Sakayanagi's POV
Currently, the two opposing leaders of class A were standing side to side looking at the school pleased public board that displayed student posts, announcements, deals, and information about the current school.
"So tell me sakayanagi are you responsible for this?" Asked katsuragi in a blunt statement.
"My my of course not what could I possibly gain from revealing such information it's not like this is gonna hurt your chances of leading class A and quite frankly I don't think anyone from my faction would do something so foolish without merit to speak of. As it stands were at the top our futures are assured what could you possibly gain from helping lower classes catch up" I said seeing no reason to lie.
"I'm inclined to agree with you but you strike me as the type who wouldn't hesitate to sabotage us if it meant Furthering your agenda," said katsuragi
"Boreing katsuragi always so dull playing by fair rules you won't make it far. I also know that neither you nor you're lackeys would play such a move you're far to standoffish to do this you'd play it safe and go for a predictable defense strategy this isn't your style" no one in class posted this we're being framed.
Annoyed katsuragi reluctantly responded "were in agreement that neither one of us is behind this"
"A shallow attempt to break our unity," said katsuragi.
This isn't right though
"Not quite whoever came up with this must of known that we'd see through it and capable students from other classes must surely see that there's no gain from such a strategy most of this information is things that we already saw to some extent we have little to no unity as it stands so why go out of the way to exclude this post from the class A bord"
I let out a smug smile "it's a taunt the person or persons behind this are quite clever if they've figured this much out and by signaling us out it amounts to a declaration of war as if saying "I'm better than you " quite the arrogant display of intelligence if I do say so myself"
The taps of my cane could be heard as I left the hall leaving katsuragi alone
"Do be careful our enemy might actually be capable"
The question now is who.
Looks like my school life won't be so boring I need to regroup with kamuro I need to narrow down the list as soon as possible, this post was made early this morning and soon after in the afternoon three second years end up expelled the point is that those two events are most likely connected it's possible that the upperclassmen leaked information and some lucky student capitalized but this feels far to premeditated for that to be it.
according to my contract in the upper years they refused to talk about the trouble they were in, leaking information to underclassmen about the system would likely get them out the door. If they do talk they'd risk ruining their Chances of getting off if it spreads.
I don't think it's a spur of the moment plan Ethier I believe they were also blackmailed they were seen eating the free food set the past two weeks. they most likely lost every point. But why? If anything that would bring attention to them if I were in their position I would leave them a good number of points so they'd appear normal but no it's like he wants people to know what he did.
Looks like I'm dealing with an arrogant narcissist.
Light yagami POV may 1st dorm.
So far I managed to get a 500k point headstart, 3 upperclassmen expelled, and added fire to the already on edge class A and I did it without arousing suspicion.
I need to figure out how I can weaponize the school rules to eliminate my opponents the contract system is also of value to my cause.
However, I don't like my current situation right now as it stands my best pawn is horikita.
I however find her flawed
the way she thinks won't be enough to win she thinks far too highly of herself while having nothing to show but her academics
but putting it aside.
Horikita is a waste of potential.
Someone like her could've been so much more. The next best person to gain the trust of is without a doubt hiratta, both his popularity and communication skills will be of use to me, leading forward
Kushida is the next best student in class D on top of her personality she's quite smart. bad thing is I can't trust her
to put it fairly her strongest weapon being social connections won't be of much use I myself already carry that role good enough.
however, having just guys lead the class strategically isn't impossible it'd be better to have a female figure somewhere at the top of the class hierarchy to rally the girls easier.
But then again does it really even matter?
Switching from my casual wear to my crimson red uniform we started to take our leave.
(School hallway)
I looked at the school deposited points
I looked at my recently school-issued phone hmm so the points have already been issued. after composing myself I opened the door seeing my classmates currently in chatter.
(Class D homeroom)
It was the beginning of class and most students were looking at their phones nervously the atmosphere was nervous some seemed surprised by
A group of girls and guys walked up to me swarming me with questions.
"L-light are you sure this is all we're getting?"
"I spent almost all of it," said another girl.
Oh so now you're worried? I thought annoyed.
I composed myself.
"There's more to points than the school lets on but even if we do end up with a disadvantage against other classes for now our best course of action would be to budget carefully" I can't believe I have to state the obvious to them well I guess they are teenagers.
"Don't worry we'll find a way to gain class points effectively" I said
I already checked out our class points and while it's not the best my plan still worked overall. After all, this is only the beginning.
"Try not to let it get to you. points are only a part of the system. say did that kiting equipment work" I said trying to lessen the nervous mood.
"U-uh y-yeah it worked just fine but I'm kinda sad I couldn't bring my personal set it was a gift from my mom it's just not the same," said the girl
I looked at my wrist
"Yeah I get where you're coming from I wasn't allowed to bring my watch that was gifted by my father so I'm stuck with a surrogate watch but yeah you're right it's never the same"
"You must respect him a lot,"said hirrata.
"Of course, he's the reason I want to become a detective"i responded.
"Have you considered being a k pop idol instead," said kurizawa jokingly.
I simply laughed "oh no way I'm terrible at singing"
Sato spoke up "how about we go to the karaoke and put that theory to the test"
"That sounds reckless seeing our financial situation" I responded.
Ryuk cut in "and by "our" you mean "their" right cheapskate"
"Mou you're starting to sound like my mom" said the blond to my extremely reasonable assessment.
"Yeah I might have free time after we're done"
Ryuk watched our exchange and commented "so this is what you call a slice of life ugh so boring when do we get to the lies and deception"
"But you know what won't be boring hearing if you can even sing" said the god laughing as if knew I would perform miserably.
the morning bell rang for our very first day of class of the new month everyone went back to their seats. Soon afterward, Chiyabashira-sensei strode into the room, holding a rolled-up poster. Her expression today was even more stern than usual.
There I was sitting in my seat resting my chin on my hand, if I'm right she should be revealing more information today seeing as our points were distributed.
Horikita was also looking intently at her.
"Hey, sensei, did you start menopause or something?"
Unbelievably, Ike actually let that joke fly.
unbelievable a part of me wants to eliminate him just save my peace of mind.
"Hehe this guys funny" said Ryuk
Of course, you find this funny you have the sense of humor belonging to a child.
"All right, your morning homeroom is about to begin. Before we get started, does anyone have any questions? If so, now is the time to speak." Chiyabashira-sensei completely ignored Ike's sexual harassment. She appeared totally convinced that the students had questions they wanted answering.
I already made it clear to the majority of the class so no one had any questions.
"I should have explained this all to you on the day of the entrance ceremony. This school measures its students' true abilities. This time, you were evaluated as being Mediocre that's all" said chabashira in a robotic tone devoid of any emotion.
"your class's results are reflected in the points that you receive. As a result, you wasted almost all of the 100,000 points that you should have received. That's what happened."
I heard a pencil moving against paper.Horikita seemed to be tallying the number of absences, tardy arrivals, and instances of talking in class down in her notebook, trying to make sense of the situation.
"If you had simply acted properly, then your points would not have dropped all the way down. This comes down to you taking personal responsibility."
There was no way for anyone to refute her perfectly sound argument. Everyone knew that bad behavior didn't pay.
"You Idiots would of probably ended up at zero points were it not for light focusing on damage control even he couldn't control some of you"
"Having just entered your first year of high school, did you honestly think you'd receive 100,000 points every month with no strings attached? At a school established by the Japanese government for the express purposes of training gifted people? That's unthinkable. Try using some common sense. Why would you leave it to chance?"
"That being said everyone falls for this trap to some degree but you light you're the first freshman in this school's history to see through the entire system within the first couple days that's truly impressive," said chabashira giving genuine praise which felt out of character for her.
I spoke up "seeing the intricacies of this school
I'm guessing you wouldn't just give us the criteria for how points are added and deducted that'd be far too easy for it to be the case"
"We cannot disclose the methods behind our student evaluation. It's the same as any other organization. When you enter a company, it is the company's choice whether or not to tell you how it evaluates its employees"
"Sure I figured as much but this would mean that post from before was accurate, and based on the current system I'm going to assume that we can't gain points from simply cleaning up our act"
For the first time, I saw a faint sliver of a smile on Chiyabashira-sensei's lips.
"correct Let's say that you stop being late to class and have no more absences... Even though zero points will be deducted from you this month, that doesn't mean that your points will increase, either. That means next month you will still receive zero points. From another perspective, you could say no matter how times you're late or absent to class, it doesn't matter. So, you're not really at a loss, are you?"
Her explanation was so counterproductive that it had the opposite effect; some students seemed incapable of understanding what she meant.
Repeating her words in more simple terms to the rest of the class I said "she's saying that's bad class behavior can only deduct points and that it can't be used to gain points"
A blonde boy wearing a smirk "heh to think that you defectives actually need a Waterdowned explanation from pretty boy over there I can tell you why. It's because you're all class D" said the narcissistic koenji.
"Talk about having no filter," said Ryuk.
Most students were looking at koenji with. Anger.
Sudou stands up "oh yeah punk don't forget you're in here with us what the hell does that make you!"
Flaunting his hair koenji replied "a perfect being of course"
"No filter eh well I guess that could be said for both of them" retorted Ryuk.
The bell rang, signaling the end of homeroom.
"It looks like we spent too much time yammering. I hope that you understood the gist of it. Well, it's about time that we switch to our main topic."
From the tube she carried, she removed a white rolled-up poster and spread it out. She stuck the poster to the blackboard with some magnets. The still-confused students stared blankly at the poster.
Cutting me off
"Are these...the results for each class?" Horikita tentatively took a guess. She was most definitely right.
Class A through Class D were listed. To the side was a row of numbers that went up to a maximum of four digits. Class D had 150. Class C had 490. Class B had 650. And at the top was Class A, with a total of 940. In this case, 1000 points would mean 100,000 yen. Every class had apparently lost points as expected class A lost the least.
"Is the lowest possible number zero or can you go into the negatives"
"No even if you are made to lose points while on zero it would stay the same this applys to both class and private points and since I'm sure you want to know, no we don't use a debt system"
150 huh our points for the month were 15,000 that means our class points times 100 is the monthly payment for each student the numbers are far to even minimizing damage was quite tricky people were far too impulsive for my liking.
the point difference is far too even as it stands calculating point penalties is a waste of time.
"Isn't something about this odd?" asked horikita.
"Yeah. The numbers look too even." I responded to horikita.
"most of you have been doing whatever you pleased this past month. The school has no intention of preventing you from doing what you want. Your actions, such as being late or talking during class, only affect the points you receive. The same goes for how you use your points. How you choose to spend is entirely up to you. We have not put any restrictions on point usage."
"This isn't fair, though! We can't enjoy our student lives like this!" shouted Ike, who'd stayed quiet until now.
I gave a clear warning yet you still screw it up.
Yamauchi wailed in incredible agony. He'd already used up all of his points...
At least ike has redeeming qualities unlike him.
I spoke up "this was never about giving us a perfect life on a silver platter if we want to have that we're going outwork the other classes please lift up your heads this is just one minor setback."
"The amount of points we gave you for the first month should be plenty for you to live on. You really only have yourself to blame" said chabashira coldly.
"But...why is there such a difference in our point values?" asked hirrata
"there's nothing unfair about it. All of the classes were scored using the same rules. Despite that, they didn't lose as many as you. That's the truth," answered chabashira
"But...why is there such a difference in our point values?" Hirata also seemed to have noticed that the numbers were too drastic.
"Do you finally understand now? Do you see why you were placed in Class D?"
I grinned "so my hunch was right we're in the defective class
Weren't we simply accepted into this school?"
"Huh? But classes are normally divided up like this, right?"
"That's what I thought at the start when I got my letter of acceptance but being here in person is different of course looking at it now the post was right on the nail but we couldn't take it as fact it could have been misinformation planted to throw people off. truth is all the information and clues were here it was for us to piece it together"
"You mean you right? they did nothing" said ryuk
"Yes we are part of the defective class but that doesn't mean we don't have a fighting chance. so now the question is how are we separated? it can't be by grades if that were the case people like me, yukimura and horikita would all be in class A I think the selection process is more diverse"
" I don't need to confirm anything but in this school students are sorted by their level of excellence. The superior students are sorted into Class A, the least capable in Class D. It's the same system you'd find in the major cram schools. In other words, Class D is akin to the last bastion for failures. You are the worst of the worst. You're defective. This is just the result of you being defective. So I'm curious tell me light how do you feel that you were judged as defective"
The room grew silent for a brif moment "....you think I'm defective?
"Class D or Class A it doesn't matter I'll still try to help people when needed sure the people in this room might have their own imperfections but that's just being human all this really means is that we as a class will have to adapt to whatever may come"
I glanced at horikita who was currently looking quite angry
"However, I have to say, this year's Class D was the first to not be completely clueless"
"you can still have a room in the dorms and free meals. You won't die."
"Won't the other classes make fun of us?"
Sudou kicked the legs of his desk with a loud thwack. After hearing that the classes were divided based on merit, everyone else would probably believe that Class D was full of morons. Despair wasn't unreasonable.
"What? You're still worried about your dignity, Sudou? Well then, work to make your class into the best one." chabashira replied to sudou's immature mentality.
"Huh?"
"Your class's points aren't just linked to the amount of money that you receive each month. They're also indicative of your class rank."
In other words...should we get to 500 points, then Class D would be promoted to Class C, the tricky part is finding a way to gain points.
"Now then, I have one more bit of bad news to share with you all."
She stuck another sheet of paper upon the board. It listed the names of everyone in the class. A number stood next to everyone's name.
"Judging from these, I can see that we've quite a few idiots in this class." As her heels clacked against the floor, she glanced at us.
"These are the results of the short test you took a while ago. Your sensei was so happy after your excellent performance. Come on, what in the world did you all study when you were in junior high?"
Almost everyone scored Bellow a 60 there was also the not so shocking terrible scores coming from ike yamauchi and sudou scoring in the 20s range or even less somehow.
Then there's the expectations like horikita, yukimura and koenji.
And lastly shinning like a ray of hope was my name at the top with perfect 100s.
"I'm so glad. If this were an actual test, then seven of you would've had to drop out."
"D-drop out? What do you mean?"
"Oh, what, did I not explain this to you? If you fail on a midterm or final exam in this school, then you have to drop out. If we applied that rule to this test, anyone who scored below thirty-two points would be out. You guys really are stupid, aren't you?"
"Wh-what?!" wailed Ike and the other failures.
I might've planted the notion of class rankings beforehand but I never mentioned anything a brutal school system that brutally expelled anyone who can't keep up. this came as a surprise to mostly everyone. a line was drawn on the paper, separating the seven people in question from the rest of the class. Among those seven people, Kikuchi had scored the highest, with thirty-one points. Anyone with a score equal to or lower than Kikuchi's had failed.
"Hey, don't jerk us around, Sae-chan-sensei! Don't joke about kicking us out!"
"Frankly, I'm also at a loss," the teacher said.
"These are the school rules. You should prepare for the worst."
"The teacher's right. There do seem to be a lot of morons here." Kouenji wore a smug grin while he polished his nails, his legs propped on the desk.
And I couldn't help but agree with his sentiment. Koenji might be the most capable aside from myself his observations from before were quite accurate.
"What the hell, Kouenji? You scored below the red line, too!"
"Don't tell me he's blind to?" asked Ryuk using his body part known as an eye.
"Pah. Where exactly are you looking, boy? Look again."
"Huh? Kouenji is...huh?"
Starting from the bottom of the page, Sudou scanned upward, and there he found Kouenji Rokosuke's name. Kouenji had tied for the second spot, scoring ninety points. That meant he'd been able to solve one of those super difficult problems.
"I never thought that Sudou was an idiot like me!" cried Ike, a mixture of wonder and sarcasm in his voice.
"I knew from the beginning" chukeld ryku.
"Oh, one more thing. This school, which operates under government supervision, boasts a high rate of advancement into elite education and workforce placement. That is a well-known fact. It's very likely that most of you have chosen a college or future workplace."
Well, naturally. This school boasted the highest rates of advancement in the whole country. There were rumors that it was possible to get into a highly competitive school or company just by graduating. Rumors even suggested that graduation from this school was like receiving a recommendation to Tokyo University, the most prestigious of Japan's institutes of higher learning.
"However, nothing comes easy in this world. Mediocre people such as yourselves would have to be naive to think that you could easily get into the college or workplace of your choice."
This was expected there would be no reason for anyone to compete if everyone got an easy career especially if the students that got in said fields failed miserably and stained the school's reputation.
Putting my thoughts aside I calmly keep my composed demeanor "the only class that will get this special treatment is Class A this ensures that over the 3 years of school only the true best class makes it and by making it only one class this ensures that you don't get any students that simply got lucky and besides it's not like your life is ruined if you don't make it to A it simply means you'll have put extra effort after graduation for a future. so our situation isn't as grim as you might think"
The post from the other day suggested the idea that only the upper class get special treatment so turning the morale wasn't hard at all the idea was already planted.
Yukimura stood up. He'd tied with Kouenji for the second highest score, indicating that there were no issues with his academic abilities. unbelievable was he even listening to what i said
"How disgraceful. There's nothing more pitiful than men losing their cool." As if prompted by Yukimura's words, Kouenji let out a sigh.
"Don't you feel dissatisfied being in Class D, Light?" Yukimura asked.
I'll have to empathize to make myself seem more likable and defuse this.
"Not at all listen I understand fully why you're dissatisfied with our situation and for a brief moment I thought the same but I don't think academics alone will be the only factor in class rankings. I've learned to stop treating this school as a regular school. A regular school wouldn't bait students in such a way with a point system or kick every student that fails just one test we can make this work we only just started there's time to catch up"
"We've been told that there's no guarantee whatsoever that we'll advance into higher education or get a job!" responded yukimura.
"Not necessarily we're not at a disadvantage we knew what the other classes did in fact I'd wager we were the first find out. trust me the moment we become unified is when we start making progress "
Using koenji to reinforce my statement i said "If you considered Kouenji's impressive intellect and physical ability, it's difficult to imagine that all of the students in Class A could be better than him. Perhaps he'd been assigned to Class D because of other factors rather than his ability"
"Nonsense pretty boy the school placing me in D has no impact on the beauty that is me If I were to drop out my future would be assured the school would come crawling back to me as for my personality it's befitting of me and perfect, Besides, I don't care in the slightest if the school does or doesn't assist me to higher education or the workforce. It's been decided that I will lead the Kouenji conglomerate group. Whether I'm in Class D or Class A is a trivial matter.
I smiled "of course, I'm simply bringing to light that classes are most likely not assigned by simple grades but outside factors as well I've pondered the possibility of things like home life family connections or personal past experiences"
Even someone like yukimura can't break down such a logical explanation.
"That's......how dose your brain work like that?" Asked hando
Cutting in our teacher made herself known
"Your midterm exams are in three weeks. Please think things over, and be careful not to drop out. I have confidence that you can find a way to avoid getting red marks on your report cards. If at all possible, challenge yourself to act in a way befitting a skilled individual."
Chiyabashira-sensei exited the room, closing the door with some force for added emphasis. The students marked in red were left dejected. Even the normally proud Sudou clicked his tongue and hung his head in shame.
"So how you gonna babysit them this time light?"
"I understand that you're all confused right now, but we should start planning for the midterms." Hirata, stood and attempted to rein everyone in.
I also stood and walked to the front "he's right if I'm correct this midterm might be a chance to gain more points but we should prioritize the safety of everyone above that"
"How are we supposed to calm down? Aren't you frustrated that she called us a bunch of failures?!" Yukimura said.
"Simple we'll have to prove her wrong and show her that we are capable"
"How can you say that?"
"Calm down, you two, okay? I'm sure that the teacher talked to us harshly so we'd be inspired to do better, right?" that was kushida.
"She's right yukimura it's only been a month if we band together we have a chance"
"N-no, it's... Well, I certainly wouldn't say you're wrong, but..."
Yukimura's anger had almost completely vanished.
I looked at everything as if expressing a wish for us to work together.
"Yeah, it's better for us to band together. Right? There's no need for you to fight."
"It's alright you're not at fault here I should of seen this coming but i didn't"
"Ah come on light don't blame yourself no one could of saw that coming"
Actually, I already knew.
The reason I didn't put this on the post is that on the off chance that it didn't get reviled I could have used it as an Avenue to expel people that might get in my way.
"We should probably focus on making sure our class behavior is up to school standards so please show up to class on time refrain from phone usage and about the midterm we'll have to resort to studying groups" I can't believe I have to state the obvious again.
"Ideally I'd like to have the Input of each of you so feel free to ask questions, for now, that's the most we can do"
Nods and voices of approvement could be heard as expected sudou, ike and yamauchi didn't seem to care horikita and koenji were non factor they'll pass with no problem.
we should be able to get almost every student on board the ones who we won't join are sudou Ike and Yamauchi I already have a strategy in mind normally it'd be in my best interest to let the dead weight simply disappear but sudou might end up being one of most effective students in the class and if I only help him I might be seen in a negative light lastly I can't afford to let them get expelled just yet any major loss in points will hurt the class morale, this midterm is already won.
(Also I kinda put this project off for a while so would you guys prefer shorter chapters and more uploads or longer chapters but less frequent uploads?)