Chapter 58: Punishment × Outing (Patreon)

Chapter 58: Punishment × Going Out

…

The Student Council meeting wrapped up on Friday afternoon, and Satoru Anjouin returned to the Discipline Department office.

After four days of investigation and evidence-gathering, account tracing, anonymous tip letters from the complaint box, and formal complaints from several harassed girls, the verdict on Haruki Yamauchi had basically been settled.

That's right: expulsion…

But that was before an anonymous account transferred 10 million points into his own account. Which changed the conversation.

Since he couldn't push the punishment to the maximum, he'd adjusted it downward. That came out to about a two-week suspension, compensation for the victims, a written apology, Class Point deductions, and so on.

In any case, Haruki Yamauchi's compensation debts alone already came to over two million points.

Whatever happened to Class D's Class Points from here on, it had nothing to do with him anymore.

After all, even at 100,000 points a month, he'd have to live frugally for over twenty months. And that was without mentioning that Class D's Class Points had been sitting at zero for a long time.

"All done?"

Asuka Shiraishi, with her reserved air, tucked a lock of her left-side hair behind her ear with one hand and spoke in a gentle voice.

"Done."

Anjouin pressed the Discipline Department's seal onto the document.

"Is it really fine for someone like him to have awakened the Ten Shadows Technique?"

Shiraishi had never revealed the power behind her, but from her own personal standpoint, she felt Yamauchi wielding that technique was a case of someone not deserving his position.

Training a person like that into a national jujutsu sorcerer might just cause the country trouble.

It would be like a politician who only blows hot air and spouts empty words, then runs his mouth so carelessly that he actually offends a great power, and the island nation ends up suffering all kinds of sanctions.

Especially since the island nation was already facing a declining birthrate, an aging population, environmental problems, and weak national strength.

In its publicity, Advanced Nurturing High School also claimed to be tackling these problems at the root by pouring effort into cultivating talent for the country.

But everybody knows how politicians' gimmicks work.

"How should I put it? Even the Zenin family doesn't take just any trash."

If anything, each of the Three Great Families had a very distinct character.

All three had absorbed other inherited techniques, but the Zenin family was the most eager about it, and internally it had bred some truly rotten discrimination.

Those without a technique, those without cursed energy, were shunned and not treated as human by the Zenin family at all.

In the Heian period, a certain nobleman had even declared: "Those who are not Zenin are not sorcerers; those who are not sorcerers are not human."

It was the same even for direct blood relatives.

And yet, even those with a technique weren't spared the power struggles inside the clan.

"…If he graduates without trouble, he'll probably be dragged back by the Zenin family to serve as a breeding stud."

"Will he graduate without trouble?"

Shiraishi asked, curious.

"That depends on this school's 'Special Exams.'"

Advanced Nurturing High School had been revitalized, but it still seemed to follow the logic of meritocracy.

What counted as ability was hard to define concretely.

After all, intelligence was part of ability, physical strength was part of ability, and even viciousness was part of ability…

"Expulsion exams?" Shiraishi asked softly.

These days Advanced Nurturing High School no longer kept a lid on that subject. Ask a few second- and third-year students and you'd easily hear about it.

To be precise, apart from Class 3-A under Manabu Horikita, every class in the second and third years had had students expelled.

For the sake of his own rule, Nagumo Miyabi had even deliberately triggered mass expulsions, getting the students in his class who opposed him thrown out.

"…Mm, they very likely still exist. So Senior Nagumo's push for class transfer tickets is actually worth supporting."

"Though it's still a bit petty. He should add a richer set of special tickets: trial tickets, scapegoat tickets, swap tickets, poaching tickets, and so on."

Even he couldn't guarantee that Class 1-A would never have someone fall behind.

He figured that if anyone had to be expelled, it should be some trash dragged up from the lower classes as sacrificial offerings. The upper classes' overall caliber was high to begin with.

But Nagumo Miyabi's wish to push class transfer tickets wasn't really about supporting individual meritocracy the way he always had. He wanted to bring his class's headcount back up above thirty.

A big part of why he'd been knocked down from Vice President was that he'd expelled too many people before.

A class's headcount at graduation converted into slots the school could use to alter the admissions list. Even though he'd had no idea about that beforehand, the school had still decided to give him a proper punishment.

"Anjouin, are you trying to probe the school's bottom line?"

Shiraishi seemed to have guessed what Anjouin was thinking, and lowered her eyes in thought.

"I'm probing the school's rules."

"Though I have no intention of throwing my own life away doing it."

Anjouin wanted to back Nagumo Miyabi as Student Council President.

Of course, given how he'd tried to bury Nagumo Miyabi alive before, once Nagumo became Student Council President and even finished his showdown with Manabu Horikita, he'd surely take frenzied revenge on Anjouin. But with Nagumo's personality, he would also court disaster by probing 'the school.'

"This is only a backup plan. If Senior Nagumo carelessly tumbles out of the Student Council, I'll just have to switch to another approach."

"I see."

Hearing Anjouin say that, Shiraishi pressed her lips together lightly and showed a faint smile.

"Oh, right. Tonight I'm heading out with Mr. Nanami to start the Exorcism Club's activities, so I'm counting on you to keep an eye on Class 1-A for me."

Thinking of his schedule ahead, Anjouin said this to the beautiful girl beside him.

He worried more or less about whether his classmates would slack off once he was gone.

Perhaps because of the high-pressure academic environment he'd lived in during his previous life, Anjouin had pushed his classmates quite a lot. Maybe that had even stirred up their rebellious streak.

He also worried that with no one to rein her in, Arisu Sakayanagi would be like a puppy let off the leash and start tearing the house apart right away. After all, Katsuragi alone couldn't hold her down.

And he worried about whether Ai Morishita would get too mischievous and forget her homework and the like.

To all this, Shiraishi didn't refuse.

"I'll keep an eye on Morishita too."

"Mm, I'm leaving Little Blue to you."

Anjouin increasingly felt that Shiraishi had the air of an ideal helpmate.

Then the Discipline Department's work ended.

Anjouin glanced at the patrol schedule on the wall.

The first-year Discipline Committee members were Asuka Shiraishi, Ryoko Nishikawa and Ai Morishita from Class 1-A, and Honami Ichinose, Chihiro Shiranami and Yume Kobashi from Class B.

Originally the Class 1-A name on the list had been Masayoshi Hashimoto, but with his natural-born-mole constitution, putting him in the Discipline Department was something of a waste.

Anjouin had even found time to have a heart-to-heart with him, then let him go and be a free agent, hoping he'd infiltrate a hundred-odd factions.

Ideally he'd even earn himself the title of 'Backstabber.'

Today's patrol was Honami Ichinose and Chihiro Shiranami. But knowing Class B's style, other students from the class would probably show up on their own to help.

That model-student atmosphere was something even Anjouin found hard to fit into.

Anjouin knew he was calculating. He'd use underhanded methods to reach his goals. He hadn't gone so far as to stop at nothing, but he was clearly no good person, and he had no intention of denying it.

Back at the dorm, he packed his luggage, then headed to the hidden shops in Keyaki Mall.

After a few days of exploring, Ai Morishita had found two more hidden shops.

One was a pharmacy selling medicine. It had salves for recovering from injuries: smear one on a wound and healing sped up rapidly. It also had hemostatic spray, and even medicine that could treat severed limbs.

Anjouin bought two portions of wound salve and one hemostatic spray.

The other was also a pharmacy, but this one sold combat drugs that could briefly boost cursed energy and physical ability in battle, which gave Anjouin a powerful sense of déjà vu.

Still, he bought a few portions of the combat drug that boosted running speed.

After that he went to the first hidden shop they'd found, the one selling single-use cursed tools, and spent a million points on a Return Scroll.

That's right. The hidden shops of Advanced Nurturing High School really did sell this stuff.

This was Anjouin's first time heading out since learning that cursed energy existed in this world.

A world he'd thought was safe was suddenly teeming with cursed spirits, curse users and all sorts of other dangers, so he had no choice but to be careful.

He put his purchases into a crossbody bag and changed into the battle uniform Kento Nanami had brought.

It was the original Jujutsu High uniform. The summer and winter versions had no difference in design, and it was made from materials with greater cursed energy resistance than ordinary clothing.

The uniform could also be customized to a certain degree, just like Advanced Nurturing High School's shirts could come in other colors.

Yuji Itadori's hooded version had been custom-made for him by Satoru Gojo.

In the small suitcase, he'd also packed two changes of clothes, shorts, a new toothbrush and toothpaste, and a stainless steel cup.

Preparations done, Anjouin headed to the school gate.

Advanced Nurturing High School stood on an artificial island connected to the mainland by only two bridges, and the gates opened only in the small hours of the morning, letting working staff through.

"You're well prepared."

Carrying a suitcase of his own, Nanami looked like a veteran corporate drone shipped off on an overseas business trip, a crushingly heavy gloom hanging around him.

"…Mr. Nanami, what's with…?"

To subdue the idol vengeful spirit, Anjouin had asked Nanami for help.

Out of the proceeds from selling the garbage seeds, after dividing the money up, he'd spent another twenty million yen to hire this Grade 1 sorcerer.

Though Anjouin felt that price was a bit low for hiring a real Grade 1 sorcerer.

From what Nanami said, a sorcerer's pay was split into base salary and mission bonuses. The base salary was about the same as a civil servant's, but mission bonuses were higher, so you could say the more you worked, the more you earned.

The minimum monthly income for a civil servant in the Tokyo area was around four hundred thousand yen, so in a sense twenty million yen was a very large sum.

But this was a dangerous profession, and you might kick the bucket any day.

Of course, Nanami said he wouldn't accept payment.

Besides, Anjouin had split the seed money evenly, and Nanami felt he'd already earned quite a lot.

As for the reason behind his gloom…

"Let's go."

Nanami clearly didn't want to talk about it, but it probably had something to do with Satoru Gojo.

"Right."

Anjouin didn't press him.

Feeling a bit uneasy, he followed Nanami onto a bus heading off campus in the dark of night.

When the bus reached the middle of the bridge, Anjouin suddenly felt his breath catch.

It was as if he'd gone from a place with relatively fresh air into streets where exhaust fumes of every kind filled the sky.

"Anjouin, keep your breathing steady."

As he spoke, Nanami held out a piece of chocolate.

"Thanks, Mr. Nanami."

Anjouin took the chocolate, tore off the wrapper and swallowed it, waiting for the rich sweetness to spread until his ragged breathing gradually calmed.

"So this is the true face of this world."

Before awakening cursed energy, Anjouin hadn't been able to sense how unbearable air filled with curses could be.

"I'm amazed you people can stand it."

"Jujutsu sorcerers have lived in this kind of environment since childhood. Besides, the curse intensity around Advanced Nurturing High School is far lower than in other regions."

"Bullshit."

Hearing Nanami say that, Anjouin muttered the curse under his breath.

The working conditions of a jujutsu sorcerer were starting to feel pretty stressful.

But the next moment, on the swaying bus, his thoughts had already settled on today's intel.

The first two pieces weren't worth much. The key was the third piece of intel today.

[Intel Three: In Advanced Nurturing High School, points can buy everything, including Advanced Nurturing High School itself.]

Mm. Not a surprise.