"Is this school really as interesting as you say?"
"Just a reminder: even if you win big at this school, you'll still need to go to university after you graduate. Don't treat this school as the end of your life."
The last evening bus heading to Advanced Nurturing High School held only Ryuen Kakeru and me, Sima Zhenglong.
Reaching the goal of 800 million points on my own was basically impossible. I figured that even with Ryuen helping me make money, it would still be difficult, but it was better than having no help at all.
"Even with our information advantage, it'll be hard to scrape together 800 million points, right? You said it yourself: no class has ever succeeded with this point operation."
I told Ryuen some of the school's rules and proposed the 800 million point plan he would have come up with in the original story anyway.
"There's always a chance. Besides, we don't actually need 800 million points. 780 million will do. I'm going back to my home country after graduating from here, so I don't need the benefits of Class A."
Two million less—a 2.5% reduction. Suddenly, the odds seemed better.
"780 million? Make it 760 million. I'm confident I don't need to prove my abilities by graduating from Class A. If we can earn such a huge sum as leaders under the school's rules, then I refuse to believe those slackers who graduate from Class A the normal way will be rated more highly than me!"
Ryuen clenched one fist, and I bumped mine against it. It hurt more than I expected.
"760 million, then. Maybe we can lower it further if we get the chance. For now, let's wait and see.
"Next, we need to figure out how to gather 760 million in personal points.
"First, there are a few ways to obtain personal points: the monthly personal point rewards the school gives students based on their class points; personal points awarded by the school during Special Exams; expense reimbursements for personal points earned by student clubs; and small point rewards from special channels we don't know about.
"The first two are the main sources. Let's start with an ideal scenario. If the total class points for a grade add up to 4,000, and there are 160 students across its four classes, then each grade can receive a total of 16 million points from the school each month, or 192 million a year.
"There are 12 classes and 480 students across all three grades. Over three years, they could earn 1.728 billion points. But we also have to account for the class points spent during the first month, changes in class points during later Special Exams, major deductions when class members are expelled, and the points students spend in their day-to-day lives.
"Of those 1.728 billion points, probably less than a quarter will actually circulate among students. The school only needs to impose expulsion penalties a few more times during Special Exams to burn through tens of millions. So we can't put all our hopes in this fixed supply."
Under the circumstances in the original story, the 800 million point strategy was bound to fail. The second-years had interfered in the third-years' internal conflict, draining huge amounts of personal points and leaving nothing worth squeezing out.
The second-years had been milking the school for a long time, but judging from Nagumo's actions, they were broke too. And with so many second-years gone, there was still money to be made, but getting it would be too difficult.
The first-years were even worse. Class D had wiped out its points right from the start, and the points deducted from Classes B and C had cut in half the amount the first-years could naturally obtain from the school.
Even in this dire situation, I still thought the 800 million point strategy had a chance. The main reason was the Tsukishiro incident. At that time, the school was in chaos. If we seized the opportunity and made a big push, we might be able to gather a huge amount of personal points all at once, or break rules that normally couldn't be changed.
"Then our focus should be on those Special Exams. If necessary, we can convert our class points into personal points—in other words, turn them into cash.
"After all, if class points just move between classes, the total number of points within a grade won't change. We can find other ways to siphon them off, outside of the exams."
Ryuen understood what I meant and began to think further ahead.
"If we're going to use the 800 million point strategy, the first thing we need to consider isn't how much we can take from the other classes. We need to make sure the school can issue more than 800 million points to the students.
"We can ignore things like class rankings. As long as we act without reducing the maximum number of points available, it doesn't matter how the class points change. We could even use our advantage in numbers to help other classes that want to rise in the rankings and earn points in return."
"It's easy talking to someone smart. I'll leave the job of bringing the class under control to you. Just remember not to do anything too outrageous in the first month. We can't earn back those initial class points. Preserving the first-years' class points is our first priority."
"Then what are you going to do?"
Ryuen looked at me, clearly annoyed that I'd suddenly dumped a responsibility on him.
"I'm going to set up a classroom for you that's completely private and has no cameras. You're not exactly an innocent guy, so you should know how important that is, right?"
I still had to take care of the clubroom myself. I had to make it look like a legitimate club, after all. Otherwise, it'd be hard to scam the school out of funding.
"Then I guess you're somewhat useful. Tomorrow, I'll sell the information about the first month's exam and see how much I can get for it."
"Before that, ask our homeroom teacher how much the information is worth to the teachers. Then you can sell it to the other classes. After all, you can buy anything in this school with points."
Classes A and B should be willing to buy it, since they could coordinate easily right from the start. Class D was harder to say. I'd have to find a way to see if I could blow Chabashira's cover.
If I could blow Chabashira's cover, I should be able to blow Hoshinomiya's too. That would mean some extra income. How wonderful!
"What are you thinking about now? That laugh of yours is way too creepy."
Watching Sima Zhenglong cackle, Ryuen suddenly felt a chill.
"Nothing. I just thought of something that makes me happy. Ryuen, how much do you think the teachers at this school make in a year?"
"So that's what you're after. At this school, the teachers' salaries are probably tied to the classes they teach. That means there should be differences between the homeroom teachers, too."
"As far as I know, the homeroom teachers for our year's Classes D and B have a serious grudge against each other."
"Oh? Then I'll leave it to you."
"Leave it to me."
Before you continue