Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter3 (section)

===Part 1===

The stage: Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany.

The problem: fucking Angelene.

She had been acting weird lately. That undisciplined stoop-backed freckled nun normally did nothing but eat sweets and laze about, but after returning from “work” (Let’s not get into what exactly that work entails. It was the usual dirty job that placed them below even the roaches that ate and broke down insect carcasses!), she did not return to her bed in their mobile home and instead started vigorously move around outside. That should have left her more exhausted than the others, but her face always looked weirdly bright when she returned. And she would fail to clean her plate at dinner, saying she was full.

That settled it.

Agnese and Lucia worked to capture her before their night shift began.

“Oh, what’s this, Sister Angelene? A delivery job using your phone and a bicycle? An admirable work ethic, but one question: why is a nun lining her pockets with a side job and spending it all on snacks?”

“Ow, ow, ow, owwww!? Y-you really shouldn’t grind your fists against people’s temples like this, Sister Agnese!!”

She was not even given the opportunity to turn the other cheek as she was hit by an infinite combo from both sides at once. Urban rental bike services were similar in every country and phone service was generally global, so you could start a part-time job no matter where you were as long as you signed up.

Unable to escape the endless temple-grinding, Angelene began some desperate shouting.

“B-besides, it’s wrong to visit Frankfurt and never eat a single frankfurter! We were so focused on work we never did eat a hamburger steak at Hamburg, so I decided I wasn’t going to let that happen here!!”

“You’ve been eating meat dishes as snacks? Those are full-blown meals.”

“No, they aren’t!! They’re basically meat bananas, so they count as a snack!!”

That assertion left both Agnese and Lucia trembling.

“First of all, bananas are considered a breakfast food around here,” said Lucia. “Second of all, ‘meat banana’ is far too obscene to shout in public.”

“Hm? How is that obscene???”

“Hm? How is that obscene???”

Once she realized she had self-destructed, Lucia began slamming her forehead against a concrete wall to end her life. Not realizing it took a dirty mind to notice how dirty something sounded was a common mistake.

Agnese was tilting her head along with Angelene, but now was not the time to be taking that girl’s side. She could not go easy on her, so a thorough punishment was in order.

“By the way, Sister Angelene, I assume you were working this very un-nun-like gadget-filled side job because you had heard the rumors.”

“Um, what?”

“Young bike delivery workers have been going missing. The story is they receive a fake order to an abandoned building and the person themselves is received as the delivery item. By a dangerous magician, of course.”

“…”

“Procurers really have evolved with the times. You only need a phone and a finger to get what you need. And the deliverer doesn’t even know what they’re carrying, so it’s pretty clever.”

Angelene had a bad feeling about this.

Procurer was a dangerous term in the world they lived in.

It referred to people who could procure whatever items an escapee or wanted criminal needed to live their lives. That sounded simple enough, but it was a serious issue. Criminals could not receive the usual services everyone else could, so a cavity or appendicitis could be deadly for them. The more irregular a life someone lived, the greater the risk to their health.

On the other hand, a procurer would be meaningless if they were conspicuous enough to be tailed. It was a boring job that required a number of unique skills. For example, how could a male procurer purchase women’s underwear while remaining inconspicuous? The job required solving thought puzzles of that nature.

Angelene already had tears welling up in her eyes when Lucia joined in with red blood dripping down from her forehead.

“Such devotion! This was an independent investigation meant to prevent any new victims by sacrificing yourself instead, wasn’t it!? If you had only let us know, we would have given you as much assistance as you wanted!!”

“Um, uh, but.”

“That’s right, Sister Lucia!! Sister Angelene is our shining star of hope, so she would never doing something as silly as abandon her duties to earn some pocket change to satisfy her own desires!! This was all a service to the lost lambs out there. So now is not the time to be falling for such an obvious trap as ‘meat banana’! We need to support her!!”

“Hm? Wait, Sister Agnese, are you saying you knew how dirty that sounded but played dumb!?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, Meat Banana Lover.”

The girl feigning ignorance here was their leader. She was making an unspoken threat of permanently giving Lucia that unwanted nickname if she pursued that line of questioning any further.

But that aside, Agnese and Lucia both slapped one of stoop-backed Angelene’s shoulders. There was no escape for her. The world’s rules had already chosen her fate.

“Now, let’s get this sting operation started!! Sister Angelene, I really am impressed to see such devotion after we traveled all the way to Germany!!”