Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Prologue (section)

==Prologue: You Lose Less Weight Than You Would Think – Dying_Hungry.==

The idea of people losing weight if they didn’t eat was a fantasy. Before the body would break down its stored fat and convert it into energy, it would first destroy its vitamin and electrolyte balance, so if a fat person stopped eating altogether, it was perfectly possible for them to starve to death without losing any weight.

“Huff, puff. Ugh.”

It was 9 AM on December 31.

Kamijou Touma had just reached the point of realizing how easily people died when the time came.

He couldn’t even use the train for this journey across district lines. They said there was no rest for the poor and he was learning just how true that was. He had to use his own two legs to make up for it.

He was in District 11, approaching the east gate through the city’s outside wall.

Where had Index gone? And Othinus? They hadn’t collapsed from hunger on the way, had they?

“Huff, puff.”

His money had been down to 49 yen way back on the 29th. The fridge was empty and he didn’t even have any boil-in-the-bag or cup noodle meals. Due to the end-of-the-year maintenance period, the ATMs wouldn’t be up and running again until January 4. They were doomed. Maybe it had been a bad idea for Kamijou Touma, Index, the calico cat, and Othinus to all live together in a single room.

With the banks closed, he couldn’t even ask his distant parents to send him some money. Even when January 1 rolled around, he wouldn’t be able to access his New Year’s money from them until the 4th. The worst part was the largescale maintenance being performed over the long break. All the ATMs in the banks, train stations, and convenience stores were shut down.

There was no use in sugarcoating it. There was only one possible conclusion.

“I-I need a job or I’ll die.”

That would normally require a complex process including paperwork, an interview, and registration of the bank account for direct deposit of his pay. And even if he got through all that, his first payday wouldn’t actually come until the end of the next month. He didn’t have time to mess with all of those little details. He needed a job that paid cash the very same day. No, he could wait for the money if the job provided a meal for the workers. He just needed nutrition. His high school boy body was begging him for calories.

(Away-from-home year-end jobs? This is the first time I’ve ever been glad to be in high school. And leave it to Senpai to have an answer to any request you give her.)

That “Senpai” was Kumokawa Seria.

She had glossy black hair, a large forehead, and extremely adult boobs. He recalled what his school’s most mysterious upperclassman girl had told him.

“They’re called away-from-home, but that doesn’t mean you’re traveling to a foreign country where you don’t speak the language. You’re only crossing one measly wall. Basically, you’ll be heading outside Academy City during the busy holiday season and working a short-term job to earn a lot of cash real quick. You’ll pretend to be heading home for winter break just like 30-40% of the students do.”

It was the younger kids who tended to want to head home to their parents. With the older kids, some might have a holiday plan like him, but a lot of them decided it was “more mature” to stay in Academy City and then ended up spending their New Year’s all alone.

And since the youth population was so much higher in Academy City compared to outside, the same convenience store and gyudon shop chains would pay a better wage outside the city.

“But I must warn you, these jobs aren’t meant for people in truly dire straits like you. It’s for the people who want a thoroughly masturbatory winter break where they use the laxer restrictions on leaving the city to spend most of the break on part-time jobs and then spend the last few days closed up at home enjoying themselves with all the money they earned.”

“I see. So what exactly will I be doing once I sell my soul for money? Am I going to spend New Year’s Eve at the horrifically busy Toyosu seafood market or something?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Shibuya doesn’t border the ocean.”

“Shibuya!!!???”

“I have business there myself, so I’m willing to accompany you. I’m actually very busy, but y-y’know, if you insist.”

The chilly north wind blew through and Kamijou shivered.

(Wh-who knows how this is going to turn out, but some people out there have decided this is more lucrative than just visiting your parents and getting your New Year’s money. So maybe there’s a chance it will work?)

“Oh, but this is so terrifying. Why does it have to be Shibuya? That’s a land of TV, fashion, bleached hair, and white powder. Not to mention that it’s the 31st. When they do the countdown at midnight, don’t they have these dark apocalyptic parties where they lose control and start picking up parked cars and carrying them around?”

Now he was trembling from something other than the cold. She had business in Shibuya? Yeah, that fashionable, capable, rich, and busty beauty who shined in every aspect of life probably would look at home crossing her long legs on the VIP room sofa at a club full of booming dance music, but he was a gloomy indoors creature who might just turn to ash the instant he placed a single toe inside Shibuya’s borders. They were just born different. It was like fashionable people were born with gills and you needed those to breathe in Shibuya, so he would be as out of place as it’s possible to be!!

He loathed money.

If he wasn’t poor, he wouldn’t even need to approach that district of love and desire where he was sure they were partying like the world was ending. He felt a tingling pain in his skin that foretold of a coming disaster. It reminded him of what he had felt during World War Three, while fleeing through Northern Europe with Othinus, and during the unexpected battle against Great Demon Coronzon that he and Aleister had fought in the UK.

(It’s just this once. I just have to get through this one nightmarish day. I can do this. Th-there are other people I need to protect. I need to wriggle free of this shadow of poverty clinging to me and give everyone a satisfying stay-at-home New Year’s where we don’t have to worry about a thing. I want to look into the night sky and complain that I’m gaining weight because I haven’t gotten any exercise lately!!)

Index, Othinus, and his beautiful Senpai (in life as well as at school) who had invited the starving boy along still hadn’t arrived at their meetup point.

Kamijou stared up at the east gate in District 11. It looked a lot like the area around a large rural train station, but there was more to it than that. The large metal containers piled up in pyramids were too numerous for a simple terminal station. The eastern end of Academy City nearly bordered Shinjuku and the gate there acted as a logistics base forming a land route artery.

Even now, there were plenty of large trucks coming and going. It felt a lot like watching the flow of money given physical form. And he had to plunge himself into that flow to earn enough to survive. He had to visit Shibuya. Shibuya! He was utterly terrified!!

(Wait, how old is Index exactly? She’s not a citizen and she doesn’t even have a national ID number, so can she even get a job in Japan? And what about a 15cm god? Hold on. My misfortune sense is telling me it’s going to end up that only I can work! Wait, wait, wait! So I have to journey into Demon Castle Shibuya all on my own? Oh, god. I’m going to piss myself!!)

And…

“Yes, yes.”

A soft female voice reached Kamijou’s ears as someone walked by right behind him. Since no one responded, she was likely speaking on a phone or something. He wasn’t the only one busy on New Year’s Eve.

“I promise you I’ve already arrived, Bologna Succubus. Hee hee. This could be bad. No, you wouldn’t make it in time even if you spread your wings now and flew here. That’s right. I have already completed the Triple Reload. My hand has already reached the target. Hee hee.”

The voice suddenly stopped there. The moment of silence was like the lag before an SLR camera could come into focus. She may have been shifting her attention from the phone conversation to her surroundings.

Whatever the case, the same voice spoke to him from behind after that moment.

“Excuse me! You’re Kamijou Touma, aren’t you?”

A quizzical look formed on the pointy-haired boy’s face.

This woman wasn’t just asking him for directions. She was asking about his name.

But he was never given the chance to turn around. He only heard a high-pitched metallic sound similar to a small bell and glimpsed some cloth blowing in the wind out of the corner of his eye.

Without warning

:::::a slender hand

:::stabbed into his back.

:The slen

:::::::der fingers

Jutted out from the center

::::of Kamijou Touma’s

::body while covered

:::::::::::in blood.

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