Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item5 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 7===

Mugino left the conference room and blended into the streets.

It was 5 PM.

They had begun their investigation in the morning and been caught up in a sudden battle, so they had been at work for quite a while now. It was no surprise they were hungry. And thanks to the Daihaseisai, there was no shortage of food stands and trucks on the side of the road.

“Takitsubo-san, super what are you getting?”

“It’s hard to decide when there are so many options, isn’t it?”

“Huh? You kids just haven’t discovered the amazing possibility of salmon.”

Mugino and the others bought some sandwiches and breads.

Each one came with a colorful dip.

“Doesn’t that mackerel smell? It’s the fish oil. Once it gets on your fingers, I bet it sticks around a while even if you wash your hands.”

“In the end, the challenge mackerel presents in eating it only makes it more adorable!!”

“Her mackerel love has finally reached the super terminal stage, I see.”

Kinuhata had no strong feelings about food and would have been fine with a jelly drink or smoothie, but Takitsubo offered her a very festive frankfurter. Ignoring it would only have led Takitsubo to expressionlessly shove it into her mouth, so she had no choice but to accept it.

“Y’know, I wonder what dip goes best with salmon? The wasabi soy sauce is too ordinary, but mayonnaise just makes everything taste like mayo.”

“Oh. In the end, I want try avocado with my mackerel.”

As Mugino and Frenda chatted, they ended up trying different dips with their salmon and mackerel, seeing what worked best.

They really were good friends.

All they had to do was wander around the train station area while chatting.

Law-evading murder infrastructure.

The term sounded impressive enough, but what kind of toy was it really?

“Why are you acting all self-important? It’s always like this with you. You already know the answer. It’s not an unusual concept in Academy City.”

“…This city really is crazy.”

If she wasn’t eating a grilled salmon sandwich, Mugino would have abandoned the job right there.

“When a lab animal dies after being intentionally infected or injected with bacteria, a drug, or whatever else, its remains need to be swiftly and safely disposed of,” continued the voice on the phone. “Ordinarily, it will be quickly incinerated at high temperature. Electric furnaces have been gathering attention lately. They’re like giant microwave ovens.”

Needless to say, Academy City was a city of science, so it had labs everywhere. Each of those had its own “waste disposal zone”. New drugs meant for esper development posed a risk of an information leak if an outside contractor were hired to dispose of the waste. Blood, hairs that have absorbed a chemical cocktail, and even a single cell were considered classified information.

Everyone was already incinerating dead bodies.

Did the ordinary concern over respecting the dead not exist in this city of science?

(I bet that was a part of how the city was intentionally designed to speed up research.)

“And by adjusting the output of the devices meant for small animals, they can reduce a human-sized mass to white ashes. Besides, you’ve been asking your support group to dispose of bodies. It’s always like this with you.”

That was true.

They hadn’t ever considered how exactly it was done, though.

“Roasting them in a giant oven destroys the entire DNA map, so it can’t be legally proven what you have are human remains. But for worriers like you, it’s best to be extra thorough and dump the ashes in powerful acid to fully eliminate them.”

“So would the law-evading murder infrastructure mean taking all the necessary equipment and facilities for that process and miniaturizing it as much as possible so it all fits in a single box?”

“It’s just a magic trick for making a body disappear. A single storage container should be enough. The bigger problem is the power for the electric furnace. Hooking it up to a 100-volt household power source won’t be enough. It might be quicker to determine where power can be stolen from a factory, railroad, or other facility with a large power source without being noticed. Once we know where the device is located, it won’t be long before you’ve identified the target and their range of movement.”

“Got it.”

That was probably true.

They had already seen that underground silo mass driver in District 23, but that was a fairly special case. Enough power to obliterate a human body on contact couldn’t be found just anywhere.

But Takitsubo was curious about something else.

“What about how the payment was made?”

“Yeah. In the end, that white chip listed quite the unique method. Instead of cash or electronic money, the payment was made by handing over golf clubs or fancy cars. Doing it by leaving them behind in poorly-supervised rental spaces is fairly unusual.”

“I know that method.”

The other three Item members turned to look at Takitsubo. Those words meant something different from before.

This is what Takitsubo Rikou was saying:

“Her usual expressionless face had a hint of a cloud over it.

“Some old friends of mine used it.”