News about Herrschers appearing no longer caused much of a stir among the people of Academy City.
They were used to it, so it had become mundane.
Just like the current Yukinoshita Yukino. Even if she saw someone fighting above Academy City, even if the Pacific Ocean was ablaze with radiant light, she wouldn't find it particularly surprising.
What surprised her more was that so many powerful individuals could gather together, and each of them showed a dedication to the well-being of human civilization.
If it were according to the current atmosphere in Academy City, if the people from the Kengan Association had the power of a Herrscher, they would most likely have an "I'll do whatever I want" attitude.
Considering that the interests of the upper echelons of Academy City could be tied to civilization itself through Stigma organizations, Yukinoshita Yukino couldn't help but marvel at the Board Chairman's foresight.
"Sensei, how are my parents? Didn't you drop by to see them on your way back?"
"They're fine. Thanks to your family's real estate income, the kickbacks they took weren't as much as imagined, and they knelt down relatively quickly. Otherwise, they would have been scheduled for purging by Prime Minister Hikigaya."
Hiratsuka Shizuka was genuinely a little scared. Her family wasn't exactly common folk, and she wasn't sure if her family members had done anything dirty.
They probably hadn't driven anyone to suicide, but it was possible that they had taken other people's jobs.
"Mm, that's good... I just didn't expect the council's purge to be like this. I thought the purge would involve large-scale trials, but I didn't expect them to arrange for identical androids to handle the work. Fortunately, my sister is one of the clean ones."
Yukinoshita Yukino was truly terrified of this method.
You never knew when your family members would be replaced, and even if you went home, you might not be able to recognize if this person was your family member.
Because from memory to appearance, they were exactly the same as the original family members, and even their emotional interactions would be the same.
Only in Academy City could the Stigma power be used to distinguish between White Tower Network androids and normal people. If this were in the outside world now, it would probably be even harder to tell the difference.
Hikigaya Hachiman had already become a new political star in the Far East. His public image was mainly one of modesty and caution, and his main job was to closely follow the spiritual guidance of the Academy City Board of Directors.
Overall, under Hikigaya's hard work, the Far East was already showing a thriving and prosperous side of life.
Thanks to Academy City's rather intimidating methods of governance, Yukinoshita Yukino's determination to have her own Stigma was further strengthened.
Whenever Yukinoshita Yukino thought about how future humans, after being well-fed, would have to consider training their bodies and fighting, diligently developing their Stigmata, even surpassing ordinary production work...
'That's truly a good era!'
The fighting style of the Kengan Association would probably appear in the Tokyo Dome.
Future humans would probably develop towards an increasingly chaotic era. At that time, Yukinoshita Yukino felt that it would be a luxury to see a normal human form on the street.
It was truly despairing!
Whenever Yukinoshita Yukino thought about how she would have to change her human form to keep up with the world's development trend in the future, she felt a deep sense of despair.
What should she do? How could she maintain the last bit of her conservative appearance?
Every time she thought of this, she became more and more eager to have a powerful Stigma of her own.
After sending off her teacher, Yukinoshita Yukino met up with her club members to find out what was going on outside.
"Mei, has the council made any new moves? I feel like the world is a little too calm."
Yukinoshita Yukino usually got information she didn't know from Mei. The accuracy of this information was far superior to the messy news media in Academy City.
Noldrei's governance had no set pattern; it was elusive and formless. Many media outlets that tried to ride on political traffic had been slapped in the face so many times that they no longer cared about these things.
Raiden Mei hadn't done much either. Apart from paying some attention to the unfortunate situation of Shigure Kira at the beginning, she had mostly been in a state of lazy indifference. There was nothing happier than turning into a little pony and basking in the sun.
"I'm not sure either. I've only heard of a relatively famous game-type Stigma. It has recently exploded with great production capacity, and many interesting new game projects have been born in the highly virtualized life of the Stigma. Many self-proclaimed 'horror game' enthusiasts have been defeated by the games inside. Haven't you seen it?"
Raiden Mei thought of the brother-sister duo who owned the game Stigma. Although she had heard of them occasionally, she had never gone in to play.
Yukinoshita Yukino replied, "I heard that the database inherited from Schicksal and Anti-Entropy in Academy City has a similar function, but it's not open to the public. Besides, what's so fun about games? If I have the time, I'd rather go to the Kengan Association to earn more points."
Sawamura Eriri heard this and complained, "What's the point of that? It's tiring to grind points and climb the ranks every day. It's not like the Kengan Association is the only points project. It's just a platform for trading gene points. Besides, I've also been in that game. The project is indeed good, and I even saw an old acquaintance there."
Yukinoshita Yukino asked curiously, "A friend you used to play games with?"
"No, it was a guy I used to argue with all the time. And I never thought she would go on to develop eroge. It's really lamentable. How did she end up like this? I don't think she can last long with this eroge. I've seen many people with peculiar aesthetics already clamoring for new things, making a lot of noise as if everyone has the same strange aesthetics as those weirdos."
Eriri's complaint was not without reason. Academy City now was like the struggle between different schools of art in the early days. These people were just using human appearance and aesthetics as the canvas for their factional struggles.
Most people still pursued practicality. In the Kengan Association, this kind of struggle didn't exist at all.
There was only one demand for appearance there, and that was whether it could defeat the enemy.
Eroge...?
Yukinoshita Yukino thought of the increasingly wild sex education in Academy City. The Far East, which was already open in this aspect, had now become even more "open."
"I know about that. Someone specially built an eroge in the game Stigma space, satisfying many people's strange aesthetic fetishes by adding memory models." Raiden Mei recalled the results of Kiana's investigation.
Even a guy like Kiana came back exclaiming that human aesthetic fetishes were still beyond her imagination.
"Even when you're sleeping, the strange things in the memory models there are increasing at a rapid pace."
Yukinoshita Yukino and Sawamura Eriri looked at Raiden Mei in shock. They couldn't understand why a seemingly quiet and gentle girl like Raiden Mei could be so knowledgeable about these strange things.