Anonymous 4 → all students in Class 1-D.
A message was sent to all first-year students.
Message content:
[Hello, new students. I'm sure you have plenty of questions about this school, such as its promise of guaranteed advancement to higher education and employment, and the 100,000 points you received today.
I'd be happy to answer some of them.
All you need to do is pay me 10,000 points.
Don't worry, I won't deceive you. You can verify the truth of what I say with the school.
There have been cases of students being expelled for fraud at this school.
To pay, click the payment link at the very bottom of this message twice within one second.]
Below was a link made up of letters and numbers. A number beside it was rapidly counting down, with a note in parentheses.
It read, "The countdown will reach zero 15 seconds after you receive this message. When it does, the link will expire automatically."
Many students who finished reading realized there were only a few seconds left.
"Damn it, there's no time to discuss this with anyone else!"
Someone hammered a fist against the bed, looking frustrated.
Some paid at once, tapping the link twice.
Some smiled, their eyes crinkling with delight.
Once the time was up, those who had paid received a second message.
[The school's promise applies only to students who graduate as members of Class A.
The school ranks the classes according to its assessment. From highest to lowest, they are A, B, C, and D.
The most direct indication of a class's standing is its Class Points. Each first-year class starts with 1,000 Class Points.
Every month, the school will deposit personal points into each student's account based on their class's Class Points multiplied by 100.]
Fifteen seconds later, Tanaka Yukishin opened the four anonymous accounts.
Class A: 350,000. Class B: 250,000. Class C: 110,000. Class D: 50,000.
Those figures certainly matched the students' overall quality.
From A to D, the quality of the students declined in order.
The most outrageous was Class D. You'd think they'd have nearly ten people, like Class C.
But there were only five.
Some had probably spent their balance down to less than 10,000 points, some couldn't bring themselves to pay, and some were out enjoying themselves without noticing the message.
Truly, it was a shining moment for humanity.
All four classes together had only paid 740,000 points. That was less than he could make from running a single club.
Tanaka Yukishin wasn't after the points anyway. Otherwise, he could have used the message as leverage, sat back, and wagered that Class D would make history by dropping to zero points.
Selling it to Class A and the second- and third-year students would have earned him 20 million points without much trouble.
In truth, he didn't even want the 10,000 points. But some people were so foolish that he had no choice.
You could teach someone a hundred times and they still might not learn.
But one lesson from experience could sink in for good.
They had to pay a little something before they'd take it seriously.
After transferring the money from all four accounts into his own, Tanaka Yukishin turned off the light and went to sleep.
"This should change things a little. It'll bring their starting lines closer together, and they should have more confidence and motivation. I don't want to watch the anime's plot play out exactly the same way."
The next day, at 7:30 a.m.
Tanaka Yukishin was still asleep when the door suddenly opened quietly.
It was Karuizawa Kei. She had a spare key.
Yukishin-kun had startled her yesterday, but she wasn't angry.
It was time to show off her feminine charms.
"I'll win Yukishin-kun over in three years. I'm Karuizawa Kei, after all."
She walked forward slowly.
What was this?
He felt a weight on him and something strange on his lips.
Tanaka Yukishin opened his eyes. A beautiful girl was giving him a good-morning kiss.
"Do you like it, Yukishin-kun?"
She had been moving gently, but when she realized the person beneath her was awake, Karuizawa Kei became more proactive, losing herself in the moment.
Tanaka Yukishin wrapped his arms around her. They shared an intimate moment before he finally let her go.
The kiss had gone on so long that she ran out of breath and could only lie in her lover's arms, panting.
But Karuizawa Kei was delighted.
"Yukishin-kun, get up. Let's go to class together."
"You go ahead. I'll take a shower first."
"I can wait for you."
"Be good. If you stay here, I'm afraid I'll never get out of the shower."
"Ohhh..."
At last, Karuizawa Kei understood what her lover meant. Her cheeks flushed, and she hurried out, embarrassed.
Getting up, Tanaka Yukishin grabbed a towel from beside him and forcibly suppressed his body's reaction.
There wasn't enough time in the morning. Some things just couldn't be done, so it was better to leave them until the afternoon.
A top student after school and all that...
No, Kei's grades weren't very good. The top student was actually me!
After taking a cold shower, he finally doused the flames.
He got dressed and headed to the elevator.
Tanaka Yukishin realized that after losing his Virgin Skill the day before, he seemed to have less control over his body.
It was true that once you'd had a taste, you wanted more, but he hadn't been a virgin in his previous life. It shouldn't have affected him this much.
The Dragon Bloodline must have caused some changes in his body after what happened yesterday.
In the first-year Class A classroom, Sakayanagi Arisu watched the students gather in groups and talk about the previous night.
To confirm her suspicions, she spoke up.
"Everyone, let's first confirm how many people received the message and how many paid."
As one of the class's central figures, the sickly girl's words carried considerable weight.
Everyone shared what had happened to them, while another central figure, Katsuragi Kohei, took notes.
"Everyone received it. Apart from you, 35 people paid."
Sakayanagi Arisu nodded and shared what she had done as well.
"I didn't pay, because I've already figured out some of the sender's intentions."
"But before I tell you, I'd like to know what you made of the message."
What did we make of it?
True, yesterday had only been the first day of school.
But two factions had already begun to take shape in Class A.
One was the Sakayanagi Faction, led by the sickly girl with a cane, Sakayanagi Arisu. The other was the Katsuragi Faction, led by the bald Katsuragi Kohei.
There were also a handful of independents.
"I don't think this person was after points."
"More precisely, points weren't their only motive. They had another purpose."
"I think they wanted to bring the four classes as close as possible to the same starting line."
"Following that line of reasoning, the gap between the four classes must be obvious."
"Exactly. If the gap weren't large, there'd be no need to rush like this."
It certainly suited the class rankings. Class A lived up to its name.
They had figured out most of Tanaka Yukishin's intentions in just a few sentences.
Sakayanagi Arisu was reasonably satisfied with her classmates' performance, but this was only how her underlings had reasoned it out.
What about Katsuragi Kohei?
Katsuragi Kohei was thinking deeply about what everyone had said when he suddenly noticed the room had gone quiet.
He turned to look.
Ah, so that was it.
"The message was sent to every first-year student, and the sender was also a first-year student."
"Not bad, Katsuragi. Why?"
"It's simple. We can work out the answer just by tracing the source of the message."
Chapter 17: He's alive! Thank goodness, I'm saved!
The others were confused by what the two class leaders were saying.
"Now let me explain the sender's reasoning in a little more detail."
Sakayanagi Arisu used everyone's observations as the basis for a more in-depth analysis.
The sender wasn't after points. The 10,000-point fee was mostly symbolic.
Paying was optional.
By the next day, someone in class would inevitably bring it up.
Therefore, the sender had to be trying to tell every first-year student about the information.
But some people were too foolish, so the sender charged them to make sure they understood its importance.
People took the same thing more seriously when they paid for it than when it was free.
Although the message began with "Hello, new students," the sender was a new student too.
Only the school itself could stop teachers and students from other years from telling them anything about the school.
Therefore, the only people who fit the criteria for sending the message were the newly enrolled students.
That was the deduction about the sender's identity.
Next came the sender's purpose.
If the message hadn't been sent, the Secret Exam could have ended in one of two ways.
First, the gap between the four classes might have been small.
Second, the gap between the four classes might have been large.
The first possibility meant the sender was bored and wanted to see fierce competition sooner—in other words, they were just in it for the entertainment.
The second meant that evening out the gap showed how large it was between the four classes. If they didn't get a sneak peek at the exam in advance, there'd be no fun later.
Of course, the first and second possibilities weren't mutually exclusive.
Before you continue