Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item6 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 1===

Mugino Shizuri looked puzzled.

Item was in their luxury hotel suite in the college-filled District 5.

The basic furnishings were no longer the only interior decorations there. Specifically, something new was hanging by the window: a mesh pattern box of less than 15cm.

“Frenda, did you buy some new product again?”

“Yup. In the end, I have a curse where I’ll die if I don’t buy all the latest trends.”

The small fluffy blonde haired girl answered while sinking into the one-person sofa.

Frenda Seivelun appeared to know a logical explanation wouldn’t work so she was trying to dodge the issue with meaningful-sounding words. It may have been a variant of chuunibyou.

Short, refreshing chirps were coming from the box.

“Wait, there’s a super bug in there?”

Kinuhata’s slight surprise was not the result of her laboratory upbringing(?) leaving her unable to touch Mother Nature’s bugs. She was more concerned with the responsibility that came with caring for a living creature. After all, the illicit nature of Item’s work meant there was never any guarantee they could return home after stepping out the door. If they wanted to be soothed by the presence of a puppy, they had to either go to a pet cafe or watch some animal videos.

But Frenda smiled bitterly in the sofa and waved her hand.

“No, no. In the end, it’s just an audio device. It’s called a bug cage speaker.”

“?”

“The thing has around thirty thousand different autumn insect sounds in it. The internet is flooded with people insisting they got their best sleep in years leaving it on overnight.”

“Ugh. Thirty thousand? You mean there are super more autumn insects than the bell cricket?”

Don’t try to imagine it, Kinuhata. There aren’t actually thirty thousand of them stuffed inside that small box.

The point was to create an autumnal mood.

“They apparently included some pretty rare ones. Like the jungles of Southeast Asia and Central America where millions of species live.”

“How is this any different from having your phone play the sounds?”

Mugino was quick to smash Frenda’s dreams.

Maybe that was how it felt for people who weren’t interested. Those people would also casually reject an LED lantern that let you listen to a music subscription service over your wireless LAN. When no one saw the appeal of these silly products, it could be surprisingly painful for the person who had brought it along.

However…

“Frenda.”

“In the end, what do you want, Takitsubo?”

“Wasn’t there a rumor about people suffering brain damage after listening to the chirping of a special cricket in Central and South America? Y’know, like a natural ultrasonic attack.”

Sounds of people scrambling around in a hurry continued for a bit.

Modern electronics did not come with a paper manual. That wasn’t an issue most of the time, but it meant you lacked the necessary information when something did come up. They all began searching on their phone, found a site gathering the manuals for different manufacturers, realized that was a fake site meant to get the user to set up their smart electronic device in a way that leaked their personal information, and wound up back at square one. In the end, Frenda ended up looping a few times through the same dialogue with the manufacturer’s crappy official AI chat before she finally arrived at a list of the insect noises included in the device.

There were around thirty thousand of them.

“In the end, what’s the actual name of that special cricket from Central and South America!?”

“Um, I’m searching for that too. Is this it? I found the District 23 insect museum’s site. The cricket is called…”

“This super lets you do a site-wide search by tapping here. That cricket name…is not among the thirty thousand on the list.”

In the end, there was nothing to worry about.

If only all the world’s problems were that way.

“Nhh…”

Mugino Shizuri raised her arms and stretched.

She was generally like this after they were paid and didn’t have to worry for a while.

“I’m bored. …How about we go clothes shopping?”

“Mugino, I really think you’re showing signs of a shopping addiction.”