Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter5 (section)

===Part 3===

“Up.”

Stooped Angelene had the coin bags at her hips float up into empty air. They had light sources attached to them: the headlamps worn on the foreheads of explorers.

Needless to say, any noticeable light source in the dark would be targeted first. Attaching that light to your own forehead was out of the question. In that sense, a light you did not even need to hold in your hand was safe and reliable. Not only would it not draw attacks to you, it would draw attacks away from you, making it the perfect diversion for an attacker.

“Even so…”

They faced less resistance than expected inside, but Agnese Sanctis did not take an optimistic view of that. She instead felt the ominous atmosphere of finding your supposedly full tank of gas was now half empty. The lack of intense resistance meant the enemy had no real attachment to this place. Either the Guild’s main force was not located here, or they were escaping through some other exit.

(Who knows what kind of punishment awaits us if they manage to escape with the spell book.)

“Sister Lucia and Angelene.”

“We know.”

They were in the hidden portion of some ancient ruins that had existed since BCE times. They were walking through an underground tunnel that could not possibly meet modern safety standards, but its bumpy surface provided plenty of spaces to hide. They were at least spared having to push against an endless headwind of projectiles in a long straight tunnel with nowhere to hide.

They took a fairly quick pace while keeping a lookout for any possible cursed charms, dolls, or other booby traps on the floor, walls, or ceiling. They knew rushing would increase the risk of death, but they could not rid themselves of the fear that they would miss their target after coming so far.

Not everyone had survived the series of events leading up to this.

Including some ordinary people.

If the Guild’s main forces managed to escape, they would be back to square one. The Guild would throw fuel on the fire of people’s criminal motives to cause crimes around Europe. Both the victim and the criminal would end up suffering for it while the Guild laughed from a safe distance. Agnese hated being pushed to work so hard in this exploitative work environment, but she would also have trouble sleeping at night if she allowed that to happen.

She would end everything tonight.

She would bring an end to that chain of events.

Then she heard a dry sound much like rustling paper.

“(Shh.)”

She held a finger to her lips and they all turned silently toward the source of the noise.

The long passageway circling the dam had other stairways and rooms built onto it, making it resemble a stone ant colony. The noise came from one of those rooms. Its original purpose was unclear, but they doubted it was for anything friendly given the remnants of a metal door that was pulled straight up by gears and chains much like a guillotine or sluice. Agnese would not be surprised to learn it had once housed a lion trained to devour people.

''But was that really a thing of the past?

A deafening roar came from unexpectedly close by.

Agnese gulped and immediately chose a course of action. Her mind had gone blank, preventing her from refining magic power, so she would have a hard time fighting back with any kind of complex spell.

It would be too late by the time this beast leaped at her. But before the ordinary fear could freeze her in place, she thrust out the Lotus Wand on pure mechanical reflex. If something was held out in front of most animal’s faces, they would hold it in place with their front legs and bite at it.

For Agnese, anything was fine as long as she was not torn through by the first strike of those powerful jaws.

And she was not about to allow a second strike to happen.

“Sister Lucia!!”

Her call was answered by an explosion to the side. Lucia’s giant wooden wheel had burst on its own, scattering splinters like a shotgun. They slammed into the side of the lion that had misjudged its action, blasting away the 200kg beast like a kicked empty can.

Only after seeing the beast roll over and convulse on the floor did Angelene go pale and tremble.

“E-eek. What is that!? The Nemean lion!?”

“Based on the way my attack hit, I don’t think it’s a biological creature. Is it made of stone or metal? It may be modeled after the Mycenaean Lion Gate.”

So was this like a rooftop Shisa or a temple’s Komainu coming to life and attacking you? Of course, those more comical examples may have been Agnese’s way of distracting herself from the fear.

And defeating that unidentified lion did not mean the danger had passed.

The lion had leaped out at them, but they had yet to check its room. What was that sound of rustling paper Agnese had heard beforehand?

She was a moment too late in asking that question.

She heard a deep burning sound and an orange light emanated from the room.

“Oh, no! They’re burning something!”

She rushed into the room and found a stranger standing within.

No, perhaps it was better to say she found someone she did not recognize.

After all, this girl had all the skin on her face peeled away.

Agnese spoke to the criminal who had gone to such lengths to escape.

“Sister Monica.”

“Ah ha ha.”

Monica apparently had no intention of winning this fair and square. Siccing that lion on them had not been to kill them – it was only to buy time for ''this''.

She held a burning collection of paper.

She did not let go. Not to the very end. The fire she had set spread beyond the papers and enveloped her arm as well.

“Ah ha ha ha ha!! Hah hah hah ah ha ha ah ha ha ha ha ha!!”

“Get ready, Sister Agnese!!”

Monica laughed and spread her arms even as her entire body went up in flames. Then she ran toward the three nuns. She may have intended to grab at Agnese to share her fiery fate.

But Lucia did not let it happen.

Her giant wooden wheel burst, the many splinters scattered, and Monica flew back toward the opposite wall with more than 10 times the force she had come running in with.

She must have been counting on that.

Something fluttered through the cold stone room like cherry blossoms while scattering embers everywhere.

“Th-the spell book,” bemoaned Angelene. Her voice soon grew to a shout. “Wasn’t that the spell book we were searching for? It was just blown away! Wh-what do we do now!?”

The paper had been set on fire, the wax tapes had been melted, and the entire book had been shredded by the wooden scattershot. Agnese’s group had helped destroy it in their efforts to protect themselves.

The destruction was so thorough that restoring it now would be difficult.

Agnese sat down by the wall and watched it continue to burn.

“Sister Lucia, how much lifeforce does Monica have left?”

“It is about to run out and there is no stopping it.”

She received a cold response, but she did not mind.

That was not the main issue here. She could let herself feel that guilt once the dawn arrived.

Right now, she had a more important task

She roughly grabbed some blank memo paper found in the same room.

“Check her leftover thoughts. I need help from both of you to extract the spell book from Sister Monica!”

“B-but isn’t the spell book a bunch of wax tapes with the sounds recorded on them? Extracting her memories of seeing the spell book won’t get what we need!”

“We aren’t looking in her head. The residual thoughts clinging to her clothing would be less strictly guarded. Any voices she’s heard even once should coincide with the voices in the spell book, whether she was aware of it or not!”

Normally, that level of accuracy would not be possible.

If it would, they could have solved some other incidents much faster. For example, the summoned ghost ship attacking Calais, France.

But in this case, the burning habit and lost spell book had been destroyed by the same fire. “Cause of death” made for a very powerful common factor, so they could use that to absorb the information from both the spell book and the criminal’s clothing.

Do not forget.

As seen in the Golden Bough, magic of the sympathetic and contagious varieties placed a heavy emphasis on relationships and connections. If there was a handhold there, why wouldn’t they use it?

They knew there was no saving that girl enveloped in the flames, but she was still breathing and thus still a survivor for the time being. But they coldly refused to treat her and extracted the necessary information even if it meant watching her die.

They were working toward peace.

They were working toward a bright future.

(This is certainly something we couldn’t let ''that spiky-haired boy'' see.)

It was a contemptible and inhumane act, but otherwise the spell book needed to defeat the Guild would be forever lost. Agnese clenched her teeth but continued her work with perfect accuracy.

“When martyred, the glass shards of St. Vincent’s prison turned to flowers and he saw an angel. Thou carry no pain and no secrets. This place contains naught but light. The truth shall not be embellished as the light shines bright to guide the lost lambs on this earth.”

While continuing her work, Agnese looked to the room itself instead of burning Monica. She was somewhat afraid of suffocating with no windows for the smoke to escape, but she was also curious what kind of room this was.

It was a large room - twice the size of a school classroom.

The walls were lined with bookcases and old tomes were piled up on the tables. But more than that…

(What is that?)

“Ugh,” groaned the torch.

Putting out the fire now would not save her and thoughtlessly dumping water over her head might only make it worse.

So Agnese continued her work, but she also moved her lips to speak some other words.

“Your lost lifeforce will not return. There is no saving you. Do you have any last words you want me to relay to a family member, a friend, a lover, a teacher, or anyone you want? I swear I will get your message to them.”

Monica smiled a little when she heard that.

And she did not hesitate to respond.

“Shut up, you hypocrite. I’ll see you in hell.”

That was the end of it.

The torch became nothing more than a torch. She was no longer moving in the slightest.

Her outstretched hand had simply wandered through empty air.

(What a sad person.)

She had betrayed the Roman Catholics and picked a fight with the Anglicans to side with this strange Guild, but she must never have managed to rid herself of the loneliness lodged deep in her heart. She had died alone. And even in the Guild she was willing to protect with her life, she must not have found anyone she wanted to leave a final message for.

Malice, hostility, enmity, and animosity.

Her life had been like a book left stiff and moldy after being soaked in filthy water and forcibly dried. She had desired freedom more than anyone, yet she had lived a life holding her breath while hiding in the dank shadows.

Had she betrayed all those people for nothing more than that?

Agnese did not know what promises had been made to recruit Monica, but she could only imagine the girl had been manipulated and exploited.

And even Monica must have known it.

Otherwise, she would not have wasted her final words like that.

Today was like poison to Agnese’s mental health. If she was not careful, she would end up being crushed by the dark side of the world. She took a deep breath to refocus her mind and then she tapped at the memo paper in her hand. She had written all over that paper without even noticing it herself. She had created a new book. She had even drawn out the waveforms that had been recorded on the wax tapes.

“We have the spell book,” she clearly stated. “Now we can hunt down the Guild.”