Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 4===

To reiterate, building walls would not shield them. Once the magician knew where they were, the sand magic would break through the wall, so they could not stay in the phone shop forever. When located, the standard solution was to move. Kanzaki said the magician had already left, but it paid to be careful. Kamijou’s group left through the back entrance, crossed the narrow back alley, and entered the adjacent building.

Even moving 1m would help as long as they were not seen.

That was why a smokescreen could protect you despite not physically blocking anything. Even flimsy walls had their uses.

“Index, what was that sand magic? Knowing its weaknesses would be great.”

“Hmm.”

Kamijou did a double take.

She didn’t have a clear answer.

“I think it was mostly that, but on the other hand…I can’t explain it all with the Rose.”

“You’re kidding, right? Are you saying they’re using something you can’t figure out even with the knowledge of 103,001 grimoires, or however many it is now?”

The process they needed to survive this was crumbling around them.

They had escaped into a watch shop. The watches all looked really fancy, but this close to the airport, it may have been a duty-free shop.

“Watches, huh?”

Kamijou glanced down at the smartwatch he had found.

Once he started thinking that way, everything felt like it held special meaning.

Why was the face square? Why was the customizable band colored red and black? What about the fingerprint smudge on the upper left of the glass? Then there were the many small scratches on the underside and the band. He flipped it every which way hoping something would come into focus like a piece of trick art.

But…

“I guess it won’t come to me that easily,” he semi-casually muttered.

Since the watch’s owner had not used a paper report or digital data, they must not have wanted just anyone to read the watch’s message. This Melzabeth person had clearly left a secret message in a form that could not be discovered through ordinary means. Since they had wanted to hide it, would they have made sure it wasn’t that easy to solve? Was there any point in trying to figure it out?

But Index saw things differently.

“The message might actually be really simple – you just can’t see it.”

“What makes you say that?”

“That’s always how it is when you hide the recipe for the Philosopher’s Stone in a painting or hide a secret in a portrait of Shakespeare. It doesn’t look complicated because of some difficult code being used. It’s hard to solve because it uses symbols only the person who made it understands, like the sun representing gold or a pelican representing the red stone. Once you know what to look for, it’s obvious. That’s how messages usually work.”

He heard a sigh from his shoulder before Othinus joined the conversation.

“Human, you’re looking at a dying message someone made and hid in a hurry. Do you really think they had enough time and were in any mental state to prepare a complicated random number table or equation and then compile a coded message based on it?”

“…”

Now that she mentioned it…

And the god of magic, deception, and war was not done with her explanation.

“On top of that, a dying message is a failure if it even looks like a complex message. All the murderer has to do is ''eliminate everything that looks like writing or a code, whether they can actually decode it or not.'' Any mysterious code or text that gathers attention at a crime scene is entirely meaningless from the moment it gathers that attention. So if someone is in real trouble, they won’t leave such a conspicuous and complex message.”

So they would be limited to simple messages that blended into the background.

Making a complexly coded message was not the point. The point was for anyone who didn’t realize it was a message to walk right past, thinking it was no more than some meaningless scratches and smudges. That way the villain would not erase them to cover their tracks.

What did the colors and shapes mean?

What about the number of scratches and the location of the smudges?

Trying to work out some clever answer would only confuse him for no good reason. While looking at it more simply, his honest instincts brought his attention to one point in particular.

“Here.”

He pointed at the watch band.

Index took a look from the side.

“Hm, you mean the scratches? Those might be a D and a T.”

“There is that, but I meant this.”

He wanted to draw their attention to one of the evenly-spaced holes used to adjust the size of the thick rubber band.

“Just this one is stretched a little. Were they wearing it too tight? That might make sense with a belt after gaining some weight, but you would never force a watch on too tight, would you? I’m guessing they stuck the fastener through the hole and intentionally stretched the band side to side to stretch the hole.”

“There are 8 holes in all and, starting from the outside, the third hole is stretched,” noted Index.

“Remember, the message will be simple,” reminded Othinus, to keep the magicians from using Gematria or Notarikon to find meaning in the mysterious numbers. “Take it all at face value. They might just be numbers. For example, 2-1-5. Or the reverse.”

“But what do those numbers refer to?”

Othinus shrugged. She didn’t have all the answers.

Kamijou initially thought they might be the passcode to unlock the smartwatch’s lock screen, but then he remembered it was only an accessory meant to connect wirelessly to a phone.

“2-1-5…” repeated Stiyl.

“512 sounds like some kind of machine,” said Kanzaki.

Those two puzzled over it, but never seemed to find an answer. It was a tricky problem because there was no specified goal, such as reducing it to zero or converting it into a word.

“Think simpler.”

They had no other options with the city so empty, so Kamijou held a hand to his chin at one corner of the countless road intersections.

“It has to be something anyone could think up if they knew the answer and something you could come up with on the fly. It has to be a clear and simple message.”

Index clapped her hands together.

“If they didn’t have time to think about it, then maybe we’ll see something if we’re forced to think fast. Okay, Touma. Three, two, one, go!!”

“Um, umm!?”

His head shot up. He had no actual proof, but this was all he could come up with when pushed to give an answer on the count of three. And after seeing 30 million people disappearing in real time and being helplessly caught in the middle of it, Melzabeth Grocery would have had even less time. Hurrying worked to simplify the answer you gave.

“Wh-what do the scratches on the band mean!? Are they really a D and a T?”

“Downtown?” innocently suggested Index.

Then Kamijou Touma blurted out the first idea that came to his mind.

The band had 8 holes in all and the 3rd from the outside was unnaturally stretched, hinting at the numbers 2, 1, and 5.

Only one thing popped into his mind on such short notice.

“Could this be ''an address'' located downtown?”