Tampering with the Surveillance Cameras: First-Year Class D Loses 50 Points! Part 1! (Part 1)

So Suzune Horikita had to be dealt with.

That was why she had been sticking to her and trying to befriend her.

If they were close, she probably would not say anything carelessly.

At the very least, she could make it look that way on the surface first.

But Suzune Horikita was completely impervious, which made Kushida find her difficult to handle.

And now, had she taken the initiative to lower her psychological guard?

Kushida maintained her cute demeanor.

Then she heard the other girl's voice.

"Mm." Horikita nodded. Then she said, "I want you to spread a rumor in the class."

"A rumor about the true nature of this school."

Ten updates done. I'm going to sleep. I'm sleepy as a cat.

Please vote with monthly passes, recommendation votes, and blades.

Please vote with monthly passes, recommendation votes, and blades.

Please vote with monthly passes, recommendation votes, and blades.

Please vote with monthly passes, recommendation votes, and blades.

Please vote with monthly passes, recommendation votes, and blades.

Please vote with monthly passes, recommendation votes, and blades.

Please vote with monthly passes, recommendation votes, and blades.

Please vote with monthly passes, recommendation votes, and blades.

Sob, sob, sob.

The ranking push failed, but there will be seven updates today.

I got up to write. This was truly despairing. The moment I woke up, I saw that the ranking push had failed. I stopped somewhere in the twenties. Even with a massive update spree, I could not beat a few treasure chest monsters. Looks like I have no talent for writing.

Number 49 is truly amazing. I've never seen him fall. He updated too, so anyone who likes him can go check it out.

But after thinking it over, I had written twenty thousand words yesterday, and I was unwilling to just give up like this.

I'll make another push today.

Seven updates today, fourteen thousand words.

Zero drafts. Writing as I go.

I don't want to admit defeat.

P.S. I'm also setting up a reward event.

An extra 2,000 words after release for every 100 monthly passes.

An extra 2,000 words for every 50 blades.

An extra 2,000 words for every 500 recommendation votes.

Forget donations. Everyone, don't spend money carelessly.

The original plan was to do a massive forty- to sixty-thousand-word update spree upon release.

But now, I don't know whether you'll give me that chance.

The current numbers are as follows:

202 monthly passes, 2,721 recommendation votes, 119 blades.

The deadline is Friday at midnight.

Destroying the Surveillance Cameras, First-year Class D Loses 50 Points! Part 1

1. This was a school funded by the government. Since it received fiscal appropriations, it would ensure that money was spent where it mattered.

2. Information obtained from upperclassmen in the clubs said that this school had many exams, with all sorts of content, and the punishments for failing were severe. They included, but were not limited to, expulsion.

3. Many upperclassmen had been expelled. There seemed to be eight classes in total across the second and third years, yet none of those classes even had forty students.

That was the favor Horikita wanted Kushida to do.

She wanted her to spread rumors.

And those three points were the content of those rumors.

But...

"..." Kushida.

Kushida carefully examined the contents of those three rumors.

Then she quickly looked in one direction.

Sitting there was the dead-fish-eyed boy who had not yet left because he was packing his bag slowly.

That was Hachiman Hikigaya.

Only the three of them remained in the classroom now.

At first, Kushida felt that since Horikita had finally opened up and allowed her to get close, she should seize the chance and eliminate every possibility of Horikita bringing up her dark past.

That made Hachiman's presence rather inconvenient.

But now, she suddenly looked toward Hachiman.

Because...

Horikita asking her to spread rumors was a rather troublesome move.

Yet the contents of the rumors were not excessive.

Still, she felt as though she had heard them before.

Because on the day they enrolled, she had run into Hachiman Hikigaya near the dorms. He had said something similar to her, and the two of them had gone to investigate the other grades together.

They had separately visited the first floors of the academic buildings for all three grades.

She also remembered meeting Student Council President Manabu Horikita and secretary Akane Tachibana at the time.

Only...

Back then, Hachiman had not said anything else related to this school. Yet those three pieces of information gave her the feeling that they were things Hachiman Hikigaya had discovered during his investigation.

Only...

Hachiman, why were you relaying information you knew through Suzune Horikita?

Weren't you on bad terms with Suzune Horikita?

When had the two of you developed this kind of relationship behind her back?

And had Suzune Horikita said anything to you about [Kikyo Kushida's bad side]?

"Um..." Kushida seemed to compose herself slightly. Her already pleasant voice became even sweeter. "Hachiman~"

"..." Hachiman.

Kushida was an old acquaintance to Hachiman by now. The moment she started acting coy and delicate like this, he understood.

Kushida was now suspicious of his presence.

"Horikita seems to have noticed some other information," Hachiman said. "She caught me, so I had no choice but to help."

Oh.

So that was it.

Hachiman had been coerced by Horikita.

That answer was barely acceptable.

After all, Suzune Horikita was exactly that kind of person: completely impervious, utterly unable to understand how normal people interacted with others. Like how Kushida had waited outside her dorm room in the morning, wanting to go to school with her, only for Horikita to treat her like air.

And this was already the third time.

As for Hachiman, although he was difficult to deal with too, he was someone who could not stand up to other people.

So it was understandable that things had turned out this way.

Kushida kept smiling.

After all, what mattered now was gaining Suzune Horikita's goodwill and becoming friends with her first.

Though asking her to spread rumors was rather questionable in practice.

Still, there was nothing wrong with the content of the rumors Horikita had prepared. If Horikita had asked her to badmouth someone, she would have considered whether it was worth it, since it would damage her image.

But if it was only this content, it was acceptable.

And she had realized that the essence of these rumors was positive.

Horikita probably wanted the students to treat this school more cautiously.

As someone who had investigated the school with Hachiman on the first day, Kushida also found the school strange. Why did it give them such excellent treatment?

And did they really... deserve it?

After all...

Though she had thought the classmates from her middle school class had been outrageous enough, the students in this class were even more terrifying.

There were some people she did not even want to include in the category of [friends].

So it was strange no matter how she thought about it that the school gave everyone the same treatment.

Kushida probably really wanted to gain Horikita's goodwill, because she immediately began working on it right in front of the two of them.

Her execution was impressive.

First, she called a girl and said that an upperclassman had hit on her, then told her that it was best to take things seriously at this school. But when she asked further, the upperclassman had refused to say anything else.

That made her feel strange. Could it be that the upperclassmen were hiding something?

Then she messaged another classmate.

She got the momentum going.

Before long...

The Class D group chat began to change, and students were already discussing it.

What, the eight upperclass classes could not even gather forty students?

The school was having financial problems and was expelling students like crazy to cut costs.

Mm.

Once those rumors spread, they became distorted into something rather terrifying.

But the effect was quite good.

The more outrageous they were, the more attention they could attract.

So was there any way to verify them?

There was.

Take Ken Sudou, for example, who had been late that morning.

He had joined the basketball club and become a regular player. He had been so excited about practice that morning that he ended up being late.