Classroom of the Elite: Surviving with the Intel System — Chapter 108

Chapter 108: Today’s Intel: Kushida Kikyo and Horikita Suzune Shared a Middle School

The morning sunlight spilled through the classroom curtains, casting long shadows across the rows of desks. Shimizu Akira slid into his seat just as the clock struck eight. Right on cue, a familiar translucent interface materialized across his retina, delivering the daily harvest of secrets.

[1. Nagumo Miyabi is currently the student with the most Private Points in the entire school.]

[2. Kushida Kikyo and Horikita Suzune attended the same middle school.]

[3. Chabashira Sae was once a Class D student at Advanced Nurturing High School. During a special exam just before graduation, she lost to Class A by a hair’s breadth and ultimately graduated with Class B results.]

Akira parsed the text line by line. The first entry merely cemented the vague hints Chabashira-sensei had dropped earlier, along with the warnings from Sato-senpai. Nagumo Miyabi, a second-year student, possessed a wealth-gathering apparatus capable of crushing the entire third-year cohort. Akira ran a quick mental calculation. Given the sheer scale of the school’s economy, Nagumo had to be sitting on a war chest of at least fifty million Private Points, perhaps significantly more.

This staggering figure naturally drew a comparison to the current Student Council President, Horikita Manabu. The elder Horikita’s financial reserves were paltry next to Nagumo’s empire. Akira recalled their last collaborative effort. He had offered the President a thirty percent cut of the profits, only to be politely but firmly rejected. According to Sato-senpai, Manabu routinely bled his own accounts dry to subsidize impoverished Class D students who had zeroed out their balances. The Student Council President clearly operated on a different axis of power, one where currency was secondary to duty.

Akira shifted his focus to the second and third lines, feeling a slight crease form between his brows. Kushida and Horikita shared a middle school? The image of the aggressively cheerful social butterfly and the isolated ice queen existing in the same space felt entirely contradictory. The system did not explicitly state they shared a classroom, leaving a wide margin for error. In a large middle school, two students in different classes might never cross paths. It was entirely plausible that Horikita Suzune had no idea who Kushida Kikyo was before enrolling here. Whether Kushida recognized Horikita, however, remained an open question. He filed the anomaly away. If the opportunity arose, he would probe the matter indirectly. Pinning down their exact alma mater would be the first step.

The third revelation nearly made Akira jolt upright in his chair. Chabashira-sensei was a former Class D defect? And she had actually clawed her way to the precipice of Class A? He pictured the perpetually stern, unapproachable homeroom teacher. To think she was an alumnus of this cutthroat institution, let alone a veteran who had stood one step away from absolute victory. He quickly reassembled the timeline in his head. She had stumbled at the very end, during a third-year special exam, falling to Class B.

This cast her entire demeanor in a completely different light. He recalled a casual remark from Hoshinomiya Chie, the bubbly Class B homeroom teacher, claiming she and Chabashira had been inseparable best friends since high school. Now, two close friends from a fractured past had returned to their alma mater to instruct the new generation of first-years. The odds of that being a mere administrative coincidence were zero.

‘It seems everyone in this school is dragging around a closet full of skeletons,’Akira mused silently.’I wonder just how dark their histories really are.’

The quiet hum of the classroom was broken during the gap after the third period. Akira’s phone vibrated against his thigh. He pulled it from his pocket to find two rapid-fire messages from Kamuro Masumi lighting up the screen.

Kamuro Masumi: Are my shoes with you?!

Kamuro Masumi: You didn’t do anything weird to them, did you?!

Akira stared at the glowing text, a dry amusement settling over him. He knew exactly what sort of degenerate behavior she was implying.

‘Just what kind of person does she think I am?’ he grumbled internally, his thumbs flying across the digital keyboard.

Shimizu Akira: I didn’t do anything. And for the record, your shoes aren’t with me anymore.

The read receipt appeared instantly, followed a split second later by her panicked reply.

Kamuro Masumi: You didn’t throw them away, did you?!

Akira let out a quiet breath, typing out a measured response to calm her erratic pacing.

Shimizu Akira: No. I handed them over to the female staff at the dormitory front desk. Just give them your name and you can pick them up whenever you want.

In truth, the moment Kamuro had stormed off previously, he had carefully packed the handmade shoes back into their original box and delivered them to the desk clerk without a second glance.

A moment passed before the phone buzzed again.

Kamuro Masumi: Good, at least you know what’s good for you… I’ll go check after classes are over.

Before he could lock the screen, a new barrage of text flooded in.

Kamuro Masumi: Last time, your unauthorized little stunt completely derailed the rhythm of my plan. I didn’t even get to finish what I came to say! So listen carefully now.

Kamuro Masumi: In short, your primary objective right now is to diligently accumulate twenty million Private Points.

Akira raised an eyebrow, his finger hovering over the glass. By pure coincidence, she was demanding the exact milestone he had already set for himself. Their immediate interests were perfectly aligned.

Shimizu Akira: Understood.

A massive block of text arrived moments later.

Kamuro Masumi: Obviously, you won’t be able to scrape together twenty million all by yourself! But you need to hoard as much as you possibly can! You have to perform exceptionally well over these next few months. Class A will be monitoring your activity closely. If you get lucky, the other classes might recognize your utility and be willing to buy you out with their own points!

Kamuro Masumi: Just be prepared to endure your current situation for a few more months! A miracle like that doesn’t happen overnight. After all, twenty million is a massive financial bleed for any class to swallow.

Her final message carried a sharp, dismissive edge.

Kamuro Masumi: Alright, I’m too lazy to spell it out any further. Just do exactly as I say and you won’t screw this up.

Akira locked his phone, the screen going black as he slipped it back into his pocket. His mind was already dissecting her instructions.

‘So that is how they intend to play it,’he concluded.’Class A is planning to weaponize their Private Points to poach talent from the lower tiers.’

The underlying strategy was painfully obvious the moment she mentioned Class A watching his performance. Twenty million Private Points was an impossible wall for a single student. But for an entire class acting as a unified syndicate, especially the elite vanguard of Class A, it was merely a logistical hurdle. If forty students contributed a mere fraction of their monthly allowance, they could easily generate the required capital within an academic year.

He had to admit, using the twenty million point class-transfer rule as a corporate buyout strategy was a brilliant maneuver. It was a double-edged sword that swung entirely in their favor. By purchasing a high-performing asset from a rival class, Class A would simultaneously bolster their own ranks while crippling their competition. It was the ultimate war of attrition. If you cannot defeat an enemy on the exam grounds, simply buy their best soldier. Taken to its logical extreme, a class with bottomless funding could theoretically purchase an entire opposing roster, absorbing their enemies until no one was left to challenge the throne.

‘This has Katsuragi Kohei written all over it,’ Akira thought, his gaze drifting toward the window.

There was no way a tactic this heavily reliant on collective sacrifice and rigid teamwork originated from Sakayanagi Arisu. The crippled genius operated on a philosophy of absolute individual superiority. Team-oriented resource pooling simply did not fit her psychological profile.