Selling Answers

The next day at noon.

Shinjo crept up to the entrance of Class C, intending to sell the answers he had in his hand before anyone else caught on.

Just as he decided to knock on the door, a volatile voice rang out from behind him.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!"

Shinjo instinctively dodged to the side, and when he turned around, he found only a short-haired girl of small stature.

Because this girl had tagged along when Ryuen took his lackeys to the cafeteria to back someone up, and because she seemed to intentionally keep her distance from others, Shinjo had a very deep impression of her.

"Uh, hello."

"What are you doing, you creep?! Sneaking around... don't tell me you're planning to steal something?!"

"Steal? What could your class possibly have that's worth stealing? I'm here to find your boss, he..."

Perhaps because she heard a disgusting word, the girl opposite him spat in annoyance.

"Heh, if you're looking for Ryuen, he's not here right now, and nobody knows when he'll be back."

With that, she couldn't be bothered to look at Shinjo again and intended to head straight back to her seat.

"Wait!"

Shinjo hurriedly called out to stop her.

"What do you want now? Let me warn you, don't think that just because Ryuen let you off the hook last time, you can get cocky. If you really want to stir up trouble here, having guts isn't enough!"

"Actually, I..."

"Shinjo-kun? Why are you here?"

Because Ibuki had pushed the classroom door open, Shiina, who was resting in the front row, spotted Shinjo immediately.

"Ah, it's Shiina. Actually, I have some business with a student from your class. If Ryuen isn't here, could I ask you to step out for a moment?"

Shiina pointed at herself in confusion, then followed Shinjo toward the rooftop with a questioning look.

And Ibuki, who originally didn't want to meddle in other people's business, thought about it seriously and decided to follow along to hear what it was about.

"This student, you really don't have to force yourself to come along..."

Shinjo could tell that the short-haired girl didn't seem to like him. But that was inevitable; after all, he had somewhat caused their boss to lose face.

Who knew that Ibuki didn't care about any boss at all? The reason she had that expression was simply because she was like that with everyone.

Furthermore, she absolutely loathed smooth-talking men—even more than she loathed Ryuen!

She always felt like they were harboring a belly full of bad intentions, ready to stab you in the back when you least expected it, striking both ruthlessly and viciously.

"I'm just afraid that you might do something bad to Shiina."

Ibuki found an excuse for herself.

"Shinjo-kun, don't mind her. Ibuki-san's personality is just like that, but she doesn't have any hostility."

"Ah... haha, that's good then..."

After a while, the three of them arrived at the school building's rooftop.

"Shinjo-kun, can you tell us now?"

Shiina had an unexpectedly good impression of Shinjo; after all, people who like to read aren't bad people!

"Of course... In fact, I know that many people in your class are struggling with the midterm exams, right?"

"What's it to you?!"

Before Shiina could speak, Ibuki, standing to the side, couldn't hold it in anymore.

Clearly, she felt that Shinjo had said this just to mock her.

"Ibuki-san, you can't say that. I don't think Shinjo-kun is trying to ridicule you."

"Tch, who knows?"

It was just as the saying went: those who always view others through stereotypes will one day be viewed by others through stereotypes themselves.

"Haha, of course I have no reason to do something so boring. In fact, I want to make a deal with you. Since it doesn't involve many points, even you should be able to make the call."

"A deal?"

Shinjo nodded and waved the file folder in his hand:

"This contains the answers to this exam, which I obtained by chance."

"What did you say?! The answers?! Heh! Are you trying to fool a three-year-old? Exam answers, how could they be so easy to get?"

Ibuki didn't believe for a second that he could actually get the answers, and even if he did, why would he share them with them?

Class C and Class D were essentially mortal enemies!

For anyone with a normal brain, doing something like aiding the enemy would be impossible, right?

This barrage of verbal fire almost made Shinjo lose his breath. Actually, in a sense, he quite liked dealing with people like Ibuki, because her single-minded personality made her easier to fool.

However, this was actually a double-edged sword; if the single-minded Ibuki had a prejudice against Shinjo from the very beginning, then no matter how eloquently he spoke, she would remain as immovable as a fortress.

Fortunately, Shinjo was very experienced in dealing with such situations, so he simply chose to ignore her; after all, the person he truly wanted to trade with was Shiina.

"Hmm, Shinjo-kun, are you telling the truth?"

It wasn't that Shiina didn't believe him, but rather that she was trying to bait Shinjo into revealing more; if she could find out the source of the answers, they could go find them themselves without worrying about a middleman skimming off the top.

"Of course it's true! I guarantee these are genuine answers. Otherwise, wouldn't I be ruining the reputation of my own Odd Jobs Agency?"

"Odd Jobs Agency?! Are you talking about the one from the text message a while back?"

Shiina appeared surprised, but it was mostly an act put on for Shinjo's benefit.

Even though she buried herself in a sea of books, Shiina was no mere bookworm; she had long since mastered the application of micro-expressions in social interactions.

"That's right. If you ever need help in the future, don't hesitate to ask me~"

Ibuki, who had been ignored on the side, snuck a glance at Shinjo, then rolled her eyes as if she had thought of something.

"Hehe, if there's an opportunity, I certainly will. Let's get back to the answers. Since Shinjo-kun can guarantee that the answers are real, may I ask how much you intend to sell them for?"

"To be honest, I spent quite a lot of points to get these... so... actually, I quite like the auspicious number of 20,000."

Ibuki's expression flickered with interest, but she knew that haggling wasn't her specialty, let alone doing business with someone across from her who looked exactly like a profiteer.

Therefore, she surprisingly kept her mouth shut, leaving everything for Shiina to decide.

And Shiina was inwardly grateful that Ibuki hadn't stepped in to cause trouble, otherwise, she might have really had to pay 20,000 to secure these answers.

"20,000 points... surely Shinjo-kun doesn't intend to sell them to me at that price, right?"

I actually wanted to sell them to you for 50,000!

But it was impossible to price this thing so outrageously; although Class C would receive nearly 50,000 in living expenses this month, they might not necessarily have that much money on hand.