Chapter 005: This Class B Teacher is Truly an Obstacle for Class B!
Although Hikigaya already had a mental draft of his plan and had confirmed he was currently in the middle of a wonderful transmigration, he was about to do something rather underhanded.
For now, he had to at least rule out the possibility of his sister Hikigaya Komachi being here at Advanced Nurturing High. Otherwise, if she found out her brother had become so despicable, she would definitely look down on him.
Hikigaya feared no one, except for his sister's judgmental gaze.
Fortunately, Advanced Nurturing High implemented a boarding system; he only needed to confirm that the name "Hikigaya Komachi" was not on the student roster.
Thinking of this, Hikigaya clicked on his phone's contacts. 1
[Contacts - Empty]
Hikigaya: "..."
The screen was completely blank.
Well, that was normal. Even in his original world, his contacts only consisted of his parents, Komachi, Hiratsuka Shizuka-sensei, Yuigahama Yui, and Yukinoshita Yukino—a total of six people. So it wasn't surprising that his contacts were a blank slate now.
However, as a student, especially in this peculiar school, it was quite unacceptable not to even have the class teacher's contact information.
And so...
After somewhat awkwardly tapping the back of Shibata-kun, who sat in front of him, Hikigaya successfully obtained the phone number of the Class B teacher, Hoshinomiya Chie.
He composed his first message.
[Hoshinomiya-sensei, I am Hikigaya Hachiman from Class B. I would like to ask if there is a way to obtain a roster of all students in the school? I am willing to pay points for this.]
Message sent successfully.
However, ten seconds, thirty seconds, two minutes passed... and there was no response. Was she not looking at her phone, or was she ignoring him on purpose?
Just as he was thinking this, the message status changed to "Read." Curiously, though, the "Typing..." prompt did not appear on the other end. In other words, she had clearly seen it but offered no reaction.
He suddenly recalled the state of this class teacher he had seen in the classroom that morning.
She seemed smiley and flighty, looking easy to get along with—but that was only on the surface. Having read the original story, Hikigaya knew very well that this female teacher was a bona fide bitch.
Hoshinomiya and the Class D teacher, Chabashira Sae, were former classmates and even best friends. Their class had failed to graduate as Class A. Years later, both had returned to this school as teachers.
Chabashira Sae held a deep obsession over their failure to reach Class A. Since she could no longer achieve it as a student, she pinned her hopes on her role as the Class D teacher, dreaming day and night that Class D would fulfill her dream for her.
As her "best friend," Hoshinomiya not only saw through Chabashira's ambition but was also doing everything in her power to sabotage it.
Faced with this ultimate goal, she felt zero responsibility toward her duties as the Class B teacher. Even if Class B was ruined, she wouldn't care.
The only thing that could truly interest her was information related to Chabashira—specifically, anything involving Chabashira's Class D.
Naturally, then...
Regarding the inquiry from a Class B student like himself, she would at most offer a perfunctory, "Oh, sorry~ Sensei didn't notice the message just now~ (╹▽╹)" during her idle time, acting cute to brush him off.
After a bit of thought, Hikigaya composed another message and sent it.
[Aside from that, I've discovered some peculiar things about this school. I suspect that next month, our allowance might not be 100,000 points. And the Class D students might end up with no points at all.]
This time, the message was marked as "Read" the moment it was sent.
This proved that Hoshinomiya was indeed looking at her phone. She had simply chosen to ignore the first message.
"Is this Hikigaya Hachiman-kun from my class? Sorry, Sensei didn't have you specially labeled." Her reply came in less than five seconds.
Hey, hey, you replied in just five seconds. With hand speed that fast, are you also a Kushida Kikyo?
But this basically confirmed it.
This Class B teacher didn't feel any joy in earning a high salary from the school or being the Class B teacher. She stayed at this school purely to destroy Chabashira's ambition.
So, to some extent, she was an irresponsible teacher.
Strangely, another pair from the original story whose dynamic resembled Hoshinomiya and Chabashira's popped into Hikigaya's mind: Kushida Kikyo and Horikita Suzune from Class D.
Kushida had a dark past and was worried it would be exposed by Horikita, who went to the same middle school. Thus, she always interacted with Horikita with a smile, while inwardly wishing for Horikita's expulsion.
Hoshinomiya, too, acted extremely friendly toward Chabashira, but if given the chance, she would certainly kick her while she was down.
Hah.
Plastic sisterhood.
Now that Hoshinomiya had started replying so quickly, Hikigaya knew in his heart it was because he had included the words "Class D" in his subsequent message, catching her attention.
Hikigaya continued sending messages.
[Sensei, is there a roster for all the students? I wonder how many points it would cost.]
"A roster can be bought, of course. Everything in the school has a price tag. If it's not for sale, you just have to raise the price.
If it's a roster for the entire grade, it's about 100,000 points. For the whole school, it would be 300,000. It's a bit on the expensive side."
Is that so? So expensive.
In that case, he would have to intercept Horikita Manabu.
He remembered that in the original story, when Manabu went to see his sister Horikita Suzune, he mentioned that he had memorized the freshman enrollment list, which was how he knew his "foolish sister had enrolled."
Therefore, it was highly likely he had memorized the names of every student in the school.
Hikigaya didn't doubt such a thing. Yukinoshita had done something similar to run the Service Club—memorizing info so she could immediately identify anyone who came to the club for help.
So, for these people with high IQs and powerful memories, such a feat was possible.
[Then please give me Student Council President Horikita Manabu's num—]
Before Hikigaya could finish typing, a new message from Hoshinomiya jumped out ahead of him.
"However, our school's Student Council President, Horikita Manabu, is excellent. He should be able to do something like memorizing the names of all the students."
"..."
Hikigaya fell silent for a moment. Then he completed his unfinished sentence.
[Then please give me Student Council President Horikita Manabu's number.]
"Well, in principle, you should work hard to get information yourself, okay? But seeing as you have such a 'thirst for knowledge,' Sensei will make an exception and tell you, since I happen to know it."
Then she sent a number over.
Immediately following that:
"By the way, Hikigaya-kun, have you had any contact with the Class D students? There's a girl named Horikita Suzune in Class D who is quite, quite beautiful! I feel... she might even be a cut above our class's Ichinose! (✧◡✧)" —by Hoshinomiya Chie.
Quite beautiful? Better than Ichinose?
Hikigaya didn't believe for a second that this "bitch" teacher from his class would suddenly develop an interest in ranking girls' beauty and go out of her way to "recommend" one to a male student.
So why did she single out Horikita Suzune's name?
While Horikita from Class D was indeed top-tier in terms of looks in the original story, one shouldn't look down on Class D.
Class D also had high-tier beauties like Karuizawa Kei, Sakura Airi, Kushida Kikyo, Hasebe Haruka, and Matsushita Chiaki.
So, Hoshinomiya pointed out Horikita Suzune.
Then, looking closely, she had used the full name "Horikita Manabu" twice when referring to the Student Council President.
Horikita... Horikita...
It was basically confirmed. She had likely noticed that the girl in Class D shared the surname Horikita and had a 50% physical resemblance to the President, leading her to suspect they were siblings.
Alarm bells immediately rang in Hikigaya's mind.
His evaluation of his own class teacher was already low, but now it seemed he had still given her too much credit.
Because as the Class B teacher, she truly didn't care about Class B's affairs; she was entirely focused on Class D.
Furthermore, by saying this, she very likely believed that Horikita Suzune was the trump card Chabashira was banking on to lead Class D to Class A.
So now, with zero bottom line, she wanted him to make contact with Horikita Suzune.
This operational mode was so familiar!
Hikigaya instantly remembered that she did this in the original story as well.
During the VIP exam, when Ichinose Honami showed incredible wisdom, Hoshinomiya's thought wasn't to continue nurturing Ichinose as the Class B leader to let her shine.
Instead, after discovering that Chabashira's trump card was Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, she directly arranged for Ichinose to contact Ayanokouji. She wanted Ichinose to "ruin" Ayanokouji to destroy Chabashira's ambition.
And after that, there was no "after." Ichinose was a little succubus, and Ayanokouji was a male incubus; once she fell under the "love-brain" buff, Ichinose's tactics and IQ both plummeted.
Ultimately, Class B fell to Class D.
And now, Hoshinomiya was actually trying to trick him into contacting Horikita Suzune.
She likely hoped he would discover that Suzune was Manabu's sister and then expose that relationship to ruin her.
Hoshinomiya's arrangement was just old wine in a new bottle.
Using students as pawns to attack the "trump card" her "best friend" placed hope in, all to satisfy her own twisted desire for destruction. The only thing that changed was the names of the characters on the chessboard.
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Less than five minutes remained before the end of the lunch break.
But at that moment, two thuds rang out, and both the windows and the door of the classroom were closed.
When Hikigaya pulled his attention away from his phone, he realized the surroundings had suddenly become much darker.
At the same time...
The classmates in the room were staring at him, dumbfounded.
Hmm?
His brow furrowed; Hikigaya realized something was wrong.
Ichinose had gone up to the podium at some point.
Standing beneath the blackboard, she spoke: "Next, I hope Hikigaya-kun can lead everyone forward... Class B will become even better under his leadership. Everyone, please applaud!"