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ArabicClassroom of the Elite: Standing Firm in Class A — Chapter 49
Chapter 49: Enraged
The wind howling across the rooftop of the school building was harsh, tearing through the air and making the heavy chain-link fencing wail in protest.
Chabashira leaned heavily against the cold metal railing. She pulled a slim pack of women’s cigarettes from her pocket, extracted one with stiff fingers, and sparked her lighter. White smoke drifted from her red lips, only to be instantly shredded and scattered by the violent gusts. She rarely smoked. Only when a deep, clawing agitation threatened to overwhelm her composure did she rely on the bitter burn of nicotine to numb her nerves.
This time, she had failed again.
She had genuinely believed that by providing last year’s actual exam questions, her class of defective products would at least manage to scrape by this incredibly simple midterm. Yet, reality proved otherwise. There were still oversights. Two of them, to be exact.
In the quiet isolation of her mind, the ghosts of her past resurfaced. The bitter memory of failing to graduate from Class A due to a single, agonizingly minor mistake years ago played on a loop. That lingering unwillingness, that deep-seated resentment, had haunted her every waking moment since her own school days. She had pinned all her suppressed hopes on this current class, praying they might achieve what she could not.
But this bunch of trash…
“Teacher, smoking is not a good habit.”
A flat, entirely unreadable voice cut through the howling wind from behind her.
Chabashira turned around. Ayanokoji stood a few paces away, his hands tucked loosely into his pockets, his face bearing that signature, unnerving emptiness.
“What are you doing up here?” she asked, her tone sharp.
“I’m here to make a deal with you, Teacher,” Ayanokoji replied, bypassing any pleasantries.
“A deal?” Chabashira scoffed, a cynical sneer twisting her lips. “What, do you want to plead for those two pieces of trash as well? I already told you, rules are rul—”
“I want to buy marks.”
Ayanokoji’s calm interruption severed her sentence. Chabashira’s fingers, holding the half-burnt cigarette, froze dead in mid-air.
“Since Personal Points can buy absolutely anything in this school, then academic marks, which are strictly quantifiable, should naturally fall within the scope of tradable commodities. This is not a difficult deduction to make,” Ayanokoji stated, his logic forming an airtight cage.
Chabashira slowly exhaled a ring of white smoke, her composure returning as she stated the exorbitant price she had calculated long ago. “One mark will cost you one hundred thousand Personal Points. They are short six marks in total, amounting to six hundred thousand Personal Points. Can you come up with that?”
Her voice dripped with heavy sarcasm. This was a class that had foolishly squandered every single one of their class points within the very first month of enrollment. A class that currently possessed barely any Personal Points to speak of. Six hundred thousand was an astronomical, impossible figure for them to reach. She had already concluded that they absolutely could not produce this kind of capital.
Therefore, the expulsion of those two dead weights was a certainty. Although it left a bitter taste in her mouth to lose students so early, she reasoned it would at least excise the weakest links from the roster, which might actually benefit the class’s overall metrics in the future.
While she was rationalizing this cold outcome in her head, she watched Ayanokoji slowly shake his head.
“Teacher, this price is too high.”
“High?” She narrowed her eyes. “This is the price required to prevent a student from facing immediate expulsion. It is already a very generous offer. Besides, I do not possess the ultimate authority to decide the market rate.”
“Teacher, actually, you don’t want to see anyone expelled from Class D more than we do, right?”
That single sentence acted like a perfectly aimed blade, instantly piercing through all of Chabashira’s carefully constructed professional disguises. The cynical mask cracked, and her expression finally shifted into something vulnerable and tense.
“Although I don’t know exactly what you are trying to achieve, Teacher, based on your subtle behaviors, you desperately want to climb up to Class A,” Ayanokoji continued, his voice never rising above a conversational murmur. “Therefore, you will do your absolute best to protect your assets. Even if they are just two pieces of trash.”
Chabashira stared in silence at the monstrously perceptive student standing before her.
And right behind the heavy metal door at the entrance to the rooftop, Horikita heard every single word with crystal clarity. She had originally climbed the stairs intending to find Chabashira and make one final, desperate plea for her classmates. She never expected to stumble into a scene like this.
Ayanokoji… he actually…
“Three hundred thousand.”
Chabashira’s voice rang out again, cutting through the wind as she drastically revised her offer. “To save two students, six marks in total. Three hundred thousand Personal Points.”
“…Deal.”
Having secured the necessary agreement, Ayanokoji did not linger for a single second. He turned on his heel, preparing to walk away.
“Three hundred thousand Personal Points,” Chabashira called out to his retreating back. “Can you really come up with that amount all by yourself?”
“Of course not.” Ayanokoji stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “This matter requires the direct assistance of Horikita. After all, her reputation and standing within the class are much higher than mine. If she steps forward to raise the funds from the entire class, it will carry far more persuasive weight.”
Behind the heavy door, Horikita shuddered violently.
He knew. He had known she was hiding there from the very beginning.
Taking a steadying breath, Horikita slowly pushed the door open and stepped out from the shadows of the stairwell.
“Let’s go,” Ayanokoji said. He offered no further explanation, simply resuming his walk toward the stairs.
Horikita had no other choice. Swallowing her complicated emotions, she quietly followed him down into the building.
By the time the two of them returned to the Class D classroom, the environment had completely devolved into a living hell.
Ike sat slumped on the cold floor, his eyes entirely unfocused, staring blankly at the wall as he muttered, “Why did it turn out like this…” over and over again in a broken loop.
Sudo had violently kicked his own desk over at some point; textbooks and stationery lay scattered across the floor in a messy heap.
The rest of the students had fractured into several distinct, isolated groups. A small handful of students with excellent grades, led by Yukimura, wore expressions of undisguised relief. They had survived. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the students sitting in the middle and lower academic brackets wore faces painted with lingering fear and deep anxiety. They huddled together, whispering nervously about their own narrow escapes from the chopping block.
Hirata and Kushida were currently hovering around Ike, offering gentle words and trying in vain to comfort the devastated boy. But any optimistic platitudes they offered felt incredibly pale and utterly powerless when stacked against the cold, crushing reality of impending expulsion.
The sliding door rattled open. Horikita and Ayanokoji walked into the room, one after the other.
The ambient chatter died instantly. Every single gaze in the room snapped toward them, heavy with complex, desperate emotions.
Ignoring the suffocating weight of their stares, Horikita walked with measured, confident steps straight to the front podium. She turned to face the room.
“The teacher said there is a way to keep them from being expelled.”
Her voice was not particularly loud, but in the dead silence of the classroom, it struck like a boulder thrown into a quiet lake, instantly stirring up massive waves of reaction.
“What is the method?” Hirata was the first to push his chair back and stand up, his tone laced with urgent hope.
“We can use Personal Points to buy the missing marks,” Horikita stated concisely. “The two of them are short by six marks in total. After a brief negotiation, the final price has been set at… three hundred thousand Personal Points.”
Three hundred thousand.
The number hung in the air. After three seconds of absolute, stunned silence, the classroom violently exploded.
“What kind of sick joke is this!”
The first person to jump to his feet and voice his fierce objection was Yukimura. He slammed his open palm down hard against his desk, his face twisting with genuine anger. “Three hundred thousand Personal Points! Why? Why should the rest of us have to pay out of our own pockets for their laziness and sheer stupidity!”
His harsh words acted as a spark, instantly igniting the powder keg of resentment buried in the hearts of the other passing students.
“Yukimura is exactly right! I worked so hard studying for this exam, why should I hand over my hard-earned Personal Points to guys who just sleep in class every day and go out messing around?”
“Exactly! They didn’t put in any effort themselves, and now that they are about to get kicked out, they want to drag all of us down into poverty with them? That’s way too selfish!”
“I completely object! My Personal Points belong to me, I won’t give a single one to anyone else!”
Voices of bitter opposition surged through the room like a rising tide, drowning out any lingering sympathy.
“You bastards! What kind of cold-hearted crap are you spouting!” Sudo roared, the veins bulging in his thick neck. He grabbed a heavy chair beside him, hoisting it up with the clear intent to hurl it straight at Yukimura’s head. “Aren’t we all supposed to be comrades?”
“Sudo, calm down!” Hirata, ever quick-witted, lunged forward and grabbed Sudo tightly from behind, wrapping his arms around the larger boy’s torso to prevent the situation from deteriorating into physical violence.
“Comrades? Don’t make me laugh!” Yukimura shouted back, refusing to back down. “Because of whose exact actions did our class end up with zero points in the first place? And now you expect us to spend our own money to save your skin? Why should we!”
“You little punk… do you want to die?!” Sudo thrashed against Hirata’s grip, his eyes wild with fury.
“Bring it on! You think I’m afraid of a meathead like you!”
The classroom shattered into complete and utter chaos.