May 4, 2026 (Monday) | 7:55 AM.
The atmosphere inside Class 1-D resembled a morgue.
The baseline volume of the room had dropped by ninety percent compared to May 1st. There was no shouting. There was no laughter anymore. The thirty-nine teenagers were still processing the first stages of severe psychological trauma.
I sat at my desk in the back row and observed the physical symptoms of the collective breakdown.
Sugimoto was slumped forward, his big shoulders hunched. He was no longer sleeping. Even delinquents knew when to behave. He was currently staring at the floor, his foot tapping rhythmically in a clear display of nervous anxiety.
A girl in the third row had dark circles under her eyes. She likely did not sleep well during the weekend, desperately calculating her own non-existent finances. She was currently biting her fingernails down to the quick.
The embedded LCD screens on the desks were a permanent, physical threat. The red background from last Friday's slaughter had not reverted to neutral white. It remained a saturated, unblinking crimson. Right below the cohort label, the text still displayed the individual tenant statuses.
Twenty-one students in this room owed 10,000 points. The other nineteen were safe from rent, but they were still sitting on a zero balance.
The front door slid open.
Kato Kenji walked in. His posture was sloppy. His blazer was unbuttoned. He looks unbothered by the depressed students and the red screens. He walked straight down the aisle, his eyes locked entirely on the black handheld console in his hands.
He slid into the seat next to me. ROW: 8 | COL: 3.
"Morning," Kato said casually without looking up from the pixelated screen.
"Good morning," I replied. My tone was flat.
He mashed the 'A' button. A tiny 8-bit jump sound effect leaked from the console's small speakers. He was completely unaffected by the atmosphere.
At exactly 8:00 AM, the homeroom teacher walked into the classroom.
I noticed an immediate discrepancy in her loadout. On May 1st, Last Friday, during the financial execution, she had been accompanied by an administrative staff member. The staff had wheeled in a steel cart carrying a laptop, a printer, and something that looked like a dry seal.
Today, the cart was gone. The staff members did not come. The teacher was carrying nothing but a single whiteboard marker.
It looks like the administrative phase is over. She's back to being just a teacher.
As she walked to the podium, the students scrambled to sit up straight. They were terrified. They treated her like a judge who had just handed them a death sentence.
"Quiet," the teacher said. It was unnecessary. The room was already dead silent.
She turned to the whiteboard and wrote a single line of text.
*First Term Midterm Examinations.*
A collective, sharp intake of breath echoed through the room.
"The academic calendar in a standard Japanese high school dictates that midterms occur in the middle of May," the teacher announced without turning around. "But this institution is different. Your midterms will begin in the last week of this month."
She finally turned to face her students. Her eyes swept over the terrified teenagers.
"The coverage for these exams will not be abbreviated," she stated coldly. "You will be tested on every single concept taught from April 1st up to the day of the exam. All subjects. Mathematics, Japanese, English, Science, and Civics."
The color drained from Hirano's face. Kariya's jaw dropped.
The realization hit the room like a crashing heavy truck.
'Class D' did not take notes in April.
For an entire month, they had treated the classroom like a lounge. They had slept through calculus and texted through history class. The teachers had never stopped them, never scolded them, and never forced them to pay attention.
The first trap was not just the conduct points. The 'good conduct' trap was a smokescreen. The real trap was letting them actively sabotage their own academic foundation right before the first major grading period.
"You have two and a few weeks to prepare," the teacher said. She checked her silver wristwatch. "Homeroom is over. Prepare for the first period."
She walked down to exit the room without consuming the entire fifteen minutes. She simply dropped the bomb and left.
To my left, Hori Seiji was entirely rigid. He stared straight ahead at the whiteboard. His dark eyes were burning with a sharp, contained fury. He slowly reached up and bit his lower lip. He bit it hard enough that the skin turned white.
He looked frustrated.
He took notes during April. He paid attention. He might pass the midterms with high scores but he probably just realized that his own academic intellect is entirely useless here.
This school runs on a collective penalty system. If a single student fails to pay their rent and gets expelled, the entire class will suffer an unknown massive, permanent consequence. Hori is chained to thirty-nine students. If they drown, they drag him down to the bottom of the ocean with them.
He cannot survive alone.
The bell rang for the first period. The panic in the room was palpable.
---
3:30 PM.
The final bell of the day rang. The teacher packed his briefcase and left the room.
The students began to stand up. They moved slowly. The usual rush to the cafeteria or the campus mall was gone. They were paralyzed by the sheer volume of impending threats.
Rent. Zero points. Midterms. Expulsion.
I packed my notebooks into my bag.
Down in the second row, Hirano Yui stood up. She turned around and looked straight at the back row. She took a deep breath, clenched her fists at her sides, and walked directly toward our desks.
She has not learned her lesson.
The cafe trap had failed miserably. Hori had walked out on her. A normal person would avoid him out of sheer embarrassment.
What is she up to now?
Hori slung his bag over his shoulder. He saw her coming, so he immediately turned to the back door, preparing to leave.
"Please, Hori-san," Hirano called out. Her voice was slightly louder than necessary. It cracked a little.
Hori stopped but he did not turn around.
"Let's talk," Hirano pleaded, stopping a few feet away from him. "I wanna know your thoughts. It's something class-related. I think you understand how this Seat Economy works? I'm still a little confused. It will be good for the class if we understand this."
Hori stood perfectly still.
*Good for the class.*
Those four words were probably the trigger she needed. Under normal circumstances, Hori would not care if Hirano jumped off the roof.
But the rules of the system forced his hand. If Hirano and the others did not understand the economy of the school, they would default. If they defaulted, they would be expelled. If they were expelled, his own Class would be permanently damaged.
He slowly turned around. His expression was a mask of cold disgust.
He set his bag back down on his desk. He sat down in his chair.
I picked up my own bag. I had no interest in this conversation, so I took a step toward the door to exit.
"You listen too," Hori snapped. His voice was sharp.
I stopped. I looked at him.
Hori did not know my actual intellect. To him, I was just a quiet, slightly awkward girl who happened to sit next to him. I was a baseline variable.
"I don't want to be alone with her," Hori muttered, his voice dropping low enough that Hirano could not hear. "It feels so much normal if someone is staying as the background."
Background, huh.
I looked at his irritated expression. He was using me as a social buffer. He needed a third party present to dilute the interaction so he would not have to deal with Hirano's overwhelming, desperate friendliness directly.
"Okay," I said.
I set my bag down and sat back in my chair.
Hirano rushed over. She pulled up the empty chair from the desk in front of Hori and sat down facing us. She pulled a small pink notebook and a pen from her pocket. She looked at Hori with desperate, wide eyes.
"Thank you," Hirano breathed.
Before Hori could cut her off, she looked down at her notebook, her hands shaking slightly.
"I'm just so scared," Hirano whispered. "During the panic, I checked the LCD screen on my desk. It said my seat is owned by Class C. Asakura-san, did yours say anything?"
"Yes," I said. "Class C."
Hirano's eyes widened. "Really? Sugimoto-kun was yelling yesterday that Class C bought his seat too. Why would they pick the three of us?"
"They didn't pick you," Hori interrupted, answering her question with cold disdain. "Sensei said the system algorithm is random. You are just a number to them."
Hori crossed his arms.
"And don't thank me," Hori continued, his tone entirely unforgiving. "I'm doing this to protect my own standing. If you fail, you damage my record. That is unacceptable. What part of the system do you fail to grasp?"
"Everything," Hirano admitted, her shoulders slumping. "The 21 seats. The rent. Why did they target us so specifically? Why couldn't they just buy one or two?"
Hori pulled a blank notebook from his bag. He clicked his pen.
"We will start with the math," Hori said. He adopted the tone of a strict, unforgiving professor. "What is the base cost to purchase a single seat from another class?"
"100,000 points," Hirano answered quickly.
"Correct. And what is the penalty for buying multiple seats from the same class?"
"It goes up," Hirano responded. "The teacher said it compounds by ten percent."
Hori wrote a math formula on the paper. I watched the ink flow as he moved his hand.