"Teacher Chabashira, wait! There's no way my entrance exam scores should have landed me in Class D! So why was I placed in Class D? I want an explanation!"
"Horikita, your academic performance is excellent. Your entrance exam scores ranked third in the entire year."
"Then why am I in Class D? I don't understand!"
"Horikita, you don't think grades are everything, do you?"
"What else is there to judge us by at school?"
"Heh... figure it out for yourself. And you should get to your next class."
With that, Teacher Chabashira walked away without looking back.
Horikita had no choice but to give up and head back to the classroom.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka
Two hundred thousand Private Points? If the hidden rules really were important, it wasn't that expensive.
The person providing the information, on the other hand, seemed a little too suspicious.
How had he gotten Hirata's number? Had he bought it from a teacher? And if he was selling the hidden rules through messages like this, shouldn't we be able to use points to buy his identity from a teacher? Maybe this person was acting with impunity.
...Why was everyone talking with the people around them? Was it a little weird that I was sitting here by myself? No, it seemed I wasn't the only one. Horikita... and Qiuyue, too. Thank goodness. I just didn't want to be the odd one out.
Smack—
?? What was Horikita doing?
"Don't you understand? This isn't the time to worry about saving points! We need this information. Would you rather spend two million personal points to buy it from a teacher?"
Whoa... Horikita... She was impressive.
"Twenty thousand personal points each? I've never heard of that. When did this happen? Do we have to buy it? I don't have any anyway, so do what you want."
"Yeah, I've never heard of it either. I'm not even sure I have enough points to get through the month. I'm not paying, either."
"I'm with those two. I'm not paying."
Uh... wouldn't they really get ostracized by the class for doing this? If I remembered right, those were Yamauchi, Ike, and Sudo. Were the three of them really this brave?
"It's fine. I'll cover their shares. What matters now is getting the information. I happen to have eighty thousand personal points."
Huh? Horikita, were you planning on living on dirt every day from now on? There had to be a better way, Horikita...
After the purchased information was revealed.
I see. No wonder I'd always felt there was something off about this school. It cultivated students like a survival-of-the-fittest contest...
Assuming the information was correct, why was he selling it to Class D? Had he sold it to the other first-year classes, too? What did he stand to gain? Was he trying to earn more points?
For now, the teachers had probably signed a confidentiality agreement. That meant he was most likely a student or another member of the school staff.
If he was a staff member, then according to Teacher Chabashira, he could exchange his points for cash with the school.
No, if that were the case, there were so many staff members that surely they would have rushed to sell the information for money. They might even have started a price war. That made it more likely he was a student than a staff member.
If he was a student, was he a first-year or an upperclassman? Was an upperclassman selling the information to earn points? No, if upperclassmen could sell things to the lower grades, and points could buy anything at school, there wouldn't be only one person selling it.
Besides, he was using text messages. Was that to hide his identity? But that meant he'd had to buy Hirata's number from a teacher, which ran counter to his goal of earning points. Or was it cheap to buy other students' information? Or maybe he didn't need to buy student information at all? Could it be the Student Council?
It was possible that someone in the first year already knew the rules. Maybe they'd bought the hidden rules from a teacher. But where had they gotten two million points? Or could they buy them more cheaply from upperclassmen?
If the classes bought the information together, that would mean the rules made the classes compete with each other even though they'd all have the same information. That didn't make sense. Or was the information sold to us fake?
Or had he figured it out on his own? Had he spotted the school's hidden rules after a week? If so, was his conclusion completely correct?
"You've got to be kidding me! We're the worst? This information is fake, right?"
Good grief, I might have overanalyzed things. My classmates didn't seem able to accept that they were in Class D, and they were starting to claim the information was fake. That was possible, of course, if only slightly.
"...You really are hopeless. You're the most foolish class of students I've ever taught."
Teacher Chabashira? It seemed the information was unquestionably correct.
Then I could discard some of my earlier theories. First, the information was real. That meant the seller might be an upperclassman in the Student Council or someone connected to it. It was unlikely that a first-year class had bought it together. Two million points would only earn them back four hundred thousand, and they'd be making their rivals stronger, too. It made no sense.
In other words, if he was a first-year, he'd bought it alone. But how had he amassed two million points? Or had he figured the rules out by himself? If so, he was pretty impressive.
If it was one person, what did he want with all those points? Going by the rules, he couldn't be from Class A, so he had to be in Class B, C, or D.
But he'd sold it to Class D. If he wasn't from Class D, did he think they were too weak to pose a threat? If he was from Class D, why sell the information this way instead of simply telling the class?
Did he think Class D had no chance of reaching Class A? Or was he simply after more points so he could enjoy a better life? Could points be used to transfer to Class A?
Let's assume he'd sold it to Class A as well. Based on the classes' overall ability, if Class A didn't know the information at the start and Class B did, then Class B might be able to surpass Class A. Or had Class A's students already figured out the school's hidden rules themselves?
Had he also sold it to Class C, but not Class B? In that case, Class C might be able to surpass Class B. Based on these possibilities, he was unlikely to be from Class B. It was more likely he was from Class C or D.
Enough. Rather than keep speculating, I should ask Teacher Chabashira and the other homeroom teachers whether anyone had asked them to buy Hirata's number. I should also find out whether upperclassmen could share or sell the hidden rules to first-years.
I had to find this person somehow. It was too dangerous to let him do as he pleased. At this school, points could buy anything you wanted. That meant it might even be possible to use points to get someone expelled.
Better safe than sorry. What if he was from the White Room...
"Ayanokoji, where are you going?"
I turned to Horikita and answered without thinking.
"The bathroom."
"Teacher Chabashira, wait a moment."
"Ayanokoji? What is it?"
"Could we talk after school today?"
"Can't we talk now?"
"No. I have a feeling Horikita will be coming over soon, and the second class is about to start."
"Horikita? What does she want with me?"
"She seems pretty upset about being placed in Class D."
"...Is that so?"
"Then I'll be going."
I'd better hurry to the bathroom so I didn't run into Horikita.
Before you continue