Fish in the River

Yagami Shizuka wrote an "r" on the blackboard and explained, "It means that under the S System, we establish a secondary system centered on the class as a whole."

You should all be able to figure it out; simply put, it involves rewards and penalties, much like the mechanism we use to monitor discipline among ourselves.

Think about it: if, during an exam, students who put in the effort receive a certain amount of points as a reward, wouldn't that significantly increase the motivation of every student?

For those who say they don't have enough points, as long as you put in a little more effort and contribute to the class collective, it would be impossible to run short on points."

At this moment, the eyes of every student lit up.

Indeed, if this system existed, it would definitely encourage more students to stop hiding and stop idling away their time.

Even students like Kiryuin and Koenji would be actively involved.

Horikita Suzune cannot utilize Koenji simply because she is too rigid in her thinking; if he is unwilling to contribute to the class, why not just let him contribute for his own sake?

"I have another question. Why must it be Sakayanagi Arisu and you? Can't we just hand it over to the class representative? I cannot trust you or Sakayanagi Arisu." A student spoke up in opposition.

Here it comes; this is the crux of the problem.

The fundamental reason the class cannot quickly unify is a lack of trust.

"I cannot make everyone believe what I say. Everyone has their own opinions, and everyone has their own supporters and admirers.

I admit that I like Sakayanagi Arisu, so I will only speak for her.

But my true reason is naturally that I trust her, and I feel that only she can truly lead us.

If we keep bickering like this, we will only be able to discuss things endlessly.

If you want to bicker, I'll keep you company. You can come up here right now and bicker with me; the one who loses just has to step down.

Now, will the students who want to bicker please come to the stage."

The room fell silent again.

He continued, "I might not be able to out-bicker you, after all, I'm not a scoundrel, but I am a very patient person. Standing here for three days and three nights is definitely not a problem. If you don't believe me, come up and try."

The room was deathly silent.

And you still claim you aren't a scoundrel? Who would dare compete with you?

Yagami Shizuka's words were flawless; it wasn't possible to organize a rebuttal in such a short time.

Besides the Katsuragi Faction and the Sakayanagi Faction, there were no third-party forces.

If someone really did come up, Yagami Shizuka had no intention of debating them normally.

He had made it very clear: this was just bickering, and whoever was more shameless would win.

"Since no one is coming up, let me tell everyone a fact." Yagami Shizuka wrote two lines on the left and right sides of the blackboard and said, "You have two choices right now.

One is to live a life of indulgence and ease for three years.

The other is to graduate as Class A and fight for your own future.

You should be able to distinguish which side is more important. If we were any other class with no hope of entering Class A, that would be one thing, but we are currently starting in Class A.

We possess an absolute advantage.

If we fall because we aren't united, would you be satisfied with that?

Pooling points isn't for him or me, but for yourselves; this is unavoidable."

His resounding words rang like an alarm bell in everyone's heart.

It would be impossible to say that one doesn't want to graduate from Class A.

Not everyone is like Koenji, who can go back and inherit the family business after graduation.

"I have one more very important thing to say, and this concerns our first special exam." Yagami Shizuka suddenly changed the subject, "I need 500,000 points. If I have these 500,000, I can at least help the class gain 100 class points; calculated out, it will definitely not be a loss.

Let me ask another question: is the intelligence I provide to everyone worth 500,000 points? Consider it a reward for me personally, after all, I helped everyone preserve nearly a thousand class points.

I am now asking to borrow these 500,000 points from everyone. If you think my intelligence isn't worth 500,000, I can pay it back slowly.

Students willing to lend can deduct this portion when paying points next month."

This pitch left many students feeling moved.

Many had not yet realized that the topic had shifted from the proposal of pooling points to an entirely different issue.

As long as Yagami Shizuka's subsequent proposal succeeded, the previous proposal would become unchangeable.

"What more is there to say? How could your intelligence not be worth 500,000? It's worth at least a million."

"Exactly, rewarding you with 500,000 is very reasonable."

Although they were very moved and very good at talking, not a single person was willing to lend their points.

At this point, it was time for the people Yagami Shizuka had arranged to step up. "I'll put up 50,000 first, I'll give it right now."

Morishita Ai, sitting at the very end of the last row, walked up and transferred 50,000 points to Yagami Shizuka directly.

This display of courage instantly livened up the atmosphere in the class.

"Well said."

Katsuragi Kohei stood up at this moment, "The existence of the R System is very necessary. We all need to unite against outsiders now, and pooling points is the correct move. I fully support Shizuka-kun's plan, and I will also put up 50,000 first."

He stood up as he spoke, walked to the podium, and transferred points to Yagami Shizuka.

After the transfer, Yagami Shizuka even showed the screen to the others.

"I can also start by giving 50,000."

"Me too."

Immediately after, Katsuragi Kohei's subordinates moved quickly to transfer points to Yagami Shizuka.

"Student Yagami is truly the role model of our class; it would be inexcusable if I didn't do something as well." Shiraishi Asuka stood up and, under the gaze of everyone, transferred points to Yagami Shizuka.

Once finished, she turned to face her classmates: "I despise those who advocate individualism, lack a sense of collective honor, or refuse to unite. Don't bother speaking to me in the future."

Her words carried significant weight, and the boys who had a crush on her certainly couldn't pretend they hadn't heard.

At this moment, the students who were still hesitating had their concerns largely dispelled.

Sakayanagi Arisu stood up at this time. Under the eyes of everyone, she moved with difficulty to the podium and smiled, "I think you are more suited to be the class leader than I am."

"Is that so? Well, no need, I'm not interested." Yagami Shizuka waved his hand.

Sakayanagi Arisu transferred 100,000 points to him.

Following that, Kamuro Masumi and Hashimoto Masayoshi also went up to the podium.

In this way, they reached 450,000 points, though 50,000 of that was originally Yagami Shizuka's own, which Sakayanagi Arisu had transferred as if it were her own.

The only one left was Yamamura Miki, who stepped forward—the quiet beauty sitting in the first seat of the second row.

That is, the one sitting in front of Yagami Shizuka.

Without saying a word, she stood up and transferred 50,000 points.

"Thank you, thank you all for your support." Yagami Shizuka bowed in gratitude.

"If no one has any objections, we will start collecting points at the beginning of next month."

Having obtained a large sum of points without any effort, Yagami Shizuka was in a very good mood.

"What if some people are unwilling to pool their points?" Kamuro Masumi spoke up on behalf of Sakayanagi Arisu at this moment.

This was the crux of the matter and the purpose of the Seven Star Gathering that Yagami Shizuka had held earlier.

"That's a good question." Yagami Shizuka gathered his thoughts, "We cannot demand or force others to pool their points; if they are unwilling, there is nothing I can do."

"However, I must state first: if you do not care about the collective interest and your points are not in this pool, then one day, when you face expulsion, we will not save you."

"The meaning of pooling points has already been explained. If you haven't joined, the R System will not be open to you, and you might even have priority for expulsion. This isn't something I decide; the school's rules are designed to eliminate the useless."

"If you are useless to the class, it is only natural that you be eliminated. And since you didn't join the collective, naturally no one is willing to spend a large sum of points to save you; there is no point in doing so."

"I hope as many people as possible are willing to join, but there will always be some who disagree."

"How about this..."

He looked toward Morishita Ai in the back, "I'll trouble Student Morishita to help with the tallying. Those willing to join can sign up with her."

"We'll create a class group in a moment, and if anyone wants to sign up, they can also send her a message on their phone."

"Morishita will be here to count the number of sign-ups..."

Yagami Shizuka walked to the innermost corner of the blackboard and wrote two "Zheng" characters, "There are 40 people in our class; we only need eight 'Zheng' characters to account for everyone."

What followed was much simpler: the process of creating a group and adding people.

This task was delegated to Hashimoto Masayoshi.

In this way, the class had achieved preliminary unity.

However, unity was not that simple.

Because, by the next morning, the number of people who had joined was only 11, with almost no change.

Morishita Ai: What should we do? Your plan isn't working!

Yagami Shizuka: Don't worry, go up there and write two more "Zheng" characters first.

Morishita Ai: Huh? Faking it?

Yagami Shizuka: Hehe, you just don't understand human nature.

When the number of people who have joined exceeds half, those who are hesitant will be forced to surrender to the majority.

No one wants to be isolated.

No matter how much they refuse to acknowledge the collective, once they realize they are being isolated, they have no choice but to join.

And the display board above would take them from hesitation to no longer hesitating.

Just after Morishita Ai added two more "Zheng" characters, it wasn't long before two more people contacted her.

This made Morishita Ai ecstatic; so this actually worked.

Yagami Shizuka suggested she go up and add a few more strokes to create the illusion that many people were willing to join.

"Oh my, can you guys hurry up? It takes so much time to do it one by one; I'm exhausted from running back and forth, you know." Morishita Ai went up and drew two more strokes.

Her acting skills were enough to make even Yagami Shizuka marvel.

Only her performance could perfectly complement this play of Yagami Shizuka's, which was why he had assigned her the task of handling the sign-ups.

She could stare at a sheet of paper and mutter, "Here we go again. Maybe I should just wait until a few more people show up before I mark it down."

"Some people are truly dishonest. They say they don't want to join, yet they've already come to sign up. Have they no shame!"

"You lot aren't even as sensible as Yamamura."

In just one morning, the tally marks on the blackboard had reached six, though the actual number of people who had joined was only 26.

Morishita Ai was somewhat worried that some people would never join, no matter what.

After all, joining meant handing over points, and if they wanted more, they would have to earn them through hard work.

It was like handing over one's own cake to contribute to a collective pool.

Rational people would consider this a significant loss.

These were also the types of people least likely to contribute to the class collective.

Furthermore, there was the issue of trust. Many people didn't trust anyone; these students were rarely deceived, but if they had spent any time in society, they wouldn't trust anyone so easily.

The human heart is unpredictable; the smarter a person is, the more likely they are to do something foolish.

Yagami Shizuka sent a message in the Seven Star Gathering group chat.

Yagami Shizuka: Morishita, by tomorrow afternoon, record the list of people who haven't joined yet and send it to me. If everyone has joined, send me the list of the bottom few as well.

Morishita Ai: Understood!

Shiraishi Asuka: Is there any point in recording their names? If you need us to talk to them, Hashimoto and I can help.

Yagami Shizuka: Then I'll leave it to you. However, I believe these last few people are definitely unstable elements that need to be monitored. If we ever need a list of people to be expelled, we'll start from the end of this list and work our way up.

Yagami Shizuka: I trust they won't have any objections, as I've made myself perfectly clear.

Yagami Shizuka: This way, we won't have to spend points to save anyone who faces expulsion; we'll have them to take the fall anyway.

Those few sentences seemed casual and insignificant.

However, Nishikawa Ryoko saw them and immediately told a few people she knew, "Look, see this? I'm in a group chat with them, and they said they're going to keep track of everyone who doesn't want to join. Even if you do join, if you're late, the ones at the bottom will be the first to be eliminated."

The speaker was unintentional, but the listener was attentive.

Time did not allow for hesitation; seeing so many tally marks on the blackboard, they knew that if they didn't hurry, they would end up at the bottom.

This was...

Yagami Shizuka's words were cold and ruthless, but that was just how this school was.

Either unite as one, or play by yourself and get expelled.

It was fortunate that this class didn't have anyone like Koenji.

Of course, if you possessed Koenji's level of ability, no one would want you to be expelled even if you worked alone.

The prerequisite was that you had to have it.

Nishikawa Ryoko was the type of person who would dive into any topic; whenever she saw others chatting, she couldn't help but go over and interject a few words.

She was extremely active in class and could talk to anyone.

Among these, gossip was a daily amusement for the girls.

She also kept up with current events and possessed extraordinary energy, making her a veritable news broadcaster of the new era.

Some people, when asked to do something, would act sluggish and not take it to heart.

However, if you provoked her and then forbade her from doing it, she might summon twelve times the motivation and do the work of a dozen people.

During the Seven Star Gathering, being treated poorly had left her feeling resentful, and now, spreading this news gave her great satisfaction.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back.

In just over ten minutes, she had spread the news, and the speed was astonishing.

This caused the discussions in the class to become even more frequent.

Psychological pressure also caused many to slowly give up their resistance.

As the trend became inevitable, the remaining eight tally marks were filled in by the end of the afternoon.

It was truly swift and decisive.

Sakayanagi Arisu carefully reviewed this game of chess, pondering it repeatedly, and she began to grasp some of the implementation process.

She guessed that if she were the one playing this game, it wouldn't have been so easy, because she didn't yet understand these people, nor did she know the capabilities of those around her well enough.

"Is this the fish you were talking about? Fish that are dizzy and disoriented can only swim into the fishing net."

"No, no, this isn't a fishing net, it's a fish trap."

"Fishing nets are too low-level and cost money. I first dug a pit outside the river, then muddied the water. Fish don't like to swim blindly, so they all ran toward my trap. I also designed a clever mechanism that only allows entry and no exit, making it impossible for them to escape."

"It's just that simple. This is their only way out, and also their trap."