Chapter 55: The King of Class D (Patreon)

Chapter 55: Class D's King

…

After attending the day's Student Council meeting, Satoru Anjouin still had to lead a patrol around campus, since it was Monday.

Discipline was a powerful weapon, and having enjoyed the benefits it brought, he naturally had to accept the responsibility and burden that came with it.

In card-gamer terms, it was a self-restraint rule.

The original intent behind designing that kind of rule was to balance out a powerful card and keep its effects from getting too broken, so it worked as an indirect nerf.

Of course, for Satoru Anjouin, a Binding sorcerer, it was a rather good source of inspiration.

After all, on a truly powerful card, even the self-restraint clause is part of the effect.

With his little tail in tow, Anjouin took the chance to stroll around campus. He'd noticed that the school seemed intent on carrying out the principle that Points can buy anything.

From personal attributes, to special secret manuals and knowledge, to Black Flash experience, to a supposedly existing domain…

If all of that could be bought with Points, then what about traits like the Six Eyes?

Especially since this world seemed to be stitched together from quite a lot of things.

In that case, might there also be traits from other worlds?

Like the Sharingan or the Byakugan, for example?

Though he said "on campus," the actual grounds of Advanced Nurturing High School also took in a large commercial complex, Keyaki Mall.

Twenty minutes later, inside the mall, Satoru Anjouin witnessed a scene that was quite hard to make sense of.

"Move aside, move aside! Master Yamauchi is coming through!"

"Everybody out of the way, out of the way!"

Kanji Ike, who looked like a monkey, walked at the very front of the procession, shouting in an outrageously arrogant voice.

Terrified by him, the other students all shrank away from the main road, while several students in the grand procession tossed flowers and threw streamers.

It looked like a parade at some festival.

Though this parade was forced to a halt when Satoru Anjouin, wearing a discipline armband, planted himself in the middle of the road.

At the center of the procession, Haruki Yamauchi, who carried himself like the protagonist of the world, held his head high with a look of utter disregard for everyone around him.

"Who are you, and why are you blocking my way?!"

"…"

Faced with Haruki Yamauchi's demand, Satoru Anjouin fell silent in spite of himself.

The procession behind Yamauchi kept chiming in with his bluster, too.

Part of that, of course, was jealousy.

Anjouin's looks were decent enough that he'd made the top four on the handsome-guy ranking the first-year girls had secretly put together.

And he had Ai Morishita at his side. As long as she kept her mouth shut and held that cold, aloof pose, she was undeniably a rare beauty.

A boy and a girl walking down the street, whether they were siblings or a couple, made this pack of single guys green with envy.

But Anjouin's gaze wasn't on Haruki Yamauchi at all. It had landed on a gloomy, handsome guy in the procession, the one tossing flower petals.

'Is this really okay with you?'

Anjouin seemed to be conveying exactly that with his eyes.

And the gloomy, handsome Kiyotaka Ayanokouji, who received the look, seemed even more worn out than he'd been on Saturday. Anjouin couldn't tell if he was imagining it.

Those eyes looked completely dead.

"Why aren't you saying anything? Don't you know I'm Haruki Yamauchi, the Class D representative?!"

The sloppy-looking anthropoid puffed out his chest and announced it at the top of his lungs. Anjouin felt as though his brain had been hit with a hammer, and it froze on the spot.

Class D representative, Haruki Yamauchi?

How could he have had such a stupid, terrifying dream?

Oh. It wasn't a dream.

Anjouin suddenly felt sorry for Class D. Yamauchi was pretty useless, but he closely resembled the politicians currently running the island nation.

Not necessarily capable, but always the loudest at shouting and bragging.

As if the moment he showed his real ability, he could effortlessly punch Class C, stomp Class B, and crush Class 1-A.

Because he was the loudest and shouted the most gleefully. And a crowd has no mind of its own. They don't think about whether Yamauchi is right. They just follow him blindly because his voice is the biggest.

Honestly, a Class D like that was the best possible outcome.

There was no need to waste effort scheming against them.

Still, it was also genuinely disgusting. They'd gone from garbage to dogshit.

"Aren't you people going to do something about this pile of shit?"

Maybe it was from spending so much time around Kento Nanami, but Anjouin had gotten a bit foul-mouthed himself.

He narrowed his eyes and looked at the rabble in front of him with open contempt.

"You bastard!"

"How dare you talk like that!"

"So what, did you people skip elementary school and middle school?"

Anjouin pointed at the discipline armband on his sleeve.

At once, most of the procession that had been bellowing along with Yamauchi went quiet.

"Ha! You dare defy Master Yamauchi, who awakened the Ten Shadows Technique?!"

The sloppy-looking boy seemed to think this was his chance. He planted himself in front of Anjouin with total confidence, feeling incredibly imposing.

The image of defying authority was suddenly set in place.

Congratulations, congratulations.

Sensing the stares from all around, he grew even more smug and straightened his chest further.

But Yamauchi didn't realize that most of the eyes on him belonged to second- and third-years.

The details of what happened at the Student Council hadn't been widely leaked, but word that Nagumo Miyabi had been suppressed by a first-year who'd become head of the Discipline Department had still spread through the second and third years.

That news had clearly been spread by Ikuto Kiriyama, who wanted to bring Nagumo down.

He'd hoped to damage Nagumo's reputation with it, but his approach was too naive. It only made the Discipline Department's name more fearsome.

Anjouin had actually been disappointed that Nagumo wasn't the Vice President, since stepping on him wouldn't make as big a name for himself. He never expected someone to help advertise for free.

Through a special exam that expelled classmates on a massive scale, Nagumo Miyabi ruled his entire year with fear.

And that fearsome Nagumo had been suppressed by the first-years again and again… The second- and third-years now looked at the anthropoid at the head of the procession with pity in their eyes.

How dare you?

The anthropoid, mistaking pity for admiration, kept on bellowing.

"I don't care what Discipline Head you are. I awakened the Ten Shadows Technique!"

"…"

Watching Yamauchi's performance, Anjouin couldn't help wondering why of all people it had to be this anthropoid who awakened the Ten Shadows Technique.

It had only been a few days, and he was already so carried away by all the flattery.

"Right. Threatening a discipline officer, polluting the environment, making a racket in a public place, flouting school rules, and so on. In short, suspension up to expulsion is probably the punishment you'll be receiving."

"As for accomplices, they'll forfeit a sum of Private Points and be suspended for a period."

Anjouin answered in a calm tone.

Not wanting to get too close to the pile of shit, he even pulled Morishita back a step, his disgust plain on his face.

"You…"

The instant they heard the word expulsion, the procession behind Yamauchi fell completely silent.

Even Yamauchi himself went quiet for a good while.

"Oh, and if it comes to expulsion, the school will strip your cursed technique. Then you won't be Master Yamauchi, the one who awakened the Ten Shadows Technique, anymore."

Anjouin had wondered whether the guy's arrogance had something to do with a Zenin among the jujutsu sorcerers teaching at the school.

But he really didn't want to waste even half a brain cell on him.

Hearing this, Yamauchi looked even more panicked.

"N-no way! My harem of beauties, my mansion, my luxury cars…"

"Yamauchi, even the Student Council's Discipline Department can't just expel students at will. We're jujutsu sorcerers, trained by the state."

A skinny boy who looked like a monkey suddenly thought of something and spoke up.

Hearing Kanji Ike's words, Yamauchi immediately regained some nerve and put on that ugly, envious face again.

"You actually lied to me!"

"Mm, the Discipline Department indeed has no authority to expel anyone outright. But it does have the authority to weigh the offenses. With multiple serious offenses stacked together, it wouldn't be hard to get the Student Council to hand down expulsion."

Anjouin's tone stayed flat.

The trouble Yamauchi and the Class D students had caused in the mall was neither that serious nor that minor.

How they'd be dealt with depended on the report submitted by the discipline committee members who investigated the scene.

In other words, he could choose to submit Yamauchi's offenses impartially, without any personal motives. Or he could settle a grudge under cover of duty, slip in a little something extra, and make Yamauchi and the rest lose a layer of skin.

"Besides, what the state wants to cultivate are jujutsu sorcerers, not curse users."

"Under the laws of the jujutsu world, anyone judged to be a curse user faces imprisonment or the death penalty, and those punishments belong to the laws of the jujutsu world. The Cabinet Secretariat has no say in them and cannot interfere."

Anjouin's counterattack left Ike speechless.

After a single specialized jujutsu class, even Class D knew the difference between a jujutsu sorcerer and a curse user.

Anjouin was undoubtedly exaggerating how the jujutsu world dealt with curse users. But to a bunch of fifteen- and sixteen-year-old brats who'd only just started high school…

His look of certainty made the whole thing sound real, and it scared them all.

Compared to expulsion, the death penalty was obviously far more frightening, and also felt far less real.

But with Anjouin's attitude on full display, they couldn't help thinking it over.

"…"

Yamauchi was suddenly like a fish tossed onto the shore, on the verge of suffocating. His mouth opened and closed again and again, but not a sound came out.

"Also, the Discipline Department is setting up a complaint box. If anyone has been bullied by Haruki Yamauchi or coerced into handing over Private Points, they can report it through the box, and the Discipline Department will open an investigation immediately."

"Sh-shut up with the nonsense! I never coerced anybody!"

Yamauchi's bluster had lost most of its backbone.

Even as he said it, he backed away, seemingly wanting to flee from in front of Anjouin.

But running away wouldn't solve anything.

"Even if you run now, once the complaint box receives a report, the Discipline Department will track your account and your recent movements."

"If we find any violation of school rules, expulsion will be the only road left for you."

When Anjouin brought up the word expulsion again, Yamauchi let out a strangled yelp.

"I don't know! I didn't do it! You're lying!!"

Then he ran away.

That left even Anjouin at a loss.

He'd already told the guy that running was pointless, and the guy ran anyway. Wouldn't a sincere apology and accepting the punishment normally do the trick?

Was communication between humans and anthropoids really that hard?

And the students he'd abandoned just stared at one another in bewilderment.

They probably never imagined their Class D king would ditch them like this. Sensing Anjouin's gaze, they began to tremble.

Some of the students were well aware they were accomplices, so under Anjouin's stare they immediately began their "turn from darkness to light."

One after another, they claimed Yamauchi had coerced them into joining him in his misdeeds.

In short, they wanted to shove all the blame onto Yamauchi.

All you could say was, that's so Class D.