Depends.
The LNs have Tolkien-esque pacing in how things are weighted when they're presented - i.e. it has a very strong tendency to begin worldbuilding in places that can be disjointing and that can easily break the reader's flow and can just straight up go on tangents. I'd argue that Tsutomo does this even moreso than Tolkien, and Tolkien can be a bit of an extremity as is. He's just famous, so I bring him up as an example ._.
To try and illustrate this, in the first volume, they're about to get on a train - it will stop everything, give detailed explanations over the evolution of trains in Mahouka's world and how they operate and how the current system of rail-switching works on top of the various types of trains people take depending on where they're heading, right down to when they'll decelerate/accelerate depending on certain variables, only to follow it up with them actually getting on the train. Or, there's a conflict about to break out between Tatsuya's Course 2 friends and Morisaki and the Course 1 trying to get Miyuki to go with them instead, and when Morisaki pulls his specialized CAD, there will be a pause to start explaining (again, in painstaking and drawn out detail) the different types of CADs and the strengths and weaknesses between using a multipurpose CAD and a specialized CAD and why certain magicians will go for certain types for almost a full page, before getting back right back to what is happening.
It can be *very* tangential in how it presents itself, basically - it will pause everything happening, go on a half/full page explaining something about the Mahouka world, and then get right back to what was happening, in a way that almost never feels natural to me, as interesting as I find the worldbuilding and as much as I love the character interactions in their own rights. If you think that'd annoy you, then I think you'd have a difficult time with the LNs tbh. If you don't think that'd bother you, definitely go with the LNs.
While I haven't read Honor Student, I know it swaps the protagonist from Tatsuya to Miyuki, albeit I don't know if it's different things being told with her as the protagonist or the mainline story being retold with her as the protagonist. Either way, it makes me really want to read it because Miyuki <3
Overall, though, I'd urge you to go to the LNs first either way - unless what I described about Tsutomo's writing style seems like it'd be obnoxious - if only because it's the source material and it'd be great if more people supported LNs coming out of Japan into the west in general. Not sure whether or not that it'd be present in Honor Student, either, but I'd doubt it, only because it's a manga.
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