Chapter 182: Setting Up the Scholarship—How Exciting!
"Let me correct something. The scholarship fund isn't actually 1.33 million points. It's two million," Chabashira announced.
"Two million? But didn't Shimizu-kun just say he only transferred 1.33 million?"
"Shimizu contributed 1.33 million, but he also obtained another 670,000 points from a certain... kind upperclassman. That brings the total scholarship fund to two million points," Chabashira explained.
Indeed.
Everyone should thank the upperclassman named Mizowaki.
He had, after all, "voluntarily" contributed 670,000 points.
"But if it's a scholarship, won't it only reward students with good grades? Someone bad at studying like me probably won't have any chance of getting it," one academically weak student said bitterly.
Two million points was an enormous and tempting amount.
But this was a scholarship.
Wouldn't only strong students like Yukimura Teruhiko be able to win it?
"Don't worry. Anyone whose grades improve can earn scholarship points," Yuto said with a smile. "I'm going to use your midterm exam scores as the baseline. For every subject where your final exam score exceeds your midterm score, you'll receive scholarship points."
"And for every single point you improve, you'll receive 2,000 personal points."
For example, suppose Kei had scored 80 in Japanese on the midterm and then scored 90 on the final.
She would receive:
(90 - 80) × 2,000 = 20,000 points.
"If that's how the scholarship works, then every one of us really does have a chance!" the students exclaimed excitedly.
As long as their final exam scores were higher than their midterm scores, they could win points.
They weren't competing against the top students.
They were competing against their past selves.
Maybe they couldn't beat someone else's grades, but surely they could beat their own previous scores!
Chabashira looked around in satisfaction as the classroom atmosphere became increasingly enthusiastic.
The scholarship system that troublesome brat had designed really could motivate the entire class, because every student had a genuine opportunity to benefit from it.
"There's more," Yuto continued. "The top five students in every subject will receive additional rewards."
"First place: 100,000 points."
"Second place: 70,000 points."
"Third place: 50,000 points."
"Fourth place: 30,000 points."
"Fifth place: 10,000 points."
Those words immediately made the eyes of high-achieving students like Yukimura light up.
Students who had already scored highly on the midterm would naturally find it harder to improve by large margins.
That meant the score-improvement portion of the scholarship system was actually somewhat unfavorable to them.
But with additional rewards for the top five in each subject, academically strong students now had another route to earning scholarship money.
And potentially a very lucrative one.
Looking at his increasingly excited classmates, Yuto smiled. "So if you want to win as much scholarship money as possible, study hard and get good results on the final exam in July."
"We definitely will!"
"Exactly! We won't let your generosity go to waste, Shimizu-kun!"
The students of Class C responded enthusiastically.
In truth, many of them had nearly exhausted their personal points and had been eating the free vegetable set meal for days.
Meals resembling plain wild vegetables were difficult to endure, so their desire for personal points had reached an unprecedented level.
With a two-million-point scholarship dangling in front of them, they would now study willingly and enthusiastically.
That was exactly what Yuto wanted.
The students of Class C might not be particularly strong academically, but they possessed two excellent qualities.
First, they hadn't given up. They still desperately wanted points.
Second, they were obedient.
Leading students like these made Yuto's life considerably easier and saved him plenty of trouble.
After all, who wanted to lead a group of people who had already given up on themselves?
Once the scholarship announcement ended, Yuto stepped down from the podium beneath the heated gazes of his classmates.
His eyes briefly moved toward Koenji Rokusuke, who had his feet propped up on his desk.
At this point, Koenji was probably the only person in the entire class who still refused to follow Yuto.
Koenji possessed tremendous physical ability and excellent academics, but his completely self-centered personality also made him the class's only remaining unpredictable variable.
And Yuto already had Kei, Suzune, Kikyo, Ayanokouji, Hirata, and several other capable, cooperative people around him.
That meant Koenji wasn't an indispensable ally.
'This school has special exams. If a student is expelled during one of those exams, the class doesn't necessarily suffer the usual three-hundred-point penalty.'
'That makes a special exam the best opportunity to remove Koenji from this class.'
Koenji's hand suddenly froze while he was touching his blond hair.
Once again, he felt an inexplicable chill.
He had experienced the exact same sensation before, when the student council caught him trading points with upperclassmen.
Yuto returned to his seat.
Since this period was homeroom and Chabashira had nothing else to announce, she simply sat at the front of the classroom and allowed everyone to study independently.
Judging from how quietly and seriously the students began studying, Chabashira could finally see some hope of reaching Class A.
And that hope had been brought to the class by that troublesome boy.
When the bell rang, Chabashira promptly gathered her teaching materials and the class-point sheet and left.
Yuto, who had generously provided two million points for the scholarship, was immediately surrounded once again by his classmates and showered with sincere thanks.
Yukimura watched the crowd around Yuto before turning toward Hirata, who sat beside him.
"Hirata, doesn't it feel like the class is getting better and better? It seems like this change really started after Ike and the others were expelled."
"..."
Hirata remained silent, his expression subdued.
Hirata was almost excessively kindhearted.
Because of what he had experienced in the past, he was deeply afraid of classmates hurting one another. Whenever he saw someone being bullied or victimized, he instinctively stepped in to protect them.
That made him probably the only student in the class who hadn't felt relieved when Ike, Yamauchi, and Sudo were expelled.
Hirata hadn't wanted them to leave.
But the three hadn't been expelled because they were bullied or deliberately targeted.
They had simply failed to cross the passing mark.
No matter how much Hirata disliked the outcome, there was nothing he could do except accept it.
...
News that Yuto had established a scholarship system spread throughout the entire first year by lunchtime.
The students who had fallen into Class D nearly died of envy when they heard about the two-million-point scholarship.
Their class had only 61 class points, which meant the school deposited just 6,100 personal points into each student's account.
That was even more miserable than Class C.
Naturally, the students of Class D were incredibly jealous that Class C had someone like Shimizu Yuto, who could casually contribute two million points to motivate his classmates.
Classes A and B were much less envious.
Their class-point totals were already extremely high.
Class A had 1,110 class points, earning every student 111,000 personal points.
Class B had 990 class points, giving each student nearly 100,000.
With monthly income that generous, neither class had much reason to envy Class C's scholarship.
"Should our class copy Shimizu and make a scholarship too?" Ichinose murmured.
Ichinose actually had more than two million personal points stored on her student ID.
However, not all of those points belonged to her personally.
Ever since Class B's little angels had been tricked by Yuto once before, everyone had transferred part of their personal points to Ichinose for safekeeping.
That alone demonstrated both Ichinose's position as Class B's leader and just how deeply her classmates trusted her.
After considering it for a while, Ichinose abandoned the idea of creating a scholarship.
The points stored on her student ID belonged to everyone.
Using everyone's money to establish a scholarship and then awarding that same money back to them would be ridiculous.
Besides, Classes A and B didn't really need such a system.
The overall quality of their students was high enough that they studied voluntarily without requiring financial incentives.
...
Ryuen stared at the message Albert had sent him and clicked his tongue.
"A two-million-point scholarship. Shimizu Yuto really does spend big."
"Hah. Two million is pocket change to Shimizu Yuto," Nagumo said with a cold laugh. "He probably still has more than twenty million sitting on his student ID."
Since Ryuen hadn't been expelled because of the midterm exam, he and Nagumo had started associating again.
Ryuen still despised Nagumo for refusing to help him before, but the two shared a common enemy in Yuto, so they continued working together despite their mutual distrust.
Beside them, Mizowaki looked furious and resentful.
"Damn Shimizu Yuto. He didn't mention a single word about the 670,000 points I contributed!"
Of the two-million-point scholarship, 670,000 had come from him!
Nagumo looked toward Ryuen. "Your thirty-day suspension should end in a few days. What are you planning to do once you return?"
"First, I'll bring everyone in my class under control again. Then I'll crush Shimizu Yuto during the summer special exam," Ryuen replied darkly.
Nagumo was a second-year, so he already knew the school would hold a special exam during summer vacation.
He had shared that advance information with Ryuen so the latter could mentally prepare.
However, Nagumo didn't know what this year's first-year summer special exam would actually involve.
Special exams were fundamentally different from midterms and finals.
Their contents varied drastically every time.
That meant previous special exams couldn't reliably be used as references.
All Nagumo could do was warn Ryuen in advance that an unknown special exam was coming.
"If I were still vice president, I could've used the authority of the position to learn the summer special exam's contents beforehand," Nagumo said bitterly.
His hatred toward Yuto still ran deep.
That bastard had driven him out of the student council, destroying Nagumo's dream of becoming president and using that authority to control and reform the entire school.
Ryuen frowned deeply. "So Shimizu Yuto can use the student council's authority to learn the summer special exam contents in advance?"
"Exactly."
"That's unfair."
"Hah. What fairness do you think exists at this school?" Nagumo sneered. "The student council has far more authority than you imagine."
Nagumo had benefited enormously from that authority himself.
If he hadn't learned about past summer special exams through the student council, he never would have possessed the ability to drag his Class B up into Class A.
Unfortunately...
Nagumo had now been expelled from the student council.
He could no longer obtain advance information about this year's summer special exam.
"Ryuen, your Class D has barely any class points left. If you seriously intend to reach Class A, you'd better work hard."
"I don't need you worrying about me. I've already thought of several ways to wipe out the other classes' class points."
Nagumo glanced sideways at him.
Interesting.
Ryuen had said "wipe out the other classes' class points," not "increase my own class points."
"What are you planning?"
"I'm not telling you."
"...Tch."
...
Several days later, Ryuen's thirty-day suspension finally ended, and he returned to Class D.
Naturally, the first thing he did after coming back was reassert control over the class and force everyone to follow his orders again.
Through information Kikyo obtained from Manabe Shiho, Yuto learned that Ryuen had aggressively provoked the most rebellious student, Tokito Hiroya.
After the two signed a contract agreeing to the confrontation, Ryuen gave Tokito a brutal beating.
In the student dormitory, Kikyo, sitting on Yuto's lap, shifted her round buttocks as she looked in surprise at the Line message from Manabe Shiho.
"Manabe says Ryuen broke Tokito's arm. That's brutal."
Yuto wrapped his arms around Kikyo's slender, soft waist, glanced at the messages Manabe had sent her, and clicked his tongue. "Tch. Ryuen's still ruling his class through violence."
"But at least Ryuen got smarter this time. He knew to sign a contract with Tokito first. Otherwise he definitely would've been punished."
Kikyo tilted her head up and looked at Yuto with a playful smile. "Yuto, do you think Ryuen is learning from you? Didn't he sign a contract with you before and then get taught a lesson himself?"
…
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