American Strategic Deception Bureau

　So, in order to provide a sumptuous meal for the new friend who had just arrived, Tom had to take the risk and take it out to find food.

　——If it really were daytime, letting a "Furu" appear on the busy streets of Sydney would definitely be even more dangerous!

　It has to be said that not everyone in this world can be like Nobita Nobi, the protagonist of Doraemon. No matter what aliens, people from another world, underground people, Mayans, primitive people, people from the future, or even big monsters he encounters at home, he can always maintain a calm mindset.

　After Tom left the house, he moved along the wall like a frightened possum, his heart beating so fast that it sounded like a drum.

　In contrast, Furu, who had been warned by Tom to pretend to be a balloon and not to interact with others, was incredibly excited. Even though the scene before him was just a typical nighttime metropolitan scene—a graffiti-covered wall, a dingy, dark alley, an overturned trash can, brightly lit skyscrapers in the distance, a night sky choked with light pollution... The bioluminescent jellyfish remained enthusiastic, floating in the air, glancing left and right. Its color shifted from green, a sign of curiosity, to pink, a sign of joy.

　As a friend with a spiritual connection to it, Tom also felt the excitement of the visitor from another world, and couldn't help but wonder why the other party was so happy.

　Then, the jellyfish turned green again, representing curiosity, and said to Tom in a cheerful, childlike tone, "Of course Flandre is happy! I've always wanted to go to the surface and take a look. I used to live deep underground and have never seen the moon, the sun, or the stars. I don't know what rain looks like. I want to see! I want to understand! I want to experience it myself! Now, I finally see the moon!"

　As the jellyfish spoke, it raised one of its tentacles and pointed at the bright moon in the night sky.

　Uh, is it like a mole, living in a deep burrow? It feels worse than being in prison!

　No, something seems off. Wait, didn't it say it was Furu before? Why is it calling itself Flandre now?

　"My race is Furu, but my name is Flandre! Just like your race is human, but your name is Tom!"

　The green jellyfish glowed red again, as if angry at Tom's questioning. "Don't you understand this?"

　"Ah, I understand, I understand, I understand now. By the way, there are three awake people in front. Do you think their mental strength is okay?"

　Tom, dressed as a clown, said embarrassedly, then changed the subject and pointed at the fire in front of him - just next to Tom's rented apartment, at the end of a small alley, three dirty drunks were making a fire around a trash can, and the flames reflected amber light in the wine bottles.

　"Oh! What a wonderful evil thought! Thank you so much! I'll go eat now!"

　The glowing jellyfish suspended in the night sky cheered, dropped the rope, and flew towards the drunk, frightening Tom so much that he quickly followed.

　When he trotted to the fire, stepping on the crackling broken glass, he saw that the luminous jellyfish had already dropped its tentacles over the heads of the three drunkards, clamping their minds, siphoning off their memories and thoughts, and leaving idiotic smiles on their faces.

　The fluorescent lines on the inside of the furuncle flicker, filtering complex thoughts into data streams and gradually storing them in its gelatinous layer.

　Moreover, this Furu named Flandre kept chattering in his telepathy while "eating", "What interesting evil thoughts! Some want to rob a bank, some want to commit fraud, and some want to outsource a killer to assassinate their cheating ex-wife..."

　"Well, that's interesting information," Tom replied quickly. "But are you full? Do you want to go to the next stall?"

　"Yes, yes! Tell me quickly, which side of the street has more homeless people?"

　It drooped quietly. Siphoning memories from the hangover man's skull—those remnants of human consciousness marinated in alcohol and drugs—the alien jellyfish saw the alcohol-diluted images of his childhood pasture, the awful memories of bullying and extortion at school, the perpetual 20% underpayment on the factory assembly line, the collection bills that filled his mailbox after he lost his job, the trembling of his suitcase hitting the doorstep as his wife and children left... Half the life of this loser was compressed into a few seconds, a fleeting flash that made the fluorescent lines on Furu's body flicker, transforming all these bitter thoughts into psychic energy, storing it within his body.

　The drunkard, whose negative emotions had been taken away, gradually became calm, and even had a childlike innocent smile on his lips.

　As a loser in life in a developed country, the spiritual pain is far greater than the material poverty.

　Being able to be more relaxed and not dwell on the sadness and pain of the past is a great blessing.

　——If he hadn't inhaled so violently, how much money would it have cost him to see a psychiatrist and how much medicine would he have to take?

　"It's too bitter and not very tasty, but it's still wonderful. In your world, even ordinary people's thinking is so complicated."

　The psionic jellyfish "Furu" named Flandre complained to its Earth friend Tom, "Unlike the gray dwarves in the Underdark, even the chieftain is an idiot. Many of the dumbest ones have flat brain grooves. They don't know anything except eating, drinking, and mining. They are obviously intelligent life forms, but they are as simple as insects. They can't even reproduce and can't even tell the difference between males and females!"

　How come the ordinary people here have more thoughts in their minds than the nobles here? Even though they are still just as foolish…"

　Tom was stunned for a moment, not understanding what the jellyfish was trying to say. He could only interpret it as the aliens praising "Earth's advanced civilization." So he nodded and urged, "There are a few more targets over there! We have to hurry, it will be dawn in an hour!"

　"OK! Right here!"

　Inside a rusty, abandoned newsstand, an elderly woman, wrapped in a sleeping bag, slept soundly. Her flushed, sickly cheeks betrayed her ill health. The alien jellyfish, its tentacles dancing wildly above her head for a long time, failed to draw any mental energy from her skull, scalded by pneumonia.

　Leaving behind the feverish old woman with pneumonia, Furu shifted to hovering over a Vietnam War veteran collapsed by a streetlight, quietly extending its tentacles—into the memory of this Australian soldier, burned through by whiskey, Agent Orange, and "war drugs" (ice). Not only were there phantoms of the rainforests of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the terrifying mushroom clouds of nuclear explosions, but there were also images of gas-masked officers pouring poison gas into caves filled with Vietnamese peasants, hanging bloody Vietnamese prisoners upside down from telephone poles, and stripping naked Vietnamese women to X-shaped wooden racks, injecting them with induced galactagogues, and brutally ravaging them.

　"Wow, the wars in your world are so brutal! And the torture methods are more varied than those of the Dark Elves!"

　After obtaining the memories of the Vietnam War veteran, the psychic jellyfish staggered back and said this to Tom.

　Tom, who had participated in the anti-war movement in college and was proud of it, could only laugh awkwardly.

　- The good news is that the Vietnam War is finally over, and the last Australian soldier has long been withdrawn from the exhausting Vietnamese jungle.

　But the bad news is that the war in Indonesia is still going on. Forty thousand Australian troops are still engaged in an endless security war with the indigenous peoples of various ethnic groups in Southeast Asia among the mountains and rainforests of Java, Bali, East Timor and Papua New Guinea.

　It is equivalent to moving the battlefield from the distant northern hemisphere to Australia's doorstep... It seems to be worse, right?

　Well, treating psychic creatures to a "meal" is not only to fill their stomachs, but also to let them understand the various creatures in their hometown.

　Next to the Vietnam veteran stood a down-and-out old man in a grimy suit. The spiritual energy brewing within his mind even drew the psychic jellyfish Flandre's praise, saying that the star fungus colonies in the entire Underdark had never bred such a dense darkness—the betrayal, violence, and greed accumulated over thirty years of street life, gushing out like asphalt. Instantly, Flandre's umbrella-shaped body turned a murky deep purple.

　Next, in the alley behind the grocery store, near the heating grid, they encountered another skinny white man who had just injected himself with drugs, huddled among rain-soaked cardboard boxes. After a slight drain of his mental energy by the psychic jellyfish "Flandre," he suddenly began to convulse violently. In his brainwaves, which were hyperactive due to withdrawal, he imagined his wife being hit and flung into the air by a wealthy man's sports car, and how he had used the compensation money to drown his sorrows in alcohol, drinking with prostitutes, and quickly becoming addicted to drugs. Within a few weeks, he had squandered all his money and was evicted from his apartment, living on the streets.

　Although the psychic jellyfish Flandre absorbed the pain and evil thoughts in his heart, which should have allowed him to fall into a peaceful sleep, the numbing effect of the drug gradually wore off, causing his body to suffer immense pain and making it impossible to sleep.

　Then, the thin white man opened his cloudy eyes in pain all over his body, and immediately saw the glowing jellyfish floating above his head.

　what is this?

　The drug addict was stunned for a moment, stretched out his hand to scratch his itchy temple, and muttered in a low voice with his imagination open: "It feels so comfortable, is this an angel?

　What is a jellyfish? Is it an angel... a jellyfish angel eating my nightmares?

　But then, when he struggled to reach for the rusty fire axe, the unknown creature had already floated away along the alley. His scattered thoughts and broken memories were not enough for this addict living between reality and illusion to figure out what had happened.

　So, for some reason, he became very calm and too lazy to think too much, so he turned over in the cardboard box and fell asleep again.

　Tom, on the other hand, was terrified, especially when the drug addict fumbled to pull out the fire axe, and he almost had a heart attack.

　Fortunately, in the end, the alien jellyfish left safely, and the drug addict curled up in the cardboard box fell asleep again - even if this guy remembered what happened the next day and mumbled something nonsense to someone, others would just think he was hallucinating because he took too much.

　But just as Tom, feeling relieved, was about to leave, pulling the flying luminous jellyfish, a gunshot suddenly pierced the sticky night.

　Immediately afterwards, from the direction of the gunshots, came more roars, screams, scolding, and the sounds of fighting.

　Is this a local gang war?

　Before Tom could come to his senses, Furu's body turned a curious green color, then it suddenly accelerated and spun, spewing compressed gas towards the place where the gunshots were heard. The glowing mucus hanging under the umbrella cover was pulled into countless crystal filaments in the wind.

　Tom was terrified to death when he saw the alien jellyfish heading straight for the scene of the fight. But after hesitating for a moment, he gritted his teeth and followed.

　——Although he was very scared in his heart, he couldn't give up this alien friend after all!

　It was already 4:17 in the morning, and the night had entered its darkest stage before dawn. Above the scene of a gang brawl at an abandoned construction site of an unfinished building, the psychic jellyfish's body had almost expanded to its limit, and a dozen tentacles were waving excitedly, absorbing spiritual energy from the melee of the thugs below. Except for the bosses of both sides, the other gangsters did not carry guns, but beat each other with cold weapons such as baseball bats and crowbars.

　In Furu's vision, there were more than fifty gangsters on both sides fighting each other, shouting and screaming.

　One group of people seemed to be good at using sticks. They all wore motorcycle helmets or safety helmets, and held baseball bats and crowbars with red tips. They formed a square formation and marched towards the enemy. The sticks came like raindrops, and six sticks were swung out in one second, leaving afterimages. Every stick hit the enemy's flesh, making their heads bleed.

　The other gang was equipped with a variety of equipment, but they occupied the high ground, climbed up the scaffolding and threw Molotov cocktails from the roof. Bottles filled with gasoline, wrapped in T-shirts soaked in motor oil, fell next to the rival gang with tails of flame, and would rise up bright flames, disrupting the opponent's formation.

　Meanwhile, fighters hurled rocks at their opponents, stabbed rebar, and wielded antennae topped with razor blades.

　For a moment, the sound of metal colliding with flesh drowned out all the shouting.

　The tattooed burly man in a riveted leather jacket used a motorcycle chain to wrap around his opponent's crowbar and kicked him in the knee.

　The fat man with gold teeth swung the fire axe and chopped it at a young man's motorcycle helmet. He didn't break his skull, but knocked the guy unconscious to the ground.

　The sissy with earrings trembled as he took out the pepper spray canister, but was knocked down by a punch from the retired veteran wearing brass knuckles, and even his front teeth flew out.

　Two young men tangle and roll into the sand pit, hitting each other's helmets hard with wrenches.

　All sorts of malicious and evil thoughts condensed into an invisible mental force field, causing the jellyfish floating in the air to exclaim repeatedly: "Ahhh! Delicious!"

　But since when, the fighting of these thugs has gradually become dull, and their eyes have changed from fierce to calm, and then from calm to confusion. The strength in their hands has also become weaker and weaker, and from the sticks to the flesh and blood, it has gradually become weak and perfunctory...

　Finally, in the dim morning light, these people sat on the ground stupidly, as if they were suffering from autism, and none of them moved.

　Tom, who was lying on the wall in the distance, couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart when he saw such a strange scene, and felt a slight chill on his back.

　Until his alien jellyfish friend came floating over and looked at Tom, its body changing into a variety of colors, which was a sign of panic: "Ah, sorry, I was too hungry and accidentally ate too much. Now I guess I have eaten up all their evil thoughts and made them stupid!"

　Ah, you ate my spiritual energy, and it's actually so dangerous? Didn't you say before that it would have no effect at all?

　Looking at the dozens of zombies on the abandoned construction site in front of him, Tom was almost dumbfounded for a moment.

　"However, I discovered one of their evil plans! It seems that it could harm thousands of people. I am so powerful!

　"Hey, Tom, will you tell some good people what these villains are planning? Or is there anything you can do to stop them?"

　The luminous jellyfish continued to nag at Tom, but Tom no longer paid attention to it because he heard the whistling sound of sirens coming from the distance.

　It was obvious that daybreak was approaching and the police car would be coming soon! And this "clown" had to run away quickly!

　"Of course you're amazing, my friend Flandre! But even if we need to stop the villain's plan, there's no need to rush!

　We can take our time and go back to my apartment to rest for a while!"

　He responded casually, dragging his

　The luminous jellyfish walked back—what evil plan could endanger thousands of people? Could it be that a gang was trying to smuggle a new, more potent drug into Sydney? Or perhaps they had acquired a large amount of counterfeit banknotes and were about to release them into the streets of Sydney?

　But no matter which one it was, Tom didn't think it was a big deal, nor did he feel that a small person like him needed to stand up.

　After all, drugs and counterfeit money have always been circulating in the market, and they will not disappear just because of a report from a kind-hearted citizen.

　"Flando, it's almost dawn now. Didn't you say you lived in an underground cave and never saw the sun? So, it's uncertain whether your body can withstand exposure to the sun. You might even get sunburned.

　For safety's sake, it's best to stay indoors during your first day on Earth! Flandre!

　I don't want to see you getting burned by the sun! In my room, at least I can draw the curtains to block out the sun!"

　Tom thought about it, and then he found another reason and said to the psychic jellyfish who seemed not to have had enough fun and food.

　This time, he finally succeeded in persuading Furu, who was still lingering on the street, to go home.

　"Uh, uh, that seems to be the case. I heard that whenever the dark elves leave the dungeon to hunt on the surface, they always leave in the first half of the night and return in the second half. They never bask in the sun on the surface. This is because the sun will cause the dark elves' bodies to fester and smoke.

　I don’t know if I can do it…” Furu said in a panic, and his body once again turned into a colorful light that represented panic.

　So, when the roar of the police car rolled through the street and the sirens tore through the morning mist, Tom had already taken Furu and escaped into the shadow of the building.

　After some more crawling through alleys and climbing over walls, the man and the jellyfish finally returned to the rental house where they had first met a few hours ago.

　And he didn't alarm anyone along the way, which made Tom a little complacent and felt that he also had the qualifications to become the 007 ace spy.

　However, since the night tour was too tiring, Tom thought about it, finally gritted his teeth, went downstairs to borrow the phone of the guard duty room, and asked for sick leave from the team leader at the dock, saying he had a cold and was sick. He planned to rest for a day and recuperate - the price was that he had three days' wages deducted.

　When he returned from the call, he saw the alien jellyfish Flandre lying on the windowsill, gazing with fascination at the gradually brightening eastern skyline. Her entire body was practically saturated with information. Within the hundreds of memory bubbles dangling from the umbrella's canopy, the trauma of Vietnam veterans, the encrypted trading routes of drug traffickers, the street "body scavenging" witnessed by homeless people, and so many other scenes were merging and reorganizing, becoming Flandre's treasure.

　Tom asked casually, "Flando, what evil plan did you just discover? Is it smuggling anesthetics? Or counterfeit money?"

　"Anesthetics? Counterfeit money? No, none of that! Those bad guys smuggled an atomic bomb into Sydney!"

　Oh, it wasn't anesthetics or counterfeit money, but an atomic bomb. That's all right...

　Huh? What?! Atomic bomb?!

　How could this be okay? It was clearly a catastrophic disaster that had struck!

　Tom had just sat down on the edge of the bed when he jumped up in fright, his face pressed against the alien jellyfish. With an expression of anxiety, fear, and disbelief, he growled, "Tell me, what exactly is this evil plan you just discovered?"

　Time was speechless and choked, shaking with anger. It was a cold winter day in the southern hemisphere, but he was almost sweating on his back.

　His heart was about to beat out of his chest! The surging adrenaline made it difficult for him to breathe!

　But even so, Tom couldn't blame this magical jellyfish that came to Earth from another world.

　Because, Flandre said, she felt like she was about to give birth! So she didn't want to think about any messy things for the time being!

　Even if we want to fight against the evil plan, we have to wait until it gives birth!

　For this irrefutable and irreproachable reason, no matter how frightened Tom was, he could only choose to suppress his emotions and wait for the time being.

　The furus, with a lifespan of about 20 years, reproduces approximately every two years through a process called budding, with one to eight young sprouting from the base of the adult. Three months later, the young furus become independent when they reach a diameter of about two inches, and grow to adult size in another month.

　In fact, when Flandre and Tom first met last night, six cubs had already sprouted under its umbrella, and were about to separate from their mother. For this reason, Flandre needed to obtain more nutrition as soon as possible to meet the cubs' awakening needs.

　Well, not only did I meet an alien friend, but also a pregnant friend, an alien pregnant friend!

　Tom thought so with a wry smile, holding a small cage with a few sick guinea pigs in it.

　He'd bought them cheaply from the apartment manager—the manager's daughter had a litter of pet guinea pigs, and they'd recently given birth. Since they couldn't keep all of them, the manager was selling them around the building. Two of the better-looking ones already had new owners, but the rest were ugly and sickly, on the verge of being thrown away or euthanized.

　So, Tom bought these guinea pigs with the worst appearance from the administrator for only 50 Australian dollars.

　Anyway, these guinea pigs were not raised as pets, but were intended to be used as food to supplement the nutrition of Flandre, the pregnant jellyfish.

　——In addition to absorbing psychic energy from the thoughts of intelligent life, Furu occasionally hunts animals for food, especially when raising offspring.

　In the Underdark, furus feed primarily on small pests such as mice and lizards. They typically hunt while floating about 1 to 2 feet (30 to 61 cm) high, silently leaping onto their prey, binding and immobilizing them with their tentacles, and absorbing their nutrients.

　How should I put it? It's similar to the facehugger from Alien, except that Furu is prettier and smaller, making it less scary.

　Just like the movements of cats fighting and hunting look cute, but when magnified to the size of a tiger, the same movements become terrifying.

　In short, Tom carefully carried a cage of guinea pigs and tiptoed into the door of his own puppy house. Then he closed the door as quickly as possible, fearing that the neighbors passing by in the corridor would see his secret.