Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume2 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 3===

They must have had a few different options at that point.

They could have remained in the destroyed living spaces of the C World dome, they could have left the dome altogether, or they could have attacked one of the surviving domes to steal their supplies and necessities.

But those were only options in the most abstract sense.

“Uhh.”

The nervous female teacher hunkered down and shivered as Karuta and the rest looked her way. She could apparently use Crystal Magic, but her focus was on theory. She could not bear the ''pressure of choice'' in actual combat.

Kiyosawa Hadome shook his head. He might be able to make the decision itself, but he was not confident that the 1000 students would obey since he inspired so much fear and unease in them. He had not been reincarnated in another world, so the people around him would not just unquestioningly accept everything he said as long as it was correct. Everyone had to bet their own life on their choices here and they would lose everything if they died.

That made this a job for their only Regulation 3 and their Student Council President: Omotesandou Kyouka.

“Don’t you dare say this is because I’m the closest to being old☆”

“No one was even considering that, so why bring it up at all? Putting your foot in your mouth?”

“Karuta-kun.”

He looked away from the President with the gentle yet scary voice.

He hoped that would make her forget he said anything.

“Anyway, look at this.”

She readily spoke up as if grabbing an invisible card between her fingers and pulling it from the deck.

Her decision here could lead to a great many deaths among the Grimnoah students and the ordinary people. For that matter, it was entirely possible an absolute victory was not even an option here and sacrifices would be unavoidable no matter what they did. Yet she showed no hesitation. Their elected President chose a path for them all.

That was the usual way of things, which might sound simple enough, but it was like performing a tightrope walk between skyscrapers. You only had to stand on the edge of a deadly precipice to realize just how difficult it was.

“Surviving in the great outdoors seems like the best bet we have here.”

Karuta and the others crossed the shattered transparent exterior wall to exit the dome.

The actual temperature could not have changed much, but a chill crawled up from their feet.

They could tell they were now outside, where they were not guaranteed to survive.

Also, the Crystal Beach itself existed on a few artificial islands floating in the ocean. That artificial land had been constructed as an impurity to induce freezing and stop the thawing of the Arctic ice due to global warming. But that alone had been considered a waste of resources, so they had grown into a largescale resort centered around casinos and hotels.

The translucent domes and aquarium-like tunnels were not the entirety of the space.

If they could endure the -15-degree environment, there was plenty of white land there.

And once outside…

“…”

Utagai Karuta was digging through the snow. After everything that had happened, they were forced to labor in the cold.

The hellish President had put it this way:

“The frigid environment is effectively identical outside and inside the C World dome, but the limited space of the dome is overrun with the Threat and we only risk an all-out attack if we remain here and are discovered. If the temperature is 15 below freezing either way, it would be safest to put some distance between us and the dome.”

She had made it sound so simple, but she had put some thought into it.

“We also cannot attack the other domes. As Karuta-kun said, damaging the outer walls would let the -15-degree air inside, ruining the survivability of the domes. We have no choice but to fight the cold out here. But to put it another way, our options expand significantly as long as we can clear that -15-degree barrier. We would be able to focus on the fight and we would be able to go on the offensive next time.”

“Pant, pant, gasp. Goddammit.”

“Sacri-sama, you have stopped working. Swearing will not accomplish anything here.”

“Why do we have to make two of them, one for me and one for Aine? And I can’t boost my physical abilities with Crystal Magic armor like the others can!”

They had to deal with the cold somehow, but there was nothing but white snow out here.

Their only option was to make use of that snow.

“I never though my life would depend on playing in the snow like a child.”

“Have you never heard of igloos?” asked Kyouka. “These are homes built from snow bricks by the Inuit who live in Alaska.”

Her wheelchair was nearly useless with the snow jamming up the wheels, so Aine was busy building her igloo. The beautiful girl took the time to watch over the high school boys who had started a snowball fight despite the dire situation and the black bob cut girl from the Student Council who was chasing after them trying to get them to stop.

“The snow bricks have air packed within, giving the igloos the same insulative properties as a down jacket. A house made of solid bricks won’t do much good against the Threat anyway. No matter how much time we spend fortifying our defenses, they’ll be knocked down as easy as a house of straw, so isn’t it the perfect time for quick shelters that are easily built and easily abandoned? Igloos are apparently built as temporary winter homes.”

Their magic gave them a limit of 24 hours out in the cold, but they could reset that by getting rest somewhere warm. Similarly, when fighting the Problem Solvers, they had first acquired a cheap used RV instead of weapons or armor. If you were going to fight, you needed a safe home where you could take your time and think.

But.

“Pant, easily built, gasp, my ass. If you’re, gasp, going to say that, how about you try it? Ugh.”

“How am I supposed to do that in this wheelchair? And why in the world do you think you’re building one for Aine too? She’ll obviously be sharing yours.”

“Wait, is that yours Aine is working on!!!???”

“Done!” said an innocent voice.

Karuta was sticky with sweat despite the blizzard and he looked back to see twintailed Marika already standing next to a completed single room home (making full use of her Crystal Magic armor). She had had enough time left over to find two large palm leaves carried here by the wind and place them on top so the igloo looked something like a snow rabbit.

“Is that good enough? I hope this will get me through the night.”

“The shape of the entrance is special. Adjust it to keep out the cold and it apparently gets fairly warm inside.”

Real igloos were apparently lined with fur to keep the heat in, but these used waterproof tarps instead. Acquiring enough of those for 1000 people might sound difficult, but this was not a natural part of the Arctic. They had apparently come across some kind of construction area, so they could dig through the thick snow to find all kinds of artificial objects.

Thus spoke the reliable President:

“There was an awful lot of empty space outside the dome for an artificial island, so it was simple enough to guess more was either under construction or had been abandoned mid-construction.”

Marika’s snow rabbit became a trendsetter. When the middle schoolers saw it, they began adding personal touches to their own igloos – giving them cat ears of snow or sticking in branches meant to be reindeer antlers. That was also helpful in a practical sense, because it helped them recognize their own igloo out of the otherwise indistinguishable dumpling-like lumps of snow. Although some got carried away, added too much snow, and crushed their own igloo.

The high schoolers had finally ended their snowball fight. Exercise was a good way of staying healthy and dealing with stress, but it was enough to horrify Karuta who had not even finished his own igloo.

“Man, where’d they get all that energy? You would think we were building snow sculptures for a winter festival or something.”

“How is this any different from ordinary homes? The color of the roof has no bearing on your life inside it, but that doesn’t stop people from being particular about those things,” said Marika. “And what’s with you? Have you still not finished your basic igloo?”

“I can’t keep this up. Please, Marika, can I spend the night at your place?”

“My home has no place for unromantic, self-serving guys. Get lost.”

Karuta caught himself before retorting that she had no problem slipping into his dorm room because her room was too full of online shopping packages.

Aine did not seem at all bothered by the cold of the blizzard.

“I have completed the igloo. What should I do now?”

“Well,” said Kyouka. “It’s a little plain as is, so I’d like something to make it stand out as much as Marika-san’s. Could you make two snowmen at the entrance? Something delightful, like the komainu at a shrine.”

“If you’re done, then help me! Actually, don’t steal control of Aine from me in the first place!!”

That President was full of unpleasant surprises. She had a way with words, like she was blessed with a natural ability to manipulate people. Since Aine only tilted her head in silence, she may have belatedly started questioning why she was performing this physical labor for someone other than her supposed master. He guessed that President would find a way to take advantage of the Three Laws of Robotics in approximately a microsecond.

At any rate, Karuta and Aine would be stuck out in the blizzard until his igloo was complete. Since the crystal girl would not do anything until ordered to, he grabbed at her.

Specifically, at those unidentified things on her head.

“Aine, why you were helping her doesn’t matter. Just help me now, okay?”

“Bwagh!? N-no bedroom activities where people can see us!!!!!!”

Her reaction was unbelievably weird.

“U-um, Aine?”

“That…was a mistake. Oh, no.”

Aine would not bat an eye when she killed someone or had her arm sliced off, yet she just blushed red and shouted something on reflex. Karuta could only stare, but for some reason, the crystal girl only fidgeted uncomfortably and would not explain. Was it possible even she did not understand what that was about?

Then the President held a hand to her grinning mouth.

That was a bad sign. That elite girl was about to unleash some extremely unwelcome mischief.

“How could you do that, Karuta-kun? You do know an animal’s horns are a symbol of its reproductive capability, don’t you?”

“Bhkghd!!!??? Don’t drop bombshells like that with a smile on your face!!”

“I was only stating a simple fact. Now, wait until the two of you are alone to tend to those two things, okay?”

Come to think of it, hadn’t Aine started rubbing those against him when they were alone in the elevator? That was when he had called her weird for wearing that white school swimsuit. What had she meant by that???

“Once your phone has a signal again, I recommend looking up why moose antlers are so big.”

“Does that mean Aine is a quiet but really, uh, ‘horny’ girl!?” asked Marika. “And that’s why she has those two impressive things!?”

“Yes. And you wouldn’t want someone begging you for it in broad daylight, even if you were down for it, would you?”

“Can the both of you please stop making up definitions for who I really am...?”

Anyway, evening had arrived by the time Karuta and Aine finished digging out the snow to make their igloo. They had been attacked by the Threat in the morning and been on the run since, so they had spent almost an entire day out in the icy cold. Plus, they only had this temporary shelter that they would have to abandon immediately if the Threat attacked again.

“It all feels so fruitless.”

And it was not over yet. It could be hard to tell in the Arctic, but it was evening. They had not eaten anything since the hotel’s breakfast buffet that morning, so they were presented with an obvious problem.

“We need to find some food. Water we can get by melting snow with magic.”

“Dammit, can’t we solve all of this with Crystal Magic? There are plenty of harvest goddesses, right? Like Sif from Norse mythology, Kisshoten from Buddhism, or Demeter from Greek mythology. Let’s worship those powerful ladies to get some bread and rice popping out of thin air.”

“Hmm, all of that magic is used to boost your power by eating divine food, so overusing it would probably destroy your body from within. Karuta-kun, don’t come crying to me if you turn immortal and find you can’t cut your eternally-growing hair and nails.”

The President’s comment shut Karuta up. It sounded like they would have to figure something out on their own. Weren’t there any gods that would provide help but not too much help, like the Kasa Jizou? But in that case…

“We can’t go to the other domes for help and we can’t go fishing even with the ocean all around us.”

He sat down in front of his igloo and brought a hand to his forehead. He was in no mood to join Yamane Deiri and Nekoumi Hirosuke in their snowball fight. He wanted to get some rest. And what did he most want to eat in his freezing and exhausted state?

“I guess our only option is to sneak back into the C World dome and nab some food there.”

“Isn’t the Threat there?”

Marika was exactly right.

So…

“We can’t send all 1000 of us in. We’ll need to focus on stealth instead of power. Omotesandou-san, can I select some people to go with me?”

“If you can look after them.”

That was the natural thing for a Student Council President to ask, but it was also the most difficult task. His twintailed childhood friend only shrugged. She must have known that was not the job for her. Karuta only knew he would be bringing Aine with him. Also, they needed to go a step further to solidify their position here.

“Hey.”

“…”

He called out to someone, making them jump, but it was not a middle school or high school student.

It was one of the ordinary people he had brought here – probably a waitress.

“Wh-what do you want? Are you kicking us out to have fewer mouths to feed?”

Her tone had changed so much from earlier. How much did she fear him?

(Well, she did turn on the world’s strongest, so that isn’t too surprising.)

He only had to think back on Elicia, Yukino, and how many people had been lost in the First Out Incident. Plus, this woman was ignorant of magic.

She was dressed in extra layers since she did not have magic to protect her and Karuta let out a white sigh.

“Don’t give up hope that quickly. We’re risking our lives out here too, so if you won’t work to help us, we won’t help you.”

“But we treated you so badly, we had to get you to build our igloos, and we can’t do anything for you.”

“Then how about you pay us back to make up for that?” He made a casual suggestion. “Give me some information I don’t already have. If that can help everyone, then we’re even.”

“…”

He had her explain the structure of the artificial island and they walked the perimeter of the igloo area to check it out.

And afterwards…

“Natalena, if you’re free, then help me out some. We need to get some food.”

“Why me?”

“You too, Firenze-sensei. I want your help too. You use Vayu, right? Then let’s take a quick trip out to the front line that’s crawling with the Threat.”

“What!? But why? I only do theory! I never even considered the idea of fighting myself!!”

The nervous teacher’s shouts ridded Natalena of her complaints. She still pouted her lips, but she followed his instructions. Yes, seeing someone panicking more than you had a calming effect on people. It made them want to correct their own behavior.

Muscular Kiyosawa Hadome put his hands on his hips.

“What about me?”

“What god do you use again?”

“Horus. But a modified version that intentionally conflates Horus the Elder with Horus the Younger.”

“So Egyptian mythology’s sun god? And we also have that nuisance of a Kagutsuchi user named Yamane Deiri, so you two work together to provide heat for everyone. The high insulation of the igloos should be enough from a theoretical perspective, but it should still put everyone at ease to see some actual fire.”

The man quietly clicked his tongue, but he did not seem to mean anything by it and must have accepted that as a practical use of his abilities.

He could not drag his classmates into this – not Yamane Deiri, not Nekoumi Hirosuke, not Matsuda Imi, and not Hashizaki Tayori. They had been fighting as a group before, but things would be very different one-on-one. Just like listening as part of the student body was much less nerve-wracking than speaking to them alone. They might panic once they were face-to-face with the true Threat.

Kyouka held a hand to her mouth and laughed.

“Are you sure this is good enough?”

“I doubt I could look after any more than this.”

“We’re talking about food for 1000. Even a chocolate bar each will mean 10 attaché cases.”

“We’ll figure something out. Okay, members of the Student Council, I hate to ask this of you, but please take care of Omotesandou-san while we’re gone.”

“This is where she belongs in the first place.”

“This is where she belongs in the first place.”

The black bob cut girl and redheaded girl with buns frowned at him and refused to let go of the wheelchair’s handles. It looked like they would start fighting over her between themselves before long.

Karuta’s group left their secret base with the beautiful Student Council President seeing them off.

Instead of taking a straight shot toward the C World dome, they took an intentional detour. They had no idea what might give away their presence and they definitely could not use Crystal Magic to fly.

The female teacher grew tearful as she trudged through the snow.

“Ugh, are we really stuck with a 4-person party?” she asked. “Modern RPGs let you swap out party members at will, you know?”

“Eh? You look into that kind of thing for your theoretical work? Um, uh, is that because of the influence from Greek and Norse mythology?”

“Not really. I just like the feeling of gradual growth in those games. I prefer the slow and steady method.”

Natalena seemed surprised by that and the teacher bent over a bit. She may have been shrinking down out of embarrassment. Also, the girl had her Crystal Magic armor open. As long as she did not open up those scales of hers, she could apparently use them to silently slide along the ground.

(So she has to switch between modes for mobility and attacking? It’s a convenient power, but it has its flaws.)

Mentioning that would probably have started an argument and the Threat could notice that, so Karuta held his tongue.

Even from a distance, they could tell the C World dome had collapsed.

(I don’t see any of those flying ones in the air. Do they use more energy flying than staying on the ground?)

Of course, it was unclear if the concepts of exhaustion and waste even existed for the Threat.

The translucent dome had protected the interior from the elements, but it had almost entirely crumbled away, leaving the artificial beach and tourist town seemingly frozen in time by ice. There were still so many questions about what the Threat was doing. They were attached to the frozen asphalt and building walls, but they did not seem to be destroying anything or resupplying. They left a fair amount of space between themselves, but they were still gathered together. When patrolling their territory and scouting outside their territory, did they only use those slipper-sized bugs? They were not piled on top of each other or pushing past each other. They apparently did not step over their own kind when not in a hurry.

Natalena must have really not wanted to be spotted by the Threat because she crouched down despite already being hidden by a large boulder.

“What are they doing?”

“I dunno. They don’t seem to be searching out heat or consuming oil or electricity like you would expect of a machine.”

That said, snails could tear away the surface of a rock to eat that. The Threat’s biology was a mystery, so he doubted they would find an answer right away.

There were a lot of them, but they were all gathered around the main street. It looked like the dome had collapsed because they had wanted more ways in and did not care about defense. Karuta’s group sought out a position where the tall buildings alongside the main road blocked them from view and then they crossed the border formed by the broken dome.

It was the same inside as outside. Their feet still crunched through snow and large icicles hung from the frozen palm trees. The decorative fountains had frozen solid. The fountains’ underground water pipes may have ruptured.

“Sacri-sama. You said we are here for food, but where exactly are we supposed to find that?”

“The shopping center.”

They had to go for some place with enough stock for 1000 people.

With the various sizes of the Threat gathered on the main road, Karuta’s group used a smaller road running parallel to that. However, they could not let their guard down since they knew those slipper-sized scout and reconnaissance units also existed. Even if those could not fight, a single alarm sent out using firefly-like phosphorescence or pheromones would begin an all-out war.

The flying ones appeared to be stopped on the ground, but that did not mean all of them were. They made sure to stay below roofs as much as possible.

They made their way past a collapsed parking garage (presumably destroyed by the Threat) and approached a shopping facility larger than a school building. The Threat had destroyed the town at breakfast time, so it had been abandoned before opening for the day. The security shutter was still down over the entrance, but Aine’s sword sliced it away like a hot knife through butter.

“Coming in.”

The lights were off inside, so it would be dark at any time of day or night. The row of registers had signs written in multiple languages. This must have functioned as a duty-free shop for foreign tourists, not a neighborhood supermarket for locals.

“Bingo. We should find industrial cases full of food in here.”

“Sacri-sama, what exactly should we get?”

“Freeze-dried foods.”

And just to make him feel better, something not from Susannia’s farms.

“Keep in mind that we can get as much water as we want by melting snow. A thousand people’s worth is a lot, so we want as much nutritional value for the weight as we can get. That rules out canned, bagged, and frozen foods. They already have their moisture, which adds a lot of weight.”

“C-can you really survive just eating freeze-dried stuff? But, um, uh, I guess our houses really are just a roof and walls to keep out the cold, so they don’t have kitchens. But still.”

“Then you take a look at the shelves yourself, Natalena.”

Karuta pointed at the perishable food section and she was dumbfounded by what she saw.

The drinks bottles had all burst from within and then frozen solid. The vegetables and fish were either covered in white frost or their surface had grown toxically discolored.

“You may have forgotten with your magic protecting you, but this is a frozen hell of -15 degrees. Have you never been told not to store drink bottles in the freezer?”

“…”

“With boxed, bagged, or canned foods, either the container will burst or the contents will go bad. The only edible things here would be the freeze-dried foods, the chocolate, and anything else that doesn’t need moisture.”

“Wh-what about the frozen foods? They’re already frozen.”

Sophia Firenze had a point.

But they ran into a different problem there.

“Sensei, chocolate bars are the gold standard for emergency food, but a bar each for 1000 people still comes out to 10 attaché cases. With freeze-dried blocks of miso soup, a meal is less than 10 grams, but you have to multiply that by 1000. We’re talking about 10 kg.”

She could get greedy if she liked, but they might not be able to escape safely if they were lugging a giant container with them. They would be helpless if the Threat spotted them mid-transit. Those flying ones could be going on irregular patrols for all they knew. If they were spotted, they would have to abandon the food they had worked so hard to gather.

And the danger did not end there.

Their residential district of igloos was hard to see from a distance since it blended into the white scenery. The layered snow had an insulating effect, so their body heat might be difficult to detect as well. But that was not a guarantee. If they were found, they would have to abandon all that and retreat. Having a bunch of food they had to lug around with them would not be ideal. And the more they would have to abandon, the more reluctant they would be to leave. If that made them slow to make a decision, they were much more likely to die.

They continued further into the dark shopping center while on the lookout for those small scout and reconnaissance Threats and they filled shopping carts with cardboard boxes of soup and risotto. A surprising amount was imported from Japan. The packaging had been remade in English, but a lot was the exact same products seen in Japanese convenience stores and supermarkets. It did not look like Susannia’s products either.

The 12-year-old blonde girl noticed the things they were taking from the shelves.

“Hm? Risotto? And curry rice too. I’m surprised how many vegetables you can get with this.”

“Well, rice is the standard grain to be rehydrated for eating. I’m surprised you didn’t know that, Natalena. Does that mean you actually cook for yourself a lot? As young as you are, I’m impressed.”

“Th-that is not impressive and what does age have to do with it!? That just means you’re lazy!!”

Karuta took offense at that since he would make his own lunches from time to time. He would prefer that label be applied to Marika, the combat-obsessed girl who would swipe things from his lunch when he let his guard down.

“Heh heh. I risked my life coming out here, so I deserve a special treat☆”

The flaxen-hair teacher grabbed an item not on their list. It too was a Japanese product, but this was a cup of instant noodles with a fairly high price tag due to a famous restaurant’s brand name on the package. If that was a treat she considered worth her life, he had to wonder about her usual diet.

Also, milk was too heavy as a liquid, but cereal like corn flakes had a good weight to nutrition ratio. They would have to eat them dry like cookies or crackers, but it was better than nothing. He could guess it would be spiritually taxing if freeze-dried foods were all they had.

“In that sense, instant coffee or tea might not be a bad choice.”

“But those have no nutritional value. If you need caffeine, there are plenty of more convenient products like gum and tablets.”

“It’s not about the caffeine.”

It was to maintain their mental health. And these only required adding hot water, just like the freeze-dried foods. Meanwhile, Aine tilted her head and asked a question while pushing a shopping cart with both hands.

“How are we going to return? If we are to safely escape the C World dome while it is crawling with the Threat, we should probably split into a transport team and a defense team.”

Natalena’s shoulders jumped. Yes, the more they brought back with them, the more it would restrict their movement. Greed would only increase their odds of death.

But Karuta smiled as he responded.

“No, there’s an easier way.”

“?”

He led them all to the back of the shopping center. That area normally held the processing space for meat and fish as well as the staff breakroom, but he could guess they would find something else here too.

After locating what he was looking for, he placed a hand on the floor and pulled up on the handle there.

That revealed a cylindrical pipe about as thick as a washing machine drum.

“Wh-what is that?”

“A water pipe, Sensei. The C World dome is an icy wasteland now, but it was an artificial tropical beach before. The flowers and trees couldn’t last unless they were constantly running sprinklers of desalinated seawater. The dome covered everything above, so they couldn’t hope for any rain.”

The non-Grimnoah people had informed him that each dome desalinated its own water and large water pipes were laid out between the domes so they could share that water if another dome’s water facility malfunctioned. It worked much like the central heating in that sense. That meant this pipe led outside of the broken C World dome. Their igloo zone was located between domes, so it was perfect for them.

Natalena frowned, perhaps because she had imagined the water pipe as something like an aquarium’s underwater tunnel.

“Are you, um, saying we are going to return through here?”

“It’s an interesting idea, but that thing is kilometers long. I’m pretty sure Sensei and I would hurt our backs trying that.”

“I-it’s too small for me too! How small do you think I am!?”

He called out to Aine and the emotionless girl brought a hot water dispenser out of an office. It was unclear if the place still had power, but the dispenser was built like a thermos and it still retained some heat. The fact that the container had not burst from within meant it still had liquid water inside.

Karuta opened the lid to check. There was no actual steam, but it had been a while since he saw actual water like that.

“Sensei, your Crystal Blossom contains the name of Vayu, right?”

“Eh? Yes.”

“Western magic cabals use that name to refer to the element of wind or air and they symbolize it with a blue circle. But follow that back to its source, and it refers to a god of nature among the Hindu Devas – a wind god to be exact. He is said to be the guardian deity of the northwest direction and the father of Hanuman.”

While confirming all that with her, he poured the precious water into the pipe.

Then he let her take over.

“Okay, send some wind into the pipe, if you don’t mind. Make the strength about…yes, about 30m/s. At this temperature, that should be enough to freeze over the entire inside of the kilometers-long pipe.”

“Oh.” Natalena placed a hand over her mouth in slight surprise. “Senpai, is that what you’re doing?”

“Yes, an air conveyor. They’re normally meant to send light objects like letters or documents, though.”

In her tight skirt suit, Sophia Firenze held her hands out in front.

Karuta wondered when the translucent armor was going to appear, but then she started muttering something like a monotone prayer.

“An approximate intersection of 15 and 75. By the solar calendar, it is 05021630, but convert that into Samvatsara. I summon thee from the south and exorcise thee to the north-northwest. The word of power is ddefz. The string of letters has no meaning and is only a one-time pillar to support this contract.”

Karuta’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Um? What are you doing???”

“Constructing the proper syntax given our current coordinates, the current time and date, and from which direction the power will be coming. The sharing of secrets strengthens the contract and, um… the planetary arrangement most likely to have an effect? That’s going to be tricky. We’re in the Arctic, so the apparent rotation might not be what we expect.”

“…”

“D-don’t give me that look!! This is how Crystal Magic was originally performed. You just aren’t aware of it because you skip past it all by using those small circuit boards!!”

If they had wasted their time on such a lengthy ceremony in front of the Problem Solvers, they would have been dealt with in some cruel way while still alive. Or maybe those five would have held their sides and erupted in laughter while letting them complete their transformation sequence.

“Umm, Sensei? If you don’t hurry it up, all the water is going to freeze.”

“I know that!! List out the locations of the wandering stars based on the location of the sun and the moon. Use human wisdom to visualize the unseen lines of power created from the conflict between the energy raining down from space and the energy rising from the Original Crystal Embryo at the earth’s core! We are the managers of the arcane who borrow the power of the gods and predict every last cataclysm!!”

She waved her hands around as translucent armor decorated her. It had a different look when paired with that tight skirt suit instead of the blazer uniforms Karuta was used to seeing. And what was that weapon supposed to be? She carried a large circle on her back with small circular saws arranged at even intervals like it was a clockface. It looked something like the drums of the Japanese Raijin. Did she use it while on her back, or did she grab it and swing it around? At any rate, this was Vayu – a wind god in the East and a blue circle in the West.

“You look like an overgrown magical girl,” said Aine with a tilt of her head.

“Utagai-kun, what kind of cruel deep learning have you been giving that girl?”

“I’m sorry, but I honestly have no idea where that came from. Aine! There’s such a thing as being too honest.”

“Utagai-kun.”

He found an unexpected landmine here. The topic of her age was apparently off limits.

Anyway, the nervous teacher removed the circle from her back, held it out in both hands, and activated some cutting-edge magic.

“Hyah!!”

“All that precise and traditional setup and you end it like that!?”

Natalena trembled for some reason, but the gust of wind was sent racing down the pipe. The limited amount of drinking water froze evenly across every bit of the kilometers-long pipe, creating a layer of ice a few millimeters thick.

With their preparations complete, Karuta flicked the Crystal Blossom at his chest.

Those things could be used for more than creating unknown armor and transforming a teacher into a magical girl.

“Omotesandou-san, we’re all ready here. Are things ready on the receiving end?”

“They are. You froze the interior to reduce friction, right? We checked inside just to be sure and there were no slipper-sized Threats inside on this end, so there shouldn’t be anything to worry about. The pipe is clean.”

They packed the freeze-dried emergency food inside plastic containers they found behind the shopping center and dropped those into the pipe.

Sophia was nervous despite being the key to all this.

“A-are you sure this will work? Won’t the containers make a lot of noise sliding through there even with the interior of the pipe frozen?”

“That’s an industrial pipe meant to carry literal tons of water every minute. Water makes a lot of noise in pipes when it has enough air inside, but the place hasn’t received any noise complaints. I bet we could do karaoke in there and no one outside would hear a peep.”

Karuta did not actually have any data to back that up, but his seal of approval was apparently enough to put her at ease. She looked somehow relieved as she held her hands out.

It was like an artillery shell.

Or maybe a model linear motor train.

With a sound of scraping ice, the plastic container vanished into the pipe in the blink of an eye. From there, they repeated the process. Every time Omotesandou Kyouka called them at the other end to say they had retrieved the container, they would send the next one.

“C-couldn’t we have managed some heavier things with this method? Like the frozen foods?”

The teacher apparently still had some regrets.

She may have found a foreign version of some product she loved to eat back in Japan.

But Karuta could only shrug.

“Freeze-dried miso soup is the size of an eraser, but frozen foods are the size of a plate. That size and weight means we would need to send several containers through to secure 1000 servings.”

“Ugh.”

“And if we didn’t send back enough for everyone, people would feel cheated. It has to be 0 or 1000. Do you want to split Grimnoah in two before we even fight the Threat again?”

They were interested in nutritional value not because they wanted to live a healthy life but because they wanted to be in their top form when fighting the Threat. Tearing their group apart with unnecessary luxuries would defeat the purpose of all of this.

“So hand over those fancy instant noodles, Sensei. I’m confiscating them.”

“Y-you’re mean, Utagai-kun!!”

With her personal interest removed, she ended up sending the plastic containers through entirely mechanically. Once they reached a certain amount, they were done. Now they had to safely escape the C World dome themselves. And safely here meant for themselves and for the secret base. They could not lead the Threat back there.

“Karuta-kun, you scored a perfect 100 there. Good work,” said Kyouka over his Crystal Blossom.

“Thanks.”

“If you want to treat yourselves to anything, eat it there. Bringing it back here will only make everyone else feel cheated.”

He could not agree more, but he doubted any of them would want to eat hot food (and all the steam and smells that entailed) in this -15-degree hell where the Threat could spot them at any time. Doing so would be like asking the Threat to surround them and kill them at their leisure. Hunger was viewed as the representative biological urge, but it was influenced a surprising amount by one’s mental state.

“Um, Utagai-kun? About those instant noodles. Um.”

Well, one of them was a hopeless incarnation of hunger, but it would probably be best to have her break free of that. Natalena supposedly loathed Karuta, but not even she took the teacher’s side against him.

“Let’s head back.”

“Senpai, I thought you would be more mistrusting than this.”

The 12-year-old blonde girl provided a strange assessment of him.

He looked puzzled, so the self-proclaimed avenger pouted her lips.

“I mean, how long has the Threat occupied this place now? Who knows how intelligent they are, but wouldn’t they have had time to poison the food at random?”

The Threat.

A Metal-Derived Autonomous-Origin Higher Lifeform Combat Weapon.

Now that he had seen them for himself, they did not seem like a lifeform at all. If they ran on electricity, gas, or petroleum, they would not even need a livable environment. They would be able to keep on marching even if they were engulfed in poison gas or napalm. That was only an assumption, but it was true they had not hesitated to tear down the dome and destroy the summer environment when they attacked.

“Poison.”

However.

His thoughts turned in a different direction.

“That’s it. Why didn’t I think of that!?”

“?”