Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter6 (section)

===Part 4===

They were finally home again.

Although thinking of this as “home” made Agnese laugh on the inside. They were not treated very well here, but England was still their second home.

(They’ve really tamed us, huh?)

That phrasing was half serious and half a joke to hide her embarrassment.

She was less than pleased with the spraying sound surrounding her. But this was not a wet spray; it was a special form of incense. She sensed the sickly sweet scent while raising both hands in the metal container and waiting for the “cleaning complete” light to activate. She was of course not wearing any clothing.

(Naked) Angelene was blushing with embarrassment while the many metal nozzles sprayed their contents all over her as well.

“D-do they really have to do this to prevent us from bringing curses back into the country!? They’re the ones that ordered us to stick our hands in all that filth!!”

“Sister Angelene, you need to learn that making logical arguments is not a good way to get ahead in adult society.”

“Besides, doesn’t that unsanitary necromancer need a decontamination way more than us!? Then again, splashing disinfectant on her might kill her!!”

“Sister Angelene.”

Agnese called her name again to silence her. Those words were not befitting of a nun.

At any rate, the light turned from red to green. Once they had been successfully purified (although Agnese doubted they had any traces of a curse left on them to begin with), they walked naked into the next train car. They donned the underwear and habits folded up there and then stepped outside of the freight train.

The ordinary blue sky awaited them there.

The sky viewed from London was pretty, but felt somehow artificial. Almost like they were viewing it through a plastic dome.

The color of the sea was determined by the sky, but the color of the sky was determined by the city. Unlike Italy’s historic cities, London had a mixture of old and new structures, giving it a jumbled look. The Ferris wheel and financial offices may have been to blame there.

(It still feels more natural than the area around Academy City, though. That place had a chemical look that made me afraid to let anything touch my tongue.)

They took a long-distance bus to Cambridge.

The container they used as a mobile home base would be transported there ahead of them by helicopter. England was a lot more accommodating than the rest of Europe as long as they did not ask the country to improve its nasty pasta that they seemingly went out of their way to make worse.

“We would have starved to death long ago without Sister Orsola to cook for us.”

“You said that out loud, Sister Agnese. Feeling homesick?”

She sent a low kick Lucia’s way. The shop at the bus station had some sandwiches inside the glass case at the register counter, but she grimaced and walked past them. Why did they insist on such gross combinations like tomato and cheese? Just add some basil sauce and you would have something workable, but they instead forcibly added some mustard-slathered grilled chicken (a cheap processed meat injected with beef tallow). That was supposedly to make it look more substantial, but it only got in the way. None if it made any sense to an Italian-born girl (who was a true gourmet thanks to her past of digging through the trash for scraps). She knew they would not find anything acceptable there, so she continued on to the bus terminal with an empty stomach.

“S-so why would this guy live in Cambridge?” asked Angelene who had stubbornly insisted on the window seat.

“People hoping for the prestige of that name usually have no confidence in themselves, unfortunately enough,” said Lucia.

Lucia apparently intended to spend the travel time catching up on her sleep because she already had an eye mask on her forehead.

Not everyone who lived in Cambridge worked for or had graduated from the famous university, but there were people who chose to live there to borrow its reputation.

It was evening by the time they arrived.

This was England’s leading academic city…but it did not have many smart buildings or labs. The look of the city made it clear they considered it a virtue to leave the historical stone buildings in their historical state. Of course, that was only to preserve the scenery, so the interiors had all been updated.

Fortunately, they had a place to stay even as night fell.

Despite all the historical stone buildings, plenty of aboveground and underground parking lots had been built out of necessity. One of the flat parking lots had a giant metal container sitting in one corner.

“Wh-what do we do about dinner?”

“You’re on cooking duty today, Sister Angelene. We wouldn’t be able to find any acceptable pasta if we tried eating out, so hurry up and boil some water, add some salt, and dump in the dried pasta. I don’t expect much originality from you, so a standard bolognese is fine. Even your lazily-made meals are better than the alternative. Oh, and I assume anyone with half a brain would know this, but please don’t try to pair that with a caprese salad or minestrone soup. Two tomato dishes would be too much.”

“That’s a mean thing to say and also a very specific request! It’s 100% odds that’s just what you want to eat right now, Sister Agnese! Can’t you give me a shorter request!?”

Tearful Angelene got to work, the other two ate their fill, and then they made the girl tremble by rating it a 5/10. By then, about an hour had passed.

“Sob, sob. I didn’t want to do something tomato-based because of how hard it is to wash the dishes afterwards. And you two stacked the dishes on top of each other before I could wash them.”

“Hey, it’s better than all the olive oil and garlic with pepperoncino. Now get those dishes washed so we can get to work.”

“If you have nothing better to do than lie on the couch watching TV, then come help me! I thought I had cooking duty, not cleanup duty!”

Angelene bared her fangs in her apron, but since she did not leave the sink, the hierarchy of power was plain to see. The cooking duty system was absolute.

After finally getting something to eat after arriving in England, the three girls left the mobile home. The sun had fully set and Cambridge’s night awaited them.

“I thought this city would be quieter,” said Lucia as she looked around. “But there’s a surprising number of people out this late.”

“Well, it is a college town. The year-round partiers will only now be getting started.”

“Eh? Then how bad is Academy City since it’s nothing ''but'' students???”

Stooped Angelene was dangerously close to touching on a forbidden fruit there.

They were in a college town at night, but not even the college students walking around with beer bottles in hand were crass enough to catcall nuns. They might have had cars chasing after them if they were in casual clothing, though.

“Where is Brax Mizhine’s office?”

“Not far. He used it as a home too.”

There it was.

It was indistinguishable from the university buildings scattered around the city. It was just one of the many historical buildings here. And just like an old home remodeled into an izakaya, the building was the only historical thing about it. The man had simply been buying prestige.

Instead of stepping through the front gate, Agnese circled around the wall surrounding the property.

“Pretty strict security.”

“Only someone who knows about magicians would defend against them, so this tells us Brax was part of our world.”

After making a full circuit, they stepped a bit away from the building and viewed the area from another building’s roof. That let them analyze the security well enough.

“I’m surprised how deserted the place seems. With a mansion this big, I would expect some servants or guards and maybe even some family over to visit. Using unmanned alarms might mean he didn’t trust anyone but himself. But the big garden has a fountain, which should require a specialist for upkeep of the pipes and pump.”

This meant they could not relax.

The inside would be full of traps, like a pyramid meant to kill graverobbers.

They had discovered some things from their visual observations.

“That gate detects artificial objects, which is simple but a real pain. Did he assume any product of civilization was violent? Thanks to that, any kind of spiritual item is out. That includes our Symbolic Weapons and our habits.”

“U-ugh. Y-you mean…?”

“If we want to sneak in without being detected, we’ll have to strip it all off first.”

They all fell silent.

Even if they did get through the front gate, they would then be in enemy territory. The inside seemed deserted, but that did not mean there were no hints to be found there. They did not want to have any documents inside self-destruct if they triggered some kind of defense mechanism. And if they were caught in the middle of that, they could be harmed themselves. On the other hand, they did not want to walk around naked, even if it was the middle of the night. They were bashful maidens after all.

Sinister shadows fell over Lucia and Angelene’s faces.

“Come to think of it, I seem to recall someone trying to escape the consequences of a rock paper scissors game.”

“As a matter of fact, so do I. And I still haven’t paid her back for insulting my cooking earlier. Hee…hee hee hee. Sister Agnese, got anything to say for yourself?”

They had more or less analyzed her rock paper scissors tendencies in that first game.

But the stooped and freckled nun had made a mistake when she allowed their cornered prey to speak.

“Rock paper scissors!!” shouted Agnese Sanctis.

“!?”

“!?”

“Whoever plays rock loses!!!!!!”

“Gwahhh!!!???”

“Gwahhh!!!???”

Angelene managed to course correct away from rock at the last second, but Lucia was too slow. She ended up trembling while holding out her clenched fist.

Agnese put on a devilish smile after playing scissors like normal.

“Ohhh? Sister Lucia, what’s this I see here? Care to explain whether that’s rock, paper, or scissors?”

“S-Sister Agnese! How could you do this!?”

Cool Lucia looked to Angelene for help, but the stooped nun had corrected to scissors at the last second and chose to look the other way for now.

Yes, playing scissors under the altered rules would always mean either a win or a draw. If Lucia’s protests were found valid, it would only mean the two scissors players would have to compete to find the true loser.

“A-Angelene. Look me in the eye, Sister Angeleneee!!”

“C’mon, get out of those clothes. We won fair and square.”