Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter2 (section)

===Part 2===

Calais, Pas-de-Calais, France.

They were in a panic here as well. After all, taking the shortest route from England to France would naturally bring you to this port town. Unless the Hood made a sudden detour, it would almost certainly reach the coast here.

Angelene reacted the way she did to most crises: tears filled her eyes and she waved her hands around wildly.

“It’s over! There’s nothing we can do!! This is a World War Two warship, isn’t it? Its firing range has to be at least 20km, which is half the Strait’s width! Its 38.1cm shells can reach here whether it does itself or not!!”

“Since when does she know so much about this stuff? Although her understanding seems fairly shallow.”

“Did you sleep through the plane ride here, Sister Agnese? They were playing an anthology of short black-and-white war films. Let me warn you – you do not want to mention U-boats around her because she will talk your ear off for 3 days straight.”

Agnese’s group was running through the harbor district of the city of Calais. Incidentally, as a French city, that s is silent.

“The camera tossed into the northern Atlantic showed the rusted hulk of the warship is still there, right?”

“The ocean currents and fishing grounds are also unchanged. Most likely this is not a case of the actual ship being brought back with healing magic or something. We suspect Telesma or some other power was guided in to meet the conditions necessary to summon the ship.”

Summoning was generally thought to involve “weird creatures” such as angels, demons, and spirits. The Olympian spirits assigned to different parts of the heavens are a good example of summoning planetary power into an amulet. On the other hand, a ship was a curious motif. After all, there were plenty of legends in which they were used to travel between the world of the living and the afterlife. There was the ferry used to reach the afterlife in Greek mythology and there was the Treasure Ship talismans standardized by Onmyojis to provide good dreams when placed below the pillow.

Whatever form it took, an item capable of traveling between the two worlds could be called to this world by human means.

Or could it?

“Hmm, that explanation isn’t all that convincing. Angels and demons exist in that other phase, so it makes sense you can draw on a portion of their power to summon them, but how are you supposed to extract power from a hunk of metal to summon it? The Hood is certainly large, but it’s a purely industrial product without any kind of occult foundation like Charon’s ferry or the Japanese Treasure Ship.”

“Sister Agnese, can’t we just ask the culprit for details on the summoning method once we track them down?”

Containers were stacked up like metal pyramids on the concrete bordering the sea. This city was developed as an entrance from England, so if it were destroyed, there was a fear of their historical friendship falling apart.

However, Agnese’s trio was not preparing to face off against the battlecruiser itself.

They had another plan.

“We know that ghost ship is the product of some form of summoning and that it was summoned from France.”

“So did they stage this attack themselves to cut ties with England?”

England and France might seem friendly, but a look back at their long history showed more than their fair share of less than peaceful interactions. And in the modern field of weapons development, France refused any help from England as they worked to produce things on their own. England could become an enemy in the future, so they did not want them interfering in the weapons that would be crucial to their national defense.

However, Agnese readily rejected that idea.

“There are way too many people who would benefit from that to draw any conclusions. This feels more like some third party intervening to me. And to be honest, it doesn’t really matter who this is or what they’re after.”

From their(?) British perspective, top priority was ending this while keeping the damage done by the Hood to a minimum. They were playing their role in that here. Someone else could deal with the cleanup afterwards.

Only one thing mattered here.

“The summoning appears to have been carried out in this container yard.”

“B-but that’s suicide!” protested Angelene.

“And also hard to track down. Our simple map fortunetelling only managed to narrow it down to a 10km block, but all the other summoning ceremonies in this area are experiencing ‘interference’, so this has to be it.”

That method may have been similar to measuring rainfall using the interference in TV broadcast signals.

“Okay, if we capture this magician and stop their spell, the phantom Hood should disappear. Time to find their modular ceremonial ground!”

The leader of those three girls tried to psych them up, but Angelene came to a stop and looked around in shock.

She saw nothing but piles upon piles of metal containers.

There had to be well over a thousand of them in all.

“W-we have to find it in here?”

“Yes.”

“That’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack! Are you serious!? D-don’t we at least have some kind of hint?”

“Of course not. Managing to narrow it down to this harbor at all was a miracle. Now, Sister Angelene, do you remember what you said earlier?”

“Eh? No, I’m not letting you twist my words to force me to help! Yeah, I never actually said I would do this job, did I? So I’m safe. I can just go home now.”

“I’m not trying to twist your words.” Agnese pointed her thumb out to sea and shrugged. “Didn’t you say the Hood’s shells could reach us while out at sea?”

“W-wait. But now that I think about it, isn’t it a ghost ship without any crew onboard?”

“Empty or not, it seems to have regained all its functions as a ship. That means it can ''fire on us here''. So don’t let the number of containers get you down. We just need to start searching☆”

By the time they could hear it, it was too late.

A metal meteor dropped from the stratosphere and crashed into that harbor district.