Vol 1 Chapter 2 (1/2)

Liberal Arts City was the world’s largest artificial island. It was created on the ocean 50 kilometers west of the California coast. After the filming of a certain movie, it had been remodeled into a certain type of theme park, but the large movie country of America saw value in having it also function as a large facility for research and development of new filming techniques.

It was a collection of attractions that were created by those working on the front lines of the world’s movie business. Those attractions were first seen there and were overflowing with stimulation and wonder.

But Misaka Mikoto knew something.

She knew that every kind of abnormal situation was treated as a “show” there. Even if someone was shot right in front of people’s eyes, they would merely be surprised that an actor had been mixed in with the crowd, surprised at how well the actor was showing pain, and surprised at how real the fake blood looked.

It was an area where no one would be shocked upon seeing a corpse.

And that atmosphere was no coincidence.

There was Saten Ruiko.

“Wow, Misaka-san!! When did they get you to join the show!?”

Even after seeing Mikoto get involved in a real incident, she thought it was part of a show.

There was Uiharu Kazari.

“I-Is it really okay to show off Academy City powers publicly like that?”

She was a little worried, but she was worried about the wrong thing.

There was s.h.i.+rai Kuroko.

“…Onee-sama?”

She was a little suspicious, but it had nothing to do with an incident or a fight.

And then there was Misaka Mikoto herself.

“…What is going on here?” she muttered.

No one could hear her quiet voice that had a bit of annoyance mixed in.

“Just what is going on in this city?”

Fwoom.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!”

Whoosh.

“Mgyaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!”

Fwoosh.

“Funyaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!”

Uiharu Kazari let out all those yells and then exited the private showers lined up near the hotel. She had been playing in the ocean all day until the sun went down, but all the seawater on her soft skin had been washed away. In fact, there was not a drop of water on her hair, skin, or swimsuit and the smell of salt water was completely gone.

She lightly tugged on the swimsuit that looked like she had just bought it and then her cla.s.smate, Saten Ruiko, approached her swinging an arm around.

The area was getting dark and the richly colored lights characteristic of theme parks had been turned on, but Saten was still the same as ever.

“Oh, Uiharu. How was it? Wasn’t that amazing!?”

“Was that thing a full body dryer? That’s a pretty major device. It washes and dries your swimsuit and your body as well…”

“Well, you wear your swimsuit everywhere except for your hotel room bed here, right? They’d rather you were clean and dry when you enter the hotel.”

Uiharu and Saten continued to give noises of admiration.

They lived in Academy City where the technology was about 20 or 30 years ahead, but Academy City was in western Tokyo, so they did not have many opportunities to use technology related to the ocean. That kind of research would obviously be done in Academy City, but the children of the city did not get a chance to use it.

Saten rubbed her upper arms.

“…But Liberal Arts City sure is cheap to charge for the cream that keeps the dryer mode from drying up your skin.”

“Ah ha ha. Yes. The theme park builds up this image with everything from the scenery down to the smallest details, but when they start bringing up money, it takes you back to reality.”

“And that wind pressure was amazing. It shot my b.r.e.a.s.t.s right out of my top.”

“Bfoeh!? S-Saten-san…?”

“Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have hit the quick dry switch. And my top is supposed to stick to my skin like a NuBra…Wait, if you were wearing a normal bikini, they’d be blown out for sure!”

Uiharu blushed at that topic of conversation, but there must not have been anyone around who knew j.a.panese because the pa.s.sing foreigners did not look their way.

Saten Ruiko cared the least about her surroundings and she grabbed Uiharu’s hand.

“Okay, let’s go find Misaka-san and s.h.i.+rai-san and then go get some dinner!”

“By the way, why did all the food on the menu at lunch have the t.i.tles of movies?”

“That restaurant gives you the food that appeared in various movies. If you aren’t familiar with the movie, you’ll have no idea what food you’ll be getting.”

“…I see. So that’s why I got a toothpaste-like tube of s.p.a.ce food when I ordered Alien Wars.”

Uiharu had a distant look in her eyes as she and Saten entered the hotel.

“Oh, right. Have you checked in with the teacher? We have to do it in the morning and in the evening, right?”

“The roll call is after dinner. We’re free to eat anywhere we want. But I can’t believe we have to line up in front of the hotel as they call out our names. How lame. That makes it obvious we’re here on a school trip.”

The large hotel had over 800 rooms. It was mainly made of sparkling white marble with a few amber accents made of wood. Red carpet was laid out on the path the guests would take like it was some sort of movie palace.

People of all sorts of races were coming and going in the lobby making it clear that the city was popular all over the world.

“Are you bothered by all the guys looking at you, Uiharu? A leer is the same worldwide.”

“…I’m sure it’s you and your bikini that’s drawing attention, Saten-san.”

“Heh. But the way you’re fidgeting oddly and rubbing your thighs together is much s.e.xier.”

“Ee!? I-I’m not….!”

Saten walked through the large atrium lobby that an entire large pa.s.senger plane could fit inside. Uiharu walked next to her and then suddenly asked her cla.s.smate a question.

“By the way, what do you want to eat for dinner? Even this hotel has plenty of restaurants in it.”

“Hmm. I’m kinda in the mood for Chinese. Well, I can just ask the hotel manager where a good restaurant is.”

“Oh, Saten-san, you can speak English?”

Uiharu held a waterproof cell phone in her hand. She had downloaded a voice recognition application that also translated for her, so she could speak j.a.panese into it and it would speak in English for her. Uiharu only had a first year middle school textbook knowledge, so the instant the battery died, she was dead in the water.

“Ah ha ha. We’re both humans right? I can get my words across through feeling alone. Hey, you, boy! Chinese food want eat delicious restaurant please!?”

“Gyaaahh!! I-I don’t think that’s going to cut it! You can only fumble around so much!!”

Uiharu started blus.h.i.+ng, but the hotel worker must have managed well enough with the words and nuance Saten had thrown at him because he explained mostly via gestures that they had to take a turn up ahead and they would find one.

Saten nodded confidently.

“It seems there is an amazingly good Chinese restaurant, but it gets really busy around this time so we should wait until later. What do you think, Uiharu? If you’re so hungry you need to eat now, we can go somewhere else.”

“…A-am I just a very unsophisticated girl?”

Saten cheerfully handed a tip to the hotel worker and then waved at him as Uiharu felt slightly depressed.

They decided to look for Mikoto and s.h.i.+rai so they could eat that amazingly good Chinese food and then Mikoto appeared out of the elevator hall with perfect timing.

But her face was red and she was running as quickly as she could.

“Gyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

“Wai—wha—M-Misaka-san!?”

Uiharu called out her name and Mikoto immediately turned her head in that direction.

However, she remained silent.

With a clear liquid welling up at the edges of her eyes, Mikoto ran straight for Uiharu. She leapt into Uiharu’s arms and refused to let go.

“Funyaaaahhhh!? Wh-wh-wh-wh-what is this all of a sudden, Misaka-san!?”

“I-I was scared!! I was so scared!!”

As Mikoto yelled, she was trembling and she was rubbing her nose into Uiharu’s small chest.

Saten placed a hand on her chin.

“Uiharu, this might be that cute kind of development where it turns out the ultimate invincible Ace of Tokiwadai is actually super afraid of roaches.”

“No. This is in a completely different dimension!!”

Mikoto finally pulled her face out of Uiharu’s chest and held out a magazine in her hand.

It seemed to be a swimsuit catalogue.

“K-Kuroko was reading this! She was muttering something about choosing another one. I casually looked over and now I don’t know what to do!!”

Uiharu and Saten grabbed the catalogue from Mikoto and started flipping through the pages.

And then they seriously regretted that encounter with the unknown.

“G-gyaaahhhh!? Uiharu, this is…wait, what!? I can manage—just barely—to understand the T back here, but this is an O and this is a V and this…Eh? An I!? How is that supposed to stay on!?”

“L-look at this, Saten-san. It says it’s a low leg, but there’s only 5 centimeters from the inseam to the waist!! It’s like it’s a…belt?”

“Watering material…? This is a see-through bikini with colored liquid inside…is that really okay!? It says the pattern changes depending on the slant of your body, but can you really not see anything through it!?”

“A reflective crystal bikini…? This is basically a mosaic! It’s true you can’t see things properly, but the color remains the same!!”

Saten and Uiharu’s faces were bright red as they started to wonder what kind of inhuman punishment game would lead to wearing things like that. Every item in the catalogue was full of danger to a maiden on the level of no longer being able to be a bride.

Misaka Mikoto, the Ace of Tokiwadai, sobbed which was rare for her.

“Th-there’s no guarantee that she only brought one swimsuit. What if Kuroko is still hiding an even worse bomb? I-if Kuroko clings to me wearing something with even more of an impact than the one from today…what am I supposed to do!?”

If someone wearing those kinds of things was walking next to them or clinging to her, Saten and Uiharu would be embarra.s.sed, too. They could not just leave such an obscene girl to her own devices.

But what were they supposed to do about it?

Was there an effective method of sealing that pigtailed monster that was like an incarnation of freedom of expression?

The three of them silently thought for a bit and then an older girl pa.s.sed by them who looked like some sort of celebrity having just finished a lovely dinner. She was wearing a black one piece swimsuit with sparkling gold thread sewn into it and a large pareo wrapped around her waist.

The three girls watched the celebrity-like girl’s b.u.t.t as she walked off seemingly purposefully shaking her hips back and forth.

“A pareo! That’s it!!”

At that same time, s.h.i.+rai Kuroko was rolling around in her bed still wearing the same swimsuit while digging through a ridiculously huge suitcase.

“Hmm… Just being highly revealing may not be enough. This one looks like a white school swimsuit at first, but it all becomes see through except for the three most important points when it gets wet. Maybe this one. It’s a string swimsuit that makes seven different transformations while wearing it. Heh heh heh… Onee-sama’s face when it transforms in front of her eyes would be something to see…”

s.h.i.+rai was holding a swimsuit that did not have even a millimeter of cloth and was made of braided strings so it covered up the bare minimum of s.p.a.ce. She laughed as she plotted something, but then the electronic lock to her room’s door started making odd noises.

“What? What?”

The instant s.h.i.+rai looked over, the door burst open. Misaka Mikoto entered with sparks crackling from her bangs.

Seeing that, stars starting sparkling in s.h.i.+rai’s eyes.

“Oh!? My, my, Onee-sama!? I never thought you would be so in the mood that you would break my lock to sneak a visit to my roo—gwoohhh!? Ah, it’s so hot in this thing!? What’s with this large piece of cloth!?”

“It’s called a pareo! It’s meant to cover up the delicate zone of shyer people! Everything about you is worth being shy over, so it’s going to cover up all of you!!”

“S-stop, stop!! Don’t wrap me up like a teru teru bouzu! And this is more like an elementary school swimming towel than a pareo…mghgmghg….”

Uiharu and Saten had heard the commotion from out in the hall and then they heard the sound of the door opening. The looked over and saw Mikoto looking oddly refreshed.

“Okay, we’re ready! Now we can freely enjoy dinner.”

“??? What about s.h.i.+rai-san…Ee!?”

Uiharu Kazari’s shoulders jumped when she saw s.h.i.+rai Kuroko wrapped up from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet many times over with a large piece of cloth making her look like some kind of lame bigfoot.

After eating dinner in a mostly red Chinese restaurant within the hotel, Mikoto, s.h.i.+rai, Uiharu, and Saten met up with the other students and the teachers carried out the roll call (that Saten claimed was lame). After that, the four of them gathered in the hotel lobby. They sat at a table in the rest area and relaxed as they ate desserts like almond jelly and ice cream.

s.h.i.+rai had managed to get just her head out of the pareo.

“By the way, about that Beverly Seethrough we met today…”

She used a small spoon to scoop up some milk pudding as she spoke.

Beverly was a girl film director staying in Liberal Arts City.

“It seems the facility for research and development of new filming technology is real. It seems they have invited painters, sculptors, potters, doll makers, clockmakers, ukiyoe artists, and all sorts of other artists.”

“Ahn? That doesn’t sound like a Hollywood movie to me. That sounds more in the direction of a traditional craft or something. Why are they calling all sorts of people like that?” asked Mikoto with a spoon in her mouth making the spoon move up and down as she spoke.

“About that!!”

“Mgh!?”

The spoon fell from Mikoto’s mouth as a sudden loud voice came from behind her.

She turned around and saw the genius girl film director walking there.

“Did you finish your work?”

“It was really more of an inconvenient process required of us, so I wouldn’t really say it was part of my work. Now back to the topic at hand,” Beverly said nonchalantly. “Liberal Arts City—or rather, the rival spirit of the American film companies—has turned in the direction of the leading edge of the science side, j.a.pan’s Academy City. They have concluded that they can’t win just by simply developing further technology such as CG or VFX. As such, they want to grow in a different direction from Academy City and they think a hint may lie in the more traditional arts.”

However, they were not simply planning to make a movie out of puppets or anything. Once they had perfectly a.n.a.lyzed the traditional art, they would check to see if it could be used in cutting edge films and then try to put it all together.

“And there are many different types of movies. Some have ancient dinosaurs and some have giant robots in the future. These traditional arts can of course be used for the historical movies, but they can also be studied to see in what way the arts evolved to help predict future evolutions of such things when creating a city set in the future.”

“Hehh,” Uiharu said in a very j.a.panese sound of admiration. “But is everyone cooperating? I think of potters as being stubborn old men.”

“Ah ha ha. Well, there’s a lot to this. Those kinds of arts are falling into decline all over the world. It isn’t unusual for these kinds of things to disappear altogether. Since Hollywood is taking great efforts to preserve them, they’re actually incredibly happy about the whole thing. They’ve even got things like a traditional j.a.panese workshop.”

If Academy City was a collection of cutting edge science, then that place was the opposite. It was a city created from a collection of traditional techniques from all over the world.

Mikoto and Uiharu gave more sounds of admiration, but Saten seemed not to be interested with that inside story. Her eyes were glued to Beverly’s giant b.r.e.a.s.t.s and she elbowed Uiharu in the side.

“(…Hey, Uiharu. What unprecedented cup size do you think she’s reached? I think she’s secretly made it to G or even I.)”

“Bgfh!?”

Uiharu choked and a few flower petals floated away from her head.

“Hm? They’re L,” Beverly responded.

“!?”

“!?”

“!?”

“!?”

An immeasurable shock pierced into those still-growing maidens. Saten regretted having brought it up, most of the flowers on Uiharu’s head fell out, s.h.i.+rai’s eyes opened wide, and physical sparks crackled from Mikoto’s back.

Saten was unable to move for a bit, but she finally managed to bring her hands to her flat chest.

“…Uiharu. Your cup size levels up every 2.5 cm, right?”

“Y-yes,” Uiharu nodded.

“A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L,” Saten muttered under her breath as she moved her hands away from her chest at set intervals.

Finally, her hand stopped.

Saten looked down at her own chest to check on the hopeless gap between her hands and her small chest.

“That’s a huge gap!! Look at how much s.p.a.ce there is here! Wait, this looks like I’m pantomiming hugging Uiharu!”

“Eeee!? Y-your calculations say my entire body would be buried in the b.o.o.bs!?”

Saten was in a state of confusion and Uiharu was yelling in a shrill voice. The winner at life, Beverly, watched them and laughed.

“Don’t worry. Your body will grow on its own whether you do anything about it or not. After all, b.r.e.a.s.t.s are nothing more than ma.s.ses of fat.”

“There it is!! The favorite line of the bourgeois winners!! Uiharu, bring out the sun oil. Let’s oil up the entire body of this girl and her pointlessly huge b.r.e.a.s.t.s!! Let’s show her what tears taste like!!”

“Ah ha ha. You don’t scare me,” Beverly laughed.

Suddenly, there was a great noise like a beer stein or a judge’s gavel being slammed down. It was caused by Misaka Mikoto slamming the bottle of oil on the table.

The flat-chested girl was hanging her head down so her expression could not be seen and her entire body was wrapped in a dark shadowy aura.

“Hey, you,” she said while barely moving her lips.

Mikoto slowly raised her head as a rumbling sound effect could be heard in the background.

Her eyes glowed like a carnivorous beast’s as she stared straight at Beverly and spoke like a drill sergeant.

“I’ll teach you that sun oil can sometimes be an excellent weapon.”

Misaka Mikoto watched Beverly Seethrough’s s.h.i.+ny retreating back with its slumped shoulders. She then high fived Saten, punched s.h.i.+rai Kuroko who was trying to rub the oil on her body, and then returned to her senses at a comment from Uiharu.

“Uh? Weren’t you going to get Beverly-san’s autograph?”

(Dahh!! There’s just too much going on.)

An overseas trip just had too many things to do.

Mikoto returned to her hotel room because she knew it would be bad if she forced herself to stay in such high spirits all the way until morning. She entered the bathroom, turned on the sink faucet, and washed all the oil off of her hands.

“Hoo…”

She returned to the main room and sat on the bed.

She could see a summer night through the window. The buildings and pathways were of course decorated with various types of lights. She could see a large number of fireworks bursting in the distance and the dark ocean was being used as a screen to display various images.

(The pamphlet said something about a night swim in the ocean of light, but I just don’t feel like swimming right now. I think I had too much fun during the day because I’m kind of tired.)

Mikoto wanted to just collapse into the bed, but she did not do so.

There was still something she had to do.

“…”

There had been that battle between the fighters and the flying fish during the day.

And there had been that strange situation where everything was dealt with as if it had been a show.

She did not know what was going on in that city, but she had to stop it before another flying fish came and someone ended up dead. At the very least, Liberal Arts City had definitely intentionally hidden the incident by using the term “show” to make it disappear despite it happening right before people’s eyes.

(But then…)

She was not in j.a.pan’s Academy City.

If she investigated into the secrets of the city, she could easily be shot on the grounds of protecting their information. It sounded like something from a movie, but she was not in j.a.pan. She could not forget that she was in a place where anyone could easily get their hands on a gun.

“…”

Mikoto thought for a bit.

And then she nodded.

In that dangerous situation, Liberal Arts City had not provided emergency exits or even sounded an alarm. She could not exactly have a fun, carefree time knowing that. She could get wrapped up in a fight between fighters and flying fish again. Or some other “show” could take place. There was even a chance that her or some other visitor could end up being made into guest performers as the ones that get taken out.

Even though she had managed to stop it the first time, there was no guarantee that she would be able to stop it the next time.

“I guess I’ll do this.”

She looked over at the corner of the room where a device like a convenience store ATM was located. Liberal Arts City was an ocean and water theme park. That made it difficult to carry paper money around, so visitors borrowed an IC card upon entering and it could be charged with electronic money whenever needed. This allowed visitors to go to any facility they wanted with just that one card and small change to use for tips.

Mikoto lightly rubbed the chip portion of the IC card with her thumb. She then pushed the card up against the reader for charging it. With a beep, it switched from the simple screen for guests to a cold and efficient screen for the maintenance staff.

She had used her electric ability to hack in.

She pa.s.sed her thumb over the IC chip again returning the monetary information back to normal. She then began typing on the keyboard displayed on the touch panel monitor.

She wanted all the information on the attractions and shows taking place in the city.

It seemed that information was not held on that computer itself, so she started to hack into Liberal Arts City’s local network.

“Wah!? ...What the h.e.l.l?” Mikoto cried out as she looked at the screen.

She did not cry out because she was faced with extremely difficult security.

It was the opposite.

(Wah! Wah! I had heard that Academy City’s technology was 20 or 30 years ahead of the rest of the world, but I can’t believe their system is written in such an old style of language… This is like seeing a car running on coal.)

It was so simple that Mikoto felt it might be a trap.

But of course, not every student living in Academy City could do that kind of thing. Mikoto was both enough of a genius to go to Tokiwadai Middle School and she was the strongest esper in the category of electrical powers.

To her, Liberal Arts City’s security was not even at the level of a bucket with a hole in it. It was more like a bucket made of cotton cloth.

And the information she got was real.

The “show” with the fighters and the flying fish after the pirate s.h.i.+ps had indeed been a real battle.

(They have 50 interceptor fighters based on F-35s and made to look like the s.h.i.+ps from Alien Wars. This armored clothing and these rifles are…for the officials? I see. Those aren’t costumes. They really are fully equipped. And these aren’t even replicas. They’re all real guns. And they have tanks, armored vehicles…and PAC-3’s? Wait, those are surface-to-air missiles meant to intercept nuclear missiles! What kind of threat are they expecting!?)

From what she could see, Liberal Arts City had more firepower than an American military base in j.a.pan. However, the area did not have the intimidating air of a military run facility. It seemed like they knew a powerful enemy was coming, so they were frantically gathering as much firepower as they could.