At Classroom of the Elite, My Future Daughter Gives Me a Helping Hand: A Boost from My Future Daughter

If Shirogane had thought Horikita Suzune, the girl he'd seen in the elevator that morning, seemed aloof, then this purple-haired girl was even colder. She'd flat-out refused to interact with anyone.

[She's lying.]

A voice sounded in Shirogane's mind.

At the same time,

Shirogane also thought the girl was lying. When she'd looked up and seen him, a flicker of surprise had clearly crossed her eyes before she quickly looked away.

It was the expression of someone who felt a little guilty and was trying hard to keep her composure.

Of course, the most suspicious thing was that when Shirogane had asked if she was having some kind of trouble, she'd replied that she hadn't lost anything.

That was an answer to a question he hadn't asked.

Shirogane had deliberately phrased it that way to test her, but she'd answered honestly.

So maybe she wasn't very bright.

And she'd clearly recognized him, yet had insisted she didn't know him. That meant she wanted to distance herself from him.

So,

although it might sound a little rude, Shirogane was sure that the SD card he'd found outside the Electronics Store in the Shopping District belonged to her. There might be something shocking on it, which was why she'd deliberately tried to distance herself from him and didn't want anyone to know the card was hers.

But he should take care of his own business first.

Shirogane had already shown himself to her. If the SD card was important to her, she'd definitely come looking for him sooner or later.

Buying a laptop and a USB drive had taken some time, so Shirogane headed straight to the supermarket.

The supermarket had plenty of supplies, but there were so many options that it was where he'd spend the most time.

After buying everything he needed for daily life, Shirogane could finally sit down and rest for a while.

"Beep!"

Just then, Classmate Shiina sent him a file.

He didn't even need to open it to know what it was: the video of Classmate Ryuen beating someone up.

Shirogane knew this was important, so he immediately plugged his computer into the power, turned it on, made a backup, and copied the file to the USB drive.

The whole package.

When he was done, Shirogane noticed that Classmate Shiina had sent him another message.

It was a notification from the chat app.

Apparently, every student was automatically registered for the app using the information on their Student ID.

Classmate Shiina had sent him an invitation.

"Would you like to join the Class 1-C group chat?"

So it was the class group chat.

Naturally, he should join.

Actually, Shirogane had a few thoughts about all this. The school had students compete as classes, and their class evaluation scores were the sole measure of the rankings.

During their first month, the new students would take the Behavioral Standards Exam. They'd lose points for behaving in ways that didn't befit a high school student. Those points would be deducted from the class's initial score of 1,000.

So, basically, the first month was all about losing points.

And only Class 3-A could graduate representing the school.

That meant the scores of the four classes fluctuated over time. If they saw a chance to climb, they'd want to seize it, while the classes at the top would fight tooth and nail to stop them.

That was competition.

And that was exactly how things worked. According to the upperclassmen, there was basically a Special Exam every month.

The exams involved rewards or penalties to Private Points and class evaluation scores.

That was why the rankings of the four classes could change.

For now, though, it was only their first month at school, so they only needed to think about how to hold on to their initial 1,000 points.

But...

Shirogane was sitting at a desk, with a notebook in front of him. In it, he'd written down the penalties two upperclassmen had told him they'd been given.

Reading manga in class — points deducted

Using a phone in class — points deducted

Sleeping in class — points deducted

Being late, leaving early, skipping class — points deducted

Inappropriate behavior — points deducted

Fighting — major points deducted

It didn't seem like anything too serious. These were things any good student should avoid.

But if all these things cost points, were there no ways to earn any?

You only knew what your own class was like.

One person might be easy enough to keep in line, but a class had forty students. Every one of them could cost the class points, and the exam lasted thirty days.

"..."

Just thinking about it was terrifying.

During that very day's homeroom, he'd seen 80 percent of the class fiddling with their phones while the teacher was talking. Shirogane had done it too, though he'd been recording the lesson.

As Shirogane struggled to figure out what to do, he remembered the SD card he'd found on the road outside the Electronics Store in the Shopping District.

He was almost certain that the SD card belonged to the girl with the purple hair clip, and she seemed extremely wary of it.

The contents of the SD card must have been shocking, and she couldn't let them get out.

Normally, he would've taken a lost item straight to the Student Council's lost-and-found. But the Student Council staff would probably check what was on the card, too. If they saw something shocking, the Purple-Haired Girl might be mortified.

He'd bought a card reader with the computer.

So he could take a look at what was on the SD card.

Beep!

It connected in no time.

Shirogane noticed several photos pop up.

And then—

!!

"..."

Shirogane was glad there were no cameras in the dorm room. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been the Purple-Haired Girl who lost face; he, Shirogane Miyuki, would've been the first student in Class C to lose points that day.

Chapter 16: Someone Heading to the Student Council—What a Coincidence!

The next day.

At school.

"Did you stay up studying last night too, Classmate Shirogane?"

A girl's voice came from the seat beside him as Shirogane arrived in the classroom.

It was Classmate Shiina.

Classmate Shiina was once again an obstacle on his path to studying, but after learning that she liked studying too, Shirogane found that he was becoming more resistant to her.

"I looked at something a little disturbing." Shirogane went to his seat, pulled out the chair, and sat down. "So I was a bit on edge, but I still studied."

But he still studied.

Listen to the strange things Classmate Shirogane said.

Did he mean that something had happened, but he still had to study anyway?

How scary!

Just then,

[Classmate Shiina seems impressed by your limits. She's wondering how anyone could push themselves this far.]

Hm?

Shirogane wasn't particularly surprised by the Narrator System's voice.

Was what he'd done really that impressive?

To Shirogane, this was just an ordinary part of his life.

He didn't think he had a talent for studying, so he could only work as hard as possible to catch up.

The reason went back to when he was little. He hadn't done well on his elementary school and kindergarten entrance exams, so he hadn't earned his mother's favor. When she left home, she'd taken his little sister with her.

He'd felt that his mother didn't think much of him. And when he was little, he'd believed that she'd abandoned him because his grades were poor. So he'd worked hard to improve them, thinking that his mother would come back for him once he did.

But even after his grades improved, his mother never returned.

By the time Shirogane realized what was going on, he'd already grown up a little. He'd discovered that his family was desperately poor, and that good grades could earn him a scholarship. From then on, he'd kept up the habit of studying hard.

Thinking about it, he'd stuck with that habit all this time.

Then... he'd gotten into Ikusei High School, only to be assigned to Class C.

Now that he knew what the class assignments meant, he understood that Class A had the best students and that he'd been placed in a Lower Class because he had some shortcomings. It didn't feel good to be one of the leftovers.

So,

he'd climb his way up.

It wasn't just because he'd been assigned to Class C. He also wanted to claim the reward the school had promised.

A free, no-exam admission to the university of his choice was extremely important to him.

The way to climb was for his class's evaluation score to surpass Class A's. The school had given them three years, so they could still earn the promised reward by surpassing Class A and becoming Class A by the time they graduated.

It was a long process that would take a sustained effort.

Last night, the cold and aloof Classmate Ryuen had sent him three photos at around 10:30.

They were pictures of three small blackboards.

The first blackboard was blank.

But numbers were written on the second and third.

The second one read:

A 1210

B 780

C 430

D 200

The third blackboard read:

A 2330

B 1570

C 300

D 70

At first glance, the pictures were hard to understand. But once he knew how the school worked, he quickly realized that the three blackboards were probably records of the evaluation scores for each class in all three grades.