Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item5 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 2===

They stopped at the closest movie theater.

“Um, ahem. After speaking with the higher ups, I received a most pleasing result.”

“Good work.”

“Listen up, you fools who dug up some extra work. I was really hoping to get this minor incident squared away so I could enjoy the rest of the Daihaseisai like I was on vacation, but you couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you!? Are you that interested in defending the peace of Academy City? Do you see yourselves as heroes now!? It’s always like this! You idiots! You imbeciles!! You’ve got me so mad only day drinking can make me feel better!!!”

Item was being treated like program testers who had been called in for work, found a bug in the program being developed, and were now being berated for forcing the programmers to stay up all night fixing it.

The voice on the phone sounded quite upset.

The middle manager whose plans were in shambles shouted in desperation.

“Pwahh… Nwohh! Yeah, times like this require reel beer, none of that third category or fourth category crap!! Anyway, Item, your job is to search out the counterfeiter behind the super realistic fake gold bars – aka HoloAu79 – which is causing such a stir lately!! You discovered this, so you deal with it!”

They discovered it? If it was already causing a stir, Item could hardly have discovered it. It felt a lot like this was a convenient excuse to shove an annoying job onto them.

Kinuhata sighed and asked a question.

“Super what is Holo whatever you said? Is it someone’s name?”

“Hologram gold. In other words, gold bars that are there but you can’t touch,” explained the blank-eyed track suit girl.

Incidentally, computer viruses were named by the security companies that creating the antivirus software, not the person who wrote the virus. So the name could change between companies. Similarly, vehicle burglars and bank robbers tended to be given names like that when the police or media began discussing the cases. So the HoloAu79 name had likely come from the Academy City authorities. Because writing paperwork was a lot harder without a name for it.

The transmission ended.

Mugino thought a bit as the theater’s lights came on.

“This is probably why those Army Ant people were involved… As dark side debt collectors, they would have found it unforgivable to be hired to transport well-made fake gold bars while watching out for Anti-Skill.”

In the professional world, the reward being the same didn’t necessarily mean nothing was lost.

It was like a locksmith thinking they were creating a spare key for someone’s house and then later learning their client had actually been a stalker. Unwittingly doing such a low-level job could hurt their professional pride.

“But, Mugino, did the Investment Club people really have those gold bars to trick their customers?” asked Takitsubo.

“…”

Their deadly “punishment” for the drug tester had been to eliminate one of their own who had betrayed their clients. If the Investment Club would go that far to regain trust, would they really deceive those clients themselves? It didn’t fit and sounded unlikely.

Meaning…

“The counterfeits were made to be indistinguishable. So isn’t it possible the Investment Club received them without knowing what they were?”

“What a pain. If they only had them ''by coincidence'', then investigating those dead people won’t turn up anything. We’ll have to restart the investigation from the ground up.”

“So it was a false charge…”

The usually zoned-out Takitsubo sounded unusually somber.

That said, being so devastatingly unlucky it got you killed ''by coincidence'' was something that happened on the dark side.

Mugino rapidly summed up the situation.

(Well, if we are restarting from the ground up, should we start from there?)

The talk of gold counterfeiting didn’t have all that much to do with the Daihaseisai. Ultimately, there was no time limit forcing them to solve this case during the festival. So they could avoid packing their schedules too full and keep some time for themselves as they worked on the case.

Frenda stretched and held a hand to her mouth.

“Yawwwn… Then in the end, will we be splitting up and grabbing a nap and some private time?”

“You go and recharge your sister batteries. You look ready to die.”

“Frenda. You should try to get there by lunchtime. She goes to a normal elementary school, right? All the parents will be watching on tarps with bentos ready, so you don’t want your sister to be the only one all alone during the long lunch break.”

“You think I don’t know that!? I got up early this morning and prepared a lunch. In the end, you’d better not be doubting the power of a big sister’s homemade mackerel bento!!”

Now wasn’t the time for being heartwarming.

Kinuhata panicked.

“H-hey, wait! I’d like it if we could work out at least a general plan. If the counterfeit gold bars in the Investment Club base were there by coincidence, then we have super no hints at all. How were you three intending to find the counterfeiter once we do meet back up later!?”

Mugino shrugged and didn’t answer.

So track suit girl Takitsubo answered for her. Why couldn’t this more considerate girl be their leader?

“Kinuhata. Army Ant is upset that money experts like them were hired to transport counterfeit gold bars, right?”

“Hm? Hold on. Why did you super use the present tense there?”

“If they aren’t satisfied with their attack on the Investment Club, they will be gathering information on the counterfeiter behind the HoloAu79. In the way only a large group can.”