Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM2 Depth7 (section)

===Part 3===

“Sigh, I love swimming… Especially in such a large pool. Oh, I have an idea. I hear they have a sauna over there☆”

“My, my. Look at the size of this kitchen. We could cook just about any type of cuisine in here. How should we decide who is on cooking duty?”

“Beauty salon, beauty salon. Time for a mudpack.”



Evening had arrived.

Since the Izanami was camouflaged as a cruise ship, it didn’t have the usual closed-in feeling of a military vessel. It had no end of options for entertainment: a shopping mall, a theater, a sports gym, restaurants, etc. The pool even had a twisting and turning water slide.

There was no problem getting rooms for everyone either. Tokiwadai’s full student body numbered nearly 200, but there were more than 1000 guest cabins.

They hadn’t actually counted, but it didn’t look like there was any risk of the food stores running out any time soon. That said, they were talking about supporting 200 people. That many people consumed a lot of supplies in a day. If they treated the food as casually as the contents of their family fridge, it might come back to bite them.

“That aside…”

Shokuhou Misaki’s icy voice filled the belowdecks maintenance hangar, which felt so far away from all the fun and laughter.



An F-22A.

A girl in a long-sleeved black leotard, who had to be nearly 20m tall.



Mikoto had shot her down, but when they came to collect her from the ocean, she had still been alive.

Now she was seated with her arms around her knees and glaring at Shokuhou. Without speaking a word. That probably was the most compact position for storage in a hangar, but it looked a lot more like the girl with curly blonde twintails was pouting. Sitting like that without crushing the wings and engine on her back below her butt seemed like it would be tricky.

Shokuhou held her head in her hands.

“How am I supposed to process what I’m seeing here?”

“I seriously doubt there are any girls this size on Earth,” said Mikoto who had actually fought her.

A biological approach definitely couldn’t explain this, but Mikoto also didn’t think she had ever seen an Academy City esper who could scale their physical size upwards like this. Not that she had looked into every esper power in the city.

And Mikoto’s eyes landed on the F-22A’s ultra-luxury chest hidden behind her knees. Or rather, the size thereof. Academy City’s #3 gently smiled. It was nice and small. Was that choice made to preserve her high stealth capability? Yes, Misaka Mikoto was kind to any girl with a bra size smaller than her own!!

“Hee hee. You don’t have to worry. You can leave everything to me. I promise you we will treat you well, so-”

“Don’t you look down on me, tiny chest. Mine are bound as tightly as possible out of necessity, so they are not actually a pathetic washboard like yours.”

Hokaze had to use her prized strength to restrain the girl who attempted to fire a Railgun inside the ship.

But that was the first thing she said?

This did confirm they could communicate, but did that mean this world also used Japanese? Or had she been listening to their conversation and learned the language at Mach speed? That was a scary thought, but they had to at least consider it. They had too little information to rule it out.

Mikoto sighed softly and spoke.

“Anyway, since she’s alive, shouldn’t we see what she can tell us?”

“Euahhh…”

“Stop acting like a toddler, Big Boobs Queen. I mean, this is apparently an F-22A. I want to know how their weapons tech works and whether this was a pair of stray weapons attacking us or if they were ordered to attack by a military or a nation.”

The idea of a stray F-22A just flying around on its own was absurd by Earth standards, but those standards might not apply in this world. It was a completely different world after all. Hanging onto old assumptions could lead to a fatal mistake, so Mikoto wanted to confirm what she could.

“We don’t know how to return to Earth, so we’re going to need to travel around this world searching out a way. And I get the feeling we’re going to encounter more anthropomorphized fighters as we do so.”

“Ugh. How flexible is your mind, Misaka-san? You’re not even questioning the idea that this is another world anymore, are you?”

The one who looked most surprised was the strangest of them all: the F-22A.

She looked to the Shinshin and F-2As in the hangar.

“Are you really calling those things fighters? But they’re just flimsy metal without any feminine skin or pretty hair. You’re not making any sense.”

“Can you tell us what you mean by that?”

Mikoto’s interjection made the curly twintails girl fall silent again. She must have realized she was carelessly giving away information. She was scowling now. But did that mean this was a world with a military that’s higher ups had ordered her not to give away classified information? Or was it a coincidence?

“Why should I tell you dumbasses?”

“…”

“Heh. The savage is thinking savage thoughts, I’ll bet. Fine, as a military aircraft, I am ready for whatever might happen. C’mon, torment me however you like. I am not so weak I would talk to some vulgar and brutal barbarian warriors no matter what cruel torture you subject me to!!”

Mikoto and Shokuhou exchanged a glance. In perfect harmony.

Hmm?



“Wait, wait just a moment! What are you doing with those pliers!? And that wrench!? Did no one ever teach you the proper way to treat a lady!?”

“Aircraft need daily maintenance, so why are you so afraid of a wrench?”

“Wh-what? What are you doing with my armor? There!? But that’s my most sensitive part! Y-you’re opening it? Ah, ah, ahhhhh!?”

“Oh, we won’t hurt you. But if you don’t hurry up and talk, we will be dumping a bucket of seawater on all this radar equipment inside your wide-open nose.”

“No, please, anything but filling me up with that salty stuff!!!”



By the end, the F-22A was crumpled in a heap, sobbing and trembling as she tried to catch her breath. Tears glittered in the corners of her eyes.

They had discovered the girl portions covered more of her than the mech parts.

“You devils. You’re just a bunch of devils!!”

“Just tell us everything you can about this world. Next, we’ll go behind you and remove your jet engines.”

The F-22A used this new fear to crush the old one and calm herself enough to talk, albeit while trembling.

“W-we are weapons.”

“Sure.”

“Specifically, we are Girlish Weapons. We are not products of nature. We were created by humans.”

Mikoto and Shokuhou exchanged a glance.

Artificial girls.

Created for military use.

Tingling tension ran through the air.

“…This wasn’t done with clone technology, was it?”

“Close, but not really.” The F-22A brushed a curly twintail from her shoulder. “Frozen Fossils are found all across the world. Each country has a different production rate and different processing technology…but military cells are extracted from that naturally-occurring frozen meat, those cells are artificially processed, and they are cultivated into the desired shape. Once the exterior equipment is attached, you have a Girlish Weapon like me.”

Several new terms were scattered through that explanation.

Frozen Fossils, frozen meat, military cells, Girlish Weapons.

If the Frozen Fossils and frozen meat referred to the same thing, then the fossils were not like dinosaur bones and ammonites. Were they more like a frozen mammoth discovered in the permafrost?

But something else caught their attention more.

“Each country?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean this world has multiple countries, each with a military to defend it?”

“Of course. I am the ultimate stealth fighter, not some cheap junk like the corporate mercenaries and terrorists use.”

Shokuhou held a hand to her forehead.

And a certain someone had carelessly shot her down. A certain someone named Misaka Mikoto.

…While it had been necessary, this meant they had made at least one country into an enemy. As extraordinary as the carrier was, taking on an entire country’s military with just the one ship wasn’t realistic.

“This continent has three major countries.”

“So like Wei, Wu, and Shu?”

The F-22A tilted her head.

…If the famous Records of the Three Kingdoms didn’t mean anything to people here, then this really was another world that didn’t share Earth’s time or space.

“The United States of Narmeli, the Cutalularia Republic, and the Liheilstaut Empire. Most of the humans belong to one of those three. There are plenty of other smaller countries and autonomous provinces, but I doubt their combined population is even 10% of the big three. Majority rule in international politics is pretty much entirely determined by the big three.”

She had said something else interesting.

Most of the humans.

Why not “most of us”?

“Wait, did you just refer to humans as a separate category from yourself? So is not everyone in this world a giant anthropomorphized weapon girl like you?”

“Of course not. Humans are humans, weapons are weapons. We are entirely different. Also, I am not ‘giant’. It’s you humans who are so puny and small. Dumbasses.”

The F-22A spat this out with contempt for their ignorance in her eyes. …She went back to tearfully twitching when Mikoto clanged her wrench against a nearby column, though.

But.

Thinking back, hadn’t she said the Girlish Weapons were created by “the humans”?

The giant girl was apparently an F-22A, but she had no pilot.

Then what role did the humans play in the military? If the humans were only the infantry at the very bottom and the commanders at the top, the system seemed awfully unbalanced.

And the F-22A went on to explain each of the “big three” countries that fought for supremacy on the giant continent.



“First, the United States of Narmeli. They hold the northeast of the continent. More than 70% of their land is permafrost, giving them the greatest quantity of buried Frozen Fossils, but they are no more than barbarians who lack the technology to convert it into Girlish Weapons. They are a major presence in terms of the size of their territory, but – tch – that’s all they have going for them. Without their loathsome resources and quantity, the war front wouldn’t be in a stalemate. Well, the entire world apparently freezes over every 150 years, so if the status quo can be preserved for long enough, their land will freeze over and they will die out on their own.”



“Second, the Cutalularia Republic. They call themselves the superpower of the south, but they are nothing but a gaggle of barbarians who can’t even preserve order in their own country. The temperature and humidity there is high, so they have the least quantity of buried Frozen Fossils. They have a high level of technology and can manage a high level of production efficiency with just one fossil, but after luring in arms manufacturers with their extremely low corporate tax rate, they have transformed into a barely-held-together collection of corporations from more than 30 countries and regions. They have no spirit of patriotism or national identity, so they try to make up for it by filling their military with unmanned weapons. They claim to use general elections to run their country, but everyone knows those elections are a complete joke. All the real power is held by a few influencers.”



“Lastly, the Liheilstaut Empire! The shining star of the northwest and the true center of the world. Abundant resources, abundant food, abundant riches, abundant technology, and – most importantly – an abundant population!! Hee hee. The combination of plentiful Frozen Fossils and excellent industrial technological expertise creates the perfect country that is bound to go down in history as the greatest conqueror of all. Each and every citizen is brimming with patriotism and every branch of the military – army, navy, air force, and marines – is at such a high level that trite terms like ‘the greatest’ or ‘the best’ doesn’t do them justice. They overpower the competition when it comes to art as well, so unlike those barbarians who have their hands full simply making things ‘functional’ and ‘practical’, they have the brainpower leftover to design the sharpest looking Girlish Weapons around! Ho ho ho ho ho ho!!”



Mikoto’s mouth formed a small triangle.

And she spoke.

“Let me guess, you’re from the Empire.”

“H-how did you know!? D-don’t tell me you’ve already sent filthy spies into our glorious Imperial territory!?”

No, you just had a completely different attitude with that one. And you need to apologize to the other two. Then again, maybe those insults were just what happened during wartime. Plus, the bomber (woman) had come from the northwest and departed to the northwest.

Apparently the continent was shaped a lot like a Y.

The countries could invade each other by land, but the center of the Y-shaped continent contained a treacherous mountain range and each major power was well aware of the risk of invasion by land, so they had covered that area with mines, gun emplacements, sandbags, barbed wire, pillboxes, and so on. This had created an eternal labyrinth of deadly trenches.

“Those three countries do technically work together in a coalition, but that’s in name only. Hmph. Preserving world peace is too much for the States and the Republic to handle. Our great Liheilstaut Empire can handle it all on our own.”

“Wait, what’s this about a coalition?”

“They call it the International Peace Agency, but it’s really a den of corruption.”

Uh, oh.

It sounded like they had something like the UN here.

That meant an attack against the Liheilstaut Empire could result in retaliation from a massive coalition force containing all three major powers. In other words, the Tokiwadai girls might be facing a war against this entire world.

“I need to get Kobayashi-san or someone to check on that later… Hopefully there aren’t any ominous radio transmissions traveling between those major powers.”

So.

For now, the Liheilstaut Empire was definitely an enemy. They were the ones who had fired anti-ship missiles at a ship that had only sent out an SOS.

And now there was a possibility of the United States and the Republic joining in as a coalition.

Maybe that was just what happened when an unidentified but very deadly warship suddenly appeared in someone’s territorial waters. The cruise ship camouflage may have only made it look more malicious. Mikoto breathed a heavy sigh.

(This isn’t going to be easy.)

It was only a rough look, but this was enough basic social studies.

However…

“You said they extract cells from the Frozen Fossils, cultivate those to create the base form, and then attach equipment to create you Girlish Weapons, right?”

“What about it?”

Mikoto and Shokuhou both fell silent.

…Then what was Camouflaged Aircraft Carrier Izanami?

The nuclear-powered ship was filled with Japanese fighters and it flouted the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. The F-22A’s story did nothing to explain that. Yet they were fairly certain it hadn’t existed on their Earth.