Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter3 (section)

===Part 14===

After some discussion, they arrived at a decision.

Mikoto and Shokuhou took Patissiet with them as they entered the village through the front entrance.

“Finally, an inn. Even if they are supposed to be gross here. But maybe we can change our job if we visit the guild?”

“I really doubt job changing is a thing, so I wouldn’t get your hopes if I were you, Miss Lewd Dancer.”

“I would think you would prefer not to be seen out in public like this anymore than I do, Miss Meathead Bikini Armor Warrior Woman!!”

At times like this, Shokuhou’s Mental Out really came in handy.

She had read the abducted boy’s mind and immediately confirmed that there were no wanted posters for Mikoto and Shokuhou. He apparently hadn’t intended to lie to them regardless, but the confirmation meant a lot.

Maybe that nonhuman trafficker simply hadn’t had any means of communication, like a carrier pigeon or signal flare magic(?).

“According to Patissiet, they do have holy jobs like Priest and intellectual jobs like Dark Witch. I can’t wait☆”

“Hm? But I’m pretty sure both of those jobs require high INT or MEN,” said Patissiet.

“…Wait, was I just casually insulted?”

It was curious how it was more devastating when the elf wasn’t even trying to be insulting. And taking that unintentional damage was especially bad when they still didn’t know if they could change their job at all.

Once inside the village, they learned some things.

First, about the state of the farmland.

Some small (but still about the size of a cow) griffins were dragging special tools to till the fields. There were monsters in the village, but they all had collars and chained fetters. In other words, they weren’t wild.

That was probably how it had started.

With them, it was an innocent thing.

The humans tamed the strong but gentle monsters by giving them food and a place to sleep. Those monsters would help with transportation and labor in the fields, allowing the humans to grow even more food, which in turn meant more available for the monsters. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Maybe it had all begun as something that simple.

But at some point that idea had gained a more broad interpretation.

The elves and dwarves were just as intelligent as humans – if not more so – but the humans had justified their actions by calling them inhuman monsters. The humans had systematically captured and sold them on a large scale, forcing them to do all the work in a twisted form of the original concept.

For no other reason than the humans didn’t want to work themselves.

“It really pisses me off,” spat Mikoto as she imagined it.

But maybe Academy City wasn’t much better for creating 20 thousand military clones and systematically killing them for their own selfish ends. Neither world was better or worse than the other. The technology they used differed, but the same cruelty could be found in both. The way it seemed to highlight an ugliness common to all humans made Mikoto gulp bitterly.

Did that dark seed reside in her as well?

“So what do we do next?” asked Shokuhou.

“Good question.”

It was still morning, so they weren’t in a hurry to find a room for the night. Mikoto honestly wanted to pay the guild a visit before the inn.

After asking the villagers where it was, they entered one of the brick buildings.