Houtarou Oreki Classroom of the Elite

Half an hour later.

『Transfer 1,000,000 Points to Houtarou Oreki?』

Pressing "Yes", Kakeru transferred this month's 1 million Points he owed to Houtarou with an expressionless face. He still owed another 1 million.

At the same time, several students' personal accounts were emptied — cleared out in front of everyone.

From their phones, evidence of contact with students from Class A and Class B was found, along with transfer records.

This was really frustrating. Even if you took the money, would it kill you to use a point card or delete the transfer records? Or perhaps these people simply didn't expect to be checked.

"We had no choice!"

"We never had any Points."

"Since entering school, you've been losing constantly, Ryūen…" Said one of the exposed students, a boy named Hiroya Tokitō.

But Kakeru didn't continue looking at him. Instead, he focused on a tearful girl sitting in her seat.

He walked to the desk in front of that girl. The people at that desk quickly moved away, giving up the seat.

Kakeru sat down and applied intense psychological pressure.

"So why are you crying?"

"Um, I... I... Ryūen is scary!" This tearful girl's name matched her current state.

Her name was Rika Morofuji. She usually hung out with Shiho Manabe and the others.

"Why am I scary?" Kakeru said.

"Um... well..." Rika continued crying.

"She is timid, and you're too fierce, Ryūen." At this point, a short-haired girl at the desk to the right spoke up bravely.

"Shut up!" Kakeru immediately turned his head and said, "Don't think I don't know that while I was talking, you were contacting people from other classes! Do you think the classroom cameras are fake? Your every word and action has been recorded."

Is this how the classroom cameras are used?

Kakeru deliberately exposed the spy situation, then kept everyone in the classroom, first catching a few typical cases, then checking who else was using their phones at that time?

Because if someone was contacting people from other classes in that situation, they were definitely genuine spies.

At the same time, everyone noticed that Kakeru's phone showed a call had just ended.

The contact was Kazuma Sakagami. In other words, he had asked the homeroom teacher to watch the cameras and give him timely notifications.

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So, after letting most of the students leave, Kakeru and his group kept Shiho and the others behind.

However, Shiho and her group tried their best. They didn't dare say they had been photographed by Suzune. Instead, they claimed they were being controlled by Houtarou.

And afterward, no matter how much pressure was applied, they refused to reveal what leverage he had over them. But they did leak some information.

During the cruise ship VIP Exam, they encountered Kei Karuizawa from Class D.

At that time, Houtarou seemed to favor her greatly. He took her side without considering right or wrong. Even when they surrounded her to get justice for Rika, Mio actually came over and hit them.

Which means Mio hit Shiho and her group?

Mio, aren't you their classmate?...

Regarding this point…

"I was trying to maintain my image of justice in front of Oreki, as you said, Ryūen, that we should act well." Mio said, "I had been showing opposition to you in front of him. But I didn't expect him to see through everything."

Kakeru: "..."

He thought Mio was an idiot.

"So what do you plan to do next, Ryūen?" Satoru asked, who had been silent until now.

He was the second highest academic achiever in the class after Hiyori, and also the wisdom specialist.

The fact that there were spies in the class surprised them... no, they were used to it. Now the class was poor and in debt. So some people might be thinking... maybe they should make some extra money to support themselves.

Students from Class A had contacted him, offering to pay 100,000 Points monthly to secure his services, then betray the class when necessary.

Facing such temptation, it was indeed easy to lose one's way.

However, shouldn't they be more concerned about the fact that someone had contacted Class B, and that those "angels" from Class B had actually started planting spies too?

But now Kakeru had caught... Houtarou's spies. This made things difficult.

Because this bully had already lost to that "Point-Hungry Beast" multiple times. And now they were going to face off again?

"Next semester, our opponent is Honami Ichinose." Kakeru said.

This meant that even though they knew Shiho and the others were controlled by Houtarou, they couldn't target them.

This guy was backing down.

"However…" Kakeru said, "Our ultimate goal is Class A. So we'll eventually face Oreki. Therefore, we must keep an ace up our sleeve."

"What do you mean?" Satoru looked over.

Was Kakeru still being brave?

"Oreki planted spies in our class. So why can't we plant one near him? Returning the favor." Kakeru said, "The information Shiho and her group revealed is that he controls them for Karuizawa's sake. But from the information we've gathered, he doesn't meet with her regularly."

In other words, he wanted to approach from this angle?

Indeed. If they concealed this fact, they might be able to get Houtarou's weakness from Kei.

"And regarding this point, what do you think, Shiina?" Kakeru looked over.

Hiyori: "..."

What should she think?

"I think that while advancing to Class A requires facing Oreki, isn't there a more direct approach?" Hiyori said, "20 million Points can exempt someone from expulsion or allow them to transfer to the class of their choice. So what if we invite someone to our class? For example, if we gathered 20 million Points and brought Oreki to our class... I think Class C would have a good chance."

"That would still require Points!" Kakeru said, "We're currently in debt. And that guy is so rich, if we buy him over, he could easily leave on his own, and we might have to cover that loss too. Don't forget what kind of person he is!"

Hiyori: "..."

Indeed, makes sense.

Because of Houtarou's reputation as "Lord Houtarou" and "Houtarou the Money Hoarder", he wouldn't easily let his Points suffer any losses.

So if they actually bought him over, and then he left again, that would be 40 million Points.

And those Points... could Class C bear that burden? It felt overwhelming just thinking about it.

Therefore, Hiyori was just thinking out loud.

She believed that if Houtarou could join their class, then even though their current class configuration wasn't great, they would have a chance to challenge Class A.

But with just Kakeru, it somehow felt... a bit lacking.

So, she was currently just going through the motions.

As such, when Kakeru wanted to hold another meeting, she played along.

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Meanwhile.

"W-what's wrong, Oreki?"

An hour had passed. Hasebe had met Chiaki Matsushita and was invited away.

But Airi hadn't left. So the two of them returned to the dorms together.

She noticed Houtarou looking at his phone. After reading something, his expression turned blank.

Airi, who was skilled at observing people, immediately noticed and looked over with concern. She thought something might have happened.

"It's nothing." Houtarou said.

Though it was actually something. He had received a report from Shiho.

Because Hasebe's comment about not seeing anyone from Class C lately caught his attention, he contacted his spy Shiho who was planted there.

He learned that Kakeru was holding a meeting to find spies.

And Houtarou gave instructions. Telling her it didn't matter if she was exposed, but she needed to report back to him afterward with all the details.

As a result, she was indeed exposed, and Kakeru even used security cameras. Since she was contacting him at that time, she was immediately caught.

However, the skills that Masayoshi had taught her about being a proper spy, including deleting messages after receiving them, came in handy. So she didn't let Kakeru see their conversation.

Afterwards, Kakeru let her go. Which led to her current report.

But now, two new pieces of information were known:

First, Kakeru already knew that Kei and he were acquainted, and that he was suppressing Shiho and her group for Kei's sake.

Second, Class C had many spies because they were so poor, some couldn't resist the temptation. Since Class A was the wealthiest, having Class A students plant spies in other classes was most common. As a result, did Class B's angels also start planting spies?

This indicated that either Class B's saints had finally awakened, or... someone disagreed with Honami's approach and wanted to pursue other channels. This point needed attention.

But what concerned Houtarou was that Kakeru might target Kei.

After all, Class C still had the drive and initiative to climb upward. Eventually, they would have to directly confront him. Given that guy's personality, he would use underhanded methods.

Actually, both Houtarou and Arisu believed that Class C was the most persistent and also had the clearest goals.

Class A students would become greatly discouraged after being pulled down a few times, while Class B was full of saints who, if they couldn't learn to hurt others, would have no offensive power, like herbivores.

As for Class D, well, Suzune and the others had returned to Class D now. And Rokusuke finally organized a study session, but only about ten people showed up. Unless the rest of those students dropped out, they couldn't climb upward.

Or rather, no one in Class D was thinking about climbing anymore. Even his Suzune had chosen to go solo.

So what would Kakeru, who still had the fighting spirit to climb upward, do? He would probably try to get Houtarou's weakness from Kei.

But Houtarou still had the recording of that guy kowtowing on his phone.

And according to Shiho's report, Kakeru didn't do anything to them, just let them leave. This wasn't consistent with his character.

Rather, the kowtowing at the Sports Festival had caused some trauma to Kakeru's psyche, which indicated he had become somewhat timid.

From this, it could be deduced that after learning Shiho and the others were also Houtarou's pawns, Kakeru had become cautious. Yet in this situation, he would face pressure.

Houtarou was curious: how would Kakeru choose to proceed?

On one hand, if Kakeru couldn't defeat Houtarou, he couldn't reach Class A. But if he wanted to defeat him, he would need to discover his weakness through Kei. Yet he couldn't be too direct — if Kei contacted Houtarou, Kakeru would fail again.

So this was essentially a test for Kakeru. He needed to bypass Houtarou's surveillance, approach Kei, and extract the weakness from her.

Of course, these were just speculations.

But what could be confirmed was that if Kakeru took action, Houtarou would respond accordingly. After all, he had promised to protect Kei — and this wasn't just empty words. It required action.

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Three days after the Class C meeting, two pieces of news arrived.

First, students from Class C had damaged the cameras in the physics lab.

Second:

"Ryūen has surrounded Kōenji from Class D!"

A Class A student quickly reported this news to Houtarou.

This meant Kakeru had indeed made up his mind — and quite decisively at that.

"Ryūen and his group are quite lively." Arisu said.

Clearly, she had also received the news.

"Do you want to go see?" Houtarou asked.

They were currently in the room, playing chess.

Arisu apparently used to play chess alone. This statement was quite touching, so after some consideration, Houtarou had recently asked her to teach him chess.

And now during the teaching process, she was holding his hand, showing him how to move the pieces.

"I am somewhat interested." Arisu said, "But I think Ryūen wouldn't simply surround Kōenji without reason."

Yes, she was indeed smart.

Because if Kakeru wanted to trouble Rokusuke, he would have done it long ago, not held back for so long.

So it could only be this way: He still wanted to get Houtarou's weakness from Kei.

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Meanwhile, Rokusuke was holding his small mirror.

"I don't think I've offended you guys… Ryū Boy!" He said.

Kakeru: "..."

If there wasn't any offense before, there certainly was now.

Not to mention, the current scene was actually quite familiar.

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