Classroom of the Elite: Surviving with the Intel System — Chapter 106

Chapter 106: What Kind of Resolve Drives Such Self-Sacrifice?

Promptly at 5:30 AM, Akira’s eyes snapped open. No alarm, no grogginess—just the immediate, sharp clarity of a predator waking.

He slipped out of bed and hit the floor, launching straight into his mandatory daily regimen. One hundred push-ups. One hundred sit-ups. One hundred squats. For an ordinary high school student, this routine would be a grueling, sweat-drenched ordeal. For him, the kinetic rhythm of muscle contraction and release came as naturally as drawing breath.

Finishing the final squat, he stood tall. Zero fatigue. Instead, a relentless, inexhaustible surge of energy coiled beneath his skin.

‘This body is a literal glitch.’

Wiping a thin sheen of sweat from his jaw in front of the bathroom mirror, a faint smirk touched his lips. Eight years of unbroken discipline had reduced this hellish workout to the equivalent of a light morning stretch. His muscles practically hummed, craving heavier burdens and sharper challenges. But cold reason always kept those primal impulses in check.

Zipping up his school-issued tracksuit, he slipped out of his dorm room, the door clicking shut with a soft metallic snap, and headed for the athletic field.

The rubberized track still held the damp, earthy scent of last night’s rain. His running shoes struck the surface in a steady, percussive tap-tap-tap, eating up the distance.

It had been a full month since the entrance ceremony, and his morning runs had remained an unbroken constant. Yet, the digital scale in his bathroom hadn’t shifted a single gram. His physical fitness metrics remained entirely stagnant.

There was a simple, absolute reason for that: his physical condition had already hit the ceiling of human potential. He couldn’t improve because there was nowhere left to climb.

This daily grind wasn’t about growth anymore; it was about preservation. Akira understood the harsh reality of top-tier athletes—ninety percent of their grueling regimens existed solely to maintain their peak, not to push past it. Defending the summit was infinitely harder than scaling the mountain.

He regulated his breathing into a slow, measured cadence. One lap bled into the next.

As he crossed the starting line for the tenth time, he finally slowed to a halt. At roughly one kilometer per lap, he had just cleared a ten-kilometer run. Pulling his smartphone from his pocket, the screen illuminated the dim morning light.

29:00.

A flat twenty-nine minutes. And that was without him bothering to sprint the final two laps.

‘Decent enough,’ he mused, pocketing the device.

He pivoted to leave the field, only for his peripheral vision to catch a flash of movement. A slender silhouette waited near the inner lane.

Kushida Kikyo.

Dressed in the same Advanced Nurturing High School tracksuit, she approached with light, bouncy steps. A chilled bottle of mineral water rested in one hand, a neatly folded towel in the other.

“Good work, Akira-kun! Ten laps… that’s seriously impressive!”

“…Thanks.” Akira masked his mild surprise, accepting the offerings without breaking stride.

He cracked the seal on the bottle. The icy water rushed down his throat, instantly quenching the phantom burn in his lungs. Draping the towel over his neck, he wiped the moisture from his forehead and finally processed the anomaly standing in front of him.

Why was she here?

In over a month of these dawn runs, he hadn’t encountered a single classmate.

“You really are amazing!” Kushida leaned forward, hands clasped behind her back. She tilted her head, offering a dazzling, picture-perfect smile. “You’ve been running every single morning since the first day of school, haven’t you? Horikita-san actually mentioned it to me. She said you wake up at 5:30 sharp every day to train, and that you’ve kept it up for eight years! That kind of dedication is just incredible.”

Akira stared at the beaming girl, his mind instantly dissecting the interaction. She wanted something. The flattery was just the appetizer.

“It’s nothing special,” he replied, his tone flat, giving her nothing to work with.

Then, the anomaly in her statement registered.

Horikita told her?

Since when did those two share casual gossip?

It made zero logical sense. Akira was intimately aware of Horikita Suzune’s near-physiological disgust for Kushida. And Kushida? There was no universe where she genuinely liked the aloof, sharp-tongued girl who constantly wore a scowl and had mercilessly crushed Kushida’s “let’s be friends” routine to her face on multiple occasions.

Akira could vividly picture Kushida standing in front of a mirror in her dorm, violently cursing Horikita’s name through gritted teeth.

“Say, Akira-kun, how are you holding up in Japanese class lately?” Kushida brought her hands to her chest, her smile turning sweet and helpful. “If you’re struggling with the material, I’d be more than happy to tutor you!”

His mental database pulled up her academic specs. Kushida scored in the high eighties across the board. Not elite, but certainly competent enough to tutor a supposed bottom-feeder sitting on a 29-point test score.

“I appreciate the offer, but I’ve already hired Horikita to tutor me,” he declined smoothly. He had already paid the Private Points upfront; there was no backing out now.

The moment the words left his mouth, the puzzle pieces clicked together.

“Ah. You’re trying to recruit me for a study group, aren’t you?” Akira’s eyes narrowed slightly in understanding. “Sure, I can drop by sometime. It’ll help you pad your head count. But if you’re hoping I’ll drag Horikita along, you can forget it. You know exactly how much she dislikes you.”

It was a trivial favor. Besides, flashing back to the rather generous, fan-service-heavy photos she had sent him previously, he figured he owed her a minor concession. She hadn’t exactly treated him poorly.

“Well…” Kushida twisted her fingers together, a beautifully crafted expression of mild distress washing over her features. “I suppose I can’t argue with that. And I really do hope you’ll come to the study group. But—”

Her head snapped up, her doe eyes locking onto his.

“That isn’t the main reason I came to find you today!”

A cool morning breeze swept across the track, fluttering the soft strands of hair framing her face. She took a deep, steadying breath, the picture of a maiden gathering her courage.

“Akira-kun… will you go on a date with me tonight?”

Her voice dropped to a shy, urgent whisper. “I promise I won’t waste your time! Actually… my Private Points are running a bit low right now. I lent two thousand to Karuizawa-san yesterday, so I can only offer you five thousand Points at most. But… this is the highest date fee I’ve ever offered anyone!”

Realizing how that sounded, she frantically waved her hands, her cheeks flushing. “Ah! Please don’t get the wrong idea! The fee is just for your time. I’ll cover absolutely every expense on the date itself! I just… I just really need you to accompany me. And it would be perfect if we could take a few photos together.”

Akira’s expression flatlined. He stared at her as if she had just spoken in tongues.

“Wait,” he said, his voice laced with dry disbelief. “Didn’t we settle our accounts? That eighty thousand Point debt was cleared. What is this about paying for a date?”

‘Do you even hear yourself? What kind of twisted resolve drives you to say something like this?’

She was literally offering to pay him Private Points to take her on a date.

Just to maintain her flawless “Angel of Class D” persona, had she really backed herself into this absurd corner? First the scandalous photos, now cold hard cash for his company. Was she planning to throw herself at him next?

‘What an absolute saint,’ Akira thought, dark amusement swirling in his chest.

He had never met a girl so dedicated to her craft that she would personally deliver premium fan-service straight to his doorstep.