so what exactly is going on?"

"It's exactly what Suzune saw. I'm feeding a certain detective lady who can't take care of herself and can only sit in an armchair."

Having already accepted the fact that Shiina Hiyori and acting lazy Kitagawa Ryo calmly separated the bento box and neatly placed it in front of Hiyori along with the chopsticks, then pouted and muttered a remark:

"Even Watson never treated Sherlock Holmes like this back in the day, did he?"

"That's different. Ryo should know the unspoken rule in detective novels that the detective and his assistant must complement each other, right? A hot-tempered person should be paired with a nice guy, and a clueless person should be paired with a grumpy one. Ryo and I are like that too."

Shiina Hiyori clapped her hands solemnly, said "I'm starting," and then picked up her chopsticks to savor Kitagawa Ryo's cooking.

Meanwhile, Horikita Suzune, after making a great effort to ignore this third party who seemed out of place on the Sports Festival set, took the initiative to ask Kitagawa Ryo about the competition list, completely unaware that she was also an outsider to the situation.

"As for the entry form, Katsuragi's movements were slower than I expected, and I felt like I was a little reluctant myself."

Kitagawa Ryo swallowed a mouthful of rice, acting as if Shiina Hiyori, and quite naturally started talking to Horikita Suzune about today's number one trending topic.

"So it really was a student from Class D who leaked the information?"

"Yeah, our class deliberately let them know. Class C is a sieve, and it's also possible that Ryuen did it. As for Class A, someone probably fell for Hashimoto's charm. That's how scary it is to be obsessed with love."

Kitagawa Ryo remembered noticing something amiss on his first day of the cruise vacation when he went on a date with Karuizawa Kei. After all, Hashimoto Masayoshi was someone who had left an impression on him. So when he returned to school, he did some research and found out that Hashimoto Masayoshi was dating a girl from Class 1-A and had broken the heart of a girl from Class D who had a crush on him.

It can only be said that the students in Class 1-A probably really didn't expect there to be a scumbag in this grade who would use a relationship to cheat for information. The class's usual atmosphere also ensured that any decision had to be known and approved by everyone, which is why Hashimoto Masayoshi found an opportunity. After all, he had been setting up a scheme for more than a month since summer vacation, so it's normal to reap some rewards.

"However, the information on the entry form is all deceptive, so there's no need to take it too seriously. Don't Suzune think these comments below are funny? It seems like it's not just First Year students; second and third-year students are also getting a little excited."

"After all, the school doesn't stipulate that students in this grade can only participate in prediction contests related to their own grade. Besides, given the situation with the second-year students, if I were a second-year student, I would probably only put all my Private Points into the First Year' contests."

As she spoke, Horikita Suzune shifted her chair, Shiina Hiyori as Kitagawa Ryo. She couldn't help but ask her a question:

"Shiina doesn't seem too worried."

"Ah, because all my Private Points are tied up there, I'm now completely broke, so the predictions have nothing to do with me."