Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Crossover Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 11===

Kamijou and the others did not need to worry about money for a while thinks to the scavenging job the day before, so they had no real reason to head out today. However, they had carelessly paid for everything up front, so they had no money left for the girls to buy clothes. Heivia’s sleazy “just as planned!!” look earned him a thorough roasting from the bikini armor’s lightning.

They only had to lie around their rooms until Waltraute found a way for them to return home (in an extremely violent fashion), but that naturally left one person all on their own.

Quenser glanced worriedly toward the inn’s entrance.

“I wonder if the princess is upset about this.”

“Not her!!”

Someone shouted in desperation and kicked Quenser to the floor. As the boy rolled through the inn, “she” stepped into the bar/restaurant portion of the inn.

It was the stage costume witch from the day before.

She waved around her hands which had a mix of white and bluish skin.

“Why!? Why!? I prepared all sorts of jobs for you, so why are you still in here!? Don’t you usually thoroughly check through any new feature you find!?”

“We’re not exactly looking for luxury here,” said Kamijou who was somewhat irritated with Norse culture’s lack of toothpicks. “And besides, aren’t you Hel, queen of the underwo-…”

“Cough, cough!!”

She tried to drown him out by coughing, but it was too late.

Kamijou was unable to hold back.

“There’s no way anyone could be tricked by this! You’re the only person who was introduced partway through!! And when there’s only one suspect, the answer is obvious once something happens!!”

“D-don’t be ridiculous!! You’ve passed by countless people in the city, you’ve spoken with the guy who runs the inn, and someone had to have paid you for what you found on the job yesterday, right!? There have been tons of people, so it wasn’t just me! <strike>Don’t gloss over everyone who isn’t a beautiful girl!!</strike>”

Index and the Zashiki Warashi exchanged a carefree glance.

“But…you know, right?”

“Yeah. When someone makes that stubborn of an appearance, there’s no way they’re a normal person. If a suspicious widow is holding a schedule in one hand during the early afternoon and says it’s about time to head out, you can’t accept that she’s just on her way to a limited time sale at the supermarket.”

The stage costume witch who was actually Hel, queen of the underworld, was utterly confused.

She was so distressed that the mix of white and bluish skin below her translucent dress changed its pattern and started looking like the suntan left by a school swimsuit.

“Y-you at least noticed the clues, right? You noticed the ghost armor and my dress were both translucent and icy, right? And that they point to Niflheim, the icy world of the dead!?”

The woman with a blue school swimsuit suntan yelled with bloodshot eyes.

“And the original jobs I gave you – carrying corpses, gnawing on the roots of the world tree, etc. – included ones related to Niflheim. I did it all properly, so you noticed, right? Right!? You looked through all those clues and arrived at the answer, right!?”

Hel was desperate for some small mental salvation, but the bunny girl (cruelly) replied with a beaming smile.

“Hm, I’m not sure. I don’t really understand it all, but I think that Waltraute person told us up front it was the work of Hel, queen of the underworld.”

“Ohhhhhhhhh!! You mean it wasn’t the instantaneous workings of a genius intellect!? Someone just spoiled it for youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!?”

Hel, queen of the underworld, fell to her hands and knees and began punching the floor. It seemed necessary to call her by her full title or else people would start calling her by the completely unrelated name of “school swimsuit woman”. That was just how much of her dignity and majesty she had lost.

Still on all fours, the queen let out a shout.

“But!! Since you took that shortcut, I have no choice but to get to the point, strangers! I can only call it reckless to have refused the opportunity to slowly level up!!”

“Queen, what can you do besides get us jobs to work on?”

Kamijou’s simple question must have hurt Hel because she answered with tears in her eyes.

“''If you insist on knowing, I can summon the Black Dragon Níðhöggr.''”

An explosive wind appeared out front.

The inn’s front entrance flew inwards like a shuriken and all the windows shattered. This was all caused by an intense downwash created by a something massive decelerating by striking the air near the ground. The nun’s nude cape blew dangerously high and the clasps to the Killer Queen’s dancer outfit were blown off. From inside, Kamijou and the others could not tell what was going on, but it was obvious to anyone outside. A two hundred meter dragon had flown down in front of the inn.

It looked like the entire entrance was filled by Níðhöggr’s gaping maw and Hel waved a hand around to give instructions while still on all fours.

“Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!! I’m sure Waltraute or someone has told you the souls of skilled or rare humans make an excellent military force, so there’s no need to explain! Níðhöggr, crush their flesh shells until nothing remains!!”

The dragon’s reaction was swift.

Pitch black particles gathered in its gaping maw and intense pressure built up. When released all at once, the attack would contain enough firepower to rival the Baby Magnum and it was mercilessly aimed toward flesh-and-blood humans.

“Now, it’s time for the exciting climax <strike>where an RPG bought in DLC pieces would pop up a screen saying ‘To be continued in Vol. XX’!</strike> And <strike>when making this into a movie, make sure this part is really high quality!</strike> Kaboom!!”

Hel seemed overcome with emotion, but she had made a few mistakes.

First, Kamijou Touma’s right hand contained Imagine Breaker, so he could negate most any magical attack by holding it forward.

Second, Níðhöggr’s mouth was positioned on the inn’s entrance and she was still on hands and knees between Kamijou and the entrance.

Third, Níðhöggr was overly obedient to her, so it prioritized its master’s orders despite thinking that positioning was dangerous.

Those three points led to a certain conclusion.

“Ah.”

The pitch black breath accurately struck Hel’s kneeling butt and nothing else.

If someone swung a wooden spoon the length of a human spine toward someone’s butt, it might have made a similar sound.

Imagine Breaker negated the raging pitch black torrent and Kamijou quickly swung his head aside to avoid a certain “projectile”.

“Hbrrgbhealoghbrogbrogbrbfobfiwiefbjr!!!???”

Someone flew through the air while partially bent over and their head stabbed into the opposite wall.

Heivia reflexively turned around to look and saw only a round butt and legs sticking out of the wall with a long skirt spread around them like a giant flower.

“It’s a manmade miracle,” he commented.