Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item4 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 3===

“Yum, yum☆”

Frenda Seivelun pulled a Chinese steamed bun from the bag she held in front of her chest and chowed down. With a big smile. The super sweet autumn product was apparently a sweet potato steamed bun.

She was in Yokohama, Kanagawa. Specifically, in its Chinatown.

The Mugino Family was definitely involved in this incident, but Frenda wasn’t about to take on an international organization of more than 100 thousand.

Who was calling the shots and how?

She needed concrete facts, not a general idea of a colossal organization. She needed to know who in that black box had attacked her. Once she knew that, this would be a battle against an individual. She didn’t need to battle hundreds of thousands of people.

(If the Mugino Family operates based on profits and losses, they should quickly withdraw after learning that taking me on will only hurt them. And whoever in the Bloodline or Management is behind this, once the losses grow, they’ll be isolated!)

Frenda’s objective was to locate the villain, but now that was about more than just proving her innocence.

She wasn’t going to say that truck driver had been a wholly good person. But as his victim, Frenda was the only one who could grant him forgiveness. The villain had stolen that right from her by killing him. Without even asking first.

Frenda recalled the family photo by the driver’s seat.

Killing an ordinary person came with a price. Whoever this villain was, she was going to make sure they paid up.

She wasn’t going to let this end with some nonsense about the case being in a big, troublesome black box that prevented her from finding out who in the Mugino Family had carried out that attack.

She would identify the individual.

“…”

That’s why she had come to Yokohama.

The Mugino Family mansion was located in this city’s prime real estate

(Now, if I’m really going to take on the Mugino Family, I guess I’ll need a base. In the end, the police and the underground organizations do the same thing. To prevent runaways, they’ll have a network keeping an eye on the hotels and internet cafes, so I’ll need a place their searches won’t pick up on.)

“I guess it’ll have to be a sketchy room someone’s renting out without following any of the legal requirements. Or I could take it a step further.”

From the roadside stalls to the fancy bars and restaurants, the quality and size of establishments varied. A cheap Chinese restaurant not much better than the set meal restaurant must have had its TV on with the volume cranked up because even outside Frenda could hear the famous sunglass-wearing host showering the guest with all sorts of questions.

It was that time already.

At midday, when the sun was directly overhead, a bored thug had decided to skip work and instead give an unhoused man a light beating, so Frenda consumed her second limited-edition autumn product (a potato and butter steamed bun) with a smile while she kicked the thug in the shin hard enough to break the thick bone. Everyone on the dark side placed the line between professional and amateur at a different place, but Frenda saw anyone who intentionally broke the law as being on her side of the line. Really, he should thank her for not breaking his knee.

(First, I keep him from moving very fast by breaking his support leg which he can’t guard with his hands. In the end, this is all stuff Mugino taught me. …And now all of that is going to be directed at me. That’s a scary thought.)

The thug screamed and began crawling away, but Frenda didn’t bother even watching him go.

The unhoused man looked up at her from where he sat on the side of the street.

“Y-you saved me. But will you be alright? You may have gotten yourself into trouble on my behalf.”

“In the end, you can tell I’m not just some volunteer, right?”

“Yeah, I can. Still, you saved me. Thank you. But you’re a weird girl. I’m sure you have your reasons, but not many young girls would want to spend the night in a cardboard box on the roadside.”