Houtarou Oreki Classroom of the Elite

Hiyori is a book lover. To describe her accurately, she's probably a literature girl. She loves reading books, loves immersing herself in the ocean of books, and really enjoys going to the library.

Her life goal is to become a librarian at the National Library or something similar.

She's not an aggressive person with grand ambitions, but isn't it a good thing to be able to do what you love in the future?

As long as she becomes a librarian, she can be around books and have more time to read.

However, no matter what you do, once you step into society, you'll find that everything becomes very difficult.

The class she's in now is Kakeru's class, which dropped from Class C to Class D from the beginning. His tool for controlling everyone is violence.

She doesn't like violence. She was born into an ordinary family, and in middle school... she also had some deficiencies in handling interpersonal relationships.

At the same time, she doesn't believe that getting a desired position can be achieved through violence. After all, what's the use of being able to fight? In the real world, you need influence and capability.

The recommendation letter from Advanced Nurturing High School is still very valuable, so if she can graduate as a Class A student, she can immediately fulfill her dream. She doesn't have high demands for further education, she just hopes to get a position.

But this ambition is basically gone. Because she was assigned to Class C.

She has discovered that the classmates around her, and the students from the four classes A, B, C, and D have different basic qualities from the start.

The school seems to pay more attention to Classes A and B, as she found that students in these two classes, unlike Classes C and D, don't have so many... difficult-to-deal-with people.

Her academic ability is good, but classmates like Mio have strong physical abilities yet extremely poor academic performance.

And like the class where Suzune, Rokusuke, and Kikyō were initially in Class D, their class seems to have started with some kind of "breast size ranking" right from the beginning. This was created by a large portion of the boys in their class.

It's simply unbelievable. Hiyori's past middle school was just an ordinary one, but she never encountered such bizarre classmates.

Advanced Nurturing High School has a big reputation. She was recommended by the principal to try applying, so she did. She took the written exam and passed the interview.

Many students participated at the same time, but only 160 were finally admitted.

Her physical ability is average, but her academic ability is quite good, so it's understandable that she passed. However, many excellent students didn't pass — even the top student in her class failed to get in.

What's always made her curious is how students with extremely poor academic abilities from Classes C and D managed to pass. After all, if you don't pass the written exam, you're not eligible for an interview.

So these students... how to put it... It's almost as if they were specially selected and brought here — like it was predetermined.

At the same time, perhaps her own evaluation wasn't that great either, which is why she was assigned to Class C. This means graduating as a Class A student is already a difficult starting point.

And now Class A has Houtarou the Great Demon King, Houtarou the Money Grabber, Houtarou the Ghost. To rise to Class A, the first obstacle in front of her is... defeating him.

Too difficult. From a challenging start straight to hell-level difficulty.

So Hiyori doesn't have much confidence now. She's also still resentful about how Houtarou deliberately said he would go to the library a few days ago but didn't show up, making her wait until closing time.

But I bet he's feeling pretty awful now that Mio has been following him for several days. Hmm~

As long as he feels bad, she feels good.

Kakeru was worried that Houtarou would interfere with this pairing exam, so he arranged for Mio to openly follow him.

This exam is crucial for their Class D. They can't afford to make mistakes — this point needs emphasis.

Those "angels" from Class B have actually started to show their fangs, which is terrifying. This exam absolutely cannot result in a dropout scenario.

Therefore, they naturally can't let Houtarou, the money grabber, get involved. If he intervenes and lets Class B raise their price at the last moment, they're finished.

Even if Honami and her group raise their price, Class D doesn't have the power to fight back. After all, the class is full of underachievers.

And even if they start studying again now, some students' academic abilities are extremely poor.

The more she tutors them, the more Hiyori feels that everyone was deliberately selected from across the country by Advanced Nurturing High School. Some students don't even know how to solve quadratic equations.

They don't understand the chicken-rabbit problem either and claim they never learned it. She's quite desperate about the situation.

As such, the current configuration of Class D remains terrible, and they must approach this special exam with extreme caution.

Therefore, keeping Houtarou away is very important.

Class D currently owes him 2 million Private Points, and because of the agreement signed with Class B, not only were the agreed supplies from the Island Exam invalidated, but they also owe Honami's class 3 million Points.

So Class D is now in a precarious situation. They've been stripped bare twice in a row.

They absolutely can't let Houtarou interfere again. Otherwise, owing so much with no way to repay, class members might automatically drop out.

This is why the current scenario emerged. Kakeru arranged for Mio to keep an eye on Houtarou. If he tries to move or interfere with this exam, she will continue to watch him.

It might even escalate to the point where she waits outside when he goes to the bathroom. This would cause significant trouble for his daily life.

From this perspective, Kakeru is indeed quite a disgusting person. He didn't initially subdue Albert by winning himself, but by using any means necessary — almost making Albert's spirit collapse — and then subduing him.

So arranging for Mio to follow Houtarou now is also understandable.

This kind of behavior can also be described as tenacious. After all, Class D can't afford to lose this time.

Hiyori was lost in these thoughts when she raised her head.

She had come to the library on a sudden whim to reread a book from her elementary school days. It felt like revisiting an old place, rereading an old book.

The book she was looking for was "5 Centimeters Per Second". It exists as a novel, an animated version, and even a live-action version.

She wanted to read the novel version. Compared to audiovisual products, she still preferred the physical version, which gives readers more room for imagination.

However…

"5 Centimeters Per Second" was on the bookshelf starting with K, on the fifth shelf.

Heave-ho…

Hiyori stood on tiptoe. Raised her hand. Then… still couldn't reach it.

Not being tall enough was something that had always depressed her. She needed to find a step stool, but it was upstairs, so she would have to go get it.

Hiyori tried again, and indeed, even on tiptoe she couldn't reach it — but she had already tested this and wasn't really stretching for that purpose.

She wasn't stupid and had already noticed through the gaps between books that someone was walking toward her. The person wore a boy's short-sleeved shirt with a nice tie.

She was putting on an effortful appearance to attract his attention, hoping that if he was a good person, he would help.

Sure enough. The person walked over, very tall, and with a simple raise of his hand, he got the book she wanted.

"Is this what you want?" Houtarou handed down two identical books, giving one to her.

But he noticed that Hiyori, who had just made such an obvious display of wanting help, was now staring at him blankly.

In her heart, she felt dazed. At this moment, she realized that Houtarou might actually be a good person.

"That's right, I wanted this book, thank you." Hiyori accepted the book with both hands, but inside her heart, an earth-shattering change was taking place.

She never expected that the random good person she had attracted would turn out to be Houtarou.

Flashing through her mind were all her previous evaluations of him: the school's Great Demon King, Houtarou the Money Grabber, Houtarou the Ghost. These nicknames, known only to herself, were all transformed into a single new impression — he's actually a good person.

"No need." Houtarou didn't know he had mysteriously received a "good person card".

He nodded to her, then prepared to leave with the book, not showing any shallow interest in her beauty that might lead to continued conversation.

This was really helpful. Hiyori wasn't good at interacting with boys, and was even less skilled at making small talk.

And Houtarou truly seemed like he was going to leave after helping her get the book.

"Wait a moment!" She quickly called out to him, "Do you like '5 Centimeters Per Second' too?"

Houtarou had taken down two identical copies of "5 Centimeters Per Second", given one to her, and was about to leave with the other one.

"It's not about liking it or not. I just noticed it when I was helping you get it down." Houtarou said, "I read it in fifth grade, and seeing it now, I felt a bit nostalgic and wanted to read it again. After all, my way of thinking has changed a lot since then. So the information I get from the book will be quite different too."

In reality, he felt that since he'd already come to the library, leaving without doing anything would feel like a wasted trip. He just wanted to conserve energy by reading a book and kill some time.

"I see…"

Hiyori's goodwill toward him grew after receiving his help.

She was surprised to discover that he had chosen the same book as her, completely by chance.

Her eyes lit up. She loved books and had always hoped to find fellow book lovers.

Unfortunately, her current classmates seemed to prefer using violence to communicate. Few would sit quietly and read books. She had almost no companions, friends, or fellow book lovers in her class.

But now, judging from what she'd seen at the bookstore and this current interaction, wasn't Houtarou someone who enjoyed reading?

Didn't that mean their interests aligned perfectly?

⍟⍟⍟

T/N: Hey! Liked what you read? Support your friendly neighborhood translator on Patreon! Think of it as buying me a coffee... or ten!

For just $1.50 (that's less than your daily meme budget), get extra chapters! Want more? $2 gets you bonus content, $5 unlocks premium stories, and $10 makes you my hero (and gets you everything I have, including earlier acess to new books)!

That's it and happy reading! (-‿◦)

https://www.patreon.com/collection/827204