The Popularity Points on the ranking didn't disappoint him either.
The numbers kept jumping and changing rapidly, pushing his Popularity Points toward a new record at a visible pace.
Satoru Gojo leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, and stared at the virtual panel floating in front of him. A faint smile tugged at his lips as he muttered to himself.
"These fans are pretty reliable, huh."
He tapped the jumping numbers on the panel with a fingertip, a hint of pleasure flashing in his eyes.
In just the short time it took him to take a sip of tea, his Popularity Points had quietly gone up by tens of thousands.
Without exaggeration, at this rate, by the time this broadcast fully ended, he'd probably only be a hundred-something thousand short of a million.
That was already an impressive number, but it still didn't reach what he was hoping for. The threshold for million-level abilities was still just out of reach.
If he wanted to exchange for a million-level ability, he'd probably have to wait for the next broadcast.
Gojo straightened up and gave a big stretch, his joints cracking lightly. His voice was a little expectant, and a little lazy.
"I'm already kind of looking forward to the next broadcast."
Seeing that his Popularity Points weren't going to rise much more this time and wouldn't reach a million, Gojo stopped watching the panel. He waved a hand and dismissed it.
"Still..."
He turned and wandered over to the sofa, then flopped down onto the soft cushions. With his hands behind his head, he stared blankly at the ceiling and enjoyed the rare free time.
"Having nothing to do all of a sudden feels kind of weird."
Ever since he'd dealt with Kikunojou Tendo and the Tendo Family's corrupt higher-ups, there hadn't been anything that needed his constant attention.
Gojo reached out, grabbed his phone from the coffee table, and scrolled through the latest news.
After Kikunojou, the Tendo Family, and a whole string of officials had been dealt with, Tokyo had changed a lot.
The power vacuum left by the Tendo Family was gradually being filled, and long-buried corruption was being exposed one case after another. News about rooting out corruption and cleaning up the government filled the headlines every day.
The number of laws Seitenshi personally helped issue kept growing too. Each one was an effort to fix Tokyo's past chaos and give people a more stable life.
Among all these laws, one caused a huge stir and sparked widespread debate. Almost every household was talking about it.
It was the Gastrea Protection Law that Seitenshi had proposed before, the one Kikunojou had forcefully rejected.
Back then, after Kikunojou vetoed it, the news had been deliberately suppressed. Naturally, the public never found out, and only a few higher-ups knew the details.
Now, Gojo's school had fully set up the necessary arrangements. It had enough staff and supplies to properly take care of a large number of cursed children.
Seitenshi, of course, wanted to use this opportunity to finally push the long-shelved law forward.
Only then could those innocent cursed children have a better place to live. They wouldn't have to drift from place to place, hunted and hated, and people would hurt them less.
That was Seitenshi's original intention, and it was something Gojo quietly supported. Those cursed children were just kids who'd been dealt a cruel hand by fate.
But this well-meaning, kind idea caused an uproar. The voices of opposition were nearly drowning out all of Tokyo.
Gojo's finger paused on the screen. Looking at the endless wall of opposing comments, a trace of helplessness crossed his eyes.
He knew better than anyone that the hatred toward cursed children wasn't just the prejudice of a small group, or some passing outburst of emotion.
In a world trampled by the Gastrea, where people's lives were constantly under threat, the fear and bone-deep hatred of the Gastrea ran incredibly deep.
That heavy resentment weighed on everyone like a boulder. Most people had no chance, and no way, to take it out on the brutal Gastrea themselves.
The Gastrea were powerful and savage. Ordinary people could only be slaughtered by them, without even a chance to fight back.
But the appearance of the cursed children neatly shifted all that pent-up emotion onto them.
They were innocent too. They'd been infected with the Gastrea Virus from birth and never chose their fate.
But in most people's eyes, the Gastrea Virus inside them was the original sin. It made them unforgivable.
And that wasn't even counting the fact that once their corrosion rate reached a certain level, they'd lose their minds and turn into uncontrollable Gastrea, threatening everyone around them.
From the point of view of an ordinary person, someone who just wanted a stable life and was afraid of being hurt by the Gastrea, that hatred and rejection wasn't really unreasonable.
No one wanted their neighbor to be a cursed child. Even less did anyone want to wake up one day and have someone next to them turn into a hideous Gastrea and kill them.
That kind of fear was carved into their bones. It couldn't be erased easily.
Gojo sighed softly, put down his phone, and leaned back against the sofa, lost in thought.
If the Tokyo government had brought these cursed children under unified management from the very beginning, properly taken them in, guided and cared for them, and let the public see that they were harmless...
Then maybe people wouldn't resent them so much, and things wouldn't have ended up like this.
But.
That didn't happen.
Back then, the Tendo Family wanted to use the cursed children as tools, as weapons against the Gastrea. So they deliberately shaped public opinion from the start.
From the very beginning, cursed children were defined as tools, even as threats. Their "danger" was heavily publicized, so that people would fear and hate them from the bottom of their hearts.
Under that long-term manipulation, public opinion of cursed children was naturally bad. As time passed, it only grew worse and more hostile.
Now Seitenshi wanted to change all of that. She wanted to overturn prejudice that had taken root over so many years and ease people's anger toward the Gastrea. That was incredibly difficult, practically the same as defying fate.
For a while, the people of Tokyo strongly opposed her law. The protests rose one after another and never stopped.
Protesters could be seen on every street. They held signs and shouted slogans, and their emotions ran high. Some extremists even vandalized public property.
"Down with the Gastrea law!"
"Why should we protect Gastrea?! They're all monsters!"
"All Gastrea deserve to die! Cursed children are no exception!"
"Has Seitenshi lost her mind? She wants to protect the things that threaten our lives!"
The chaotic, angry chanting drifted in through the window and reached Gojo's ears.
He stood up, walked to the window, and pushed it open. Looking toward the street in the distance, he saw a dense crowd of protesters slowly moving along the road, shouting furiously.
Gojo stood on the top floor of the school with his hands in his pockets, watching the huge crowd pass below. He looked helpless and shook his head slightly.
"Looks like this isn't going to be that simple."
His voice was low, part sigh and part understanding.
"The stereotypes these people have about cursed children run way too deep. They're rooted in their bones. Getting them to accept it and change their minds isn't going to be easy."
"How boring."
Betty stood nearby with her arms crossed and gave a small shrug. She sounded dismissive, and a little indifferent, like this was nothing new.
"Something like this could never happen in Lugunica."
"On any lord's territory, a large protest like this questioning the lord's decisions would be crushed immediately."
"This is basically rebellion. They'd never be given the chance to shout like that."
Gojo glanced at her and smiled faintly. "That's exactly why Lugunica's development is stuck in place," he said lightly.
Too much oppressive rule only suppressed what the people wanted. The conflicts would keep building up until one day they exploded.
"It's still better than this. At least it wouldn't be such a mess. This is just annoying."
Betty pouted. She clearly didn't agree with him. To her, order mattered far more than public opinion.
Gojo just smiled and didn't argue further. Things like this didn't have an absolute right or wrong. Different positions simply led to different views.
He didn't plan to get involved in the unrest caused by the Gastrea Protection Law.
To be precise, there wasn't any room or need for him to get involved.
He couldn't exactly step in with force and suppress a bunch of unarmed ordinary people, right? How would that make him any different from Kikunojou? Besides, this was Seitenshi's problem to face and solve.
So it was better to leave it to her. It'd be good training for her too, a chance for her to really grow up and stand on her own.
That was what Gojo thought and planned. He'd even started planning out the lazy days ahead, wanting to properly relax.
But things clearly went beyond what he'd imagined, and his relaxing plans went out the window.
The phone in his pocket suddenly rang. The urgent ringtone broke the quiet in the room, and "Seitenshi" flashed on the screen.
Gojo took out his phone, answered, and held it to his ear. He still sounded lazy. "Hey, Seitenshi. What's up?"
On the other end came Seitenshi's voice, panicked and on the verge of tears. The fear and despair in it were almost tangible.
"Gojo-sensei, the Monolith! The Monolith is collapsing!"
"Huh?"
The laziness vanished from Gojo's face. He instinctively pulled the phone away and looked carefully at the screen. Only after confirming the call was fine and that he hadn't misheard did he put it back to his ear.
"What did you say?"
For the first time, he sounded surprised, and a little disbelieving.
"I didn't hear that wrong, did I? The Monolith is collapsing?"
"You didn't hear wrong, Gojo-sensei, it's true! The Monolith... the Monolith is collapsing!"
Seitenshi's voice came again, even more urgent and panicked than before. They could even hear her holding back sobs.
It wasn't just Gojo. Betty, and Sumire Muroto and the others who had just walked into the room, all heard the voice on the phone.
"The Monolith is collapsing?!"
Sumire's face instantly went pale, and her whole body stiffened. She was the first to react. She rushed forward, snatched the phone from Gojo's hand, and shouted into it, her voice shaking with disbelief.
"Impossible. How is that possible!"
"Even under frenzied attacks from high-level Gastrea, the Monolith shouldn't be that fragile! When we built it, we used the strongest materials and set the strictest standards!"
As one of the Four Sages, Sumire knew exactly how the Monolith had been built, and what it meant to Tokyo.
Back then, building the Monolith to hold back the Gastrea and protect the people of Tokyo had taken enormous manpower, resources, and money. Every step had been strictly inspected. There was no way it could have quality problems.
Besides, in those days, with the Gastrea running rampant and everyone fearing for their lives, everyone knew what the Monolith meant. It was their hope of survival. Even less would anyone cut corners and gamble with everyone's lives.
Without the Monolith, all of them would be exposed to Gastrea attacks and could be slaughtered at any moment. Tokyo would instantly become hell on earth.
That was why she was so shocked and worked up when she heard something had gone wrong with it.
By the original construction standards, barring extreme weather or deliberate sabotage, the Monolith should have lasted at least decades, maybe even a hundred years. It shouldn't be collapsing this soon.
"It was the Tendo Family," Seitenshi said slowly, her voice full of hatred and helplessness. "When the Monolith was being built, the Tendo Family secretly cut corners and swapped in substandard materials. The Monolith's structure has been seriously damaged, and now it can't hold up anymore."