A few minutes passed and Jaerin came back out. The door creaked but it didn’t close—I guess her boyfriend was waiting there.

Erika quickly greeted her.

“So, how’d it go, Jaerin?”

“He’s calmed down a little, but he still doesn’t know what to do.”

Timidly, the boy peeked out from behind the door.

“We were um… hoping that you guys could help us…” Jaerin continued.

Erika looked around at us.

Sumire was quick to respond, her voice was comforting yet uncanny.

“Sure, I’ll help you out. Jaerin, was it~?”

Oh, Sumire helping someone? That’s new.

I hope this wasn’t a new strategy she was trying to implement. Even Erika was surprised by the sudden change of heart.

Jaerin lowered her head.

“Y-yeah. Thank you… I promise we’ll make it up to you.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. There’s just one thing I need you to do for me, Jaerin~.”

Oh no.

“Y-yeah, anything. What do you need?”

“I’ll help you out of this situation. In return, you’ll give me all of your points whenever you get them.”

“Huh?”

Everyone was shocked. Well, I wasn’t that shocked about the whole exchange, I was more shocked that Sumire was capable of acting diplomatically—actually, diplomatic might be an overstatement, but she was still pretty patronising. I guess she was going down the same path that all the caste one students were going.

Still, if she was planning on starting her own ‘club’, why didn’t she do it earlier? She didn’t seem like the type of person to have a sudden change of heart.

Jaerin’s expression changed completely.

“What do you mean? We can’t possibly do that.”

“Sure you can. In fact, a lot of students do it of their own free will. How do you think the caste one students get all their Points.”

Erika turned around.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Sumire, you can’t ask for something like that. That’s completely unreasonable.”

Sumire sighed a little before looking at Jaerin’s boyfriend.

Parting her hair a little, she smiled and looked up at him. Her expression hadn’t changed at all, despite all the resistance to her offer.

“You, boyfriend, I heard that you’re worried about expulsion, but that wouldn’t make sense by itself, would it? It’s not like there’s anything that you have to spend your Points on, so how could you be so scared?”

Even Jaerin seemed surprised by that analysis.

“W-well, I have to pay for food and stuff… we’ll starve to death.”

“Bullshit. You can just collect more Points. If you’re still at this school, there’s only one other way that this situation can stand—you must have agreed to a contract which forces you to pay them, didn’t you?”

There was a moment of silence.

His face twitched a little bit as he looked down at Sumire with animosity.

“…Fine, I did! I had no other choice! I wouldn’t just sign something like that for no reason, would I? That wouldn’t make any goddamn sense!”

“Alright, how much do you have to pay them then?”

“Why does that matter?”

Sumire sighed.

“Is this really how you ask for a favour?”

The tension suddenly broke.

…

The boy took a big breath out, holding his face in his hands.

“Okay… I’m sorry. T-the contract forces me to pay them 40,000 Points per day for as long as we’re both at this school.”

“That’s not that bad if you’ve also got Jaerin’s funds as well. It’s nothing that could explain a forced expulsion.”

“Well, there’s another condition…”

“Which is?”

“I have to pay them 250,000 Points today.”

It went silent again.

If you were to think about this contract logically, it would be pretty obvious that something wasn’t adding up. If the attackers merely wanted to gain a passive income of Points, it wouldn’t make any sense to force another condition that risks losing the student completely.

There was definitely another layer to the reasoning for the contract.

Sumire looked over at me.

“There’s definitely some sort of trap here. What are your thoughts on this, Akira.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“It seems like they’re trying to drag other people into a debt trap.”

A debt trap was a possible explanation.

They were likely trying to drag more students into their own group, through the use of proxies by trapping them with debt. Although there hasn’t been any reference to it by Jaerin’s boyfriend.

Just based on the conditions of the contract, their target wasn’t the weak students whom they managed to force into it—it was the high-ranked students of caste one or other wealthy students.

Logically, the only way any normal student would be able to pay for the instant fee is by borrowing money from friends or asking for aid from someone with a lot of points. At this school, there were only a few students with enough Points to be able to freely throw them around—those were the students of caste one.

If the student joins one of the groups led by a caste one student, they’d effectively be draining the leader, since they’re the ones paying the price.

If I were to further extrapolate, it was very likely that many of those caste one students are pretty happy, or even desperate to accept more members, which means that they may seriously consider taking their debt. They may also be caste two students trying to consolidate their strength.

As such, they’d be effectively inviting poison into their group, weakening it overall and bringing in mistrust.

To use a strategy like this, it would only make sense if they were the underlings of the wealthiest students, those ranked in the top 10—students who don’t care about a few thousand points of extra income per day.

It was a win-win for the attackers, with very little risk in the end. This was likely the crossfire of proxy wars between the high-ranked students

“So, what are you going to do, Sumire?”

“It’s too risky for me to help them at this rate.”

That was a fair conclusion to make.

Also, I guess contracts at this school were absolute.