Chapter 007: How Can One Class Have Two Representatives! I'm Talking About You! Class A!
Lunch break was about to end.
In Class B, Ichinose Honami had been attempting to eavesdrop on Hikigaya-kun's inner voice, and by "prescribing the right medicine," she had successfully used points to make Hikigaya-kun waver.
Because...
"Since everyone trusts me so much... I will do my best within my power," he had said.
Hearing him say this, the students in the class let out a sigh of relief.
Having suddenly learned that their beautiful school life was a mere illusion—that they needed to compete and struggle to earn it—they couldn't help but feel an extra layer of worry.
However...
Given their trust in and admiration for Ichinose, if Hikigaya-kun truly could lead the class to charge toward Class A so that everyone could graduate from Class A—obtaining the school's promised recommendation letters to their desired professions or exam-free entry into their preferred universities—then looking back on it in the future, those three years of hard work in high school would be a very meaningful experience.
But...
The teacher for the next period had already arrived and was standing at the door.
At just the right moment, the teacher lightly knocked on the front door of the classroom.
Soon after...
The front door was opened by a student sitting nearby.
The female teacher standing outside was their class teacher, Hoshinomiya Chie. From her posture, it seemed she had been listening for a while.
"Hoshinomiya-sensei, is the content on the blackboard real? Does the school really want the four classes to compete against each other?"
"Will there be situations involving competition with upperclassmen later on?"
"Can you tell us what the special exam for the first month is?"
The students suddenly became quite noisy.
Even though she didn't always act with the best intentions, the persona Hoshinomiya projected was indeed that of someone easy to get along with, so the surrounding students bombarded her with questions.
"I'm sorry, Sensei doesn't know anything~" Hoshinomiya said, clutching her lesson plans and wearing a gentle, smiling expression.
But looking at her performance—specifically that she didn't deny it—it could be said that this was likely indeed the case.
Everyone became even more convinced.
"Then, Sensei, in all of history, has there ever been a case where Class B successfully promoted to Class A?" Ichinose suddenly inquired at that moment.
"Well—I can't disclose that right now," Hoshinomiya continued. "But everyone is already very excellent."
While "cannot disclose" could be taken as temporary secrecy, "but everyone is already very excellent" could be interpreted as an answer to Ichinose's question.
It suggested that many previous generations of Class B seniors had failed to promote. Therefore, as per Ichinose's suggestion, if they really wanted to reach Class A, they truly had to find an excellent class representative and put their all into it.
By now, essentially none of the students in the class harbored any objections to the proposal Ichinose had just made: giving the class representative 1/3 of the points they received from the school.
Because the responsibility the class representative bore was simply too immense; if they truly could lead the class forward, then they were indeed worth the support of that 1/3 cut of points.
Meanwhile, Hoshinomiya Chie stole a glance in Hikigaya-kun's direction.
But Hikigaya knew very well: Hoshinomiya wasn't looking at him with newfound respect just because the Class B representative had been switched to him.
She was likely trying to urge him to approach Horikita Suzune of Class D sooner, so he could take down Chabashira's trump card and ultimately destroy Chabashira's ambitions.
As expected.
This woman did not care whether Class B fared well or poorly.
.
.
.
In other classes.
The dormitories for all first-year students were gathered in one large building, and the first-years also had their own exclusive teaching building. The teaching building had a total of five
floors; the four first-year classes were placed on the first, second, fourth, and fifth floors respectively.
The third floor served as the faculty office for the teachers.
First-year Class B was on the fourth floor, while First-year Class A was on the fifth floor.
The vibration from the sound of the entire Class B applauding in unison still caught the attention of First-year Class A.
"Perhaps it's some sort of 'united and loving' activity," said a tall, blonde, handsome guy.
This boy's name was Hashimoto Masayoshi. He was someone very smooth in both personality and actions, and a veteran when it came to gathering information.
"When I think that our future opponents are such a naive class, I feel a bit sorry for them," said another messy-looking boy with short green hair. This was Totsuka Yahiko.
Both were students of Class A, but they belonged to different factions.
Yes.
In the mere ten days since enrollment, First-year Class A had already split into two factions: the Sakayanagi Faction and the Katsuragi Faction.
Just as Ichinose of Class B had been recommended as the Class B representative, over in Class A, their class teacher Mashima-sensei had also suggested last week that they confirm a class representative.
The result was that the class split into two factions, each electing their own representative.
They were Katsuragi Kohei and Sakayanagi Arisu.
Katsuragi Kohei was a tall, bald boy with no eyebrows, while Sakayanagi Arisu was a petite, youthful girl with fair skin, a cute face, and silver hair that looked extremely refined.
Both possessed significant "combat power" within Class A.
On the first day of enrollment, when Mashima-sensei mentioned that the private points in their phone accounts could be used to buy anything in the school, Sakayanagi Arisu raised her hand. She stated that "there is no such thing as a free lunch" and that it was impossible for the school to give them so many benefits without expecting anything in return. Therefore, she decided to pay points to buy the answers.
Since the teacher said points could buy anything, buying the answers was only logical.
However, her points weren't enough. It required a payment of 1 million points.
Consequently...
The insightful people in the class quickly pooled their points. After all, it was only the first day of school, so everyone had 100,000 points. Rather than spending blindly without knowing the truth, it was better to understand the situation before deciding what to do.
Thus, the students of Class A learned the true nature of the school—which ordinary freshmen would only be told a month later—on their very first day.
This allowed them to stay one step ahead.
In that case, logically, since Sakayanagi made the proposal and ensured they were a step ahead, shouldn't the class be led by someone with such "Insight" (Keen Eyes) like her?
So how did the Katsuragi Faction emerge?
It was simple.
The school would inform the first-year freshmen of this news a month later, but why wait a month? Since it was information they would find out later anyway, yet the Class A teacher still took 1 million points from them, it meant that knowing in advance was certainly valuable.
Therefore, perhaps the monthly special exams had already begun.
Thus, Katsuragi-kun—who was large in stature but also possessed considerable thinking ability—quickly proposed his own view. Following this, the students of Class A paid another 500,000 points to buy the details of this month's special exam from the teacher.
It was the Behavioral Standards Evaluation.
Evaluating, on a class-by-class basis, whether the students' daily behavior fell within the scope of a qualified student.
In other words, during the first month of enrollment, the entire class had to act as model students. For Class A, which was already a gathering of model students, this was effortless.
Now, logically, both Sakayanagi's and Katsuragi's proposals and actions were adding "bricks and mortar" to Class A; they could have worked together to make Class A even stronger.
So... why did they split into two factions?
It was simple.
Katsuragi was steady and defensive—he was a "moderate." Since he knew the nature of the school and the content of the behavioral evaluation, he planned to play it safe, ensuring Class A lost as few points as possible in this evaluation to stay ahead of the other classes. He wanted to achieve a score that no previous Class A had ever achieved in the first month's behavioral exam.
But Sakayanagi Arisu was different. She felt they could seize this opportunity to use the "Behavioral Standards Evaluation" to directly crush Classes B, C, and D in the first month. She led a very aggressive faction.