(PS: Highschool students in this universe are all adults.
Thank you for your understanding!)
At a crosswalk in Tokyo, the crowd flowed like a river.
It was afternoon.
Under the sunlight by the roadside, Ayanokouji Ren lowered his phone and glanced up at the traffic light.
The green light showed 6 seconds remaining.
Estimated road width: 15 meters.
For any normal high school boy, that was a distance he could easily sprint across.
Even so, Ayanokouji Ren stopped at the curb and waited for the next green light.
There was no special reason for it.
It was purely because, in his previous life, he had been sent off by a large truck, leaving him with psychological trauma.
Ever since then, Ren no longer dared to cross roads carelessly.
Even though sixteen years had already passed, the memory was still painfully fresh.
After all, he had no idea whether he would get another chance to transmigrate.
“Are you going or not?
Stop blocking the way!”
An angry voice came from behind him.
“Sorry, sorry.”
Ayanokouji Ren immediately shifted aside, making room for the man behind him.
But the moment the man stepped forward, Ren suddenly reached toward the empty air behind him, lightly grasping as if he were plucking something.
The man did not feel anything.
He just kept muttering, “Don’t be late, don’t be late.”
He quickly ran across the road.
The passing traffic flashed by, covering his figure.
Watching the man disappear, Ren whistled.
“Lucky.
Anger and disgust.
I got two emotions in one go, and those were exactly the ones I was missing.”
Like most transmigrators in novels, Ayanokouji Ren also had his own cheat ability.
Commonly known as a system.
The Emotion Collection System.
By collecting other people’s emotions, once he gathered the seven emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, disgust, and desire, he could use them to draw a prize from the system.
From “launching Genshin Impact” to “Domain Expansion”…
In short, according to the system, it could basically pull out anything.
But of course…
That also included absolutely nothing.
“Please let me be lucky for once.”
Ayanokouji Ren slid his finger across the panel.
White light flashed, and the system notification sounded.
[Unfortunately, you did not win.]
“Tsk.
As expected, do all seven emotions really have to come from the same person?”
Ayanokouji Ren swiped again, bringing up the system manual and flipping to the section on prize-draw rates.
Seven people corresponded to a one-in-a-million chance.
One person corresponded to a one-hundred-percent chance.
In simple terms, it meant this:
If all seven collected emotions came from the same person, the chance of drawing a prize was one hundred percent.
On the other hand, if they all came from different people, the chance of drawing a prize was practically zero.
“All from one person, huh?”
Collecting seven emotions from a single person.
It sounded difficult, but in this fast-paced era, people came into contact with far too many things.
Add the pressure of capitalist exploitation on top of that, and someone could produce all sorts of emotions in a very short time.
You’re late for work.
Your boss scolds you.
The female coworker you secretly like comforts you.
Then, the next moment, you see her enter the boss’s office alone, and before long, muffled sobbing sounds come from inside…
Just how many emotions would appear in that short span of time?
But Ayanokouji Ren looked at the third page of the system manual.
A translucent system panel appeared before his eyes, with clear words written on it.
[Additional emotion collection rules: All collected emotions must be directly triggered by the host himself through sound or image.
Emotions generated by unrelated individuals or outside the same space are invalid.]
[Current space range: within 50 meters.
After the first successful collection, this restriction will be lifted.]
“Emotions caused by unrelated people are invalid.
So I have to create all seven emotions by myself…
What, am I supposed to drive someone insane?”
“It’s not like I can be that boss.”
Ren shook his head with a sigh and slipped his phone back into his pocket.
Never play with your phone while crossing the road.
Check both sides carefully.
Stay far away from large trucks.
That was the greatest lesson Ayanokouji Ren had learned in his previous life.
After crossing the road, Ren found a bench in the plaza in front of Santen Station and sat down.
The system required him to actively trigger emotions, which meant he had no choice but to become a “troublemaker.”
Ren raised his head and looked around.
On a Friday afternoon after school, there really were way too many people.
Step on someone’s foot on purpose.
Cut in line at a convenience store.
Pretend to look at his phone and bump into someone.
Spill water on somebody’s clothes…
Would I get beaten up?
Ren thought about it for a while.
Then he stood up and walked over to a clothing store by the street.
The dark-brown glass wall reflected his face.
Naturally blond hair and golden eyes.
Reflected in the glass was a handsome, well-proportioned boy with a calm expression, a height close to 180 centimeters, and slightly sharp features.
“With a face this good, I probably won’t get beaten too badly, right?”
He tidied his blond hair and muttered to himself.
He really was handsome.
He was not exaggerating.
Ayanokouji Ren had always been aware that he was a good-looking guy.
After all, ever since childhood, he had been carefully managing the image he would have in the future.
In truth, for transmigrators reborn from birth, even without a system, obtaining a relatively successful life was quite simple.
First came appearance.
If they deliberately paid attention to diet and fitness from a young age, then a clean diet combined with proper exercise would make their body shape and posture far better than that of ordinary people, even if their genes after reincarnation were not great.
And if their genes were good?
Then they would directly become handsome.
Next, compared with ordinary children, they also had a more mature mind that allowed them to study properly.
Japanese students loved competing over deviation scores.
Although a transmigrator might not necessarily reach the level of a true genius, as long as he studied seriously, he would have no problem crushing ordinary peers.
With just those two simple steps, they would already become high-quality people in the new world, blessed with both looks and talent.
If they had a promising hobby from childhood, or continued researching a field they had worked in during their previous life, then crossing social classes would only be a matter of time.
And that was not even mentioning copying works, lotteries, gambling, stocks, and all those faster ways to make money.
In short, in Ayanokouji Ren’s opinion, if a transmigrator could not achieve a relatively successful life without a system, then he probably was not a qualified transmigrator.
Transmigration itself was already a path to victory.
Why borrow the help of a system?
Oh, an emotion of [Joy]?
I’ll take that.
Ayanokouji Ren quickly reached toward the auntie staring at him from the side.
Delicious.
But perhaps his emotion-grabbing gesture had looked a little too seductive.
The moment he waved his hand, the auntie immediately took quick little steps toward him, while the emotions of [Love] and [Desire] flashed above her head.
“Handsome boy, were you calling me?”
The auntie threw the blond young man a flirtatious wink.
He looked at that face of hers, which was buried under thick makeup yet still looked older than his own grandmother.
“…”
Ren tremblingly collected the [Love] and [Desire] from above her head.
Then, with a flip of his right hand, he pulled out several 10,000-yen bills.
He waved the bills in front of her, deliberately making his voice provocative.
“Go find somewhere to wash your face, ugly hag.
Standing here is dirtying my eyes.”
After saying that, Ren threw the money at the auntie’s face.
The flirtatious smile on the auntie’s face instantly froze.
Her eyes bulged, and intense [Anger] from being humiliated, along with [Disgust] from being treated like trash, surged out at once.
She also pulled out a stack of money and threw it back into the hateful blond’s face.
“Who do you think you’re looking down on, pretty boy?
Pah!
You tasteless little brat!
I bet you’re just a cheap host who lives off his face!”
The auntie stormed away without looking back, leaving a pile of money scattered on the ground.
Ayanokouji Ren did not care about being cursed at.
After collecting all the emotions above the auntie’s head and watching her leave, he confirmed one fact.
“I see…
Women have more emotional fluctuations, and they’re much easier to collect from.
When it comes to [Love] and [Desire], they’re far simpler than men.”
“No wonder people in my previous life often said women were easily trapped in emotions.”
Ren stared at the system panel.
This was the first time he had collected [Love] and [Desire] so quickly.
Although the emotional intensity was not that high.
But collecting them this quickly…
He really wanted to drag that auntie away.
“What a shame.
I’m still missing [Fear] and [Sorrow].”
Sorrow aside, fear was a relatively difficult emotion to obtain.
Ren also had no idea how to quickly produce fear, so he could only let the auntie walk away.
“I really want to find a basement and lock you inside for a test.”
Ren raised his head, took out his phone, and prepared to snap a photo of the auntie’s back.
But at that moment, his ringtone suddenly rang.
It was a video call.
The caller note showed “Mother.” Ayanokouji Ren smoothly swiped to answer, and a young, beautiful, mature woman appeared on the screen.
She was wearing a thick down jacket and holding up her phone.
Behind her was a field of white snow.
“Ren, your Aunt Satou is almost in Tokyo, so remember to pick her up.
Don’t forget.
Your father and I have already arrived in the Arctic, and we’ll bring you a gift when we come back.
The signal here isn’t very good, so I won’t talk for long.”
“Mm.
I know.”
Ayanokouji Ren nodded.
The woman suddenly pointed toward something in the distance on the screen.
“Honey, look.
It’s a polar bear…”
“Run!”
A man’s voice came through the phone.
“But it’s still really far away from us.”
“That’s a polar bear!
The king of the Arctic and ice!”
Ayanokouji Ren hung up the call.
His cheap parents in this life were honestly a little too childish, which often made it difficult for him to adjust to his own position as their son.
He continued observing the passing pedestrians, searching for people like that auntie while also fiddling with the system rules.
Ayanokouji Ren had only obtained this system after starting high school, so he had not been using it for long.
It had just been one week.
Because of that, the most he had managed so far was collecting six emotions from the same person.
After all, the source had to be stable.
People like the furious office worker from earlier and that auntie were easy to collect from, but they also disappeared too easily.
And for the first collection, he had to be within 50 meters, meaning he had to get close to the target at least once.
So Ayanokouji Ren guessed that someone he could reliably collect seven emotions from had to be someone he could stay in contact with long-term.
The facts matched his guess.
He opened the system.
In the warehouse panel, emotions from the same person were categorized together.
The two entries at the very top both showed “6” beside the number of emotion types, and the storage period displayed was three months.
Besides that, both surnames contained “Ayanokouji.”
Without a doubt, they were his family.
Or more bluntly, his cheap parents in this life.
Ayanokouji Ren tapped his finger in the empty air.
“I’m still missing two instances of disgust.”
It sounded a little awkward to say that he had almost finished collecting his parents’ emotions in just one week, but Ayanokouji Ren had not actually planned to collect emotions from them at first.
It was just that on the day his system awakened, he had come home a little late and obtained [Fear].
Starting from that day, under the system pop-ups, Ayanokouji Ren discovered that his parents really did produce emotions toward him very easily.
If he talked back a little, he could get [Anger].
If he watched TV with them, he could get [Joy].
In short, he had not deliberately done much, yet in just one day, he was only missing [Sorrow] and [Disgust].
So Ayanokouji Ren tested things lightly.
He pretended to be sick for two days.
Pretending to be depressed.
And he collected their [Sorrow].
Only one emotion remained.
So Ayanokouji Ren decided to test things lightly again.
After all, in the draw just now, the collected emotions had only come from three people.
That was already a small number, but he still failed to get a prize.
The system had only given the rates for seven people and one person.
So Ayanokouji Ren did not know what the chance would be if he used the six emotions already collected from his parents and then casually added another person’s disgust.
He was somewhat afraid of wasting the emotions he had finally managed to collect.
Most of them were simple, but there were always a few that were difficult.
Take [Sorrow], for example.
He really did not want to pretend to have depression again.
If he actually got sent to a mental hospital, that would be a huge problem.
However, the more difficult an emotion was to produce, and the more intense it was, the greater the reward it could draw.
That was also one of the system’s underlying rules.
Ayanokouji Ren was very interested in big rewards.
Although in this life, he had been born into a wealthy family.
His family was a major financial group, one that ranked near the top of the country with a prestigious background.
In the future, he would even be engaged to the young lady of the Shijo family, whose status was no lower than his own family’s.
Reincarnated with a silver spoon in his mouth, he had always felt that he lacked nothing.
But after the test of time, reality proved that money truly was not omnipotent.
At the very least, it could not overcome terminal illness or lifespan.
Therefore, without question, Ren wanted some supernatural power.
So he decided to try collecting his parents’ disgust today.
Just as the phone call mentioned, this afternoon Ren needed to go to the station to pick someone up.
Her name was Matsuzaka Satou.
A girl from another city.
Because her aunt had hidden a criminal and was arrested by the police, Satou, who had already been an orphan, had no choice but to come to Tokyo and rely on these extremely distant relatives.
Ayanokouji Ren remembered his mother saying that Matsuzaka Satou’s mother was probably the younger sister of the husband of the younger sister of his uncle…
Or something like that.
A friend’s daughter?
Ren stared at the complicated family tree his mother had sent him on his phone, then remembered her light laugh.
“To put it simply, although she has absolutely no blood relation to you, by seniority, you still have to call Satou your aunt.”
Aunt?
So I’m the nephew?
Although Ren really wanted to know why he had to call her his aunt and why they had to take her in when there was no blood relation at all, after hearing that explanation, he suddenly had an idea.
Then he volunteered to go to the station and pick her up.
His parents were very happy.
They felt that their son’s depression should have improved.
On top of that, he had never caused any problems before and had always been the kind of child other families praised as an example.
So they happily agreed.
After leaving Matsuzaka Satou’s phone number with Ayanokouji Ren, they joined the company-organized one-month Arctic Circle tour.
After all, that was a tour group they had arranged for their employees long ago.
And so, Ren directly turned off his phone.
If she could not reach him, that girl would probably get scared, right?
“Then I’ll tell Mom I just don’t welcome her…
I’ll say it in a more hateful way.”
Ren settled on his plan.
There was still a long while before the girl arrived at the station, so he planned to collect more [Disgust] with the remaining time.
After all, even [Disgust] from different people could be calm or intense.
If he absolutely had to use another person’s [Disgust] together with the six emotions from his cheap parents for a draw, then Ayanokouji Ren would definitely prefer to use the most intense one.
But how exactly could he collect the most intense [Disgust]?
“Should I start by stepping on everyone’s feet one by one?”
Ren looked at the pedestrians by the road and muttered.
Maybe it was the influence of the body, but Ren was not actually that mature either.
As a transmigrator, although his mental maturity had not stacked perfectly with the ages of two lives, compared to people his own age, he still counted as one of the mature ones.
But as his teenage body developed, that maturity was inevitably tinged with chuunibyou.
A mature chuunibyou?
Perhaps it was a unique illness that belonged to transmigrators of this age.
But in the end, maturity still came before chuunibyou, so Ren did not actually go around stepping on people.
Instead, a girl in a high school uniform inside the family restaurant next door suddenly caught his attention.
She had wavy blue hair that fell to her shoulders and fair skin.
Her head was lowered, and she sat alone in the corner.
An unopened cup of milk tea sat in front of her, making it obvious that she was in some sort of sad mood.
“Not a bad target.”
Ayanokouji Ren murmured to himself.
Sad people were more likely to experience other emotional fluctuations.