Chapter 161 Meritocracy - Part 2
Sitting quietly in the dimly lit library room, Matsuoka waited for my response. To be completely honest, I didn't really have much attachment to Akihiko. She was somewhat useful but not enough to really be worth an extraordinarily large number of points. Having a decent supply of points would certainly be helpful in the long term.
Anyway, I had begun to realise that getting her to do things effectively was a little harder than I had initially suspected. Despite following my instructions pretty obediently, it was hard to give her tasks which were precise enough to really benefit me.
After all, many of these jobs were things that I'd be able to do on my own—likely to a better degree than she could.
"I'll do 85,000 points."
Matsuoka smiled a little.
"Going down the bargaining route, are you? I thought someone like you would try something more elegant than this."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Aha, alright then."
She took out her phone.
"I assume you won't go back on your word, Mizuhara-senpai."
"I won't."
She tapped on her phone.
I received a notification on mine.
"I assume it's gone through."
"It has."
I guess she wasn't planning on trying to get the price any lower. It seemed that she had some pretty important reason for wanting Akihiko, or maybe she was just testing me. Whatever the case, I was satisfied with the deal.
I guess I'll have to notify Akihiko about this later.
"Well, that's this done. Mizuhara-senpai, do you have something that you want to do?"
"Not particularly."
She sighed. She looked at a gathering of people outside the room. It seemed that there was a bit of a commotion beginning to happen in a nearby library room. A large number of people were all coming together.
"Is that your class, Mizuhara-senpai?"
The students did appear to be from 2-C.
I guess I'll be expecting a message soon, at this rate.
A few moments later, my assumption was fulfilled.
My phone vibrated.
-
To: 2-C
From: Kaoru Hiroto
We will be having an urgent class vote in library room 08. Every single student from class 2-C is expected to attend. If you do not, the future of the class may be jeopardised. I am personally calling for each one of you to come.
Please, the class depends on this.
-
Ah, Kaoru-san seemed to be quite distressed. This message confirmed what I thought was happening. Furukawa must be making a move to take over leadership.
Still, I was somewhat surprised by how poorly this was all turning out for Kaoru. She was unconditionally crushed by Furukawa despite her reliable leadership for all those weeks. I guess her mental state was weaker than I had previously imagined.
"Is there some political discourse in your class?"
I looked over at Matsuoka.
"I suppose you could say that."
She laughed a little.
"Ah, even 2-C seems to be struggling. And I was here thinking that you had the most unified class in the entire school."
It seemed that Matsuoka knew about the system that we had as well.
"Something like this was always destined to fail."
Matsuoka got out of her seat.
The raucous outside had made this quiet sanctuary a little less comfortable. Since Matsuoka-san appeared to be leaving, I decided to do the same. It'd be interesting to see what's going on with the rest of class 2-C anyway.
"You can leave first, Mizuhara-senpai. I assume you don't want other people getting suspicious of our relationship, do you?"
"I don't care that much. But I guess it'd be helpful if we left at different times."
She laughed a little and laid back in her seat.
...
With that, I left the room and joined up with the rest of class 2-C.
At first, the group didn't notice me until Hamasaki turned around and saw my presence at the back of the pack. I was a little confused as to why they weren't entering the room.
"Mizuhara! Apparently, Furukawa and Kaoru are arguing inside right now."
"Oh. Is that why everyone's waiting outside."
"Yeah, the door's locked anyways; we have to wait for them to let us in."
There was frantic chatter throughout the group. I assumed that the librarian would come over and give them a stern talking-to soon enough, although the library was relatively empty, so they might just let it pass.
This was a school of freedom, after all.
...
A few moments later, the door was unlocked, and students quickly flooded inside.
I followed in the back, entering along with everyone else.
"...What's going on?"
"...Did Karou and Furukawa have a fight?"
The first one inside was Itsuki, Furukawa's most loyal friend—or maybe girlfriend. It took a little while for everyone to get seated and for the chatter to die down.
But finally, everyone gathered around the table and looked anxiously at Karou and Furukawa.
She began to talk.
"Alright, everyone, Furukawa and I have decided that we're going to do this the right way."
She took a breath.
"The future of this class will be decided by you guys, as I have always wanted."
Kobayashi was the next to speak up.
"But Kaoru! We can't just decide something like this on a whim!"
"If Furukawa loses the vote, he will transfer down a class. That's the negotiation I made with him."
"But still!"
Karou lifted her hand and gestured for Kobayashi-san to stop. At this point, all it was doing was hurting Karou's honour. In a class of such discipline, even the slightest sense of disorder at the top would be enough to destroy everyone's trust in the system. I suppose this was Kaoru's way of combatting this.
Still, she had no way of assuring her own victory. It was a very big risk for her.
The room suddenly went silent.
Kaoru reluctantly spoke once again.
"Alright, let's have this vote. It will be very simple, whoever has more votes will be the new leader of the class."
...
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