Chapter 044: The Scapegoat Kushida
Golden hair, an adorable visage, and blinking burgundy eyes.
This was Kushida Kikyo.
She always wore a smile, like a little angel, and was extremely eager to make friends. Whenever a friend ran into trouble, she would always do her best to help.
In other words, she "treated all friends equally." Even if classmates of the "tier" of Ike Kanji or Sudo had difficulties, she would extend a helping hand.
A genuine little angel.
'But there's no such thing as a completely good or bad person in this world.
Kushida Kikyo simply enjoys others' dependence on her. Moreover, she desperately craves being trusted—especially when it means obtaining people's deepest secrets.
It gives her a sense of superiority, making her feel she has surpassed those classmates with better academic or physical abilities.
In the original story, Kushida was "black" to the core with her own dark history. Thus, she is particularly wary of Horikita Suzune, who came from the same middle school and might know her secret. To prevent it from leaking, she wouldn't even hesitate to betray the class's interests. Therefore, she possesses the perfect disposition for a spy or a traitor.'
Kushida: "..."
Fine.
She had sampled enough of his inner thoughts; he didn't need to keep serving them up.
This constant narrative of trying to catch her off-guard was becoming unbearable.
And how did he know about her dark history? Furthermore, did that Horikita girl actually know her secret or not? Even now, Kushida couldn't be certain.
However.
"Hikigaya-kun, are you really treating me to a meal? And... here?" Kushida Kikyo seemed somewhat flattered.
Despite her hesitation and initial polite refusal, she hadn't declined at all when Hikigaya had Ichinose invite her to this third-floor restaurant.
After all, Class D's evaluation points were currently 0.
This meant they had no living expenses this month. Kushida herself only had 6,000 private points left. To maintain her "little angel" image, she had lent 2,000 points to Karuizawa, 1,000 to Sato Maya, and 1,000 to her best friend Wang Mei-Yu.
Consequently, Kushida only had 2,000 private points left—just enough for six cups of milk tea.
Hirata had asked Chabashira-sensei how they were supposed to survive without money, and she had recommended the school's free counter, saying free food was provided.
However, a group of students had gone to try it, only to find that the free mountain vegetable set was incredibly unpalatable.
Therefore, Kushida-san still hoped to enjoy a delicious lunch.
"Well, booking a private room long-term costs 100,000 points. Besides, the prices at the third-floor restaurant are 50% to 100% higher than the first and second-floor cafeterias, and they've added many new dishes.
The benefit is that you can encounter many faculty members here, providing a chance to come into contact with the school's upper management—like the Chairman," Hikigaya explained.
It sounded as if meeting the high-ups would grant some kind of benefit.
Though, this school was indeed special; perhaps one really could fish for advantages by rubbing elbows with the elite.
But Kushida immediately caught the keyword in his sentence.
"Meaning, Hikigaya-kun... is very wealthy right now?" Kushida blinked softly. She remembered that last time, he had used cold, hard cash to buy that 80,000-point camera.
"I'm doing okay. Among the students, I should be in the top tier," Hikigaya answered.
Kushida_ "..."
'The top tier, huh...'
"But given this school, while points can be spent like money, they disappear very quickly," Hikigaya added.
"At the Student Council this morning, the President told me that if a written exam score is just a few points short of the passing line, points can be used to buy score. For example, if the passing mark is 40 and you score 35, you only need to pay 500,000 points to pass."
'Is that so?
100,000 points per point?
Damn.'
That price was beyond ridiculous.
And this guy—did he really intend to spend 500,000 points just to pass? What couldn't you do with 500,000 points instead?
"So, does Hikigaya-kun need tutoring?" Kushida asked immediately.
Kushida had good academic ability. After the class evaluation points hit zero today, everyone was still facing a written exam.
Failing the exam meant expulsion.
Most of the "academic dregs" in class were having mental breakdowns.
The best countermeasure Hirata could think of was organizing study groups for mutual aid. As one of Class D's top students, Kushida had to participate.
Tutoring classmates yielded no profit, but if she tutored Hikigaya, could she earn some points?
"No need. If I wanted extra lessons, my class has plenty of students with better academic ability," Hikigaya rejected her flatly.
Kushida: "..."
True.
The gap in comprehensive strength between classes A, B, C, and D was massive. Over the past month, Kushida had interacted with students from all classes and knew well that her Class D was in the worst shape: a gathering of academic failures, athletic failures, and problem children...
"Then, why did Hikigaya-kun call me here today...?"
After receiving Ichinose's message, Kushida came partly because she could score a free meal. In the past, she would have considered splitting the bill or giving a return gift, but now that she had no points, she couldn't afford to worry about such things. Kushida was practical.
On the other hand, since she was meeting Hikigaya-kun, she could hear his inner voice. Since he was the representative of Class B, she also wondered if she could gain some intelligence regarding the written exam.
After all.
If it were a normal exam, Class D would certainly be a disaster.
Well, perhaps not necessarily.
Because the passing mark was set based on the Class D students' own scores.
Since Class D was full of academic failures who were thoroughly terrible, the average would inevitably be very low. Since the class only had a few top students, if she could convince them to fail on purpose, the passing mark would be so low that most of the failures could clear it.
So, the number of expulsions could probably be kept under five.
But losing all 1,000 base points in one go, followed by losing five more people in one exam...
This class... was simply too fragile.
Kushida desired to be friends with everyone and didn't want her "friends" to decrease in number.
Though those "low-IQ" types in Class D were troublesome, they were very easy to control. A simple smile was enough to farm a massive amount of goodwill from them.
"Naturally, it's about this special exam. I've obtained some important information," Hikigaya said.
"There's a significant issue with the syllabus and the test questions for this exam."
'Oh?'
But Kushida-san didn't immediately take it to heart.
Even though he was speaking about a topic she cared about, the fact that he said it so proactively and even treated her to a meal...
Kushida instinctively felt a trap.
After all, last time she had suddenly turned into an "accomplice in theft." She had developed a strong sense of vigilance toward Hikigaya Hachiman.
She felt that this time, he wouldn't be asking her to do something even more outrageous than before, would he?
Hello everyone! I'm VarieTL
Thank you as always for your support!
I wanted to announce that I posted a new Fanfiction!
Saving the World with Crossovers, starting with replacing Natsuki subaru with Hikigaya Hachiman
Kawata Osamu transmigrated and became a God.
Wonderful start, right? Unfortunately, this world is destined to be destroyed by the Abyss...
The only thing he can do is try to merge many worlds together thanks to the "Children of the World."
If he can show everyone their adventures and evoke enough emotion, the worlds will merge! Kawata Osamu decided to start by replacing Natsuki Subaru with Hikigaya Hachiman!
2nd Arc: Ayanokouji Kiyotaka in Redo of Healer
3rd Arc: Shirogane Miyuki in Inuyasha
4th Arc: Kousaka Kyousuke in Overlord
I have already posted 264 Chapters of this Fanfiction!
Mostly because it's really really good, so I wanted to continue working on it XD
Read ahead (50 chapters) by supporting me on buymeacoffee com/varietl or ko-fi edwriting