Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 8===

The coolant pool was in the back of the lab.

It was more than 2m deep and covered even more space than a convenience store.

It looked like clear water, but the rippling surface seemed somehow thicker than normal water. According to Frenda, sinking in while dressed would allow the clothing fibers to gather the coolant particles like a filter and prevent you from ever rising back to the surface.

“This is a radio and these are the tools you’ll need. In the end, keep everything on camera and follow my instructions,” said Frenda.

“Okay. How long will the work take?” asked Takitsubo.

“Around 10 minutes, I think.”

“Hold on. How will she have enough air?” asked Mugino.

Kinuhata tossed over something like a portable cooker’s gas canister. Frenda attached it to a metal pipe arranged in a fairly complex shape. She was creating a makeshift oxygen tank by customizing the kind of oxygen canister used in indoor gyms.

It was shaped more confusingly than a simple burner used to roast the surface of meat or fish.

“This won’t last an hour, so be careful. In the end, we can’t predict what kind of trouble could keep you down there longer.”

“Hm. Okay.”

“Don’t just breathe in the oxygen. The trick is to breathe out the carbon dioxide while closing the valve to keep the water out.”

“Time to take this off.”

Takitsubo didn’t hesitate to strip off her track suit.

Kinuhata and Frenda got an unexpected eyeful of bare skin from head on, so they awkwardly looked away.

(Th-they don’t look anywhere near that super big in her track suit. Those boobs are wasted on her.)”

“(Don’t let it bother you. I-in the end? Everyone loves our Frenda-chan because of the perfect balance I show in all my measurements. If my boobs were any bigger, it would mess with that balance, you see. So shut up, I’m not crying.)”

“?”

After stripping off her underwear too, Takitsubo Rikou sat down on the poolside(?), stuck the makeshift oxygen tank’s pipe in her mouth, and slowly entered the coolant, feet first. The liquid appeared highly transparent, but once she was fully submerged, she couldn’t be seen from the poolside.

Frenda spoke to her over the radio.

“Keep your right hand on the wall and slowly follow that. You’ll find the maintenance panel at a corner 15m from here, so use that as your landmark.”

“Okay.”

Takitsubo’s voice sounded muffled, but that was due to the pipe in her mouth, not the quality of the radio.

While Takitsubo walked through the coolant pool, the other three followed along outside the pool.

“Once you have the control panel open, aim the camera at the inside. I want to check the arrangement of wiring and switches.”

“This?”

Frenda viewed the footage they received and got to work with her right hand. The other two wondered what she was doing and found she was drawing out a wiring diagram on memo paper with a ballpoint pen.

Mugino viewed that from the side and pointed at one part.

“#2 and #7 are traps, so don’t touch those. Also, this isn’t communicating the signal using anything as obvious as a wired connection.”

“Mugino?”

“Do you see how #5 and #6 are unnaturally close together? Instead of using the electricity, they’re communicating with each other using the faint magnetism that leaks out around the wires. That kind of contactless communication means you’ll never reach the signal’s destination if you only follow the paths drawn out on the wiring diagram.”

Frenda knew a lot about circuitry as a bomber, but Mugino figured it out faster.

Even that (extremely villainous) girl was still a Level 5, which meant she was a genius girl whose brain was built differently from the average person.

“Mugino, what does that mean I should do?”

“Pull on wire #9 and nestle it right up alongside #6. Once you’ve done that, you can snip #5 with the wire cutters.”

Mugino’s phone beeped softly.

The phone was connected to the lab’s wireless LAN, but she found it now had access to a screen she couldn’t reach before. A single folder contained a large quantity of files.

The folder was named “Project Angelica”.