Classroom of the Mediocre Supremacist

"Pretty much. I've seen people hide weapons inside before and got burned, so I trained a bit to compensate."

His words left everyone present silent.

Atmosphere Group: "..."

Was this guy really a student before? What normal student would run into something like that!!.∏×<∞↓

Hoshino En: "..."

Since the person in question declined, Hoshino En stopped his deduction—after all, this kind of dissection wasn't kind to the subject.

He picked up his coffee, took a deep gulp, and eased the protest in his mouth.

Huh? Why did everyone suddenly go quiet?

Noticing the abrupt stillness, he looked at Ichinose Honami, who stood frozen in the middle, staring at him blankly, and tilted his head in confusion.

But the moment their eyes met, she sprang up like a startled rabbit.

A visible blush climbed from her neck to her cheeks. She clutched her chest with both hands and scurried back to her original spot, hiding behind Kushida Kikyo.

Still, to keep "eavesdropping," she poked her head out from behind Kushida's shoulder. Her eyes were misty with rising tears, and paired with her flushed cheeks, she looked utterly enticing.

When his gaze followed Ichinose Honami's movement to the next table, the girls caught in his line of sight all reached up to cover their chests, curled in on themselves, and their faces flushed as if they'd been bullied, tears welling up.

Oh, one was different. After noticing his look, she slowly lowered her hands from her chest and even straightened her back. Her face was as red as a boiled shrimp, but her eyes met his with a sharp, spirited gleam.

Hoshino En: "..."

"That's a bit much..."

"Three sizes are a girl's secret, Hoshino-kun. You'd better have some self-awareness." →∫

"What do you think made me say it? Who told you to toy with them?!"

Sakayanagi Arisu had barely poked her head out before Hoshino En's counterattack made her shrink back.

He looked at the next table and said seriously, "And you all—either sit there quietly and listen from now on, or just leave. Don't come meddling. Sakayanagi Arisu isn't someone at your level you can handle."

Atmosphere Group: "..."

They wanted to protest, but after the chaos that had already erupted, they decided to just watch and stay silent.

"Hoshino-kun says that... am I really some big villain boss?"

Hoshino En turned his face to look at Sakayanagi Arisu. She had already regained her usual elegant poise.

"Aren't you? We were supposed to talk business, but you kept dodging the subject and using weird remarks to fish for reactions."

"That's because your aggression is too strong. I was just adapting to your rhythm—otherwise, you'd have me figured out in a sentence or two."

"Is Hoshino-kun the type who likes to strip girls bare?"

Hoshino En: "..."

"Boys in puberty probably all like that, right?"

Atmosphere Group & Sakayanagi Arisu: ...!!!!!

"I'm not sure myself—I'm still a virgin, never tried it—but well..."

Hoshino En looked at Sakayanagi Arisu, sizing her up from head to toe.

"If it were you, I'd leave you with a pair of thigh-highs, tights, white stockings, something like that. You're on the smaller side—black fishnets or mesh wouldn't suit you at all."

Sakayanagi Arisu: "..."

"Hoshino-kun, what you just said could qualify as sexual harassment."

"Who told you to start it? I'm just going along with the flow. And in terms of effect, it's worked pretty well."

Seeing Sakayanagi Arisu had lost her offensive edge, Hoshino En nodded in satisfaction.

"And I wasn't lying, you know. If it were you..."

"Alright, I get it! Stop talking about that!"

"Let's get down to business—about the truth of this school. Tell me how you figured it out. In return, I'll share the information our homeroom teacher provided."

Atmosphere Group: "..."

The truth of the school? What's going on?

"Fine."

Hoshino En refilled his second cup of coffee, then laid out his entire thought process.

"First, a month ago, when I received my admission letter."

"That early?!"

Sakayanagi Arisu was astonished.

"Why were you suspicious? Shouldn't you be excited to get into a high school with free tuition and a 100% advancement rate?"

"Do you actually believe that when you say it?"

"...Of course not."

"Right? Because I didn't trust this school's advertising, I had a friend whose written test and interview skills were almost identical to mine apply alongside me when I took the entrance exam. But in the end, only I was accepted."

"The only difference between him and me was that I received a recommendation letter from my middle school principal last December. You all should have those too, right?"

Hoshino En looked at the four at the neighboring table. Caught off guard by the sudden question, they instinctively nodded.

Receiving their answers, Hoshino En turned his gaze to Sakayanagi Arisu.

"And you definitely wouldn't know about this. Frail and sickly since childhood, needing a cane to walk, you've always studied at home with private tutors."

"Someone like you couldn't possibly know about recommendation letters, yet you still got in. That means—there's someone in this school's administration who's family to you, and their position isn't low. At least a councilor, am I right?"

Sakayanagi Arisu: "..."

"And here you are, accusing me, when you've been probing me the whole time."

"True, my father is the Chairman of this school. But my placement in Class A was the result of a fair review by the school. There was no favoritism."

She stared at him sternly, like a dragon awakened by someone touching its reverse scale.

Hoshino En: "..."

Cares a lot about his reputation? I'll take that weakness!

"I get that too. Your class figuring out the truth—that was your doing, wasn't it? Otherwise, no one besides that Hairpin Girl would be taking orders from you on the first day."

Atmosphere Group: "..."

So what's the truth about the school? And the class placement review... aren't the classes just random?

"Anyway, once I realized that [admission] had nothing to do with that overcrowded test and interview, and was instead decided by recommendation letters, I went into full alert mode for this school."

"Then there was the test on the bus this morning..."

"Test!!!" ×4

A sharp shriek came from the neighboring table.

But since the café was empty otherwise, their reaction caused no trouble.

"W-what kind of test was it? What impact will it have?"

The first to panic was Karuizawa Kei, a notorious slacker who was helpless against exams.

"Relax, that test probably won't have any effect. It didn't test academic ability either; it tested something that's useless to adults but absolutely necessary—morality."

"Morality?"

Sakayanagi Arisu across from Hoshino En recalled the morning's events and quickly reacted.

"You mean the old woman?"

"Exactly. Since you encountered it too, my guess should be right."

"The buses to school all end up on this artificial island. And at the school's required time of nine o'clock, over half the seats on that bus were filled with adults who weren't students."

"They weren't at work during work hours, but riding the bus to school. The only explanation is that riding that bus is their work."

"The old lady who got on at the last stop was the test. If no student had offered their seat, one of the seated adults would have stood up for her. That test was about our morality—whether we have public conscience."

"So that's why you were the first to give up your seat?"

Kushida Kikyo remembered too. She recalled that Hoshino En had been the first to rush over and offer his seat to the old lady, even helping her to it, looking like a kind little angel.

"Yeah, since no one else moved, I figured helping her up wouldn't cost me anything."

"Anyway, encountering a test before even enrolling made me think this so-called welfare and tuition exemption is just bait on a trap. It's probably full of pitfalls."

"But..."

Hoshino En looked at Sakayanagi Arisu, a gleam of curiosity in his eyes.

"A big shot like you actually squeezing onto a bus—I never saw that coming. I lose."

Sakayanagi Arisu: "..."

"This is my first time attending school. I wanted to go like a normal student."

"So you had your family's driver drop you at the bus stop?"

"Figure it out, but don't say it."

"And even if you concede, I won't feel any joy in victory."

"Fine, fine... Then there was homeroom. You all know the school gave everyone 100,000 points, equivalent to 100,000 yen."

"What's wrong with those points?"

This time, Ichinose Honami interrupted, apparently recovered from her earlier confusion.

"That's too many points. If it's this much every month, then over twelve months, just the first year would need 12 × 4 × 40 × 100,000 = 192 million yen. Even backed by the government, the school can't spend that much on student living expenses. It's not realistic."

Ichinose Honami: "..."

"That does make sense."

"But someone in our class thought of it today too, so we all unanimously decided to submit everything except necessary living expenses as class funds, strictly forbidding reckless spending."

The D-class trio, already swept up by the news and planning a massive shopping spree this month: ...!!!

They looked at each other, then at the well-prepared Class B, and at Hoshino En and Sakayanagi Arisu, who had already anticipated this and looked confident. Suddenly, they realized just how vast the gap between people could be.

"Then there's our homeroom teacher. She seemed to deliberately encourage our classmates to spend money, which was really unsettling. So after the homeroom ended, I went to check out the other classes."

The three who had actually been misled: Stop scolding, stop scolding—we know we were wrong!!

"As it turns out, the Class C representative is using violence to unify the class, and they're almost done; Class B has already been completely united by Ichinose-san's personal charm on the very first day; as for Class A..."

Hoshino En looked at Sakayanagi Arisu, who wore a confident smile on her face.

"Obviously, Sakayanagi, you're not going to let go. So until that bald guy gets taken down, Class A will remain in a state of division."

"Oh my~ Hoshino-kun thinks I'm definitely going to win?"

"Of course. Once this month's Behavioral Norms Exam is over and all first-years understand the true nature of this school and class competition, Class A will become the target of the entire grade."

"That position is a huge pitfall. Without an overwhelming advantage over the other classes, or a sufficiently aggressive leader, relying solely on a steady and conservative strategy is absolutely impossible to hold."

"And in our first month as first-years, we can at most open up a 1000-point gap. Although Class A and Class B have hardware differences, now that the exam's specifics are known, a divided Class A won't necessarily gain an advantage over a united Class B in the Behavioral Norms Exam. The gap between them will only shrink further—Class A can't form an absolute crushing advantage."

"So I can conclude that if a high-stakes exam appears, then without your effort, Class A has a very high chance of falling directly."

"Would you put in effort for other leaders?"

Hoshino En stared straight into Sakayanagi Arisu's eyes, a confident smile on his lips, having already guessed the answer.

He knew her thoughts well.

"Don't ask such an obvious question. Haven't you figured it out long ago?"

Sakayanagi Arisu also revealed an excited smile.

They both raised their coffee cups and took a small sip.

Atmosphere Group: "..."

"What's with this inexplicable feeling of being full?"

Wang Meiyu looked at her best friend, somewhat at a loss.