Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter3

Chapter 3: Two Members of the Most Dangerous Non-Native Species

Part 1

The world of Celesaqphere had no god. Because after creating all life in that world, its god left.

But that wasn’t a problem.

Because if anyone was in serious trouble, a pair of goddesses would break the invisible barrier and come to rescue them.

Part 2

It had seen Mikoto.

What had? The 120m dragon flying through the sky.

“Oh, no! It’s coming this way!!”

The great mass charged in at a sharp angle that clearly differed from a large passenger plane or bomber.

As soon as Mikoto jumped from the rooftop, the top three floors of the skyscraper were torn away by the dragon’s scales, which were like a grater or a saw. A graze from those would be enough to destroy a human body. Whichever building wall Mikoto chose to magnetically land on next, she was dealing with a living creature. She was doomed if it predicted her course and attacked just as she landed!!

(How many skyscrapers are left, and at what distribution? Being able to stick to building walls doesn’t buy me much in a lengthy battle against a winged beast!!)

Mikoto might be able to bring it down with a Railgun, but that attack’s range was only 50m. In a grounded fight, that was plenty, but in a fast-moving air battle, it would require being at “close range”. She had to assume the odds of hitting were close to zero if she fired at random. She needed a plan.

Meanwhile, on the ground…

“The gate is just sitting open. What is going on here?”

Shokuhou casually walked outside of Academy City.

She found roiling blue there.

The ground crumbled away like a cliff immediately outside the wall and only a tropical-looking sea could be seen far below. But that didn’t mean there was no other land. Land like broken pieces of eggshell was slowly moving overhead. They were all moving at the speed of clouds in the wind, but they appeared to be governed by some kind of rules that prevented them from colliding. They varied in size from small islands to massive continents and countless waterfalls of all sizes poured down into the sea below.

Simply put, she found herself in another world.

The eggshell shards of land had polished marble spires sticking up from them. Probably parts of castles or churches. It would be simple enough to write it off as medieval European, but Shokuhou’s knowledge of world history didn’t contain any of the designs she was seeing.

It looked like she really was in a fantasy world of swords and sorcery.

There was even a giant dragon flying nearby.

(A world with broken land floating above an ocean planet, hm? That means Academy City here isn’t on the surface either. It’s on a relatively low level, but it’s still floating above the blue core.)

Shokuhou had a question.

But she didn’t have enough power to check on the answer.

(The nearest small island is more than 50m away. I can’t reach it on foot since it’s floating and I don’t see how I can clear the vertical or horizontal distance without Misaka-san’s magnet ability. That dragon isn’t human, so Mental Out won’t work on it. That means taming it and soaring through the sky on its back isn’t an option.)

Now the #5 was also curious what this place was.

Did that mean a truce with the electric girl?

(New plan: earn that idiot’s trust ability and then stab her in the back when she lets her guard down☆)

Shokuhou let out a quick sigh to refocus her mind before aiming her TV remote toward a giant slate covered in ancient angular writing that sat on the edge of the cliff.

She was reading the residual thoughts, not the mysterious writing.

Just because this was another world full of crazy-looking nature and strange magic didn’t mean espers were entirely powerless there.

“Misaka-saaan. I think I’ve found how to defeat that legendary dragon.”

“No! I just know you’ll tell me the wrong thing on purpose!! You’re trying to get it to kill me so you don’t have to do it yourself! So no thank you!!!”

…What a great idea.

The scheming girl was just a bit impressed, but she kept that to herself.

And Mikoto didn’t wait for Shokuhou’s reaction. As she continued jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper, the 120m dragon got impatient and charged in, so Beast Hunter Mikoto hopped onto its back.

Shokuhou didn’t know if Mikoto would believe her, but she (cutely) formed a megaphone with her hands and shouted up from the ground.

(Let’s see…)

“First, slaying the Brain Edge Dragon requires the Sword of Valor, but to get that you need the Rusty Blade from the depths of the mines of Orion, Celesaqphere’s western continent, and then you need to get it retempered by the dwarves who live in the Brand Mountain Range, but the dwarves are at war with the elves, which means they’re too busy to accept outside work, so you need to resolve that millennium-long conflict and bring the war to an end, but the parchment needed for the treaty can only be made from the Eternal Agreement Goat which is only found on the southern continent of Boutique and catching the goat is a lot easier if you have the Silver Throwing Net, so you should first go talk to the mermaids in the Seabed Kingdom, but mermaids are shy and you’ll first need to increase your communication ability by polishing your conversational skill which is best done by studying at the acting school in the Urban continent’s largest casino town of Vernment and you need letters of recommendation from five people to get in, but trying to negotiate for those will get you nowhere, so its best to force the issue with money ability and the fastest and most reliable way to make a lot of money is to skip the casino where the pro dealers control who wins and loses and to head out of town and work as a bounty hunter, and the best place to find high-bounty monsters is the northern continent of Snowdome, so you’ll need to charter a ship there, register with the guild, and – no, wait, chartering a ship requires a travel permit, which you’ll have to acquire on your own – and once you’ve registered with the guild, you need to head to the off-limits White Snowplains to hunt down 20 each of Rank 5 Big Mammoths and Paradise Wendigos, which will be enough to reach the sum you want, but first timers aren’t given the big jobs like that, so you’ll need to first work smaller jobs to increase your star ranking – I do hope you’re paying attention to all this – and once you have the money, you head back to the casino town of Vernment in Urban, but if you try to travel by ship with all that money, there’s a 100% chance of being targeted by pirates, so you’ll need to hire some bodyguards first and the best guards in Snowdome are the Dawnbright Valors, so you’ll want to go speak with them, but if they know how rich you are, they’ll jack up their prices and take all your money from you, so be careful about that, but don’t worry because if you challenge their leader to single combat and win, that won’t be an issue anymore, but once you’ve gotten into the acting school in Vernment, you’ll receive acting lessons, but since you’re after the shy mermaids, you’ll want to choose the comedy classes, but while it usually takes three years to graduate, you don’t need to stick around that long, so you can leave after picking up the basics during the first week, but escaping the dorm-only school requires some real technique, so it’s recommended you first contact a group of failing students and get them to tell you the best escape route, but if you escape with them, they’ll stick with you and pretend to be helping you until they eventually betray you, so keep that in mind as you escape the acting school and make your way to the Seabed Kingdom, but reaching that kingdom requires entering a whale’s belly and that doesn’t do you any good if you die in there, so you need a Survival Capsule first, but you can get one of those from the worker’s guild in the port city of Belzar, so don’t bother trying to steal one, and once you have the Survival Capsule, you can dive into the ocean, but before the whale will swallow you whole, you have to disguise yourself as-”

A deafening explosion erupted out.

The thought of traversing all those floating continents on a grand adventure must have sounded like a huge pain in the rear to Mikoto because she launched a Railgun into the dragon’s back from point-blank range and slayed the 120m monster in a single attack.

The great mass lost its speed and, thanks to its wings, slowly dropped toward the ground.

(Huh? Is it…falling this way?)

“Why are you like this, Misaka-san!?”

“Eat 120m monster, schemerrrrrrrrr!!”

The effect was like a cross between a meteor strike and a bomber performing a belly landing.

Academy City’s gate was very noisily obliterated.

Shokuhou tried to run away, but she tripped over her own feet, fell, and performed a few panty-flashing somersaults to just barely avoid the massive attack.

Mikoto was furious.

“Stop including miracles in your plans!! It’s not fair!”

“I don’t want to hear about fair play from someone who tried to kill me along with the terrain ability around me!!”

The Fan Service Queen was flipped upside down in her short skirt as she blushed and shouted back. But her spirit of fan service may have gone too far because she looked more like she had taken an imaginary belly-to-back suplex.

However, this was a fantasy world where swords and sorcery were everything.

Are you serious? thought Mikoto. It was such a shock it took her a bit to grasp it.

Those weren’t birds flying around overhead. They were half-naked winged girls. A flock of two or three harpies or sirens were flying together.

“Squawk, squawk. Let’s go snatch some souls.”

“La la la. I know it’s necessary for the cursed song, but I hate having to look after my throat.”

Mikoto waved up from the ground, but they ignored her, suggesting she couldn’t contact them.

And why were they speaking Japanese? The reincarnation goddess too for that matter.

“Was the lack of information in an emergency not the only reason that cult appeared so quickly in Academy City?”

“Are you suggesting a cult was the natural result because the city was brought to a world where myths and religions provide real power in an everyday sort of way?” asked Shokuhou.

And.

If they accepted the ridiculous idea that they had died and been sent to another world, it did help explain some things.

Yes.

To be honest, it was hard to imagine a simple gas explosion killing two Level 5s at once.

Most likely, Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki had triggered a propane tank explosion while fighting during lunch and they were in critical condition. Mikoto didn’t know what the scientific term was, but they had to be in what was commonly known as an out-of-body experience. Maybe they were in a coma and maybe they were in a vegetative state, but they were still alive and that idiot goddess had jumped the gun on sending them to another world. They would be in real trouble if they didn’t quickly find a way to wake up and return to their original world.

That meant the Academy City they had been rampaging through was in a similar state.

The physical Academy City in western Tokyo had not been transferred here. A ghostlike version of the city had been taken to the other world with the two girls.

(A nonphysical city, huh?)

Mikoto held a hand to her chin in thought.

Anyone with the appropriate knowledge might have thought of the Imaginary Number District.

But unlike the pointy-haired boy who had witnessed all sorts of dangerous things because he got caught up in trouble about as commonly as a certain housekeeper, Mikoto and Shokuhou didn’t have the necessary knowledge or experience. Even if they had gotten very close at times, like contacting Kazakiri in her golden angel mode.

“But that would mean…” thought Shokuhou as she looked up into the sky.

They had met Shirai Kuroko, Hokaze Junko, Kobayashi Satori, and Kamijou Touma here, but had those people actually been a piece of this strange city?

If so that was the first good news in a (truly) long time.

They had been weirdly casual about Shirai and Kamijou being blown away before their eyes. It hadn’t felt real.

Mikoto muttered something else with a dark look on her face.

“That’s right. The real Kobayashi-san wouldn’t be the kind of freak to use colored pens to underline all the dirty words in her thick dictionary.”

“?”

Shokuhou wasn’t sure what that idiot was talking about, but she decided it would be best not to control Hokaze, Kobayashi, and the others in their attempt to return to Earth. They might look the same and have the same powers, but that wasn’t actually them. Which meant she couldn’t fully trust them.

Besides, the telepathic link with Kobayashi had already been severed.

She hadn’t actually tested it, but she doubted any of the people in this strange city could leave its walls. In a very literal sense, they could only be residents of the city.

Shokuhou decided to quit thinking about that version of Academy City.

The world outside it was what mattered now.

“And this.”

Shokuhou sat down on the ground and tossed a pebble toward Mikoto.

Mikoto didn’t even have to catch it.

Before it hit her, it slowed and started hovering in place.

“I was right. I thought the ground here might have a lot of iron since there’s so much rust-red sand, but the iron content must be really high for your magnetism ability to react and make it float☆”

“Hm.”

Tokyo’s soil had iron sand in it, but not this much.

They were in another world.

While fighting in the city, Mikoto had assumed the map and compass apps had stopped working because Shokuhou had cut off the internet, but apparently not.

Mikoto looked up into the sky.

“It seems like Academy City’s satellite is still up there. It bombed us after all.”

“That would mean the GPS measurements are being taken, but with the actual readings not matching the preset world map in the slightest, the computer must be getting tons of error abilities, automatically stopping any GPS services from working.”

“Probably.”

In another world, the distribution of geomagnetism might be different.

That could be why an Electromaster like Mikoto had been so irritable and aggressive.

“Yes, that must be it!! It’s all the magnetic anomaly’s fault, not mine! You have no excuse for your behavior, but I do!!”

“Hey!! Stop coming up with self-serving explanations!”

They had established another rule.

They still didn’t know how the eggshell shard floating islands managed to defy gravity, but they had an extremely high iron content. Mikoto’s magnetism might just be enough to leap between the floating islands.

“Come to think of it…you picked up on that awfully quick, Shokuhou. Why do you know so much about other worlds? From those phone novels? Y’know, the ones arranged vertically for a phone screen.”

“It’s just that researchers and engineers love using those names. They’ll choose a random mythological name for their new project to hide what it actually does.”

“…”

“Hee hee. But I bet your knowledge comes from manga, Misaka-san.”

At any rate, stepping outside of Academy City brought them to a cliff with an endless ocean far below. Even with water down there, they were high enough that the shock of impact would kill them.

A big, ancient slate was stabbed into the ground nearby, but Shokuhou had already read the residual thoughts in it and it didn’t seem to offer anything else.

“Misaka-san, could you take me to the nearest floating land?”

“Why should I help you?”

“Do you know how to investigate it on your own? Can you calculate how many days it will take before you encounter your first person to question? But I can read people’s memories and the residual thoughts in inanimate objects, which seems like it would help you solve this world’s mysteries a lot faster.”

Mikoto looked away and clicked her tongue.

And she spread her arms as if asking for a hug.

They had a deal.

Part 3

“Here goes.”

“Gyahhhhhhh!?”

Familiar gravity vanished.

Mikoto leaped about 30m with Shokuhou clinging to the side of her hip. This was a vertical jump. Shokuhou had asked for this, but she blanched and screamed at the sudden weightlessness.

The jump took them toward the closest floating land.

…But did this world have any other people living in it? If so, how did they travel between floating landmasses? If they couldn’t cheat with magnetically-fueled jumps, this had to be a very inconvenient world. Or did they all live all their lives on the floating land they were born on and leaving their home was severely frowned upon?

“Pant, gasp! Th-there’s something over there!!”

Still clinging to Mikoto’s hip, Luggage Girl Shokuhou pointed somewhere with serious tears in her eyes.

Mikoto cut the magnetic assistance and came to a brief stop in midair.

Then she magnetically tugged herself horizontally to forcibly bring her to new footing.

It was more like a large hunk of rock than an island. It had to be one of the smallest of the “eggshell pieces”. Still, it was about the size of a school classroom. Something was flattened atop the barren piece of rock. It was hard to identify while squashed flat, but it wasn’t quite the same as a hot-air balloon. It may have originally been an airship shaped like a rugby ball.

“But that would only be 10m even when inflated, wouldn’t it? I thought airships weren’t very efficient unless you made them humongous.”

“The logic ability of our world might not apply. The atoms, molecules, and technology here could be completely different from in our world, so maybe there’s a light and stable incombustible gas here.”

Whatever the case, that didn’t look like the result of a proper landing.

If it had been caught in the fight against the giant dragon, Mikoto and Shokuhou could be partially responsible, so they decided it would be best to investigate the flattened airship.

There was indeed someone there.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow…”

A woman of about 20 crawled out from below the gasbag’s thick material. To the two middle schoolers, a woman who skipped right past the three years of high school looked quite a bit older than them. …Although she seemed a little sad that she lost to Shokuhou when it came to boobs.

“Are you really in middle school?”

“Are we still doing that?”

The young woman, who was their first encounter with a resident of this world, was wearing a red princess dress. Her long purple hair was worn in gorgeous ringlets.

Her hair and clothing were both colored dazzlingly bright.

After crawling out on all fours, she didn’t seem capable of getting back up and tearfully tapped her lower back.

“I-I can’t believe I took a direct hit from a Continent Blade. Not a good start to a long journey… Now I have to pay for the airship and they’ll demand I pay more for breach of contract. If I’d known this would happen, I would have just thrown around some more money and bought one instead of going with a rental.”

Mikoto and Shokuhou were actually relieved to find she sounded like a sheltered rich girl.

They had plenty of experience with those in Tokiwadai, so seeing someone so obviously out of touch with ordinary people was like finding some good miso soup while traveling overseas.

Mikoto reached out a hand to help her up.

“Are you alright? And what’s a Continent Blade?”

“Thank you very much. Continent Blades are vacuum blades that appear unpredictably as the paths of the floating lands move through the air. They generally weaken and disperse quickly, but what do you think happens if you run into one in midair?”

Did this world have giant guillotines flying through the air year round?

According to the bright-colored young woman, airships and winged bicycles were crucial means of transportation in this world where floating lands were arranged in multiple layers, but simply running into one of the naturally-occurring Continent Blades had caused this disaster. A hole had been torn in the airship and it had crashed, the impact flattening it.

“This world has dragons, magic, and flying continents, but I guess it can’t all be fun and games.”

“But as inconvenient as it is, I am glad I was born in such an interesting world.”

There was no lie in the woman’s smile. Mikoto was honestly envious.

She felt nothing but disgust for her home of Academy City.

But why had this woman embarked on such a risky journey?

“I am 20 now. I have completed my magical education, so it is about time I left home and started my own business.”

“Huh, is that how it works here? Flying continents and magic schools. I’d love to go to one of those.”

“?”

The way Mikoto put that made the young woman tilt her head.

“So will you be living on your own now? Not having a dorm manager sounds great, but no allowance and having to earn your own living sounds nerve-racking.”

“It is. I am still a complete novice, but I thought the easiest business to get into for now would be the slave trade!”

Hm?

Did she…?

Did she just say something extremely messed up?

“Um?”

“Yes?”

“What, uh, did you just say? The easiest business to get into would be…?”

“The slave trade, what else?”

She said it as casually as someone saying they were going to try online stock trading to learn about money.

There was no wicked smile on her face. She only looked confused.

“Yes, any real merchant must eventually be wealthy enough to finance a large elf hunting group and buy a large slave airship. Personally, I hope to run a major market myself one day. You will never hit it big without first dreaming big, after all.”

“Ugh…”

Someone else crawled out from the squashed airship.

The girl of about 10 had long blonde hair. Her pointy ears were twitching, but her threadbare green dress was a lot more noticeable. It was sleeveless and had a mini tight skirt, but it was so filthy it was hard to focus on any of those details. The accident couldn’t have caused this. Those were stains that had accumulated over a long period of time. A jangling sound came from her. She had a thick steel collar around her skinny neck with a thick chain loosely attached to her emaciated ankles.

She was a slave.

The woman hadn’t been using slang or a dialectic term. She really sold people?

“My, my.”

And she didn’t even try to hide it.

This was perfectly normal as far as she was concerned.

They really were in another world.

“Can you do nothing right, slave?”

“…I-I’m sorry…”

Such a heavy apology should never have come from such a small child.

Her sluggish movement may have been the result of extreme exhaustion weighing on her body.

Her tiny hands held onto a large trunk made of thick leather.

She tried several times to lift it, but it simply wasn’t possible. Before Mikoto could hurry over and assist her, the girl was overpowered by the weight and toppled forward, causing the trunk to fall over with her.

Someone sighed.

It was the gaudy young woman.

“I explained the punishment for getting my precious clothing bag dirty, didn’t I? And it’s such a pain to do. Why must you waste so much of my time over something so silly?”

“…Ah…”

“The first three mistakes are a simple whipping, but the fourth means losing an ear. Those are the standard rules for slave elves, which you should know quite well as a slave so useless she wasn’t even worth putting on the market.”

The young woman grabbed one of the long, twitching ears, and yanked hard.

In her other hand, she all of a sudden held a large razor like a barber would use.

She wasn’t even angry.

She pressed the blade against the base of the ear just like someone might head to the front door after hearing the doorbell ring.

The small elf girl didn’t resist.

Her lifeless eyes carried the resignation of someone who had decided the destruction of her body and the death that followed would at least mean an end to the suffering.

But that was no mercy or kindness. It was the same as the illusionary warmth felt if you kept your hand buried in the cold snow long enough.

“…”

Mikoto knew nothing about this world.

She didn’t know its history, its culture, or its values.

But.

She couldn’t bear to see eyes without the spark of life in them.

Everything she saw here dug up painful memories. Memories of other girls who were treated as throwaway tools for a loathsome experiment and who obeyed without a word of complaint as they were slaughtered one after another.

She was reminded of the mass-produced military clones known as the Sisters.

Of the more than 10 thousand girls she had failed to save.

“Hey, there must be plenty of other jobs out there. Why would you go out of your way to be a slaver?”

“Because it’s so easy.”

The young woman didn’t even need to think about her answer.

“You don’t need any kind of qualifications or license to start. And if you want to start a big business, you need a quick way of earning enough money to get it off the ground, right? Anyone can do a job as simple as this, so it’s no more than the first step on the path toward greater success.”

“You cruelly rob people of their freedom, you force them to work against their will, and you wear them down to the bone… Haven’t you ever felt just a little bad about that?”

“Why in the world would I? Slaves are meant to be worked hard. If a slave is tough enough to last longer, that just means you have to push them even harder so you won’t have to continue feeding them! Keeping around healthy slaves for too long would only bankrupt me!!”

She sounded just like she was explaining that it was cheaper to throw out and replace an old, inefficient air conditioner.

It wasn’t any more than that in her mind.

…This wasn’t her crime alone. That was how this world worked. The real culprit was the environment that had raised the young woman to think this way.

Mikoto understood that intellectually.

But she was at her limit.

In a number of ways.

“I see,” muttered Mikoto under her breath.

She was getting sidetracked.

This trip to another world was likely the result of a mistake, so her top priority had to be investigating this world and finding a way back to Earth while this out-of-body experience was still only that. What to do about this slave elf had nothing at all to do with that goal.

She understood that.

But for some reason, Shokuhou didn’t try to stop her despite taking a cynical view of human nature and prioritizing efficiency.

Shokuhou’s silence didn’t mean she was opposed to Mikoto’s choice.

In fact, Shokuhou gently hugged the dazed little elf to her chest. And she did it so smoothly the master with the large razor just let it happen. So the young woman probably hadn’t even realized she had given up her hostage. Even though that had been to ensure the elf wouldn’t be hit on accident.

The #5’s look of silent approval told Mikoto she was free to do whatever she wanted.

“They look like us, they think like us, and they speak like us, but just because they’re ‘not human’ you think it’s okay to chain them up, buy and sell them, and work them to the bone? And even worse, you think it’s more economical for the master to work them literally to death? I see, I see.”

“?”

The slaver woman tilted her head.

There was no hostility or caution on her face. She truly could not figure out what about this was bothering Mikoto so much.

And.

Misaka Mikoto loathed this sort of unjust killing.

Crash!!!

A flower of light blossomed.

Thick electricity scattered, a rapidly-vibrating iron sand whip sliced through the air, and a Railgun scorched the air at three times the speed of sound.

The battle had begun.

Part 4

The noise was deafening and the light blinding.

Most likely, these supernatural phenomena would seem impossible even to the people of this world.

“Don’t worry.”

Shokuhou twirled the TV remote in her hand and pressed it against the forehead of the slave elf in her other arm.

“I can erase all the painful memories, but only if you truly want me to. First…yes, I know. I can remove those painful feelings and bitter emotions from deep in your heart☆”

With the click of a button, something returned to the slave’s lifeless eyes. That was probably the natural power to protect your formless life and seek a better future.

It was a light that should have been within the elf girl all along.

“Um.”

The slave girl moved her lips while held gently to Shokuhou’s large chest.

After being worn down so far her very core nearly broke, she asked a question.

“Why are you helping me? I’m only an inhuman elf…”

She sounded truly puzzled.

She had accepted the chain connecting her thick collar to her ankles as something normal, so she must have abandoned all hope of ever being rescued.

Shokuhou Misaki was not Misaka Mikoto.

But she too couldn’t bear to see anything like this.

The #3 was not the only who had failed to save a girl in the past.

Even if the deceased had accepted their death without resistance, it wasn’t so easy for the survivors to accept.

It never was.

“Well.”

(Telling her this rotten system reminds me of Dolly would be rude to this girl and that girl both.)

Shokuhou twirled her remote again and kept that answer to herself.

Academy City’s #5 Level 5 gave another answer instead.

“Maybe because you aren’t ‘only’ anything.”

“?”

“I mean, my Mental Out works on you. So whatever you might be, I have to accept that you have a mind just like mine☆” explained the honey girl with a smile.

It was just like Tokiwadai’s wicked Queen to imply Mikoto didn’t deserve human rights since Mental Out didn’t work on her.

Part 5

“Gwoahhhh!!!!”

The nonhuman trafficker shouted from the dust cloud.

Mikoto actually tensed in response.

That woman still had it in her to yell after receiving a rush of attacks from the #3. Specifically, the nonhuman trafficker had held out her palm to activate several layers of thick compressed air shields, which had slightly diverted the Railgun’s path. The Railgun could of course break through any number of those shields, but its path shifted slightly when piercing each layer, adding up to enough of an error that it had shifted a full shoulder width horizontally.

This was a skill system entirely different from Academy City’s espers.

It was another world’s magic.

“S Wind!!”

Wind twisted together into a spear thicker than Mikoto’s torso and shot out.

It didn’t end with just that. The nonhuman trafficker made a snap of her wrist.

“Spread Wind!!”

The motion produced a loud cracking sound.

However it worked, a whip made of vacuum gathered a flexible power and drew out a physical curve as it brutally tore away the ground at the girl’s feet. Orange sparks scattered, revealing the whip’s outline.

“You have some nerve disparaging Tornado Candyfloss, a midlevel Body Tamer and user of wind magic.”

But the wind and vacuum weapons were not what Mikoto found so odd.

The #3 girl was mildly surprised by how easily she was accepting everything happening here.

She was a resident of Academy City on the science side. Ordinarily, she would frown and reject an occult term like magic. But here it pierced right through the usual intellectual rejection to lodge itself deep in her mind.

Because it was reasonable to find it here.

She would need a specific reason to question it.

(The #5’s power doesn’t even work on me, so what is this?)

The nonhuman trafficker roared with a belligerent smile.

She was a threat that used magic, which was commonplace in this world.

“Yes, yes. My slave is my property, my dignity, and my possession. You have no right to question me on that. I felt sorry for that poor slave who was going to waste without anyone using her, so I invested my own money to give her a place to work! I did her a favor! Harming me for that kindness is simply unacceptable!!”

“…”

“When I was little, I saw some elves when I looked out the window of my carriage on the brick road.”

Her eyes sparkled.

Instead of scorn, those sick eyes were filled with duty and purpose.

“They had no collars and no masters and no one providing them a roof for shelter. Oh, those poor elves. That was when I decided I would gather enough power to make it on my own and then mercifully and charitably rescue them from their filthy primitive lives!!”

They were nothing but merchandise to her.

Mikoto recalled hearing that people unfamiliar with rabbits could accidentally break their skinny bones when holding them. She also recalled how dogs bred to be extremely small could damage their legs if they were taken on too many walks.

And this person saw that as the only form of happiness.

She saw the elves living in the forest as an abnormality and truly believed that they would be happier if a human tamed them and gave them a “proper” life.

The fool who couldn’t even imagine a viewpoint different from her own gave Mikoto a mocking grin.

“What will you do now? I hope you knew what you were getting yourself into picking a fight with nobility. Your fate is now mine to choose and I will not even let you be a slave. A vacuum whip can easily strip the flesh from your bones. My whip will peel away your skin and strip away the flesh so I can see your bo- gyah!!?”

The young woman hopped straight up before she was finished.

Mikoto winked with electricity scattering from her bangs.

“Now, I don’t know how you control the wind, but it looks like you have to give it the shape of a sword or a whip or whatever first. I can produce electricity in a vacuum.. You might be able to increase the insulation resistance a bit by compressing the air, but that won’t protect you unless it actually hits my attack. Did you actually think you could deflect ultra-quick electric attacks with a weapon that only covers the width of a stick?”

And it didn’t end there.

The #3 girl flicked an arcade coin up with her thumb.

Immobilized by the previous electric shock, the nonhuman trafficker had tears in her eyes.

Mikoto didn’t care.

“You caused all this tragedy!! You’re a shitty vortex that drags in the lives around you by your mere presence!!!”

The air was scorched orange at three times the speed of sound.

The nonhuman trafficker spun through the air before slamming into the ground. She had been knocked over by the Railgun shooting past her, not a direct hit.

A direct hit would have obliterated her body.

“Misaka-saaan.”

Shokuhou sighed while holding the elf slave close.

But not to scold Mikoto for going too far.

“Don’t kill her too quick. If an unrepentant monster doesn’t suffer as much as they deserve, there’s no enjoyment ability in it☆”

“Shut up. And you aimed your remote at my head when I fired the first one, didn’t you? I fired a Railgun along with the lightning spear and iron sand sword. This would’ve been over in seconds if not for the weird headache that gave me!!”

“Why would you want to ruin your life in seconds, murderer? Misaka-san, why don’t you stop and think about what you’re saying here?”

“Huh?” Mikoto tilted her head.

A few seconds later, a chill crawled up her spine.

…If Shokuhou hadn’t interfered with her remote and Mikoto’s attacks had continued without a hitch, what would have happened to the nonhuman trafficker?

People’s lives didn’t seem to carry much “weight” in this world. Almost like defeating your enemy was simply a routine way of earning money and experience.

(This isn’t good. I might really kill someone if I don’t focus on what I’m doing and stop myself.)

“So what do you want to do with her, Misaka-san? Are you really going to treat her like a sandbag until she dies?”

“I-I’m not as obsessive as you.”

“Then allow me to take care of the dirty work☆”

Shokuhou aimed her remote at the woman.

The nonhuman trafficker’s body jerked in a way that was clearly different from what the electricity made her do.

The evil ringlets woman opened her eyes wide.

“Wh-what is…happening to me? I can’t stand up!”

“What is happening? It seems to me you will have to live out the rest of your life crawling on the ground like a dog. Oh, and lift your butt more☆”

“Ugh!”

Sweat soaked the woman as she took a humiliating pose.

Perhaps it is kinder to not provide an accurate description of said pose.

“And you will serve this girl until the day you die. If she has any heavy luggage, you can carry it on your back. Getting a precious trunk dirty deserves punishment, isn’t that right? And when her little legs are tired, you can be her chair. Hee hee☆Can you already tell you have no way of fighting this?”

“Shokuhou, the girl doesn’t want this.”

Why would you terrify the elf here, idiot?

After Mikoto’s exasperated comment, the #5 girl sighed and pressed her remote’s button again.

The nonhuman trafficker collapsed unconscious to the ground like her own power button had been hit.

“Then I’ll do this the peaceful way. I’ve erased only her business knowledge and skills, so any future attempts at business will mean a string of failures that leave her too occupied to even think about enslaving any more elves☆”

“You’re a real monster.”

Part 6

At any rate, the battle was over.

A variety of shocks had left the nonhuman trafficker passed out with her eyes rolled back in her head, but enough about her.

“I found the keys.”

“Pass them here.”

The key ring must have had keys for everything from the trunk to the collar.

When the unathletic girl tossed them over (with very poor aim), Mikoto magnetically drew them into her hand before approaching the slave elf.

Yes, the elf with the thick chain connecting her steel collar to her legs.

Just seeing those restraints pissed Mikoto off, so she prepared to remove them, but…

“Hyah!”

For some reason, the little elf backed away.

“Hm? Why?”

“Um, uh… I’m so used to wearing them I’m not sure what I would do if you forcibly removed them…”

Would it feel as weird to her as heading out with only one sock on?

And she considered this “forcibly” removing them.

Traditions and customs could be frighting things, but maybe this was pushing her too far too quickly.

Mikoto gave Shokuhou a look and the Queen simply shook her head.

Did that mean to keep the keys and leave the issue be for now?

“Um, but more importantly…”

“Yeah?”

Their new party member, the slave elf (who looked to be) of about age 10, addressed Mikoto. If she was anything like the elves in manga and anime, then she could actually be hundreds of years old.

The girl had been prepared to die as a slave. Maybe it was difficult for her to process the very concept of having been rescued.

Regardless, she started off hesitantly.

“Uh, um…thank you, Miss Warrior Woman!”

…

What did she just say?

“Eh? But that’s what it says on your status display.”

There was a display? Could she tell something from people’s faces or palms like reading a QR code? It was a complete mystery what the nonhuman elf had read about Mikoto or where she had seen it, but the small girl didn’t appear to mean anything by it.

She looked puzzled by Mikoto’s confusion.

Academy City’s #5 doubled over to try and hold something in.

“Pff, heh heh… Warrior Woman? Of all things, you’re a Warrior Woman with the six pack, bikini armor, and sword? So if you were a monster, would you be a club-wielding giant? Oh, I can’t take it! Wah ha ha ha ha ha!! Hee hee!! Oh, my sides. That’s perfect for you and your scant intelligence ability! Cackle cackle cackle!!!”

“Oh, and thank you too, Miss Lewd Dancer!!”

Shokuhou fell to her knees after taking a powerful blow to the heart.

Most likely, the “lewd” part wasn’t actually on the status display, but that it was the elf’s personal opinion only made it more devastating.

Apparently in this world, Misaka Mikoto was a Warrior Woman and Shokuhou Misaki was a Dancer. They had no idea when it had happened, but those jobs must have been assigned to them at some point.

What did that allow them to do or disallow them from doing?

“Um, that changes what skills, including magic, you learn when levelling up and it alters what kinds of weapons and armor you can equip. You also need a specific job to enter certain specialty shops.”

“Level?”

Mikoto latched onto that familiar term.

The elf’s long ears drooped and she sounded ashamed as she answered.

“Yes. I am a paltry Level 11, so I really shouldn’t be acting like an expert.”

They froze.

Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki tried to feign calm, but it simply wasn’t possible.

“Eh? Level 11!?”

“Yes… At such a low level, I don’t know all that much magic. I can see why someone so worthless would end up as a slave. I really am no use to anyone.”

The elf hung her head sadly, but Mikoto and Shokuhou were flabbergasted.

What was this?

This went far beyond Academy City’s seven Level 5s.

The usually confident girls huddled together to talk.

They were feeling quite inadequate now.

“(What the hell!? This world goes up to the double digits!? That means we’re complete weaklings here!! We couldn’t even become mini-bosses!)”

“(Don’t complain to me, Misaka-san! You’re the one who can supposedly nearly reach Level 6 for an instant with your lightning goddess ability. How many more of those dangerous secrets are hidden in the esper development!?)”

“Um, what did I say that was so strange? The average human villager should be around Level 20. And when you go up to the kings and such, they’re probably all at the level cap of 9999.”

“What kind of world is this!? Levels go up to the thousands here!? Now I’m too terrified to take a single step in any direction!!”

Mikoto and Shokuhou clung to each other and trembled, but then the elf provided another crucial piece of information.

She pointed toward the nonhuman trafficker who was passed out so pathetically on the ground.

She indicated the weakling they had so easily defeated.

“By the way, since she could use the midlevel Super and Spread class magic, she’s probably around Level 35.”

“Excuse me?” “Excuse me?”

Part 7

They had forgotten this was a world where swords and sorcery reigned supreme. Academy City’s level system wasn’t going to apply here. The estimation of strength worked entirely differently.

“Which makes it all the weirder that they speak Japanese and use decimal numbers.”

They didn’t understand that part, but those questions could wait.

It was unlikely the elf here would know all the answers.

This was a delicate issue, so Mikoto and Shokuhou kept their voices low.

“(But if an elf who’s probably lived for centuries is Level 11, how does it make sense for that slaver of 20 to be Level 35? If you gain levels from experience, wouldn’t a long-lived race have the strongest people in the world?)”

“(Maybe their race just isn’t interested in levelling up? Battle ability seems to be managed by a job system, so maybe you don’t gain experience unless you continually defeat enemies as part of a combat-oriented job. Maybe you stay the same level forever if you just live peacefully eating fruit in the forest.)”

“So you can’t become an expert of anything if you lie around napping for 100 years?”

“Exactly.”

If they had managed to live for a hundred years without feeling the need to fight, they sounded like a much more mentally advanced race than humans.

“Oh, right.”

With sudden realization, Mikoto crouched down to the elf’s eye level.

She had a soft spot for girls with a chest smaller than her own.

“We never introduced ourselves, did we? I’m Misaka Mikoto and you can call her Fat Chest.”

“My name is Shokuhou Misaki!!” protested the Queen, but Mikoto ignored her.

“What’s your name?”

“You can just call me ‘slave’. If I’m caught using my name, the patrol will punish me.”

“Just tell us.”

Mikoto realized after she said it that she was pushing a little hard.

The way the elf spoke about herself after being so harshly abused reminded her of the dead Sisters, causing her anger to rise to the surface. Even though frightening the girl wouldn’t help anything.

On the other hand, doing what was considered “natural” in this world was the same as accepting the existence of the slave trade. Not pushing hard enough to break free of that wouldn’t do the girl any favors.

Eventually, the elf nervously answered.

“P-Patissiet.”

“Hello, Patissiet. …But why?”

“?”

The small elf named Patissiet tilted her head.

That name sounded so much like a slight modification of the French word pâtissier. Mikoto thought it must have some special meaning in the elf language, but that didn’t quite fit either since they could understand each other.

Shokuhou held a hand to her cheek and chimed in.

“I saw similar names in that slate. The Brand Mountain Range and the Snowdome Continent both had English names, for example. Not to mention that this world is called Celesaqphere, which sounds like someone took the English words ‘celestial’, ‘aqua’, and sphere, and then squished them together. I don’t mean to be rude to the people living here, but it seems very lazy.”

“You mean the names are just randomly taken from Earth languages?”

“But how could that happen?”

Perhaps there was some way of passing information or matter between the two worlds, like divination or summoning. That could be a valuable hint toward getting them back to Earth.

(And then there was Salinagaritina. That goddess seems like the only one that rule doesn’t apply to.)

Was that because the Reincarnation Goddess wasn’t from this world and existed on a higher level “outside” all the worlds?

That aside, there were a few things they wanted if they were going to travel through this world.

For now, some money and a compact collection of the daily necessities.

“I’ve always wanted to try being a bandit. Y’know, living outdoors and gathering a bunch of friends to help you out. Since we’re in another world, I’d rather go on an adventure than stay in a single town.”

“And I thought you preferred being a phantom thief sneaking around the city at night,” replied the #5 even as she helped rummage through the nonhuman trafficker’s luggage.

Mikoto gathered up all the luggage the elf had scattered across the ground and gathered her thoughts concerning what she wanted to ask about.

She knew there had to be a lot to ask while she could.

“So what is magic? How is it different from Academy City’s esper powers?”

That was her first question.

It seemed about as important as a visitor to Earth learning about petroleum, gunpowder, and electricity. It was the foundational technology of this world’s weaponry. Whether or not she could use it herself, she knew it would be dangerous to remain ignorant of it.

“Hmm...I don’t know what an esper is.” The elf sounded troubled. “But magic is…well, it’s magic, so, uh…”

Was it such basic knowledge she had a hard time explaining it? For the people of this world, it may have been as basic as the times table, but all the talk of magic meant nothing to Mikoto and Shokuhou.

“To start at the very beginning, magic has the four magical elements of fire, water, wind, and earth and physical actions have the four physical elements of slash, pierce, impact, and constrict. Sometimes constrict is also known as squeeze. Swords, axes, and even projectiles are all bound by these elements. For example, throwing a big rock is of the impact element and launching an arrow is of the pierce element. Now, attack magic is usually created by combining magical and physical elements. Explosion magic is fire and impact. Whip magic is impact and constrict. As you can see, some attack magic is a combination of physical elements, so watch out for that. Elements that come first in the list are strong against the next one in the list, with the last one being strong against the first, except the magical elements go fire, wind, water, earth in that sense, despite usually being listed as fire, water, wind, earth, so don’t let that confuse you. Also, there is armor and defense magic specialized for a specific element, which can weaken or even nullify an enemy’s attack magic. In addition to attack magic, there is recovery magic and higher magic. Higher magic increases another magic’s power. It is signified with an S, U, or L at the front, which stand for Super, Ultra, and Legendary respectively. Some magic has other versions like SS or an intentionally weaker version denoted C for Common. There is also Spread magic for covering a wide area or Rapid magic when you want to attack twice, but only experts can use those. And with the magic called S Ice, the S stands for Super, not Spread, so don’t get those confused.”

“Sorry, but it would really help if you could give us a demonstration.”

Mikoto wasn’t sure how to respond when she received a much longer answer than anticipated.

Patissiet spread her fingers out and raised the her soft palm overhead.

“For example, um, if I go like this…Blaze!”

The noise was quite loud for such a cute action.

Shokuhou was so shocked she fell onto her butt (with her legs parted cutely below her). It didn’t look like she could get back up. A fireball several meters across shot straight up from the elf’s small palm and burst in the sky. If a light car took that from the side, it would probably be sent rolling.

(Not bad.)

That was Mikoto’s honest opinion.

The standard, and thus weakest, form of Blaze was this powerful. To be blunt, it looked to be about as powerful as a shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket.

What would happen if that had Super or Ultra tacked onto the front?

If anyone could use that if they studied or trained enough, then at the very least, this magic seemed a lot more deadly than Academy City’s esper powers. …But what about at the very most?

“The foundation of magic is the incantation,” said the elf. “There are magic circles and staffs too, but those have simply replaced the incantation with a picture or 3D object. A lot like writing down a song or piece of music as a musical score. Every element begins with the incantation and countless modifications can be made from there. That is the basic idea.”

“Hm. Elements, huh? Sounds like people aren’t limited to one type of magic, then.”

“Also, magic produces its supernatural feats by consuming the SP in your body. So everyone has their own limit, but if you don’t level up and learn new magic, all you have is SP with nothing to harness it.”

“What’s SP?”

“Spiritual Power Resources, or SP for short.”

That explained what it was an abbreviation of, but it was still a mystery why this world used Japanese and English like it was normal. Did both worlds use the same languages, or was Mikoto speaking Japanese and the elf was hearing this world’s language? There were so many issues Mikoto was putting off until later.

“SP itself is not a rare power. It fully recovers after a night’s sleep without needing any kind of special potion.”

“Hm.”

(The basic forms of attack magic are fire, water, wind, and earth along with slash, pierce, impact, and constrict. But they can also be S, U, and L for Super, Ultra, and Legendary.)

None of it felt real, but Mikoto still aimed her palm to the side.

And with her head still tilted…

“S Wind!!”

“Bwahhhh!?”

A mass of compressed air the size of a wrecking ball shot straight out and barely avoided hitting Shokuhou, sending her flipping away and blowing her short skirt up to reveal her adult see-through panties. Her skirt looked just like an umbrella during a typhoon.

(Wow, I tried it and it worked.)

Mikoto was as surprised as anyone.

She of course hadn’t done any training at all. This world really did seem to operate on rules they weren’t familiar with.

…This also seemed dangerous. All you had to say were the English words “Blaze” or “Wind”, which seemed like something that could show up in everyday conversation or talking in your sleep. And it wasn’t clear why just adding “Super” was enough to increase the power. That had been powerful enough to kill someone. Instead of seeming convenient, it felt more concerning, like being handed a gun without a safety.

(Blaze and Wind aren’t English words we use all the time, but Water and Ice are common enough. That seems really dangerous to me!)

Asking for some mineral water could easily end up killing someone in this world.

But hadn’t the elf said “S Ice” or “U Ice” during her explanation without anything happening? Was there some kind of trigger like saying “Hey, Seri” or “Okay, Jungle”? Or could Patissiet not use those since she was only Level 11? More mysteries.

Shokuhou tearfully sat back up.

She was blushing bright as she protested.

“What do you think you’re doing, you barbari-”

“W-wow, that was incredible!!”

The elf leaned forward with eyes sparkling, cutting off a certain someone’s complaint. It wasn’t often you saw Shokuhou sit and bite her handkerchief because she couldn’t lash out at someone.

“I can’t believe you mastered the link between the magic incantation and the supernatural phenomenon so quickly! Lady Misaka, are you a reincarnation carrying the soul of the great Library Witch!?”

“Is everyone in this world dumb as a brick?” wondered an exasperated Mikoto.

Patissiet tilted her head.

“Hm, but this is odd. Warrior Women are supposed to be muscular fighters who swing around a heavy sword. They are a physical job that can’t use any magic.”

“You’re still calling me that!? Where do I go to change jobs!?”

“?”

“Oh, no. When a local looks confused by the very concept, I get the feeling there isn’t any way to change or reset your job here!!!”

But did that mean you were stuck with your job from birth? Maybe she needed to send her protests to Reincarnation Goddess Salinagaritina who had set things up here.

(But she did say changing things to give us overpowered parameters or skills would break the balance. You’re kidding, right? Does that mean it’s an indelible part of my soul that I’m a meathead Warrior Woman who can never use any kind of magic?)

That was a depressing discovery.

That said, magic.

It would be best if she avoided using it.

It was convenient, but she was afraid of accidentally triggering attack magic during conversation. And using magic as a Warrior Woman was apparently a bug in the first place.

Plus, she had apparently used some of her SP (whatever that was), but nothing felt different. She didn’t feel hungry or sleepy and she didn’t sense anything being sucked out of her. Instead of feeling lucky it didn’t cause pain, it was worrying, like the disconcerting movement of a silent organ. She didn’t want to find out she had unwittingly destroyed some of her brain cells or her luck.

Something else caught her attention too.

(Um, she said the magical elements are fire, water, wind, and earth and the physical elements are slash, pierce, impact, and constrict, so…)

“Wait, is there no lightning magic?”

She sent a crackle of electricity from her bangs and the elf’s eyes widened.

Apparently that was an unusual phenomenon even in this world of magic.

Which would mean…

(She said magic could be weakened or nullified with elemental defenses, but if there is no lightning element, do my attacks belong to a superior element? That is, are there no magical or physical defenses against them? Not even one?)

She grinned as understanding dawned on her.

Oh, so this world almost seemed designed specifically for Misaka Mikoto.

Part 8

“What do we do now?”

“Going back to that fake Academy City probably wouldn’t help.”

So Shokuhou also thought that was the wrong idea.

It slipped their minds from time to time, but Mikoto and Shokuhou were both having an out of body experiment and only partially existed in this world (likely due to a mistake on that idiot goddess’s part). Their real bodies had probably been taken to a hospital on Earth. Staying here for too long would be dangerous, so they needed to get back as soon as possible…but they had a feeling the secret to that wouldn’t be found in the fake Academy City.

The core of Celesaqphere was found outside the city.

Or so it seemed.

(If everything unusual in this world is defined as magic, then we need to search the world outside the city. If there is some strange technology that they could call “return magic” here, I don’t think it would be hidden inside that city of science.)

“Okay.”

With that settled, Mikoto had Shokuhou and Patissiet grab onto her.

She took a magnetically fueled leap to jump from one floating rock to another. She took a path diagonally upwards that seemed like it would take her over her target rock and then switched her magnetic force to land on it. The trajectory was a lot like hitting a golf ball up to land perfectly atop a hill.

“Wow. You can travel without using an airship, winged bicycle, or dragon.”

“Kyah! Gyahhhhh!?”

“What, is there no wind magic to make you fly?”

“No, there’s nothing that convenient.”

“Wait, Misaka-san! Slow down- eeeeeeeeeeeeek!?”

“Travel must be expensive here. …And will you shut up, Boobs Queen?”

A single jump easily took her 10m up, about the same as three stories. The elf’s eyes widened at the unfamiliar speed and trajectory, but Shokuhou blanched with terror and clung on tight. Was she simply afraid of heights, or did she not trust Mikoto’s power? And when she held on that tight, her enormous boobs were so damn distracting.

“So do you normally need money or food to pay your way?”

“You can either work jobs at the guild or harvest plants and mine minerals in the mountains.”

“Huh, so they have guilds here? Well, either way, it sounds like you’ll be stuck on one of those floating lands if you don’t work. I’m so glad I’m an Electromaster. I can travel for free and cross any border I want without permission. It’s like this world was designed for me.”

“You’re so cool, Lady Misaka.”

The elf innocently smiled without noticing Shokuhou who had nearly fainted from fear.

“Hey,” Mikoto began casually.

She cautiously drew in a fragile thread in her search for solid information.

“If everything mysterious in this world is magical, then is there a magical system or technology that will get us back to Earth? Like some treasured largescale magic that your average person doesn’t know how to use?”

“Hm. You’re looking for a special magic?”

She had no specific goal in mind, but Mikoto wanted to take a break after arriving on what felt like solid ground(?) instead of just some rock. She wanted to reach a flying “continent” with stability and greenery. Something with water, food, and civilization, where she wasn’t afraid of breaking through the ground with every step.

They had taken away the slaver woman’s luggage and “merchandise”. She could come after them at any time, so Mikoto didn’t want to stop anywhere near the crash site.

“Oh, come to think of it, I have heard of something like that. It’s an old legend, but if you defeat the three Demon Lords who rule over the land, sea, and sky and acquire their treasures, it’s supposed to open a portal between worlds.”

“A portal, you say?” asked Mikoto as a long, arching path took them to the edge of a relatively large floating continent.

Yes, continent.

A green plain continued as far as the eye could see – all the way to the horizon. It reminded Mikoto of an ad for milk or butter, or of an enormous American farm. Maybe the livestock had run away and gone wild, but she saw a flock of white things resembling sheep or goats in the distance. With this much vegetation, there had to be plenty of fresh water too. That they could see the horizon suggested this piece of land continued for at least more than 5km. No, that figure was based on a planet the size of Earth, so it might not apply here. Regardless, it was a large place. Mikoto could see another high layer of floating land, but she didn’t see any need to jump that high.

For now, she wanted to see the local civilization.

In other words, the nearest town or village.

Shokuhou and Patissiet let go of Mikoto’s hips.

“But what is with this heavy trunk. That merchant sure carried a lot of changes of clothes with her!!” said Shokuhou.

“Stop complaining after you stole it. And isn’t having too many changes of clothes better than having none? They might not fit us, but we can probably fix that by removing the stitching and making some adjustments.”

“…”

“And I really don’t want to go on a sweaty journey without any changes of underwear.”

“Misaka-san, that’s the kind of thing a girl is supposed to leave unsaid.”

Anyway, they had to continue on foot.

In a strange new world, they had no idea what trouble they might run into. Mikoto wanted to preserve enough stamina to make a magnetic jump at any time.

The elf held a hand against her forehead to shade her eyes as she stared into the distance and spoke.

“5 Continents.

“4 Kingdoms.

“3 Demon Lords.

“2 Goddesses.

“1 Portal.

“The portal I mentioned comes from that saying. It is traveler’s poem found on ancient slates, but I believe the story is that defeating the three Demon Lords and acquiring the three treasures allows you to complete a magical ceremony to open the special portal.”

This elf had to be far older than she looked, so how old did something have to be for her to call it “ancient”?

But at least they had an information source to go off of. They could also use Shokuhou’s Mental Out to read people’s memories or the residual thoughts in slates and such, but there was no guarantee that the scheming #5 would reveal all the information she received. Mikoto wanted to avoid adventuring and puzzle solving with false clues mixed in.

“(I can tell what you’re thinking, you know?)”

“(Oh, really? Strange since Mental Out isn’t supposed to work on me.)”

The two Tokiwadai girls glared at each other (while making sure innocently-smiling Patissiet didn’t notice).

If they wanted to know about this world, it was best to ask its people.

“So our first task is to battle the three Demon Lords. Hey, Patissiet, where are they?”

“?”

For some reason, she tilted her head at that one.

It was cute.

But also concerning.

“U-um. Do you at least know the Demon Lords’ names? Or what they look like?”

“No. They are from an ancient legend, after all.”

This was a problem.

Based on the new information she had revealed, this fantasy world was large enough to have five floating continents. It was unclear how big a land had to be to earn that classification in this world, but how long would it take to, for example, travel the Silk Road to cross Earth’s Eurasian continent on foot? And these Demon Lords probably weren’t human. Were they humanoid, or were they giant beasts? It was even possible, they were pumpkins or rice-sized bugs that could talk but normally stayed silent. There were too many options to do a thorough search. Even a century wouldn’t be long enough if they were a giant bivalve on the ocean floor or a microscopic plankton.

Which meant…

“The first thing we need is better information. I at least want some names and an image of what we’re looking for.”

“The standard tactic in another world is to ask people, but we’re talking about a legend ability that even an elf who might have lived for centuries barely remembers. I doubt a random villager is going to know.”

Then would they have to search out slates, grimoires, and other ancient storage media?

It was sounding like the only way to gather information would be to work the #5 like a workhorse.

Mikoto decided to leave all the work to the Queen (while keeping in mind that schemer loved lying more than most anything).

“If you want to know more than I do, I think the elder would be your best bet. She might know where some ancient slates and grimoires are.”

“You mean the elf elder?”

“Yes,” said Patissiet. The little elf probably didn’t realize the weight of what she said next. “But you should probably hurry because working a slave to an early grave is more economical. She was captured along with me and we were separated during the sorting, but if we were bought and put to work at about the same time, her time should be about up.”

What an awful world.

The elf elder had apparently been sold to a village near here.

Mikoto wanted information on a way to return home, particularly details on the three Demon Lords and their three treasures used for some ceremony, but more than that, the reminder of the slave trade pissed her off.

Patissiet looked confused, like she couldn’t figure out what had Mikoto so angry.

“Well…”

Visiting that village couldn’t hurt.

Part 9

They had been eager to get started, but the distance proved to be much greater than anticipated.

They walked and walked without the scenery ever changing.

Maybe it was her nature as a nature-loving elf, but while Patissiet did use the brick road as a guide, she still insisted on walking alongside it. Mikoto was used to walking on asphalt, so the bright color of the red brick road running down the green field was so conspicuous it wore out her eyes to stare at it constantly, but she guessed that was so the road would be easy to find if anyone strayed from it and got lost. Yes, this was a world full of nature where a short walk could mean death.

Patissiet was used to walking, so she kept a step ahead of the others.

“You need to be careful walking on floating land,” said the elf. “Especially when you’re tired.”

“Hm? But we’re in the middle of a giant empty field. And I don’t see any ferocious bears wandering around.”

This world did seem dangerous since vacuum blades called Continent Blades could apparently occur at any time, but Mikoto could sense weather changes with her microwave radar. She wouldn’t be killed by a thick vacuum blade flying in from a blind spot.

But…

“In the taller grass, it can be hard to notice a hole in the ground. If you fall, it can sometimes mean plummeting all the way to the ocean below. And at that height, hitting the water will kill you.”

“Ugh,” groaned Mikoto in belated realization.

If you could fall to your death in a flat field, then the rules she knew from Earth really didn’t apply here. Ther was a risk of falling from these floating lands no matter how large and stable they seemed. If a floating land happened to be donut-shaped, you could end up falling off while walking toward the center.

Mikoto could always magnetically pull herself back to the floating land, but if she panicked and failed to react in time, she could instead slam herself against the cliff wall, breaking an arm or a leg.

“The air currents are different around any holes, so you can sense danger by focusing on your skirt. If wind suddenly blows up from below, come to an immediate stop and watch where you’re going.”

Was that why Patissiet had been walking out ahead? Mikoto sighed, grabbed the shoulders of the elf who had decided to risk her life by testing the ground for the others, and pulled her to the back. Mikoto had been focusing on the sky above and her surroundings, but she decided it would be a good idea to also send her radar toward the ground obscured by the tall grass.

Patissiet meant no harm, but Mikoto didn’t feel entirely comfortable simply accepting the elf’s methods and assistance. Despite being the victim, she was so accustomed to the slavery system that she didn’t value her own life highly enough. Mikoto did want to return to Earth as soon as possible, but could she fix that stubborn bad habit first?

(How did that idiot deal with the Sisters during the experiment?)

“Y’know, it’s incredible that this entire world uses a unified language and currency. The place looks pastoral, but it may be more globalized than our world.”

“It apparently has churches that can dispel curses or apply temporary anti-undead magic to weapons. Having a single mythology or ideology ability for the entire world sounds kind of concerning to me,” said Shokuhou, despite living in a city of science.

As a psychological esper, she may have had her thoughts about religions which were so closely related to psychology. Of course, she would only be interested in researching the charisma and group psychology aspects.

“Misaka-san, are you one of those silly people who don’t believe in god but still celebrate Halloween and Christmas?”

“You can’t convince me that an extreme brainwashing schemer like you believes in god. If you wanted to, you could brainwash everyone into seeing you as a holy woman so they would worship you.”

“Did you think I was born with such perfect good looks by random chance ability? This miraculous balance only happens when you have the favor of a goddess of beauty or victory or something☆”

“Oh, is one of the myriad Shinto gods a god of fat? Learn something new every day.”

It turned out the concept of science did not exist in the world of Celesaqphere. For the people here, education meant gaining experience in the natural environment and studying the system of magic.

“Isn’t it worrying not having science? Seems to me that would leave you with no foundation for your thoughts or reasoning.”

“Hm? We have the goddesses for that,” replied Patissiet with a smile.

That answer didn’t make any sense to Mikoto, but was that because she lived in a city of science?

But that aside…

No matter how far they walked, the green horizon never changed and the brick road without any streetlights was the only artificial thing they could see. With no apparent change, it felt a lot like they were walking on a giant conveyer belt.

The classroom-sized rock where they had fought the slaver may have created a false preconception because Mikoto had assumed the next floating land would also be fairly small.

But it was possible the very next floating land they tried was larger than the Japanese archipelago.

They were supposedly on their way to a nearby village, but there were places like America and Australia where “nearby” could mean as far away as 50km. And hadn’t Mikoto herself been reminded of a milk ad when she saw this vast field?

Patissiet was from this world, but she gave up first.

“We might not arrive today. We should consider setting up camp just in case.”

“Eh? You mean camp out for the night? That sounds like fun!!”

“Not on your life! I am never lying down to sleep on the bug-infested ground! Surely this fantasy world has inns. I can’t sleep without a sanitary shower and bed!!”

The #3 and #5’s opinions were split.

Of course, it was rare for the two of them to agree on anything.

“Ah…ah ha ha. As a slave, I have never stayed in one, but I have heard the inns for adventurers are so infested with ticks and fleas it can be hard to sleep.”

Shokuhou curled up on the spot, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed.

Now the (seemingly) little girl elf was being more mature than her? Was she really in middle school?

If this was based on Medieval Europe, then it would have little waste disposal infrastructure and people would generally just throw their garbage wherever. People probably even walked through the inn’s guest rooms in the same muddy shoes they had worn outside. And there would be no bug repellents or insecticides made in a chemical plant. With so many people moving in and out of the rooms, it would be a biological mystery if the blankets and carpets weren’t infested.

“It’s getting late. Once you hear a sharp cry from the flying harpies, you know it will be dark soon.”

Once the orange of evening came into view, night arrived quickly.

The light faded away. It wouldn’t be long before they were left in a pitch darkness without any streetlights.

The first day of their other world adventure tour was going to end without accomplishing much of anything.

“Oh, no, no, no! But setting up camp requires so much preparation!!”

“You’re kidding. We really aren’t going to reach the village? And we’ll have to spend the night out in this field!?”

The pair from an indoor civilization had no idea what to do.

As the sun set, visibility shrank. They would have quickly lost sight of the straight road through the grassy field if it weren’t for the bright red bricks. Then they might have panicked, rushed off in the wrong direction, and gotten lost.

“Th-the road? Where’s the road!?”

The road would be built along the shortest route between two villages while taking the most walkable terrain. And it would be designed to reach any waterside or campfire spots along the way.

They continued along the red line until they arrived at a large lake. But they had no tent or blankets. Before the sunlight completely vanished, they opened the leather trunk and searched for anything they could use.

They found clothing, clothing, makeup, clothing, and gold coins that were probably the local currency.

“Are you serious?” muttered Mikoto in a daze.

The electric girl could start a fire if necessary, at least.

“Are we going to have to burn a pile of fabulous dresses once it gets cold? Are we stuck being that uncivilized already?”

Mikoto felt like a bank robber carrying a ton of paper money while lost on a snowy mountain.

For that matter, the trunk didn’t even have any of this world’s preserved foods like dried meats or bottles of pickled vegetables.

Couldn’t that fancily-dressed slaver at least have brought some snacks with her!?

“Argh, we should have bought some cup noodles and chocolate bars while we were in that fake Academy City!!” complained Mikoto, but turning back now would be difficult.

Both because it was dark and because they had no landmarks to go off of. This wasn’t like a city night where 24-hour convenience stores and gyudon shops were lit up and there were large landmarks all over the place. This was a floating land. If they tried to find their way along in the dark, they could suddenly fall into a hole and plummet to their dooms.

With a gap of a few dozen meters, Mikoto could magnetically jump between the floating lands. And with her microwave radar, she could get a sense of the terrain even in the dark. But her power only let her magnetically pull herself in, not to fly. If she misjudged a jump and flung herself into empty air, she wouldn’t be able to recover and would fall. A single mistake could mean death.

(At least we have water here. In the worst case, we can go without food for tonight. Preparing a place to sleep is probably more important.)

Mikoto turned around to find Shokuhou had disappeared.

“?”

Mikoto decided she would just let the girl go if the thought of camping out had broken her so badly she simply ran off, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

Mikoto heard something from the water.

There were some odd splashing sounds coming from the large lake-like body of water.

The #5 Queen was causing them.

“Abwabh!? Help, Misaka-san, what is happ-!?”

“What is Miss Lewd Boobs doing now? Is she drowning herself because it’s all too much for her?”

“No, she’s being dragged in. L-look, there are a bunch of slimy things emerging from the water. I think those are kraken tentacles!!”

Sure enough, there were slimy things thicker than a human arm coming out of the water. One side was covered in suckers, so they were reminiscent of an octopus or squid. If one of those wrapped around you, removing it would be a challenge. And that unathletic girl might be the most powerful mental esper, but she was helpless against physical attacks.

Some sleepy sylphs? Undines? Well, some kind of half-naked translucent girls had fled onto land to avoid being captured along with the idiot.

“Hm.”

To sum up, the sexy one had her ankle caught by a thick tentacle that was dragging her into the water.

Good luck, Shokuhou Misaki.

As can be seen by all the shrimps, crabs, and other aquatic life found on drowned corpses washed up on the beach, an actual giant creature would mercilessly devour that helpless and immobilized hunk of meat. If she didn’t want to become a mess of blood and gore, she would have to work hard at avoiding that fate. Hint: being swallowed whole is a lot less gory☆

“Oh, no. W-we need to find some way to save Lady Shokuhou…”

“Hey, elf-chan? Don’t you think it would be faster to give up on that idiot Queen and go make a new friend?”

“Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Mikoto’s smiling suggestion made kindhearted Patissiet cry.

Mikoto had nothing against Shokuhou meeting a watery end, but she didn’t want to trouble the little elf.

(But what am I supposed to do?)

If she used a lightning spear against the giant aquatic creature, it would probably shock Shokuhou too. And when she was soaked with water, the high-voltage current would probably kill her.

“Wait, why am I thinking so hard? It’s a waste of effort. It’ll be a lot easier to just do what I can and, if it ends up killing her, I can apologize to Patissiet afterwards.”

“Bleh, I can hear you! Cough, cough!!”

A moment later, the sucker-covered tentacle wrapped around Shokuhou’s torso was sharply severed.

By an iron sand sword.

Mikoto separated out a clump of vibrating iron sand and swung it like a whip. It could cut through most anything like a chainsaw.

The kraken(?) had more than one tentacle.

Tentacles thrashed from the pain all across the lake.

“Outta the way.”

Before they could do anything, Mikoto sent the black sand whipping every which way to sever all the tentacles. The kraken itself finally broke the lake surface. Mikoto honestly didn’t know what counted as a squid’s head and what counted as its body.

She just sliced through the whole thing.

For a finishing blow, she flicked a coin with her thumb and blasted the kraken to smithereens with a Railgun.

A strange sticky fluid that glowed a fluorescent yellowish-green exploded from it.

(What is that, poison!?)

“Wah!?”

Mikoto immediately moved to keep any of it from getting on Patissiet.

She heard a steaming sound.

Or maybe it was more of an acidic sound.

She looked over to see Shokuhou’s summer uniform was full of holes now that she had been freed from the sucker-covered tentacle. But instead of looking like a sexy photoshoot, it was more like her clothes – and only her clothes – were dissolving.

“Do you have to find a way to make everything sexy!? Naked with a handbag is a new one, but you can’t even cover anything up like that!”

“You say that, Misaka-san, but the entire back of your uniform has dissolved! Is that some new form of naked apron!?”

It was too late.

Mikoto felt something come apart and then the remnants of her clothing fell away with nothing left to support them. Including her underwear.

It was strange how it did all that without having any effect at all on their hair and skin.

“What is it with tentacled things and being lewd!?” shouted Mikoto, blushing bright red.

At least Patissiet was unaffected thanks to the #3 shielding her from it.

The well-informed elf had something to say about this.

“Um, the slaver said she wanted to have at least five changes of clothes just to visit the next town over. Something about clothes getting torn and dissolved so much.”

“Does this lewd world have something against girls’ clothing!?”

Was that also why the elf’s dress was in such poor condition? The trunk had been full of clothes, but maybe that hadn’t just been that young woman being spoiled.

The two naked Earth girls could not believe their uniforms and even their socks and underwear had dissolved.

Was this their initiation into this world?

Part 10

With their school uniforms gone, they only had that trunk to rely on.

After using the lake water to cleanse themselves of the glowing yellowish-green goop, a nude Mikoto and Shokuhou approached the stolen luggage. To reiterate, they were outside, on an open field at night.

However…

“Hm? That’s weird. This dress’s zipper won’t open.”

“Is this broken? The buttons are on so tight they won’t come undone.”

“Um,” said Patissiet apologetically.

Apparently she had something to tell them.

“That might be the equipment compatibility lock. I think I mentioned it, but what weapons and armor you can equip depends on your job and level. So Lady Misaka can only use equipment for a Warrior Woman and Lady Shokuhou can only use equipment for a Dancer. That’s how things work in Celesaqphere.”

“…” “…”

So they were stuck.

The only compatible clothing for Misaka Mikoto was a lightning-blue bikini armor that would provide little to no actual protection.

“Huh, am I imagining things? Ow, ow, ow, my head. Why do I feel like I’ve worn one of these a long time ago?”

The only option for Shokuhou Misaki was a black and yellow honeybee dancer’s outfit.

“H-how humiliating… A bare midriff, a bikini, and a loincloth? Why do I have to wear this skimpy, jewel-encrusted see-through affair!?”

They heard applause.

It came from Patissiet the elf.

Her reaction was entirely innocent.

“Wow, you both look great!”

“Please stop! I don’t want a compliment for this!!”

Mikoto and Shokuhou both tearfully shouted back, but Patissiet only looked confused. Apparently this world’s aesthetic sense was very different from Earth’s. Was showing off more skin considered stylish here?

Also, Patissiet herself declined any new clothes. Even though her dress was in such poor condition. Mikoto initially thought the elf was again being reluctant for no good reason, but apparently not.

“The thing is…human clothing is really uncomfortable for me. It feels all itchy.”

“?”

The outfit was so embarrassing Mikoto wanted to die, but she wouldn’t call it uncomfortable. The armor (that only covered her chest) was even lined with silk. It was very much a rich person’s garment. In fact, it couldn’t have been her size, but without any need for sewing, it magically adjusted to fit her. So the itchiness must have been something only elves felt.

It turned out the nonhuman trafficker had been almost entirely reliant on her magic to fight. The only self-defense weapon they found was a 60cm Cedar Stick. Mikoto wished the woman had sprung for cypress instead. Then again, it had been inside her locked trunk, meaning she couldn’t have pulled it out right away if bandits attacked, so she clearly hadn’t trusted in it at all.

“You need to be careful around water. If you fall in a river, well, all rivers eventually lead to the ocean below, so it will sweep you away to a waterfall at the edge of the floating land.”

“Ugh.”

More death.

Water always presented the risk of drowning, but it was even more deadly here than on Earth.

“Also, some people will train by meditating under a waterfall, but I’ve heard of objects flowing downstream falling on them and splitting their heads open. It happens a lot, apparently. So water creatures aren’t the only danger. Got that!?”

They were preparing food while listening to the elf.

Bikini armor Mikoto grabbed one of the thick severed tentacles and dragged it over.

“We can cook this to make ourselves some grilled squid. It’s a valuable source of protein.”

“Are you kidding me!? You would fill your stomach with that lewd and toxic thing that has a clothes melting ability!?”

“What, I thought you loved natural ingredients with no artificial chemicals. And unlike land animals, we only have to cook it before eating. I know I’m trying it. But if you’d rather gather up some weeds for dinner, be my guest.”

There was no clear definition of a weed, but it generally referred to all fast-spreading plants that were no good as food, decoration, or animal feed.

The nicer ones were simply hard for your stomach and intestines to absorb, but there were also plenty of poisonous plants. And with a completely unknown plant in another world, it was anyone’s guess.

“W-wasn’t there a flock of sheep or goats over there?”

“I’m giving you 0 points for camping skills. It would take days to skin them, gut them, remove the blood, and cure them before they were ready to eat. And even with properly prepared meat, those have a stronger flavor than beef and pork which a lot of people don’t like, so there’s no way you could catch them and cook them tonight. But I won’t stop you if you think you can stand the bloody flavor and meat stench filling your mouth.”

Patissiet pointed elsewhere.

The creature skillfully napping on a thick tree branch with only two legs was a half-naked girl with giant bird wings. She looked more like a siren than an angel.

“Can’t you eat that?”

“Oh, um, we are admittedly fairly arrogant about how we draw the line between meats we are and aren’t willing to eat, but I know I couldn’t manage that one.”

Mikoto wanted to focus on the giant squid. She didn’t know how it worked, but its goop hadn’t affected her hair or skin. In that sense, the kraken was the only food here they had proven didn’t harm the human body.

With a “crack!” of electricity, she ignited a pile of dried grass and cooked the giant tentacle over the fire. This wouldn’t cook the thick tentacle all the way through, but just taking bites off the surface would be enough to fill her stomach.

The elf began to panic.

She waved her little hands wildly.

“W-w-wait! I am a slave, so if it’s found out I let you do the cooking, I’ll have a back tooth pulled out with big pliers!”

“We won’t let that happen!! And wow is this world horrific!”

But if cooking for themselves had her reacting like this, she might just faint if they gave her some of the food.

And Mikoto already had an idea, so she switched her focus.

“Hey, exhausted Queen. I know you’re more worn out than either of us, so you need to eat something. This is probably the best part.”

“Ugh.”

“Snake, wasp, and scorpion venom are all protein-based, so heating them changes their structure, neutralizing them. That’s why you can eat some gross-looking delicacies without ending up in the hospital, right?”

“Yes, that is true.”

Dancer Shokuhou took the first bite.

And she chewed it.

“Hmm. Not bad. In fact, it reminds me a lot of ordinary grilled squid, but it could use some seasoning. It’s a little sweet, but it’s mostly just bland and flavorless. With some soy sauce and butter, it would taste just like it came from a festival stand.”

“Hm? Why do you know what festival grilled squid tastes like? You’ve never eaten proper ramen.”

“It’s a memory I made with a certain boy☆”

“…And now it’s been a bit after you ate it and you haven’t started foaming at the mouth and you haven’t collapsed, so I’d say it isn’t poisonous. I’m glad it doesn’t have a powerful toxin that heating won’t neutralize, like the scrawled filefish which is fifty times stronger than the pufferfish or the Irukandji jellyfish which is a hundred times more dangerous than a cobra. Okay, Patissiet, Shokuhou bought my terrible reasoning and tested it for us, so now we know this giant squid is safe to eat. Just take a big bite out of this side she didn’t touch♪”

“Hey!!” shouted the tearful #5, but it was too late.

Mikoto also bit into the same tentacle.

Shokuhou was right that it could use seasoning. It wasn’t particularly bad tasting, but eating it was a challenge, like chewing on flavorless gum and forcing it down your throat. But this was still better than coming down with hunger knock and being unable to get back up after sitting down.

“This is so good. Munch, munch. I’ve never tasted anything so good.”

The elf had a big smile on her face. Like a child eating her birthday cake.

The compliment didn’t please Mikoto very much.

Patissiet was guileless, but she still said it tasted good. Mikoto was now worried what kind of food she had been forced to eat before being rescued.

And now that they were having a sleepover, this topic was bound to come up eventually.

“Tell me about your…Academy City, was it? I want to know all about your home.”

“Hmm.”

There were plenty of stories to tell, but their world wasn’t exactly a paradise either. And would the elf really enjoy any of those stories?

While warming themselves by the fire and looking into the sky, Mikoto noticed the moon and countless stars there.

Some sections of the sky were missing any stars, so that had to be where a large floating land was passing by overhead. Still, there were a lot of stars.

And she realized something.

“The constellations are completely different. This really isn’t Earth, is it? It’s another world entirely where a compass might not even point north.”

“I’m more worried about what we’re going to do now,” said Shokuhou. “We don’t have a tent or blankets.”

“It looks like tonight won’t be as cold as I had feared, so you shouldn’t catch a cold,” said Patissiet. “You can always gather up dresses from the trunk to use as a pillow.”

A cold.

Hopefully that didn’t refer to some local disease unique to this world. The thought of them bringing an infectious disease to this world was also extremely unpleasant.

That would be especially bad if this was a perfect fantasy world where people didn’t even get cavities, but they had to get home as soon as possible. And if that wasn’t going to happen on its own, they had to get moving. They would have to ignore some of the risks for now.

Besides, any pathogens they were carrying would be a greater risk if they died and left their corpses here.

“So itchy…” said a nearby voice.

While balling up a dress into a pillow, Patissiet openly complained for the first time.

Come to think of it, she found human clothing uncomfortable, didn’t she?

Part 11

Mikoto awoke to the cawing of a half-naked harpy.

She immediately detected a bloody scent.

She found herself wrapped in fur she didn’t recognize. A giant monster lay dead and skinned a short distance away. The 10m beast had a mixture of lion, goat, and snake traits. “That’s a chimera,” said the elf, eyes wide.

“What happened here?” sleepily wondered Mikoto in her bikini armor.

Apparently the chimera(?) had crept up to them in the night like nocturnal creatures are wont to do, but Mikoto had felt chilly as she slept, used an iron sand sword to skin the fluffy beast, and wrapped herself in the fur.

It didn’t matter that she hadn’t been conscious.

The elf – who was also wrapped in the fur because Mikoto had pulled her in like a body pillow – made a somewhat dazed observation.

“I-if she had been too sleepy to know where she was aiming, could she have cut off my ear and skinned me instead?”

She sounded fully awake already, so maybe elves were short sleepers since they lived out in nature. Like a small herbivore that needed to get up at a moment’s notice if anything happened. And Mikoto had mercilessly latched onto Patissiet while turning over in her sleep.

“Wake up, Shokuhou. It’s time for breakfast. And to be clear, I’m not making anything for you, so you have to find your own food.”

No response.

Mikoto thought maybe Shokuhou’s survival instincts were so poor she was still fast asleep, but apparently not.

She was missing.

(Where did she get off to?)

“Kyahhhhhhhhhhh!!”

But she could be heard in the distance.

Did even her death screams have to be lewd? And had she not listened at all to the warnings about the dangers of water?

Shokuhou liked to stay clean and thus liked bathing, so she was again being attacked by the waterside. And this time she had removed her own dancer outfit, leaving herself naked. She and the monster were staring each other down like cats threatening each other, but it looked silly when one of them wasn’t wearing any clothes.

The monster was a round glob of translucent goop.

Was fluorescent yellowish-green a sign of something lewd in Celesaqphere? Instead of pink.

It was a little bigger than a kotatsu.

…As comical as it looked, it reminded Mikoto of a primitive creature like an amoeba. That would mean anyone caught inside the translucent jelly would have their flesh and bones digested away, which was kind of scary.

“Why does this only ever happen to me? Are the odds ability in this world weighed against me!?”

(Hm, what to do? I could save her, but I could also use her as bait and run off.)

“I don’t need Mental Out to know what you’re thinking, Misaka-san!”

“Well, if I keep her around as bait for future lewd attacks, Patissiet and I can avoid any number of predicaments, so I guess I’ll save her. To use as a lively sacrifice.”

“Hey!! You’re in middle school too, so it’s high time you learned how to be cooperative by smiling on the outside while crying on the inside!”

Really, it was her fault for stripping naked outside when literally no one asked her to. Especially when the sun had already risen.

Mikoto decided to think of her as chaff or a flare.

She used an iron sand sword like a whip to slice through the slime slowly approaching Shokuhou.

It was a colorful glob of slime, but it did appear to have a weak point. There was a small clump with a deeper color on the inside.

(It is technically a lifeform, so why did I not think twice about killing it?)

It didn’t concern her at all during the battle, but it suddenly concerned her after she had calmed down.

Would she react in the same way if she fought an elf?

That may have been the root cause of why the humans of this world had no qualms about buying and selling slaves.

“That was not a wild plime. It may have been a new lifeform born from the kraken’s bodily fluids.”

“Eh? But we cooked and ate that stuff along with the tentacle!”

“It should have been digested in our stomachs. In fact, that creature was created from the blood stains splattered on the land. The majority of it remained in the lake, which seems to have dissolved away. My guess is we can’t let a sufficient amount of it remain on land where the wind can dry it out.”

“And of course that tentacle monster found a way to be lewd even in death.”

The slime appeared to be a part of the food chain now that it was dead. Small fish gathered near the shore in search of food.

It looked like breakfast wouldn’t be hard to find.

Part 12

They wanted to actually reach the nearby village today.

As their time out here camping wore on, it was easy to forget that Mikoto and Shokuhou were currently experiencing a near-death out-of-body experience where they had been partially sent to another world (by that stupid goddess’s mistake) and their goal was to return to Earth. Using the special return magic ceremony apparently required locating and defeating three Demon Lords, but they knew nothing about those three. They needed to find and rescue the elf elder who likely knew more than Patissiet, so they were on their way to the village that elder had been sold to.

“Damn, I’d dry some of these fish if we had time.”

Despite Mikoto’s regrets, they had no choice but to grill up and eat all the small fish now.

“But hm. With no science here, they won’t have freezers or preservatives. Is the best they can do placing them in a net and cooling them in a well or river? That’s a scary thought. How do they ensure food safety?”

“With no artificial chemicals in any of the food here, it sounds nice and healthy to me. I’m relieved to finally find even one nice thing about this world☆”

Was Shokuhou serious?

With long travel times and little to no sterilization technology, food poisoning would be a serious issue. They probably had to throw out more food here than in Academy City where convenience stores and supermarkets dumped tons of expired food every single day. At least in Academy City they never had to dispose of large quantities that went bad before it even arrived at the store. And if a bunch of people grew sick at once here, it would be blamed on a curse or something, so they would never investigate the real cause and continue making the same mistake.

A world where everyone had access to magic had its pros and its cons. It would be that much harder to fix mistaken beliefs about unseen facts or for people to see through scams.

Mikoto was vaguely worried about what might happen here, but for now they set off.

According to Patissiet, the “nearby village” was somewhere on this floating land, but…

“Ugh.”

Mikoto heard something.

She really didn’t want to look in that direction, but she already knew who the troublemaker was.

Shokuhou was a hyper-indoorsy city dweller who wasn’t used to camping out or even going for normal walks.

Walking on the unpaved ground (since the elf insisted on keeping off of the brick road) made bumpy with tree roots and stones was a challenge at the best of times. And the Dancer was wearing high heels (despite her job requiring vigorous dance steps). Muscle soreness often didn’t hit until the following day. Sweaty and exhausted Shokuhou grabbed at a nearby target like a zombie.

That target was Mikoto’s back.

“Please, Misaka-san. I’m tired, so carry me.”

“Hm? Get off of me, you Onbu Obake! Or should I say, Onboobs Obake!! You’re so heavy you’ll wear me out!”

“You should thank me for the reward. This is what being young is all about.”

“How are those sacks of fat a reward? All that extra meat is only weighing me down!!!”

This world ran on survival of the fittest, so the weakest were targeted first.

The tall grass parted and a monster emerged.

It was a multiheaded serpent. They looked up to see it staring down at them from a height of about 3m. At 3m, it really was around twice their height.

Mikoto wasn’t afraid of big snakes thanks to Kongou Mitsuko’s pet.

Shokuhou seemed to have completely frozen up, though.

“What’s this supposed to be? Yamata-no-Orochi?”

“A hydra! It’s a hydra!!”

“Hm, a girl tangled up in a bunch of snakes seems like a really niche scenario, but it still sounds like a job for Miss Lewd. C’mon, be bait already.”

“How could you say that!? I know you haven’t forgotten Mental Out only works on humans!”

Terrified, Shokuhou clung to Mikoto’s back.

She was even more useless in this world than usual and her boobs were still being a nuisance.

“Oh, no. Lady Shokuhou will be killed! Yah, yahh!! Shoo, hydra!”

Patissiet broke branches off a nearby tree and threw them like darts, but they didn’t seem to do any damage. Then again, she may have only meant to drive it away so both sides could survive. But it went without saying how a ferocious beast would react to being poked like that.

(Sigh. I guess I have to do it.)

According to Patissiet, that hydra would grow two heads whenever one was severed, so Mikoto used a Railgun to obliterate the base of the snake below where its heads branched off.

Patissiet must have been used to the boom and shockwave by now. She only sounded exasperated.

“Wow. That one attack was probably worth enough experience points to go up 10 levels all at once.”

“No thanks. Anywhere past Level 5 scares me. I’d probably just explode.”

They walked down the empty field using the red brick road as a guide.

With nothing else to do, Mikoto asked a question.

“You said this world has just one mythology and religion, but what’s it about?”

“The two goddesses are the most popular,” said Patissiet with a smile. Even though these goddesses hadn’t done a thing to rescue her from slavery. “The two goddesses are locked in an eternal battle. But the world of Celesaqphere runs on the vast power produced by their fighting. So they need to keep fighting forever. There is even a legend saying any normal person who irreverently interferes in the goddess’s level grinding will be destroyed by divine punishment, causing them to explode. And if our world is ever truly at risk, the goddesses will break through the invisible barrier and come to rescue us. Arguing with each other the entire time, of course.”

“Hm. So it’s great goddess worship,” said Shokuhou.

“What’s that mean?”

“That’s when you have a polytheistic mythology, but the most powerful god is a goddess. Like a sun goddess or a birth goddess☆ They aren’t all that unusual. Japan’s Shinto is an example. The top goddess is Sun Goddess Amaterasu Okami, right?”

“I guess.”

So what?

Bikini armor Mikoto sent over a skeptical look, so dancer Shokuhou shrugged and explained.

“The point is this world’s myths tell of a pair of goddesses with special powers who constantly fight. And they break through some kind of invisible barrier to arrive from some other world.”

“Hold on…”

“Sounds a lot like us, doesn’t it? Now, I’m all for treating myself like a goddess, but it’s embarrassing when someone else does it in all seriousness.”

The elf had a big smile on her face.

Mikoto and Shokuhou had done some wild things here, but small Patissiet had never even tried to run away in fear. No one was to stop the goddesses from fighting, after all. But Mikoto really hoped she wouldn’t beg them to continue that kaiju battle.

“Maybe we should have paid more attention to the structure of that cult in Academy City. It may have been identical to this world’s religion ability.”

So instead of a cult born in a city of science, had the small Academy City been influenced by the mythology and religion of this much larger world?

That was a fairly frightening thought, but Mikoto was more interested in something else.

“Um, is that all?”

“?”

“I thought for sure Celesaqphere’s unique mythology would explain the origin of the technology at the foundation of what they call magic.”

At the very least, there was nothing explaining the logic behind the magic. What were the fire, water, wind, earth, slash, pierce, impact, constrict, super, ultra, and legendary based on?

“Hold on. Then is there no system behind it?”

That was the most unpleasant possibility.

“We do know this world has a technology called magic and that it can be used to kill. It doesn’t require any qualifications or license, so anyone can use it if they follow the proper steps. And you’re telling me there’s nothing behind it!? How dangerous a world is this!?”

“I have a really bad feeling about that,” said Shokuhou, sounding cautious. Like she didn’t want to accept this but she had to share her concerns with someone. “The magic here reminds me a lot of a video game. And this world uses Earth languages and decimal numbers. I really hope not, but could a distorted version of Earth entertainment have arrive in this world?”

With a simple video game, that desperate magic would never actually work.

…But that logic only applied on Earth.

This was a world with pieces of crust floating above an ocean planet. Since the basic laws of nature and physics were different, nothing from Earth was guaranteed to apply to the fantasy world of Celesaqphere.

What if some gears happened to fit together such that experience allowed one to activate magic spells?

Just like medieval Europeans who knew nothing of bacteria still managed to make wine and cheese.

No one understood the real rules.

But there were bakers who knew nothing of yeast who could bake bread even fluffier and more delicious than a high-tech factory while believing they only had to pray to god every day and pour their love into the bread.

“Hm?” groaned Mikoto when she saw some people in the distance.

They were headed this way.

Were they travelers following the same brick road? Mikoto started to continue on toward them, but…

“Oh, no.”

The elf grabbed her long ears to hide them in a fluster.

These were not just ordinary passersby.

She feared these men who were purposefully approaching from the distance.

The hot-blooded men couldn’t suppress their smiles, like they were looking forward to tormenting their prey.

“Th-that’s the patrol. They won’t permit humans and elves to walk side by side.”

“We don’t need their permission.”

Mikoto blew them away with a billion-volts to silence them.

The elf’s mouth gaped, so Mikoto raised her index finger and winked.

“They’re clearly just some dangerously armed busybodies. You don’t have to follow all the pesky little rules they insist on. Always make sure to consider who came up with the rules and why. It’s not too late to follow the good rules after you do that.”

Defeating this one group of bastards wasn’t the end of it.

The small elf had a much more difficult battle she had to overcome on her own.

Part 13

They walked a while longer and arrived by midday.

“Pant, gasp. Wh-where are the sweets and iced tea?” asked Shokuhou.

“Planning to eat back all the calories you burned off so you gain weight in the end?” replied Mikoto.

It was a small village.

They were finally seeing something artificial.

But instead of approaching the village, Mikoto and Shokuhou crouched down around 2km from it. They were still a good distance away, but they had to be careful and avoid the harpies, minotaurs, and other creatures that would make a fuss and give away their position if they got too close.

Only the elf remained standing, looking confused.

At her size, that wasn’t much of an issue, but…

“Um?”

“Sh.”

They were traveling with a runaway slave, after all. They knew better than to expect a warm welcome from this world’s residents. They didn’t know what kinds of communications existed here, but if the slaver had been able to send a message from the crash site via carrier pigeon or thoughtography magic(?), the village could have received wanted posters for them.

So they started by observing from a distance.

First, they wanted to confirm that the elf elder really was there. Then they would observe the villagers and decide whether to approach the front entrance with a smile or sneak in from the rear.

The basic Earth idea that ordinary people wouldn’t be a threat didn’t apply in Celesaqphere where elf slavery was accepted.

“Didn’t we find a tool for this?”

Bikini armor Mikoto rummaged around and pulled out a pair of binoculars. She had found it in a corner of the trunk stolen from the slaver. It was sloppily made compared to an Academy City product and it had no electronic correction, but holding a tool of civilization put her mind at ease.

And Patissiet was unexpectedly interested in it.

Apparently she knew what binoculars were but had never used them before. What kind of life had she lived for the past decades, if not centuries?

“It all looks so big!! Wow…I bet I could see all the way to the other side of the world with these.”

“Well, if she’s enjoying herself, I don’t see the harm.”

“I wonder what the sun looks like…”

“Wait, stop!! Now do you see the harm!?”

Shokuhou quickly used the one of her dancer costume’s frills to cover the lenses and snatched the binoculars away from the elf.

Surprisingly, this showed a caring side of the selfish Queen. Mikoto found this odd. It was almost like she had taken care of a small child at some point?

“Um, do you have an illegitimate child?”

“The name you’re looking for is Dolly. And if that doesn’t mean anything to you, you are even dumber than I thought.”

As far as they could see with the naked eye, the village was made up of gray structures that clashed with the green field. Instead of log cabins, the homes and stores were all made of brick. There were also some small church-like buildings made of marble with blue borders. It looked generally European, but it was somehow at odds with itself. Had this small village made all the brick used in those buildings, or had it been brought in from somewhere else?

But Patissiet didn’t seem to notice anything out of place.

When asked, she seemed puzzled by the question.

“Eh? But if you make your home out of plants, wouldn’t it rot away really quick?”

“…”

Apparently this world didn’t know much about preservatives.

There were some wooden structures next to the farmland, but they were all too small and simple to be homes. They were probably storage sheds for farming equipment. But even they had collapsed at an angle and were half fused with the green of the field.

It was possible they had brought a whole bunch of heavy brick from another floating land when they settled this land. Unlike Japan, it wasn’t uncommon for European apartments to be 300 years old, so they may have preferred something long-lasting to something that was repeatedly rebuilt.

(So they take good care of their buildings? Even though they work the enslaved elves to death?)

Knowing that dark side of these people made this economical spirit feel somewhat ironic.

Once Shokuhou handed over the binoculars, Mikoto observed the village in more detail.

“Ugh,” she groaned.

She saw some dull glints of silver light.

Those had to be the human villagers. They looked like plainly-dressed men and women, but they carried around short swords like it was normal. And these were double-edged swords thicker than the foils used by the Western girls in Tokiwadai’s fencing club. Large bows were common as well. These were not farm implements that could double as weapons. The swords in particular had no use outside of fighting and killing. And there were a lot of them.

“I can’t help but notice all the villagers are armed with dangerous swords and spears. Why? Is this a laundering base where bandits sell their loot for cash?”

“Hm? They probably just bought them at the weapon shop.”

The elf was again puzzled by their confusion.

Mikoto’s eyes widened at her explanation.

“Eh? Anyone can just buy weapons!?”

“Yes. I mean, how would the adventurers get them otherwise?”

How lax was this world?

And the elf didn’t seem to question it at all.

“That doesn’t mean anyone can equip anything, though. Weapons and armor imbued with magic are given compatibility points, so you can’t carry or wear them without the appropriate job and level. That’s why people go to the guild and work to ‘earn’ experience points.”

So if the guild(?), the organization that managed the level system, altered the paperwork, they could strip a runaway criminal of their level so they no longer met their gear’s compatibility points and would lose the use of their weapons and armor? Did that make this safer than late-night Los Angeles which was rife with old-fashioned guns with the registration number filed off and plastic guns illegally made with a 3D printer?

“Th-there she is. That’s our elder!” exclaimed Patissiet, pointing into the distance.

“?”

Bikini armor Mikoto looked for the elder through the binoculars, but where was she? She couldn’t see any old women.

She only saw a graceful lady who didn’t look much older than 30. Was that supposed to be the elder? With her youthful skin, she could have changed into a swimsuit and competed in a university cultural festival’s beauty pageant without raising any eyebrows.

“(But even little Patissiet is supposed to be far older than us.)”

“?”

The elf gave Mikoto a puzzled look. She looked just like a little girl.

Mikoto gave up on finding any link between an elf’s appearance and their age.

Did an elf have to live for 10 centuries before she grew into an old lady who would look at home seated on the porch enjoying a sunbeam?

…But what was going on over there?

People with pointy ears just like the little elf’s were being gathered in the village square. Mikoto would have understood if they were being forced to do backbreaking construction using heavy bricks, but they didn’t appear to be doing much of anything. If anything, it looked like the idea was to gather all the elves in a single outdoor space. But what for?

Shokuhou frowned and shaded her eyes with a hand.

“It’s hard to say what that is from here.”

“Then we need more information.”

They would follow the basics of a fantasy world.

Mikoto and Shokuhou remained crouched as they slowly resumed moving. They focused on the villagers at the outskirts of the village.

“Good morning! This here is Gempick Village.”

One of them was alone. Just like they wanted.

“Good morning! This here is Gempick Village.”

A boy of 15 or 16 was wandering near the village entrance.

“Good morning! This here is Gempi- mgh!?”

Since he had nothing better to do than repeat that line all day long, they covered his mouth and dragged him away from the village.

If he loved providing exposition for beginners, they would give him exactly what he wanted.

“That’s the elf elder over there, right? Why are the villagers gathering the slaves there?”

“Don’t ask me. A slave is a slave, so why would I know who they are – or used to be. Anyway, this here is Gempick Village.”

And he was back to normal.

Mikoto reflexively considered killing him for the experience points, but she just barely stopped herself. That would just be murder.

Yet again, she found life didn’t carry much “weight” in this world.

Thinking back, it had been that way even when they were rampaging through Academy City like kaiju, but it scared her how she might just do something here she would normally find unthinkable.

The (older than them) boy didn’t demonstrate any fear at all as he said more.

“But it’s about time for the tax collector to determine our taxation amount, so this is probably about that.”

“?”

“What do taxes have to do with it?” asked Shokuhou.

“Your yearly taxes are based on how many slaves you own. So you can save a bundle if you eliminate your slaves just before they’re counted, right?”

…If you what?

Part 14

After some discussion, they arrived at a decision.

Mikoto and Shokuhou took Patissiet with them as they entered the village through the front entrance.

“Finally, an inn. Even if they are supposed to be gross here. But maybe we can change our job if we visit the guild?”

“I really doubt job changing is a thing, so I wouldn’t get your hopes if I were you, Miss Lewd Dancer.”

“I would think you would prefer not to be seen out in public like this anymore than I do, Miss Meathead Bikini Armor Warrior Woman!!”

At times like this, Shokuhou’s Mental Out really came in handy.

She had read the abducted boy’s mind and immediately confirmed that there were no wanted posters for Mikoto and Shokuhou. He apparently hadn’t intended to lie to them regardless, but the confirmation meant a lot.

Maybe that nonhuman trafficker simply hadn’t had any means of communication, like a carrier pigeon or signal flare magic(?).

“According to Patissiet, they do have holy jobs like Priest and intellectual jobs like Dark Witch. I can’t wait☆”

“Hm? But I’m pretty sure both of those jobs require high INT or MEN,” said Patissiet.

“…Wait, was I just casually insulted?”

It was curious how it was more devastating when the elf wasn’t even trying to be insulting. And taking that unintentional damage was especially bad when they still didn’t know if they could change their job at all.

Once inside the village, they learned some things.

First, about the state of the farmland.

Some small (but still about the size of a cow) griffins were dragging special tools to till the fields. There were monsters in the village, but they all had collars and chained fetters. In other words, they weren’t wild.

That was probably how it had started.

With them, it was an innocent thing.

The humans tamed the strong but gentle monsters by giving them food and a place to sleep. Those monsters would help with transportation and labor in the fields, allowing the humans to grow even more food, which in turn meant more available for the monsters. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Maybe it had all begun as something that simple.

But at some point that idea had gained a more broad interpretation.

The elves and dwarves were just as intelligent as humans – if not more so – but the humans had justified their actions by calling them inhuman monsters. The humans had systematically captured and sold them on a large scale, forcing them to do all the work in a twisted form of the original concept.

For no other reason than the humans didn’t want to work themselves.

“It really pisses me off,” spat Mikoto as she imagined it.

But maybe Academy City wasn’t much better for creating 20 thousand military clones and systematically killing them for their own selfish ends. Neither world was better or worse than the other. The technology they used differed, but the same cruelty could be found in both. The way it seemed to highlight an ugliness common to all humans made Mikoto gulp bitterly.

Did that dark seed reside in her as well?

“So what do we do next?” asked Shokuhou.

“Good question.”

It was still morning, so they weren’t in a hurry to find a room for the night. Mikoto honestly wanted to pay the guild a visit before the inn.

After asking the villagers where it was, they entered one of the brick buildings.

Part 15

The first floor of the guild doubled as a simple dining hall.

It was flooded with people.

There were Priests with slits even more risqué than China dresses and there were Dark Witches wearing thick cloaks over racing swimsuits. Apparently they really did leave the village and walk through thickets of grass hard as knives while showing that much skin. Mikoto had assumed her bikini armor would garner mockery, but she actually blended in fairly well with it. What a world.

But…

“Hm,” she groaned. Something didn’t sit right with her about this place.

For how well-equipped people were with weapons and tactics for combat and emergencies, they hadn’t made many advances in their everyday lives.

Specifically, there were no hobbies or entertainment.

Hard bread, grilled meat, some kind of soup.

All of the food was bland and uninteresting and the cooking methods and tools used to make it were from a weird mishmash of regions and time periods. They didn’t have hand-cranked pasta makers, yet perfect skinny spaghetti was readily available. Salads were nothing but raw vegetables and no one had figured out you could boil them. Of course, this was another world, so there was nothing odd about the order of inventions differing from Earth.

“Misaka-san, do you remember?”

“?”

“That slaver we met had a fancy dress, but how did she get dressed? The design of her corset seemed pretty wild.”

Now that she mentioned it.

For one thing, corsets had become fashionable during 19th century Europe, not the middle ages. And while Mikoto had seen metal clasps on bags and threads tied in bows, true corsets did not work like that. It hadn’t been unusual for maidservants to pull on the threads like a game of tug of war to forcibly constrict the woman’s waist.

The adventurers(?) walking nearby wore brightly-colored armor like it was normal, but how did they color the metal? The armor had small scratches, but the base metal wasn’t showing through. So instead of painting the metal red, it looked more like they had melted down a “red metal” and poured it into a mold, but how did they do that? If they had a convenient form of magic for it, then that was that, but Mikoto couldn’t help but feel like she had a poor grasp on the systems and manufacturing methods that went on behind the scenes.

To sum it all up…

Yes,

(Their civilization…no, their knowledge is all so shallow. It’s like a single person created this scene out of whatever trivia they happened to know.)

She wasn’t sure what the significance of that was, but it still felt weird to her.

A woman of around 20 stood behind the counter.

She stroked a hand along the big bottle sitting next to her as she smiled and spoke.

“Welcome to the Job Management Guild – Gempick Branch! I don’t recognize you, so is this your first time using our branch?”

“What can we do here?”

Bikini armor Mikoto’s question made the young woman’s smile freeze on her face.

She struggled to keep her confusion from showing.

“The Job Management Guild is exactly what it sounds like: we act as a go-between for all of your jobs. Whether you want to go monster hunting, guard a noble, explore a cave, or collect rare treasure, we will introduce you to the best job for your job type and level.”

Her smile seemed to ask how else anyone could find a job.

“You’re a go-between for everyone’s jobs?”

“Yes.”

“As in, everyone in the village? Including the visiting adventurers?”

“What else would it mean?”

Both the young woman and Patissiet tilted their heads this time.

Mikoto and Shokuhou exchanged a glance.

“That means no one’s free to choose their job ability. ‘You would make a good farmer, so here’s your farming job.’ ‘You look like a fighter, so here’s a list of jobs for you. No, it doesn’t mater if you actually want a peaceful life.’ That’s the only option here? Giving someone a list to choose from isn’t a real choice ability if all three involve killing people. Yet humans have this annoying habit of starving to death if they don’t earn any money.”

“And the real victims of this system are the slaves,” muttered a disgusted Mikoto.

As a slave, you can only perform these jobs.

The jobs on this list are best for you.

They weren’t given any kind of choice, so it was laughable to act like their masters were doing them a favor. This guild seemed convenient at first, but it was actually an exploitative institution closely associated with the source of this world’s discrimination!

While Mikoto and Shokuhou shuddered, various exchanges were occurring at the counter.

The young woman and the adventurers didn’t seem to question any of it.

“Here is your pay for today’s job.”

“Thanks.”

Money here appeared to be gold, silver, and bronze coins instead of paper bills. And instead of counting each individual coin, they measured it by weight using a set of scales.

“Now, now. Elves use these scales.”

“Oh, right…”

“The elves are being gathered in the center square, so hurry on there once you’re done here.”

The reception woman said this with a smile while pouring some cheap-looking bronze coins onto the scales.

Mikoto already had a question.

(The humans and elves use separate scales? Why go to the trouble?)

This didn’t seem like a case of the humans not wanting to use the same tools as the slaves. If it was about segregation, the elves would have an entirely separate counter.

Was it a good thing that even the small issues bothered Mikoto so badly?

Simply put, couldn’t the guild rig the springs and weights to cheat the elves out of their fair pay?

Dancer Shokuhou raised a hand.

“Question. Do important people like the nobility and royalty have to choose their jobs from the guild’s list?”

“Don’t’ be silly. The lords with their own territory are the ones who run the guild. We open these branches on the behalf of the lords and kings, a portion of the money and experience everyone earns through the guild is collected, and that is paid to the lords and kings as a tax. That’s the basic system.”

So that was normal here.

Mikoto had to wonder if the percentage taken for that tax could be changed any time the lords and kings felt like it. Maybe even as high as 98% or 99%? They could squeeze everyone dry.

And hadn’t Patissiet said the kings had reached the level cap of 9999?

This was a terrible world where you could work and train all you wanted and never level up without the guild leaders’ permission. And at the same time, the lords and kings were taking away other people’s experience points as a tax, allowing them to level up endlessly while just sitting around.

That was why the kings who never did any work grew big and fat.

That was why the elves who worked themselves to the bone could never achieve happiness.

“…”

Academy City had its own cruel hierarchy. But Mikoto and Shokuhou had leveled up within that esper development system, so they found it hard to accept this system where people’s talents and efforts were stolen away by others.

Plus, it reminded them of the experiment using so many clones.

A great many were being sacrificed for the benefit of a specific individual.

Simply put, it strongly rubbed the #3 and #5 the wrong way.

…Mikoto knew she had to take a deep breath to calm herself. Because there was more she wanted to ask about.

“But aren’t there a lot of people here for a rural village? In fact, I feel like there are more outside adventurers here than there are actual villagers.”

“Of course there are, miss.”

A muscular man with a sword, shield, and armor spoke to her from behind.

She was relieved to find his armor was not of the bikini variety.

“The area around Gempick Village is known for its excellent gems.”

“It is?”

“How do you not know this? Are you a rookie who just ran away from home, or something? Admittedly, finding the gems in the vast field ain’t easy, but even a small one is worth enough to buy a house. To get rich quick, head to Gempick, as they say.”

The man laughed and then went elsewhere. He was apparently interested in the display board on the wall, not the counter.

Mikoto sensed something on her skin.

And she sensed it from both the man and the counter. Was it coming from the giant bottle the young woman was holding her hand to and rubbing like it was a crystal ball?

“?”

“What’s wrong?” asked Shokuhou.

“Nothing really,” said the #3 girl.

But there was no doubting it anymore. Every time a powerful adventurer passed by in the guild, she felt a tingle on her skin. Maybe this was something only Misaka Mikoto could sense. Maybe you needed the #3 Level 5’s control over electricity and magnetism and her radar using EM waves.

“The reaction is stronger from the higher-level adventurers who must have earned more experience.”

The answer was right there.

It was obvious if you considered what kind of esper she was.

“Are experience points…electricity? That’s it. There’s a special bioelectricity running through their bodies and they call that experience!! The guild manages people’s experience and leveling by using a capacitor-like tool to transfer it from the people to that bottle or from the bottle to the people!”

She realized something.

Her understanding of this world explosively expanded.

(If you want to develop all your muscles as efficiently as possible, it’s best to constantly stimulate them with a weak electric current. The legend says anyone who irreverently interferes in the goddess’s level grinding will be destroyed by divine punishment, causing them to explode, but that’s just talking about people who were struck by lightning.)

The details of the system this world called magic were still unclear, but they must have developed a technique of turning that growth in a non-physical direction.

So wait.

Did that mean Mikoto could hijack control of the entire human race’s experience points?

If so, this world really was designed for the Railgun!!

“What’s wrong?” asked the woman tilting her head behind the counter.

This girl’s realization rendered the guild entirely meaningless, but this woman was sadly unaware of that paradigm shift.

Mikoto held this world in the palm of her hand.

She heard a commotion outside the guild.

The elves were being gathered in the village square for some reason.

That was the girls’ true purpose here.

Now that they had gathered some other information, it was time to get to the heart of the issue.

“So what’s that about?”

“What’s what about?”

“The elves being gathered in the village square. They were wearing collars, so you see them as slaves, right?”

“Oh, that. It’s about tax season, which means everyone wants to own 0 slaves, but it would be so much effort for each family to work their own slaves to death. So there is a yearly event where everyone in the village gathers their slaves in the square and kills them.”

“Oh, really?”

That settled it.

Were they going to take those elves’ lives like it was some year-end roadwork? Every year, the elves were captured, bought and sold, and abused. But when the time came, they were all seen as a nuisance, regardless of their age, strength, or physical condition.

Mikoto didn’t know if elves lived for hundreds or thousands of years, but once they were captured, they lived for a single year. They were worked so hard it psychologically scarred them and then they were all killed and thrown out.

“I see, I see, I see how it is.”

One year? To hell with that. There wasn’t time to wait even one second.

Plus, Mikoto had reached her limit.

She glanced over to see Shokuhou pull the elf to her ample chest so she would be safely out of the way and then pull a TV remote from the handbag she wore diagonally across her chest.

The look on Shokuhou’s face said she was ready to go.

Academy City’s #3 Level 5, the Railgun, grinned and spoke to the woman behind the counter.

She was declaring war.

“By the way, were you aware I’m an abolitionist?”

“Eh? Huh?”

Part 16

Crash.

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!!!!!!

Part 17

It wasn’t just an issue of burning or shocking.

As soon as Misaka Mikoto let her emotions explode, the supposedly-sturdy brick guild building was blown to smithereens from the inside.

Mercy?

They couldn’t be expected to question what they were raised to accept as normal in this world?

This went far beyond anything she was willing to accept based on those arguments!!

(Argh!! They’ll be eliminating all the elves because it’s tax season? Then was Patissiet silently obeying that slaver, knowing she would be killed!? Why does everyone just go along with this!?)

Most likely, this wasn’t a simple problem that could be solved by attacking some tangible source.

But rescuing the lives in immediate danger had to come first.

Mikoto had her objective.

Maybe the elves were ashamed they had been captured by mere humans. Maybe they were accepting death as a release from the backbreaking labor. But how could she let this happen? Even if the elves were too exhausted to go on living and hadn’t asked for her help, how could she just stand back and watch!?

“!!”

She had just used a high-voltage current to knock out all the tough adventurers visiting the guild.

But they weren’t the village’s only fighting force.

“Go! Get her! I don’t know who she is or what she could possibly have against us, but she has attacked us!! We need to band together and protect our village!!”

An old man shouted in a self-important way.

Could she simply assume he was the human village’s mayor?

Footsteps surrounded Mikoto while keeping their distance. There were between 50 and 100 people. She had blown up the guild in the center of the village, effectively declaring war. Ordinarily, that would be a suicidal choice because now she would be attacked from all sides and overwhelmed by their superior numbers.

But she wasn’t ordinary.

The standard assumptions didn’t apply to Academy City’s #3!

“If you go through this barbaric practice year after year, you don’t get to stand there and tell me I’ve done something wrong, you old bastard!!!”

Electric snakes slithered out.

But each one was not directed at an individual. She targeted groups. When they hit, everyone within a 5m radius was blasted skyward like an explosive shell had hit there. After being thrown several meters, the villagers could no longer get back up. Their limbs swung randomly and they convulsed.

“Ohhhh!!”

Mikoto flicked an arcade coin up with her thumb and mercilessly launched a Railgun.

The guild building she had destroyed first appeared to be the sturdiest in the village. That meant she had already demonstrated her ability to break through anything anyone might attempt to use as a shield. She appeared to have already broken most of the adventurers’ spirits. A lot of them froze up, fell onto their rears, or dropped their weapons.

A single individual had shredded their encirclement.

The mayor quaked at this unbelievable result.

But then…

“S-special assignment!!”

The guild receptionist crawled out from below a pile of rubble and raised her voice.

She was facing the inn for visitors, which was still standing.

“For a limited time only, all bounties for wanted criminals are tripled!! End this commotion immediately. You know what to do, adventurers!!!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Mikoto saw an ugly grin on the old mayor’s face.

These adventurers likely had far more combat experience than her. Some of them might even wield the kind of magic Patissiet had used.

But how could any of that harm Mikoto?

For that matter…

“Capture the mayor who caused this commotion!! Again, the bounty pays triple, but the full sum goes only to whoever brings him in first!!”

The mayor froze.

With her handbag worn diagonally across her dancer’s outfit, Shokuhou winked and mischievously kissed the tip of her TV remote.

She was the strongest mental esper.

For Academy City’s #5 Mental Out, this much was a piece of cake.

While the #3 chose to simply reject the ugly side of human nature, this girl used it and weaponized it to save the elves’ lives. That scheming Queen had pursued human malice long enough to manage that.

“Hey, wait, what!?”

The mayor wasn’t given time to say much of anything.

Blinded by greed, the professional adventurers attacked him as a group.

Part 18

The mayor was an old man. That old man had once been a middle-aged man. That middle-aged man had once been a young man. That young man had once been a boy.

He had used elves without ever questioning it.

And without appreciating the benefits that gave him.

When he was still young, there had been an epidemic that only affected elves, forcing the small society that was his village to survive with only the humans working.

It had been a disaster.

They hadn’t known how to work the fields or weave. In fact, they hadn’t even known how to draw water, so the entire village had nearly dried up and died.

At that time, the powerless nobody had realized that the elves were their lifeline. Without the elves, the humans would surely die. He had to accept that the elves were stronger, more beautiful, and a superior lifeform to the humans. So they could handle being worked as slaves. There was nothing wrong with the humans relying on and sponging off of the elves to survive. Wasn’t that right?

Not at all, thought the old mayor in a self-deprecating realization in that final moment.

It was true the humans had nearly died when they hadn’t had the elves to work for them. But what if they had changed their way of thinking and decided the true danger was their reliance on the elves? What if the humans had bowed down to the elves and made a legitimate effort to learn how to till their fields and grow the food they needed to establish a cycle of self-sufficiency?

What would things be like now if they had thanked the elves for supporting their lives for so long and then tried to return the favor?

There had been countless opportunities to make that choice.

But the old man had never tried to change.

“This may be divine punishment,” he muttered

A moment later, the adventurers were on him like a swarm of monsters.

Part 19

They had won a complete victory.

Misaka Mikoto’s simple firepower had torn through the enemy, but the real star player was Shokuhou Misaki for pitting the enemy against each other, causing critical damage to the entire group.

Most importantly, none of the elves had come to harm.

The humans probably feared letting the elves carry weapons would allow them to gather together and revolt, but they probably also thought it would harm their reputation if they let a “mere slave” protect them.

Mikoto addressed the group of elves.

“Which one of you is the elf elder? We want to talk with you later.”

“That would be me…”

“Stay with the others. I said later, remember? For now, get something hot to eat and get some rest in a bed.”

The elder (who seemed more like the sexy older girl next door) and Patissiet exchanged a glance.

“What is going on here?”

“It would seem we have been rescued.”

The elves spoke about it in such a detached way. But the way their long ears twitched as they spoke was decently cute.

Anyway.

After wiping off her brow, Patissiet spoke with the look of someone who had worked up a pleasant sweat.

“Lady Misaka, Lady Shokuhou. Shall we make the captured humans into our slaves?”

“Shall we what!!?” “Shall we what!!?”

The little elf had an innocent smile on her face.

Mikoto waved her hands frantically.

“Hey, wait, can we talk about this? First, do you know what you’re saying!?”

“Yes? When someone is captured after losing a fight, they become your slave. These people admittedly aren’t monsters, but a loss is a loss.”

She looked puzzled.

She talked about it as if someone had just questioned the fact that rock beats scissors.

Because she had been treated that way, she didn’t question the system of slavery itself.

Even Shokuhou looked taken aback by this, but she managed a smile.

“Umm… Haven’t you ever heard that you shouldn’t do to others what you don’t want done to you?”

“?”

Apparently not.

It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the logic – she couldn’t apply that logic to slavery.

Being a slave had been the default state for her.

It wasn’t about wanting or not wanting.

And this meant she felt no qualms about saying someone else would be a slave. She accepted it as easily as the idea that you had to start school in the spring.

In a way, this was the humans of Celesaqphere reaping what they had sown.

(No, wait, wait, wait!! I can’t think that way. That just turns the abusers into the abused – it doesn’t get rid of the fundamental system of slavery. We did need to save Patissiet and the other elves, but we’re not here to turn them into the new abusers!!)

Mikoto needed to think.

Straightforward methods wouldn’t work. Using Earth-based reasoning wouldn’t reach that elf. If she didn’t think up a better way of phrasing it, Patissiet and the others would be swallowed up by the darkness of Celesaqphere.

Mikoto gathered her thoughts.

“Patissiet!”

“? Y-yes, what do you want?”

“I-I can be friends with slaves, but I will not be friends with anyone who uses slaves!”

“Eh?” Patissiet was dumbfounded.

Yeah, that probably does hurt, thought Mikoto, staring into the distance.

The human heart was an incredibly complex thing. Although this was an elf.

Little Patissiet raised her voice with tears in her eyes.

“Th-then I won’t do it! I won’t make them slaves!! Because I want to be with you two!!”

(That was a clooooooose one!!) (That was a clooooooose one!!)

Mikoto and Shokuhou breathed synchronized sighs of relief.

But this was a matter of rhetoric.

It didn’t solve the fundamental problem. It didn’t have to be now. If they didn’t get her to truly understand what was wrong with slavery, the problem would eventually rear its ugly head once more. The last thing they wanted was to set the victims up as the new abusers.

The elf tilted her head.

Cutely.

“But isn’t it job-based discrimination to exclude slavers like that?”

“No, it is not!!” “No, it is not!!”

Part 20

The village belonged to Mikoto and Shokuhou now.

Patissiet was staring down at the ground.

Mikoto wondered what the girl was up to, but then she crouched down and grabbed something between her little fingertips.

“What’s that?”

“I-it’s a fulgurite… That’s the ultimate mineral, worth even more than platinum or diamonds! I thought I must be mistaken, but it really is real!!”

The elf shouted in excitement, but Mikoto and Shokuhou only tilted their heads.

A fulgurite?

So what?

When sand was heated enough, it turned to glass. That was what formed fulgurites, “gems” created by lightning. Their origin was unique, but they were primarily composed of ordinary silicon and weren’t all that valuable.

For that matter, glass and bricks were made by heating and hardening sand or earth, but they didn’t appear to have any special value here.

“Does their value ability change because electricity is so rare in this world?”

“Beyond that, experience points here are weak bioelectricity. So it may be less the rarity of the material and more a special value placed on them by their myths and occult beliefs.”

Mikoto had thought it was odd when they discussed searching the fields for gems.

You normally dug deep inside mines for those.

But the guild adventurers apparently collected them from the fields.

Was that because the weather tended to be stormy here, meaning widespread thunderstorms and thus more fulgurites to find? That would also explain where such a small, remote village had acquire the income for their luxurious brick buildings.

Anyway.

That fulgurites were worth more than platinum or diamonds was welcome news. That meant fulgurites were the most stable form of currency in this fantasy world, so their value could influence state economies.

Simply put…

“The lords and kings who have amassed great wealth through their encouragement of slavery probably preserve their ill-gotten gains by stuffing their vaults full of valuable fulgurites, right?”

“But if you start zapping to mass-produce those fulgurites, their value will nosedive. Even a powerful military state needs money to wage war and run its domestic affairs, so you can singlehandedly drive any king or lord to bankruptcy with your instant hyper-inflation ability☆”

It was happening again.

This world really was made for Misaka Mikoto.

Part 21

For the time being, Mikoto and Shokuhou got rooms at the inn.

Which meant the only inn in town automatically became their base of operations.

“Ew, it’s worse than I thought.”

Bikini armor Mikoto stopped in the doorway after taking a look at the small, wood-floored room.

To be blunt, she was a little afraid to go in.

Even from this far, she could see little things hopping around the bed. Bloodsucking things about the size of rice grains, to be specific.

The inn certainly wasn’t going to be a place for pleasant dreams.

But maybe that was what you got in a cheap inn for soldiers and adventures. If it was too comfortable, those ruffians would overstay their welcome and bring trouble to the village.

(So is my first job getting rid of the fleas and airing out the bedding?)

Being disgusted with the task wouldn’t get it done any faster. Were there any camphor trees growing nearby? If she dry distilled the wood, she could extract an insect repellent from it. She could probably manage that much even in a fantasy world.

“…Ugh.”

Dancer Shokuhou emerged from the neighboring room, looking close to death.

That lover of natural ingredients looked like she was seriously considering if she could survive here without relying on chemical insecticides. She must have gone through a fair amount of confusion and shouting inside the room because her hair was sticking out every which way and her handbag’s chain was tangled weirdly around her neck.

Mikoto didn’t care about that, so she asked a carefree question.

“So where’s Patissiet?”

“In my room. The bed might be the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but there is at least a hot bath. I let Patissiet take the first-”

A shrill scream cut her off.

And then a small figure in a towel scrambled out of the room.

The red-faced, dizzy-looking girl was Patissiet.

“What, was there a rat or something?”

“H-hot, water hot, why would bath be hot?”

She had boiled in seconds.

It wasn’t just her face – her entire body was a bit red.

“Shokuhou, are you like those stubborn old men who like their baths to be scalding?”

“Of course not!! I bet elves normally bathe outside in cold springs, so they aren’t used to 40-degree baths.”

Whatever the reason, they couldn’t leave a young(?) girl out in the hallway wearing nothing but a towel. They carried her back into Shokuhou’s room. The room was much like Mikoto’s. Which also meant it would take courage to sit on the bed.

That said, there were also chairs and a sofa.

“Ahh, well-ventilated spots are so refreshing.”

The elf must have wanted to cool her body. That much made sense.

However.

“Hey, Patissiet, why are you curled up on top of that wardrobe?”

“Hm? Because scary enemies can’t get you when you’re up high and you can see when dangerous animals are approaching.”

Did the forest-dwelling elves live up in the trees?

She would probably love it if they made her a DIY cat tower.

Mikoto sighed.

“By the way, what do we do about the mayor? Personally, I want to go and talk things out with him.”

“Ehh? But I have Mental Out and I’d rather not do that boring quest myself, so can’t I just brainwash some random villager into doing it?”

“We’re supposed to be fighting against slavery here, you lazy queen!!”

Mikoto grabbed Shokuhou’s arm and dragged her out of the room.

Dancer Shokuhou was still complaining.

“Level grinding is a thing of the past. I’m more a fan of idle games.”

“The character in the game is still working busily the entire time, idiot.”

After the village benefited so much from the elves’ work, they had to make sure the mayor repaid the elves.

The #5 was very clearly just tired and wanted someone to take her irritation out on, but Mikoto decided she wasn’t interested in defending the mayor who had worked those elves so hard.

After arriving at the mayor’s house – the largest in the village – Mikoto made her demand.

“Repay the elves for the work they’ve done for you. And I mean all of it. Right now.”

“Um!”

He had to know better than anyone he was in no position to argue.

The paled mayor’s tongue trembled as he got out a short response.

“H-have it your way.”

“That was never in question,” said Shokuhou, but she was actually slightly surprised on the inside.

She had expected him to make a desperate and ugly attempt to defend the village’s assets.

“First priority ability is probably the weapons and food.”

“Hm? You don’t want the money?”

“No thanks. It’s going to be worthless soon enough. Oh, and if you don’t want your people to starve, I recommend keeping around any gold or jewels you have. It would be a shame if you ended up dying from this. Not because I care about you. I just don’t want to see Patissiet looking sad.”

The mayor still looked confused, but they were under no obligation to explain it all to him.

Mikoto could mass-produce as many valuable fulgurites as she wanted. It was very possible that money would be worth less than a grain of sand in a day’s time.

Part 22

A full stomach could work wonders.

When someone’s mental state deteriorated enough, they could reach a point where they couldn’t even eat, but as long as that wasn’t an issue, fulfilling their body’s demands would improve the elves’ mental health. Their digestive organs didn’t seem atrophied, so they had probably actually been given food. Their “job” was slave, so maybe they had been forcibly fed plenty of food, albeit of the lowest quality, to ensure they could continue doing hard lab-

All of a sudden.

Still standing, Mikoto and Shokuhou were moved like a film with frames missing. To them, it felt more like their surroundings had been swapped out than that they had been taken away. It happened so smoothly and naturally, but they couldn’t sort out their memories of it when they thought back on it.

“???”

It reminded more of Shirai Kuroko’s teleportation than anything else. If an esper could move people tens of thousands of kilometers without touching them, they might be able to accomplish this.

The #3 and the #5 widened their eyes.

They were in a holy ground or a temple with a luxury smartphone aesthetic and a sparkling wine coloration.

This was the first place they had been taken. Did that mean they weren’t even in Celesaqphere anymore?

“Hey, wait,” frantically yelled bikini armor Mikoto.

The vast space was deserted. Where had that small and busty mystery goddess gotten off to!?

“What do you think you’re doing!? Why’d you bring us here? We still haven’t saved Patissiet and the other elves!!”

They had saved the elves from being so senselessly execute in that village, but that didn’t solve the whole problem. If the great power that was Mikoto and Shokuhou was removed from the equation, what would happen to those elves? Patissiet would be recaptured by the humans and end up right back where she started!!

“You took it too far.”

They heard a voice.

A familiar one.

The pure white dancer was right there in front of them. Even though there was nowhere to hide in this wide-open space. They weren’t sure how they hadn’t noticed her before. Could it really be explained with teleportation? Or did the goddess not have a physical form until she wanted one?

(She can’t be like that aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields I saw before, can she?)

(She’s a Reincarnation Goddess…but how is that defined exactly? For example, what makes a goddess different from an angel and how do they compare against each other in strength ability?)

Their many questions and doubts were casually thrown out.

The little god was definitely here now and she spoke with a smile.

“You were about ready to break all the rules of Celesaqphere and reign supreme there. So. As an emergency measure, I’ll be taking you two to another world.”

“Reincarnation Goddess Salinagaritina, you told us you can take us from Earth to another world, but not the other way around,” said Shokuhou.

“Right. Which is why I can only transport your souls from that old world to a new world. That doesn’t violate the territory of another goddess and it doesn’t break my own rules as a Reincarnation Goddess.”

Did a goddess this powerful really have rules she had to follow?

Was there someone who would punish her if she broke them?

Salinagaritina must have hoped Mikoto and Shokuhou would travel across the world she sent them to and complete its map, invent a specific item, or whatever else, but since it didn’t look like they were going to do whatever it was, she had decided to put an end to it.

Did she think she could get away with anything as long as she didn’t break the rules?

“Eh heh heh. Now, what world should I send you to next? This one was my mistake, so I’ll search out a world with some conditions that give you a real advantage☆ Maybe a world where humans and dinosaurs coexist, or a world where humans have become electric beings and swim freely through the network. Oh, there’s just so many fantastic options out there!”

“Wait, we still need to help Patissiet. We can’t just abandon her there. If you’re going to take us from that world, you at least need to promise you’ll protect her!!”

“Oh, I know. This time, you can fight in a vast space war spanning the solar system☆”

“Listen, damn youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!” “Listen, damn youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!”

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