Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume16 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 4===

Time passed as all this went on.

“It’s almost seven,” said Fukiyose, calling the study session to an end.

It was dinner time.

Yes, the girls dorm had a dining hall on the first floor.

That may have been why the rooms, as comfortable as they were, didn’t have a kitchen. They looked more like hotel rooms because of it.

…How could Index and Othinus eat when they were stuck in his room?

That had been his big worry of late, but he couldn’t let anyone else know.

No one could find out he had a white nun, a calico cat, and a 15cm god living in his room!

And so (after dropping his study things and Othinus off at his room) Kamijou joined the crowd forming at the first floor dining hall.

The dining hall worked by buying a ticket at the machine and then receiving a tray of food at the counter, but the machine only had a single giant LCD screen. It didn’t use buttons.

“Ugh,” groaned Kamijou.

He didn’t like these very much.

(Ordering from a touchscreen like this is such a pain because you have to search through several layers of folders to find the dish you want. If you start down the wrong path, you can end up lost forever. Still, it’s better than a phone app that’s stealing who knows how much of your personal data.)

As a petty bourgeois who got scared of the line behind him whenever he took too long, his focus was immediately drawn to the “new items” tab prominently displayed on the top page.

It had been updated. The menu had changed since yesterday.

One item must have been really new because it didn’t even have a photo.

Egg curry.

“Wait. That’s too broad to even guess what it really is. What would I even be ordering? What’s the point of this huge screen?”

While Kamijou stood dumbfounded in front of the ticket machine, Himegami and Fukiyose joined the conversation directly behind him. They stood up on their toes and hopped to see the screen over his shoulders. All well and good for Himegami, but that was fairly dangerous for Fukiyose at such close range. …How could he tell how close she was when he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head, you ask? Thanks to his other senses that could detect pressure, touch, and softness!

Othinus (who was still hiding inside his clothes) whispered to him.

“(She has her chest against your back, doesn’t she?)”

How could that god know when she couldn’t possibly see from inside his uniform?

The high school girls (who were too focused on the new menu item to realize what they had done) discussed the item.

“Maybe it’s normal curry rice. With a fried egg on top?”

“It might just be a spicier curry with a raw egg dropped inside. That would keep the flavor milder, which is a plus in my book. And the flavor ends up different from just ordering mild curry to begin with.”

…Now, Kamijou himself had been imagining curry rice with a thick rolled omelet on top. But maybe that would be called omelet curry instead?

The line behind him had grown long enough to make him nervous. He couldn’t wait any longer. He had a disease where his heart would explode if he had more than ten people waiting on him, so he went ahead and bought the egg curry currently displayed on the screen. The way you had to unlock your phone, bring up the right app, press it against the screen, and wait for the tone was an annoying amount of work! He understood technology was advancing, but was the earth really becoming a more convenient place!?

“Hmm. I guess I’ll get the egg curry.”

“I skipped lunch, so I’m fairly free to order whatever I want. I think I’ll try the egg curry too.”

Looking back, he saw Himegami, Fukiyose, and more of those behind him in line ordering the egg curry. Were they just easily influenced, or was the fear of a line behind you built into the system’s design for business purposes?

But what really was the egg curry anyway?

He couldn’t imagine the combo being anything bad, but it also didn’t sound like the heartiest of meals. It didn’t sound like as perfect a pairing as a fried egg on top of a hamburger steak. He still couldn’t come up with a solid mental image for the thing, so what was he actually going to find on his plate?

A young woman in an apron was working busily behind the counter.

Kamijou’s first time seeing her, he had nearly died on the spot from the “Gasp! Does the girls dorm have a dorm manager!?” effect, but it turned out she was a contractor. She apparently worked for a bento shop. Which wasn’t quite the same thing as a dorm manager. About as different as a kunoichi outfit from a Western-style Taisho-era waitress. Were there really no dorm managers in this world!?

“Here you go. Egg curry.”

That was fast.

He had his food immediately after handing in his ticket. Like 1.5 seconds after. Zero effort on her part.

Also, he had caught a glimpse of the apron woman’s hand beyond the counter just now. She appeared to wearing a knit sweater or a turtleneck, but he couldn’t see her face because of the barrier with only a small opening like from a pawn shop in a gun culture. The painted nails had the look of a grown woman, but the design had been more gyaru-ish than high society. They were shining with lamé and beads.

Curry made by a gyaru?

He had a bad feeling about this.

The curry rice had scrambled eggs on top. So much that the curry was completely obscured.

Every single person who had paid money for this had the same thought.



“This isn’t what I wanted!!”