COTE: A Man On A Mission || Love is War?

’This Hikigaya Hachiman is really very smart....However, I finally won in the end.....’

Didn’t I?’

“What I just said is enough.”

Hachiman expressionlessly took out a recorder from behind his back and said calmly, “Although it is not enough to serve as evidence, but good to delay the arbitration.”

Only Ryuen just cracked his knuckles and grinned at him, “I don’t remember ever saying anything about crucial evidence. Don’t treat me like a fool, Hikigaya. I know these methods better than you do. Give me the recorder.”

Although those words could not be used as evidence, they undoubtedly did not look good for him.

With Hachiman’s intelligence, he might be able to find some loopholes to attack himself.

He would not allow the recorder to remain in dead hands.

“Why should I give it to you? Although it is not enough to prove that you committed perjury, it is still possible to delay the arbitration. During this time, I can find an opportunity to overturn...”

”Overthrow what? Don’t be naive, Hikigaya, we didn’t commit perjury. It was Horikita who hurt Kinoshita on purpose. There were surveillance cameras at the time. Before the game started, Horikita kept looking at Kinoshita from our class. From that time on, she was trying to find a way to hurt her. Tsk, she’s really an unscrupulous woman!”

“Maybe....” As Hachiman was speaking, a limping girl with long black hair suddenly walked out of the infirmary.

It’s Suzune.

“Hey, Horikita, how was the talk?”

Suzune’s face turned pale and her delicate little fists clenched, obviously she was irritated by the person inside.

“Ryuen-kun!” Suzune stared at him coldly with an unfriendly look.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’ll be scared!” Ryuen smacked his lips, raised his hands and made an expression of surrender, but his eyes were filled with undisguised pride and arrogance.

He finally turned the tables on these two people.

“Did she say anything?” Hachiman tried to get a few responses out of her pussy cat.

“Um.....” Suzune pursed her lips and said, with a trembling voice, “T-They planned all this, but I have no evidence...”

“kuku....” Ryuen laughed silently to give a cool vibe, he liked to see this kind of situation.

“Oh....” Hachiman understood, then looked at other person, ”Ryuen, do you know?”

”What?” Ryuen’s expression changed slightly, and he suddenly had an ominous premonition in his heart.

“I’m a careful person.” Hachiman said this, and then put his hand into the girl’s shirt.

The cold touch on her skin made the girl scream, “Bahh!!!”

“Don’t make any weird noises!” The next second, Hachiman took out another recorder from her pocket.

Indicator light on the recorder was blinking, apparently.

“You fuck……” Ryuen’s expression changed instantly, and he pointed at Hachiman with an extremely ugly look.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve figured out that I put a recorder on Horikita.”

Held the two Devices together, weighed gently, and said, ”However, recorders are something that can preserve evidence, so the more the better. I put not one, but two on her!”

“Crack!” Ryuen tightly gripped the recorder in his hand, causing a crisp cracking sound.

“Do you think bull tricks can defeat me?” Ryuen was starting to get angry now, he didn’t like to be unsure, “You just picked up a recorder and said about having evidence. Don’t be ridiculous! If you have the guts, play it!”

”Oh, do you want to listen?” Hachiman raised his eyebrows and directly turned on the play button of  recorder.

Then a crackling sound was heard.

State of no recording.

”Haha, I guessed right!” Ryuen’s mood suddenly improved a lot,  “You just took this recorder in your hand, pretending to take it from Horikita!”

“Hikigaya-kun...” Suzune also showed an ugly expression at this time, “Recorder you put on me before the game is gone.”

“We already know this....Probably...There’s a spy in our class....” Hachiman was now muttering under his breath, as if he came to a new destination, then looked at Ryuen with a knowing gaze.

“Horikita doesn’t have many friends around her, and the only friend she has...Ryuen, you’re pretty good!” Hachiman then read out the name of class traitor,  “You even poached our Kushida, and she is actually in the infirmary right now!”

“Yamate! how did you know?” Suzune looked pretty surprised.

“You looked so angry when you came out just now. If it was just Kinoshita, it obviously wouldn’t be like this, so Kushida should be in there too. And you confirmed that she betrayed us....” Hachiman gave her a wry smile which recently couldn’t be helped.

“Hey, I never thought it would happen to our class, or even to Kushida-san. I never thought she would betray me. Or rather, I don’t know why she would do such a thing.....” Suzune was feeling a little depressed.

“Some of the things she said in the infirmary were to induce and prove that I hurt Kinoshita-san. Although I knew that she might not like me very much, I didn’t expect that she would betray me at such a critical moment.”

“Don’t you have any more tricks?” After seeing her defeated face, Ryuen had finally gotten rid of his anger. ’But Hikigaya is still very strong and he immediately figures out that Kushida is the spy....It’s a pity that her identity as a spy has been exposed, so she may not be able to join Hikigaya and others in preparing for the special exam in the future.’

This time, value of being a spy has met his expectations.

“Before, during the preferential treatment exam, you, Hikigaya, threatened me very harshly. Now, I can get that 10 million back, right? If the jade is returned intact, I will ask Kinoshita to withdraw the complaint! Because, you have to know that Kinoshita’s leg was deliberately injured by Horikita. Not only did she lose the chance to score, but also to become an excellent athlete in the future! Can you afford this price?”

Ryuen was fighting justice here for his poor and injured classmate!

“Once the verdict comes down, Horikita Suzune, will anyone still believe in you?”

“But I’m really innocent, and obviously injured!”

“Who would believe such a thing? Or can you provide evidence? But unfortunately, your recorder has been destroyed!”

These words left Horikita Suzune speechless.

And Ryuen was somewhat pleased with himself.

“Ryuen!” But Hachiman looked at him seriously, he didn’t want to forget the chance of gaining more income.

“You arranged for Kushida to betray during the preferential treatment exam, right? The rules you got are all because Kushida got the information about the VIP’s in my class!”

“....” Ryuen.

In fact, in the previous preferential treatment exam, he got the rules from Sakayanagi.

But at that time, Kushida did become a spy.

’It seems that Hikigaya didn’t know that final winner of VIP exam was Sakayanagi Arisu.’

However, he just casually accepted this insignificant responsibility.

“Are you still recording now?”

“There are no such recorders anymore. It costs 100,000 yen, and you have destroyed two of my recorders, so I lost 200,000 because of you creep!” However, still heard the child’s depressed voice again.

“Although I don’t have a voice recorder anymore, I still have a cell phone!”

”What?!” Ryuen’s face darkened instantly.

Because with his intelligence, he seemed to have realized that he had been fooled.

“It seems that you have already figured it out. Recorder, recorder.....This kind of thing is not easy to apply for and get, but we students all have a recording tool, which is our mobile phone! Because of their existence, it’s very convenient, so voice recorders are not so easy to spread. Although you arranged for Kushida to take away the recorder from Horikita, have you ever considered that her phone was actually recording all the time?”

The fuck? Don’t you even need to breathe?

Hachiman looked at Suzune, now reached into her pocket with her left hand and took out her white cell phone.

Click on the interface.

It’s a voice recorder.

Recording time. Lasted more than 2 hours.

The fact that recording took so long meant that... it started from the beginning of the sports....

Ryuen’s pupils suddenly shrank and his expression turned pale.

“It seems that you finally understand....”

xxxxxx

Chapter 238

Recording time. Lasted more than 2 hours.

“It seems that you finally understand....” Hachiman said as he took Suzune’s phone, turned on recorder and increase volume.

“Well, the 22nd sports meet for all grades of our school has officially begun...” A boy’s voice came from Fujimaki-senpai from Class 3-A.

This is too early.

So he fast-forwarded.

“Horikita, I’m going to surpass you!”

“Horikita, I will surpass you!’

“Horikita, just a little bit more!”

The voice of a girl came from the recorder, which was not very clear, but still recognizable.

That was Kinoshita’s voice.

“If you want to use Horikita’s frequent turning back during the game as evidence....Then I can refute. We can turn the tables and sue you to Student council for arbitration. Because you are making false accusations! And this, Ryuen-kun, you are very familiar with it!”

For the 1st time, Ryuen didn’t like use of honorifics for him....it seemed poison.

’Of course, I am familiar with it! Because this is a replica of Sudo’s beating incident....Oh shit....’

Only then did Ryuen realize that he was kind of person who would fall into same pit twice!

“Let me think about it. Can you get punish multiple crimes for intentional injury and malicious framing? Although I can’t do anything to you, the mastermind, Ryuen, but I think it should be okay to make Kinoshita drop out of school, right?”

Understanding the process by which  other party creates a conspiracy is more effective than proving such....

Be more direct and effective.

“Ryuen-kun, what should we do?!”

Hachiman didn’t bother to lower his voice, and Ryuen forgot to close the door of the health room.

So, voice suddenly spread into the health room.

It was Kinoshita’s panicked look.

Leaving aside other things, alone is enough to prove that she lied.

“You are amazing, Hikigaya Hachiman.....”

Ryuen Kakeru now had a gloomy face and said in a cold voice, “I lost this time. Let’s make a deal. I will personally pay you 3 million and withdraw the appeal against Class B. As a deal, you can’t use the evidence just now to arbitrate our Class D’s Kinoshita.”

Class D has already lost.

Ryuen understood and accepted this cruel fact.

Therefore, he must now find a way to minimize the losses. ’At the very least, Kinoshita must not be expelled from school because of this!’

There are only two athletes like Kinoshita even in Class D.

Even Ibuki Mio is a little inferior to her.

Although this time due to strategy of mutual destruction, Kinoshita was unable to participate in the following competition.

’But what about the next semester, and semester after that, or even next year and the year after? There must have been more....’ Ryuen was now trying to increase the odds of his class’s future.

This is also the reason why Ryuen is not so anxious about class evaluation score, because it only makes sense to graduate with Class A when you are kicked out from the last three years.

If Kinoshita dropped out of school, they would lack the means to deal with future sports meets.

At the same time, if Kinoshita is expelled from school now, who will listen to his orders in the future?

No matter what the long-term perspective was, he couldn’t let Kinoshita drop out of school.

“So, you admit that all of this was planned by you, a conspiracy against our Class B?” Hachiman finally smiled, but Ryuen also had a dark face. He felt that boy was teasing him.

“Yes, I admit it....” Ryuen took a deep breath to keep himself calm fist down, ”How about it, this deal is worth it, right?”

3 for a Kinoshita.

He thinks it’s worth it.

Because Class A pays him 1.2 million every month, the 3 million can be earned back in just over 2 months.

And if he is really announced to be expelled, if he wants to make up for it, he will need to pay 20 million points!

“That’s a shame....” Hachiman sighed, but Ryuen’s heart already sank into bottle, as he felt that enemy seemed more like he was relieved just now.

“Okay, I won’t pretend anymore.....” Hachiman spread his hands, ”In fact, it was only just now that I had evidence of your conspiracy.”

“…” You are shittng me....

Ryuen was speechless, and he suddenly thought of something.

“.....Are you still recording now?”

Because, there is no information about him as the mastermind in Suzune’s recording.

But now his conversation with Hachiman shows that he....

“Kinoshita 3 million. And Ryuen, you 5 million. I think you’ll accept it! After all, you wanted to take 10 million directly from me before, so 8 is already very cheap for me!”

“....” Ryuen....’the hell is wrong with you! Is everything about money?! Do you want to rob me?!’

“Hikigaya Hachiman!” Ryuen cursed his name in nothing but pure fire and disgust.

He lost. Again.

In this psychological confrontation, his defenses were shattered and repelled again and again.

Finally, he panicked completely and fell into Hachiman’s rhythm and trap.

He took initiative to explain real truth.

“...Yeah, total is eight million, remember to transfer it over!” Hachiman put away the recorder and said calmly, with an empty palm towards his face, “Part of it will be used as the medical expenses for the injury you inflicted on Horikita. In addition...Don’t you feel guilty about this matter, Ryuen? Don’t you want to apologize?”

Ryuen looked over with sharp eyes and gritted his teeth, he looked exactly ready to punch this guy’s face into oblivion.

“I can apologize....”

“Then why are you still not doing?”

”...” Ryuen is actually a person who can take or leave it. But he has never apologized to anyone since he was born.

“....” Ryuen’s lips seemed to be glued shut.

“I’m sorry....”

“It seems that you are still able to bend and stretch. Then, Ryuen, can you answer a question for me?”

“What, you still had something left?” But Ryuen already felt like a huge scam was done with him!

He wanted to make 10 million, but ended up losing 8. ’But I still can’t find a chance to turn the situation around!’

“Ryuen, who do you think is more important, ordinary students or talented like Kinoshita? To be more precise, you drop out of school or 10 ordinary students in your class, what would you choose?”

“???” Forehead, what’s up?

“W-what do you mean?”

“You didn’t think I just put a recorder on Sudo, right? I also taped it on the flagpole for the pole flipping competition....” Hachiman said without any emotion in his voice, but his eyes were sparkling unlike dead fish, “It’s not easy to get a recorder, so I want to make good use of it. As for submitting the evidence of you beating Sudo in pole-turning competition, you may not be expelled, but your individual scores will be all zero points. And the bottom 10 students after the score of 0 will face the situation of -10 points in all subjects in the next written test. Do you think students in your class can pass it?”

“After all, you’ve already used the whole class score control method!”

“• ! •” Ryuen didn’t have words to say for a long time.

You are lovely!

xxxxxxx

I, Ryuen Kakeru, sign on behalf of the entire D class to transfer the agreement with A class worth 300 evaluation points to Hikigaya Hachiman free of charge.

Above. Signature.

Ryuen Kakeru.

xxxxxxx

After signing the agreement, Hachiman let the distraught Ryuen go. This tragic news was soon brought to his Class.

There was a terrifying calm in D’s base camp.

Only after a moment of deathly silence, there was a great commotion.

Because this means class’s stable meal ticket is gone!

“Ryuen, you failed again!”

In the D class’s rest area, Ibuki Mio was also looking at Ryuen with her hands folded and a frown on her face.

’Because I thought that I could never climb up to Class A by myself, so by relying on Ryuen’s leadership, but the reality is...’

Fell to Class D.

There are very few class evaluation points left.

That is, unless everyone gets +10 in the preferential treatment exam, their living expenses will be gone.

Therefore, even a fool like Ibuki began to think about whether it was a good idea to continue to follow Ryuen’s orders.

“.....” Ryuen who still didn’t have words after such a huge fraud was done.

This time he spent a lot of money, even all the spoils he got from several exams.

He still owes Hachiman 8 million.

Plus Arisu Sakayanagi 3 million.

It’s really a mind-boggling number.

xxxxxx

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