Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter3 (section)

=== Part 9 ===
<br>
At 9:00 AM, the shopping mall truly opened for the day and a great number of tourists were swallowed up by the large facility.

The locations of all 20 oranges had been discovered and the incident related to the very valuable orange seemed to have ended with no victims for the time being.

Mikoto entered a delivery passageway for employees without permission while preventing the security guards from seeing her like usual.

(…This has gone well beyond just a demonstration.)

The living bombs had been dealt with, but Mikoto still had not regained her freedom. Enirya and the other security guards were likely still searching for her. The criminal breeding the crimson long-legged army ants had disappeared, so Mikoto was still unable to resolve the misunderstanding the security guards had made.

Also, there were still aspects of the incident that bothered Mikoto.

Who had attacked whoever was behind the incident in the short time between the construction equipment attacking and Mikoto making it to the tenant-owned shop?

And who exactly was it that was behind the incident?

“…”

The problem was that the construction equipment had been unmanned.

That meant that they did not create an alibi for anyone.

It could have even been someone right next to Mikoto.

Yes, if she was going to go simply with possibilities, she could not deny that one.

For instance, Lessar and the others could have been the ones controlling that construction equipment.

Mikoto had charged into that store where the radio signal had come from. The construction equipment had definitely been controlled from there. However, she could not say with certainty who could have done it. It may have been difficult for Lessar to have done it, but it was possible that the other workers at her store, Lancis and Bayloupe, had been controlling the vehicles.

Mikoto had gotten too deeply involved with that occult convenience store and therefore with Lessar and the others. It was possible that they were putting together some kind of plan and their connection with Mikoto was in the way. In that case, it was possible they had rather forcibly covered their tracks by destroying the occult convenience store.

But at the same time, other people were just as suspicious. For example, the security guards. They could have been feigning their troubles with the construction equipment while one of their comrades controlled the vehicles in order to trick Mikoto.

On the other hand, Mikoto could not think of a reason that they would go to that much effort to manipulate her actions. If Mikoto was simply in the way, she felt they could have just prepared a bomb in that tenant-owned store. Who gained anything by making Mikoto alone believe that whoever was behind the incident had been in that store and that they had been disposed of and taken away by someone else? She could understand if someone was manipulating how the security guards saw the situation, but what did someone gain from making Mikoto alone think that?

Had whoever was behind the incident truly been there and had truly been taken away?

Or had it just been made to look like that and whoever was behind the incident had not been taken from there?

She had no way of knowing.

However, there was one thing she could say for sure.

Whether whoever was behind the incident had been taken away there or it had merely been made to look that way, she did not know the full story behind that incident.

There was something more sleeping deeper beneath the surface.

And if it was not over, it was possible that the incident would once more bare its fangs toward the people enjoying themselves shopping within the shopping mall.

If that were the case…

“Really…” muttered Mikoto while lightly shaking her sleep-deprived head. “It looks like it isn’t just Academy City that won’t leave me bored.”

<br>
<br>
<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:RailgunSS2_Chapter2|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:RailgunSS2_Chapter4}}
</noinclude>