novelOr Isolation Surpasses a Group - Engage_U.F.O (1)
| ← Ch.175 | Ch.177 → |
Part 1
It was midnight. The date had changed.
But in her burial clothes with bewitchingly exposed cleavage, Maya did not even think about moving away from the Sphere which was opened like a lotus flower. She continued her long-term information warfare with her two partners: the vegetable sticks and a high quality smoothie made from peaches, milk, 100% acacia honey, vanilla extract, and no artificial additives whatsoever.
Ghosts did not sleep.
Sleep was important for the organization of memories and crucial for maintenance of the brain, but that meant nothing to Maya who did not rely on a physical body. Or perhaps the vengeful spirits in most ghost stories were so fixated on a single thing because they could not carry out that maintenance.
She was in District 7's college shelter named Academy.
She would do anything for Kamisato Kakeru. Even obey someone like Kihara Yuiitsu.
"Hm, hm, hm, hmmm."
She hummed quietly while hunched forward. She pulled a piece of yellow paprika cut long and thin from the colorful sticks in the glass cup.
To chase down Kamijou Touma and Karasuma Fran, she was spreading largescale misinformation from her multiple regional stations to cause trouble across Academy City. Once those two were caught in the trouble, they were sure to use some kind of special methods to escape it and she only needed to reveal the traces of that. This kind of information warfare was her specialty, but while in contact with the Sphere, she developed an obsession that ignored efficiency and logic.
The seeds she sowed did not always bloom the way she wanted.
Rumors would change form bit by bit as they were spread from person to person. And once they passed a certain point, they would become something else entirely as if going through a mutation.
And since Maya had a specific objective, she did not want that kind of unordered and uncontrollable change. When the changes passed the acceptable range, she would inject new information to change it back and course correct. But that was not a total overwriting of the data. It was a lot like giving different types of food to an all-consuming amoeba to see which way it grew.
She felt like she was raising a child.
As a bodiless ghost, she may have been treating this like an alternative to that, but she did not delve that far into self-analysis. She was still a ghost. The memory of her death slept somewhere inside her and she knew she must not uncover that.
Currently, there were three major rumors swimming through the city-wide network created between the shelter Spheres.
First, the heat wave was caused by the powerful microwaves sent out by Karasuma Fran's personal space station and that was deeply connected to the Elements that had attacked Academy City.
Second, the heat wave was caused by abnormal solar winds caused by a great distortion in solar activity. The drop from 55 degrees to below 0 would not end and an ice age would soon arrive.
And third, the heat wave and Elements never actually existed. They were all a largescale virtual reality project run by Academy City's leaders.
"What have we here... ?"
Maya focused on that last rumor as she shook her long black hair and toyed with the radish stick between her lips like it was a cigarette or a chocolate covered snack.
There were of course countless other smaller topics of discussion, but those would burst like soap bubbles all on their own. Only the virtual reality theory stuck around like a truly stubborn bubble.
It was not exactly large, but it would not pop and disappear on its own.
That ember had a disconcerting presence, like a cigarette butt thrown into a dry mountain forest during winter.
(A multi-station rival channel? Would that be Fran? But it's strange she isn't painting us as the villains... )
She pulled a carrot stick from the cup, pictured the rabbit-ear antennae girl in her mind, and bit through the carrot with her front teeth.
She kind of understood how this sort of rumor could spread so easily.
First, if everything was virtual reality, everyone could stop worrying about all of the previous damage. Instead of working toward recovery, they could just wake up to their normal lives, so it would be an attractive idea.
Second, the theory was helped by the fact that surviving during a heat wave and encountering Elements modeled after mimicry animals sounded like something from a video game.
And finally, Academy City had too many mysteries. No one knew if they had practical technology for virtual reality, but there was a general atmosphere that "this city could pull it off" or "I can totally see them trying that". Also, most of the boys and girls had been helplessly hit by the disasters, so they would want a clear villain to blame. In other words, all responsibility was shifted onto the adults. They might want to shout that this was all due to some strange project and raise their fists to show they had not simply lost.
And what would the spread of this rumor actually accomplish?
Or more specifically, what was in it for Karasuma Fran?
"... Ohhh, I see."
Needless to say, everyone would stop struggling if they truly believed this was all virtual. They would only need to wait until they woke up, so there would be no need to put themselves through any difficult experiences. They might starve to death in a week or two like that, but Useful Spider was moving around outside. Their 48 Hours to Restore Order project was underway. Nearly a full day had passed, so the crucial power, gas, and water infrastructure would be back up in about 24 more hours. The students could survive that long without eating or drinking.
This would stop the simultaneous riots triggered across the city by the baseless rumors.
If that was Fran's top priority, then it was an effective one.
And "it's all virtual" was a quite adaptable. Maya could come up with all sorts of clever stories, but they would all be swallowed up by a single phrase: "But it's all virtual, right?" And since no one knew the true level of Academy City's technology, it would be difficult to find evidence to dispute that assertion.
(The biggest flaw is how she's relying on the strangers in Useful Spider to preserve everyone's lives. Isn't she afraid we'll attack Useful Spider and slow down the recovery until that apathetic group starves?)
They could do that, but they did not need to. And in addition to the risk of starvation, it was possible the desperate people would begin an even greater riot once they were convinced this was a virtual world where they could do whatever they wanted. Whether Fran was behind the rumor or not, the virtual reality theory would not be easy to get rid of if it mutated in a negative direction. This could be a good opportunity to drive that group out wherever they were hiding.
(I don't like leaving Salome and the others with that tyrant, so I should probably check on that before deciding. )
She could see the rumors she had created and spread and she could see another rumor that may or may not have been hostile. What kind of artistic transformation would occur when they were linked together? The girl in white burial clothes giggled and traced her slender fingertips across one petal of the Sphere's lotus flower.
And as soon as she did, she heard a voice amplified by a loudspeaker even thought it was past midnight.
"This is Useful Spider. We are now entering Phase 3 of the 48 Hours to Restore Order. We will be collecting any weapons or dangerous objects that could impede the recovery. The threat of the Elements has passed. The aforementioned objects are bound to have a negative influence on your lives and property, so we are using our special authority to temporarily freeze your human rights to collect them."
(Useful-... ?)
One of Maya's eyebrows shot up, but she did not have time to turn around.
The chic college building made of heavy bricks was torn apart like it was made of thin Japanese paper.
At first, not even the ghost girl understood what had happened.
When she saw the destruction start at one edge and the materials fly up into the night sky, she finally thought of an iron sheet roof being destroyed by a typhoon or tornado.
Yes.
"A gust... of wind... !?"
As soon as she found the answer, the girl in white burial clothing was blown several dozen meters into the sky. Maya called herself a ghost, but her existence was reliant on the physical objects known as Censers. Those crane fly shaped drones secretly emitted aromas and low-frequency waves too insignificant for a human's five senses to detect. That would destabilize people's minds and Maya generally appeared below them.
In other words, there was nothing she could do if the Censers themselves were thrown high into the air.
The ghost girl spun around and around and finally regained her balance at the height of a high-rise building's rooftop. The will-o'-the-wisp-like phosphorescent drones could still fly. The triangular headdress with a cut that made it look like a heart had shifted out of place and the white burial clothing was falling off in places, so her alluring thighs and surprisingly large breasts were about to slip out. However, bugs and small fish caught in a tornado could apparently be thrown higher than Everest, so she may have been fortunate this was as much as had happened.
But she could not exactly rejoice.
"Oh, honestly. Where did my vegetable sticks and smoothie go!?"
With a dull sound, something large passed through Maya's head from the side. The device had originally been a 2 meter sphere but had opened like a lotus flower to allow access to the controls. The Sphere had flown as high as she had. Since the Censers had finally stabilized, Maya reached out her translucent arm while floating in midair, but it was no use. Gravity pulled the precision device down toward the late night disaster scene.
Maya's gaze followed it down and she spotted a strange device.
The Academy shelter was using a college building, but she saw something strange outside the campus. It was a giant cylinder 20-30 meters wide. The flat circular end was producing a grinding sound while rapidly rotating, so the girl in burial clothing initially though it was a large tunnel boring machine.
But it was not.
(A giant fan... ? Is it used for wind tunnel experiments?)
Wind tunnels were the facilities used to test the air resistance of airplanes, high-speed trains, sports cars, and such before actually using them. The artificial wind created by a giant fan or vacuum pump would simulate the air resistance it would meet in use, but the latest generation could apparently simulate the gales(?) needed for the Mach 7 instantaneous wind speeds seen by supersonic fighters or ballistic missiles.
If that was used against a building, a house of straw and a house of brick would meet the same fate. The students of Academy were preparing their handmade defense weapons such as a giant slingshot made from bicycle tire tubes and a metal frame, but it was likely futile. They would have a hard time getting close with that giant fan in front of them and their projectile's ballistic path would be far from stable. In fact, it was possible the wind could send the projectile right back toward the people who had fired it.
The ghost girl placed her hands on her hips and stared down at her crumbling kingdom as she hovered in the moonlight. She had only borrowed that key station after hijacking it, but this was still not fun to watch. She still had a few Spheres in stock since she had been using them as regional stations for her multi-stage attacks, but she doubted Useful Spider was attacking just the one place. If the same thing was happening across Academy City, she could lose all of her Spheres.
It was bad enough having the possibly hostile virtual reality theory growing ominously in the background, so she wanted to avoid being completely cut off from the network.
It did not matter how much the "enemy" knew when they took action.
What mattered was whether or not it would impede with the actions meant to help Kamisato Kakeru. It all came down to that for the girl who clung to the world of the living even after losing her body.
And as her eyes glared brightly from behind her disheveled black hair, the vengeful spirit spoke in a low voice.
"Do you have any idea who you're picking a fight with, you fools?"
Part 2
Kamijou Touma was also soaked with unpleasant sweat as he held Mikoto's limp form in his arms and pressed his back against a building wall.
They had a chance at saving Kamisato Kakeru thanks to Mikoto's sacrifice, but they could not leave her there unconscious. Even if it took a fair amount of time, they had decided to send Mikoto back to the frog doctor's hospital before beginning the ceremony using the A. A. A. in the container yard.
As a high school boy, Kamijou did not normally think about it, but the lack of cars was a problem. They could not call an ambulance and they could not move any of the heavy industry containers.
But something else happened first.
It was just after he, Fran, and Luca had left the pyramids of metal containers in District 11.
The entire scene was swept away by a powerful gust of wind.
The target was a nearby shelter and not Kamijou's group, but it was obvious what would happen if a stray blast hit them.
"Commencing nonlethal suppression. Please set down your weapons and surrender. The threat of the Elements has passed. Useful Spider shall protect your lives and property. There is no more need for you to arm yourselves with weapons and dangerous objects."
"Nonlethal... ? Did they just say nonlethal!? They're using giant fans that could blow down reinforced concrete or a small building!!"
"Adult society is all about categorizing things, " said Fran."A hunting slingshot is considered nonlethal and thus does not violate the Swords and Firearms Control Law. Even though it has the word 'hunting' written big on the label."
They were pressed against the corner of a building and winds moving at who knew how many thousands of kph were flying along the road around that corner. Orange sparks flew from a large abandoned truck. Pirate Girl Luca gulped with her clothes stretched to the bursting point after growing to her adult size for more weight against the wind.
"It's that white sand. The wind is carrying the remains of the Elements and that's scraping at the metal like a file."
"Not to mention the lighter cars on the side of the road are flying like leaves. It's too dangerous to cross the street like this."
After learning her lesson about getting sand in her clothes, Rabbit-Ear Antennae Fran had zipped her hoodie up all the way to the neck.
As ridiculously large as it was, it was still a fan, so Kamijou watched the timing as it turned back and forth and ran out across the street with Mikoto in his arms when the gust of wind was pointed the other way.
They had no detailed information on the shelter under attack, but they could tell it was as frenzied as a disturbed wasp's nest despite the late hour. A lot of the students were armed with large water guns with pressurized pumps, but after that heat wave, Kamijou doubted they were armed with equipment that would waste water.
He then recalled how Fran and Luca had tried and spectacularly failed to wash off their bodies with sterilization ethanol.
"Are they combining water guns full of oil or alcohol with a Pyrokinesis esper? That's pretty damn dangerous when we don't have a ready supply of water!"
"Maybe their shelter's name is just Esper."
Whatever the case, they were outnumbered. Useful Spider used their powerful wind to tear apart the building. Wind and fire were a poor match. Using a flamethrower now could easily fill the air with heat and provide the wind with a temperature measuring in the hundreds or even thousands of degrees. Breathing in that deadly wind would blister the lungs.
Kamijou knew it was hopeless, but he performed a lariat on the neck of a boy who ran around a nearby corner with two water guns in hand. While the shocked shelter warrior struggled to breathe, Kamijou dragged him behind the building and yelled into his ear.
"It's no use! Look, there are people sneaking around out back. Your ruler and his or her aides are escaping on their own! They're sending the rest of you into an unwinnable battle to keep themselves safe!!"
"My little sister's in the shelter. She has asthma and can't run around much, but she has Level 3 Pyrokinesis, so she's being used as the ignition for our fighting force! She can't leave with everyone gathered around her like that!!"
"You're kidding, right? You aren't actually Tsuchimikado, are you?"
"Who!?"
"Argh. If you really care about your family, then grab your sister's hand and get the hell out of here. With the pillar of your resistance force gone, everyone with the water guns will be forced to retreat. Betray them all to save them all. If you don't want to regret this, then get going! Hurry!!"
Kamijou slapped the boy's back to send him off and then slowly exhaled with Mikoto still in his arms.
Then he spoke.
"Let's gather the attention of those Spider bastards. Helping the shelter win is a lost cause, so let's focus on giving them a clean loss so they can retreat. That's how we can save their lives."
"I get that, but what exactly do we do?" asked Adult Luca with her clothes stretched tight in places.
Kamijou pointed at her large breasts. No, he pointed at the leather belts emphasizing them like a waitress's suspenders. Needless to say, he was focused on what the belts held: her pirate musket, the skull container of gunpowder, and the bullet case modeled after an arm bone.
"They're hunting the weapons we have. Luca, you don't actually have to fire the gun. Can you detonate the gunpowder to make it sound like gunfire? It can be something as primitive as a mosquito coil, but you should be able to delay the detonation to create a safe decoy."
"I see."
As she responded, the girl in a thick naval coat and bikini reached for the skull container on her belt. She hopped a bit to shake the container at her hip.
"Since the shelter is primarily using flamethrowers, there should be embers all over the place, right?"
They had a plan.
But then a roar much like a large sheet striking the air passed by overhead.
They looked up and saw multiple transport helicopters using thick wires to carry a giant cylindrical device that looked a lot like a tunnel boring machine.
"They're headed elsewhere, " said Fran.
"Dammit, " cursed Kamijou."District 11 is that way."
And given Useful Spider's current actions, a very troubling possibility came to mind. They were in the process of hunting down all weapons.
"This is bad. If we don't do anything, they'll confiscate and scrap the A. A. A. !!"
Part 3
Frigid moonlight fell on one of many high-rise building rooftops.
Overhead, several transport helicopters used wires to carry a large fan known as the Breath of Blessing, but on that rooftop, a thin man in a shabby work uniform faced the ruler of the city.
"How do you do, Board Chairman?"
"..."
"Yes, yes. Don't worry. I don't mind at all if you don't recognize me or remember my name. In fact, just being some faceless person helps me represent the will of all such invisible people."
This was the pathetic man who had been lifted up as the ruler of Trial in a certain park but was ultimately nearly executed by the very people of that shelter. And that faceless person was hiding nothing. He was not sealing away his true power and he was not deceiving everyone with an act. That such a pathetic man could meet face-to-face with the head of Academy City held great meaning.
This was something Academy City's #2 had once failed to accomplish, but this perfectly ordinary man had proved it was possible for anyone.
The "human" kept this target in a position where he could be killed at any moment.
"What do you want with this city?"
"Surely someone of your intelligence already knows." The work uniform man made it sound simple."I'm not a very useful pawn, so you can't accomplish much of anything whether you kill me here or do anything else with me. Otherwise, you wouldn't even be meeting me face-to-face like this. No, I was never thinking of anything as frightening as defying you."
He was not like Group or Item where bizarre talents gathered. He was even lower than the Hound Dogs or Scavengers who reported directly to the Board of Directors. He was part of an organization that was often sent out to clean up after the Kihara family or someone else made a mess.
"But the thing about history is, none of that really matters. Seemingly trivial things can have surprisingly large effects. If it hadn't been so hot or it hadn't rained, they say Nobunaga would have lost his very first battle."
When making water overflow from a cup, only a fool would turn the faucet on full blast. The clever person would wait until someone else had filled it with water until the surface tension was about to break and then they would put in a single drop themselves. Preparing the environment like that was the only way for an unimportant person to set history in motion.
To repeat, he was just one of the masses. He was a faceless person who no one would remember. Normally, he could never accomplish something that Academy City's #2 monster had failed at.
Then who was it that had filled the cup full of water?
"This is catastrophe you brought on yourself, " announced the man."The key to disaster prevention is prediction and avoidance, not recovery after the fact. In that way, your sin was negligence. Someone with your intelligence should have predicted this. Both the appearance of the Elements and the unnatural heat wave used to combat them."
"..."
"You knew it was coming, but you overlooked it. All for your own goal. Then that is a sin. All I did was place a single drop in the cup you had filled to the brim."
"I see. In other words..."
"Unlike you, I don't stand out and I have no grand ambitions. If I had control of the recovery, I could probably build a system to my liking, but wanting that is only natural. Everyone wants a society in which they need not fear disaster. And to that end, I want to stand in front of the leader who stood idly by and let disaster strike. That's all this is. And there's no real need for an empty person like me to take that role."
"..."
"Boring, isn't it? But that pointless crap can become the crack that ultimately shatters grand ambitions. You should be more aware that it is the great men who build the world, but it is the normal people who gradually distort that world."
Several more helicopters passed by overhead. Those crude hunks of metal would have been defeated in the blink of an eye if water, gas, and electricity still circulated through Academy City like blood, but now several of those devices were carried out to the city.
"Disasters are full of superstition and jinxes. When a powerful earthquake hits, people say the dolphins predicted it and it was the work of an earthquake weapon. When a hurricane hits land, people say it was redirected by a government bombing experiment and it was spreading chemtrail chemicals. Countless rumors will spread as if people want to dramatize the tragic situation."
The Breath of Blessing devices had originally been designed to artificially alter the wind direction and redirect toxic smoke away from densely populated areas when a dangerous chemical fire began in an Academy City laboratory. But the current situation made it clear that nonlethal firefighting usage was only an excuse for the paperwork. And the process that led to that excessively powerful machine's development was exactly what this faceless person had to fight.
"Disaster situations are extremely dangerous, so the people must be disarmed.... That is another superstition with no basis behind it, but no one can shake it. The thing is, Aleister, we are fighting people like you so we can let go of those things."
He had likely said what he wanted to say.
At the very least, that "human" decided he had.
The frigid rooftop echoed with the sound of something wet being crushed.
Aleister did not even bother watching as the remains of a man slowly collapsed backwards without even uttering a scream. There was no more information there. It was impossible to tell with his head thoroughly crushed, but that faceless person had likely been smiling even as a corpse.
Part 4
Adult Luca's black powder had been even more effective than hoped, so Useful Spider's attention had gathered elsewhere long enough for the shelter students to escape safely.
"Dammit, Luca! Did you really have to throw the 'firecracker' there!? They probably captured the ruler and his or her aides who had already escaped!!"
"I'd really prefer you called that a clever plan."
"Yay!"
For some reason, the hoodie bikini girl and the feathered pirate hat and eyepatch girl exchanged a high five. Kamijou really wished he could ask Kamisato how he had scolded these girls.
Several large fans had been carried to District 11 while they secretly assisted the Esper shelter, but there was nothing they could do about that. Even if they had stopped helping and focused on that, they could not have reached the airborne transport helicopters.
Kamijou did his best to find something to be positive about.
"Are they really going to check though the entire container yard?"
"What do you mean?"
He heard the quiet sound of scraping metal. With the wind attack finally over, Fran had unzipped her hoodie again. The bright skin from her flat chest to below her navel came into view. She did not seem aware of the youthful allure she was exuding, so she tilted her head with unreadable eyes.
"They keep talking about the 48 Hours to Restore Order. By the way, Fran, do you know what time it is now?"
"Just before 2 in the morning. A fair bit of time has passed."
"If Useful Spider is serious about that, then they only have about a day left. Meanwhile, it would take months to check through everything in that distribution base's container yard. They'll run right through their limit if they perform a real search."
"Then why did they send a unit to District 11... ?"
"If they're trying to confiscate weapons, they don't actually have to inspect all the containers. They just have to seal off the entire container yard and keep everyone out. That would take far less time than checking through each and every one of those hundreds or thousands of containers."
In that case, Kamijou and the girls' efforts had not been in vain.
In fact, staying in District 11 with the A. A. A. might have left them surrounded by Useful Spider and unable to do anything.
Fran puffed out her soft-looking cheeks.
"But we need that hunk of junk to save Kamisato-chan."
"I know that."
They had avoided being surrounded, but now they could not reach the A. A. A. which was the key to rescuing Kamisato. They knew Useful Spider's firepower all too well after supporting that shelter. They felt like they might be blasted out of the solar system if they faced those things head-on.
But Kamijou had an idea.
"Let's make an attack of our own."
"You mean carry a gun into a container yard full of soldiers?" asked Luca who was back to her normal size now that the threat was gone."Are we supposed to pray for the cavalry to show up???"
Kamijou shook his head.
"No, not that. I don't know where Useful Spider's base is, but even they'll have to call in their other pieces if their king is about to be taken. If we attack their headquarters, the forces out in District 11 will fall back. If we can make them panic like that, a hole should open in their defense of the container yard.
Fran and Luca exchange a glance.
And then they spoke with exasperation in their voices.
"Isn't that the same thing as saying you're afraid of the hornet in front of you so you're going to go destroy the entire hive?"
"It looks like you're avoiding them, but you're not actually avoiding anything."
Yes, no matter what, they could not avoid a fight with Useful Spider. It felt like the entire world was working against Kamisato's return, but Kamijou and the girls could not back down. That boy had saved their lives and he had asked Kamijou to take care of the girls, so Kamijou could not let Kihara Yuiitsu manipulate them any longer.
But they also had to worry about Mikoto.
They traveled on foot to carry her from eastern District 11 to the hospital in District 7. On the way, they came across some of Useful Spider's attempts to collect weapons. They would hear the rumbling of buildings being torn down and they would see transport helicopters fly by overhead.
"You can't save them all."
"I know that."
"But you're still going to try, aren't you!? I can't believe you!"
There was not much he could do, but he still called the cornered boys and girls into a back alley, passed them an L-shaped crowbar, told them to climb into a manhole, and otherwise helped them evacuate.
Several times, they saw fortresses crumbling from the winds of the giant fans.
Just like government officials using heavy equipment to tear down the people's cheap barracks in the name of recovery, the sight demonstrated a disconnect between utility and happiness.
Once the wreckage was cleared and a clean street was built, there would be shiny new shops lined up on either side, but that would distract everyone from how many people had been huddled together and living there.
Kamijou felt more emptiness than he did simple anger.
"Goddamn them."
The trip took about 3 hours. By the time they arrived at the hospital, the black of the heavens had grown into a purple and orange gradation.
It was just past 5 in the morning.
Mikoto was still fast asleep, so they left her with the frog-faced doctor. Only then did Kamijou breathe a sigh of relief. He may have had no real reason to relax as he watched Mikoto carted away on a stretcher, but getting her to a specialized medical facility still meant a lot.
He could only trust in that doctor for now.
He wanted to stay here until she woke up. He wanted do that to give himself a secure footing of true relief.
But he could not.
He could not waste the opportunity she had given him.
(Okay... )
He took a deep breath and then let it out.
His mind continued to boil, but it was still manageable. He could keep going. He forced himself to think that and then focused on removing his gaze from the door to the treatment room.
There was something he had to do.
Luca was leaning against the wall and taking a quick nap with her small mouth hanging open and Fran was sitting in hospital hallway while peering at the small screen in her hand.
"This is a hospital. You're not supposed to use communication equipment."
"Nn."
She gave the smallest possible acknowledgment.
Since she kept tugging down the bottom of her hoodie while sitting on the bench, her legs may have been cold and she may not have gotten much sleep. He had heard that cooling off one's legs would help you stay awake when you had to pull an all-nighter studying.
When Kamijou looked at the screen too, the hoodie bikini girl finally explained.
"I'm checking on the paths of all of the transport helicopters. It looks like most of the shelters were taken out, but the ones without any weapons or that handed them over at the first warning were left untouched."
Come to think of it, the hospital was fine. That may have been a benefit of using the glass devices to divert the Elements with supersonic waves instead of fighting them.
"You can tell all that?"
"Don't underestimate the grassroots reporting network set up between the neutral rulers. Haven't you heard that civilian apps were capturing the supposedly secret routes of government planes?"
Fran may have known so much about this because there was another reporting network that took a step further and tracked UFOs. Kamijou did not expect much, but she was free to talk about her dreams while looking at the app.
"Any results?"
The hoodie bikini girl manipulated the screen to draw a few straight lines on the map. She had likely gathered and visualized the helicopter sightings nervously sent in by the rulers of shelters across the city. It was a matter of life or death for them too, so they likely wanted as much information as possible about this new concern. There would be no hierarchy and everyone was actively uploading the information.
Not all of them were supporters of Fran who was essentially a wanted criminal. But since the hoodie bikini girl was borrowing other people's Spheres, he doubted she was using her own name. But her presence as a key station was still slowly growing. Whether neutral or opposed, a lot of rulers would act if she needed it.
The lines on the map were clearly radiating from a single point.
That would be Useful Spider's headquarters.
"District 21... That's the mountainous region. There's a dam and astronomical observatory there."
"There is a largescale meteorological observatory as well. It has a Doppler radar dome on the top, so it must have thick electromagnetic shielding to protect the staff and equipment from its own powerful microwaves."
"You mean the giant fans, transport helicopters, and their weapons were hidden there? That would explain why they weren't destroyed by your heat wave."
"If Useful Spider was originally established for disaster relief, it makes sense for them to belong to a meteorological observatory that can predict a coming disaster."
That settled it.
If they attacked there, the excess forces guarding District 11's container yard would fall back to the headquarters. That would be the shortest path to reaching the A. A. A.
"But, but. District 21 and District 11 are far apart, " pointed out Fran."It will take hours to travel from the mountain to the container yard, so won't the commotion have died down by the time we arrive?"
"We don't have to do it in real time, right? We set off a 'firecracker' with a primitive time delay earlier, remember? Since we have Luca who can use gunpowder, let's scare them with an even bigger explosion this time. If we set it up in the mountains, walk back toward the container yard, and then detonate it, we can sneak in while they're out of District 11."
"You can be really cruel."
"I wonder why? Maybe it's because of that movie I saw."
Just like with the analysis of the A. A. A. 's magical symbols and creating the actual spatial distortion tunnel, Pirate Girl Luca was the key to all of this. They needed that girl who was currently napping with her back against the wall, her small mouth hanging open, and drool about to drip out.
Luca woke up at just past 6. She had not even gotten a full hour of sleep. And since they had spent almost a full day walking through the streets filled with rubble and white sand without any preparation, that was not very much.
The real reason she had woken up was the delicious smell wafting through the air.
"Yawwwn... Whaaat? I smell miso soup... But I always eat toast and salad in the morning."
She must have been half asleep still because she muttered below her breath while rubbing her eye with one hand.
And then...
"Wait just a damn second."
"Hm?"
"Did you just open and close that black rose eyepatch? What, so it's a fashion eyepatch? That doesn't affect the path of an artist at all! If you don't have the courage to truly live the one-eyed life, don't wear an eyepatch in the first place!!"
"I'm really not sure what you're so angry about..."
"A fashion eyepatch is as bad as culottes pretending to be a skirt!!"
With water hard to come by in Academy City, the hand wipes given out at convenience stores were surprisingly useful. They were wrapped in plastic bags, so their moisture had not been lost during the heat wave. Their disposable nature was a problem, but with enough of them, Kamijou managed to wash his face.
When they went to the cardboard house area out front to get some food, they found the high-class girls were conserving ingredients by eating simpler meals. The main dish was white rice with pork miso soup and the side dish was a few pickled vegetables.
"With this and the curry yesterday, they're using a lot of vegetables. I wonder where they got them from."
"Just like yesterday, I bet they used an esper to freeze them for storage."
"Bfff! Cough, cough!! I forgot all the water here was girl juices!!!!!"
"It's not like they're gathering the moisture from the air around the girls or taking it directly from the girls' bodies, so does that really matter?"
"Why are you more used to Academy City than I am... ?"
Kamijou overcame the mental hurdle by interpreting it as "water retrieved with a special method". If he thought of it like well water floating up with Psychokinesis instead of in a bucket, it was not a problem... he hoped.
After Luca finished mechanically moving her mouth, her mind seemed to finally shift into gear, so they began their strategy meeting.
They were attacking the Useful Spider headquarters in the mountains of District 21 to draw the excess forces away from the container yard in District 11. The two districts were far apart, so they would set up a time bomb to detonate by the time they were approaching District 11.
"A timed detonator is a lot like a wire trap in that you can't predict who will notice it before it detonates, but it shouldn't be a problem."
It was 7:30 AM before they left.
They had missed their chance at a nighttime or early morning attack, but they could not wait any longer. Since Useful Spider was fixated on the idea of the 48 Hours to Restore Order, it was unlikely they would search through all of the containers, but there was still a possibility they would suddenly inspect them.
Kamijou's group needed to retrieve the contents as soon as possible.
"So we're on foot again today."
"Fran, how about we make him carry whichever one of us wins a game of rock-paper-scissors?"
"Deal. Let's replay the game every wind turbine we pass."
"Stop that! You don't get to decide that without my input! And I'm definitely not carrying that rabbit alien when she's wearing a giant backpack full of machinery!! What is with all that? Are you an old peddler woman!?"
"I can shrink my body to reduce the weight. What age do you want? 10? 5? How much can you carry?"
"That's not the issue! And if I carry you, I'll touch you with my right hand and you'll return to normal!!"
They left while continuing to argue.
They still did not know if Mikoto would be okay, but they could not stay any longer.
Once they left the hospital grounds, they heard a high-pitched engine. It was lighter than a normal car and more like a scooter, a lawnmower, or a chainsaw. Kamijou's shoulders naturally tensed. The only people with running engines in the powerless city were Useful Spider.
But that guess was wrong.
A few small vehicles passed them by. Instead of men in military-looking uniforms, they were carrying normal boys and girls wearing swimsuits and coats. The vehicles were not cars or motorcycles. They looked like toy carts with an engine attached.
A large helicopter circled overhead.
"To allow people and supplies to travel more smoothly, Useful Spider has begun a motor sharing service. This only applies to Academy City rules and to 50cc AT carts which are classified the same as mopeds, but if you are interested, feel free to visit one of the 152 cooperating gas stations."
When Kamijou observed their surroundings again, he realized the sounds of engines had returned to the streets of rubble and white sand which had been deadly silent before. He could not completely celebrate this turn of events and it was quite dangerous with the traffic lights still out, but seeing the carts driving through a large intersection was an emotional experience even for a boy who never traveled by car.
In addition to the carts, there were a lot more people walking around than the day before. And they had not been driven out by rioting or suppression. Kamijou even exchanged a nod with an old man out walking his fat dog.
"The recovery is at least making progress."
That should have been obvious, but this was no longer looking like the front for a wicked plot. He could not deny that it was probably a way increasing the entire organization's reputation, but it did not seem like it directly benefited Useful Spider in any way.
Even so, he had to fight them.
Even if they were not trying to, he could not let them steal the original A. A. A. which was the key to rescuing Kamisato.
Still armed with her cutlass and musket, Luca made a suggestion with a mischievous look in her eye.
"I don't like taking help from the enemy, but it wouldn't make sense not to use it, right?"
"?"
"Let's use one of those carts. I'm licensed for anything up to a mid-sized motorcycle."
With that in mind, they visited a nearby gas station, crammed all three of them into a cart the size of a one-person sofa, and set off. That said, Kamijou and Fran were sticking outside of the cart while holding onto the roll bar passing over the driver's seat.
"I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared!!"
"Don't worry, I'm taking into account how wide this makes us. You won't get your head taken off unless there's a roadside tree with a weird branch or a bent signpost."
"You're going too fast!! Aren't you driving at highway speeds here!?"
"We have three people and the engine is 50cc just like a moped, so there's no way it can go that fast. It's just low to the ground, so it feels faster.... Maybe I should lower my apparent age to lighten the load a little."
However, they could not remain too optimistic because the recovery process was still underway in Academy City. There were piles of rubble and white sand all over the place, the sand blown thinly across the road could make it slippery, and the traffic lights were still out. And since they had three people crammed into a single-person cart, it was poorly balanced. Every intersection was a risk and the small tires often screeched and slipped at the curves.
"Sorry, but if I piss myself, it'll get all over you in this position."
"Do that and I really will throw you off!!"
Meanwhile, they left District 7 and approached the mountains of District 21.
"Huh? This isn't the route I took when I came here before."
"You expect me to know my way around Academy City? No matter where we enter the mountain, we'll find the meteorological observatory if we get to the top, right?"
As they climbed the winding road up the mountain, their speed visibly dropped and the lawnmower-like engine screamed in protest, but it somehow managed to conquer the mountain.
"There we go."
Luca stopped the cart at a midway station area that was likely a common point on the way to a number of landmarks: the dam, the astronomical observatory, the campground, etc. There were no other people traveling around here, so the area was deserted. The small shop and snack corner were untouched.
"If we're going to attack, we can't approach with this engine roaring, so we'll have to go on foot from here."
"Brr. The wind is pretty chilly..."
The hoodie bikini girl gave the takoyaki and yakisoba banners a bitter glare, but there was nothing they could do when the shop was not open.
"We just got some food."
"It's already 9. That wasn't 'just'."
According to the map in the parking lot, the meteorological observatory was near the peak. Luca had prioritized safety, so they still had a ways to go.
"A pirate really shouldn't have to hike through the mountains. Let's hope that isn't an ill omen."
"Uuh..."
"Stop it, Fran, " said Kamijou."Don't pout your lips in my direction."
"Carry me."
"You're only worn out because you're carrying all that crap! Are you going to make me pay for your poor choices? Besides, what happened to that UFO balloon of yours!?"
"That is busy with something else right now. So carry me."
But when Fran clung to him and he forcibly shook her off of him, she sat right smack in the middle of the road and refused to move, so he had no choice but to take emergency measures. With Fran on his back her swollen backpack on her back, they climbed the mountain path like a triple scoop of ice cream.
"Gh!? A-a girl isn't supposed to be so heavy."
"Nmh. So warm."
"W-w-well, that's good I guess."
"But this sudden warmth is causing a stirring in my lower stomach..."
"Please no!!"
Carrying a swimsuit girl would normally bring to mind a number of thoughts, such as the chest on his back or the thighs and butt on his hands, but Kamijou was struggling too much to think about anything like that. He learned the hard way the lesson of the Konaki-jiji and the Onbu-obake: People could destroy themselves by acting on emotion and taking on someone else's burden.
Simply walking up the asphalt road would leave them with nowhere to hide if a car drove down from the meteorological observatory, so they always paid attention to whether there was a convenient thicket around and worked to run through the dangerous areas. Even so, it took a lot longer than walking normally.
"Is that it... ?" asked Kamijou.
It was 2 or 3 hours since they had abandoned the cart, so the sun had risen high into the sky.
"Looks like it."
"Then I'm finally putting you down, Fran."
In the distant green of the chilly conifer trees, they saw a giant sphere made from flat pentagons or hexagons like a soccer ball. It resembled the antenna on the rabbit-ear antennae girl's butt. That would be the meteorological observatory. There were a few single-story buildings below it. They were made of whitish reinforced concrete and they would either be lodging facilities for staff or analysis facilities for the data gathered by the Doppler radar.
Pirate Girl Luca peered through a retro collapsible telescope.
"Yeah, they're there all right. I see some dangerous people with their jackets swelling out unnaturally. We were right not to approach with the engine roaring."
"But you saw what happened in the city last night. All of those helicopters and giant fans wouldn't fit in those single-story buildings."
"Then they must have something underground. That sounds like somewhere the Elements would have attacked, but this is a meteorological observatory complete with radar dome."
"?"
He was not sure what Fran was trying to say. If he asked her, he expected her to demand he carry her some more in exchange, so he got straight to the point.
"Luca, we don't have to wipe out Useful Spider. We only have to make them feel threatened enough to gather their other units back here. Do you see anywhere we can attack pretty easily?"
"Wait just a second... There are few storehouses and tanks on the outer edges. We might be able to reach those without going too far in. And it doesn't look like there's anyone there, so we wouldn't have to worry about blowing someone up and leaving a bad taste in our mouths."
"That settles it then."
They could not exactly approach on the asphalt road, so they climbed up the slope which was reinforced with concrete to prevent falling rocks. Then they entered the forest and slowly approached the grounds of the observatory. It would normally have been impossible to sneak into a fortress protected by security cameras and patrolling guards.
But Luca had spotted a small building outside the fence.
The guards patrolled the fence line, so they only observed this area from there and would not walk out this far. The security cameras were positioned so high that the tree branches were in the way. And even right outside the fence, the forest was quite thick. Any wires or infrared beams would be constantly tripped by wild animals.
"Just to be sure, I sent that into the forest ahead of us, but it didn't trigger any alarms and no one came to check on it."
"Fran, what do you mean by 'that'?"
When Kamijou asked his question, a round unidentified lifeform poked its head through the gaps in the trees. No, it was Fran's UFO balloon.
"Is this what you said it was busy with earlier?"
"There was more to it than that, " answered Pirate Girl Luca.
She retrieved a glass cylinder the size of a relay baton that was taped to the side of the low-altitude balloon.
Kamijou caught on when he saw the black powder inside it.
"... So that's your handmade bomb."
"I'd be afraid what would happen in a surprise attack from Ellen and the others if I was carrying it with me. And Fran's balloon won't have machine trouble and crash like some cheap drone."
There seemed to be a few spares just in case, but they left those on the balloon. The balloon would be spotted if it flew high into the sky, so they had Bunny Grey's vehicle wait in the forest.
The small building was made from concrete blocks and the door was kept shut with chains and a lock, but Fran's tool knife came in handy there.
But Kamijou was dumbfounded when they opened the door.
"What the hell? It's full of propane tanks. Did they build up some emergency reserves because the city gas pipes don't reach up here!?"
"That's perfect. This will make some nice big fireworks."
Luca pulled a glass cylinder from her naval coat. It was the one she had retrieved from the balloon before. It was slightly longer and thicker than a relay baton and it was filled with black powder.
"How are you going to time the detonation?"
"If you don't want any trouble getting into college or getting a job, you're better off not knowing."
The girl in a pirate hat and eyepatch stepped into the propane base. She crouched down near the large gray tanks like the ones seen behind a restaurant and she started doing something.
At any rate, this was one location.
They needed to put on an even bigger show if Useful Spider was to mistake it for an enemy attack and call all their units back here. Luckily, there were other small buildings and large tanks outside the fence, so they could circle the fence and set up bombs at the other spots.
But just as Kamijou was thinking that, something hit him from behind.
By the time he realized Fran's small body had tackled him, he had rolled inside the propane base. The girl was unathletic and could not climb onto something higher than her waist, but the overstuffed backpack had given an odd weight to the blow.
"Fran, what-... ?"
"Shh."
The rabbit-ear antennae girl softly shut the door with her back to it. She seemed worried that the latch would make a noise.
"Things are oddly noisy outside. They clearly aren't following the previous patrol pattern."
"Eh? Are you sure they didn't find your balloon in the forest?"
Luca had been crouching down and working with her back to them, but now she was trembling. When Kamijou had fallen, his cheek had hit something noticeably soft even through the naval coat. He was definitely keeping it a secret that it was her round butt, but that did not seem to be her problem.
"... I dropped it."
"Hm?"
"I dropped the bomb. Because you suddenly ran into me from behind."
Perhaps to assist drainage, the floor was gently sloped in one direction and a gutter covered with steel grating ran along the wall.
It had fallen in there.
What had? Why, the relay baton full of black powder of course.
"Lucaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa... mgh!?"
"I said shh!"
"Wh-wh-wh-what do I do, what do I do? I can't get it. My hand doesn't fit. I already broke the seal, so I can't stop it. What do we do? We need to get out of here. I don't want to be the idiot who's blown to kingdom come by her own bomb..."
Kamijou was sandwiched between Luca's butt in front of him and Fran's chest on his back, but the hoodie bikini girl finally removed her marshmallow-soft hand from his mouth.
"Pwah. Calm down, Luca. We have to get from District 21 to District 11, so the limit has to be several hours. We just have to leave before then."
"But things look pretty bad outside, " said Fran.
"Then get off of me, Fran. I'm beginning to think you're more like a koala than a rabbit."
They were still lying in a pile, but Kamijou crawled toward the metal door and cracked it open.
When he peeked out, he found Useful Spider was indeed acting oddly. There was no loud siren like for an air raid, but the area beyond the fence was as frenzied as a disturbed hornet's nest. A lot of the men were reaching inside their swollen jackets and pulling out shiny black objects.
"What? They didn't find us, did they?"
If so, the propane base would be surrounded or Useful Spider would abandon the building and blow it up with a single grenade like in an FPS. Kamijou had to wonder why disaster relief experts were equipped so heavily. Were they also tasked with fighting giant kaiju?
Whatever the case, there was one main point.
"They've upped their security and we don't know their patrol pattern. If we carelessly head out now, we'll be spotted right away, " tearfully explained Luca."But the bomb I dropped in the grating will detonate in two and a half hours.... If we don't figure something out before then, we might all become new stars twinkling in the night sky."
Part 5
"Why?"
A girl's dry and scratchy voice trembled below the Windowless Building.
In the Tyrant's kingdom, one could lose their head if the rustling of their clothes was deemed irritating. Several gazes pleaded her to stop, but Raincoat Salome stared up at Kihara Yuiitsu.
Just as an arm buried in snow for long periods would lose all feeling, the one-armed girl's fear may have faded.
And Yuiitsu readily answered without seeming to give it much thought.
"This is an experiment."
"... ?"
"Due to certain circumstances, I must become a unique Kihara that surpasses my teacher. But the problem is how exactly to determine I have surpassed him."
She was not hoping the girl would understand.
She did not even bother explaining the most basic information.
"The simplest method would be with some monumental achievement, but then what project could no other Kihara hope to achieve? That would be annoyingly difficult." She shrugged."But then I found it."
"Found what?"
"All of you. You are constantly faced with my unreasonable orders, but you are finally starting to work toward avoiding that fear. Just like a cat that falls in the bath will start avoiding anywhere with water. You've noticed that the look on my face can free you from that labyrinth of fear, haven't you? That can also be seen as transplanting Kihara-esque behavior patterns, can't it? You hate me, fear me, and abhor me more than anyone, but you are gradually growing more like me. By contacting and coming to understand an abnormality like me, you grow to become something similar but not quite like me."
It was a lot like a famous experiment in which people were divided into a group of guards and a group of prisoners.
When placed in a special environment, people would accept special roles.
The girls felt the fear and pressure of having something more important than their life taken from them if they disobeyed, and that was squeezing at their hearts more oppressively than prison walls.
"The thinly-spread thought patterns that become like my own in order to curry my favor will eventually spread to cover the entirety of Academy City. Just like you fear me specifically, the residents of Academy City will fear you as a group. They will fear the royal guards who have been influenced by the tyrant's genes. They will fear someone other than me."
It sounded like a nightmare.
That truth only contained fear and pain and would bring happiness to no one.
"As the process repeats, it will spread like the rings of a baumkuchen or a tree. From Academy City to Tokyo, from Tokyo to Kantou, from Kantou to the Japanese Archipelago, from Japan to... who knows where. The thought patterns of a Kihara will change form like an amoeba and will surely become something that will surprise even me. As word spreads from person to person, aspects will be lost or exaggerated again and again."[1]
"..."
"In the end, every last person on the planet will be remade into someone who fears the Kiharas but is a part of the Kiharas. You could say it is an experiment that goes beyond a society of mutual surveillance and forms a society of mutual crime. In that society, people will be comfortable dirtying their hands because they know their neighbors are all doing the same thing. The Kihara inside all of you will not be the same as the one inside me. This will endlessly create new Kiharas. Surely that qualifies as a great achievement no other Kihara has ever come close to matching. As long as we are defined as a family of bizarre scientists, no Kihara – not even sensei – can grow beyond being the minority."
She giggled.
"More importantly, if the 6 or 7 billion people on the planet all become Kiharas, not even Aleister's Archetype Controller can reach us. He has the power to divide portions of mankind and pit them against each other as he pleases, but when west and east, northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere, capitalists and socialists, and every other division have the common factor of being Kiharas, we'll all be the same. It is a fear of Kihara that is not quite the same as being unique. It's like being divided yet indivisible. It creates a world where abandoning the Kiharas means to destroy all of mankind. Then no matter how ugly and cruel our actions become, we will have become a bad majority that can never be removed. Yes, it's perfect. Although between good and bad, it's bad, and between like and dislike, it's dislike☆"
Part 6
The bomb was meant as a diversion. The explosion at Useful Spider's headquarters was meant to not kill anyone yet convince them they were under attack and thus needed to call back their other units for defense. That included the ones guarding District 11's container yard where the original A. A. A. slept. Kamijou's group wanted to avoid wasting that.
They also very much wanted to avoid failing to disarm the bomb they set up themselves and being blown up without anyone ever knowing. That would bring into question why they were even there in the first place. Kamijou wanted to believe he had not been born to meet an end like that.
So they naturally wanted to escape outside as soon as possible, but...
"Dammit. It's like a giant scramble crossing out there. What are they so afraid of?"
He did not know how many times this made it, but Kamijou clicked his tongue as he observed the scene outside through the cracked door.
Fran was looking at the small screen connected to her backpack by the curly cord of a home phone.
"It's 2 PM... An hour has passed."
"Wait, wait, wait. Can't we turn their attention away from here?"
"You mean fire Luca's musket, or throw her cutlass out there? Either way, their attention would turn toward where it came from, not where it hit. That would only make this worse."
"What about your balloon? Didn't it have spare bombs on it?"
"If I could do that, I already would have. These cheap concrete blocks were forcibly reinforced with a net of steel wires, so it's deflecting the signal and I can't contact the balloon."
She must have felt responsible because Luca continued her attack on the gutter running along the wall of the propane base. She tried getting on all fours and sticking her hand through the metal grating and she tried lifting up the grating itself, but none of it was going well.
"Hey, Luca. You can change your apparent age by controlling your subjective age, right? Why not turn into a little kid for skinnier hands and fingers?"
"I already am, I already am. But that doesn't seem to be the problem..."
Both girls got down on all fours and tried to get through the metal grating over the gutter. However, Luca had shrunk to age 10 with her clothes staying the same, so her naval coat and swimsuit were falling off in places, making it a dangerous view. It was strange how bright her skin looked.
The cylinder was right there, but none of them could touch it.
Fed up with it all, the hoodie bikini girl finally stood up.
"We have no choice..."
"Fran?"
"That's using old-fashioned black powder, right? Just like with fireworks, get it damp and it won't work anymore. Our hands might not reach, but if we pee on it from above, we can kill it!"
"Wait, Fran! Let's talk about your dignity as a girl before you resolutely squat down there!!"
"Not to mention that it's covered in glass, so you can't get it damp from the outside."
"Kh. Can't you stick your cutlass through the grating and break it?"
"A shock like that would set it off. It's kind of a miracle it didn't burst when I dropped it."
"I swallowed my shame and resolved myself, so why did you have to make something so unnecessarily perfect, Luca!?"
For some reason, the black rose eyepatch pirate girl averted her gaze. She returned her physical age to normal and repeatedly poked her index fingers together in front of her growing chest. And then the honest idiot confessed.
"B-because you said I was the key to the plan. When you look at me with so much expectation in your eyes, of course I'm going to try extra hard..."
"God, why do you have to go the extra mile at the worst possible time!?"
Luca staggered like the UFO girl had stabbed her, so Kamijou supported her shoulders from behind without even thinking. If he had not, the trembling pirate girl might very well have started crying.
Meanwhile, time passed.
"Let's make a decision, " began Kamijou."We can't get the bomb out of the gutter no matter how hard we try. Staying here will only get us blown up. Nothing we do will change that."
"Uuh... Someone bury me in some damp dirt far away from anyone else."
"Don't get so down, Luca. You did a good job."
"But if we go outside, Useful Spider will find us and turn us into Swiss cheese. And the more noticeable a diversion we try, the more attention we'll draw to ourselves."
"That's only for visible trouble."
Kamijou slowly exhaled and then pointed his thumb toward the gray tanks filling the small building.
"Those are full of propane. That's heavier than air. Let's move one near the door and send gas out through the crack. Once it's flowed past the fence, we just need to throw out a spark. Luca."
"Fwhat?"
"It's too soon to cry. We need one of your bullets. Fire one shot at the ground past the fence to create a spark and this will probably all work out. So wipe away the tears and snot and face forward."
"Gas is invisible, " pointed out Fran."We have no way of knowing how far it has spread. Depending on the terrain and wind direction, it could stay here without flowing toward the observatory, so we might just blow ourselves up."
"Of course. But if we don't do anything, there's a 100% chance we'll be blown up along with this building. Which do you want to bet on?"
They were quick to take action.
They freed one of the gray tanks held in place by thick chains and latches, they tilted it diagonally, and they rolled it toward the door along the edge of the cylinder's bottom. It was about as tall as Fran. Since it was also a thick pressure-resistant container, it was even heavier than it looked.
After getting it near the door, they laid it fully on its side. To more efficiently move the heavy object, Luca had increased her physical age to give herself an adult body that left her clothes tight in places. She pointed the metal opening meant for a hose toward the cracked door and Kamijou slowly turned the valve.
They heard a sinister sound much like a hissing snake.
The invisible danger squeezed at their hearts with a different sort of pressure from an obvious knife or gun.
"D-do you smell a weird scent getting in here?"
"You're imagining it."
"Hmm. I can almost smell it... maybe."
"Stop it, Fran. You'll trick yourself through self-suggestion."
If he was being honest, not even Kamijou knew how much gas they were supposed to send out. Too little and it would not work, but too much and it could be too powerful and kill some of the people running around beyond the fence. In fact, the explosion could even blow him and the girls away.
It was all guesswork.
Would someone's palms be this sweaty if they were thrown into a self-serve gas station in a foreign country where they could not read any of the warnings?
They did not have time to run several smaller experiments to build up experience. With his fingers on the valve, Kamijou spoke to the rabbit-ear antennae girl, the only one who knew the time.
"Fran, how are we doing on time?"
"It's been half an hour since last time."
"You're kidding. So we have less than an hour?"
Lamenting would not solve anything. And with nothing else to go on, he felt like that "one hour mark" was a sign. He turned the valve to cut off the flow of gas and they rolled the tank away from the door. It felt a lot lighter than when they had first struggled with it. He felt a chill run down his spine at the thought that they had overdone it, but there was no redoing it now.
"Luca. Count to 30 and then fire on the ground beyond the fence. The time gap should let the last bit of gas flow away from this building... I think. At the very least, it should be better than firing right away."
"Will this really be okay... ?"
"Either way, your musket is our only hope."
"Kh."
"Yeah, you need to learn that flattering Luca like that is a bad idea, " complained the hoodie bikini girl.
But Kamijou ignored her and changed places with the pirate girl. Perhaps to endure the recoil, her clothes were tight once more.
"(... I get the feeling her swimsuit will burst apart from the recoil if she fires like that. )"
"You can't hope for that to happen, Fran. We're on the same side here."
| ← Ch. 175 | Ch. 177 → |