Classroom of the Elite: Surviving with the Intel System — Chapter 42

Chapter 42: Important Information for Kushida of Class DYou're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

In the dead of night, the emergency lights lining the school corridor cast a sickly, pale glow against the encroaching darkness. Kushida Kikyo stood before the heavy iron door leading to the rooftop, the pleated skirt of her uniform violently swaying with every brutal swing of her leg.

“Horikita… Horikita… Horikita!”

With every repetition of that name, her kicks grew heavier, more vicious. The metal door groaned, echoing with a dull, rhythmic thud that sounded exceptionally harsh in the dead silence of the hallway.

“Go to hell… Go to hell… Go to hell!”

The words were squeezed through her gritted teeth. Her signature sweet, melodic tone had warped into something entirely hideous and guttural.

“It’s like this again today… It’s always like this!” Kushida tilted her head back, glaring at the mottled ceiling as she growled. “Why does that pretentious bitch look at me with those eyes? What right does she have to ignore me? Does she think winning a stupid swimming competition makes her a god?”

She brought her foot down hard one last time, her chest heaving. “Yamauchi Haruki… Ike Kanji… They looked at me with those disgusting, vulgar eyes again today!” She chewed on their names as if tasting rotting meat. “If I didn’t have to maintain my image, I wouldn’t even breathe the same air as you! Two pieces of absolute trash with brains full of waste. Why don’t you just roll over and die!”

She stood there in the dim light, panting rapidly.

A few minutes passed.

Kushida took a long, deep breath, holding it in her lungs before slowly exhaling, purging the suffocating mass of dark emotions from her chest.

Like magic, the hideous contortion of her features melted away. The twisted, venomous snarl smoothed out, and the corners of her lips curved upward into a flawless, gentle arc.

She reached down, delicately patting the dust from her skirt and tucking a stray strand of disheveled hair behind her ear.

“Phew~ I feel so refreshed!”

Her voice had instantly reverted to its usual saccharine sweetness, the final syllable rising with the signature, airy lightness of an innocent young girl. Looking at her now, it was as if the deranged student who had just been violently kicking the door and spitting curses had never existed.

Right now, she was simply the beloved Kushida Kikyo. Gentle, cheerful, and endlessly understanding. No one walking past would ever suspect that just seconds ago, a torrent of pure, unadulterated malice had been surging through her veins.

“Shimizu-kun, I’m sorry~ I lied to you.” She suddenly stopped, playfully sticking her tongue out at the empty corridor. Her tone was light and breezy, as if she were confessing a harmless little secret to a close friend.

The young man’s casual question from a few days prior seemed to echo in the quiet hallway: ‘How do you usually relieve stress, Kushida-chan?’

This is my answer.

The dull thud of her toe slamming into solid iron, the vicious curses tearing from her throat, the sheer ecstasy of ripping off her suffocating mask in the unlit darkness—this was her sanctuary. Her unique, twisted method of decompression.

When did it start?

Fragments of suffocating memories bubbled to the surface of her mind. The exposure of her dark history back in junior high. The overwhelming avalanche of insults flooding her social media. That miserable rainy night when she was forced to wipe all her accounts from existence just to survive the backlash.

Then came the entrance ceremony at the Advanced Nurturing High School. Horikita Suzune’s cold, dismissive profile. Kouenji Rokusuke’s arrogant, casual chuckle. That agonizing sensation of being completely and utterly ignored—it was far more suffocating than direct malice.

That night, feeling as though she were drowning, she had fled to the rooftop to get some fresh air, only to find the iron door locked tight. The sheer weight of her accumulated frustration had detonated in that exact moment. When she delivered her first furious kick to the metal frame, a dark, twisted sense of euphoric pleasure had surged through her body.

So, that’s when I developed this bad habit.

Whenever the world refused to bend to her will, this isolated, shadowy corner became her personal altar of release. Here, in the unseen darkness, the perfect, flawless Kushida Kikyo could temporarily shed her angelic skin and let her true, ugly self breathe.

Suddenly, a faint vibration buzzed against her thigh.

Kushida’s slender fingers slipped into her skirt pocket, retrieving her phone. As the screen flared to life, the cold, artificial light washed over her face, casting harsh shadows that made her gentle expression look distinctly eerie.

“Who is it now…” she muttered, a sharp edge of impatience bleeding through her sweet tone.

To maintain her infallible persona as the ‘Class Angel,’ Kushida hadn’t just exchanged contact info with everyone in Class D—excluding the infuriating Horikita Suzune, of course—she had also gone out of her way to collect the numbers of countless boys and girls from other classes.

Just replying to their endless, mind-numbing daily greetings drained two or three hours of her time every single day. It was a chore even more exhausting than fending off the pathetic advances of Yamauchi and Ike.

Especially at night like this…and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

She pouted, her mind already flashing with the meaningless garbage Yamauchi and Ike regularly spammed her with. ‘Good night.”Make sure to drink more hot water.”Get some rest early~.’Every time she saw those notifications, she had to fight the overwhelming urge to block them permanently. But in the end, she always gritted her teeth, forced a smile, and typed back,’I’m going to sleep now,’or’Going to take a shower!’

So annoying… Why don’t those two just drop out already?

Taking another deep breath, she forced her signature smile back into place and swiped open the screen.

However, the moment her eyes landed on the new notification, she froze.

It wasn’t a message. It was a friend request.

[Tsuki Ao (Male) requests to add you as a friend.]

A stranger?

The ID carried a distinct touch of literary flair. At first glance, it almost read like a girl’s handle, but the profile explicitly listed the user as male.

Her thumb hovered over the glass, hesitating.

Could it just be another boring guy who managed to dig up my contact info?

But as her eyes drifted down to the attached note, her breath hitched.

[I want to tell Kushida-chan of Class D some important information.]

[Aren’t you curious why the upperclassmen always look at you with subtle contempt?]

The words on the glowing screen acted like a fine, poisoned needle, piercing directly into her most sensitive nerve.

Kushida’s manicured fingernail began to unconsciously tap a rapid, anxious rhythm against her phone case.

Over the past few days, she had gone out of her way to orchestrate ‘coincidental’ encounters with the seniors in the corridors and the cafeteria. She had greeted them with her absolute sweetest smiles, desperate to build a network of favorable relationships. Yet, every single time she turned her back, she caught the meaningful, mocking curves of their lips.

Those whispered giggles. Those condescending, pitying gazes. They clung to her skin like a persistent, incurable illness.

“How infuriating… How does this person know? Is he a student from Class D?” she murmured to the empty hallway, her thumb trembling slightly as it hovered over the red ‘Reject’ button.

But the toxic cocktail of sheer unwillingness and burning curiosity ultimately won out. Her thumb shifted, firmly pressing the green ‘Accept’ button.

Ding.

Almost instantaneously, her screen was flooded with a massive block of text.

Kushida’s gaze locked onto the very first line, and she found herself completely unable to look away.

The message detailed the brutal reality of the Advanced Nurturing High School. It exposed the tiered S-System, explaining how the administration ruthlessly divided students into four distinct levels based on their entrance exams and hidden criteria. It laid bare the truth: Class A was a sanctuary for geniuses, while Class D was nothing more than a dumping ground for defective products.

Minutes ticked by in absolute silence as Kushida devoured every single word.

She had to admit, the sheer scale of the information was staggering. The truth behind the class assignments, the humiliating baseline rating of Class D, the hidden mechanics of how Class Points and Private Points actually operated…

But to her, the school’s grand design wasn’t the main takeaway.

“If I reveal this information to my classmates tomorrow…” The corners of her lips curled upward, stretching into a subtle, deeply calculating arc. Her eyes shimmered with dark, predatory cunning. “Maybe I can completely crush Hirata Yosuke’s influence and become the true, undisputed leader of Class D. By then, everyone will look at me with worshipful, dependent eyes…”

Standing alone in the dim, pale light of the corridor, Kushida Kikyo suddenly let out a sweet, airy chuckle.

“Hehe… I really should ‘thank’ this online acquaintance I’ve never even met.”You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.