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The first-year class voting tally came to an end. Sakagami swept his gaze strangely toward the class dunce:
"Lowest score, Ishizaki, minus thirty-eight points. Ryuen, minus five points. Everyone else got the highest score of plus one point."
"Ishizaki, come with me to handle the withdrawal procedures."
Originally, just like Ichinose, Yukio had planned to take the fall himself, becoming the one with minus thirty-eight points who would inevitably be expelled, in order to prevent cracks from forming within his class.
But after Ishizaki and the others heard the plan, it was Ishizaki who most strongly demanded to take Yukio's place. Even though Yukio's plan was foolproof, completely without risk, Ishizaki still insisted on substituting himself for Yukio.
This moved Yukio a little. Though this underling wasn't very bright, his heart was good. In the end, Yukio agreed to Ishizaki's request.
"Go to hell!" Ishizaki said with great arrogance, his face full of smug pride. "Yukio-aniki, it can start now, right?!"
Seeing Ishizaki's cocky expression, Yukio had intended to tease him, but on second thought, joking at a time like this wasn't a good idea, so he let it be.
"Alright then. Sakagami-sensei, I'll personally pay twenty million private points to offset Ishizaki's expulsion penalty."
At those words, Sakagami's expression grew even stranger. He shook his head, staring at Yukio as if he were looking at a monster.
"This is… absurd."
Ryuen also turned his head to look back at Yukio. "Maybe this is what they call filthy rich?"
….
Over in Sakayanagi's class, Majima also looked at the results.
"In the end, Katsuragi is minus two points, but the lowest score is still Matoba. Matoba, come with me to process the expulsion."
"?" Matoba's face instantly went pale. The outcome Sakayanagi announced was totally different from what she and Yukio had agreed upon! How could this be?!
Katsuragi also stood up at this moment.
"Sakayanagi? What's going on? Didn't you say that this time no one would be expelled?"
"What's the rush?" Sakayanagi remained calm, leisurely pulling out her phone. Her motions were always a beat slower than most, but that only made her confidence more evident.
Her phone quickly connected to Yukio, and she put it on speaker so everyone could hear his voice.
"Hello? Majima-sensei, I'll transfer twenty million private points here to cancel Matoba's expulsion penalty."
These words left everyone in Sakayanagi's class, except for Sakayanagi herself, utterly baffled. They couldn't understand what Yukio was doing.
Contracts, agreements, single-round internal voting… and in the end, it all came down to simply spending twenty million to save someone? Then why all the flashy moves before?
Katsuragi was the most curious. He deeply acknowledged Yukio's terrifying ability. In the first two special exams, whenever he faced Yukio, he had ended up miserably swindled.
He didn't believe Yukio was just playing around without purpose, so he asked seriously.
"Yukio, what are you really plotting?"
"Me?" Because the phone was on speaker, Yukio's voice could be heard clearly back in his own class. He answered Katsuragi's question. "I'm plotting a fortune beyond your imagination. In this exam…"
Before he could finish, the line cut off with the beeping sound of a busy tone. Katsuragi's face darkened as if he'd just swallowed something foul. To hook people's curiosity and then cut off halfway was unbearably irritating!
That's right—the line was busy. Just as Yukio was halfway through his sentence, Ichinose's call came in. Just like with Sakayanagi's class, another twenty million private points were paid to protect Ichinose, who was on the verge of expulsion.
This brought relief to Hoshinomiya and Ichinose's classmates. Ichinose herself even boasted with a touch of pride, "See? Didn't I tell you there'd be no problem in the end?"
Her words drew a flurry of questions from those around her.
Yukio didn't bother explaining to Ichinose's classmates, because at that moment Matsushita's call came through. Again, twenty million private points canceled Matsushita's expulsion.
It seemed that, aside from Sakayanagi who didn't care about the class's internal cohesion, the other three classes had all originally planned for their unifiers to be the ones with negative scores.
At this point, the students of Class D could no longer sit still.
"What's going on here? We know Yukio has money, and the class has a lot of points too. But if it's just about paying to offset expulsions, then why make us vote like that earlier?"
"Exactly! If in the end it's just paying private points to cancel the penalty, then we could've voted however we wanted. As long as someone gets marked for expulsion, Yukio just pays to bail them out anyway."
"Hehe." Yukio's laughter came through Matsushita's phone, echoing in every Class D student's heart.
"If you hadn't voted, where would I have gotten all these points?"
"I didn't just cancel Matsushita's expulsion. This time, across all four first-year classes, I spent a total of eighty million private points."
Hearing Yukio's voice, Kushida, Karuizawa, and Sakura all focused intently, as if hoping to glean more from his words.
Matsushita still wore the smile of a refined young lady, but beside her, Horikita's expression was extremely complicated.
The rest of the students collectively cried out in shock.
"Eight— eighty million?! No way! That's impossible! There's no way anyone could have eighty million private points! How did you do it?"
"It's not scientific, completely unscientific! I calculated all of Class D's income from April last year to March this year, and it doesn't even come close to eighty million!"
"Who told you this income came from our class points?" Yukio's voice was like a heavy stone pressing down on the hearts of Class D's students, giving them immense psychological pressure.
"This is my latest income."
As everyone remained puzzled, Horikita's face turned grim. Whether it was lament or recalling a small wager, her expression paled as she muttered.
"Two billion nine hundred eighty million!"
"This guy just raked in nearly three billion private points!"
Everyone in Class D, except Matsushita, gawked at Horikita in shock. They didn't understand what she meant. Three billion? Was that even humanly possible?
Horikita ground her teeth and explained. "The cruelest part of this voting exam is that an expulsion must be decided. Even if two people tie for the lowest score, there has to be a revote until one person with the lowest score gets expelled."
"But the most important rule is that there doesn't need to be a top scorer! If multiple students tie for the highest score, they all get protection points!"
"Do the math! That guy's greed practically swallowed the sky! Through painstakingly arranged internal round-robin votes, plus the external class praise-vote mechanism, he aimed to make sure each class had thirty-eight students sitting at plus one point!"
"Even though our Class D only had thirty-five students at plus one point, that still meant each of us got one protection point!"
"Then, through contracts fully transferred to Yukio, and using the chairman's newly enabled authority to trade protection points, he could easily convert one protection point into twenty million private points!"
"Put all of that together, and in one swoop that guy looted three billion from AN High School!"
...
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