Hachiman’s Classroom of Strength’s Supremacy

Chapter 158: Class A, 150 Points Deducted! Class B, 50 Points Deducted!

Ryuen from Class D tried to cut corners, not even willing to waste time attending group meetings, focusing all his energy on deducing the pattern.

It seemed he was willing to go to extreme lengths.

“So, has she… figured it out yet?” Horikita Suzune asked with a frown.

“I don’t know,” Hachiman replied. “That’s why we need to race against time.”

“But one thing is clear—Ryuen’s class likely won’t be able to get privileged information from other classes. In our class, apart from the three of us, no one else knows the privileged students’ identities, so we’re safe.”

“As for Class B, Ichinose is still troubled and won’t reveal anything.”

“And as for Class A…”

Hachiman paused for a moment. “Last time on the island, it was probably someone from Class A who betrayed Katsuragi. That’s why Class A suffered so badly. If there’s another betrayal this time, that student would become a complete outcast in their class. If they were exposed, no one could protect them. And since Katsuragi is a cautious person, even if Ryuen approached him directly, he wouldn’t agree so easily.”

“So Ryuen’s chances of winning aren’t that high.”

“Honestly, if Ryuen really wanted to climb to Class A, his initial proposal for Classes B, C, and D to team up and drag Katsuragi down in this exam was actually the right move,” Hachiman added. He walked over to the room’s window. The sea breeze immediately brushed against him, making him feel refreshed.

“If the goal is to reach Class A, then you’re saying—” Horikita, who had been around him long enough, was starting to understand his thinking.

“Indeed, our goal is Class A. And this exam is an opportunity.”

“But, I don’t think simply earning 450 points for our class is necessarily a good thing.”

“Because,”

Hachiman continued,

“This exam offers a tempting amount of points if you hold the advantage.”

“But don’t forget the name of this test—‘The privileged Exam.’”

“Just from the term ‘privileged,’ I don’t think it only refers to the 12 students selected as privileged.”

“You all know about Outcome 1, right? According to the rules, if on the last night, everyone in the group—except for the privileged and the students from the privileged’s class—submits the privileged’s name, each person will receive a 500,000-point reward.”

“With 12 students in each group, that means 12 groups could receive a total of 6.5 million points.”

“Isn’t that also a form of ‘preferential treatment’?” Hachiman said. “So I’ve been thinking—does ‘privileged’ actually refer to this as well? Could this be an opportunity for first-year students to legitimately acquire a massive number of points from the school?”

“I see…”

Hearing Hachiman’s perspective, Horikita and Kushida couldn’t help but think about it.

If he hadn’t mentioned it, they wouldn’t have considered this angle at all.

“So that’s why Ryuen suggested forming an alliance with us—to secure Outcome 1,” Horikita said.

Back in the Dragon Group, Ryuen had proposed two conditions:

First, if they leaked the privileged information to him, he wouldn’t attack them.

Second, he would help facilitate Outcome 1.

And Outcome 1 meant that everyone would receive a huge amount of points.

“But achieving Outcome 1 is difficult,” Hachiman said. “Because not everyone will cooperate. Unless they find themselves at a disadvantage, forcing them to comply. That’s why, if we can obtain privileged information from other classes, we can use it as leverage.”

“Then, can’t we do the same?” Kushida suggested. “Why don’t we lead the groups toward Outcome 1?”

She was already receiving a monthly living allowance of 90,000 points due to the uninhabited island exam, which made her quite happy. But, of course, she wouldn’t refuse the chance to have even more money.

Especially considering…

In her dark past—something she couldn’t bear to look back on—there was an incident that led to her being placed under house arrest by her parents until things settled down and she arrived at this school.

So,

She was also thinking about her future.

She didn’t believe that their class could graduate as Class A. The idea of being exempt from exams, getting into the university of her choice for free, or securing the job she wanted—those were just illusions.

Only points were real.

And…

Hikigaya had encouraged her to interact with upperclassmen, and from a third-year senior, she had learned something.

At graduation, the school would convert points into cash at a certain exchange rate.

Which meant…

Gathering enough points in this school was the same as gathering a large sum of money.

And money, money, money—

That was most people’s ultimate goal.

So, this was also for the sake of her future.

“I want that too,” Hikigaya admitted without hiding anything. “But it’s difficult.”

“Because if we want to earn a lot of points, what do we actually gain by achieving Outcome 1?”

“Each of us would get 500,000 points?”

“That’s way too little,” Hachiman said.

“…”

That remark was infuriating to hear.

Among the three privileged students in Class C, one of them was Kushida Kikyo.

As long as her privileged status remained undisclosed, she was guaranteed to receive 500,000 points.

And if the Dragon Group followed Outcome 1, she would receive another 500,000 points.

That meant she would be gaining a fortune.

And yet, Hikigaya Hachiman—you’re looking down on 500,000 points?

Sure, sometimes people saw you having meals with Sakayanagi from Class A, and it seemed like she was always paying. But you’re still not at the level where you can just scoff at 500,000 points, are you?

“Looking down on 500,000 points…” Horikita Suzune frowned slightly. To her, getting that much all at once would be a huge gain.

After the uninhabited island exam, Hachiman had arranged for her to receive 90,000 private points per month from Class B.

By the time she graduated, that would total nearly 3 million points.

That was already a huge sum.

And now, another 500,000 points would bring her even closer to her goal.

However…

For her goal of collecting 20 million points—

Hikigaya had said before that he had only promised Chabashira-sensei to lead their class to Class A once.

Just once.

And she didn’t think their class was truly worthy of Class A, so falling back down wasn’t out of the question.

But…

If she could collect 20 million points and enter Class A that way, wouldn’t that also earn her brother’s recognition?

After all, no one in this school had ever accomplished such a feat.

So, deep down, Horikita had also set her sights on collecting 20 million points.

And now, hearing Hikigaya’s words—since this was the privileged exam, and the whole point was to be “preferred,” 500,000 points clearly wasn’t enough to truly excite anyone.

They wanted… more.

“If we just go for Outcome 1, the school will distribute 500,000 points to each participant and 1 million to the privileged students.”

Kushida frowned slightly.

It could be said that all three people in this room wanted money.

“If we want to earn more, doesn’t that mean we’d have to take points from other students? But something like that…”

Kushida was starting to understand Hikigaya’s train of thought.

With 12 groups in total, each one could earn at least 6.5 million points from the school. That meant a total of around 80 million points up for grabs.

If they could extract even 10 or 20 million from that, wouldn’t that be far more appealing than each person getting 500,000?

However…

That was like pulling food straight from a tiger’s mouth.

Pulling it off would be incredibly difficult.

After all, who would willingly hand over their points?

The level of difficulty was extremely high. It was something that sounded great in theory but was nearly impossible to execute in reality.

“So, let’s take it slow,” Hachiman said. “Horikita, keep working on deducing the pattern, and Kushida, help her out. Though, with only three privileged students’ information, the chances of figuring out the full pattern are low. But who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky. At the very least, it’s worth a try.”

Moreover, he also had special permission from Chabashira-sensei to exchange points for cash in advance with the school.

So—

If he pulled off just one big move, he could earn around 15 million yen in cash. It was just about luring a wolf into the trap—why wouldn’t he do it?

Then, in the evening, Hachiman was contacted by Ryuen.

To be precise, after waiting an entire afternoon, Horikita and the others had worked hard, but unfortunately, it was still impossible to deduce the pattern with only the information from the three privileged students in their class.

However—

It seemed that Ryuen had managed to crack the pattern ahead of them.

And right after that, the ship’s broadcast announced that four groups had quickly finished their exams.

Among them, three groups had privileged students from Class A, while the other group’s privileged student was from Class B.

“How did this happen?!”

Almost instantly, Class A and Class B were in an uproar.

Because this meant that if their privileged students were guessed correctly, Class A would lose 150 points, and Class B would likely lose 50 points as well.

That would give Class D a total gain of 200 points!

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Click, click, click—

At that moment, the helicopter that Horikita Manabu was on steadily started up and took off, leaving the area.