Hachiman’s Classroom of Strength’s Supremacy

Chapter 162: Sakayanagi Arisu on the Ship

Horikita Suzune and Kushida both turned to look at Hachiman.

His private account had just been updated multiple times.

+11.5 million points, followed by a transfer of 1.5 million to Hirata so he could distribute it among the five groups from their class who had finished early.

Then, 6.5 million points were transferred from Kamuro Masumi.

[Name: Hikigaya Hachiman
Class: Year 1, Class C
Gender: Male
Private Points: 16.78 million]

This was an enormous amount of points.

According to the known school rules, 20 million points could either prevent expulsion or allow a student to transfer to their desired class.

Of course, this could also be used to secure a place in Class A upon graduation, regardless of which class held the title at that time.

If one wanted to take a more challenging route, they could gather the required points and transfer to the class they believed in, striving together as a team.

This was the school’s way of allowing students to choose between an individual or collective path to success.

Though no one had accomplished this before, Hikigaya was already at 16 million points.

Considering his agreement with Class B, he could reach 20 million in just six months.

“You said you and Sakayanagi Arisu set up a scheme—wait, Sakayanagi was actually on the ship?” Kushida caught onto the key detail.

At first glance, it seemed like Ryuen’s overwhelming victory, but according to Hachiman’s words, was Ryuen merely a pawn?

“Could it be…” Horikita’s attention was drawn to a specific detail of this exam—Class C had requested a backup device, but since none were available on the ship, the teachers reported it to the student council, who arranged for someone to deliver it by helicopter.

And the one who delivered it was… her brother, Horikita Manabu, the student council president.

Everyone was aware of this.

However—

No one ever said that a helicopter could only carry one person.

So, was it possible that Sakayanagi Arisu had come along too?

“Yeah.” Hachiman nodded. “Sakayanagi arrived with the student council president. Once I confirmed this, I was able to plan with her.”

“On the night the exam rules were announced, Class C gained a significant advantage thanks to Sakura’s camera. We could identify the 12 groups much earlier than any other class. With that, we could also figure out the privileged students of other classes and use that information to deduce the pattern.”

“But I didn’t think this was the optimal strategy.”

“Because beyond exam scores, this was a rare chance to legally acquire a massive amount of private points from the school.”

“In comparison to our previous written exams, where school-provided rewards were much lower, this was an opportunity that couldn’t be wasted.”

“But taking the points wasn’t easy. After all, this meant extracting points from all students.”

“If I acted directly, there would be resistance.”

“Someone had to take the role of the villain.”

“And for this plan to work, we needed the privileged student pattern as fast as possible.”

“There were only two people capable of achieving this,” Hachiman said.

Ryuen was the perfect scapegoat. As the leader of Class D, he was desperate to make a breakthrough in this privileged student exam. It was highly likely he would take on the role of the villain.

And the one person who could deduce the privileged student pattern faster than anyone else—

Sakayanagi Arisu.

She was a genius.

Moreover, based on available information, she had little formal schooling experience, having been mostly self-taught.

For someone like her, recognizing patterns was second nature.

Once the helicopter arrived, Hachiman met with Sakayanagi Arisu, and together, they set the trap for Ryuen.

“So, you completely used Ryuen, didn’t you?” Horikita Suzune commented.

“More or less,” Hachiman admitted. “But Ryuen didn’t completely lose either.”

“His class gained points from this exam, didn’t they?”

Ryuen’s class had correctly identified four privileged students.

However, Koenji exposed the Monkey Group’s privileged student.

So in the end, they earned 150 points.

Though, because Shiina had skipped a session, they were likely penalized slightly.

But looking at it from another angle—this was terrifying.

Class A’s three privileged students had all been identified.

That meant Class A lost 150 points (50 × 3)—the highest deduction in this exam.

And who provided Ryuen with the privileged student pattern?

Sakayanagi Arisu.

Even though Ryuen had been provoked, he wasn’t stupid enough to make reckless moves. Each privileged student represented millions of potential points to be extracted.

So—

If all three privileged students from Class A were revealed, it was most likely under Sakayanagi’s orders.

This meant she deliberately sacrificed 150 points from her own class.

Why?

The reasons could be multiple—one possibility was to undermine Katsuragi’s influence.

But there was another reason—

Since Sakayanagi skipped the exam, she would be penalized.

So, by ensuring her class lost all the points outright, she erased any possibility of being blamed later.

Her subordinates wouldn’t have an excuse to hold her accountable.

Sakayanagi Arisu—

She looked innocent and adorable, but she was ruthlessly decisive.

Hachiman recalled the moment he met Sakayanagi Arisu.

It all started when Horikita requested a backup device from Chabashira-sensei.

The response was that the ship didn’t have any prepared, so the school arranged for the student council to deliver one.

Hachiman went to receive the delivery.

When Horikita Manabu stepped off the helicopter,

Behind him stood a girl with silver hair, a cane in her hand.

Sakayanagi Arisu.

“Oh, I thought only Mashima-sensei was here, but Hikigaya-kun, you’re here too?” She spoke with a smile on her face.

Although they hadn’t seen each other for a while, there was no denying that Sakayanagi Arisu was indeed adorable.

She gracefully held her cane and gave Hachiman a ladylike bow—how polite.

“I’m just here to test the waters,” Hachiman said. “If you were interested in the exam, I figured you might come in person.”

“Staying behind at school alone was indeed a little dull,” Sakayanagi replied. “So if you’re planning something interesting, I certainly wouldn’t refuse.”

“And also…”

She paused. “Even at school, I haven’t been completely idle. Someone was willing to pay a high price to make me give up my resources. Unfortunately for him, the most he could offer was 15 million—still far from the 20 million I want.”

Still far, meaning she had come here specifically to obtain the full 20 million.

Money, money, money.

But Sakayanagi’s actions aligned perfectly with Hachiman’s intentions.

After all, Hikigaya was also here for the money.

Since they were about to conspire together, the two moved into the ship’s cabin to discuss their cooperation in detail.

Sakayanagi had Mashima-sensei arrange a private room for her to rest.

Given her poor health and her status as the daughter of the school’s board chairman, Mashima-sensei naturally complied without question.

Moreover, Sakayanagi’s presence guaranteed that Class A’s standing would remain secure.

After all, she was still a member of Class A—there was no reason for her to let her class drop.

And indeed, that was the case.

.

.

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Inside the Room

“Hikigaya-kun.”

Seated inside her assigned room, Sakayanagi softly praised, “I received the results of the uninhabited island exam while at school. You really did an excellent job. Even with a class like D-Class, you managed to lead them. If we repeated the exam, you might have already reached Class A, wouldn’t you?”

From the very start, she believed Class A was the best.

Because of this belief, she initially considered class competition nothing more than a childish game.

However—

Through this process, D-Class’s Hikigaya caught her interest.

He made her realize that even a class at the bottom of the hierarchy could produce unique individuals.

And so—

Even though she had expected Hikigaya to perform well, the final results still exceeded her expectations.

If she allowed him to continue operating unchecked, by the time they returned to school, Hikigaya’s class would genuinely be Class A, while her own Class A might fall completely.

B-Class? No… it might even drop to C.

And D-Class still had Ryuen.

If she left everything to Katsuragi, Ryuen might overpower him completely.

This was the unspoken reason behind her actions—

A slight sense of crisis had emerged within her.

Of course, the biggest reason she was here was still to make money.

Since the uninhabited island exam had already offered such high point rewards, continuing with more exams meant the current second exam’s rewards wouldn’t be low either.

Thus, she personally came to verify the situation and determine whether it was profitable.

After listening to Hikigaya’s explanation of the privileged student exam rules and reviewing the list of the 12 student groups he had gathered—

She didn’t hesitate to join forces with him.

Her goal—

To extract 20 million points from this exam.

.

.

.

With his recollection ending, Hachiman spoke up.

“So, I’ll transfer 1.5 million to each of you.”

“Why such a large amount?” Horikita was shocked.

Even Kushida looked completely surprised.

After all, she had been the privileged student in the Dragon Group.

As the privileged student, she had chosen Option 1—even though 400,000 points were taken from her, she still received a final total of 600,000 points.

Yet now—

Hikigaya was offering her 1.5 million right off the bat.

As a sweet and cute girl, she couldn’t help but stare at Hikigaya with an unpredictable expression.

Hikigaya knew her true nature.

But—

Hikigaya was also a strange person.

He never reacted with shock or disgust towards her real personality.

In fact, he even gave her chances to vent her emotions.

He was being way too nice to her.

And the strangest part?

Despite having the beautiful and elegant Horikita Suzune by his side—

And despite Horikita being an emotional blank slate, meaning he might have had a chance if he put in some effort—

He did nothing.

So now, giving her such a large amount of points when she hadn’t really contributed much…

Could it be… his real target was actually her?

Hey, come on now, Hikigaya-kun.

Because Kushida had no intention of getting involved in any romantic relationships at this school.

Love and romance would only interfere with friendships and social circles.

So, Hikigaya, don’t do anything stupid.

Even if he kept desperately trying to win her over, even if he gave her money, she wouldn’t agree to anything.

However, Hachiman had his back turned to Kushida, so he had no idea that the seemingly innocent white lotus had become highly alert inside.

He spoke,

“This time, I teamed up with Sakayanagi to set up a trap where Ryuen would act as the tyrant and squeeze points out of everyone. But tricking Ryuen wasn’t easy, so your cooperation helped by confusing him.”

Confuse him?

Yes.

Otherwise, Ryuen wouldn’t have gone as far as assigning people to tail them and investigate their actions.

On Ryuen’s side, he must have been approached by Sakayanagi right after the privileged student messages were sent out at school, and they entered a gambling agreement.

However, Sakayanagi wasn’t the only enemy Ryuen had to deal with—

Hachiman was also in the game.

Hachiman had acquired the group list earlier than anyone else, figured out that there was a pattern behind the privileged students, and had B-Class as an ally, which increased the pressure on Ryuen.

The more seriously Horikita and Kushida acted like they were trying to deduce the pattern, the more urgency Ryuen would feel, forcing him into Sakayanagi’s deal.

“But,” Suzune frowned, “you’re saying that Kushida and I were just meant to confuse Ryuen? Then that means… you knew from the start that we wouldn’t be able to figure out the pattern?”

“That’s why you gave Ichinose two days to consider whether or not to hand over B-Class’s privileged student list to us, right?” Horikita’s gaze sharpened.

Alright.

Horikita’s sharpness was really unnecessary at this moment.

“The process doesn’t matter. The final result is what’s important,” Hachiman dodged with a vague explanation.

Which was true—

With only three students’ names from their class, it was nearly impossible to deduce the full pattern. He never expected Horikita to actually figure it out.

The real reason was that, right after the uninhabited island exam, during the leader-guessing phase, he and Ryuen had betrayed each other.

If he had directly approached Ryuen to work together now, Ryuen’s guard would be at max level, making cooperation nearly impossible.

That’s why he chose to ally with Sakayanagi instead.

“And it’s not like I’m giving you money for nothing,” Hachiman continued. “Through these last two exams, Ryuen didn’t actually lose everything.

“In the privileged student exam, he still managed to earn 150 class points, finally pushing D-Class’s evaluation score above zero.”

“And in the uninhabited island exam, he still had the 300 class points’ worth of living expenses he got from Class A.”

“So,” Hachiman said, “Ryuen’s D-Class still has a lot to squeeze out.”

“So this is all for the next exam?” Horikita’s interest was piqued.

Hachiman nodded.

“This time, Sakayanagi and I set everything up, and she walked away with 20 million points.”

“I only got a little over 16 million,” Hachiman said. “Even though we were the ones in control, why did we still let Sakayanagi take 20 million?”

“Because my ambitions aren’t just limited to this.”

“My real target is Ryuen.”

“The 300 class points’ worth of living expenses—until graduation, whether I sell the agreement to Class A and make them buy it out for 20 million, or I claim it for myself, both options are highly profitable.”

“And the fact that Ryuen agreed to work with Sakayanagi this time, plus the fact that D-Class’s evaluation points have finally gone above zero, shows that he still has ambitions of reaching Class A.”

“But since his class is only slightly better than ours in terms of resources, he won’t be able to climb up through normal methods.”

“So he’ll have to start causing trouble.”

“And what we need to do is catch him in the act when he does,” Hachiman said. “Of course, Ryuen isn’t stupid, so we’ll need to maneuver carefully.”

Oh.

So that’s what’s going on.

Kushida understood now.

So Hikigaya was giving her and Horikita such a huge amount of points because he wanted them to work hard next time to set up Ryuen.

And then, she realized something else.

Hachiman had always kept her true nature a secret.

His condition for doing so was that, when the time came, she would betray the class if necessary.

And she had kept lying low until now.

And now—

It was time for her to betray them.