After waiting on the street corner for a few minutes, a bus heading towards Higashi Fukuyama University slowly came around the bend.
As the bus approached, it was clear it was already full. There wasn't an empty seat, and many people were standing, clinging to the handrails to keep their balance.
Crowded was the first impression.
Ryoko Tamiya and Kurozawa got on the bus together. After finding a place to stand and steady themselves, Ryoko Tamiya whispered, "Look, the human population on Earth is already too large. This planet will be overwhelmed sooner or later."
Kurozawa nodded noncommittally and said, "Only the most greedy species, the one that takes all resources for itself, can firmly hold the throne as the planet's ruler."
Many creatures, like ants, when their numbers reach saturation and exceed the capacity of their environment, will perform large-scale suicidal behavior or stop reproducing to curb the size of their population.
But humans don't.
The population on Earth is constantly increasing, and countries, in pursuit of labor, ignore many things and still encourage childbirth.
The bus, carrying dozens of people, set off. It didn't go fast, moving slowly through the crowded city, even slower than bicycles on some mountain paths.
With so many eyes around, Kurozawa had only slightly altered his appearance, thinking someone might notice him.
But he openly looked around and found that everyone on the bus was engrossed in their phones, heads down, immersed in the world outlined by the internet.
Kurozawa's Pupil Power was high; he even saw someone scroll right past his wanted poster.
If that person had just looked up and examined Kurozawa's appearance closely for a moment, they might have recognized him, but they didn't. A small wanted poster was just an insignificant ripple in the flow of information, easily scrolled past.
Thus, people like Kurozawa, despite being wanted, could stroll openly through crowds. Unless you were special personnel working in law enforcement, you probably wouldn't recognize him, just seeing him as an irrelevant passerby.
Furthermore, Kurozawa keenly noticed a middle-aged man pretending to look at his phone while inching closer to Ryoko Tamiya.
"How audacious."
A smile played on his lips. Kurozawa watched the middle-aged man's every move with amusement but didn't step forward to stop him.
A moment later, the middle-aged man squeezed in behind Ryoko Tamiya. One hand quietly reached out and touched Ryoko Tamiya's body, then slowly fondled her. His face, however, pretended as if nothing was happening, though the excitement in his eyes was unmistakable.
In this island nation where lewd behavior was prevalent, if it were a typical woman, she would likely choose to endure it and avoid trouble.
But Ryoko Tamiya clearly didn't tolerate such behavior.
When she sensed something was wrong, she immediately turned around, stared coldly at the middle-aged man, and at the same time, grabbed his wrist with one hand.
However, before Ryoko Tamiya could speak, the middle-aged man preemptively shouted, "What are you doing? Let go of me!" He seemed quite practiced.
Just then, the bus reached a stop, and the middle door opened.
Ryoko Tamiya couldn't be bothered to speak. With a twist and a shove, she directly pushed the middle-aged man out of the bus door. His body fell into a puddle by the roadside. When the middle-aged man came to his senses, his face showed anger, and he wanted to get back on the bus to cause trouble.
But when he looked up and saw Ryoko Tamiya's eyes, his heart skipped a beat. A chill ran through him, a feeling of dread as if being targeted by a man-eating beast. He opened his mouth, trembling, and dared not move again.
The bus door closed again. Ryoko Tamiya said in a low voice, "If I had encountered someone like that in a secluded place, I would have killed him."
Kurozawa smiled slightly, and then his invisible Mental Power rapidly spread out, sweeping over the surrounding crowd like ripples.
Everyone remained completely unaware.
However, Ryoko Tamiya's expression suddenly changed, and she stared intently at Kurozawa.
Parasitic Organisms can sense the mental fluctuations emitted by their kind and are relatively sensitive to Mental Power. In that instant, she felt a powerful mental fluctuation emanate from Kurozawa.
In her sensory world, Kurozawa at that moment was as dazzling as a candle flame in the darkness.
At the same time, within a radius of about ten kilometers centered on Kurozawa, all Parasitic Organisms hidden in the crowd paused slightly, then stopped what they were doing and turned their heads to look in Kurozawa's direction.
Kurozawa was unaware of those who were too far away.
But within his Fighting Spirit Perception, the movements of the Parasitic Organisms he was paying attention to, including Ryoko Tamiya, were all seen by Kurozawa.
This result surprised Kurozawa as well.
He didn't expect that when he activated his Mental Power without any concealment, the mental fluctuations he emitted would turn him into an anchor point like a signal tower, attracting the attention of a large number of Parasitic Organisms.
"Then I can gather the Parasitic Organisms scattered in various places through this method."
He had unintentionally discovered this use for Mental Power, which put Kurozawa in a good mood.
On the other side, after sweeping through the bus, the Mental Power condensed into a tentacle-like form and brutally inserted itself into the middle-aged man's head.
Thus, under the bewildered gaze of passersby, the middle-aged man, who had just stood up with a disgruntled expression, suddenly clutched his head and cried out in pain. Like a wild beast gone mad, he rolled around on the ground.
A few seconds later, he stood up unsteadily, his eyes vacant, saliva uncontrollably drooling from his mouth, and a foolish expression on his face.
His mind had been destroyed by Kurozawa.
Inside the bus, Kurozawa retracted the spread Mental Power, then turned to Ryoko Tamiya and asked, "What did you feel?"
Ryoko Tamiya's expression had returned to calm from her initial shock and suspicion.
"A mental fluctuation, like a pillar of light, soaring into the sky."
"Not just me, probably all our kind nearby could sense it."
"What did you do?"
As expected, it could attract the attention of Parasitic Organisms. Kurozawa smiled and said frankly, "I just gave that person a little lesson."
The derivative abilities brought by high Intelligence, while not significantly effective in direct combat.
But sometimes, they can achieve results far exceeding brute force.
After this small interlude, the bus continued its unhurried journey through the crowded city until, about twenty minutes later, it hissed to a stop at a station near a university campus.
Higashi Fukuyama University.
The best university in Higashi Fukuyama City. While it couldn't compare to universities like Tokyo University in Japan, it was still quite good. Most students who graduated from this university could find a decent job locally.
"By the way, how did you become a teacher at this university? Does this body of yours have enough academic qualifications?"
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