After school.
Akira once again came to the Student Council, sitting opposite Student Council President Horikita Manabu, looking at the rental contract he handed over.
Although it was just a school, it often resembled a miniature society, permeated with rules and transactions.
He quickly scanned the contract, and after confirming there were no issues, he picked up a pen and signed his name.
Then he transferred all 1.2 million points from his account to the other party.
From today onwards, he officially had surveillance access to the eight cameras in those four classrooms.
"By the way, President," Akira suddenly thought of a crucial question, "what if... some hothead in a class impulsively destroys the surveillance equipment? How would that situation be handled?"
Horikita Manabu pushed up his glasses, his gaze behind the lenses still as calm as water. "No need to worry. The school authorities will immediately replace the new equipment, and the class to which the destroyer belongs will bear the corresponding class point penalty."
"So that's how it is." Akira nodded.
"As for those classes that agree to rent," Horikita Manabu continued, "they can send a representative to the Student Council to sign a formal agreement, and at that time, the management authority of the surveillance system will be handed over."
At this moment, Horikita Manabu took out a brand new laptop from under his desk. "This device has already been pre-installed with the dedicated surveillance system backend program. You can take it now."
"Even the hardware's so well prepared?" Akira took the laptop with both hands, his tone filled with genuine gratitude. "President, I really owe you a lot this time."
Afterward, Akira hurried back to his dorm with the laptop bag from the office.
The moment the door locked, he couldn't wait to open the laptop.
Following the operating guide provided by the President, he successfully logged into the surveillance system backend from the computer.
The moment the interface opened, Akira was a little surprised—because the permission level was even higher than he'd imagined.
'Real-time monitoring, historical playback, video download...'
However, Akira first clicked on last week's surveillance archives.
'Sure enough... they're all blank. It seems they've already been transferred by the school authorities.'
Just as he was thinking this, his phone suddenly vibrated.
Ryuuen from Class C sent a message, claiming to have discovered the hidden rules.
'As expected, the other party isn't an idiot...'
Akira raised an eyebrow, not surprised by this news.
As a class leader, it was normal to figure out some rules within a month of school starting.
He never really expected to earn too many points by selling information—renting surveillance access was his true goal.
He casually replied a few sentences, while also pulling up Class C's real-time surveillance footage.
On the screen, Ryuuen stood on the podium, his face, which usually wore a sneer, showed a rare expression of irritation.
"What era is this..." Akira shook his head. "Who still sells information the old-fashioned way?"
He watched for a moment, then, thinking of the information revealed today, he replied three million, but unexpectedly, the big guy in the other party's class directly picked up a chair and smashed it at the monitor.
"There really are such hotheads! I'm starting to feel sorry for Ryuuen. You don't have it easy either."
He watched as half of the Class C surveillance footage he could see turned pitch black.
But he didn't care—the Student Council President had already said that the school would replace the equipment.
"Class C doing this, aren't they afraid of losing class points? Don't end up being worse than Class D by the end of the month. That would truly be a disgrace." He mumbled, then gave up. "Never mind, let's check the other classes first."
Saying that, he minimized Class C's surveillance footage and clicked on Class A's surveillance.
With 4K high-definition quality, every detail in the classroom was clearly visible—he could even see the tremor of each student's eyelashes using the sixteen-times zoom function.
'Everyone present?'
Surprisingly, despite it being long after school, Class A's classroom was full.
Only two empty seats stood out.
The screen switched to the podium—Sakayanagi sat elegantly in a chair, a thick-browed, big-eyed bald boy stood beside her, and the two of them seemed to be saying something to the entire class.
The moment Akira clicked on the audio surveillance, Sakayanagi's soft yet authoritative voice immediately flowed from the speaker.
A tense atmosphere filled the classroom as Sakayanagi's sharp gaze swept over every student.
"Recently... no one has leaked any of that confidential information, right?"
"Sakayanagi-san, no."
"Yes, we wouldn't easily leak it to other classes."
The students below began to answer one after another.
"Very good..." She nodded slightly, a meaningful smile playing on her lips. "After all, we can't let our competitors gain any advantage."
Akira secretly clicked his tongue, watching the scene before him.
Sakayanagi continued to admonish her classmates in her unique, somewhat lazy yet aggressive tone, mostly repeating clichés about strictly forbidding leaks.
This Class A leader, who was always elegant and composed in public, was surprisingly aggressive when dealing with her classmates privately.
This made Akira suddenly recall their first encounter at the convenience store—at that time, the other party had displayed that innate sense of superiority and undisguised desire for dominance.
However, in their subsequent two meetings, this sense of superiority had indeed gradually faded.
At least, when speaking to him, the other party behaved somewhat like a normal person.
"So that bald guy must be Katsuragi, right?"
Akira remembered Kamuro once saying that Class A was currently led by two leaders—Sakayanagi and Katsuragi.
Combined with the information obtained a few days ago about the other party's alopecia, the identity of the bald boy standing on the other side of Sakayanagi was self-evident.
"Being able to manage Class A so well is quite unexpected." Akira mused. "I was originally worried that a dual leadership system would lead to power struggles, but now it seems the two have reached some subtle balance."
He couldn't help but think of Class D's situation—Kushida's obvious competitive spirit towards Hirata, while Hirata always unconsciously retreated. It was indeed easy for a group with two leaders to cause power struggles.
However, the next second, Akira realized his judgment was flawed.
Katsuragi suddenly stepped forward, subtly intervening in the conversation, naturally taking over the lead from Sakayanagi.
Akira unconsciously placed the mouse on Sakayanagi's face, zooming in thirty-two times. Her brows were so furrowed they could almost kill a fly.
"Hmm, Class A isn't going to start an internal struggle, is it...?" Akira watched the scene, drawing a very obvious conclusion.