Vol 2 Chapter 6 (2/2)

“Gh…gh…”

Despite having collapsed, the rioter’s fingertips were wriggling which caused even Mikoto to gasp in surprise.

And then…

(…?)

Mikoto heard a creaking sound from the side.

As soon as she heard it, multiple shelves from the gun shops collapsed all at once as if they had been hit by heavy machinery.

“Wha—!?”

At that time, Mikoto remembered a doc.u.mentary on tropical oceans she had seen.

More accurately, she recalled the sea anemones.

What reminded her of them were all the hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands!!!!!

“…!! What happened to your guns!?”

Mikoto magnetically manipulated one of the shelves that had been knocked over. She sent it sliding across the floor at high speed as if it was sliding on ice. It took out the rioters’ feet knocking them over.

But that was not enough.

She then heard a metallic click behind her.

“I didn’t say that because I was hoping you would bring the guns back!!”

Multiple gunshots rang out.

Mikoto dropped down her hand that was up in the air while magnetically manipulating the rebar in the ceiling. A large amount of building materials came cras.h.i.+ng down like a shutter creating a s.h.i.+eld against the bullets.

An unpleasant sweat appeared over Mikoto’s body.

There were some rioters as well as Mikoto along the path where the bullets would have gone. They truly were just a gathering of strangers, so they did not care about friendly fire.

She could not continue stopped in one place.

She had to stop the guns from being spread out from that gun shop area, but getting swallowed up by the waves of people would not help anything.

“…!!”

Mikoto gritted her back teeth and moved swiftly. She fired a few more flashes and roars in the place of stun grenades and used all her speed to leave that gun shop area.

She cut across a grocery corner and into a do-it-yourself carpentry corner while a few bullets were fired nearby.

(I can’t do anything if I don’t neutralize their guns.)

Mikoto ducked down and ran between shelves while covering her head from the remnants of the products being blown away by the rifle bullets.

(My power can do a lot of things, but it’s easier to use by strengthening it with items gathered from the area than just using it by itself. Even its namesake, the Railgun, is like that…)

Mikoto practically slid into the corner she was headed for and grabbed the package she was going for. It was a large plastic bag about the size of a bag of rice.

(And so is my magnetic control using iron sand.)

Inside the bag were business use hand warmers.

The package held a few dozen of them and Mikoto used magnetism to rip them apart from the inside.

There were multiple types of hand warmers, but those ones had iron powder inside.

“Personally, I find iron sand easier to use, but I guess this is no time to be picky.”

She heard a sound similar to when an insect flew by her ear.

The advantage of iron sand or iron powder was that it could easily be interfered with using magnetism. If she made it vibrate at high speed, she could cut objects as if with a chainsaw and she could change it into the form of a sword, a spear, or a whip at will.

For example, it was not difficult to send out orders that caused ma.s.ses smaller than a speck to be fired into the barrels or the ejection ports of the guns to tear them apart from the inside.

The sound of objects slicing through the air continued.

However, the sound was not that of rifle bullets.

It was the sound of the “bullets” of iron powder Mikoto was firing being swallowed up by the barrels of the rioter’s guns.

(This will work.)

She was now sure of that as she started to run again.

This time, she was not trying to flee. She was running in order to fight.

(This way, I can neutralize all of the guns being looted from that area! I can avoid the worst possible situation!!)

Just as she thought that, Mikoto sensitively felt an invisible current in the atmosphere. It was not a physical current of air. It was the current of emotions that had spread throughout the area and given rise to that rioting.

It had chaotically spread through that area like a giant balloon being filled to its limits within an airtight room.

However, it was now as if a gap had been created.

The flowing feelings were leaving for somewhere else. The tense feelings started to move off into the distance.

At first, Mikoto thought it was just the rioters faltering at the beginning of her counterattack.

But it was not that.

It was…

That current of emotions was…

(The target of the violence…has changed to something else?)

Mikoto frowned while continuing to destroy the rioters’ rifles from the inside.

(The Russian version of the uranium ornament story had me as the ultimate villain. Why would they start to leave their primary target alone…?)

Had the violence advanced to the point where their original reasons no longer mattered? If so, it could be a major problem in its own way, but…

(Wait.)

Mikoto suddenly realized something.

(It’s possible this rioting is being caused by Code EIC. What if it was caused in order to stop us from reaching the center of the incident…?)

Mikoto stopped running without even realizing it.

(That would mean the target of the rioting had moved to Lessar who’s even closer to the center of it all!!)

Mikoto was not the one who was truly in the most danger.

It was Lessar who was heading for the center of Code EIC.

She had finally realized that fact, but dozens of rioters were still heading her way like an avalanche.

“Out of the way…”

Sparks crackled around Mikoto.

A large amount of iron dust writhed like a living being.

“Get out of my waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”

Part 5

Lessar was running down a long narrow pa.s.sageway.

The narrow duct had not continued on straight to her destination. There were areas where she had to come out above ground. And even if it had continued on, she would not have just headed through it. If the rioters had noticed her while she was travelling through that narrow area, she would have been trapped.

As such, Lessar had headed a certain distance through the duct and then come back up onto the first floor.

“I expected this wouldn’t be exactly easy…”

She ran at full speed without even glancing behind her.

“…but actually experiencing it is something else entirely!!”

It was like the scenes common to adventure-style action movies where the hero was chased by a giant steel ball.

However, there were dozens of men and women chasing Lessar in place of the steel ball. As they had legs, they did not need to roll, but the front row would be knocked down and trampled and then the next row would get tripped up in the same way. This made it look like she was being chased by a giant sphere made of human beings.

Lessar could feel something rather cold running down her spine while an enjoyment of the thrill somewhere in her heart caused a smile to come out on her face.

(This is bad. Very, very bad. I’m pretty sure I’ve still got a ways to go before I reach the stock market center where the center of Code EIC is.)

She could feel a vague sense of cruelty chasing after her in addition to the physical pursuers.

(It looks like my approach was detected and they divided up the rioters to have some go after me.)

Lessar had so readily split up with Mikoto because she had expected that to happen.

But suddenly Lessar saw a large group of rioters flowing out up ahead in the long pa.s.sageway. She was being attacked from both sides. The knives and fire extinguishers in their hands seemed even more dangerous than guns that could kill in one shot.

(Wow! Their fingers are fidgeting around like crazy!!)

Lessar suddenly changed directions and leapt to the other side of a metal door partway down the pa.s.sageway. She sealed the door with the table and other heavy objects within and was finally aware of just what kind of situation she was in. She was fed up with it.

The room was small.

It was not a place for customers. Most likely, cleaning supplies were stored inside the room. There were no other exits.

She was isolated.

But Lessar completely forgot about that kind of issue.

A greater danger lay before her eyes.

“Why…?” she muttered. “Why is there a magical bomb set up in this city of science?”

A stone big enough to just barely be held in one arm lay in the center of the room. No, technically, it was not a stone. It was a stone of charms that was created from dozens, hundreds, even thousands of parchments glued together.

(…It’s using a misinterpretation of Revelation. I guess it’s a large scale bomb that uses the sulfur fire. Well, it’s a fairly popular method to change that description to an attack method.)

Sulfur fire was of course not something physical or chemical.

In that case, it was easier to think of it as something that gave one lasting and intense pain by giving a burning pain to the skin and damage to the internal organs.

It could not be seen.

It ignored all obstacles.

And yet it was a means of attack that would definitely damage every person within range.

The bomb did not kill. Instead, it gave people incurable pain.

(If this “invisible bomb” were detonated here while there is a rumor going around of someone hidden in the city trying to detonate a nuclear bomb, it’s clear what the rioters would mistake it for with their dulled judgement.)

While looking at the sulfur fire made up of a giant ma.s.s of charms, Lessar stuck her hand into her pocket. She pulled out a card-shaped communications spiritual item made out of thick paper.

“h.e.l.lo, Bayloupe?”

“What is it, Lessar?”

“I’ve found a bit of a Revelation-ish bomb. Is this you or the others’ doing by any chance?”

“How about you ask me again? I’ll give you 100 spankings.”

“Hmm, I see…”

“So are you saying there’s another cabal hidden here besides us?”

“Pretty much,” Lessar said before smacking herself on the forehead. “Achahh!”

A banging noise could continually be heard. The rioters were touchingly acting as a group in order to destroy the metal door.

“This means this whole situation is likely to get a bit more complicated…”

“Lessar,” Bayloupe cut in stopping Lessar’s thoughts. “Sorry for cutting in while you were getting heated up, but I don’t think the merits for us outweigh the risks here.”

“Even though this has spread beyond a purely science side problem and has begun to involve the magic side as well?”

“That would be a job for the official groups like Necessarius. It does not fit our goal. There is some kind of plan being carried out in this city and some magicians besides us may be involved, but there is no need for us to clean up for them. There are no merits to match the risks, so we need to quickly retreat.”

“…I’m guessing this means I can’t expect any reinforcements.”

“Even if we save the people in this city, it will not benefit us in any way.”

“Then I have no choice,” said Lessar admitting her colleague was right. “Bayloupe.”

“What?”

“Let’s have a real fight once this is over. You can use your Gjallarhorn or whatever else you want.”

Having said what she had to say, Lessar cut off the connection.

She did a general a.n.a.lysis of the sulfur fire’s construction by sight.

(…The construction itself is simple, but the amount will make dismantling it take some time. It looks like it’ll take between 15 and 30 minutes.)

She heard a great thud coming from the metal door. The door was beginning to dent inwards.

(The problem is that they don’t look like they’re going to give me that much time.)

But she could not just leave it alone and wait for it to detonate either.

Lessar pulled out a few Nihon Daruma “souvenirs” from her pocket. She smeared a yellow chemical on her thumb, muttered a spell under her breath, and then traced her thumb across one of the charms making up the stone-like object.

The charm fell off like a dried leaf.

(I estimate there are about 30,000 of them. I’ve simplified the dismantling ceremony down as much as possible, but I still may not make it in time.)

As Lessar’s fingers raced along, the charms peeled off one by one.

However, she was indeed going to be too slow.

A violent din rang from the metal door clearly declaring her time limit. The door was already bent and multiple pairs of eyes could be seen peering through the gap.

She guessed the straining sound she heard was coming from the hinges.

Suddenly, an L-shaped crowbar stabbed through the gap between the door and the wall. With a cracking noise, the gap started to widen due to the principle of leverage.

(Not good…!!)

The door was not going to last.

If the rioters came pouring in before she had dismantled the sulfur fire, all of the civilians in the area would take the full brunt of the magical bomb.

Lessar was thinking that, but…

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out and the crowbar was knocked away.

The gunshot had not come from outside the door. It had clearly come from within the room. But there was no one inside the room besides Lessar.

Lessar turned toward the source of the noise in shock.

“…Above?”

“Moving through ducts is a basic part of action movies.”

A square portion of the ceiling was removed and the upper half of a woman appeared upside down through it. They were in a Russian facility but the handgun the woman held was a foreign gun, so it may have been a favorite of hers.

(So this city has ducts running through both above and below.)

“Who are you?”

“I am Enirya G. Algonskaya of the security guards,” said the redheaded woman giving a simple introduction. “I rushed over here thinking Misaka Mikoto was here, but it looks like I was wrong. At any rate, it seems you’re trapped here. I’ll protect you, so grab onto my hand.”

“I’d really, really like to do so, but…”

“?”

“Do you know what this is I’m dismantling? Nn, I guess you wouldn’t. Well…just think of it like a time bomb filled with a liquid explosive. If I just leave it here, those vigorous rioters will be completely blown way.”

“A bomb? …G.o.d d.a.m.n it,” Enirya cursed.

She pulled her upper body back inside the duct and then dropped down into the small room right side up.

“Do you have the skills to dismantle it? Since you’re already touching it, I sure as h.e.l.l hope you’re a specialist.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. More importantly…”

A great din started coming from the metal door once more.

“Could you do something about them?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Enirya stuck the barrel of her gun into the gap between the door and the wall and pulled the trigger without hesitating. Dry gunshots rang out and a sense of faltering could be sensed from the other side.

“How long is it going to take to dismantle that thing!?”

“Fifteen minutes if we’re lucky. Thirty if we’re not.”

Even as Lessar said that, her hands were sending charm after charm falling from the stone-like ma.s.s. The great amount of fallen parchments looked like a pile of feathers.

Enirya fired through the gap in the door and seemed to be contacting someone over her radio. She was likely sending a security guard unit to the pa.s.sageway outside the door. But would they make it in time? Could they prepare enough strength to restrain the group of people who had become a ma.s.s of cruelty?

Suddenly, a new grinding sound became audible.

It was coming from the other side of the wall.

The wall opposite the door.

“Uuh… I have a very bad feeling about what that means.”

“?”

“You’re one of the security guards that was there back then, right? Then you should recognize that sound. Don’t you remember hearing that when the remote controlled equipment showed up?”

“That’s the sound of…treads…?”

Enirya stopped firing and turned around toward the opposite wall.

Immediately afterwards, the heavy equipment plowed through the reinforced concrete wall and appeared amid a cloud of dust.

It was a small snowplow.

This time it was not equipped with a light machine gun and it had no explosives on it. It was simply being driven by one of the enraged rioters.

Lessar and Enirya jumped to the walls on the left and right as the snowplow cut through the center. It plowed through the table and metal door on the other side of the room and continued into the pa.s.sageway filled with rioters.

Even so, the next noise was that of cheering.

The rioters were letting out joyous voices at the fact that they could resume their violence now that the door was out of their way.

Enirya fired a few shots, but it was meaningless.

Countless rioters charged in through the two holes opened up in the walls.

Lessar did not stop her dismantling job and she was forced to wrap her arms around the bomb as if she were trying to protect it.

She felt her throat dry up, but there was nowhere left to flee.

She would be swallowed up.

It was pointless to ask Enirya for help. The woman was about to disappear amidst the crowd just as she was.

Arms…

Legs…

They both flew at her and pain exploded just beneath her skin. Before the feeling could disappear, the next strike would come. And the next, and the next, and the next. The number of blows acc.u.mulated in no time at all. She tried to ball up and protect her organs as much as possible, but she wasn’t sure how effective her efforts were. She was saved by the fact that the rioters were packed in too tightly, so they did not have room to aim their guns at her. However, being driven closer and closer to death by their bare hands was a h.e.l.l of its own.

The situation may have been truly bad.

Lessar noticed an iron-like flavor welling up from deep in her throat. She could tell her thoughts were growing dull. Her pain exceeded a certain level and she began to feel nothing more than a vague heat.

(…Fire…)

That thought vaguely entered her head.

(Sulfur…fire…)

The ma.s.s she was holding in her hands fell to pieces. The final explosion-causing charm lost its effects and slipped from her hands.

With even her pain in a vague state, Lessar smiled slightly.

And then something flew by at high speed piercing through the walls on the left and the right that had not yet been destroyed.

It ripped through the air at three times the speed of sound.

An extremely tiny projectile pierced through the wall at a point almost at the ceiling. This smashed the entire wall spreading pieces of concrete everywhere.

A glowing orange line remained burned in the retinas of everyone there.

Shortly afterwards, the rioters crowded inside that small s.p.a.ce were blown away as if it were an afterthought. Some were hit by the shockwave and some were hit by the whirling concrete fragments. As if that raging violence had been overwritten by an even more sublime violence, the situation was completely turned around in an instant.

A low rumbling noise could be heard.

With the four walls destroyed, the now unsupported ceiling began to collapse.

The rioters that could still move frantically ran from the room, but the tragedy they were expecting did not occur.

Ignoring gravity, the concrete ceiling floated in midair.

It was as if magnetism were being manipulated.

“…Chehh. You stole the best part,” Lessar muttered while still collapsed on the ground.

Enirya looked over in the direction Lessar was looking and discovered who the “ruler” was.

“Misaka…Mikoto…”

Enirya spat out some saliva mixed with blood and adjusted her grip on her handgun with b.l.o.o.d.y hands. The incessant violence had left her in a situation where she could not even stand up, but she still managed to hold her right arm out.

Mikoto’s expression did not change despite having the gun aimed at her.

“Aren’t you pointing that at the wrong person?”

“N...no. You are the…highest priority.”

Her hand was trembling, but there was a piercing light in her eyes.

Amid the strange silence, Enirya stared through her gun sight at the suspect and asked a question.

“Misaka…Mikoto. Are you…the leader…behind this…incident?”

Mikoto smiled slightly upon hearing the question.

And then she unhesitatingly responded.

Her response seemed to be directed not just at Enirya but at all the rioters there as well.

“Do you really think that person would come here to save a security guard?” This time, Mikoto asked a question. “Do you have any ideas who could be behind this?”

“That is…what I am currently…investigating. It’s not just…you. I am…thoroughly investigating…every single…suspicious person.”

Her strength must have been at its limit.

After saying that, Enirya’s right hand fell to the floor. It seemed she had lost consciousness.

Silence fell over the room.

Bluish-white sparks flew from Mikoto’s bangs destroying that silence,

“…I am really p.i.s.sed right now.”

She did not run away. She headed straight into the rioters.

She did it because she knew it was right.

She did not hesitate.

“I am not trying to kill any of you as I head forward, but make sure not to screw up and get yourselves killed.”

Part 6

Enirya woke up to a stabbing pain.

It was different from the feeling before that could not be distinguished from heat.

She realized it was due to disinfectant and tried to get up from the floor.

“You should stay still,” said a fellow security guard.

“Where…am I?” Enirya said moving her lips that were covered in dried blood.

From the looks of things, she was not very far away from the place where she had been attacked by the rioters. There were a few security guards armed with guns stationed in the long, narrow pa.s.sageway.

(…What happened? Was I saved by the suppression strategy…?)

Suddenly, Enirya remembered what had actually happened.

Just before she had pa.s.sed out someone other than the security guards had shown up.

Enirya asked for an explanation of the situation while half-grabbing her colleague’s collar.

“What happened?”

“It was Misaka Mikoto.”

“What happened to that primary suspect!? She was here before, right!?”

But her colleague shook his head.

“I don’t know what happened to her…”

Just because the battle ended in one place did not meant that the rioting was completely over.

After all, the disturbance had spread throughout the entire shopping mall. Things had gone beyond the level where just a strong individual like Mikoto could do anything about it. It could not be stopped without the power of a group.

“Didn’t you go a little easy on that security guard?” said Lessar while she spread disinfectant on her wounds. “From how she was acting, I’m betting she’s still going to bare her fangs at you.”

“I don’t need to worry about that. If she truly is trying to find who is behind this incident, she is not my enemy even if she does get in my way.” After saying that, Mikoto changed the subject. “But what kind of people are the higher ups of the shopping mall?”

“I’m sure they didn’t want this much damage. It’s possible they don’t have many cards left to play. They may have started a wildfire with a cigarette b.u.t.t and now they aren’t able to put it out.”

“They have control of Code EIC and they can send out any information they want, right? …In that case, wouldn’t they be able to use the news and other things to control the scale and flow of the rioting?”

“The people don’t know about Code EIC. It does not send out orders that people are obligated to follow. Instead, it adjusts the direction they head in without them realizing it. If they tried to forcibly change the direction of the people, there’s a danger that the people would notice the inconsistency. If that happened, where do you think the people’s anger would turn? Humans are easily deceived, but a human that enjoys being deceived is a rare thing indeed.”

Lessar led Mikoto to an underground facility within the shopping mall.

Inside were many booths divided by transparent part.i.tions made of reinforced gla.s.s. In addition to the normal screens and monitors, the walls, ceiling, and other surfaces were all monitors for the Semipublic AR. The entire s.p.a.ce was filled with flowing numbers. The size of the area was around the size of small concert hall. The conspicuous facility was constructed out of straight lines and was colored mainly a pale blue.

“This is like the color scheme of a men’s bathroom,” Lessar commented letting her troubling impression leak out.

Mikoto ignored her.

“So this is it?”

“As I said before, this is the stock market center that centers on the tenant-owned stores within the shopping mall. The stocks for all of the companies in the city are handled here. It’s a market that is connected to the entire world through the network. It’s listed in the shopping mall’s pamphlet as one of the sightseeing spots. It suggests that one experiences its ‘real’ presence.”

When she looked closer, Mikoto noticed that here was a s.p.a.ce up high on the wall that circled around the entire area. It may have been similar to how foreigners loved seeing the fish markets in j.a.pan.

Mikoto hung her head down as she thought.

“So there’s a giant computer that can carry out ma.s.sive amounts of calculations and a large scale server that can exchange data on trading from all over the world with no lag…”

“If the higher ups wanted to extend Code EIC beyond the shopping mall, there’s no better facility for it, right?”

“I know that, but…”

Mikoto looked around.

On the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the part.i.tions, the monitors, the screen