Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter6 (section)

===Part 3===

The article itself was short, but a close reading showed a number of things that did not make sense: how had the thieves gotten the museum’s door unlocked and how had they carried out such a heavy statue without the guards noticing? That was why the local police had suspected it was an inside job and the guards had pretended not to notice. That suspicion had led the investigation astray in its earliest stages.

But Agnese thought the police would have failed to track down the crooks regardless.

Magic had clearly been used in that theft.

And sadly enough, theft was a thing on the magic side as well. For example, one historic Christian figure was in fact a relic collector who would bite off a piece of an important figure’s arm bone to keep it for themselves or stick their finger in a corpse’s nose to take home the eye socket bone.

When you wanted a powerful item badly enough but you could not create it for yourself, there were only so many options remaining: buy it, trick someone out of it, steal it, or kill for it.

And while biting off a piece of a holy figure’s bone to steal it might be praised, buying miracles with mutual consent was strictly forbidden. The act of simony was banned, but what did and did not qualify was an extremely complex issue.

“Blehh.”

Angelene lay flat down on the desk.

They were back to investigating, which was much easier said than done when they were manually fishing through mountains of documents. These unglamorous and obnoxious jobs were generally given to the outsiders.

They had been holed up in their trailer for three days straight.

“Fuck that slave driver of a priest,” cursed exhausted Angelene. “I-I mean, what kind of question was that, anyway? If she could get an answer to her question, why couldn’t she have directly asked for Tu’s real name or location?”

“Are you volunteering to risk your life against that monster again? And Isabella has an out in case her precious divination fails: ‘No answer means you can find the answer in the world of the living! Now you know the answer is within your grasp, so get to work! Hurry!!’ If she told me that after I risked my life a second time, I think I really might throttle her. Eh heh heh.”

Agnese laughed weakly with a shadow over her face, so Angelene zipped her mouth shut and said nothing more.

But that did not mean they had found nothing at all.

They had found some related articles in old European newspapers.

“There appear to have been 7 identical thefts.” Lucia sat up straight after waking herself with a hot shower. “And there was a temporary gap in the middle. They may have thought they had achieved some kind of goal, but discovered they were mistaken and resumed stealing. If so…”

“That gap was not part of Tu’s plan?”

They exchanged a glance.

Tu may have failed to “wipe everything clean” and left something behind.

If those nuns did not find anything after all this, they were pretty sure they would die of stress. This gave them one more job: had there been some sort of magic side incident during that gap? It was time to dive back into the mountains of old newspapers.

And afterwards…

“A bloodline investigator went missing?” said Lucia.

“Wh-what’s that?” groaned Angelene while sprawled out on the floor.

The look on her face said she never wanted to see any small text ever again.

“Exactly what it sounds like: an expert who investigates the client’s bloodline and writes them up a certificate. They’re used by everyone from ordinary history buffs to mafia godfathers. They can confirm that a self-proclaimed bastard child is in fact entitled to a piece of a massive inheritance, they can help gather evidence of infidelity, and they can get chased by a shotgun-wielding maniac after shattering the dreams of someone who truly believed they were a descendent of some great king.”

“And that applies to the magic world too?”

Agnese looked skeptical because magic was generally the techniques taught to those without inborn talent. Even the Saints who had physical characteristics similar to the Son of God were something like a mutation and not something inherited from parent to child.

Even the Roman Catholic Church did not determine their pope by bloodline. It was the result of an election. Of course, they did not allow female popes, so you could not exactly call it a ''fair'' election.

“Magic itself is the result of effort and does not require inborn talent.” Lucia shrugged. “But connections to the past can still lead to trouble when it comes to conflict between cabals. If you looked into your own personal issues and found nothing, wouldn’t it make sense to look back to your parents or grandparents?”

And it was human nature to turn any need into a business.

Agnese was interested in any hints they could find related to the guild boss known only as Tu.

Visiting a salon to help her mental health could wait until later.

“So about this missing bloodline investigator. I don’t know if they skipped town or went into hiding in a secret shelter, but what’s their name and their last known address?”

“Brax Mizhine. Age: 28. Sex: Male. Location: Cambridge, England. If this trail goes cold too, Tu really will forever elude us.”