Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Crossover2 (section)

===Part 11===

'''(Heivia/Ground’s Nir)

“Share your knowledge? You can probably do that.”

The glasses witch named Filinion readily answered Heivia’s serious question.

“Wait, wait, wait. Surely you have to think about it more than that!!”

“Putting on airs isn’t going to help.” She remained nonchalant. “You might be confused about how this works. It’s the Gate equipment that’s complex, not passing through them. Well, there is a custom of restricting travel by registering your smartphone with a particular Gate, but you seem to have skipped that part when you came here.”

“How should I know? This might be normal to you, but it’s all new to me.”

“Boo… I also don’t really get it when the humans start talking about confusing stuff like the Gates. It just looks like they’re messing with a bunch of little buttons and stuff.”

Boo Boo and Heivia shook hands as kindred spirits and Beatrice rubbed her index finger against her temple.

“To be honest, it’s you passing through the Gates without authorization that makes no sense. If you didn’t use some kind of hacking tool, then maybe you just so happened to slip through a vulnerability,” she said. “But even if we can’t operate that Gate like we want, it wouldn’t hurt to figure out where it is. Whatever you might be thinking, the Gates are general terminals for data management, not just holes. We look like we do because of the preparations we made in the Introduction Making.”

“Meaning?”

“Leave the data with the Gate and you can send it to the other side, assuming they’re in contact on their end. Voice would probably be the fastest method.”

It may have been more like sending a prerecorded message than having a real-time conversation.

“Hey, wait. That means I can send stuff to Quenser, but I can’t get anything back. I mean, it’s better than nothing, but it still feels like just waiting around.”

“Hmm.” Armelina thought for a while. “Then why not have them send data back?”

“Are you going to give him three girls with nice bodies (ha) to show him how it’s done? He might just cautiously observe the Gate and have no idea how to operate it.”

“Then send him that information too. …And did you just laugh there? Mind telling me what that was about?” the green Fighter Priest was extremely casual about it all. “You can include instructions on sending data along with a report on your situation. It might be more work, but you could also create a conversational flowchart. Make it naturally answer all the questions that…what was his name? Well, that your partner would have while gathering data. Then we don’t have to mess with the Gate on that end.”

“We should probably add in some kind of authentication. If we send this to just anyone, we could be indiscriminately spreading strange data among the people on the other side.”

That was when the three of them stopped speaking.

The idea of an invasion through data may have seemed like a serious threat to them. It just made Heivia think they were like the Information Alliance.

Boo Boo alone tilted his head. He hated to admit it, but Heivia found he was more like Boo Boo.

“Anyway.”

As if to bring an end to those thoughts or to break through an invisible jinx, Beatrice spoke up.

“We first need to search for a suspicious Gate that’s been newly constructed. There has to be at least one that connects your world to here, but there might be more. You can walk the perimeter of Ground’s Nir in just three days, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“It’s possible you were the only one to travel between worlds and your friend is still in that storeroom.”

But that also meant the tunnel connecting Ground’s Nir with the 37th might not be the only one. There could also be tunnels connecting Ground’s Nir to other worlds.

Gates did not open on their own. Someone had to construct them.

“Even if your partner was sent to another world, he’ll be looking for any way of getting back. He wouldn’t be able to bear just sitting and waiting, so there’s no way he would overlook even the slightest change. We can only pray he’s searching for the Gate too. Even if he’s hesitant to pass through it, he would still want to know where it is.”