Akiyama Shin left the Class D classroom and headed straight for the First-Year Faculty Office without stopping.
He had already begun to form a rough outline of how the school operated. Now he needed crucial confirmation and more information to fill in the gaps.
He stopped in front of the office door, raised his hand, and knocked three times—not too hard, not too softly.
"Come in."
A calm woman's voice came from inside. It was Teacher Chabashira. At the sound of her voice, Akiyama Shin opened the door and entered. The office was very quiet, and Teacher Chabashira was the only one there.
She was sitting in her office chair, leaning back slightly, a long, slender cigarette held between her fingers.
Wisps of smoke drifted upward, softening her stern features.
When she saw that it was Akiyama Shin, her fingers holding the cigarette paused almost imperceptibly. Surprise flashed in her eyes, but it was quickly covered by her usual indifference.
"It's you."
She exhaled a smoke ring, her voice flat and emotionless.
"You're quick."
Akiyama Shin didn't reply. His eyes swept quickly over the office.
The furnishings were simple.
There were a few desks and filing cabinets. Then his gaze stopped on a standing fluorescent board in the corner of the office.
The board was divided into four sections, clearly labeled A, B, C, and D.
Each letter was followed by the same number: 1000.
A: 1000 B: 1000 C: 1000 D: 1000
All four classes had exactly the same number of starting points: 1000. It matched one of the possibilities he had considered.
Teacher Chabashira had naturally noticed Akiyama Shin's gaze settle on the fluorescent board. She said nothing, simply watching him in silence, curious to see how this seemingly unusual student would react.
His next move, however, was completely beyond her expectations.
Without changing his expression, he took out the terminal phone he had just received, unlocked it, and pointed it at the fluorescent board in the corner. With a smooth motion, he snapped a clear photo.
Then he tapped the screen rapidly, apparently turning on the recording function.
Only after that did he slip the phone back into his pocket. The whole process was as natural as taking a picture of notes on a classroom blackboard.
Teacher Chabashira froze, even forgetting to take a drag of her cigarette.
In all her years of teaching, she had never encountered a student who dared to take photos as evidence so openly in the teachers' office.
She frowned and stubbed out the cigarette, which was still half-smoked, in the ashtray. Her voice carried a hint of displeasure.
"Akiyama, it's best not to take pictures whenever you please in the office."
Only then did Akiyama Shin turn his eyes to her. He walked over to her desk and stopped less than half a meter away.
His dark red eyes, partly concealed by his black hair, looked down at Teacher Chabashira. There was none of the fear or nervousness that teenage boys often felt around strict teachers.
Only an unfathomable calm.
Then he spoke.
In that flat, unruffled tone, he asked a question that could make any teacher fly into a rage.
"Teacher Chabashira, how many points would it take for you to spend a night with me?"
The air seemed to freeze.
The indifference on Teacher Chabashira's face shattered in an instant, replaced by a mixture of shock, disbelief, and even a trace of offended anger.
She stared at him for a full two seconds before forcing a sound from her throat, as though checking she hadn't misheard.
"Huh?"
She leaned forward slightly, her sharp eyes fixed on Akiyama Shin as if she could find even the faintest trace of a joke or provocation on his face.
But she found none.
His handsome face showed only the earnest look of someone asking a question, as if he really were inquiring about the price of a product.
"Akiyama Shin..."
Teacher Chabashira's voice turned cold, carrying a clear note of warning.
"I think there are a few things you need to understand. First, I'm not the kind of woman you seem to think I am. Second, don't assume that just because you've discovered that points can buy everything, you can do whatever you want and insult people at will. Third—"
She emphasized her words.
"Even if points really can buy certain things outside the ordinary, your mere hundred thousand points are nowhere near enough to catch my interest. Don't be so full of yourself."
Akiyama Shin had done this on purpose. It was an outrageous test.
First, he needed to determine where the limits of the school rules lay within this closed-off academy.
Judging by common sense, the school rules couldn't possibly take precedence over the laws of the country.
But on this isolated island, what mattered was how strictly the school rules were actually enforced and how far they reached.
What he truly wanted to probe was how flexible the rules were and how far the school's tacit approval extended.
Teacher Chabashira's reaction—especially her remark that even if points could really buy it, a mere hundred thousand wouldn't interest her—had revealed several key pieces of information.
1. The purchasing power of points, along with the limits and scope of what they could buy, depended to a large extent on the other party's willingness and how much the school was prepared to turn a blind eye.
Not everything had a set price. It was more like an equivalent exchange within an unspoken system.
2. Saying she wasn't interested meant the price was too low. By extension, if he had enough points, could this kind of gray-market transaction actually be possible?
And, perhaps...
Had something similar really happened before?
3. The school might not completely prohibit certain acts on the border of legality and morality. Instead, it might turn a blind eye as long as things didn't get out of hand or cross the legal line, allowing them to take place discreetly within the points system.
The test had been extremely risky, but the information he'd gained was valuable.
It had begun to sketch out the harsher, more naked logic hidden beneath the beautiful façade of Heaven Academy.
In the face of Teacher Chabashira's cold rebuke, Akiyama Shin showed no sign of panic or desire to apologize.
He simply listened quietly, as if analyzing every piece of information revealed by her words.
Seeing how Akiyama Shin seemed impervious to persuasion, Teacher Chabashira felt a flicker of something beyond irritation.
This student...
He was too calm! Too calm to be a high schooler!
He hadn't asked that question to indulge some lowbrow interest. It seemed more like a... test?
She suppressed her feelings and regained her composure as a teacher, deciding to steer the conversation back on track.
She leaned back in her chair, crossed her hands on the desk, and fixed Akiyama Shin with a sharp gaze.
"All right. That pointless test ends here."
"You didn't come to ask me some stupid question like that. Get to the point. How much have you figured out?"
She meant his understanding of the school's rules.
At her words, a faint glimmer passed through Akiyama Shin's dark red eyes.
It was time to demonstrate his value.
And time to obtain more information.
He didn't answer directly. Instead, he calmly replied with the certainty of someone who had already seen through everything.
"You know."
Those three words were vague.
Yet they were full of implication.
Teacher Chabashira was taken aback.
She knew? What did she know?
But the next second, she suddenly understood what Akiyama Shin might mean.
Was he saying that he already knew everything she knew about the core rules? How could that be?!
He had been at the school for less than an hour!
He had worked it out to this extent from a few clues and the shock of receiving a hundred thousand points?!
A wave of shock surged through Teacher Chabashira. For a moment, she forgot to maintain her indifferent expression. Her pupils contracted slightly, and her lips pressed together unconsciously.
However, Akiyama Shin keenly noticed that her reaction wasn't just shock. It was mixed with more complicated emotions: a trace of conflict, a trace of expectation, and a trace of unease that was difficult to detect.
Something was off...
Akiyama Shin's mind raced.
The competitive nature of the school was already a certainty.
As the class instructor, her goal was naturally to lead her class into Class A. This was likely tied directly to her performance evaluations, salary, and bonuses.
But when Teacher Chabashira heard his deductions, she should first have doubted whether they were true or assessed his abilities. She shouldn't have reacted with this mixture of expectation and anxiety. That was more like the reaction of someone carrying a heavy burden who had glimpsed a faint hope. She... might have a reason she had to get Class D into Class A, and that reason could be far more important than her salary or performance.
A bold hypothesis took shape in Akiyama Shin's mind.
He needed to probe further to test it, while keeping the initiative firmly in his own hands.
So, while Teacher Chabashira was still stunned and hadn't yet gathered her thoughts, Akiyama Shin leaned slightly toward her. His red eyes seemed to hold a strange power as they locked onto hers. In a clear, forceful voice, he made his promise—or perhaps his declaration.
"I can lead Class D into Class A."
Teacher Chabashira's body visibly stiffened.
The words exploded in her ears like a thunderclap.
She stared blankly at the black-haired, red-eyed boy before her, unable to speak for a moment.
Lead Class D into Class A?
How many years had it been? She had heard countless Class D students express such dreams, some naively and others arrogantly. But no one had ever said it like Akiyama Shin—so calmly, so certainly, as if it were an established fact rather than a distant goal.
The shock she felt was beyond words.
Expectation, doubt, disbelief, and the deep-buried resentment she had carried all surged together in that moment.
Several seconds passed before she managed to find her voice. It was slightly hoarse, and she asked tentatively,
"Then how are you planning to do that?"
She hadn't denied it outright or mocked him for reaching beyond his grasp. She had asked how he planned to do it. That alone was a tacit acknowledgment, a silent confirmation: class rankings were indeed tied to the A, B, C, and D classifications, and they could change. It completely confirmed Akiyama Shin's original guess.
Akiyama Shin understood. He had found his opening. No longer holding back, he began clearly explaining his reasoning, both to demonstrate his ability and to draw more details from Teacher Chabashira's reactions.
"There are forty students in each class and 160 in each year. With three years, that makes 480 students."
His speech was steady.
"On the way here, I was already wondering how the school's currency circulation system could be maintained. Meals and accommodations are free, yet there are so many entertainment and shopping options."
"How many personal points are handed out to all three years each month? If everyone starts with a hundred thousand, that's forty-eight million yen. That's only one month's expenses. What about a year? Three years? Add the teachers' salaries and the costs of running and maintaining the facilities, and the total is astronomical."
"The so-called 100% advancement and employment rates sound more like a verbal trap."
"If they only count after certain conditions have been met—such as getting into Class A, perhaps? Or... eliminating every student who lacks the necessary ability before graduation, so that only those who meet the standard graduate—then achieving 100% in the statistics would be easy."
"When I saw the four classes labeled A, B, C, and D, I'd already all but confirmed that there must be competition between the classes, or even between the year groups, based on what I suspected about the currency system."
"And the hundred thousand points we just received have practically made that competition explicit."
"Besides, just because points are handed out every month doesn't mean students receive a hundred thousand points every month, right?"
He paused and glanced at the fluorescent board in the corner.
"And the uniform 1000 points listed beside each class on that board are the key."
"My guess is that there are two kinds of points."
Akiyama Shin raised two fingers.
"One is Personal Points, what we just received, which can be used for purchases."
"The other is Class Points."
"Class Points are probably directly tied to the number of Personal Points handed out each month."
"So, the initial 1000 Class Points correspond to 100,000 Personal Points."
"Then everyday conduct, regular exams, special events—all of these are probably used to evaluate and adjust the Class Points."
"And this school seems more like a miniature society to me."
"The evaluation criteria can't possibly be limited to academic and physical test scores on paper. They probably cover leadership, teamwork, social connections, and even insight into the rules and the ability to take advantage of them—in other words, these so-called soft skills...?"
Teacher Chabashira listened in silence. Her expression had gradually shifted from its initial shock to a complicated solemnity.
She didn't interrupt or confirm anything. But a hard-to-describe light flickered in the depths of her sharp eyes.
This Akiyama Shin... his insight and logical reasoning were terrifying!
From just a few scattered clues, he had almost pieced together most of the truth!
When Akiyama Shin finished speaking, a brief silence fell over the office.
Teacher Chabashira took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Looking at Akiyama Shin, she finally spoke in an ambiguous tone.
"Perhaps you're right."
She couldn't directly reveal the rules. Her role as a teacher restricted her. But for Akiyama Shin, her saying "Perhaps you're right" was already as direct a confirmation as he could get.
Akiyama Shin immediately understood her predicament.
He hadn't needed Teacher Chabashira to admit it outright.
His reasoning was already solid enough. What he needed now was something more practical.
However, his next question once again caught Teacher Chabashira off guard.
He looked at Teacher Chabashira and asked in complete seriousness,
"Then, Teacher Chabashira, how many points would it take to get the right to verify?"
Teacher Chabashira froze again.
Her mind even went blank for an instant.
V-verification right?
She had already hinted at things so clearly. Why was he still insisting that she confirm it aloud? Couldn't he see that the rules prevented her from saying so directly?
But then an even more alarming, even bolder idea stabbed into her mind like an icicle, sending a chill through her in an instant.
Akiyama Shin had bought the Verification Right. Maybe he hadn't wanted her to verify it for him in person at all.
He'd wanted some kind of official or authoritative confirmation that the rules were correct.
He wasn't asking her for answers!
He was laying the groundwork!
After all, if he couldn't verify the information, he'd have no choice but to keep it to himself. He also needed to tell the students in Class D—and they'd have to rely on teamwork.
Akiyama Shin's goal, from the very beginning, hadn't been merely to understand the rules and adapt to them.
He wanted to use the rules to turn the tables on his rivals. He wanted to take the initiative and go after the other classes?!
Chabashira Sae looked at the black-haired boy before her. His expression was calm, but his eyes were as deep as an abyss.
For the first time, she truly felt what it meant to be shaken—and sensed a faint chill mixed with anticipation.
Class D...
Perhaps this time, a truly extraordinary monster had arrived...
Before you continue