Lies Never Hurt, One Sentence Set Off the Compass Demon

The three of them left the restaurant and stood on the skybridge at Keyaki Mall.

"Thanks for the meal, Sakamayanagi."

With both hands in his pockets, Tatsuya Sakuya gave them a relaxed wave.

"I hope we'll have another chance to eat together."

Sakamayanagi Arisu turned around.

"Let today's draw, along with this lunch, serve as our first warm-up match."

"I'm looking forward to seeing how long you can maintain that composure in that crumbling Class D."

Kamuro Masumi rolled her eyes beside her, feeling uncomfortable all over.

Sakamayanagi Arisu's clear voice continued to drift through the breeze.

"Also, Shiba."

"For our next match, how about we add a personal wager?"

"If you lose, you'll willingly... become my personal toy. What do you think?"

The air fell silent for a moment.

What kind of earth-shattering nonsense was this young lady talking about?

Become her personal toy?

Kamuro Masumi instinctively took a few steps back, somewhat startled.

Tatsuya Sakuya turned her down half-jokingly.

"Then if I win, will you do my homework for three years?"

Sakamayanagi Arisu could not help letting out a soft laugh.

"We'll meet again soon, Shiba."

She did not mind Tatsuya Sakuya's teasing. Leaning on her cane, she turned and left with Kamuro Masumi.

When Tatsuya Sakuya returned to the Class 1-D classroom, there were still twenty minutes before class officially began.

The moment he stepped through the front door, a wave of noisy heat hit him head-on.

"Hahahaha! This one's definitely going in."

Sudo Ken had taken off his uniform jacket and hung it over the back of his chair, crumpling a piece of scrap paper in his hand.

"Watch closely. I'll show you what a basketball club regular can do."

Sudo Ken made a three-point shooting motion and hurled the paper ball toward the trash can at the back of the classroom.

"!"

The paper ball grazed the rim of the trash can and bounced away.

"Hahahaha!"

Ike Kanji and Yamauchi Haruki burst out laughing nearby.

"Sudo, with aim like that, what basketball club regular are you bragging about?"

"Bastard, my hand just slipped. I definitely won't miss this time."

Several girls gathered around a desk, chatting about the latest trendy makeup. Snack wrappers had fallen by their feet, yet no one bothered to pick them up.

The students in the back were either playing games or catching up on sleep.

The entire classroom was like a children's playground after school, brimming with cheerfulness and absurdity.

He would get used to it.

He would get used to it.

Tatsuya Sakuya pulled out his chair and sat down, planning to rest for a while.

He noticed that Horikita Suzune had been staring at him, but she did not say anything.

"Is something wrong, Horikita?"

Tatsuya Sakuya asked first.

Horikita Suzune said, "Where did you... go just now?"

Tatsuya Sakuya said, "The cafeteria. What, did you think I went into space to explore black holes?"

"Who did you eat with? If I wasn't mistaken, you were eating with students from Class A, weren't you?"

He turned his head and met Horikita Suzune's sharp eyes.

Horikita Suzune, you certainly had sharp eyes.

"Oh, you mean them?"

Tatsuya Sakuya shrugged, answering with perfect confidence.

"A beautiful girl offered to treat me to a meal. I simply couldn't find a reason to refuse."

"Treat you?"

Horikita Suzune gave a cold laugh.

"Shiba, don't tell me you have some secret deal with Class A?"

In Horikita Suzune's view, no one in Class A would approach a stranger for no reason. At the very least, she herself would not.

And yet Tatsuya Sakuya, a man with astonishing athletic ability whom she could not see through at all, had gotten so close to Class A.

She could not help being suspicious.

Faced with Horikita Suzune's questioning and suspicion, Tatsuya Sakuya merely leaned back comfortably in his chair.

"Horikita, you think too highly of me."

"Sakamayanagi is Class A's leader, after all. We did discuss the classes while we were eating, though."

"In fact, everyone already knows the situation in all four classes."

Horikita Suzune said, "What do you mean?"

Tatsuya Sakuya said, "Want to hear what the true first-year landscape looks like through Class A's leader's eyes?"

Though Horikita Suzune spoke dismissively of the other classes, deep down, she had an almost instinctive thirst for information about Class A.

"I'm all ears."

Tatsuya Sakuya did not intend to keep her in suspense.

"First, Class A. Every one of them maintains a high degree of self-discipline. No one is late or leaves early, and no one breaks the rules."

Horikita Suzune nodded unconsciously. That was the kind of class she considered ideal.

"Second, Class B."

"Ichinose Honami has created a great atmosphere in the class, and everyone trusts one another."

"Then there's Class C."

"That guy named Ryuen Kakeru rules the class with violence, but at the very least, the class hasn't fallen apart into a disorganized mess."

At that point, Tatsuya Sakuya paused.

Seeing that he had simply stopped, Horikita Suzune asked, "Then... what about Class D?"

"Class D?"

Rather than answer directly, he pointed at Sudo Ken and the others in the front, who were shouting and making a racket, even putting their feet on top of their desks.

"In Sakamayanagi Arisu's assessment, Class D is called the Gathering Place of Defective Products, the most useless class in this school."

Gathering Place of Defective Products.

Those words struck Horikita Suzune's heart like a sledgehammer.

Horikita Suzune's expression visibly darkened.

"What right does she have to judge us like that? What right?"

Tatsuya Sakuya explained.

"Since the start of school, it's been this way for quite some time now."

"Sleeping in class, playing on phones, leaving early, arriving late, skipping class—every kind of bad habit. That's simply this class's daily routine."

"Horikita, do you really think the people in this class can become society's elite, genuine talents without question?"

"That is the basis for Sakamayanagi Arisu's assessment of our Class D."

Tatsuya Sakuya's words struck directly at the soul. Lies did not hurt people; the truth was the sharp blade.

"Shut up!"

The excellence she had always taken pride in, her obsession with climbing to Class A and catching up to her brother, had suffered its most real humiliation at that moment.

What made Horikita Suzune feel even more suffocated was that

she could not find any reason to refute him.

Because whenever she opened her eyes, all she saw were these hopeless idiots before her.

"Isn't this the reality you love most?"

"You, standing alone in your pride, have been assigned to the same class as this group of defective products."

"Have you still not realized where exactly you stand in the eyes of the school's administrators?"

Tatsuya Sakuya continued twisting the knife.

Horikita Suzune bit down hard on her lower lip, her stomach full of unspoken rage. Then she struck Tatsuya Sakuya's neck with a knifehand chop.

The knifehand chop landed squarely on the back of Tatsuya Sakuya's neck.

Tatsuya Sakuya said, "Hiss. Horikita, I was only relaying the facts Sakamayanagi stated. You're different from the others in Class D, so you shouldn't be getting worked up, right?"

Horikita Suzune was clearly worked up. The knifehand chop was not enough; from who knew where, she pulled out a compass and transformed into the Compass Demon.

"That thing can kill people, Horikita."