Check out advanced chapters on P@treon: [email protected]/CosmicKaminari
----------
[BIG CHAPTER]
"Whew—"
The moment the door closed, Akira's calm and composed expression suddenly dropped.
He leaned against the door, the composure he'd deliberately maintained finally cracking.
"Shiina-san's deductions were terrifyingly profound!"
He couldn't help but show a hint of lingering fear, muttering to himself. "Almost... I almost got completely exposed by her, one move after another! Good thing I was prepared! I had a trump card!"
He thought for a moment, then pulled out his phone from his pocket, operated the screen, and directly dialed his own phone number.
"Hello." His voice still held a trace of unreleased tension. "You can come back now."
"What? Are you done?" Karuizawa's questioning voice came from the other end of the line.
"Mm." Akira responded, brief and concise.
"Got it, I'll bring your laptop over right away."
Not long after he hung up, there was a knock on the door.
Akira opened the door to find Karuizawa holding a laptop, walking in with a puzzled expression.
"What's going on? You suddenly told me to take your computer, and you borrowed my phone." She placed the laptop on the desk. "But seeing as you promised to protect me for free this month... are you done with it now? Can I have my phone back?"
She held out her hand, her fingertips wiggling in front of him, her eyes full of curiosity, waiting for an explanation.
"A 'detective' wanted to investigate me. Having you take the computer was to move the evidence." Akira said, pointing to the computer on the desk, his tone much calmer. "As for borrowing your phone... that was naturally also to clear my name."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Karuizawa frowned, clearly not following his train of thought.
"Have you forgotten? All the phones in this school are uniformly issued by the school." Akira looked up at her. "First-year students, because they don't have many points, almost all have the same model, so... even if the 'detective' saw me holding your phone just now, she'd instinctively assume it was mine. That's human nature."
He lightly tapped his fingertip on the phone screen. The moment the screen lit up, it showed the exact same background interface as the one in Karuizawa's hand, which he'd deliberately modified.
"This way, all the steps are easy to manage." He handed the phone back to her, a hint of relief in his voice. "At least for now, the 'detective' won't be watching me anymore."
"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Karuizawa's fingers, clutching the phone, tightened suddenly, and she grumbled. "...What's wrong with my phone? All the information has been changed by you? My profile picture is yours, even the data has become yours! And you downloaded so many apps, and your own personal information—you even changed the profile picture and name to a girl's picture? Who is this person? Do you have any idea how much trouble it is to change it back?!"
"Alright, alright, give it to me, I'll change it." Akira, seeing her reaction, couldn't help but say, "I really have to thank you for your help this time. The protection promise for this month naturally stands, and besides that... I owe you a favor, just say it."
He did feel a bit bad inside.
Karuizawa's help was crucial in successfully getting through this time. If she hadn't happened to come to him to confirm the "protection" matter, he might not have been able to come up with the two tricks of moving the computer and swapping phone information in such a short time.
To some extent, if she hadn't appeared in time, he might've really been found out by Shiina just now.
Although that detective girl had said at the end that she'd keep it a secret for him.
Akira had not considered confessing the truth, but on second thought, he realized that Shiina was still missing one crucial thing—concrete evidence.
And to be honest, Akira himself was a bit excited. In a sense, he even hoped that she could find real, irrefutable evidence and expose his identity in a straightforward manner.
The phone swap was his last trump card. No matter what information about the alternate account she found, as long as he was holding someone else's phone and pretending it was his own, no problems would ever be exposed.
He hoped she could find enough evidence and actively approach him again.
Without giving him any chance to explain, blocking all his retreats.
Perhaps only such a development.
Could truly be worthy of the script for this "Miss Sherlock Holmes."
While thinking, he took the phone from Karuizawa, his fingertips rapidly sliding across the screen, changing all the tampered information back to its original state.
'This guy actually knows how to apologize properly?'
Karuizawa secretly clicked her tongue, feeling that today's shock could easily rank among the top three "annual shocking events" since her enrollment.
Just last Friday, he'd coldly rejected her request for protection, his tone as hard as a stone, telling her to apologize properly.
Unexpectedly, only a few days later, just because she borrowed his phone for a few minutes and helped move a laptop, he not only agreed to protect her for free for a month but even offered to fulfill one of her requests.
She gazed at Akira's profile as he looked down, typing on his phone, and suddenly felt that this person was like a riddle hidden in the fog—one moment pushing people away, the next unexpectedly revealing a different side.
"Then I'll have to think carefully." Karuizawa said, crossing her arms, a hint of curiosity creeping into her eyes. "After all, opportunities like this don't come often."
"But I'll set up my own phone." Karuizawa said, taking Akira's phone from her pocket and handing it back to him. "Oh, by the way, your phone received several messages just now. I didn't look, so you can check them yourself."
"Okay." Akira took his phone and handed hers back to her.
"Then I'll be going." Karuizawa thought for a moment. Since it was confirmed that Akira would protect her this month, there didn't seem to be anything else to say. She turned, closed the door, and left.
Akira picked up his phone. The moment the screen lit up, several unread messages popped out. The sender's name was prominently "Chattering Cat."
{How was it? Did that detective catch you?}
{I warned you two hours in advance. If you still got caught, I'd really look down on you.}
Akira's fingertip paused on the screen, then slowly typed out a line.
{Thanks to your reminder, I managed to bluff my way through in the end.}
{? What did you do? Tell me.}
{Nothing much, just used the "phone swap" trick to dispel her suspicions.}
{Also, I used the student council's authority to block the inference that "you must buy a burner phone from the homeroom teacher."}
{Heh heh heh, interesting. I didn't expect you to start with the phone—you made very clever use of the loophole in the school's common equipment.}
{Since you owe me a favor, how do you plan to repay it?}
{This time, I really owe it to your reminder. Thank you so much.}
Akira's thanks at this moment were heartfelt.
No matter who this Chattering Cat was, if it weren't for that person's hint, he probably would've been caught red-handed by that detective.
{So, what do you want? Points?}
{No points. Tell me your thoughts on this month's special exam. What interesting things have you discovered? Consider it my return gift.}
Akira pondered. The sender had indeed helped him a lot, and it was just a matter of sharing his thoughts, so he fully disclosed his discoveries about the ancient scrolls.
{Is that all? Nothing else? That's not enough to repay the favor of my special reminder.}
Akira was stunned, then added: {In the midterm exam, you can buy one point with 100,000 points, and the test questions can be modified—up to five major questions, for a total of fifty points! This way, it can probably reduce each class's class points by about ten, but it's limited to one person per grade.}
{That's more like it. From the looks of it, you ran to the student council again, didn't you? You haven't already finished modifying the test questions, have you?}
{Not yet. After all, this strategy doesn't earn points at all. It's a team-oriented strategy.}
{However, I've told you these two pieces of information, so that should be enough to repay the favor I owe you, right? Speaking of which, didn't the school explicitly forbid students from tampering with surveillance? How did you get the surveillance footage?}
{Indeed, they can't be bought or rented, especially the two surveillance cameras in each class. Thanks to you, they've almost become non-negotiable. But surveillance footage from other places can still be obtained, it's just ridiculously expensive in points. I spent quite a lot of points.}
{Of course, that footage has been completely deleted by me.}
{So that's how it is... Really deleted?}
{Do you really believe that?}
{Whether I believe it or not isn't important, since the initiative is in your hands.}
{As for the footage, you can handle it yourself. I told you this information not to buy any footage, but simply to repay the favor you did by reminding me.}
Ultimately, Akira didn't care about his identity being exposed.
He always felt that this Chattering Cat was probably Sakayanagi. If even this woman knew, what did he have to be afraid of?!
{Don't worry, I won't reveal your burner phone identity to anyone.}
{Why? And who exactly are you?}
{You guess.}
{I can't guess. Give me a hint.}
{Stupid.}
When Akira typed his reply, the corner of his mouth almost uncontrollably twitched.
With that tone of voice and that penchant for riddles, who else could it be but Sakayanagi?! He couldn't think of a second person.
He really couldn't figure out how she'd found out his identity.
But then again, this time, he might as well pretend he didn't recognize her.
After all, in a way, he really owed it to her for managing to fool Shiina this time.
{Oh, by the way! Those two pieces of information you mentioned are really good! Heh heh, since you don't plan to tamper with things, I'll start my operations.}
{Just wait and see, this midterm exam's questions are going to be very "exciting"!}
As soon as the words fell, the sender's avatar completely darkened, clearly indicating that she'd gone offline.