Classroom of the Elite: I Can Assign Master's Tasks

"..."

Ichinose Honami wore a faintly resentful expression.

Despite what he said, her intuition told her with ten-out-of-ten—or at least nine-out-of-ten—certainty that Nangong Cheng really wanted to call her Mom.

Honestly... how could someone like this even exist?!

Embarrassed and annoyed.jpg

"Are you sure you're not saying the opposite of what you mean, Nangong?"

"Aren't you saying no while secretly hoping I'll agree to that nasty little condition of yours?"

The girl planted both hands on her hips to bolster her confidence, putting on a fierce little expression.

But Nangong Cheng only found her adorable.

"How is that nasty?"

"Don't you know, Ichinose? Humans always long for what they don't have. So what's wrong with me wanting a woman who could become my mother?"

"..."

Ichinose Honami sighed helplessly.

He had said everything there was to say. What was she supposed to add?

"Then what exactly are you thinking, Nangong? Even if I agree to let you call me that, you aren't seriously planning to do it in front of other people, are you?"

"Hmm... we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Nangong Cheng rubbed his chin.

He didn't particularly mind showing off his kink, but the junior's "Mommy" meta was still far too ahead of its time for this world's current timeline.

Better tone it down for now.

"So you agree, Ichinose?"

"I... well, if you really insist on calling me that, I can't control your mouth, can I?"

Ichinose Honami turned her head away, leaving Nangong Cheng with only a view of her slightly flushed profile.

If I can't fight it, I might as well accept it.

Right, exactly. I just can't fight it. It's definitely not that I actually want to accept it!

Besides, it was only a form of address.

As long as he didn't call her that in public, and she was only indulging Nangong Cheng's bizarre fetish in private...

[Task complete]

[Task reward: Host receives 2,000 Points]

It really wasn't so bad.

She wasn't losing anything.

Even if Nangong Cheng called her Mom for three whole years, the two thousand Points she had just earned were a tangible reward she could exchange for two million Japanese Yen.

If she had to name a loss, it would, at most, be something as intangible as a little of her dignity or sense of shame.

The ratio of effort to reward was absurd.

It practically corroded people's hearts and boundaries.

Although Ichinose Honami wanted to say she would definitely resist the temptation next time, she honestly wasn't entirely confident.

When profit was involved, even dignity could be weighed on a scale.

Even a hair clip priced at ten thousand Japanese Yen, but perhaps actually worth only one thousand, had required her to kneel to settle the debt.

That went doubly for task rewards worth hundreds of thousands at a minimum.

If she wasn't willing to do it, plenty of others would be.

Reality was just that stark and ironic.

"That's why I'm asking what you think, Ichinose, isn't it? Besides, I won't casually call you Mom in front of other people."

Naturally, Nangong Cheng had no idea what was going through Ichinose Honami's mind. Otherwise, he would have solemnly explained something to her.

The world was a delicate shade of gray; there was no absolute good or bad, no absolute virtue or evil.

Judge people by their deeds, not their thoughts. If thoughts were the measure, no one in the world would be perfect.

Ichinose Honami had indeed stolen a hair clip, an act that morality and the law would define as "bad" and "evil."

But she had also done all sorts of good deeds, large and small, throughout her life. To her family, classmates, friends, and teachers, she was a good daughter, a good friend, and a good student—the embodiment of "goodness" and "virtue."

Humans were bundles of contradictions.

No action should be judged with a careless, simplistic label. What mattered was why someone had acted that way.

"So you mean that whenever no one's around, you'll be calling me Mommy Ichinose every other sentence, Nangong?"

"You really are nasty!"

Ichinose Honami put an end to her tangled thoughts.

Whatever else might be true, she was now full of hope and anticipation for the future.

Although the system's tasks could be tricky in a very particular sense, and its punishments were quite "excessive," it wasn't deliberately giving her things she had absolutely no way of completing.

In short, everything was visibly improving.

She couldn't afford to be too greedy.

"I traded an actual Student Council spot for this right. Even if you say that, Mommy Ichinose, I'm not changing my mind."

Nangong Cheng was thoroughly satisfied.

Leaving aside whether he had become that "Mommy" junior, he had at least successfully established a niche, special kind of intimacy with Ichinose Honami.

With that relationship in place, whether he was deepening her affection later or assigning all sorts of interesting tasks, it would benefit him as the mastermind behind the scenes.

For instance, there was the other thing he was about to do.

"Ichinose Mom, I might need your help with something else next."

"You won't turn me down, right?"

Ichinose Honami gave him an adorable roll of her eyes.

She certainly wanted to refuse.

But she knew she had gotten an enormous favor from Nangong Cheng regarding the Student Council spot. If helping him could ease some of the burden on her conscience, she was happy to do it.

"Only if it's something I'm capable of, okay? Otherwise, I won't be able to help."

"Don't worry. It's something very simple~"

Nangong Cheng smiled mysteriously, then motioned with his eyes for Ichinose Honami to follow him.

Volume one: If you're a dragon, that's fine too

About ten minutes later.

Nangong Cheng brought Ichinose to the surveillance room.

"Hello, could we check some security footage?"

"What day? Exact time? Location?"

The staff member on duty was very concise.

"The entrance to the supermarket convenience store on the first day of school, from after classes ended until around six in the evening. Sorry for the trouble."

The footage was quickly brought up.

Nangong Cheng soon found the segment he wanted and asked the staff member to isolate and enlarge it.

"This part. Can I buy it?"

"One hundred thousand points."

What a rip-off.

But considering how "valuable" this video was, Nangong Cheng paid without hesitation.

"Do you understand what you saw, Ichinose?"

Ichinose Honami nodded.

It wasn't hard to understand.

"According to the information you mentioned, Nangong Cheng, upperclassmen aren't allowed to tell first-years about the school. What they said in this video counts as a violation."

"It's not particularly serious, since the people involved didn't even realize it. Besides, everyone knows these things now, so the school might not actually take action."

"But if you choose to make a formal issue of it, that could change things."

It looked as though there would be another victim.

Ichinose Honami observed a second of silence for them in her heart.

"Exactly."

Nangong Cheng nodded.

Of course I'm making an issue of it!

What kind of idiot turns down free money?

"And I can tell you that this video actually has something to do with how I got that Student Council spot."

"Hm?"

Ichinose Honami's curiosity was piqued again.

There was more to the story?

Nangong Cheng motioned for Ichinose Honami to leave the surveillance room with him first, while opening the System Shop.

[People-Finding Cane: Stand it upright, and it will point you toward the person or object you are searching for. Success rate: 70%. Points required for redemption: 500]

From Ichinose Honami's perspective, Nangong Cheng pulled a cane from his clothes as though performing a magic trick, then spent quite a while making gestures with it.

Was this some kind of divination?

How bizarre.

"It's a little trick passed down through my family. Don't mind it... I'll explain what I'm about to do."

Nangong Cheng led the way with the People-Finding Cane in hand, turning his head to explain things to Ichinose Honami.

"From what I've learned through my investigations since the first day of school, the second-years are currently ruled by a Class A student named Miyabi Nagumo."

"Why do I use the word 'ruled'? Because he can make the vast majority of second-years obey him alone. He might even be collecting Private Points from them every month like taxes and turning them into his personal assets."

"On top of that, he has another title: Student Council vice president."

Watching Ichinose Honami sink into thought, Nangong Cheng brought his explanation to a close.

"Now, Mommy Ichinose, you understand what I'm planning to do next, right?"

"...Yes. I didn't expect that."

Nangong Cheng's explanation wasn't complicated. Naturally, Ichinose Honami fully understood why he had made a special trip to the surveillance room first.

The information now publicly available clearly stated that, until the end of the first month, all upperclassmen and faculty were forbidden from revealing information concerning the school's secrets to first-year students.

Yet the upperclassmen in the footage had used suggestive terms such as [defective goods] and [hell].

It was a textbook case of incompetent teammates dragging their side down.

That Student Council vice president, Miyabi Nagumo, was in for some terrible luck. She was ten-out-of-ten—or at least nine-out-of-ten—certain that Nangong Cheng would demand an exorbitant sum.

He really was minding his own business only to have trouble fall into his lap.

The two chatted as they walked and soon found the two upperclassmen from the footage in the cafeteria.

After signaling for Ichinose Honami to simply watch, Nangong Cheng walked straight over and went on the offensive.

"Hello, you two. Sorry to interrupt."