Chapter 71: Side Story - Contingencies (1)

Chapter 71: Chapter 71: Side Story - Contingencies (1)

Kinko’s monologue, POV

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?One student raised his eyebrows.

?"Hostile alliances?" He muttered, seemingly having caught up to my logic.

?"Potentially," Nanami nodded.

?"Against who? Do you think such an arrangement could be possible?" Another questioned.

?"Anyone. And no, I can’t guarantee it will," Nanami immediately replied.

?The answer didn’t seem to surprise anyone in the group.

?For the past weeks, I was literally the one providing information about the other factions per Nanami’s order, of course. Not like I had any choice in the matter; she did say she trusted me in that role.

?I wonder how close we look on the surface to others.

?A few students’ eyes had flickered past both me and Nanami several times now. I was sure they had something like that in mind.

?Her boyfriend maybe?

?Just kidding.

?Nanami continued, "Don’t assume an alliance has to be cooperative. Corporate structures don’t always work that way. Sometimes two parties cooperate because destroying each other is more expensive than tolerating each other."

?She looked toward the screen. "Find situations where two factions would benefit from temporarily cooperating against a third."

?A student leaned back. "So we’re basically pretending this is a company. That’s funny," the student who had concluded with my logic before added.

?He seemed to insist that most of this was nonsense and a waste of time.

?"Not pretending," Nanami corrected him. "We’re testing whether the test resembles one."

?That distinction mattered; the students slowly began taking notes mentally, though not everyone looked convinced.

?Still, nobody left.

?Three hours later, the classroom had become a miniature research center.

?Students were scattered across tables; one group compared Merit Unit prices, another discussed supply scarcity.

?Two students argued over whether an alliance could remain stable if both sides expected betrayal.

?While someone was building a spreadsheet, someone else was reading an old economics textbook.

?It was messy just looking at it from my perspective, but I wouldn’t deny that it was uncoordinated and strangely productive.

?Nanami watched from the corner; she hadn’t expected immediate results.

?And from what I could tell, this was preparation, not certainty.

?My eyes scanned across the classroom, then to Nanami, just immediately after she turned toward me.

?"What do you think?" she asked. I was closer to her than the others in our seating position, so I was the one who could hear what she was saying.

?I shifted my eyes to the students. "I think they’re working harder now," I replied.

?"That’s not what I asked."

?I smiled faintly. "I know."

?Nanami narrowed her eyes; she wasn’t a big fan of my jokes, it seemed.

?My smile didn’t change though. Before she could say anything else, someone called from across the room.

?"Nanami!"

?She turned to the voice, seeing a student holding an old tablet. "Look at this."

?Nanami approached the female student.

?The student rotated the screen. "I found something in the school archive."

?Nanami frowned slightly.

?The proxies and information were already spreading, and this was the result I was waiting for.

?"What?" she asked.

?"Old bylaws," the student replied. Nanami stared at the document, trying to read through the contents.

?"How old?" she asked.

?"Eight years, from what can be seen in the data log dates."

?"And?" Nanami asked, needing further explanation of what the student was trying to point out. I remained standing there, not doing anything apparently, just watching them do the thinking.

?Because it was best that way for me.

?The student scrolled. "There are sections concerning emergency redistribution of class resources."

?Nanami’s expression changed slightly. "Redistribution?"

?"Yeah," the student nodded slightly. She continued scrolling. "But I don’t think it applies anymore."

?"Why?" Nanami asked, a bit confused by her statement.

?"Because the system mentioned here doesn’t exist."

?Nanami leaned closer to get a better look at it. The document referred to an older evaluation framework with a different terminology and scoring structure.

?Several regulations had clearly been replaced.

?Yet the language was interesting: resource transfers, temporary class authority, emergency market intervention.

?Nanami’s eyes narrowed. "Print it."

?"All of it? It seems useless now that I think of it," the student asked, a bit hesitant about Nanami’s decision.

?"I think she should print everything related to redistribution," another student added; he must have overheard the discussion.

?Both the female student and Nanami nodded. Nanami stepped away, looking at the archive interface. There were thousands of old documents—school bylaws, previous examination structures, abandoned policies, historical class evaluation systems.

?Some of them were so old that the current school didn’t even use the same terminology.

?It was almost useless. Almost. Not completely. I was certain that she would see it that way.

?"Should we search all of this?" someone asked.

?Nanami considered it; she seemed to be distracted by something else. "We have time."

?And like that, another part of the strategy began. The archive group started digging and searching through old school bylaws, previous examination rules, temporary regulations, exceptions, appeals, emergency clauses, and even systems that had already been abolished.

?They weren’t looking for a specific loophole or even knowing whether a loophole existed.

?But the fact remained: they were searching because the possibility existed, and that possibility was enough.

?What Nanami didn’t know was that the idea had not originated entirely from her, which worked for me.

?Several hours earlier, I had spoken with a student from another class completely.

?Nothing unusual or some kind of secret conversation—just a short discussion in the hallway.

?I had steered the conversation toward the tests and exams of the past.

?I had mentioned an apocryphal story about an older brother and a few other students before us who had once participated in an examination that seemed similar, which brought the idea of old records to mind for the others.

?The Lex Veritas Protocol didn’t register it as a lie due to the fact that I wasn’t a liar.

?I had listened carefully to their opinions in the story and other conversations, not asking further about it, then asked one harmless question:

?"Wouldn’t something like that only work if the old rules were still connected to the current system?"

?The student shrugged. "Probably."

?"Then it probably isn’t useful." That was the end of the conversation, or at least it appeared to be. I wasn’t hiding the conversation or making it private; other students noticed and overheard it, but I paid no mind.

?The students later mentioned the conversation to another student, and that student mentioned it to someone else—the smaller gossip and information network among a few students in the student body. It was valuable. Since other classes had their own tests going on with a different title, it was obvious our current test wasn’t between classes, but within our class. The note of checking the old records must have crossed many minds, but seeing as I had lit the fire from gossip to discussions, it traveled faster across the school body.

?The idea spread, but eventually stopped. By that time, though, the idea had reached Masayuki—which was someone I was actually aiming at, since his attention was still within those perimeters.

?Nanami’s twin brother.

?Masayuki didn’t know I was involved. The info was extracted from the unaware students by Masayuki. Well, that was why it worked; Masayuki was a very cautious person about information.

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"Heaven does not seal all of man’s path, It’s your road and yours alone..."

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