Smoke curled up from a lit cigarette.
In the teacher's office, Sae Chabashira leaned against the open window and slowly blew out a ring of smoke.
Her eyes were full of worry.
Why had Ren transferred to Class D at a time like this?
If someone said Ren had transferred there to lead Class D to Class A, Sae would never believe it.
She had just threatened Ayanokoji to force him to contribute to Class D, and then Ren suddenly showed up there.
How was she supposed to deal with that?
She couldn't control Koenji, and Ayanokoji might not even be able to beat Ren.
Class D really...
had a bleak future.
Crushing the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray, Sae looked at Chie, who was happily chatting on her phone.
"Chie, aren't you worried at all that Ren transferred from your class to mine?"
Chie's reaction was strange too.
The ace of her class had transferred to another class right after school started, yet as the homeroom teacher, Chie acted as if nothing had happened.
She sat there scrolling through her phone and giggling at her desk.
"Oh. Ren-chan has his own ideas. I can't control him~"
Hearing Sae ask her, Chie answered without even looking up.
Whether Ren was in Class A or Class D did not make much difference to her.
Chie and Ren had lived together for a long time. The only difference now was that she would not see him in class, which was trivial.
As for worrying whether Ren would really help Class D rise...
Chie, who had plenty of personal points in her account, felt that as long as Ren dared to contribute to Class D, she would dare to spend 20 million points to buy him back.
In short, she would just solve it with money.
I, Chie Hoshinomiya, am not the same as before!
Kikyo was in Class D, but Honami and Airi were both in Class A.
Three girls whispering sweet things in his ear would definitely be more effective than Kikyo alone.
The amount of information Chie had now was on a completely different level from Sae.
And...
Looking at the chat screen on her phone, Chie smiled even more happily.
Chie-chan: Ren-chan, don't go to class. Come keep Chie-chan company.
Chie-chan: Chie-chan has no classes today~
Katsuragi Ren: Hoshinomiya-sensei, as a teacher, trying to make a student skip class is a serious lack of professional ethics. Believe it or not, I'll report you.
Chie-chan: Then today Ren-chan will be Chie-chan's teacher?
Katsuragi Ren: Hoshinomiya-sensei, this is still skipping class.
Chie-chan: What if Chie-chan, as a student today, is very rebellious?
Katsuragi Ren: Having said that, I really don't want to attend class today.
After sending the location of the hotel she had reserved to Ren, the smile on Chie's face looked just like a little fox who had successfully stolen a chicken.
It was a good thing Ren had gone to Class D.
Now that he was in Class D, she had no more scruples.
Honami, Airi, and Kikyo had to go to class like good girls.
But the excellent teacher Chie did not.
In broad daylight...
Chie had never tried that before.
"Sae-chan, I don't have any classes this afternoon, so I'm leaving first."
"As for Ren-chan transferring to your Class D, I'll leave the worrying to you."
Putting her things into her small bag, Chie smiled and waved goodbye to Sae.
There was not the slightest trace of sadness on her face about Ren transferring to Class D.
"Mashima-sensei, what do you think?"
Seeing Chie leave, the irritated Sae turned to Tomonari Mashima for his opinion.
"That child Ren is troublesome... and very hard to deal with."
"Chabashira-sensei, I can't give you too much advice. I can only say..."
"Good luck."
Ren was already famous among the first-year students, and Mashima had naturally been paying attention to him.
Because of that, Mashima had no hope at all for Sae's dream of climbing to Class A.
There were simply too many geniuses in this year.
Class A had Ren and Honami.
Class B had Arisu and Kohei.
Even Class C had Ryuen, who had already pulled the class together early on.
Mashima did not understand Ayanokoji deeply, so he only judged Class D by what was visible on the surface.
And from that point of view, he felt a little sorry for Sae.
Previous Class Ds had been bad, but at least they usually had someone willing to step up and slowly guide the class.
This year's Class D...
the so-called leader on the surface, Hirata, showed no sign of actually guiding his class.
Every decision Hirata made was only meant to keep everyone in the class together.
At this school, people who held on to that kind of saint-like mindset were not going to last long.
It would be one thing if that saint had enough ability.
If he didn't, and he was still the class leader, it was even worse.
Under the school's cruel survival-of-the-fittest system, there was no such thing as a path without sacrifices.
Either you sacrifice others, or you sacrifice yourself.
That was the simplest rule of survival in society.
If someone naïvely believed they could avoid sacrificing both themselves and others, that inner conflict would eventually drive them crazy.
Mashima was not optimistic about Class D's future.
"It really is troublesome..."
Seeing that Mashima could not offer any useful advice, Sae took another cigarette from the pack and lit it.
...
First-Year Class D.
Ren put his phone back into his pocket, ignored the teacher who was still lecturing on the platform, stood up, and prepared to leave the classroom for his date.
"Ren, what fun thing is it this time?" Koenji asked curiously.
"A date."
Koenji, who had originally planned to go out and have fun with Ren, immediately lost interest as soon as he heard that.
The class schedules for all three grades were the same, so those senior girls were in class too.
Koenji could have made those girls skip class to go out with him.
But that would have been too ugly, and Koenji had no interest in doing something like that.
Koenji himself could skip class because he had already learned everything long ago, but he would not let others give up studying for his sake.
The beautiful Koenji Rokusuke would not allow anyone to pick up a stain because of him.
Kikyo also heard Ren say he was going on a date.
Kikyo, who had been quietly taking notes, pressed her pen into the paper so hard that it tore the page.
A date?
With who?
It definitely wasn't with her, and Honami and Airi were both in Class A right now.
Was Chie free this afternoon?
Or...
had this bastard already found another girl at school?
Kikyo started overthinking.
"Bastard, it's class time right now."
When Ren passed by Kikyo's desk, he heard her whisper.
"But Class D has no class points, so me breaking the rules won't affect anything."
Ren openly admitted that he was skipping class.
A student who started out in Class D might still care about the class and about the promotion everyone kept talking about.
That kind of student might let everyone pressure him into attending class properly.
But Ren was different.
He came to Class D precisely because Class D had no points, which meant he could do whatever he wanted.
At a moment like this, if anyone dared to stand up and try to make Ren stay and attend class properly, Ren would just bring up the fact that Class D had negative class points.
I gave up Class A and its monthly 100,000-plus personal points to come to Class D, and now I'm supposed to sit here eating free lunches and obediently attending class with all of you?
What a joke.
I need to earn back the 20 million personal points I spent on transferring classes during the time I would have wasted in class.
Time was precious.
Ren had already paid the price.
So that time should belong to him now.
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