A Tyrant's Will

Volume 1: Chapter 4.1 - Cracking the S-System

Two days after that hectic swimming class, the three goons invited me and Albert out to have lunch. Having nothing better to do, I accepted. We walked down the hallway towards the cafeteria, engaging in banter along the way.

Upon entering, there were a lot more students than I expected. This was my first time stepping into the cafeteria, since I only ever got my lunch from the convenience store. We got in line, and slowly waited for our turn to use the meal ticket machine.

"So, have you been here a lot, Ishizaki?" I asked. "What do you think of the food here?"

"Hmm. I think it's pretty good, Ryuuen-san. The portions only cost 500 points each, and they're pretty tasty. What do you guys think?"

"Yeah. I especially enjoyed the curry they served the other day. It was delicious!" Komiya replied enthusiastically. "The fried rice and chicken was also pretty good, too."

"I can't even imagine what it would be like eating the free vegetable meal set every day. It looks absolutely disgusting," Kondou added.

He was pointing to a student who walked to the counter and took a tray filled with broccoli, carrots, and spinach. He looked melancholic and was dragging his feet, trudging along as if nothing in the world interested him anymore.

"I mean, it's crazy that anyone would willingly eat that. I would rather starve!" Ishizaki exclaimed, seemingly repulsed just by the sight of it. Albert simply nodded in response.

Something about this whole situation didn't seem right. It was only the second week of school, so most freshmen shouldn't be running low on points. Even if they were, they would probably pay anyway or ask their friends for points, naively thinking they would receive 100,000 points again next month. This individual must be an upperclassman.

Based on his expression, this person didn't look like he was taking the free meal set to save money, either. In all likelihood, he genuinely had zero points and was forced to eat the vegetables every day since he couldn't pay for the other meal portions.

If my theory of every student having an "allowance" that decreases based on behavior is true, then this student probably doesn't receive any points at all. I thought that students might be able to increase their allowance by behaving or doing well on tests, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. So either he simply gave up trying to earn back any points, or there's another factor that influences the monthly points we receive that I'm not aware of yet.

As I looked around, I noticed that there were actually quite a lot of people who had the vegetable meal set. I decided that it would be worth my time to do a little digging of my own.

"Ishizaki, order a meal portion for me. I'm gonna go talk to that upperclassman," I said.

"Huh? Sure, but why do you wanna talk to that guy? He doesn't look like he's in a good mood, anyway," Ishizaki said, looking slightly confused.

"Well, he's gonna be in an even worse one once I'm done with him."

I left Ishizaki and the others and made my way over to the table where the upperclassman was sitting alone. He looked up, surprised that someone came to speak with him.

"You're an upperclassman, right? I've got some questions I need to ask you."

"Huh? Who the hell are you?" The student, still shocked, asked me in a feeble but stern tone.

"Ryuuen Kakeru, representative from first-year Class C. You're a second-year, aren't you?"

"That's right. How in the world did you know?"

"That doesn't matter. So, what class are you in?"

"Why would I tell you something like that? I don't want to answer. If that's all you want to know, go and bother someone else." The student's expression changed from indifferent to displeased upon hearing my question.