Toaru Majutsu no Index: Genesis Testament

Volume 4, Chapter 3: The Counterattack Begins – Boy_not_“Dark”.

Part 1

“I’m sorry to say this year’s nightly tournament project is a Cinderella story for unpopular guys and women who aren’t anywhere near as good looking as they think! The time has come for the 0-1 Grand Prix to determine the top comedian. We’re Double Magnet and we’ll be your hosts this year!”

“Unfortunately, accepting this job means we can’t be contestants.”

“I consider it an honor. They’re competing to be the top of the punished, but we get to do the punishing. It means we’ve reached the next rank as entertainers.”

“Then why even have the tournament? Just give us the 10 million in prize money.”

“We have a tournament to run here, hosts! Quit getting greedy and wasting the whole 2 hours on your prattle!!”

When the secondary comedian interrupted and some obviously staged laughter followed, Shokuhou Misaki tilted her head, letting her honey-blonde hair sway along the back of her babydoll. She frowned and spoke to her roommate, Misaka Mikoto.

“What about this is even remotely funny?”

“Enjoying comedy requires empathy and cooperation, two things you are sorely lacking in.”

They got into a scuffle on the bed, but in a purely physical battle, she had no chance against the chestnut-haired grizzly that was Academy City’s #3. Shokuhou Misaki had made a mistake from the moment she challenged the girl who could slice apart a naval cruiser.

“I paid extra to get this cable broadcast of the comedy channel, so you don’t get to complain!!”

“The polite thing to do would be to wear headphones! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!?”

“Speaking of polite, can’t you wear something other than that see-through babydoll!? I’m embarrassed just looking at you! I mean, wow. I can see everything through it and it keep slipping out of place!!”

“I am a very delicate girl who can only sleep in her usual nightwear!!”

Pushed back onto the bed with her wrists pinned down, Shokuhou Misaki turned her head to the side and childishly pouted her lips. They probably would have been getting complaints from the other four girls in the room if the others hadn’t already been unable to sleep after ruining their sleep schedule staying up for their Christmas parties.

And Shokuhou’s next line was not “You might have control of my body, but my spirit will never give in.” Instead…

“(Also, well, I have trouble with hospital gowns. They remind me of that old project.)”

“Huh?”

“I’m just surprised with you, that’s all☆”

When her psychological powers did not work on someone, Academy City’s #5 kept the upper hand with plain words. But this was only a secondary skill for her, so it was not at the level of that girl who could control every aspect of someone with nothing more than words.

“I mean, I’m surprised you’re watching a comedy show as if you had nothing better to do. I thought for sure you would be using all of your monstrous strength to barge your way in to that trial.”

“Sitting in the same room glaring at him won’t change the outcome.” It was Mikoto’s turn to look away. “I won’t help anyone by fretting over it. And it’s getting so much attention that any channel I might be watching is bound to cut away to some emergency news the instant a verdict is reached.”

“You’re relying on the TV news when you’ll have a flood of trending online news and recommended videos coming your way, saving you the trouble of even searching for it? Besides, don’t modern trials use computers to partially automate the process?”

“Why do you know that? You aren’t manipulating the lay judges, are you?”

“Oh, c’mon. I wouldn’t go that far.”

“And how far would you go?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know☆”

That was when Shirai Kuroko arrived. The rehabilitation rooms were not open this late, but she may have been secretly receiving some counseling related to the previous incident.

But as far as appearances went, the twintailed underclassman was smiling brightly and spreading her arms.

“Oneeee-samaaaa, what are you- brfahflshf!!!??? Th-they’re making a super-sweet macaron sandwich in the same bed!? And Onee-sama is the top!? She’s the dominant one!? How powerful are your pheromones, Shokuhou Misaki!?”

“Shokuhou, did you mess with Kuroko’s brain?”

“Logical brainwashing can’t make someone act like that. It would seem the human body is still a treasure trove of mysteries.”

Just then, Misaka Mikoto’s phone played a monotone melody from the side table.

The three girls turned toward it.

Part 2

Kamijou Touma walked through the minus-20 weather of Los Angeles.

He had a single goal: find Melzabeth Grocery, who had been set up as the culprit behind the disappearances as part of R&C Occultics’s conspiracy, take her back to her daughter Helcalia, and have her apologize for worrying the girl.

He would fight anything to accomplish it.

Powerful resolve filled his mind as he asked a question with a white puff of breath.

“Umm, where am I supposed to find Melzabeth?”

He was almost in tears. It was 20 below outside. It was closer to midday than morning now, but the temperature showed no sign of rising. He had barely escaped Union Station with his life, but if he walked around aimlessly, he would turn into a popsicle before long.

Othinus sighed in exasperation from his shoulder and recrossed her legs. She also crossed her arms to give him a haughty look.

“In the broadest sense, Los Angeles is a collection of several large cities. Trying to find a single person there on foot is as reckless as plans come. If you still don’t understand the sheer size of LA, keep in mind that there are 375km of pipe drawing water across the desert to the city center here. This is the US’s 2nd biggest city and its economic value makes all that development more than worth it.”

“Y-you mean it’s too large to walk from one side to the other?”

“A splendid answer well worth seeking out a god’s aid for, don’t you think?”

Now he was even more certain he would freeze to death before finding that Indian mother. Just walking brought him closer to death out here, so searching without a single hint was much too difficult.

So…

“Do you think there could be anything more hidden on here?”

He let out another white puff of breath as he pulled out that smartwatch. The square face, the red and black band, and the small scratches and smudges sure seemed to hide some important meaning, but none of it did him any good when he didn’t have a code sheet telling him how to interpret it.

It was like having a list of all the correct answers for a multiple choice test but not knowing what test it went to.

Othinus sighed.

“If you want to pursue Melzabeth Grocery, you do have a few keywords to go off of. 1. Her daughter Helcalia. 2. R&C Occultics. 3. Space Engage. Searching based on those things would probably be the most realistic option.”

Kamijou Touma looked down at the smartwatch again.

“I must be big dumb-dumb cause that didn’t help me at allllll.”

“You aren’t trying to get out of thinking for yourself because you think people find you cute when you’re dumb, are you?”

But if he couldn’t find anything with the smartwatch, maybe it was best to try something else. He also had the phone that synced with the watch.

Needless to say, that Grapple MilliPhone had to be chock full of personal information, but an ordinary high school boy had no way of getting past the lock screen to see inside.

“In that case…hmm, I guess I’ll have to ask her for help.”

“You aren’t even trying to do this on your own, are you? Being stupid will not work out in your favor, you know?”

Othinus sounded utterly exasperated while Kamijou operated a mobile device. But this was not the mother’s phone he had collected.

He used his own Academy City phone to call one of the numbers in the address book.

It was only a phone call, but he spoke with the world’s ugliest attempt at sounding ingratiating.

“M-Misaka-shaaaan? I’d like some help from your zappy powers.”

It was so pathetic that Helcalia Grocery might have reflexively kicked him in the balls if she heard it so soon after trusting him to the point of tears.

However, he was not a private eye or a veteran police detective and there was only so much a high school boy could do.

But he had decided to do what he could.

He would not let that mother and daughter be lost in the darkness, no matter what it took. So if he lacked the skills and knowledge, he would find a way to make up for it. He would not hold anything in reserve. He would use every single thing he could think of. And just because he was a failure of a Level 0 did not mean everyone around him was too.

On the other side of the phone, Academy City’s #3 spoke with ice in her voice.

“So you vanish from the hospital without telling me, but the instant you need some help, you decide to get me involved in your own mess like I’m suddenly a party member again? I see, I see, I see.”

“Kyahh! Is that Kamijou-san!? Why is he calling!? Where is he right now!? Kyah, kyah!!” shouted a mysterious voice, but he couldn’t focus on that right now.

“Please, Biri Biri! This is an international call, not a free calls app!! Your anger is understandable, but I need you to act quickly right now!!”

“Oh, if you have a problem with this, I can always connect you to a mysterious call center in South Africa. Then you can think long and hard about what you’ve done while watching the call time rise on that abnormally pricey connection that refuses to hang up no matter how many times you hit the ‘end call’ button.”

“What in the world!? Did that defunct Dial Q service come back to haunt us as a phone fee black hole!?”

“And please stop shrieking, Shokuhou! Since when are you the giddy schoolgirl type!?”

“I was born this way.”

“And since when did you have hearts in your eyes?”

“I was born this way! Yes, born this way!”

“Well, it stops right now or I’m killing you.”

He heard a physical altercation over the phone, but he could not have this conversation delayed indefinitely. Those girls back in their peaceful country did not know the hell that was international phone rates.

Othinus, meanwhile, sighed with her arms still crossed.

“(She complains a lot for someone who picked up on the third ring. Was she waiting in front of her phone?)”

“Hey, put on that girl I just heard whispering,” said Mikoto. “I need to have a talk with her. And depending on her answer, I might just blow up the lithium battery by your ear.”

“?”

Kamijou looked puzzled and Othinus only gave a carefree whistle from his shoulder.

At any rate…

“I need to get past a phone’s lock screen, so can you open it with your powers?”

“A phone, huh? What kind? An Alkaloid?”

“It’s a Grapple MilliPhone. Why don’t you sound too confident?”

“It’d be a cinch if I had it in front of me, but over the internet is trickier. Those small, multifunction devices are so easy to accidentally break. Plus, the MilliPhones are rumored to have a planned obsolescence system called Telomere… Is the data backed up? If I fry the chip, you’ll never be able to see what’s on it.”

“But I really need to track down Melzabeth. The places she normally visits, her hideouts…anything really.”

“Dwehahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

A bizarre yell suddenly burst from the phone.

He thought maybe Miss Misaka Mikoto had overworked her brain and gone crazy, but apparently not.

“Onee-sama!! I wasn’t done speaking with you! And now you’re having a phone conversation in bed? You know you shouldn’t use phones in the hospital, don’t you? There, justification acquired! Now I can drag her to a mysterious basement of loving and courageous punishment! Calexa, order me a scavenger’s daughter and a pear of anguish!!”

“You don’t have to be so careful about it without any specialized equipment in this room, so settle down, Kuroko!!”

“Pant, pant!! And you, whoever that is helplessly on the other end of the phone!! What do you think is happening to Onee-sama right now? Just what deliciously naughty things are being done to her!? Heh heh heh. Use your imagination to its fullest and strain your ears to pick up every little sound. Weh heh heh. This! Yes, this is the true joy of cuckoldryyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!”

Mikoto seemed busy, so maybe it was about time he hung up, had a snack, and tried again later. The international fees were really starting to scare him now.

But even as he stared off into the distance, the previous intruder said something more.

“Also, what was that about Melzabeth Grocery?”

“?”

For a moment, he really thought he couldn’t breathe.

How had she known his question before he asked? Had she heard what he said to Mikoto? But he didn’t remember giving the Grocery last name. Why did someone know about Melzabeth Grocery all the way in Academy City!?

“Wait, um, why do you know about Melzabeth? Because, uh…”

“Sigh. You mean the president of Space Engage, don’t you? Then again, it’s one of that giant IT company’s slave companies now.”

Kamijou and Othinus exchanged a glance.

Why did someone on the other side of the globe – and a first year in middle school at that – know about this?

Shirai Kuroko replied before he could even ask and she made it sound like a silly question.

He was quickly reminded that the students of prestigious Tokiwadai Middle School really did live in another world.

“Um, why do you sound so surprised? My bank and investment firm contact me all the time about these things. And when they tell me about a promising new start-up with private equity, of course I’m going to check it out.”

“Investment firm? Private equity?”

Kamijou glanced down at his Transla-Pen.

But no. He couldn’t give up yet. This conversation was supposedly in Japanese, after all.

“To be clear, I am not an actual trader or marketer. It’s not about making money; it’s about getting a feel for how money moves around. Think of it like a form of social studies. The experts have already gone over all of this before introducing it to me and their reputation is riding on their recommendations. Maybe it’s like a fishing pond for special customers. This is entry level stuff that would get me a derisive snort from the actual mathematicians and financial engineers who are braving the tall mountain to go fishing in the most dangerous streams.”

Shirai Kuroko sounded utterly exasperated. When kids in the Tokiwadai world were taught the value of money, it apparently was not done by pedaling their bike around as a paperboy over winter break.

But even so…

“If you are interested in her keynote speech on private spaceflight, it should still be up on the video sites. You know, that thing so many American start-ups do, where they proudly announce their new project up on stage wearing a casual shirt and jeans. Of course, her corporate policies and principles were wiped out once she sold that new tech to that IT company, so I sold all my stock then. In fact, it doesn’t look like R&C Occultics even intends to let the company survive. They were only interested in the distribution infrastructure and rights to the technology, so they aren’t expected to actually produce those new products. They probably see her company like an empty candy wrapper now.”

A shareholder.

It was a completely different tug-of-war compared to the connections he was more accustomed to, like enemy, ally, family, or stranger.

“W-wait!! Are you saying you know a lot about Space Engage? I know they’re completely subservient now, but do you know where their office or lab was during the initial start-up days!?”

“Of course I do. Investigating a company’s assets and equipment is the least you should do before investing. Any prospective shareholder will ask for that data first and foremost. Without that, you wouldn’t know if their proud presentation is within their means or a complete bluff.”

Part 3

Tokyo was the capital of Japan. London was the capital of England. In most countries, the most developed city was also the capital, but there were exceptions. For example, what was the capital of Brazil? Some might say Rio de Janeiro, but they would be wrong. The correct answer was Brasilia.

Similarly, the world’s most famous man lived in a city much more minor than LA or New York.

The city was Washington DC and his home was known as the White House.

That building was packed full of so much history and tradition, but right now it rang with an intellectual woman’s shouting voice. Her name was Roseline Krackhart and she was a presidential aide with a specialty in national security. Although at the moment, she felt more like the babysitter for an abnormally large baby.

“Why was there a call girl waiting outside!? How many times are you going to do this!? You can’t just pick up your phone and call one here whenever you’re feeling bored!!”

“Now, hold on. Are you saying you sent her away? This is my home and I’m allowed to order whatever I want. Speaking of, what happened to my four cheese and soft-boiled egg carbonara pizza? Really, you sent that back too!? I need my fuelllllll!”

The large Hispanic man added “you could have at least given them a tip” while Roseline silently formed two fists and began pummeling the balance ball in a corner of the room. The White House actually had more stress relief products for the staff than it did its actual resident’s personal possessions.

The bearded man named Roberto Katze would likely have been terrorizing the seven seas as a pirate if he hadn’t become president. In fact, Roseline sometimes wondered if that was the real timeline and his presence in the oval office with his leather shoes up on the desk was proof that this was an unnatural parallel timeline.

“It’s a free country and I’m single, so it’s not even cheating if I decide to cut loose and have some fun.”

“And what if she is a honey trap sent by the opposition party? Besides, the profiles on those sites are all self-reported, so you can’t trust any of it. Oh, god. What if people start to suspect you’re carelessly leaking information to foreign spies? Your political career will be ruined…”

“Quit your bellyaching. Miss Jane I met the other day was a real adult who understands how society works, not some kid like you who never stops complaining. So it’s fine.”

“When and where did you sneak out to meet with this woman!!!???”

The White House was protected inside and out by the secret service and the marines, but this man had developed escape skills straight out of a ninja action film. Whenever justice or his libido were on the line, he had the uncanny ability to transform into a shirtless, Gatling-gun-toting monster who could fight space aliens head on.

Currently, he switched gears to the non-libido side of things.

“How are things in LA?”

“Did you really expect any progress? We still can’t reach the state governor or legislature.” Roseline answered his question with a question of her own and placed her shapely butt atop the balance ball. “Fortunately, Overlord Revenge was run by England and Academy City, so America was not directly involved.”

That was the only way it could have worked. The US military could not fire on their own citizens in their own country, with one exception: if that citizen broke into one of their bases. So they could not make a preemptive strike inside the country. That restriction felt downright silly now that 30 million people had disappeared, though.

Could the actions of a single company really be called a civil war or a revolution?

To answer that, they had to determine what exactly R&C Occultics had done. If it involved nuclear or chemical weapons, they might have the excuse they needed to deploy the military, but so far, they just had an inexplicable mass disappearance. As silly as it seemed, the law could do nothing until they figured out how it had happened. With disappearances alone, they had to seriously consider the possibility of people running away from home en masse. Legally speaking, anyway.

So they could not authorize military action, leaving them stuck and unable to act.

It was true police special forces had militarized a lot in recent years, but they were not trained to endure a real war.

The aide breathed a heavy sigh.

“On the other hand, you will be publicly criticized for authorizing an attack by foreign troops, even if they are allies. I will put together a flowchart of expected questions and their answers, giving you a political defense that will withstand at least 256 different branching possibilities. The Vice President says he will play the role of your criticizer to help you practice.”

“Bleh, that’s not fortunate or unfortunate. It’s trivial.” The President made a verbal attack with his feet up on the desk. “What matters is figuring out what happened to those 30 million. I want to know for sure if they’re alive or dead and, if possible, drag them all out of the darkness alive and well. Only then can we talk about what’s fortunate and unfortunate. Don’t give up on the most important part before you know how it’s gonna turn out.”

The intellectual aide sighed too quietly for anyone to hear.

She was especially careful to make sure the president didn’t hear.

It was his ability to talk boldly here that earned him so many votes despite his unprecedented behavior. He was nothing like the other politicians who always said they would do their best and work towards everyone’s happiness but who were too afraid of going too far or saying the wrong thing to actually give a straight answer when it counted.

The words of this president left a solid footprint in the ground.

And it was that trail of footprints that was defining the future of this country and the world as a whole. So everyone in the United States, regardless of gender, generation, race, or religion, wanted to see where this man would take them.

The way he elevated the country made the election fun for once and he convinced all of the people that they were lucky to have a say in electing him.

And now Roberto Katze took another step forward.

“What about the NSA?”

“They are waiting outside of LA.”

“The CIA?”

“Keeping them from recklessly rushing in there has not been easy. If they did that, they would probably only disappear along with everyone else.”

“Then we just have to find someone who knows what’s going on.”

Telling Roberto there was nothing they could do was not enough to stop him.

The mysterious occult were not the only ones with secret forces they could covertly send out.

“Still no word from our Overlord Revenge contact? Then we’ll have to contact the people in charge.”

“You’ve heard what’s going on in Academy City. I doubt we would have a chance to speak with the defendant while he’s cut off from the outside world for the trial.”

“What about England?”

“Our hotline is up and running, but who is even in charge of that country? Their elected head of state is already begging our operator to pick up the phone.”

“It would have to be whoever was in charge of Overlord Revenge and whoever would know how things stood right up to the end.”

“That would be the church then,” readily answered Roseline. “You want the Anglicans.”

Part 4

“Long Beach?”

Kamijou Touma tilted his head and stared down at his phone.

Othinus sighed on his shoulder.

“I get the feeling you wouldn’t recognize Anaheim or Chinatown either.”

Shirai Kuroko had sent him a certain data file. It was not password-locked or anything, but it had an extension he had never seen before and he had trouble figuring out to open it on his phone. That had required nervously downloading a free decompression tool from a sketchy-looking foreign site. Why couldn’t they use a reputable app store?

“Oh.”

“Wait, Othinus! This is safe, isn’t it!? If you’re lost, then I’ll be forever trapped in this online world!!”

Everything was done paperless these days, so he opened the file to find a company pamphlet. Except it included a few specialized numbers and names, providing data not released to the general public.

He was unfamiliar with this sort of document, so it took some time to read through it.

It was the afternoon before he knew it.

“Long Beach is exactly what it sounds like. It’s strong in the aerospace and steel industries and its beaches are pretty fancy.”

“Fancy? You mean like an invite-only-”

“They are not nudist beaches.”

“Do you have to glare at me like I’m a bug crawling on the floor!!!???”

Despite wearing little more than a cape herself, that god did not like people who were too eager.

She continued her explanation, sounding like she was only giving the bare minimum she felt obligated to provide.

“But being a nice area means it gets crowded fast, so getting any land there has to be a challenge. So instead of doing launches on a vast stretch of land, they may have run their experiments out at sea. Space Engage is a space company, right? A simulator would be enough for their initial experiments, but practical experiments would be necessary eventually. Even if they only used scaled-down models.”

It didn’t really matter, but it was apparently 20-30km from Downtown to Long Beach. If they did not find some kind of vehicle, it would be time for a marathon in the minus-20 weather.

“This might be exactly what we needed.”

“In what way?”

“You know what I mean.” Othinus crossed her arms on his shoulder. “Melzabeth Grocery screwed up. You could even say you were only following the rails of failure she had set up. The smartwatch was a convenient collection of hints, but following it to the end would only have led to the same fate as her. The best way to use that watch is to play a game of chicken where you get as much use out of it as you can and bail at the last second. You at least need to jump from the car before it plummets from the edge of the cliff.”

In that sense, maybe it was good they had found a new source of information.

This would give them a view from outside that single set of rails.

The world would open up around them.

Every part of the frozen city was marred by sand. Every step had the same crunch as at a busy seaside restaurant, but it was all a remnant of R&C Occultics’s attack.

The sand magic had caused everyone to vanish from Los Angeles.

Kamijou’s focus turned to his right hand.

The Rosicrucian magic was called Citrinitas and the 30 million missing people had been turned into nutrients and absorbed by the sand…or so he had been told.

This was an occult effect, so he might be able to negate it with a touch from his right hand.

He might be able to save the trapped people.

“Don’t even think about it,” warned Othinus. “You can negate the magic, but what happens then is a mystery. You might be able to drag them all out of the sand safe and sound, but what if you negate the special life support effect keeping them alive as no more than nutrients? Then only the nutrient-rich sand will remain and the people can’t be revived.”

“That’s…a good point.”

He could negate it, but he could not define how the occult would be destroyed.

Was this Citrinitas magic similar to a cold sleep device? They did not know if they could safely retrieve the victims by smashing the device from the outside, so it was best to avoid touching any of it until they knew for sure. People’s lives were at stake.

“So would it be better to directly defeat the villain using the Citrinitas magic? I feel like it would save everyone if I destroyed the tool they’re using as a core of the magic. Like a magic wand or a crystal ball.”

“I’m reluctant to agree with that, but it would be fastest to get the defeated magician to tell you what to do. And you don’t need to be friends to get them to talk. You just need to do whatever it takes to win.”

That would require searching out someone.

Maybe the sand magician, maybe Anna Sprengel, and maybe Melzabeth Grocery.

Who would know the answer? Where could they find any hints to their whereabouts?

“What is this? Rental scooters?”

“Use that pen of yours to read the English sign, human. They have a big motor attached, so they can reach speeds of around 50km/h.

“You can use these on the streets? What kind of license does that require?”

“Forget the restrictive Japanese rules. American standards are always scarily relaxed.”

You could apparently hold your phone up and immediately pay to rent one. Othinus sighed when Kamijou held his own phone up to the reader.

“There’s no one here, so you could just use Melzabeth’s phone.”

“I’m not doing that.”

Toys that looked like someone attached T-shaped handlebars to a motorized skateboard lined the sidewalk. He removed the stopper from one and pulled it out with both hands.

“Huh? Why do you look so pleased, Othinus?”

“I have a soft spot for these American toys. Especially two-wheeled ones ridden standing up.”

He took off along the road without a helmet.

It was unthinkable in Japan, but Othinus insisted that you drove on the right in America. His Japanese instincts very nearly led him to his doom. In fact, he might have died almost immediately if LA wasn’t deserted.

The wind was agonizing in this 20-below world. His cheap jacket was no help whatsoever.

He finally understood why Stiyl had insisted on using the dark subway tunnel before.

“My ears are gonna fall off!!!???”

“How is this too much for you? You trekked across frigid Denmark with me, remember?”

Othinus started talking like an old grandmother who insisted rubbing yourself with a dry towel was the best way to fight the cold.

“I don’t care what, just tell me something that will distract me from this biting pain!”

“Fine. You might be interested to know that even America requires a helmet and a license to drive one of these on the streets. Oh, and you broke another law too. You need to be 18 to drive one.”

“Why did I ask!?”

Riding out on the open road felt dangerous, but it was still a relief to rapidly leave the area they had been sniped in earlier.

He saw something slowly pass by overhead in the distance.

“What is that?”

“A Logistic Hornet. One of the 12 mobile delivery bases surrounding the world.”

“Are you sure it doesn’t use magic? It really uses no more than the laws of physics to stay in the air?”

“Does that look like a flying broomstick to you?”

“I-I guess Academy City isn’t the only place with crazy tech…”

From a distance, it looked like a V-shaped boomerang, but it actually had another triangular tail wing attached behind that. But more than that, the center of the main V had a giant hole in it. The centerless aircraft produced a low rumbling.

At the same time, orange sparks flew from it.

The donut-like part surrounding the hole began to glow and then the flashing moved back to the tail wing. Then an orange beam of light was launched diagonally upwards.

Like with lightning, the loud boom shook Kamijou’s eardrums and gut after a short delay.

“Wh-what the hell!?”

“That would be the mass driver that carries cargo outside the atmosphere. A linear motor builds up circular acceleration and then it’s fired from the rear launch port. The orange light is probably the heated electromagnets being exposed to the external air to cool down. I guess you can think of it like a roller coaster where the track ends partway through. …But that one was moving awfully slow. I can’t imagine it would do much more than glide slowly through the upper atmosphere.”

That aircraft boosted the Citrinitas magic by creating sandstorms and other weather conditions made by manipulating the temperature with liquid nitrogen and naphtha.

“I-it disappeared beyond the horizon.”

“You have to look at it on the scale of the weather map. You’ve seen the maps they show during the forecast with what look like the rings of a tree, right? This intentionally creates and distorts those, so their sketchbook has to cover 50 or even 100km.”

Kamijou saw an unnatural sunrise in the southern sky. No, was that the naphtha fire being used to heat the air? It shined for about 10 seconds before gradually vanishing once more.

Even Othinus sounded shocked by the extraordinary American size of it all.

“That thing can carry an obscene amount of supplies. If that was pure napalm that just detonated in the sky, we’re talking about enough firepower to have ended the Vietnam War in three days. I know they needed it to control the wind and carry enough sand to the city for their magic, but this is still impressive.”

“More like absurd… Why even control the weather when they can blast us with that explosion?”

“I’m sure it has its restrictions. It was originally designed for peaceful launches, so the coordinate settings and the mass driver’s movement range won’t allow it to target the nearby surface.”

“Can’t planes flip upside down?”

“You fool, don’t you know what would happen if you flew a large transport plane or strategic bomber the same way as a small fighter? And this thing is 5000m across, so it’s a miracle it stays airborne at all. The tech here is even better than that Radiosonde Castle we used in Gremlin.”

At that size, he wondered if it could change the wind currents by tilting just enough to catch the wind.

“Does it launch everything by noisily blasting it into the air?”

“That would be unnecessarily inconvenient. At 5000m across, its wings can be used as runways. They can also hang transport planes and drones from the bottom and accelerate them like a monorail.”

But Othinus was viewing this from another angle as well.

“The hornet name is a symbol.”

“?”

“The rose is the organization, the nectar hidden within the flower is knowledge, and I supposed the hornets buzzing around the flower would be the experts seeking that hidden knowledge. Hmph, quite the name for the tools flying around the world for a massive IT company.” Othinus sounded half exasperated and half impressed. “They function much like an aircraft carrier, but the upwards-pointing mass drivers can also launch flying objects into ballistic orbit. And if that asshole priest is to be believed, the launches cost less than 1% of a multistage rocket launch.”

“How incredible is that?”

“More so than an oil field that never runs dry. Even if it is limited to ballistic flight, this invention makes spaceflight more accessible than the highway. Melzabeth Grocery must be the kind of person who ends up unhappy after winning the lottery.”

A high school boy did not know much about oil fields or highways either, so Kamijou still didn’t really get it.

But more importantly…

“How does that giant thing take off and land? I doubt it can use an ordinary airport.”

“I was guessing either the ocean or the desert, but since we’re on our way to Long Beach, probably the ocean. Then again, they might rely on midair refueling to stay in flight indefinitely.”

“You mean using an air tanker?”

“They went to all that trouble to create stateless mobile bases, but those would require using ordinary airports for refueling. Maybe they send up tanks attached to giant balloons. That would let them refuel from land or sea without needing a stationary airport.”

Kamijou recalled Stiyl mentioning that in the diner. Something about them using gliders and missile launch vehicles to send cargo to the Logistic Hornets. So they might do the same thing to provide fuel and maintenance equipment.

However they worked, they were R&C Occultics’s toys now.

It would not be that easy to neutralize them by cutting off the fuel supply.

Those things were so big that nothing they could do on the surface would bring it down. It was like challenging the moon or the sun.

He was driving at the speed of a motorcycle, but it was still a long distance to travel. And time was passing the entire time. The abnormal weather was bad enough to begin with, but he felt like his body temperature was dropping as time passed.

He finally grumbled a complaint while operating the unusually fast scooter.

“So you’re saying we have to fight that thing? Stiyl said it’s so big it can control the weather and entire meteorological disasters. Isn’t this entire 20-below mess its fault? Not only can it part the ocean or send spears raining down on our head, but it can boost that sand magician’s magic to the point that not even a Saint like Kanzaki could win.”

“So are you going to give up?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He didn’t even need to think about it.

He would find and rescue the missing mother named Melzabeth Grocery, he would take her back to her daughter Helcalia Grocery, and he would make sure this ended happily.

He would do anything to pull it off.

There was no doubt in his mind about it.

They passed by an English sign. Kamijou could not read all of the simple English, but he could read the two biggest words: Long Beach.

Part 5

“Defendant, can you confirm for us that the adults did not use their weapons or authority to coerce you into these criminal acts and that you chose to kill these people of your own free will? And while they were clones, we are talking about 20,000 innocent people here.”

“Your Honor, this question is deliberately phrased to assist the prosecution! I fear it is a leading question!”

“The existence of this alleged experiment using cloned humans has yet to be proven, so we should not be discussing the possibility of homicides based on that premise. Academy City denies any and all accusations of such an experiment.”

“We have ample testimony and data to suggest the very likely possibility that the defendant is mentally unstable, so is it not highly immature to continue asking him questions in this state?”

“We request a recess. We of the prosecution wish for victory in a fair trial. This trial is meant to reveal the truth, so we request a recess even if it might assist the defense!!”

That ‘human’ gave a snort of laughter.

Academy City’s #1 Level 5 and new Board Chairman, a thorn in so many people’s sides, laughed weakly from the defendant break room’s sofa.

“Hee hee. Ee hee hee. Nee hee. Ah hee hee.”

He also heard another voice laughing.

The papers sitting in a corner of the room and the dried leaves from the potted plants swirled around on their own and finally burst from within, revealing a translucent girl wearing a shabby dress made from English newspapers.

She was a true demon.

She was hard at work this morning too.

“This is certainly a strange situation. I mean, I thought human trials were about the prosecution and the defense arguing against each other, so why does the prosecution keep protecting you by bringing up your mental state, master?”

Mentally unstable. The prosecution was meant to gather evidence, search out witnesses, and win a guilty verdict for the defendant, so that should have been the last card they wanted played. It was a necessary part of the system, but people with something to hide had a tendency to claim it like a trump card.

“Hmph. Getting them to admit to the clone experiment is the real challenge here. Because there’s no evidence. They’re trying to throw out all of my testimony and reports by claiming I hallucinated it all and none of it was real. Far too many people in the city feel they would be better off with that result.”

The defense wanted a not guilty verdict (whether the defendant himself wanted it or not) since that was their job, but even the prosecution wanted to avoid a guilty verdict this time.

It was truly a bizarre trial. Accelerator, the defendant up on the chopping block, was the only one hoping for a guilty verdict that would mean more than 10 thousand years of prison time.

He could not let this be dragged out with a mental evaluation or a reexamination of the evidence. Because the #1 had a good reason for wanting a guilty verdict.

“Can’t say I envy your position there. I mean, you’re exposing your own misdeeds to keep the world from noticing the clone girls you didn’t kill, right?”

Hearing a sneering voice, Accelerator clicked his tongue.

The voice came from Qliphah Puzzle 545, but her shoulders had gone slack, her arms hung limply down, her head lolled, and her eyes were devoid of light.

Like some kind of mistake, someone else’s words came from the crescent moon slit of her mouth.

“What did you do?”

“Did you forget already? Qliphah Puzzle 545 calls herself a demon, but she was originally something like a grimoire created in England. That makes her a lot like me, the Great Dion Fortune, since I’m made from 78 cards. Revealing the Qliphoth and hijacking control wasn’t all that hard.”

Dion Fortune.

The original magician had belonged to the legendary Golden magic cabal and this version now reigned as the Archbishop at the top of the Anglican Church.

“The US President was not happy. Darris Hewlane, was it? Japan will collapse pretty quick without America sticking around as its training wheels, so how about being a little nicer? Academy City – no, that tiiiiny Asian archipelago will be in trouble otherwise.”

“Darris is the Vice President.”

“Oh, excuse me. He’s the more sensible one who actually contacts us, so he came to mind first. …I’m surprised a monster like you actually bothers remembering people’s names. Have you finally learned how to moderate yourself as a leader?”

“Hmph.”

“Anyway, it didn’t look like I could contact you by phone, so I improvised.”

Dion Fortune made it sound like little more than a minor magic trick.

And for the head of the Anglicans, maybe that’s all it was.

Someone else spoke through the mouth of the demon whose arms hung limply and whose marine tail squirmed on the floor.

“True, it probably isn’t ideal for you to be contacting an outsider in the middle of your trial, even during a recess. You could receive some hint that might overturn the testimony presented at trial, or you could have an outside team cover up some evidence.”

She appeared to be laughing.

She had laid out those rules so she could overturn them.

“Those are your science side rules, so we can ignore them here on the magic side. Overlord Revenge is still ongoing, so we can’t have you ignoring the Japan-UK-US hotline for your own personal affairs.”

England did not care what happened with the #1’s trial.

Wiping out R&C Occultics was much more important.

Was that why she was so concerned about the outcome of the Academy City and Anglican Operation Overlord Revenge? What was that about moderating yourself as a leader? He felt like it was she who had gone soft.

“Listen, Accelerator. This isn’t our first contact, since we already met at Windsor Castle. I get the feeling you don’t think too highly of my abilities and think I’m beneath you. I won’t deny it either. I might be a stranger from a different land, but I will use my endless love and patronizing affection to guarantee you freedom of speech and thought, no matter how tiny those thoughts might be. …Besides, it has long been known that people are much easier to trip up if they underestimate you.”

“So how are things going?”

“The Saint was defeated and the infiltration team fell apart afterwards. So not great. Plus, the HQ building in LA doesn’t really matter. That collection of glass and concrete is far less important than the R Rose drone control server. If they can break that apart and escape the city with it, they can easily rebuild. R&C Occultics can’t be weakened without taking out the 12 Logistic Hornets that act as the cornerstone of their online shopping network and as a global meteorological weapon, so what are they even doing down there?”

“Sounds like I wasn’t underestimating you at all. I was dead on in my estimation.”

“Do go on believing that. That way I win even if I come back emptyhanded this time.”

Dion Fortune did not seem to care.

The slumping demon girl’s lips continued to crawl.

“And do remember that I’m not my predecessor. I’m no good at conspiracies and I don’t much care for them either. So what you see is what you get with me. And let me be clear, that should scare you. That means I won’t compromise, cover things up, make secret arrangements, or guess at what other people are plotting. So let me take this opportunity to make one rule of this new world crystal clear for you.”

She made this sound even more serious than the ongoing end of the world.

“I’m not interested in any sob stories about what went down over there. I know you have Hamazura Shiage hooked up to tubes and cords in the ICU. If he dies, then you’re facing all-out war with England.”

She ignored everything else they had been talking about.

Even the battle against R&C Occultics was of secondary importance.

If Academy City and England started obstructing each other’s efforts, there really would be no one left to stop Anna Sprengel and R&C Occultics. But she was not ignorant of that. That Golden magician was well aware of it, yet she did not hesitate.

That may have been the proof she was of the Golden.

It pointed to the nature of the world’s largest magic cabal once led by Mathers and later joined by Crowley. Individuals were not to compromise themselves for the dreary needs of the world at large. They believed in the will of the individual and they never let the world come between them and what they chose to do.

She did not care that a single mistaken command could lead humanity to extinction over an unnecessary detour. She let her personal issues taint everything, which in turn allowed no room for compromise.

“Humanity itself is only a temporary ruler. Sooner or later, they will die out.”

“…”

“So my role is not to provide eternal happiness to the entire population. The planet’s resources are finite and the sun will eventually expand all on its own, so the human race has a limited lifespan and the concept of eternity is meaningless. My job is to delay that destruction by just a bit and to avoid leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. So let me be clear: I do not fear the destruction of humanity. Because technically speaking, I don’t even qualify as human.”

She was arrogant and selfish.

She did not even consider how much explaining her pet theory would distort the world around her. This was exactly how the Golden magicians acted.

A transparent thread dripped from the girl’s crescent moon mouth.

“So I will make full use of the privileges granted me for fulfilling my duties as Archbishop. Hamazura Shiage is my friend, my savior, and a crucial part of not leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths. So if he dies, I will give up on avoiding that bad taste. This is simple arithmetic. I am saying that I will not do what I cannot do. If you hope to trigger a pointless apocalypse, then I hope you have the keys to heaven on hand. To be honest, this is one of the more boring scenarios leading to humanity’s destruction.”

For anyone other than the #1, the tense atmosphere would have suffocated them.

And it ended there.

The air seemed to relax around him.

Dion Fortune was once more turning the gears of conversation.

“So let me ask you once more: Take care of Hamazura Shiage for me. As long as you do that, I will cooperate with you in anything you might want. I will lend you the full power of the Anglican Church, the part of this planet’s magic half that excels in combating magicians.”

Accelerator breathed a disinterested sigh.

And he spoke without hesitation.

“What are you saying you can do?”

“I already told you: my job is to delay the destruction of humanity just a bit and to avoid leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths. And that includes the points of contention in that trial of yours.”

“…”

Dion Fortune also spoke without hesitation.

Even though she knew how risky it was to do that in front of the #1.

“Yes, so how about this as a way to support your adorable little legal trickery and our much more important Overlord Revenge? There are still nearly 10,000 clone girls left around the world. With #00000, #20001, Dolly, and Worst, I really don’t know what the exact number is, but don’t you want to give them a place to live and give them true acceptance by the world? In other words, don’t you want to actually save them?”

Part 6

Los Angeles was a large place, but it was entirely deserted at present. Any noise, light, or other sensory stimulus was extremely conspicuous. And if that noise or light was a gunshot or gunpowder smoke, it would put any observer on guard. Plus, the R&C Occultics HQ building was within visual range.

Thus, Stiyl Magnus immediately relocated.

Even a meter of distance could prevent being sniped if it went unnoticed.

The tall priest carried the unconscious “villain’s daughter” back to where the grimoire library waited and then they moved to a small store. The glass showcases must not have been enough space because a fence had been attached to the wall and display products were attached to that with hanger-like devices.

The products in question were assault rifles and submachine guns with their full-auto capability removed, commercial handguns, extended barrels, stocks, and even modification kits to provide rapid-fire capability. The selection of bullets included softer ones that would be crushed within the body and armor-piercing ones with artificial diamond powder worked into the surface.

Gun shops like these could be found anywhere in America. This was a health-conscious country where bullets were more plentiful than cigarettes.

(What a pain.)

When Stiyl pushed his shortened cigarette into the ashtray, he realized this was his third one in a row. That showed just how much time had passed. If he was having this much trouble making a decision, he must have had more doubts than he had thought.

He would show no mercy even against young children when necessary.

He had thought he could do this without guilt, but maybe he was having difficulties this time.

Because this small girl reminded him of that girl’s past.

“Phew.”

He pushed the cigarette into the ashtray and made up his mind.

Helcalia Grocery, the sole survivor, was hiding something. And she showed no intention of letting Stiyl or Index know what it was. She might open up if he took the time to earn her trust, but he did not have that kind of time.

That job was supposed to have been Kamijou Touma’s, but he had refused to share his information with Stiyl. The intimidating priest could try to do it himself, but there was very little chance the frightened girl would open up to him in such a short time.

Which meant…

(Maybe the beer rune would work.)

His rune magic worked by engraving a rune into the target object and then dyeing the rune to activate its power. The rune could then be scraped away or otherwise eliminated to cancel the magic effect.

Rune magic had long been used to give special powers to physical objects. For example, you could carve a victory rune into a sword or a ward rune into a gold coin.

Along the same lines, what if you used a blade to carve a rune into someone’s body and dyed that?

What effect would a talking rune have?

“No.”

It was like she had read his mind.

No, the silver-haired nun standing protectively between him and the 10-year-old subject had an even greater understanding of rune magic than Stiyl, who trusted it with his life.

He would show no mercy against even young children.

If he intentionally left the suspect unsupervised with so many weapons around, she might just grab a handgun. And if Helcalia was up to anything, she would assume the worst about her situation and act accordingly. But the priest’s assumptions did not play out.

(She’s weirdly hopeful about her situation. Is that because I didn’t let her actually see him get shot?)

Had it been a mistake not to isolate her? Young Helcalia was fighting back tears and hiding behind Index. When had those two built this bond of trust? It felt like he had let bacteria into the wine barrel, ruining the entire batch.

Stiyl sighed and switched gears.

“I didn’t even say anything.”

“Naudiz, #10 of the Germanic Futhark. It phonetically stands for ‘n’ and it means distress. It is also one of the runes needed for the beer rune spell. The spell is said to ensure a wicked woman cannot deceive you. The actual effect of the spell is to split in two if the container contains poison, saving the user’s life. Right?”

As expected, she saw through it right away.

But Stiyl had stopped moving for a different reason.

He could never betray this girl. He had promised as much long ago. Even if the girl glaring back at him now had no memory of it.

“By placing it on the center of a human body, it might split their body in two if they so much as lie. But even without that, I will not let you pick up a blade and leave indelible scars on someone’s body. The Anglican Church is meant to protect people from the threat of magic, so it’s wrong for us to use magic to harm the suffering people we are meant to protect.”

“And who says Helcalia is an innocent victim?” Stiyl quietly clicked his tongue. “We’ve only known her for a few hours. We have no idea what she did before that.”

“But Touma saved her.”

It took all of Stiyl’s willpower not to grimace.

But the girl with the perfect memory may have noticed the beginnings of one anyway.

“I know this is what Touma would do, so I’ll do the same thing.”

Again, Index had a perfect memory. She would never forget something she had seen. So even a minor error in front of her could have a lasting effect. Because she would possess the memory until the day she died.

But Stiyl’s lips still gave a tremble.

He could not help but mutter under his breath.

“I wish that boy’s corpse was here so I could shoot him again.”

Part 7

Long Beach apparently referred to quite a large area of land. The houses or villas alongside the beach looked like toxic bite-sized chocolates with their red, blue, and pink colors. A retired warship in the ocean had been turned into a museum. If they had not known what address to look for, they would have gotten lost and frozen to death in this minus-20 open world adventure.

Kamijou did not even notice the sunset.

He just knew it had gotten a lot darker and a second night was beginning.

“Wait, it’s this late already?”

“In LA, the sun sets early during the winter. Wait for the five o’clock news and it’ll be dark out.”

Kamijou and Othinus rode long the beach to reach a concrete yacht harbor.

He did not hear any waves along the way, so he looked over curiously to find no movement there. The beach was covered with frost like the inside of a freezer and the seawater had fully frozen.

“For real? This doesn’t even feel like the yearly drift ice showing up. It’s a solid sheet like at a skating rink.”

“The entire population of Los Angeles is missing, but there must have been a large margin of error. The ocean is white out to the horizon. I wonder if that Skybus 550 is all right.”

It felt like seeing the grilled corn from a New Year’s festival frozen solid.

It was physically possible, but why bother?

It felt wrong to see such incredible waste.

The pointy-haired boy kept his electric scooter running as he spoke his thoughts aloud.

“So this is Long Beach…wait, is that it!?”

He pressed one of his shoes against the ground while his voice cracked in surprise.

Space Engage was an American high-tech start-up in the private spaceflight business, so he had expected a smart building covered in glass or a bizarre underground lab.

But he instead found the frozen ocean.

Something unusual sat at one corner of the concrete harbor lined with fancy yachts and cruisers.

It was not even made to float in the ocean.

It looked like a skinny, wheeled shed about the size of an RV. It was more like a rounded capsule than a rectangular container. He was pretty sure it was called a mobile home.

There was no vehicle to tow it around. The rear living space had been separated and left here. If he had not already been given the company’s address, he might have mistaken it for some abandoned scraps no one wanted.

It felt terribly out of place with nothing else like it here. Almost like inexplicably finding skis in the department store swimsuit section.

“Information any shareholder would know, huh?”

“What now, human? Worried you might find R&C Occultics here?”

“Yeah,” he admitted.

He had no idea how stocks worked, but the massive IT company that made the start-up an affiliate and then worked to kill it would have to have been involved. They would know anything he knew, so even if there was a crucial hint here, they might have detected it and disposed of it already. That meant anything he found here could be modified lies.

But Othinus shook her head on his shoulder.

“I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Let me ask you this: why the mobile home? The official documentation would only have the building’s location – it points to the land. So whenever R&C Occultics was coming for an inspection or examination, she would only have to remove her lab and place an identical mobile home in its place. It’s a simple way of preserving her secrets, so I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t do it.”

“…”

“If she didn’t need it, she could get rid of it. The harbor fees aren’t cheap, you know? Yet she still has her original mobile home here. That means it contains something she was reluctant to part with. So be careful. The enemy you’re imagining hasn’t been here.”

Kamijou viewed the frozen mobile home, but he could not see inside thanks to the curtains covering the windows. The metal sliding door did not have a keyhole. Instead, there was something like a calculator’s number pad next to the door. However, most of the buttons were missing.

“The panel colors are…red and black?”

“The same colors as the watch band. The decoy home may have used a different color combination.”

He approached and a bright light dazzled his eyes.

And he heard a gentle woman’s voice.

“Welcome to, ahem, Emptiness Marriage.”

“Yikes!? Eh? What just welcomed me?”

Kamijou gave a start and then glanced down at his Transla-Pen. The god sighed in exasperation.

“It’s a standard security sensor. It makes a lot of light and noise when someone approaches the entrance. But what was that weird sigh in the middle? Did Melzabeth record this herself?”

“Y-you mean no one’s here?”

“It’s too soon to say that, but try holding up that mother’s phone.”

He did as Othinus suggested and was surprised to find the metal door opened on its own. The place may have been hooked up to an external power supply to accommodate a long-term stay.

The inside was still cold, but not freezing.

He found himself in another dimension once he stepped inside.

“This is incredible.”

Kamijou spoke aloud, forgetting all about the possible danger. The mobile home must have been based on an RV. About the same space as a tour bus was divided into a kitchen, bathroom, and bath and the furniture like a table, sofa, and bed could be folded up and stored in the walls. To save space, the TV, phone, and computer were all set to display on the same monitor.

But.

“The walls and ceiling are covered in these colorful things? Is it all spacecraft related?”

He was right. There was so much it obscured the color of the original wallpaper. Clippings from specialist papers were covered with sticky notes scribbled with equations. Colorful masking tape connected them to visualize the connections and possible combability between technologies.

The table was mostly covered by a 2.5m model instead of food. It looked about as big as a decent-sized surfboard.

The model was of a Logistic Hornet.

Othinus sighed when she looked to the walls and ceiling.

“The Melzabeth Method. I see. Now I get it.”

“?”

“Remember how I mentioned the difficulties of making a 5000m object fly using wings?” Othinus stood on the table and pointed her thumb at the detailed model covering most of the surface. “5km is enough to reach another train station and a new district. That means a difference in temperature, humidity, wind direction, and even the weather – sunny, rainy, etc. The different wind strength and air resistance on different parts of the craft would ‘twist’ it and ultimately break it apart in midair. But Melzabeth came up with an intriguing solution: human skin.”

“Skin? You mean it uses biomaterials instead of mechanical ones!?”

“It doesn’t have to go that far. It may be an offshoot of neurocomputers that come up with ideas using the same structure as a brain. A spinal cord is artificially created and the Logistic Hornet itself is given delicate cutaneous receptors so it can make adjustments based on reflexes that do not require conscious thought. Just like a fingertip running down your spine makes your hair stand on end. That same reaction is applied to every last part of the 5000m craft to make aerodynamic adjustments by moving the armor scales. That is impressive. There are more than a million of them in all. If you tried to think about each of them before giving a command, you would never finish in time, so Melzabeth set it up to give commands without thinking. The very idea is different from all that junk AI out there.”

“…”

“Melzabeth’s own data is app