In a secluded spot where few people ever came.
Honami Ichinose came jogging over to the meeting spot, and her panting, out-of-breath appearance prompted Axel End to unabashedly switch on his auto-aim.
Mm, those curves were beyond reproach.
“Ichinose-san, you…
I told you it was fine to just walk over slowly.
It’s not like this Student Council slot is going to sprout wings and fly away.”
“Ahaha…
I just didn’t want to keep you waiting too long, End-kun.”
Honami Ichinose gave a slightly goofy smile.
In truth, it was only because after receiving the message she had kept wavering over whether or not to meet with Axel End — after all, according to the system, simply meeting had a chance of triggering a Task.
Perhaps she really was being overly precious about it.
After all, she was a “good girl” raised in that sort of environment and education, and it was hard for her to accept, in such a short span of time, the kind of highly conflicting and dramatic changes the system brought.
But if it were instead those “bad students” and “bad kids” in the eyes of adults, Honami Ichinose figured they would probably accept something like the system quite readily and work on the Tasks with real enthusiasm.
To put it bluntly…
She wasn’t willing to do it, but there were plenty of others who would.
This was exactly why there was a saying — many truths are actually understood by everyone, yet all too often, understanding those truths isn’t enough to live a good life.
But since she had chosen to keep the appointment today, that act itself meant she had already made her decision.
“Take your time and catch your breath.
There’s no rush with this.”
Meanwhile, on his end.
Axel End knew that Honami Ichinose was exactly the type who was very good at thinking of others but almost never thought of herself, so he could only let the girl catch her breath first.
“Th-thank you.”
Once her breathing gradually steadied, Honami Ichinose first smiled, then asked with a curious look on her face:
“Sorry to keep you waiting…
End-kun, that thing you mentioned in your message about the Student Council slot — is it true?”
Axel End nodded.
After chatting with Honami Ichinose in the cafeteria earlier, he’d had no intention of actually making her wait a full month before coming to discuss cooperation with him.
How many Points would that cost him?
It also didn’t fit his plan of spreading his favors evenly all around.
So this time he had specifically used the Student Council slot to trick Honami Ichinose — ah, no, to invite her out.
“Mm, it’s true.”
“I heard that you wanted to join the Student Council, Ichinose-san, but you were turned down by the Student Council President, right?”
Honami Ichinose nodded, a slightly troubled expression surfacing on her face.
“But how do you know about this, End-kun?
As I recall, I only mentioned it to my classmates.”
Axel End smiled and snapped his fingers.
Looking straight into Honami Ichinose’s eyes, he cast out the second piece of bait he’d prepared.
“Because of yesterday’s business of selling information, President Horikita had a talk with me today.”
“He hinted that he wanted to invite me to join the Student Council, and then — probably to imply just how rare this slot was — he brought up how you, Ichinose-san, and a student from Class A had applied to join the Student Council but were rejected by him.”
“But I’m an energy-conservationist.
Unless it’s absolutely necessary, I won’t go do something that sounds like such a hassle just to hear about, so I turned it down.”
“However, President Horikita said the slot would be reserved for me, so I got to thinking — could this slot that belongs to me be sold off to someone else in exchange for points?”
At first Honami Ichinose was surprised that Axel End had actually been invited by the Student Council President, but when she heard those last couple of sentences, she finally grasped what he really meant.
He wanted to sell the Student Council slot to her.
Although she did indeed want to join the Student Council, setting aside the fact that Class B could no longer scrape together enough points to buy the slot — even if they could, why would it have to be bought from Axel End specifically?
And she asked exactly that, quite bluntly.
“By your logic, End-kun, if the Student Council slot can be traded, then why wouldn’t I just go buy it from President Horikita directly?”
Axel End smiled.
He had naturally prepared a full contingency for this sort of response from Honami Ichinose.
“Well, what if I said I don’t want points?”
“You don’t want points?”
Honami Ichinose was momentarily stunned.
Now that was strange.
Because, thinking back on Axel End’s information-selling maneuvers and the substance of their conversation in the cafeteria, Honami Ichinose had always assumed that Axel End intended to use personal points to buy a Class A slot and graduate.
So points ought to be the more the better for him — yet in the end Axel End actually said he didn’t want points?
Then what did he want?
“So what is it you want to trade for with this Student Council slot, End-kun?”
“Because since you chose to invite me out to talk about this, I imagine you must believe that either I or Class B is capable of paying whatever it is you want, right?”
Axel End nodded.
Only at times like this was talking to a clever person a relaxing experience — you didn’t need to say much for them to understand.
“You’re right, Ichinose-san.
I did invite you out precisely because I believe you have the ability to pay the value of this Student Council slot.”
“That said…
I can’t say for certain that you’ll definitely agree to this particular deal.”
“Because this matter is honestly a bit…” This story is hosted at g.com.
As he spoke, Axel End simultaneously and decisively issued a Task to Honami Ichinose.
[Task Issued: There are many kinds of transactions in this world, but at their core they are all exchanges of interest.
Axel End now offers the Student Council slot as his terms of exchange, in the hope that you can fulfill a wish in his heart that is hard to put into words.]
[Task Reward: 2000 Points]
[Task Failure Penalty: Record a video of independently completing a mineshaft depth-probing assignment and send it to Axel End]
Honami Ichinose’s pupils quivered.
A reward of 2000 Points.
The previous two Tasks had both been “minor Tasks” worth only 100 Points, yet this third Task suddenly spanned such an enormous gap?
When something abnormal happens, there’s surely something fishy behind it.
Although what Axel End wanted wasn’t points, just from the Points alone she could tell this Task didn’t seem so easy to complete.
But then again…
It was a known fact that 1 Point equaled 1,000 yen.
And in the country of Neon, for an ordinary family of three where both parents had stable incomes, the average monthly household income fell somewhere in the range of 300,000 to 500,000.
But average monthly expenses basically wouldn’t drop below 200,000, and could well be higher.
Especially in a situation like her own family’s — two children but only a single, divorced mother with any real earning power — managing to balance income and expenses across the whole year was almost entirely the result of her mother overdrawing on her own health.
Even though her enrolling in Advanced Nurturing High School could relieve a considerable portion of her mother’s financial pressure, this merely made a very bad situation somewhat less bad; the most fundamental income problem still hadn’t been solved.
So although 99% of the goods in the System Shop were more worth redeeming than yen, for her and her family at this moment, money was the thing they needed most.
The tangle of complicated thoughts vanished in an instant.
Honami Ichinose drew a deep breath, and the smile on her face gradually took on a resolute hue.
“Please, go ahead, End-kun.
If you don’t say it, I won’t know whether your request is within my ability to pay, will I?”
Axel End nodded.
Thanks to the bonus granted by Basic Acting, the expression on his face was like a pie chart displaying three parts awkwardness, three parts bashfulness, three parts unease, and one part anticipation.
“Um…
actually, what I want isn’t some concrete object, but rather I hope…”
“That I might be allowed to call you, Ichinose-san…”
“Mom.”
A fittingly timed evening breeze drifted gently past, and her fluttering strands of hair playfully brushed against the girl’s delicate face — a face that was, at this moment, brimming with stunned bewilderment.
Silence — such was Advanced Nurturing High School today.
Please keep reading!
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👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Naruto: Is it reasonable to beat up an Otsutsuki with Hamon, right?
Let’s hit these goals: