Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter3 (section)

===Part 4===

The bicycle had small wheels.

It was best described as a folding bike that did not actually fold.

It must have been designed mostly for its looks because the height not provided by the wheels instead came from the extra-high handlebars and seat. That allowed even an adult to ride it without difficulty, but it had a poor torque ratio between one turn of the pedals and one turn of the wheel. Simply put, it was exhausting to pedal it up a steep slope.

Angelene was reminded that the world’s first bicycle was thought to have been in Germany.

“Huff puff.”

She was so out of breath that she seemed to be complaining just by existing.

She was not sure if it was also designed mostly for its looks or if this design protected the contents from the shaking, but the waterproof backpack lent to her by the company was shaped like a round sphere. The stoop-backed nun wore that as she pedaled the bike through the Frankfurt night.

Procurer Angelene was on the job.

“Pant.”

“(Her journey to the realm of the dead has begun. Sister Lucia, we need to begin following her.)”

“(We know where her destination is, so can’t we just go there ahead of her?)”

“(If the magician was kind enough to wait around in the same spot the entire time, we wouldn’t need to sneak around like this in the first place.)”

Also, they did not actually know for sure that the attack happened at the delivery point. It was possible the magician erected a people-clearing field or used some other spell to attack before then and then scattered the victim’s blood at the delivery point after the fact. This was a sting operation, so preserving Angelene’s life had to be their top priority in every choice they made.

They jumped from rooftop to rooftop.

Angelene was riding her unfamiliar borrowed bike through the hilly city of Frankfurt, so there was no conceivable way for pros like Agnese and Lucia to lose sight of her.

“(Come to think of it, only the blood and bike are found afterwards, right?)”

“(What about it, Sister Lucia?)”

“(I was just wondering what happens to that round backpack. For that matter, what is Sister Angelene even carrying with her? She received some kind of heavy bag at the restaurant, but that was whatever the magician ordered, right?)”

“(Who knows. I mean, we’re talking about a magician who performs some kind cultish ritual that uses an ingredient as horribly inefficient as the human body. They might just be ordering ordinary food. Maybe there’s a spell user out there who hates to work on an empty stomach, so they munch on some pizza in one hand and slice open their restrained victim’s gut with the other hand.)”

It was a dangerous sign when they had decided their opponent was an unfathomable monster and thus gave up on thinking about the situation, but in this case, they knew for sure that the malicious magician’s target was Angelene. The app delivery service was only the decoy used to efficiently lure people in, so they did not have to worry about that part too much.

Part-timers closest to the restaurant or the person’s home would be given the job first, so Angelene did not have to pedal far. At a normal pace, she would arrive in about 10 minutes.

“(Where’s her destination?)”

“(Part of an ordinary warehouse district. It’s the kind of blind spot found in any industrial city.)”

So far, they didn’t see anything suspicious around Angelene. It looked like she would be able to reach her destination without incident.

It was late at night and there was no one else around.

But this was a big city, so there were plenty of streetlights and security cameras. The windows where the lights never went out were easy to mistake for human warmth. You might just think you were protected if you were looking at your phone while you pedaled along. Although you would fail to consider what you needed protection from.

Artificial light created with LEDs might not work against a true magician. And this magician was one who had kept up with the changing times. They would know where all the city’s blind spots and humanmade shadows were. They would be able to locate an isolated piece of this industrial city filled with millions of cameras.

(Doesn’t this violate the treaty between magic and science? Academy City really needs to uphold their end of that.)

Also, Frankfurt was an inland city, so while it was an industrial city, it did not have a harbor district bordering the ocean. Its international airport was primarily for travelers, so heavy equipment was transported either along land routes or along the giant river next to the city.

Angelene was on her way to a base for the land routes – a warehouse district next to the autobahn. Just like their advance info had said. It was hard to tell since there were not always people there to keep the lights on, but there were empty and abandoned warehouses. Homes and shops were not the only example of people being kicked out once they could no longer pay.

That said, there was no good way of telling from the outside which ones were in use and which were abandoned.

“(Angelene has stopped her bike,)” whispered Lucia while landing on the roof of a neighboring warehouse.

“(Be on the lookout. We don’t know whether this magician is working alone or as part of a group.)”

Most serial killers worked alone. Supposedly because such unusual and high-risk desires could not be revealed to an entire group. But that changed with a crime based on a simple shared goal like a bank robbery. Which was this? The key was the constant need for living humans.

Was it part of a major ceremony that required a large number of sacrifices?

Or was it a case of repeatedly failing the same ceremony and having to redo it?

At this point, it was hard to say how planned out this had been.

And the magician being incompetent did not make them any less dangerous. No one wanted to come face to face with someone wielding a blade because they had decided their life would never improve and they needed to be “reborn” to try again. A magician like that would never be satisfied and they would never stop.

Agnese and Lucia heard a creak as Angelene lowered her bike’s kickstand.

She looked worriedly around with the round backpack still on. She had not been told the other two were watching over her. That way she would not do anything that might give their presence away to the enemy magician.

This was odd.

Lucia held her breath and then tilted her head.

“(No contact.)”

“(Did they catch on and leave?)”

That was a possibility, but it still felt weird. If they had detected Agnese and Lucia, when had it happened? If they had such excellent search magic, like fortunetelling or prophecy, would they even need to use the delivery service trick? It seemed like they could magically search out all witness information and attack someone when no one was looking.

Those two could not rid themselves of a feeling like a pebble rolling around in their chest.

They might have overlooked something.

But what?

(I need to review everything we know for a fact.)

Agnese made a point of taking a deep breath as she sorted through the information.

Some malicious entity was abusing the bike delivery system. Unsuspecting part-timers were lured to an abandoned building where they were attacked by someone and went missing. Afterwards, only a large pool of blood and their personal bike remained.

That much was certain.

There was one primary question here:

“Who’s doing it?”

That was the obvious question. This entire sting operation was meant to find the culprit.

But.

Agnese’s group had never actually seen any of the attacks. The situation had definitely been set up by someone. Since stolen phones were being used to send people to fake delivery destinations, whoever was making the orders had to understand the part-timers were meeting a gruesome end.

But on the other hand…

“Could the magician behind it not actually be attacking them directly?”

That was a legitimate question.

However, the fact remained that there was blood and there were people going missing. It was hard to imagine the part-timers themselves were spilling a pack of blood they had prepared and then going into hiding.

There was a malicious attacker.

But that attacker might not be the magician who had set things up.

Then who was the most likely suspect?

In fact, what hiding places were even left?

“It can’t be…”

What was it Lucia had mentioned before?

Only the blood and the bike remained, so where had that round backpack gone? The object within it had been ordered by the malicious magician, hadn’t it?

“It can’t be! Sister Angelene, get away from there immediately!! And leave that backpack behind!!”

It was too late.

The bud of malice had already blossomed right behind the stoop-backed girl.

The true attacker opened its mouth to speak while clinging to her back.

“Wahh.”