"From now on, I'll be supervising your morning study period here every Monday."
The bell rang, marking the start of classes on the school's first day. Teacher Mashima walked into the classroom right on time and made the announcement from the podium.
Since they hadn't even had a single class yet, some of the students in Class A, Year 1, had opened their textbooks to get a head start on their lessons, while others had simply slumped over their desks for a quick nap.
Just then, a large man with a gleaming bald head raised his hand. Teacher Mashima nodded, stepped down from the podium, and gestured for him to speak without worrying about her.
"May I ask a question?"
Katsuragi Kohei asked. After taking a brief look around the school yesterday, he had noticed many unusual things and was eager to find out what they meant.
"You may, but I can't promise I'll answer."
Teacher Mashima replied curtly, though for some reason Toru Hasegawa felt she seemed a little pleased.
Maybe supervising morning study was just an excuse. This was the real purpose.
At the same time, nearly every student in the class turned their attention to them.
"Yesterday, I noticed that the Student Cafeteria offered a free Mountain Vegetable Set Meal. What's more, a great many students chose it. I'd like to ask what's going on."
Katsuragi Kohei said gravely, but Toru Hasegawa noticed Teacher Mashima's gaze dim for just a moment. It quickly returned to normal, but the reaction was still strange.
"I can't answer that."
"Then why are there so many cameras around campus?"
"I can't answer that."
"I see. I understand."
Katsuragi Kohei nodded thoughtfully. In a way, being unable to answer was an answer in itself—it meant there was more to the matter than met the eye.
And now, he understood something.
"May I address the class?"
"Go ahead. This time is yours to do with as you please."
After getting Teacher Mashima's permission, Katsuragi Kohei walked up to the podium. Teacher Mashima simply watched him.
"Everyone, I don't yet understand the reason behind all this, but Personal Points will likely play a major role in our lives from here on. If possible, I hope you'll keep your spending under control."
After hearing Katsuragi Kohei's questions to the teacher, many of the students had come down from the excitement they'd felt at the start of the school year. There was no way anything this good could be true. The school not only assigned them everything they needed, but also let them enjoy campus life. One after another, they voiced their agreement.
"Yeah, yeah! The free meal in the cafeteria is super gross. I tried it yesterday, and it was awful. There was no meat or seasoning at all. It was practically impossible to swallow! Why are so many people eating it?"
"Not only that, there's a free button for bottled water in the vending machines!"
"There are free daily necessities at the convenience store, too!"
Several students shared what they'd seen.
Before long, saving points had become a consensus in the class.
Katsuragi Kohei nodded, satisfied. He felt his words had worked pretty well. Now Sakayanagi Arisu might be a little more convinced, too.
"Heh..."
Just then, a sudden chuckle broke the pleasant atmosphere. Everyone turned toward the sound.
Toru Hasegawa knew who it was from the start. He was far too familiar with that voice, after all. He'd heard it all day yesterday.
Seeing everyone's attention on her, Sakayanagi Arisu calmly asked Teacher Mashima, who was standing by the door:
"May I ask you to repeat what you told us yesterday?"
At the question, Katsuragi Kohei furrowed his brow and tried to recall what Teacher Mashima had said the day before.
But people's memories were prone to being reshaped. Unless it was something like mathematics, most people remembered conversations by picking out the key information and keeping it in mind.
So he still couldn't understand why Sakayanagi Arisu had asked that.
"No."
Teacher Mashima's answer was short and clear.
But Sakayanagi Arisu seemed to have expected that reply. Even as she asked, she had already taken out her phone and started operating it.
Then Teacher Mashima's voice came from the phone's speaker.
"New students, I'm the homeroom teacher for Class A, Mashima Tomoya..."
"..."
Damn, who records everything a teacher says right from the start? What kind of secret agent training had she gone through?
Seeing that Sakayanagi Arisu had recorded what the teacher said yesterday, Toru Hasegawa grumbled to himself.
As the recording played, a line soon came through—
"There's nothing at this school that you can't buy with points."
The instant she finished playing that line, Sakayanagi Arisu paused the recording. Toru Hasegawa saw her glance his way, then turn toward the blackboard and give a slight nod.
"..."
Toru Hasegawa rubbed his nose, puzzled. Was she trying to rope him into this?
But since he seemed to be the only person she could ask for help right now, he had no choice but to get up and walk to the blackboard, under the dumbfounded gaze of Kamuro Masumi, and write down the sentence.
Two minutes later, the blackboard was covered in rules that looked like something out of a strange-rules horror story.
[1. There's nothing at this school that you can't buy with points.]
[2. Everyone has currently been given an equal 100,000 points.]
[3. This school measures its students by their abilities.]
[4. Points represent the school's evaluation of you.]
"First, the first point."
Sakayanagi Arisu didn't get up. Instead, she gestured with her eyes for Toru Hasegawa to come over, then handed him her phone and asked him to show the screen to the class.
Toru Hasegawa glanced at it. It was the screen displaying her Personal Points, and the number was... nearly 700,000.
After briefly showing the class what she could do, Sakayanagi Arisu continued:
"These are points I won from upperclassmen yesterday. Teacher Mashima, since you said there's nothing at this school that you can't buy with points, I'd like to buy the hidden rules of this school. How many points would that cost?"
"...You couldn't afford it."
Teacher Mashima was silent for a moment before replying. Anyone could hear the lightness in her tone.
"Then what if I only want to buy the rules for the test we're facing right now?"
"One million."
Without the slightest hesitation, Teacher Mashima named a price that no one would normally be able to pay.
At the same time, she had indirectly confirmed that they were currently taking a test set by the school.
In other words, this brief exchange alone was already quite valuable.
Sakayanagi Arisu seized on that. Unlike Katsuragi Kohei, who had only asked about what was on the surface, her question was extremely specific, and so she got an answer.
It should have been a shocking revelation, but the room remained eerily quiet.
From the moment Teacher Mashima's recording began playing, no one in Class A's classroom had said a word besides Sakayanagi Arisu and Mashima Tomoya.
"Sounds like it would take a group effort to pay for that... but I don't need to."
Rather than take the path most people expected—pooling their points to buy the information—Sakayanagi Arisu skipped the matter entirely.
"Next is the second point. The key is the word 'currently' at the beginning. We've only been given 100,000 points for now. That doesn't mean we'll receive 100,000 every month from here on. Please don't get that wrong."
"The third and fourth points should be considered together. That's why I don't need to buy the rules. Before we're told the specific rules, there's actually only so much the school can test us on."
Sakayanagi Arisu slowly looked around the room. Only after seeing that her string of remarks had left everyone stunned did she continue, satisfied:
"It's an assessment of how we conduct ourselves in our daily lives—in other words, of our basic responsibilities as students. That's all I have to say. Thank you."
Before you continue