Motivated to be lazy

Chapter 6

For this reason, in our professional opinion class D is the best allocation for him.

Upon reading my own evaluation, I realized what a bullet I dodged. All it would take was for someone to take an interest in me, read my evaluation and then hell would break loose. Subtly, I convinced Manabu to remove the evaluations from the app and only allow for relevant information to be shown.

I carefully brought up the fact that it was a breach of privacy and that many students would not be happy to be exposed in such an intimate way, that people would have said things in their evaluation that they would not have if they knew that the information would go public. He agreed easily, and if he looked up my evaluation in the coming days after our initial meeting, he didn't show it nor ask about it.

My respect for him as a man grew in a short amount of time. He was someone who respected privacy, someone who rewarded good work honestly and showed a genuine appreciation for anything that I did that was above the bar of nothing. I felt as though I was being manipulated on a subconscious level.

Manabu definitely earned his position. I am yet to meet a single person who held him any lower than in the highest of regard.

As for the reward, I was paid incredibly handsomely from the treasury. Manabu assured me that it was actually a bargain for the council in itself and that it was actually I that was being incredibly generous. He heaped so much praise on me that it made me uncomfortable. He told me that my accomplishments should not be sold short and reiterated that the work was done not only exponentially faster than if they outsourced the projects externally, but also at a significant discount. Almost a quarter of the cost to the budget that they projected for making and maintaining OAA.

Looking down at my screen, I proudly stared at my Private Point Balance of 6,410,025.

BUDDY and OAA weren't even live yet and were scheduled for release June 1. In reality, it was easier to just integrate OAA into BUDDY but I purposely didn't do so or bring up the fact to Manabu. This was Nagumo's vision and it wouldn't do well for me to hijack it. I agreed to code it in order to build rapport, unaware at the time that I would be paid. We already carefully constructed an alibi so that it wouldn't be known that it was I personally who made it, so I was in the clear.

After getting ready, I went downstairs to meet with Eiichiro so that we could talk in private before lessons started. The moment I stepped into the lobby, I saw Eiichiro standing at the exit. He was deep in thought, chewing on his fingernails and leaning against the wall while staring at the ground. The normally energetic demeanor that usually befitted my best friend was nowhere to be seen.

"Let's go," I said suddenly when I was next to him, snapping him from his thoughts with a jolt. He didn't even greet me, simply nodding before falling in step with me to a smaller cafe near the convenience store on the way to school.

"We didn't get any points," Eiichiro said gravely. I nodded, not saying anything in return and simply continued to our destination.

"This is really bad, it's going to be World War 3 in class today."

"There really isn't anything you can do at this stage," I offered, trying to be helpful.

He huffed in frustration, pulling at his hair as he ran his fingers through it. We got to the cafe and I left him to his thoughts for the moment as we waited on our coffee and breakfast. The cafe was fairly quiet without many patrons as we took an isolated table.

"I should have worked harder to convince the class to buy the information from Chabashira-sensei. I didn't expect so many people to be so against the idea..." Eiichiro said, clearly downtrodden.