Tatsuya Sakuya carried a large bag of free daily necessities he had swept up from the underground supermarket and entered the lobby of the freshman dormitory building.
The lobby was rather deserted at the moment. Most students were still enjoying their shopping spree at Keyaki Mall, while only a handful of freshmen carrying shopping bags were lining up at the dorm manager's desk to collect their room cards.
Tatsuya Sakuya walked up to the dorm manager's desk and presented his student ID.
"Class 1-D, Tatsuya Sakuya, correct? Here is your key card. Your room is Room 217 on the second floor."
After carefully checking the information, the staff member handed him a blue key card printed with the Advanced Nurturing High School logo.
"Thank you."
Tatsuya took the card and casually glanced at the floor map on the wall beside him.
The second through seventh floors were for male students, while the eighth through fourteenth floors were for female students. The entire building shared the lobby and elevators.
On the surface, it was a convenient modern dormitory, but the overlap and friction in those shared spaces were also part of the school's test of self-control.
Tatsuya put away his key card and headed toward the elevator bay. The elevator had not yet started moving.
"Ding."
The elevator doors slowly opened before him, and someone was already standing inside.
Tatsuya stepped into the elevator. As he turned to press the floor button, he caught sight of a figure huddled in the innermost corner from the corner of his eye.
She was a black-haired girl wearing thick, plain glasses. Her Class 1-D uniform was slightly too large, yet it could not conceal her delicate, shapely figure.
She clutched her backpack tightly against her chest with both hands, practically pressing herself against the elevator wall.
The instant Tatsuya entered, her body visibly tensed. She instinctively lowered her head even further, her glasses slipping slightly down her nose. She hurriedly pushed them back up, then quietly drew her feet half a step deeper into the corner.
Airi Sakura.
Tatsuya recognized the classmate who had almost no presence at all, always sitting hunched over with her head lowered.
He did not strike up a conversation just because they were classmates, nor did he keep staring at her.
Before a girl who lacked any sense of security and even suffered from severe social anxiety, any unnecessary enthusiasm or scrutiny would only trouble her. Doing nothing was the best choice.
Tatsuya deliberately shifted slightly to the left, completely avoiding direct eye contact with her. He simply pressed the button marked "2," then slipped both hands into his coat pockets, looked straight ahead, and quietly waited for the elevator to rise.
The elevator was silent, filled only with the faint hum of machinery.
Tatsuya maintained impeccable boundaries, treating the girl beside him as nothing more than an ordinary passenger and keeping a sufficient social distance.
Under his completely nonthreatening presence, Airi Sakura, huddled in the corner, gradually relaxed. She secretly raised her head and shyly glanced at the tall, handsome boy beside her through the reflection in the elevator doors.
"Ding. Second floor."
The electronic announcement sounded, and the elevator doors slowly opened.
Tatsuya did not step out immediately. Instead, he politely shifted slightly aside, facing the elevator exit and leaving a clear passage before walking out.
Airi watched his natural, unassuming gesture of giving way. Throughout it all, he had not even looked at her once, yet he had silently shown her the greatest respect.
Only after the elevator doors closed again and continued upward did Airi lean against the elevator wall and fully relax. She was still far too socially anxious.
After unlocking the door with his key card, Tatsuya pushed open the door to Room 217.
After casually setting the large plastic bag he had carried all the way on the table and roughly putting things away, Tatsuya stood by the window, watching the campus outside gradually grow livelier as he began planning his next move.
At a school where strength reigned supreme, verbal promises and class trust were the most fragile things.
Intelligence, academic ability, and combat ability were all important, but only physical evidence could make someone invincible.
One hundred thousand points were enough to buy quite a few good things. He had to get Classroom of the Elite's strongest weapon.
Having made up his mind, Tatsuya locked his room and left the dormitory again, heading straight for Keyaki Mall.
Third floor of Keyaki Mall, digital electronics specialty store.
Compared with the clothing stores on the first floor packed with girls and the noisy arcade on the second floor, the professional electronics section on the third floor was somewhat quieter.
Tatsuya entered the store, passed through rows of dazzling electronic display cases, and headed directly to the security and professional recording equipment section.
After comparing and testing the various devices, he chose a Sony PCM-A10 equipped with a high-precision noise reduction chip.
It cost him a full 28,500 points, more than a quarter of his total points. Yet Tatsuya did not hesitate in the slightest and paid with points immediately. This was the strongest weapon, after all. Perhaps it could help him obtain even more points in the future.
Just as the clerk was packaging the device for Tatsuya, a sound came from the camera counter next door.
"Um... excuse me, this camera..."
"Oh, student, you really have excellent taste!"
A tall male clerk spoke in a booming voice, his enthusiasm a little excessive. He patted the box of an expensive DSLR on the counter with both hands, then took a large step forward, forcing the girl to retreat again and again.
"This is our store's flagship DSLR model. It comes with a full-frame lens, over fifty million pixels, and 4K video recording. It costs 180,000 points, but its performance is absolutely top-tier. If you don't have enough points, you can buy it in installments!"
Her voice was tiny. "N-no... I just wanted to see if there was... something smaller..."
"How could a small camera compare to this? If you're getting into photography, you should do it properly from the start!"
The clerk kept talking grandly and even stepped forward again, making the girl even more flustered.
Tatsuya turned his head and took a look.
Clearly, she wanted to buy a lightweight camera for her photography hobby, but her overly introverted personality had left her at a loss under the pressure of an overenthusiastic clerk eager to meet his KPI.
Tatsuya took the packaged recorder from the clerk and walked over.
He stopped two steps away from Airi Sakura. He neither reached out to touch her nor showed any dramatic urge to play the hero. He spoke calmly.
"A full-frame DSLR with a fast lens weighs more than two kilograms. That's too heavy for a girl to carry around every day. Besides, without professional editing software, high resolution only takes up a huge amount of storage space."
The sudden voice made the sales clerk pause in surprise.
Airi Sakura raised her head in slight panic and saw that the speaker was Tatsuya Sakuya, the classmate who had given her space in the elevator earlier.
Tatsuya pointed at a black compact digital camera in the corner of the display case and said to the clerk.
"If she's only recording daily life or scenery, the one beside it weighs just three hundred grams, has optical image stabilization and a silent shutter, and costs only 30,000 points. The price is reasonable, and it suits her much better."
Tatsuya's professional analysis left the clerk looking embarrassed, but he did not know how to refute it.
"Well... that may be true... but expensive products have their reasons for being expensive. You get what you pay for."
"As consumers, we have the right to choose the equipment we like. Please bring that model over. If you refuse to cooperate, we'll have no choice but to complain to the store manager."
Tatsuya's presence made the clerk instinctively feel pressured.
"Ah... all right, I'll get it right away!"
If he got hit with a complaint, his performance rating for the month would be deducted again. That would be a huge loss.
Feeling the pressure, the clerk quickly dropped his excessive sales pitch and obediently took the lightweight digital camera out of the cabinet.
Airi Sakura held the lightweight digital camera that had been brought out, then turned toward Tatsuya standing nearby.
"Um... Shiba... thank you..."
She spoke in an extremely quiet voice, her cheeks flushing from nervousness.
Tatsuya nodded slightly, his tone calm as he maintained an appropriate distance. "No need to thank me. Just choose the equipment you like."
Just as Tatsuya was about to leave with his bag, Airi Sakura gathered her courage and fumbled to pull her phone from her pocket, calling out to stop him.
"P-please wait, Shiba!"
Airi held her phone in both hands. Her small face was bright red, and she kept her head lowered, not daring to meet his eyes. Her voice trembled, but she was utterly sincere.
"Um... we're both in Class 1-D... if you don't mind... could we exchange Line contact information? In the future... if there's anything about cameras or class matters... that I don't understand... could I ask you for advice?"
Tatsuya looked at the girl's nervous appearance, having summoned up all her courage yet still terrified of being rejected.
"Of course. It's perfectly normal for classmates to exchange contact information."
"Ding."
As the scan confirmation sounded, an Airi Sakura who loved photography appeared in his contact list.
"All set."
Tatsuya put away his phone and nodded at Airi.
"We can keep in touch when there's nothing going on."
"Mm... mm, thank you, Shiba!"
Airi Sakura held her phone tightly against herself.
Tatsuya carried his bag out of the electronics store. The setting sun had dyed the corridor golden.
When would this strongest weapon finally come in handy?
Before you continue