The next day, early morning.
After giving the students a day to adapt to their new environnt, today marked the official start of their classes.
"Good morning, Sakura-san."
Returning to his seat, Katsuragi Keima greeted Sakura Airi beside him.
"G-good morning..."
Sakura Airi responded in a voice that only she could hear. In her hands, she held a small red cara—the very one she had spent a long ti choosing and buying the night before.
Keima turned his head to the other side and noticed Horikita Suzune watching him out of the corner of her eye. However, she quickly shifted her attention elsewhere, seemingly trying to ignore him on purpose.
"Good morning."
Keima gave a perfunctory greeting.
"Are you speaking to ?"
Horikita did not turn her head, rely tilting her glasses slightly to look at Keima with a haughty sidelong glance.
"I thought you didn't understand the concept of so-called manners."
Horikita was still brooding over the events of yesterday.
"What was your na again?"
Keima asked indifferently, as if he hadn't heard her remark.
Although Keima already knew her na through the cards Elsie had given him, in reality, she had not yet introduced herself; yesterday's self-introduction session was interrupted before it reached her turn.
"I have no obligation to tell you my na, do I?"
"Oh, what a stingy person. Won't even say a na."
"?"
The muscles in Horikita's face twitched uncontrollably for an instant. This was the first ti she had ever been called that. A wave of irritation surged in her heart.
While Horikita was contemplating a retort, Keima had already pulled out his handheld console and started playing on his own.
"Horikita Suzune. That's your na, isn't it? I didn't really need to ask; after all, one can check the class seating chart and the schedule. Knowing your na isn't exactly a difficult task."
"..."
Countless words rushed to Horikita's lips, but she couldn't utter a single one for a long while.
'Does this guy have so kind of problem with his brain?'
"Even if your head seems decent, in the end, you're just a four-eyed otaku."
After simring for nearly a minute, Horikita managed to squeeze out that sentence.
"Furthermore, you said yesterday that we should save points, yet you ended up buying a pile of things that sap one's ambition."
"These are not things that 'sap one's ambition.' On the contrary, they are very important existences to ."
"Oh? Is that so?"
Horikita let out a cold laugh and finally turned her face fully toward him. Even with an expression of disdain, that face was undeniably beautiful.
"And playing gas directly in the classroom—aren't you worried about being criticized by Sensei?"
However, Keima never once looked up at her. His gaze remained focused on his screen as he spoke:
"Sensei probably won't say anything. After all, the school rules explicitly prohibit leaving campus and fighting. In a sense, as long as a student doesn't violate the rules, they can do whatever they want."
"But..."
"Having said that, there might be 'invisible' rules that haven't been announced. Haven't you noticed? The number of security caras in this school is extrely high, far exceeding the normal needs of an ordinary school. Not only that, but the school store has almost every kind of equipnt, and you can even use the student terminal to order things on the campus network that you can't normally buy. Yesterday, I discovered the sa model of cara there; its precision far exceeds what is needed for daily life. It's possible the school knows every word we're saying right now."
Keima remained concentrated on his screen, operating the controls frantically while speaking at a steady, unhurried pace.
"I hypothesize that every student has a certain 'score,' and the school uses those high-definition caras to observe our words and deeds to adjust that score. That is likely the
'value' Sensei ntioned yesterday. I suspect the points we receive each month are related to it."
Hearing Keima's words, Horikita finally snapped out of it. She quickly scanned the corners of the room. There were caras in all four corners of the classroom, leaving almost no blind spots.
'Are the every moves of all the students currently under the school's surveillance?'
Horikita hadn't noticed the existence of those caras before, but Keima had.
'Just how sharp is this guy's observation?'
"How exactly did you find out?"
"In a ga, you can't miss any detail! These hidden details, like Easter eggs, are often what allow to reach the hidden, perfect ending."
As he spoke, Keima pushed up his glasses and glanced at Horikita with a sidelong look before returning his attention to the screen.
"Soone like you definitely wouldn't know that."
This left Horikita dazed for a mont.
'Could it be that Katsuragi Keima plays gas to train his thinking skills? That these gas aren't just for entertainnt—
No, absolutely impossible! Why am I even thinking about such a aningless question!'
Horikita took a deep breath, then, as if rembering sothing, she looked at Keima with a frown:
"If you know the school is watching us, playing gas in this setting is bad, isn't it?"
"Class hasn't officially started yet, so it doesn't matter. It might have so impact once class begins, but for the sake of Hana-chan, it's all worth it."
"Hana-chan? Who is that?"
"Hana-chan is a female character from the sixth branch of the ga I'm playing now. I've already seen the ending—"
"Enough, I don't want to hear it."
Horikita sighed helplessly. This was the first ti in her life she felt a sense of helplessness toward soone.
"Besides, even if our 'score' is deducted, there will surely be a way to increase it later. We can just add it back then.
You certainly make it sound easy. And from start to finish, this is all just based on your speculation."
Horikita shifted her gaze to the textbooks on her desk. Although she said that, based on what Keima had just said, she already believed about seventy or eighty percent of it.
While the two were talking, on the other side of the classroom, a aningful gaze from Kushida Kikyo remained focused on them.
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