Unraveling the Mystery

Since he could get no breakthrough from Horikita Suzune, Kengo simply changed the direction of his investigation—he decided to browse the school's shopping district.

In his view, by figuring out the local prices, he could roughly infer the income and spending levels here. Perhaps he could uncover the school's secrets from another angle.

But the moment he entered one of the shops in the shopping district, Kengo noticed something was off: quite a few items on the shelves were actually free.

He immediately did the math in his head. There were 480 students in the entire school, and if each person received 100,000 points per month, the school would have to put out at least 48 million points every month. For such an enormous consumer market to have free goods was utterly unreasonable.

He leaned in for a closer look and found that all the free items were daily necessities closely tied to everyday life—rice, flour, cooking oil, toiletries, and the like.

At that moment, a crucial conclusion took shape in his mind: the school's point distribution was by no means fixed. There might even be circumstances in which no points were issued at all.

A smile tugged at Kengo's lips as he teased himself inwardly. Had he unknowingly become a "great detective" chasing down the school's secrets? This school, filled with mysteries, was becoming more and more interesting.

Following his usual principle of "go to the teacher when there's a problem," Kengo immediately trotted off to his homeroom teacher's office, urgency evident in every step.

When he arrived at the office door, he knocked lightly. But the person who opened it was not Chabashira Sae, but an unfamiliar female teacher.

Kengo immediately composed himself and spoke politely. "Hello, ma'am. I'm Kengo Tendo from Class D. I'd like to ask my homeroom teacher, Chabashira-sensei, a few questions."

"Hello there, Tendo-kun~" The female teacher's eyes curved into crescents, her tone carrying a playful lilt. "I'm Hoshinomiya Chie, the homeroom teacher of Class B. I'm also your school nurse. Sae, one of your students is looking for you."

Hearing this, Chabashira Sae looked up from behind her desk. Her expression remained as sharp and capable as ever as she asked flatly, "What do you need?"

Kengo immediately put on a somewhat awkward expression, feigning unease. "Ma'am, I wanted to ask about the school's expulsion system. How exactly are points distributed? And is Class D really the worst class in the entire school? If I don't know these things, I can't feel at ease attending school. I have no sense of security."

"You're quite perceptive." Chabashira Sae gave him an indifferent glance. "But I can't tell you those things. It's against school regulations. Of course, you can also buy the answers with points. Two million points, and I'll tell you everything you want to know."

"Two million?!" Kengo immediately waved his hands, his tone exaggerated and helpless. "Forget it, forget it. That's way too expensive. I can't afford that. But still, can crucial information related to evaluations really be bought and sold so freely?"

Chabashira Sae raised her eyes to look at him, her voice utterly even. "At this school, points can buy anything."

Kengo's eyes shifted as he deliberately teased her in a joking tone. "Then, ma'am, can points buy you too? Take you home and make you my wife?"

"Watch your mouth." Chabashira Sae frowned slightly, her tone turning colder. Clearly, she had no intention of playing along.

Seeing this, Hoshinomiya Chie immediately laughed to smooth things over, a hint of probing in her gaze. "Then, Tendo-kun, would you be interested in joining our Class B?"

Kengo had anticipated this long ago, but his face remained unchanged as he calmly asked, "I assume it isn't free, right? Then what would the cost of transferring to Class B be?"

"With 20 million points, you may apply to transfer to any class. And only Class A can enjoy a 100 percent advancement rate." Chabashira Sae's voice was flat, as though she were merely stating an insignificant school rule. Her pen continued to move lazily across the lesson plan.

Kengo immediately waved his hands, his tone self-deprecating. "Then forget it." Taking on a debt of 20 million points at such a young age would practically tie him to Class B for good. That deal was far too unfavorable.

Just then, the sharp school bell cut through the campus's silence. Chabashira Sae closed her lesson plan and stood, while Kengo naturally followed her toward the classroom.

At the start of class, everyone was relatively well-behaved. But before ten minutes had passed, the classroom gradually grew noisy. Some students whispered to one another, some secretly played on their phones, and several simply sprawled across their desks and snored.

Kengo, however, kept his back straight the entire time, his gaze fixed on the blackboard as though he were listening attentively. Yet from the corner of his eye, he continued watching Chabashira Sae at the podium—she never once looked up. She merely read from the textbook at an even pace, turning a blind eye to the chaos below as if none of it had anything to do with her.

This was far too abnormal.

Doubts piled up in Kengo's mind. Even if Class D was considered a "problem class," with discipline this bad, the teacher should have stepped in to stop it. Yet Chabashira Sae's reaction was like that of an emotionless statue.

He first raised his hand and waved it through the air, trying to get the teacher's attention. Not only did he receive no response, but several classmates who had been fooling around stopped and turned to look at him in unison.

Kengo simply stood up and walked straight to the side of the podium. Chabashira Sae's gaze remained glued to the textbook. She did not so much as lift an eyelid, and her reading rhythm never faltered.

Seeing that, Kengo had already formed a preliminary judgment. Without further hesitation, he turned and headed for the classroom door, openly skipping class.

For the next while, he made his way up the corridors of the teaching building, observing the classes of Class C, Class B, and even Class A in turn.

The most obvious difference was discipline. Class C occasionally had quiet discussions, while Class B remained silent throughout. As for Class A, not only did the students sit properly, they were also diligently writing down notes. The classroom atmosphere was as rigorous as that of a genuine college entrance exam prep class.

"The school's first test really is related to class discipline," Kengo muttered under his breath. To verify his hypothesis, he deliberately made his way to the upperclassman floors.

Sure enough, every class was orderly. What caught his attention even more was that on the bulletin board by the back door of every classroom, there was a conspicuous class ranking chart—from A to D, with the corresponding scores decreasing in order, all kept below one thousand.

As a series of clues connected in his mind, Kengo quickly reached a conclusion: the distribution of individual points was most likely directly tied to class ranking scores.

After all, tracking classes was far more efficient than tracking individuals, and it better fit the school's unspoken rule of "collective evaluation."

He instinctively looked around and found high-definition cameras installed at corridor corners, classroom corners, and even outside restroom doors. Their lenses silently captured every movement in every corner—clearly, they were meant to precisely record students' violations and thereby affect class scores.

"If each class starts with 1,000 points, then converting that into individual points at a ratio of 1 to 100 would perfectly explain the monthly distribution of 100,000 points per person." Kengo continued following the logic, finding it more and more reasonable the longer he thought about it.