Unbelievable

Nagumo Miyabi could sense that something had been happening at the school lately.

He had long since secretly contacted the three lower-ranked third-year classes, promising Private Points as compensation and planning to have them join forces to besiege Class A in the upcoming exams. Yet recently, the three class leaders had suddenly changed their minds and directly raised the agreed-upon payment by nearly double.

Their reason was that the past exam questions were gone, and their classes needed to spend more points protecting students who excelled in sports and other areas but performed poorly academically in preparation for future exams.

There seemed to be nothing wrong with that reasoning. After all, all three grades had been affected by the loss of past exam questions. But doubling the price in one go was far too outrageous, wasn't it?

Since when had he earned the nickname "big spender" at this school? How dare they extort me like this?

Besides that, a large number of third-years, including those in Class A, had begun behaving unusually frugally. They only ate the free mountain vegetable meals in the cafeteria, took only free daily necessities from the stores, and drastically cut back on gatherings and entertainment expenses.

It was as if the entire third year had fallen into a Points shortage at the same time.

What struck him as most bizarre was that he could not gather any information. Even the informants he had bribed would not tell him why, despite the fact that those informants were eating mountain vegetable meals themselves.

Taken together, someone had to have made the entire third year keep quiet. At this school, there were only two possibilities.

The first was that the school had ordered all third-years to keep their mouths shut. The second was that someone had made everyone in the know sign a contract.

Although he had pieced together a few clues from scattered traces, Nagumo Miyabi could not shake his ominous feeling.

That feeling was infinitely magnified when he happened to encounter Kouenji Rokusuke.

He had brought three girls to Keyaki Mall to shop, only to find Kouenji sitting alone in Pallet Café with a number of exquisite desserts spread out before him.

He had clearly asked Shiraishi Makoto to convey the school's notice. Why did Kouenji Rokusuke still have so many points?

If older female students were supporting Kouenji, there would definitely have been girls by his side. First, they would need to pay for him. Second, they would want to show their faces around Kouenji more often.

But Kouenji was alone now. It was almost certain that the points he had spent came from his own student terminal...

A bold guess surfaced in Nagumo Miyabi's mind. He quickly walked over.

"Kouenji." Nagumo Miyabi came to Kouenji Rokusuke's side and looked down at him. "This is our first meeting. I'm Nagumo Miyabi, Vice President of the Student Council."

Upon hearing Nagumo Miyabi's name, Kouenji Rokusuke lazily raised his eyes. His golden hair hung slightly over his face as he met Nagumo's gaze with casual indifference.

"Do you need something, Nagumo Boy?"

"I have reasonable grounds to suspect that you violated school rules by using outside money to illegally purchase Private Points within the school." Nagumo Miyabi's voice was icy and commanding. "I'm going to inspect your account records now."

Class D had received only 100,000 Private Points in total since arriving at this school, and Nagumo Miyabi had discovered during his first investigation that Kouenji Rokusuke had never had any habit of saving money. The points in his account should have long since been depleted.

Therefore, Nagumo Miyabi was completely certain that the points Kouenji currently held came from an improper source.

"Shouldn't that be my personal privacy?" Koenji's lips curled into a scornful smile. He did not take the Vice President's pressure seriously at all.

Nagumo Miyabi's expression darkened slightly. He had completely taken control of the entire second year, and no one had dared disobey his orders for a long time. Yet this mere first-year had violated school rules and still dared to act so arrogantly.

Moreover, in Nagumo Miyabi's eyes, Kouenji's refusal to reveal his Private Points was proof of a guilty conscience—an admission without words.

"Then we'll see about that." Nagumo Miyabi left the women beside him behind, turned, and departed Keyaki Mall, heading straight for the Student Council office.

"Vice President Nagumo, what brings you to the office?" Horikita Manabu, who had been working in the office, heard the door open. When he looked up, he saw Nagumo Miyabi's gloomy face.

This should have been the time of day when Nagumo relaxed and enjoyed himself. For him to come to the office, something must have happened.

"I discovered a student suspected of violating school rules, so I came to submit an application." Nagumo Miyabi went to his desk and turned on his computer.

Because he lacked sufficient evidence and did not have the authority to investigate the points Kouenji possessed, he could write a report and submit it to the school in situations like this. The school would then review and determine whether any rules had been violated.

Hearing that it was being submitted to the school, Horikita Manabu grew somewhat interested and asked, "Would you mind explaining the situation?"

"A student named Kouenji from first-year Class D possesses a huge amount of Private Points from an unknown source. I suspect he used outside money to purchase them from students in other grades." Nagumo Miyabi did not hide anything, since Horikita Manabu also had access to the system and could look it up himself if he wished.

"..." Horikita Manabu silently watched Nagumo Miyabi bury himself in filling out the paperwork. He opened his mouth, but could not say anything.

He had originally wanted to say: There was no need to report it. Kouenji's points had been obtained through completely legitimate means.

But the school had imposed a gag order on everyone who knew about it. He had no way to further explain how that money was legitimate, so he decided to leave the matter to the school.

Nagumo Miyabi completed the paperwork and submitted it to the school. Before long, the school's response arrived.

[After review: The points in Kouenji Rokusuke's possession were obtained through entirely legitimate means. No school rules were violated.]

"How could that possibly be legitimate?" Nagumo Miyabi muttered in disbelief, his face filled with incredulity.

"Is something wrong?" Seeing Nagumo Miyabi's reaction, Horikita Manabu naturally understood what had happened, but he still pretended not to know.

"N-No, it's nothing." Nagumo Miyabi forcibly suppressed his emotions, though a storm had already erupted inside him.

At Advanced Nurturing High School, the ways to obtain Private Points were extremely strict. First, there was the fixed monthly income deposited into one's account based on Class Points. Second, there were reward points gained through club activities and exams. Third, teachers of individual subjects could freely distribute some points as rewards.

Kouenji did not meet the requirements for the first two methods, leaving only the third possibility. But under normal circumstances, teachers only gave out a few thousand points at a time, ten thousand at most, and did so very infrequently. That could not possibly support expenditures as lavish as Kouenji's.

There had to be something wrong with the source of Kouenji's points... Nagumo Miyabi remained firm in his judgment and added all of his subjective deductions to the report.

However, the school's second reply came very quickly—so quickly that Nagumo Miyabi suspected they had not even carefully read the materials he had submitted.

[After review: The points in Kouenji Rokusuke's possession were obtained through entirely legitimate means. No school rules were violated. Please do not repeatedly submit reports without evidence.]

With the school speaking so unequivocally, Nagumo Miyabi could not accept it at all.

The speed of the school's response gave him an unpleasant suspicion. The school had known about what Kouenji was doing all along, and it truly did not violate any school rules.

And recently, something related to points had happened in the third year as well...

So what exactly was going on?