Even though last year, they were still very competitive. During three special exams in a row, they had someone drop out each time.
Compared to that, the other lower-ranked classes only had one or two dropouts across all three tests.
Looking at the results of those special exams, Class 3-B's scores kept going up each time.
In other words, they were willing to let go of their classmates to win.
But sadly, they still failed in the end.
So once Class 3-A moved into their final year, they quickly locked in their lead.
Shirogane thought about all this while walking and organizing the materials he got from the student council.
Not long after, Shirogane saw a cute girl with shiny pink hair sitting by the flower bed.
Ichinose was frozen in place, staring blankly ahead. No one could tell what she was thinking.
But from the looks of it, she had probably been waiting here alone for quite a while.
"Have you been waiting long?"
Shirogane asked.
"Eh? N-no. Um..."
Ichinose tried to deny it at first, but when she saw Shirogane looking at her seriously, she changed her answer.
"Actually, I've been waiting here since I left the student council room."
She was a member of the discipline committee, but they only had to patrol three times a week.
Today was her free day, with no assigned tasks.
So she remembered her promise with Shirogane and waited here honestly.
"But I was on my phone too, so it's not like I was just wasting time."
Ichinose added.
She had a lot of friends, so her phone was probably full of messages.
But Shirogane didn't really believe that. It looked like she had just been sitting there quietly, not using her phone at all.
Maybe because she didn't know when he'd be coming out of the student council room, and she didn't want to be seen playing on her phone and leave a bad impression.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're a really good person, Ichinose?"
Shirogane suddenly asked.
"Eh?"
Ichinose seemed surprised.
"A good person?"
"Yeah. Just a genuinely kind person."
Shirogane said.
"You're probably one of the few people in this school who, even under this kind of system, still makes others feel safe becoming friends with."
So—
Actually, Horikita's brother didn't have to lower his standards.
He could've just told Horikita's sister to make a friend.
And if it was just about making a friend, Horikita's sister could've chosen someone like Ichinose.
"Nyahaha, I can't believe you think that highly of me."
"Um..."
But for some reason, maybe it was just his imagination, Ichinose seemed a little down.
"I'm not really that good of a person."
"Well, let's get to the point then."
Shirogane said.
"It's getting pretty late."
"The reason I asked you to stay is because I wanted to ask your class for help with something."
"For the upcoming written test, a lot of students in our class aren't doing well academically. To raise our scores a bit, we're hoping students in your class with at least a B- level can help tutor them."
"Hmm... Let's start by asking for ten people."
"Each student will be responsible for tutoring three others."
"The lessons will start from junior high school level content," Shirogane said.
"And as for the pay, each session will be worth 2000 points, plus a snack."
"If our students get drinks or snacks during class, you'll get the same too."
So basically, Shirogane was trying to hire tutors for his class.
But—
2000 points per session isn't much. For private tutoring, the usual 1-on-1 rate ranges from 2000 to 7000 points. So 2000 is already on the low end, and now they'd have to teach three people at once.
Still—
Shirogane needed ten students. If all ten showed up, that would mean 20,000 points total.
That means one class could bring in 20,000 points for the class. Even if it doesn't go to the class fund and just helps students get a bit more spending money, that's still a win.
"How long will the lessons last?" Ichinose asked as she pulled out a small notebook to take notes.
Looks like she was taking it seriously.
"Starting the day after tomorrow, every school day from 7 PM to 9 PM," Shirogane said.
"And you'll also need to review some junior high school textbooks."
"The school library only has five copies of each textbook, and my class needs more than that. So we can't get them from the library."
"In that case, we'll have to order them from the bookstore in the shopping district, which will take about two or three days to arrive," Shirogane said.
"And this isn't just something we'll do before this month's test—it's something we want to keep doing long-term," Shirogane said.
"In other words..."
Ichinose already understood—Shirogane wanted to raise the grades of the weaker students in his class.
And not just for this one test, but to build up a solid base for all future exams.
In that case...
What Ichinose and her group were doing now might become a problem.
First of all, Shirogane's class beat hers and moved up in the rankings.
In other words, if Shirogane's class keeps doing poorly in academics, it's good for Ichinose's class in the overall competition.
So helping them now might actually be helping the enemy.
However—
"I'll need to discuss this with my class first," Ichinose said, and only then did she take out her phone.
Right in front of Shirogane, she began reaching out to her classmates.
It didn't take long.
Most of the students in Ichinose's class started to speak up.
Ichinose wasn't stupid. She quickly pointed out that if Ryuuen's class caught up academically, her class might lose its edge.
But still—
"Wanting to learn and do well in school is a good thing, right?"
"If we just hope they stay at the bottom and do badly, I don't think that's a good mindset."
"And since this could bring in a lot of private points for the class, I think we should seriously think about it."
Soon after—
Students in Ichinose's class who were checking the group chat at the time began sharing their opinions.
Among them were Kanzaki Ryuji, who always thought things through carefully,
Shiranami Chihiro, who fully supported Ichinose,
And Amikura Mako, who was the type to just go along with whatever the group decided.
Before long—
Ichinose's class held a vote to settle the matter.
Out of 33 people, 27 agreed to take on the tutoring job.
"..."
Shirogane.
Ichinose didn't hide anything the whole time. She even shared her screen, showing the group chat messages clearly to Shirogane to keep everything open and fair.
This was a big job, after all. And helping Ryuuen's class improve academically wasn't something that would be over in a week.
If they handled it well, they could earn hundreds of thousands of points a month just from tutoring fees.
That could mean millions in a year, which was no small amount.
Ichinose's class really did need the points.
Especially now that they understood how tough the path to the student council class was.
Spending 20 million points just to stop a classmate from being expelled — just thinking about it was scary. And what was even scarier was that someone had actually managed to gather that many points.
Shirogane saw a record from a former student who pulled it off, but it turned out that he had used illegal methods and tricked others. A bunch of students reported him, and he got expelled.
After that, no one else had ever reached 20 million points on their own.
But if it was done as a class, maybe it was possible.
Ps: Second update.