"It's nearly the end of the month. Before the monthly exams, the school has decided to have each class organize a small test of its own."
Homeroom teacher Sakagami handed the test papers to the students in the front row and had them pass them back.
Each paper condensed questions from five core subjects. Was this what a small test at a Japanese school looked like? I'd expected close to ten pages of questions.
"The results of this test will only serve as a reference and won't affect your final report cards, so there's no risk involved. But remember, cheating is forbidden. That's not a hint—it's an emphasis!"
Since the test was only for reference, I had no need to do it.
There were only four questions per subject, twenty in total. That was fewer than the questions on a single math test from my middle school entrance exam, and the difficulty was laughably low. If anyone failed this, they couldn't claim to be stupid; they simply hadn't studied.
Aside from three questions on the back that raised the difficulty, there was nothing noteworthy about the test. Its difficulty curve was poorly designed.
"Mr. Sakagami~"
When Sakagami reached my desk during his rounds, I called out to him and handed in a blank paper. After getting his permission, I left the classroom.
"Sakagami!"
Ryuen followed my example, turning in his paper with a few answers on it before leaving the classroom with me.
"Heh, this is actually the first time I've left class during a lesson. What a rare occasion."
With his hands in his pockets, Ryuen left me with those words and headed alone toward the classrooms of the other three classes. I didn't want to linger here either.
"May I ask what brings Vice President Kiriyama of Class 2-B to visit my humble abode at this hour?"
In the Activity Room, Vice President Kiriyama of Class 2-B had become a visitor I never expected.
"Don't play dumb. You saw through Nagumo's true nature as soon as you enrolled, and you offended him because of it. If you don't want to suffer his retaliation now, your only option is to join our faction."
Kiriyama looked pleased with himself, convinced he'd found my weak spot. His smug face made me feel even more disgusted than Nagumo's.
"I don't know what kind of people you two student council vice presidents are, but if I remember correctly, the Student Council has the authority to look at student records, right? Before deciding to approach me, didn't you bother to look through mine carefully?"
I was curious about what my enrollment file said too. If Nagumo wasn't an idiot, my file had probably been deliberately altered.
Considering Nagumo looked down on me, much like he had when he tricked Ichinose in the original story, had someone slipped some "dark history" into my file?
"Quit joking around. You know what you've done. I have no idea why President Horikita thinks so highly of you, or why he specifically asked me to make this trip myself. Don't mistake our goodwill for something else!"
Now I was sure my file had been altered. If I got the chance, I'd quite like to see it with my own eyes.
"Joining the Student Council is something I—" I started to reject Kiriyama's "invitation," then suddenly remembered something. "Uh, do Student Council members get a monthly allowance?"
"Of course. Student Council officers get a special allowance of 100,000 private points a month. The president gets more."
"Good grief, that's worse than being a corporate drone in Japan. You're on call twenty-four hours a day, all year round, the workload isn't light, and they only give you 100,000 private points a month? I thought only college students back home could be this naive~"
One hundred thousand private points a month? Was that supposed to be charity?
This school was in Tokyo! Corporate drones in Tokyo made around 400,000 yen a month. If they wanted to live a little more comfortably and have some hobbies, they'd basically be living paycheck to paycheck even after taxes.
Getting a young worker for 100,000 points was an incredible bargain. Hanging them from a lamppost would be too lenient; they'd have to hang between two of them.
If an ordinary school's Student Council offered 100,000 yen a month, I'd applaud and do the bare minimum, shamelessly stealing my salary.
But at this school, the Student Council handled just about everything involving the students. The school only got involved when absolutely necessary.
If someone argued that this gave students valuable experience, I had nothing to say. Management experience wasn't useful to me anyway.
They thought 100,000 points a month could turn me into a workhorse? No thanks. I swore I'd never become a corporate drone in this life.
"Huh?"
"Vice President Kiriyama, how about this? When you go back to report to President Horikita Manabu, ask him whether I can bring the documents I'm responsible for handling to my Activity Room and work on them here.
"If that's not possible, then as president of the Traditional Literature Club, I can't keep running between the Student Council Office and the club's Activity Room. I'm sure a president who values 'purity' will understand where I'm coming from. This isn't a refusal; it's a matter of responsibility.
"Of course, if he wants to have it both ways, I can accept another arrangement. For example, I could recommend a Class C student to join the Student Council in my place, and then remotely direct her to carry out my wishes."
Why would I choose that terrible Student Council Office over my own Activity Room? Everyone had to work together in one big room, with no divisions between work areas, no cubicles, not even basic partitions! I couldn't accept such a dreadful working environment.
Besides, I knew why Horikita Manabu was so eager to recruit me that he'd even gone back on his earlier declaration that joining a club would make it impossible to join the Student Council.
At this point, the conflict between Nagumo and Kiriyama wasn't over yet. They still had a fight ahead of them.
Nagumo wouldn't lead Class B to overtake Class A until the end of the first year. After that, he'd still need time to consolidate control over the second-year classes.
Nagumo hadn't unified the second years yet, nor had he completely suppressed Kiriyama's class, so there was still a chance the two of them would keep fighting. Horikita Manabu wanted to keep testing Kiriyama.
That was why, after witnessing the incident involving our Class C and Class D, he'd sent Kiriyama to approach me.
The agreement signed by Class C and Class D had been reported to the Student Council, and Horikita Manabu knew about it. In his eyes, our Class C now effectively held the voting power of both Class C and Class D in the first year.
If Kiriyama could recruit Ryuen and me, then even if the third years supported Kiriyama and the second years backed Nagumo, the first years would guarantee half the votes. Horikita Manabu could then name Kiriyama as the next Student Council president and make sure there were no problems.
Unfortunately, Vice President Kiriyama didn't seem to understand this. If he'd treated me a little better, I might have helped him figure it out.
It was hard to understand how Kiriyama had managed to botch things so badly for Class A from the start, and then, after falling from Class A, had still been recruited by Nagumo to unite the same-year Classes C and D.
Wouldn't it normally be a three-year game of alliances and rivalries? Classes B, C, and D should usually team up against Class A, unless—there was no hope of moving up at all. Impressive, Kiriyama!
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