Hachiman’s Classroom of Strength’s Supremacy

Chapter 161: Hachiman – Congratulations, 20 Million. Sakayanagi – You Didn’t Make Any Less Either.

Hikigaya was indeed a tough bone to chew—right from the start, he asked for 11.5 million points.

To put things in perspective, Ryuen’s agreement with Class A, which was worth 300 class evaluation points, allowed him to collect 1.2 million points per month. That meant it would take him 10 months to gather 11.5 million points.

Of course—

Hikigaya wasn’t asking for payment from Ryuen’s future earnings. He wanted 11.5 million from this very exam, from the seven remaining groups under the Outcome 1 plan.

Since five groups had already ended their exams, only seven groups remained for Ryuen to reap profits from.

Ryuen probably wanted to ensure he had enough money.

The composition of these seven groups was as follows:

• Three groups had 13 members each.
•
• Four groups had 14 members each.
•
• In total, there were 95 students left.
•
According to Ryuen’s agreement, each student had to pay him 400,000 points, meaning:

95 × 400,000 = 38 million points.

Ryuen would be earning 38 million points, so Hikigaya only taking 11.5 million was actually quite generous.

“I can’t accept these terms,” Ryuen refused outright.

“Why?” Horikita Suzune was already suspicious about how easily Hachiman had agreed to Ryuen’s plan at the start.

However, when Ryuen dismissed everyone else, leaving only them behind, she realized that Hikigaya hadn’t been at a disadvantage at all.

Since Hachiman had the full list of all the groups from the beginning, Horikita also started calculating Ryuen’s gains and losses. Taking 11.5 million from Ryuen shouldn’t have been a big deal for him.

Yet, he was being so stingy over such a small amount of points?

“I’ll give you at most 5 million,” Ryuen said. “And I’ll cover the 1.5 million for your class settlement.”

“But that’s my limit—5 million, no more.”

He immediately slashed the amount in half.

“Then our deal is off,” Hikigaya responded.

“……Ryuen. Are you really going to be this ruthless?”

“Ryuen, you need to understand—Classes A, B, and D have already agreed to Outcome 1, but my class hasn’t. And my classmates don’t even have their phones with them.”

“So if the exam ends like this, it means nothing to my class.”

“After all—”

“Class A has 1,108 points, Class B has 1,071 points, and my class already has 1,091 points, meeting our baseline goal.”

“I can live with this result.”

He could accept this result, but Ryuen couldn’t.

Otherwise, aside from earning 150 class points, this exam would bring him almost no personal profit.

“Fine. I’ll give you 6.5 million personally, plus 1.5 million for your class,” Ryuen said.

“No deal,” Hachiman replied. “It has to be 11.5 million.”

“And, Ryuen, I don’t think you have the option to refuse.”

“What do you mean?” Ryuen’s expression turned serious. “Are you saying that when we return, you’ll team up with Ichinose and the others to figure out the pattern?”

“If we can’t come to an agreement now, I’ll abandon Outcome 1 and end all of your exams immediately.”

In other words, Ryuen had his limits—if worst came to worst, he’d rather go down fighting.

“No need to wait until we return to analyze the pattern,” Hachiman said, pulling out his phone.

He typed two names onto the screen.

“These are the last two privileged students in your Class D, aren’t they?” Hachiman asked.

On his phone screen were the names:

Daichi Ishizaki
Yuuya Tokimori

Both of them were indeed the last two privileged students from Class D.

Ryuen had already personally verified this information, meaning the names were correct.

In other words—even if Ryuen wanted to flip the table, Hikigaya had his own way to do the same.

Damn it.

Ryuen’s gaze darkened as he stared at Hikigaya for several seconds, his expression shifting unpredictably.

He was starting to doubt his own class—was there a spy among them?

Because Ichinose and her class hadn’t joined forces with Class C yet. If they had, Hikigaya wouldn’t have let him eliminate one of the privileged student from Class B in the first place.

So how did Hikigaya know the privileged students from his class?

The only people who knew were the privileged students themselves, Ryuen, and Shiina.

Even someone like Ibuki only knew which groups had privileged students from her own class, not their names.

Which meant—

Even within such a small circle, someone had leaked the information.

Idiots!

How many points did they sell out for?

500,000?

1 million? 2 million?

They sold out their class’s interests for such a tiny amount?!

This deal had cost him 15 million points!

Short-sighted fools!

“Fine, we’ll do it this way,” Ryuen finally said. “I’ll pay you 11.5 million, but you’ll get it in three months.”

“No deal. I want it immediately after the exam ends,” Hachiman said. “Ryuen, didn’t you betray Katsuragi without hesitation?”

In other words—Ryuen wasn’t trustworthy.

“……” Ryuen.

But in the final agreement on the deserted island—Hikigaya Hachiman, you weren’t reliable either!

“Fine,” Ryuen said stiffly. “I accept your conditions.”

There seemed to be quite a bit of resentment, but after the agreement was finalized, Hachiman left the scene since he still needed to “convince” his classmates.

His actions were similar to the representatives of Class A and Class B.

Since maintaining appearances was also necessary, the explanations given by the leaders to their respective classmates were quite similar:

They had reached an agreement with the other classes in order to secure enough points, meaning they would stop trying to guess the privileged students from other classes, maintain the current situation, and collectively receive the points awarded by the school.

Apart from some dissatisfaction from the Sakayanagi faction in Class A—since they had lost another 150 points in this exam—there were no major obstacles to implementing this plan.

As for Class C, there were one or two students who voiced their dissatisfaction, but Hachiman had already approached Hirata in advance.

“But everyone,” Hirata said, “thanks to Koenji’s performance, our class will gain another 50 points.”

“So when we return to school, we’ll officially become Class B.”

“Does that mean we’ve successfully ranked up?”

Initially, the classmates had agreed to Hachiman’s decision to skip this exam, assuming that only the privileged students would receive rewards.

Later, after learning that each student would receive 100,000 points as compensation, there was no major backlash.

But now, they realized there was an even better outcome.

They were about to rank up!

At first, many students thought Class A was out of reach, but now—

They had somehow become Class B!

Which meant Class A wasn’t impossible either!

The mood in the classroom instantly became lively.

Of course, since this was Class C, there were still dissenting voices.

“But if we each receive 500,000 points, and we have to pay 400,000 of that to Ryuen, isn’t that too much?”

“That’s basically robbery!” one student exclaimed.

It was Sudo.

He was especially displeased with Ryuen because of past conflicts.

“Yeah, having to hand over 400,000 points to Ryuen is really…”

Even the academic achiever Yukimura frowned.

“But without Ryuen organizing this, the students from other classes wouldn’t have cooperated, meaning we wouldn’t have gotten these 500,000 points at all,” Hikigaya pointed out.

“So it’s like a mediation fee or something?” Karuizawa asked.

“Something like that,” Hachiman replied. “For our class, at least, we should be able to hold onto these points.”

Borrowing a small dining hall from before, Hachiman asked the staff for a small blackboard and wrote down the results of the two exams they had taken.

+541 points

Their new class evaluation score was now 1,091 points.

However, 125 points of that belonged to Koenji, so each student’s living expenses would now be 96,600 points—

Almost 100,000.

And on top of that, each student would receive an extra 100,000 points.

From this perspective, they had made a huge profit.

As for the phones, they could now be returned to everyone.

Since all remaining group members had signed the contract, and breaking it would require a 10-million-point penalty, no one could afford to breach the agreement.

So even if someone tried to cheat by answering first, it wouldn’t work.

Since seven groups still needed to finalize Outcome 1 on the last day, their members had to continue attending the scheduled gatherings.

At one such gathering—

“Hikigaya-kun—”

Ichinose seemed hesitant, starting to speak but stopping herself. Then, as if she had forgotten what she wanted to say, she finally asked:

“Did our class… lose an opportunity?”

Hmm.

She had unintentionally participated in Ryuen’s agreement.

Earlier, Hachiman had asked her for the names of her class’s privileged students. Since there was still time before the final deadline, she had deliberately delayed her response.

But in the end, what arrived wasn’t an opportunity—

It was Ryuen’s iron-fisted rule.

“Yes, you lost an opportunity,” Hachiman admitted. “If you had worked with my class from the start, your class wouldn’t have lost so many points.”

“Wouldn’t have lost so many… Wait, Hikigaya-kun, does that mean you were planning to—”

Ichinose suddenly had an idea.

“Yeah,” Hachiman confirmed. “I planned to figure out the pattern, and my choice would have been the same as Ryuen’s—to go with Outcome 1 and earn points from the school. But doing that would have been extremely difficult. Plus, if I had gone through with it, all the other students would have turned against me.”

That was true.

Ichinose nodded.

After all, this was like stealing from the lion’s mouth.

Everyone could have earned 500,000 points, but Ryuen took four-fifths of it for himself, making him widely despised.

And in the future, if Class D ever sought cooperation again, other classes wouldn’t be willing.

Because they now saw Ryuen as a villain.

“This time, I’ve learned a lesson,” Ichinose said. “So, about the alliance between our two classes…”

“Ryuen is very ambitious, so let’s continue working together,” Hachiman said. “Like I mentioned before, I do have ambitions to reach Class A. However, my current class isn’t capable of that.”

Huh.

So Hikigaya-kun wasn’t joking—was he really planning to transfer to her class?

“At this point, Ryuen already has the ability to transfer classes, doesn’t he?” Ichinose said.

With 20 million private points, one could either prevent expulsion or transfer classes.

Through this exam, Ryuen had secured a guaranteed ticket to Class A upon graduation.

“Actually, you don’t have to worry too much,” Hachiman said. “Ryuen won’t be able to save up that much money.”

Oh?

But wasn’t Ryuen going to rake in over 30 million points from this exam? Wasn’t that already an enormous amount?

Ichinose was confused.

But for Ryuen, it wasn’t much at all.

The Third Night

At 9:01 PM, all students received a mass message from Ryuen, listing the privileged students from each group.

He instructed them to submit this information to the school.

Soon after—

Within two minutes, these students received a unified response from the school:

[Congratulations! Your group has chosen Outcome 1 and completed the exam. Your account has been credited with a 500,000-point reward.]

Outcome 1 achieved.

“Ryuen, the points from Class A have been transferred,” Kaneda reported within Ryuen’s circle after the exam ended.

“The points from Class B have also arrived,” Shiina Hiyori said.

“Looks like both Class A and Class B were right on time.”

“And we’ve received the points from Class C as well.”

A total of:
95 students × 400,000 = 38 million points.

The points were accounted for.

However—

“This is so boring,” Ryuen muttered.

After transferring 11.5 million points to Hikigaya Hachiman, he got up and left.

Because, despite this exam, he hadn’t earned the rewards he truly wanted.

In fact, he had ended up playing the role of a mere tool for someone else.

But—

Ryuen arrived at the agreed-upon meeting place and handed over a points card to the person waiting.

The recipient was a Class A student—a girl with long purple hair, secured with three hairpins.

She was one of Sakayanagi Arisu’s closest subordinates.

Kamuro took the card from Ryuen.

“Beep!”

[Balance: 26.5 million points.]

“The amount checks out,” Kamuro confirmed.

“If this is all Class A has to offer, then one day, I’ll surpass you,” Ryuen stated calmly.

“Do as you like,” Kamuro responded indifferently.

After all, Class A, exams—none of it mattered to her.

She was just doing what she was paid for, working under Sakayanagi for now.

And even though this sum of points was massive, it had nothing to do with her personally.

“Hmph.”

Ryuen turned and left—

To begin hunting down a spy.

Damn it.

During this exam, he had collaborated with Sakayanagi Arisu.

Sakayanagi leaked the names of three Class A privileged students to him—betting on a gamble.

If Ryuen could figure out the pattern by the evening of the first exam day, he was not allowed to guess the Class A privileged students or leak them to other classes.

However, if Ryuen failed to deduce the pattern, he would become Sakayanagi’s pawn.

At that point, they would execute the Outcome 1 point-gathering strategy.

If Ryuen collected more than 30 million points, he and Sakayanagi would split them 50-50.

If the total was below 30 million, all of it would belong to Sakayanagi.

For Ryuen, this was an opportunity.

But—

He failed to seize it.

And now, his class only had 145 evaluation points.

Originally, it was 150 points, but 5 points had been deducted because Shiina skipped a small group discussion on the first morning.

Meanwhile—

Elsewhere

“The points have been successfully transferred.”

Hachiman’s phone received two transactions.

The first was 11.5 million points from Ryuen.

Of that, he immediately transferred 1.5 million to Hirata, instructing him to distribute it among five groups of classmates.

The second transfer was from Kamuro—

6.5 million points.

However—

Kushida and Horikita, who were celebrating with him, were completely perplexed.

What the hell had he done?

“Actually,” Hachiman said, “Sakayanagi Arisu was on the cruise ship during this exam.”

“And she and I set up a little scheme together.”

What?!