Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item4 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 10===

A bomb professional knew how to do more than set up bombs.

When the situation called for it, they could also disarm bombs or identify a safe zone to escape the blast.

“Kh…”

(In the end, that was a remote-controlled hopping bomb that uses springs to launch itself up.)

Frenda groaned below the large truck.

She heard something falling all across the ground. Those barbed fish hooks had been used to make the blast more deadly. So many of them had been scattered in all 360 degrees with more force than a handgun, but lucky for Frenda, they had been pouring down from above. That meant a solid roof was enough to stay safe.

The blonde girl tugged on something with her right hand.

It felt too light.

The driver was much larger than her. She had tried to drag him under the truck with her, but the bomb had detonated first. Thanks to that, his bottom half had still been sticking out from below the truck. That part of him had been annihilated by the blast. The result reminded her of a swarm of piranhas. After dozens of fishing hooks had pierced and torn through his body at speeds greater than a bullet, his flesh and even his bones were just gone.

There was no further attack.

(Was that meant to silence him, not kill me? In the end, they have some nerve punishing that amateur as a traitor after they got him involved to avoid dirtying their own hands.)

At least he had died instantly.

Frenda reached down and shut his gaping eyes before crawling out from under the truck.

The world outside was in awful shape.

The metal taxis had been flipped over and destroyed and the shock had triggered their car alarms, which continued to blare meaninglessly. Several roadside trees had been felled. The restaurant was a decent distance away, but its sliding door had still been destroyed. No one was exiting the restaurant despite all the noise, probably because they had no way of knowing if another blast was coming.

Still, the police would be here soon.

Frenda couldn’t stay here for long, but seeing the blast site stimulated her mind.

“I see.”

In both hacking and bomb-making, the initial crime someone came up with was then copied, modified, and combined with other techniques. No matter how complex the explosive device, the wicked invention would spread throughout the world in no time.

As someone who followed that path, Frenda could glean some information from the small fragments left behind after the explosion.

(So they used a cheap music player with a clock and numerical password and used sparks for the ignition. In the end, cutting a colorful cord wouldn’t be enough. Defusing that would have required programming knowledge too.)

The explosive device was probably a copy of someone else’s. There was no need to ask whose. ''It looked far too familiar.'' The unseen villain wanted to frame Frenda, so basing this on one of her past bombings was the best option.

There was a decent technological gap between Academy City and the outside world, but the villain would have had an example to work with. Frenda’s equipment had been taken from her before she woke up on the Shinjuku Station platform, after all.

“In the end, a remote-controlled hopping bomb is a very Academy City sort of toy… I doubt they have those in the outside world yet.”

Conversely, the explosive was just pathetic. It was cheap garbage made from chemical fertilizer. Inside Academy City, there were plenty of explosives that were easier to make, more powerful, and could slip past nitrogen compound sensors. This was definitely something acquired in the outside world.

But this was no laughing matter.

(''They'' would be able to buy as many fancy explosives as they want. But instead they made their own out of everyday substances, which is like leaving a calling card of identifying traces.)

This was a compound made from a commercial chemical fertilizer, not a pure element. No matter how carefully it was processed, the mixing and extraction processes would introduce some impurities. The distribution of those impurities would contain small idiosyncrasies. Ordinarily this would provide dangerous clues to a forensic team, such as where the ingredients used had been purchased, but they had instead left behind their own unseen calling card.

Instead of hiding their crime, they were showing it off to use fear as a weapon. Instead of securing their safety by fleeing the police and judiciary, they would use despair to prevent a proper investigation from being carried out. There was an organization out there that had turned fear and violence into a product.

Be careful, they said.

If you mistake this for an ordinary bombing and continue investigating, even a police officer will end up sleeping with the fishes.

“…”

A compound made from chemical fertilizer.

Frenda Seivelun knew of a group that preferred that method.

She only had secondhand information from the internet since she rarely left Academy City, but the anonymous poster had gone silent afterwards, so the information was probably good. The idiot who carelessly let that one slip likely went through a lot and ultimately had to take on a whole new identity. In fact, the odds were good they had been forced to flee the small island nation of Japan for their own safety.

The enemy was an outside organization.

It was a sophisticated Western-style machine of violence.



“In the end, this was ''the Mugino Family''.”