Kakeru Ryuen was somewhat disappointed. Kikyo Kushida's cooking was only slightly above average. Still, she had prepared an impressively lavish meal, and he could tell she had put genuine effort into it: grilled saury, miso soup, teriyaki, ginger pork, tonkatsu, macaroni, and sashimi.
More importantly, Kushida had switched to lighter makeup—and she had even brought back a pair of black stockings. Ryuen was pleased that she knew how to please him. With nothing else to do after dinner, he taught her a few moves. Watching Kikyo Kushida wear his boxing gloves and sweat as she hammered the heavy bag with lefts and rights, Ryuen chuckled inwardly.
"Don't tell me this girl thinks a little practice will let her beat me."
The next day, Kushida went to Suzune Horikita and repeated Ryuen's message. Although she hated Horikita, she had no choice but to force a smile and speak politely in order to complete Ryuen's assignment.
"Bitch. Sooner or later, I'll make you drop out," Kikyo Kushida cursed silently through gritted teeth after leaving.
Under Horikita and Yosuke Hirata's lead, Class D also organized a study group. Failing meant expulsion, so they were understandably panicked. Naturally, Ryuen had no intention of letting them study in peace after learning about it.
He once again sent out Ishizaki's trio. The three were already unpopular in Class D, given their involvement in the Ken Sudō incident. They were particularly effective at disrupting the weaker students' studying. As for Sudō himself, the moment Ishizaki's group showed up, he could not absorb a single word from his textbook.
In the end, Class D's study group was forced from the library to a café, then from the café to a bookstore. Yet Class C's students kept haunting them, always managing to find them wherever they went. Naturally, that was thanks to Kikyo Kushida. Eventually, they could only study in their dorm rooms, but even then, Class C students kept knocking on their doors.
"Shameless!"
The Class D students repeatedly wanted to teach Ishizaki's group a lesson, but they were afraid of being set up for a one-hundred-thousand-point penalty like Sudō had been. They considered filing a complaint with the school, but Ishizaki and the others had not actually violated any school rules.
Under those conditions, Suzune Horikita could only discuss matters with Kiyotaka Ayanokoji and decide to purchase past exam papers from upperclassmen.
"We don't have enough points to buy them, Horikita," Ayanokoji reminded her.
"But with the way our class is studying now, someone will definitely fail if we don't buy them."
"Then are you going to raise the funds? It's for the class, and everyone benefits, right?"
"Do you think the students who are already good at studying will agree to contribute? And how many points do you think the poor students can really afford? They're probably still clinging to the hope that they won't fail and won't want to pay."
Horikita had a point. However, the upperclassmen's prices were outrageously inflated—five hundred thousand points. After approaching several of them, Suzune Horikita eventually found a third-year girl willing to sell for only three hundred thousand points. Horikita did not have that much, so she arranged installment payments: fifty thousand points per month for seven months, totaling three hundred and fifty thousand points.
Signing the contract with the senior went smoothly. Contracts were tools used to regulate transactions between students. Anyone who violated one could be reported to the school, which could enforce its terms or expel the student who breached it. The scope of such contracts was broad, and so was their binding power.
There was only one clause that left Suzune Horikita somewhat puzzled: "If Party B is unable to repay the points on time in any given month, Party B must perform household chores for Party A during that month."
The condition was entirely acceptable. Still, the senior in front of her did not look like someone incapable of handling housework. Horikita did not ask, however. It would have been impolite to question a girl about such a thing.
She decisively signed the contract, then meticulously examined the exam papers the senior had given her. Her attention was entirely on the questions, and she completely failed to notice that the senior put away the contract without signing it herself.
That night, the contract landed in Ryuen's hands. There was no such thing as a free lunch. That senior had been bait Ryuen bought for five hundred and fifty thousand points.
And Ryuen did not feel the slightest guilt. Suzune Horikita had come to him of her own accord. It was not as though he had gone out of his way to provoke her, nor had he broken his agreement with Manabu Horikita.
As promised, Manabu Horikita proposed changes to the exam questions to the board. After listening to his arguments, the board approved his proposed questions.
Before an exam, studying was agony. During an exam, answering questions was agony. After an exam, the grades were agony.
Since this was the first time the papers had been revised, the difficulty had not been set too high. Even so, someone in Class C still failed despite all their hard work.
Nanami Yabu—the weak, innocent, and somewhat foolish girl who had supported Ryuen's rule—watched her expression shift from surprise to panic, then fear, when the results were announced.
She was one point short in English.
Nanami Yabu was going to be expelled. That was what most people thought. Though they had not known her for long, most of the class looked at her with sympathy.
Tears welled in her eyes. Covering her mouth, she could not bring herself to accept reality. Even her long green hair seemed to have lost its luster in that moment.
Ryuen raised an eyebrow. Women really were made of water. The smallest thing and they shed tears.
Hiyori Shiina, who had ignored Ryuen for the past few days, finally spoke to him.
"Ryuen, you said you would bring all of us to Class A. Are you going to abandon Yabu?"
She truly was Class C's little angel. She had shown no interest in reaching Class A before, but when a classmate genuinely faced the risk of expulsion, she stepped forward. Her words questioned Ryuen, but that was fine. The reason Ryuen had remained silent the instant the results were announced was because he had been waiting for Hiyori to speak first. Only then could she establish authority among the girls. As far as Ryuen knew, quite a few of them still refused to accept Hiyori's standing, and that was not good for class unity.
"I can make up that one point for Yabu. But remember this: every favor you receive comes at a price. Me leading you to Class A does not mean you get to do nothing. Those without value are the first to be discarded. If you cannot even handle studying, then you should leave this school as soon as possible."
Ryuen's words struck every student in Class C. They had already realized that this school was different. They wanted to reach Class A as well, but Ryuen would not tolerate people gaining something for nothing. No one could slack off. The school's ordinary academic exams were not difficult; anyone who studied seriously could pass them. The truly difficult tests were the Special Exams.
Ryuen did not want another case of someone failing an ordinary exam in his class.
For Nanami Yabu's missing point, Ryuen paid Kazuma Sakagami one hundred thousand points.
Class A's elite students were naturally not tripped up by such a minor exam. Class B had Honami Ichinose organizing their study sessions, so no one failed there either. Only Class D suffered the same problem.
The moment the exam papers were handed out, Horikita's expression turned exceptionally grim. The questions were completely different from the papers she had bought. Although she was confident she could pass—and even earn a good score—Sudō and the others would certainly fail.
This exam covered only Japanese, mathematics, and English.
Sudō was two points short in Japanese and five points short in English. He passed mathematics, at least.
Kanji Ike was two points short in mathematics.
Airi Sakura was one point short in Japanese and four points short in mathematics.
When the results were announced, Sudō was the first to rush up to Horikita and seize her by the collar.
"Didn't you say the actual questions would be very similar to the papers you gave us? Then why did I fail?"
Chabashira watched the farce from the podium, hoping Ayanokoji would step in and resolve the situation. Yet he remained silent. Even as Horikita was treated so roughly, his expression did not change. Chabashira wanted to say something, but when she opened her mouth, no words came out.
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