The moment Hikaru Naruse finished speaking, the five people across from him reacted almost simultaneously.
Sō Shibata was the first who couldn’t sit still—by nature, he was a bit of a hothead.
“You haven’t said a single thing yet, and you already want us to name a price?”
At this point, Ryūji Kanzaki cut in as well.
“Naruse, the deal you’re proposing is nothing but empty talk for now.
Without any concrete information, it’s hard for us to assess the value of this so-called intel of yours.”
“How about this—you go first and tell us the price you have in mind.
We can keep negotiating from there.”
As something of a strategist for Class B, Ryūji Kanzaki remained level-headed even now.
“Fair enough.
Then let me tell you the figure I have in mind.”
Naruse extended one hand, slowly spreading his five fingers open, and said calmly,
“I want five hundred thousand points.”
This was a number Naruse had arrived at after careful thought, because he had just learned from Ai Morishita the price Sakayanagi had paid after negotiating with that upperclassman.
Naturally, Sakayanagi wouldn’t let the other party jack up the price at will.
She had simply said, “There must be plenty of upperclassmen short on points, wouldn’t you say?”—and with that one line, she had the second-year Class D boy right where she wanted him.
In the end, she paid twenty thousand Private Points to get that upperclassman to spill everything he knew.
Now that it was his turn to make a deal, Naruse naturally intended to charge a bit more.
And the price he quoted gave the Class B students across from him a real jolt.
“?”
“What did you say?”
Even though everyone had only just been handed one hundred thousand points that day, five hundred thousand points was hardly a trivial sum—for any first-year newcomer, that was an enormous fortune.
“Are you trying to fleece us, Naruse?” Ryūji Kanzaki stared at him coolly.
“Heh, I understand everyone’s reservations.”
Under the gazes of Honami Ichinose and the rest of Class B, Hikaru Naruse’s tone remained just as gentle.
“Demanding that you pay five hundred thousand points when you haven’t seen a thing yet—yes, that really is asking a lot of you.”
“So…”
He paused for just a moment, then shifted his tone.
“I can throw in one extra piece of intel for you, free of charge.”
Hikaru Naruse’s gaze settled on the pretty face of Honami Ichinose, seated across from him.
“Ichinose, do you have your homeroom teacher’s contact information?”
Honami Ichinose blinked, clearly not expecting him to ask that.
But she quickly recovered, giving a small nod.
“I do.”
In the original story, Chie Hoshinomiya loved getting close with her students, entirely lacking the sternness and sense of distance most teachers had.
So on the very first homeroom period, she’d written her number on the blackboard and had all of Class B add her.
“Good.
Ichinose, right now you can send a text to your Class B homeroom teacher and ask her a single question.”
“What question?” Honami Ichinose fixed her burning gaze on Hikaru Naruse.
“Just ask her directly: Sensei, does this school have any hidden rules?”
“That’s all you need to ask.”
“Then see how she replies.”
Honami Ichinose’s eyelashes fluttered twice, and then she heard the voices of her classmates behind her.
“Ichinose, give it a try.
I doubt Hoshinomiya-sensei would make a fuss over something like this.”
“That’s right.
A teacher wouldn’t lie—this is a good chance for us to verify…” Ryūji Kanzaki folded his arms and looked at Naruse across from him.
“…just how sincere Naruse really is.”
“Okay.”
Honami Ichinose took a deep breath, then pulled out her phone, composed a text, and sent it to Chie Hoshinomiya.
Once she’d done that, the girl set her phone on the table—and then she heard Ryūji Kanzaki ask another question.
“Naruse, there’s one more thing I’d like to ask.”
“Go ahead.”
“No matter how Hoshinomiya-sensei replies in a moment, I want to clarify something first.
This deal you’re proposing—does it represent you personally, or your Class A as a whole?”
At that, Hikaru Naruse merely gave a faint smile, not the least bit troubled.
“Myself personally, of course.”
“The hidden intel I’ve gathered on my own, I’ve already shared with my own classmates.
But you aren’t my classmates, so if I’m going to tell you, then naturally I need to charge a certain fee.”
“Besides, if you couldn’t care less about the hidden intel, you’re perfectly free to walk out right now.
Either way, I can always go find people from the other classes.”
Naruse shrugged, and the explanation he gave was perfectly reasonable.
“…That’s true enough.”
Ryūji Kanzaki gave a slight nod, the sharpness in his eyes easing a fraction, though he still kept up an appraising sort of scrutiny.
While they waited, Hikaru Naruse simply sat quietly in his seat.
He was even in the mood to pick up the glass of water on the table and take a sip—because today was his first time meeting these Class B members, and he’d had to invoke their teacher just to win them over.
At a time like this, he couldn’t come across as too obstinate either—after all, there might well be a task involving Honami Ichinose still to come.
So Naruse had given them one free piece of intel first, striking exactly the right balance.
Just then, Honami Ichinose’s phone let out a “ding,” and in an instant every member of Class B tensed up.
“…”
The girl unlocked her phone, and the next moment a reply came into view, making Honami Ichinose’s expression change on the spot.
“What is it, Ichinose?”
“What did Hoshinomiya-sensei write back?”
Everyone leaned in to look, and there on Honami Ichinose’s phone was displayed a single reply.
“Ichinose, have you discovered something?
I’m afraid the matter of hidden rules falls outside the scope of what I can answer, okay?”
The moment this message was revealed, the atmosphere around the table underwent an earth-shattering transformation.
Apart from Hikaru Naruse, everyone present was essentially one of Class B’s more important core members.
None of them were fools, so they immediately grasped what the teacher meant.
The matter of hidden rules falls outside the scope of what I can answer.
The subtext of this line was far too obvious—because “outside the scope of what I can answer” was itself a kind of answer.
If hidden rules simply didn’t exist, Hoshinomiya-sensei could have answered outright, “There are no hidden rules,” or “Hidden rules don’t exist.”
But she said neither.
Instead she chose to dodge the question with a phrase like “outside the scope of what I can answer”—and that in itself spelled out a fact.
This school did, in fact, have hidden rules!
It was simply that the teacher couldn’t tell them.
This single reply from Chie Hoshinomiya instantly made all five Class B students present understand one thing.
“Naruse, you…?”
Five pairs of eyes turned in unison toward Hikaru Naruse.
Hikaru Naruse’s expression was very mild.
He smiled faintly, then gave a nod.
This negotiation had, at last, put all the initiative firmly in his hands.
With the intel in his grasp, he could let the students of Class B glimpse the other side of this school.
There was no way they could remain indifferent to the hidden rules—after all, Honami Ichinose had voiced her own doubts even before coming here.
What kind of school hands out one hundred thousand yen to every student each month?
Did they really think it was charity?
“Well?
Does everyone understand what I mean now?”
Hikaru Naruse’s voice was soft and calm, like a gentle breeze skimming across the surface of the water.
“Five hundred thousand points for three hidden rules—I guarantee you won’t be getting a raw deal.”