In early April, the new school year began for the students of Sakurajima.
On the bus.
"Excuse me, this is a priority seat. Could you give it up?"
"Pretty girl? There's no law saying I have to give up my seat."
As soon as Makoto Nishikado opened his eyes, fresh from sleep, he saw Kushida Kikyo arguing with Koenji Rokusuke.
Watching this familiar yet distant scene play out, Makoto Nishikado was overcome with emotion.
In the blink of an eye, eighteen years had passed.
Still, he had no intention of getting involved in the original story.
Thanks to a little talent and the skills he'd carried over from his previous life, Makoto Nishikado had been considered a genius as a child.
He hadn't grown up to be ordinary, either, but he still didn't have what it took to compete with the greatest masterpiece.
Online, people in his previous life had called him Brother Lu. But if he ever met someone this capable and ruthless in real life, it was best to keep his distance.
When it came to Advanced Nurturing, Makoto Nishikado cared more about something else:
Classroom of the Elite had plenty of beautiful girls.
Honestly, Infinite Orbit was a masterpiece!
Kinugasa Shogo didn't know a thing about Classroom of the Elite. Horikita Suzune getting smaller and smaller was his doing.
Makoto Nishikado looked at Horikita Suzune beside him.
He wanted to have a rosy youth, too.
Horikita Suzune quickly noticed his gaze and returned it with a cold stare.
Makoto Nishikado smiled faintly at her, then quickly looked away.
This woman was hard to pursue. She wanted him to know when to back off.
Makoto Nishikado wasn't about to chase someone who treated him coldly, so he really did back off.
[You stirred Horikita Suzune's emotions and gained 28 emotion points.]
[You stirred Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's emotions and gained 2 emotion points.]
At the sound, Makoto Nishikado shuddered.
After eighteen years, his cheat had finally arrived?
Judging by the system's notification, he could gain emotion points by stirring up the emotions of characters from the original story.
He could use those points to buy items in the shop, and the more valuable the item, the more points it cost.
Makoto Nishikado immediately stood up and offered his seat. "Ma'am, you can sit here."
"Thank you, young man."
Before the elderly woman could sit down, Makoto Nishikado heard a string of system notifications.
[You stirred Horikita Suzune's emotions and gained 51 emotion points.]
[You stirred Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's emotions and gained 1 emotion point.]
[You stirred Koenji Rokusuke's emotions and gained 66 emotion points.]
"Thank you so much for your kindness, classmate."
Kushida Kikyo stepped forward to greet him and bowed slightly in thanks.
"You're not that old lady's granddaughter, are you? You don't need to thank me."
Makoto Nishikado had no time for Kushida Kikyo. He was busy trying to explore the system interface.
His "indifference" didn't escape Kushida Kikyo's notice.
[You stirred Kushida Kikyo's emotions and gained 1012 emotion points.]
"That's not true. I was actually a little embarrassed just now, and you helped me out of a tight spot. I'm really grateful."
Kushida Kikyo's smile remained as warm as ever.
You'd never guess from her expression that her emotions were in such turmoil.
Makoto Nishikado had just found the system shop when the notification sounded again, making him turn his attention back to her.
[Name: Kushida Kikyo]
[Available skills:]
[Two-Faced: Cost: 1.42 million points. Kushida Kikyo has two faces. One is the face of benevolence, and the other is not the face of righteousness.]
[Affinity (Fake): Cost: 170,000 points. A little angel who can bring everyone together, but accumulates a great deal of mental stress.]
[...]
Every ability Kushida Kikyo possessed had become a skill he could purchase.
Even the cheapest skill cost 1,000 points. Apparently, abilities worth less than that didn't qualify as skills.
Unfortunately, Makoto Nishikado wasn't interested in any of Kushida Kikyo's skills.
Her abilities were slightly inferior to his in every respect, and he wouldn't get much use out of most of them.
Makoto Nishikado looked at Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
[Emotion points from this character are below 1,000. Unable to obtain skills.]
Makoto Nishikado looked at a passerby with no role in the story, but no notification appeared.
By now, Makoto Nishikado had more or less figured out how the system worked.
All he had to do was stir up the emotions of characters from the original story, earn more points, and trade them for more skills.
After three years, he'd definitely surpass the greatest masterpiece!
So Makoto Nishikado leaned close to Kushida Kikyo's ear and whispered, just loud enough for the two of them to hear, "Stop faking that smile. Don't you find it disgusting?"
Oh ho ho ho ho ho!
A tenfold critical hit!
Makoto Nishikado's eyes changed.
Kushida Kikyo really was a big-hearted treasure!
"Classmate, what did you just say? I didn't quite catch that."
Kushida Kikyo kept smiling, doing her best to pretend nothing had happened.
"Nothing. I said you're beautiful and kindhearted, and that I hoped we could be friends. My name's Makoto Nishikado."
Makoto Nishikado smiled back.
At that moment, he had eyes for neither Ayanokoji Kiyotaka nor Horikita Suzune. He only had eyes for the lovely beauty Kushida Kikyo!
"Hello, Nishikado. My name is Kushida Kikyo."
The lovely Kushida Kikyo was not in a lovely mood.
This bastard had said she was beautiful and kindhearted?
What a load of nonsense!
Kushida Kikyo nearly cursed out loud.
It wasn't as if she'd deafened herself by sticking something in her ears. How could she possibly have failed to hear what Makoto Nishikado had just said?
Knowing she couldn't make a scene in front of all these people, Kushida Kikyo grew so angry that her chest tightened.
What she was reluctant to admit was that she felt more afraid than anything.
Back in middle school, Kushida Kikyo had torn her entire class apart until nobody wanted to come to school.
When she entered high school, she'd planned to start over.
Could this person have gone to her old school and heard about what she'd done?
No.
Kushida Kikyo was certain she'd never met Makoto Nishikado before.
Then what was it?
For a moment, all sorts of possibilities raced through Kushida Kikyo's mind, but her smile remained perfectly natural.
"Well, I hope I can be friends with you, too, Nishikado. Are you also a first-year student in Class D?"
[You stirred Kushida Kikyo's emotions and gained 1125 emotion points.]
"I'm afraid not. I'm in first-year Class B. Once the school hands out our devices, how about we exchange contact details?"
Makoto Nishikado smiled brightly, though a hint of regret showed on his handsome face.
At that moment, he truly regretted it.
If he'd known he'd get a system like this, he should've made a scene at the interview and gotten himself placed in the worst (?) class, Class D.
In the anime, there was no doubt that the class with the most screen time was first-year Class D.
And it had someone like Kushida Kikyo, a generous provider of emotion points.
To be conservative, being assigned to the wrong class had cost Makoto Nishikado a whole hundred million!
At that moment, his hands trembled.
At that moment, his heart ached!
"Then it's settled. From now on, you're my friend, Nishikado."
Kushida Kikyo smiled just as brightly.
From here on, she really would do her best to become Makoto Nishikado's confidante and get him to tell her all his secrets.
Then she'd expose every last one of them and make him the lowest-ranking student in the school.
She'd drain every drop of blood from Makoto Nishikado, then toss him aside like a rag.
Also, he'd better not know about what she'd done in middle school.
Otherwise, the only ending left for Makoto Nishikado was expulsion from Advanced Nurturing!
[You stirred Kushida Kikyo's emotions and gained 2275 emotion points.]
"Kushida, we're friends from now on."
Makoto Nishikado's smile was even brighter than Kushida Kikyo's.
He'd never met a girl as generous as Kushida Kikyo.
He was in love!
If he could, Makoto Nishikado truly hoped to be friends with Kushida Kikyo for the rest of his life.
"Since we're friends, you can call me Kikyo from now on. Can I call you Makoto?"
"Of course."
As they chatted and laughed, the bus reached its destination.
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