Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter2 (section)

===Part 6===

Pierre Gosetti.

“You first, Monsieur Gosetti.”

“I am Gosetti, a 5=6 of B∴A∴’s recruitment division.”

“Monsieur Gosetti, do you understand your situation here?”

“I am Gosetti, a 5=6 of-”

Agnese came back to her senses when the other nuns restrained her with shouts of “Sister Agnese, take a deep breath!” and “Why are you clenching your fist!?” He said he was part of a cabal’s recruitment division, but she was pretty sure he was just bragging about being from an even more niche part of an already niche community. Like not just being a sock fetishist but also rejecting knee highs and stockings while insisting on thigh highs and only thigh highs. Which was a problem when they had no time for this nonsense.

“I was only using a summoning ceremony to create a talisman. From Taphthartharath. To be honest, I wanted to bolster my mental side to make sure my thoughts were not dragged down by the materialism of this metal-driven age.”

The magician was using a protective charm for his own purposes, but he was going about it in the right way. There were talismans that were activated with a command and amulets that had a constant effect, but all such protective charms were spiritual items that had to be filled with some form of energy. Just like charms for good business or good grades, people would not prepare something like that unless they felt the need for one to clear some hurdle in their life.

“Sadly, we screwed up the succession process after our previous boss died. Our passcode was lost and now no one can enter our ceremonial ground.”

“So the original crypt was a mental thing?”

“Do you really think it would be smart to head down into the vast catacombs beneath Paris with a candle in hand to perform suspicious rituals every night? If you want to hide what you are, you avoid any actions that would raise eyebrows. When you get down to it, you don’t want to construct a physical building as a ceremonial ground at all.”

That was one way of thinking about it.

If every single member of the cabal could mentally picture an identical building, they could acquire the same sense of community as if they really were all gathering in the same place. Of course, reaching that point was easier said than done, so they would use something as a jumping off point for their imagination. Just like you could create identical ice crystals by preparing impurities that were identical on a microscopic level. They called that their passcode. In their case, a random number was distributed to all their members at set intervals so they could share that, but that sequence had come to an end when their previous leader kicked the bucket.

“But, Monsieur Gosetti, that means you prefer to use a mental temple. Sharing a location with outsiders introduces the risk of being directly attacked like we have done to you. So why did you feel the need to create a talisman now of all times?”

“…”

“Fuck you and your beard!! We don’t have time to care about your cabal’s rules. Can’t you tell we’re a little bit pressed for time!?”

Agnese scratched at her head and yelled, but Pierre Gosetti apparently had a different reason for falling silent.

When he did answer, he could no longer look her in the eye.

“I did nothing wrong.”

“?”

“It was a talisman for a safe birth because my wife is approaching her due date. Is that a good enough reason to want a physical protective charm?”



Rini Calculed.

The girl appeared to be wearing her pajamas. She was around the same age as Agnese, but she was wearing a shockingly see-through negligee.

“Ummm, I was researching nightmares.”

“So dreams?”

“No, nightmares.”

She insisted on correcting Agnese, so this was sounding like another magician with an annoying obsession. Much like a waitress that ignored anyone calling to her in English. Was everyone in France like this?

“I’m basically looking at astral projection, but instead of the journey to ‘the other side’, I’m interested in the marks left on your body afterwards. Um, are you familiar with Dion Fortune?”

“What’s your point?”

“Ummm, that wasn’t enough for you to figure it out? Peh heh heh.”

Agnese was really mad now, so Lucia had to restrain her.

And after that needless waste of time…

“I wanted to perform a ceremony where I summoned myself elsewhere to extract my soul or the core of my mind from my body. I thought the best way of accomplishing that would be to leave my home and cut myself off from the outside world.”

“So you wanted the tension of an unfamiliar environment? With the slight spice of something a little bit illegal?”

“Ah ha ha. Pretty much, yeah. They say there are more ghost sightings at hotels, hospitals, and campgrounds because the unfamiliar environment makes people sleep less deeply, which makes it easier for them to experience hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations. For me, you can think of it like a booster helping my mind reach a higher level.”

It was not uncommon for people to think they would find special knowledge in things, places, or people found “elsewhere”. Necromancy was one example. That field had developed from the crude logic that the dead could answer your questions since hey were not constrained by the rules of this life. John would still be John after he died and, as a human, he could always lie, but the believers of those in “the great beyond” seemed to think death made everyone both smarter and more honest.

(The Son of God was made whole when he ascended into heaven, so by focusing on just that fact and twisting its intended meaning, you could conclude that people level up upon death. But at least in Europe, necromancy isn’t a religious thing. It’s more like a type of fad.)

Extracting one’s mind and traveling to another world was the polar opposite of necromancy. The living were the ones encroaching on another territory to feast upon the otherworldly wisdom found there. Of course, that presupposed that ''a collection of exactly the knowledge that person wanted did in fact exist “out there”.

However, the world had not been created for humans, so it was wrong to assume things had been set up for human use.

After all, god had “expelled” Adam and Eve into the outside world for their sin, so life here was meant as a punishment. In that case, it was best to assume most of the world created by god was made to be unpleasant for humans. And the realm beyond the physical world would be even less pleasant. That was not a line humanity should cross before the last judgment.

“Umm, but like I said, I don’t really care about that part.”

“?”

“I’m interested in the body left behind. Or more specifically, the marks of unknown original that appear on it during the journey. Dion Fortune mentioned receiving scratches all across her back after a dream world catfight with some old woman boss of hers.”

That seemed like an awful way to refer to the other party, but a nun like Agnese had no obligation to speak up in defense of some powerful magician from the past. So she let it slide.

“Why are you interested in that? Some bizarre form of self-harm?”

“Don’t assume I’m some kind of weirdo, dammit. Don’t those scratches sound really amazing if you could fully control them? Eh heh heh. I mean, that would give you a placebo effect that could take care of inoperable brain tumors and aortic aneurysms. So I wanted to intentionally mess with the alchemical principle of salt to see what kind of wounds it left on me.”



Plum Mordosié.

“I wanted to kill someone.”

This woman started right off with a shocking statement.

The old man in charge had likened this rental ceremonial ground to an internet café, so this would be like someone wanting to send a death threat from somewhere other than their home machine. …As someone pursuing a criminal, Agnese felt that attempt was fairly naïve, though.

This woman wore a bloody mourning dress and glared up at Agnese with a sticky look in her eyes.

“What? Did you think all magician had some upstanding reason for what they did?”

“No, of course not,” replied Agnese with a smile.

Anyone who had engraved a magical name into their heart would be someone who had grown “twisted” after coming face to face with some unfair part of reality. It was said people only relied on god in their time of need. Similarly, people would only rely on the occult when they had enough of a reason to do so.

(That saying sounds awfully disrespectful though.)

As a genuine nun, Agnese hid that thought behind her smile. She did not have time to get into that right now. She had to get more out of the woman.

“Who did you want to kill?”

“That is a secret.”

“Then why did you want to kill them?”

You might think that question would similarly go unanswered, but not necessarily. Saying who you tried to kill would count as confessing to a crime, but saying why you wanted to kill someone had no set punishment. Also, people who wanted to personally punish someone often believed strongly in their own righteousness.

Eventually, Plum opened her mouth.

“Revenge.”

Agnese felt certain that revenge would never come to fruition.

Whether or not it was justified, planning was everything when it came to attacking those more powerful than yourself. This woman was letting Agnese affect her attitude here, so it seemed unlikely she had much of a plan. It was like a chess player getting so mad their bishop was taken they insisted on taking their opponent’s queen. People like that would forget that the aim of the game was to take their king and that they had to take that king’s no matter how many other pieces were taken along the way.

However, giving this woman advice would allow her revenge to succeed.

Agnese was a proper lady, so she simply smiled and prompted the woman to continue.

“And you chose to take revenge through…summoning?”

“Heh. Heh hee hee. No one could ever follow my logic. Yes, there is no need for me to plunge a blade into his heart myself. I need only disturb the balance and he will destroy himself. So I will extract his physical form through the three alchemical principles. By summoning the pillar supporting that holier-than-thou asshole to me, he will lose his internal balance. Then he’ll be at the mercy of the great power he himself attempts to wield. It’s perfect. Heh heh, heh hee hee. I scare myself with my own brilliance sometimes.”



Harris Nicholagene.

“…”

This was the twig of a young man they had met first of all.

He had said he was researching plants and, if they were going to have a humanoid shape, he wanted one that looked female rather than male.

In other words…

“Oh, it’s the pervert.”

“Hey, wait! What are you writing down in your notes there!? Don’t you have some questions for me!?”

Did he really understand the situation here?

If they did not get to the bottom of this, the Hood battlecruiser would arrive here and trigger a war between England and France. France was most interested in protecting their capital of Paris, so they had made the “painful decision” to sacrifice the 300km leading up to Paris as a defensive line. That meant this city was bound to end up engulfed in flames during the fighting.

“Do you want the mandrake to make medicine from it? I do hear that there are male witches out there.”

“No, I am simply researching environmental maintenance. Fill the field with strange things, and strange things happen more easily. Now, I don’t intend to remake the natural environment right away, of course. I start by summoning things and then I plan to move on to growing things in a sealed glass greenhouse.”

“And the insistence on femininity is…because you’re a pervert?”

“Enough leading questions. By including that opposite nature, I can increase the masculinity inside me.”

“In other words, by looking at roots that look like a woman’s crotch, you can increase the disgusting male desire within yourself? And you were too afraid to do it at home, so you made the same decision as a kid who brings his phone to his secret base?”

“You seem intent on branding me a pervert, but masculinity means sulfur in alchemical contexts!! You must know this!!”



Rouen Nalberia.

He was a large muscular black man. He looked like he could solve most of his daily troubles a lost faster with his fists than by chanting a spell.

Agnese scratched her head while recalling what happened before.

“Um, Mr. Puke?”

“Did I do something to insult you, or do you just like tormenting people!?”

“Oh, sorry. Now, to get on topic, what were you using the ceremonial ground to do?”

“I was studying food.”

“Food? As in, the stuff we eat?”

“The very same. If I can find a method of cooking that directly extracts the compositional elements, it would greatly enhance the possibilities for all humans.”

Agnese understood the logic behind that, but she imagined studying it would only lead him to ancient Chinese alchemy. Hopefully he was not going to drink mercury while thinking it would give him eternal life.

“I have demonstrated the heating and cooling of elements within the enclosed space of a glass container, but I cannot extract the result. It vanishes the instant it contacts the outside world. So the cooking part can be done, but you cannot consume it. Just like the elixir of life that Ayton of the Golden cabal created. What I wanted was a way of keeping the volatilized element in place.”

“And you used summoning to do that?”

“It should be possible. I would be using the magic circle that surrounds the summoned object.”

“Ummm, are you saying you would do the cooking within the giant magic circle and then eat it while you extended the time until it was naturally destroyed?”

“Yes.”

“Um, but. Aren’t the summoning circle and the protective circle generally separate things? Well, some ceremonies use just one circle and have either the human or the angel be the one inside the circle, but the basic idea is to keep the summoned thing and the summoner in separate fields or else the summoned thing will bare its fangs against the summoner. What you’re talking about sounds like keeping the zoo visitors in the same cage as the lions.”

“…”

(Oh, that look tells me he hasn’t solved that problem yet.)

He was of course renting out a ceremonial ground to perform those experiments. If he already had an answer, he wouldn’t need to keep coming back for more summoning. The old man who ran the place was a greedy realist, so renting out the container of course cost money.

Also, magic circles tended to get more complex as time passed. Mathers had created an English translation of (what he claimed was) the magic circle of King Solomon and even that included four smaller circles for incense in addition to the main circle.

“There is a way.”

“If you say so.”

“There has to be!! The ingredients needed to enhance humankind are right there, yet we aren’t allowed to consume them!? Listen, we need only clearly define who is the predator and who is the prey. Do that and we can enter that cage without any worry of being the ones consumed!!”

“Sure. Fine. Whatever.”