Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume11

Novel Illustrations

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  Contents Page

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  Pages 003-005

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  Pages 006-008

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Prologue: Welcome – the_DIE_After_Tomorrow.

“You will die.”

“That doesn’t change my answer.”

The end result had been determined from the very beginning.

The result at the very end of the choice Kamijou Touma made so easily.

“Whatever it takes, I will end this so Index is safe and Alice is smiling.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“The girl wants…”

“…to make up…with you.”

“I…”

“I don’t…”

“I don’t want to see anyone suffering from even more misfortune than me!! You got a problem with that!?”

“January 6, 11:58 PM.”

“The transported patient has been confirmed deceased. There is nothing I can do when he’s already dead.”

“Could this be…?”

“The afterli-”

“My, my.”

“It is ❌ ⌚ for you to be here yet, is it?”

“Aren’t you the other one? Um, Kings…oh, right. Anna Kingsford?”

“🎯.”

“Or perhaps you did ❌ know in the first place.”

“Besides, I am meant to be ☠️.☆”

“You have indeed, Kamijou Touma.”

“And I am ❌ strong willed enough to sit idly by when someone is ❌ rewarded for their efforts.”

“What are you even trying to do in this literal dead end!?”

“I am trying to serve those around me.”

“As an expert, I have a secret technique you could call a Hell Tour.”

“…”

“My, my. If that does ❌ mean much to you, what if I called it a Jailbreak?”

“Now.”

“How about you kick out this shitty predetermined ending and join me in making a comeback?”

…So what part of this was a lie?

The unfortunate boy refused to fully believe this offer. To him, it sounded far too good to be true.

A woman stood before Kamijou Touma in the empty white space.

Anna Kingsford.

She had an elegant smile on her face.

And she held her right hand out toward him.

He was taken aback, but he took that hand for now.

For now?

No, this was all a definite “choice” made by Kamijou himself.

In that instant…

Fwoosh!!!

The white space changed.

The entire space became a dense forest filled with black rocks and damp trees. No, he technically couldn’t tell the color. Because it was all enveloped by thick shadow, letting darkness rule over it all. There was no moonlight and he could only see a vague orange light in the distance. But seeing that light in the darkness did nothing to allay his fears. His instincts told him that was a harmful light, like that of lava or a forest fire.

His body felt heavy.

He felt like he had been left behind in a narrow tunnel after a deadly accident. Simply staring into the darkness felt like a great weight bearing down on him.

“What is this place?”

“You could 💬 it the entrance to hell, I suppose.”

Hell.

So he had to start from the bottom.

He had died for his own selfish reason, so he hadn’t expected to get to go to heaven.

That much made sense, but what was that about a jailbreak?

He had consciously chosen death. Would the world really allow him to keep going from there?

Or was this some kind of test?

The other Anna did not even seem surprised.

Was this all part of what she had expected?

“Really, it is constructed from several different ideas mixed together, but having three dimensions to move in is more convenient, don’t you think?”

That explanation meant nothing to Kamijou.

She tugged on his hand, lifting his hips from the ground. He fully stood up.

He realized he could feel her warmth. And the soft, smooth sensation of a woman’s hand.

His breathing. His sweat.

The beating of his heart.

Everything that had been absent earlier came rushing back.

Was this real then?

He seemed to have defined it that way for himself.

But he was already dead…supposedly, anyway. So he had no clue at all what he was supposed to do from here. A hell tour? A jailbreak? Could he really return to life? He couldn’t picture it himself. That left him with only one choice: follow Kingsford’s lead. She was his guide through hell, so he was done for if he upset her and she abandoned him in this darkness.

The two of them walked through the dark, pathless forest.

Kamijou did not look back. He felt some kind of presence here and there in the darkness. He was terribly curious what was making those horrific noises, but he was afraid turning his head even once would end with him losing sight of Kingsford’s back just a meter ahead of him, leaving him lost in the woods with no sense of direction.

“Wh-where do we start?”

“From step one. In 🪄, that is the most basic rule and the deepest of secrets. I understand your impatience, but do ❌ even 💭 about skipping a step.”

When an expert said it, it was hard to tell if she was joking or not.

She really had passed between the worlds of the living and the dead while still human. Like she was returning to her hometown for the bon festival.

Kamijou focused all his attention in case some offhand comment of hers carried critical meaning.

“But to be more specific, we start by passing through the 🚪. The 🚪 to hell☆”

“To hell?”

They continued a while through the damp forest where each and every step felt so heavy. That might seem simple, but without Kingsford’s guidance, Kamijou might have rotted down to the soul and become a tree bearing an oddly face-like stain.

Something came into view.

It was made of stone, but it wasn’t a building.

The grand gate felt at odds with the word “hell”.

A pair of wooden doors were contained within a hemispherical arch of stone. There weren’t even stone walls on either side. Even so, it created a “border”. In that sense, it may have been similar to the torii at a Shinto shrine, but it felt wrong to liken this to them.

This led to hell.

It may have been a monstrous maw.

A metal plate was mounted at the top of the arching gate, but Kamijou couldn’t read what it said. It looked like the alphabet, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t English. He searched through his pockets, but he couldn’t find his phone to use its translation app.

But.

The plate wasn’t his main concern.

“I 💭 that would be ‘abandon all hope, ye who enter here’.”

Anna Kingsford commented on the metal plate, but Kamijou’s attention was elsewhere.

Someone sat in front of the half-open gate.

But this was no gatekeeper. He was casually seated on the flat steps leading to the gate. The closest comparison was a delinquent using the stone stairs next to the street or in a park as a bench.

Yes, the silver-haired man clad in red was calm enough to actually enjoy hell.

He was another expert.

Undoubtedly so.

And he was no stranger to Kamijou.

This was hell.

The most sinful of the dead were sent to this place.

This world.

This layer.

This phase.

And if this was the final dumping ground for the lowest of the low souls…

“What’s this, what’s this?”

Wasn’t this…

Wasn’t this a perfectly reasonable outcome!?

“This old man was so bored I was reluctant to keep going. But maybe I should rethink this world. It’s finally decided to offer up some real entertainment.”

CRC.

Christian Rosencreutz.

The greatest expert who brought nothing but death and destruction – the sinner who had supposedly died ahead of Kamijou – was grinning over at him.

Chapter 1: The Other Side of the Ordinary – Hell,_Hades,_and_Gehenna.

Part 1

“…”

“…”

Silence.

After all, this was the Rosencreutz. How were you supposed to hold a conversation with the monster who single-handedly made a mess of Academy City!? It felt like being alone in a cramped elevator late at night with a man who had a prominent pompadour. The tension was intense. Kamijou was more friendly and welcoming to science, magic, and weirdos than most, but even he had his limits. Just walking alongside this man counted as an emergency in his book!

“Hm, hm♪ Oh, dear. Maybe I should have 🍴en some 🗾ese katsudon before I died.”

Kamijou heard a carefree voice.

The only smiling person here was Anna Kingsford as she walked a step ahead of him.

A great gale blew across the wasteland here, but she simply held her hat down with a hand like none of it mattered.

She even hummed a casual tune.

Kamijou really would have preferred to stick with that gentle and safe young woman who looked so soft in every aspect than to have anything to do with that dangerous man, but doing that would have meant turning his back to CRC. How could he do that? Wouldn’t that be just as suicidal as refusing to stick with the group and holing up in a room alone while a murderer lurked the halls of the mansion? It honestly terrified him!!!

“Don’t worry so much, boy.” The red-clad young man chuckled while stroking his beard. “This old man must also travel through hell, so at the very least I will not disturb your journey. They say all travelers could use a companion, don’t they? This old man has died, so now I must redo things. So let’s form the greatest all-star party and enjoy a picnic together!!”

“…”

Kamijou felt blue.

He sensed more to that man’s words, or he wasn’t sure how to interpret them. Regardless, each and every thing he said seemed to carry a deep and dangerous meaning!! The way he talked about a traveling companion with such a dark grin was terrifying!!!

“The ✝️ hell is shaped like a giant mortar,” said Kingsford without looking back.

She didn’t seem to mind.

Was she not afraid? Hadn’t Rosencreutz killed her once?

Or was being killed just the once a trivial matter to an expert who had transcended life and death?

This was unlike Aleister Crowley and Anna Sprengel, who were extraordinary magicians in their own right. Those two still clung to their lives and formulated their plans and strategies without giving up on living. So even if their skills were transcendent, Kamijou and others could predict their actions to an extent.

The Magic Gods like Othinus and High Priest had sacrificed their lives to master their paths, but it was their understanding of how valuable a life was that allowed them to make such great use of their own.

But this woman lacked that, so she could casually cross the boundary between life and death.

She could leave and return.

That was Anna Kingsford.

Doing things normally and ordinarily in these circumstances was in fact extremely bizarre.

“The shape of hell is ❌ so much like a 🌕 crater as it is like what you’ll see if you search for an image of open-pit mining. Each level is like another step, with the levels growing narrower as they go down, with the very bottom converging on a single point.”

Kamijou heard the clinking sounds of hard objects colliding. Rather than plastic, this was the high-pitched and dangerous sound of glass or crystal.

Rosencreutz held something like a clear jigsaw puzzle in his hand.

“This was originally a single card.”

The jumble of pieces refused to fit together, their contours constantly bumping together.

It looked the full shape would be…a V?

No, a mortar.

But when viewing a cross-section from the side, it may have resembled a deep canyon.

Although it appeared to be glitching and refused to function.

“My miniature model of the world recreates all phenomena within itself, thus gathering all phenomena relating to the world’s past, present, and future in my hand. However, it does not seem to work with the realm of hell which is found outside the world.”

Regardless, Kamijou and the others were at the very top of the mortar, on the outermost edge.

Hell was spacious.

They were supposed to be pulling a jailbreak, but where were they supposed to go and what were they supposed to do?

“Like I 💬, hell is shaped like a giant mortar or like an inverted pyramid.”

Kingsford poked the broken model with a smile.

Those two were both experts.

The location was hell.

All things considered, this was one hell of a roadside chat.

“By 👣ing all the way around each level, we should find a stairway or slope leading down to the next level.”

“Hmph. I doubt that’s all we will find.”

CRC boredly poked his finger at the V-shaped miniature model(?) floating in front of his face to guide a stray piece toward the whole.

“This hell is a mixture of a few different ideas. There is no accurate model, so there is no correct path. We might suddenly wind up in the Buddhist Eight Great Hells or in the Shinto Yomotsu Hirasaka. In fact, if we go waltzing down there, thinking we know the answer, we might just run into a dead end.”

“I am aware of that.”

Kingsford and Rosencreutz looked Kamijou’s way at the same time.

He didn’t understand it.

Feeling like an outsider, the idiot had been only half-listening, waiting for the experts to arrive at an answer, so he panicked now.

“Wh-what? Me?”

“In this case, I expect he will be the 🗝️. Our view will mostly be the Western conception of hell, but he is 🗾ese and will think of the Eastern conception of hell, ruled by Lord Enma and full of 👹.”

“If we’re lucky. How are we supposed to predict what we’ll run across if he’s thinking of the ‘demon world’ shown on some trading card? This old man’s miniature model of the world is only meant to reproduce the past, present, and future of the real world. It can’t do the same for a purely fictional story.”

Kamijou didn’t like what he was hearing.

Apparently he had leveled up from dead weight to a ticking time bomb.

“Also, do ❌ lose the sense that you do ❌ belong.”

“?”

“Traveling through hell is all well and good, but you must ❌ let it influence you too much. This is only a temporary place for you. If you plant roots too deep, you will ❌ be able to return. Just think of it as a good-luck charm to help our jailbreak succeed.”

That made sense.

He doubted he could ever feel at home in hell, but how long would that last? Who keeps company with the wolf will learn to howl. The Japanese language contained multiple phrases to that same end, which suggested everyone knew it could happen. Kamijou had a feeling the Japanese were especially prone to just going with the flow. Like how everyone complained about global warming while gradually getting used to the higher temperatures.

But.

“Okay, I get the idea, but what exactly am I supposed to avoid doing? I’m not sure how I can avoid it if you don’t tell me what the ‘land mines’ are.”

“There is ❌ way to know how many there are in all.”

Wait.

“Wouldn’t the simplest examples be eating or drinking the food and drink of hell?” said Rosencreutz.

“What about looking back?”

“In the story of Orpheus stealing back his wife, he had promised Hades he would not look back until he had left hell. We just have to hope we do not run afoul of any rules we can break without first making a promise.”

“Um.”

Kamijou wanted them to slow down.

Weren’t there any more obvious “land mines” like kicking a jizo statue on the side of the road or eating a grave offering? Now he was more worried then ever he would step on one without realizing it!

Kingsford gently placed a hand on her cheek and looked his way.

“It should go without 💬ing that hell does not play fair.”

“Ugh.”

“But at the same ⏱️, hell is meant to make sinners suffer, not to apply violence indiscriminately.”

In that sense, was hell better than the overly passionate and indiscriminate stories of being chased through the school all night long after happening to see a ghost there or finding a strange woman waiting at an intersection?

The idea of only the properly judged sinners being chosen for punishment was very different from the 2-hour summer ghost story specials on TV where the suffering dead would grab at anyone and everyone to drag them down to hell with them. In Japanese horror, it was more the fresh and still-living souls that would gather around.

But…

“We were in fact properly judged and sent to hell. Not this young lady who cheated her way here, but I doubt you or this old man will be awarded that luxurious mystery prize.”

“Ugh!!”

Kamijou had forgotten he had wound up in hell the ordinary way.

But at least he would be less hesitant to escape from a gloomy and torturous hell than from a heaven where all his wants were fulfilled.

He could become bound to hell.

There were taboo actions hidden in the scenery around him.

Without knowing the exact conditions, he couldn’t predict when or where he might step on a “land mine”. It was possible one wrong move was all it took, but he decided to assume the danger grew the longer he remained in hell. Like how the danger of Russian roulette grew with each consecutive round.

“☠️ing and being killed in hell are ❌ problem. What you need to 👀 out for is becoming bound to hell. Keep that in 🧠.”

“Watch that you do not cling to hell, boy.”

Kamijou decided to assume hell was always hostile.

And that it would pull out all the stops on violence and deception.

He heard a rustling sound.

He turned toward it and saw something there.

A muscular macho man with a bull’s head was carrying a humongous axe.

Was this a random encounter!? What were the “land mines” he had to avoid here? Was he really supposed to keep going without knowing the rules of hell!?

“Hey, wait, wh-what is this all of a sudden!?”

“Good question. A Greek harpy or minotaur as a gatekeeper is a very odd thing for a Christian-based hell.”

“That is not what I meant! Quit grinning at me like thaaaaaaaat!!!”

Even as Kamijou shouted, he clenched his right fist.

Would that help here?

Did he even still have Imagine Breaker now that he was dead? And even if he did, he had no clue if it would work against that mountain of muscle!!

The minotaur was a bipedal and muscular monster standing what looked to be 3m tall. It raised an ultra-heavy axe that rivaled the minotaur itself in size. The wind roared as the air was compressed. That axe had the unmistakable weight and glint of steel. At the very least, the weapon part didn’t look like an illusion.

Oh, I might be screwed.

Just as that thought came to the spiky-haired boy, Anna Kingsford and Christian Rosencreutz each took a step forward. The two experts both waved their right index finger.

Casually.

The great mountain of muscle was sliced through diagonally down from each shoulder, forming an X-shape.

The minotaur didn’t seem to have any weight. Instead of its pieces falling to the ground, they turned to thin shadows and vanished into nothingness.

The two experts didn’t seem to care much.

“That should do it. Since we have descended from earth to hell, the heaven-to-earth format of the Sephiroth needed to be replaced with the Qliphoth, but it worked out well enough. It would seem magic is still functional even in hell.”

“Sigh. There really should ❌ have been a minotaur at this shallow a level. A world of 🧠 images must be more easily influenced than I thought.”

Kamijou had no words.

One was an expert of good, the other was the opposite.

They really were on a level far beyond Kamijou Touma’s understanding.

Part 2

They continued through the dark hell.

Hell as a whole was supposedly shaped like mortar, but it looked like their goal was to continue downwards. Kamijou didn’t know his way around, so he had no choice but to follow Kingsford. He wanted to avoid getting lost and ending up alone with the Rosencreutz.

(Also…)

His right hand.

Did it still have any power, or not?

He tried touching his palm to a nearby black rock.

Inconclusive.

The rock was a rock, but it showed no sign of disappearing. He couldn’t say for sure what that meant. He was only sure of one thing: he was probably making a fool of himself.

For his next test, he tried touching Rosencreutz.

“O-oh?”

No change.

Why wouldn’t that man just disappear?

Then again, Kingsford had suffered no ill effects from him taking her hand.

Even so, he couldn’t be certain about Imagine Breaker unless he saw something be unnaturally destroyed. Like maybe that unnecessarily long beard.

“Wh-why are you suddenly flirting with this old man? O-oh, my. Someone help! This boy is a molester!”

A touch from his right hand proved nothing.

And he had another question.

“What did you mean about hell being influenced?”

He meant the question for Kingsford, but Rosencreutz answered (while trembling for some reason).

“Ultimately, it is possible god didn’t give all that much thought to hell compared to heaven. It is described in Revelation, but modern people are as influenced by hymns and Paradise Lost as they are by the Bible and academic books.”

“Is it really that vague? I mean, aren’t heaven and hell a pretty core or root part of the entire mythology?”

“Tartarus, Niflheim, the Eight Great Hells, Yomi, and all other ideas of the realm of the dead are no more than phases placed on top of the physical world. But once you enter one, you can never return to the basic physical world.”

That made it sound like this was found alongside the ordinary streets and parks, just behind a thin layer of reality. That was hard to believe while seeing it from the hell side.

“Also, everyone views hell differently. The 16th century Dutch view gives the demons of hell an opposition party and a master accountant – that is, a treasurer in charge of the demonic kingdom’s finances.”

“In that system, the supposedly wild and vicious 👿s did ❌ have free use of 💷.”

“But no matter how many conceptions of hell you consider, you will never find one that is correct. Which is why you can’t exactly be angry about the inclusion of non-biblical ideas.”

In other words, anything goes.

In that case, why couldn’t this be a hell with a tiny silver-haired and horned goth loli demon lord seated in an oversized throne and full of succubi in the kind of sexy underwear that makes it look like they lost a bet? The Transcendents who cosplayed as gods and demons had the Bologna Succubus, didn’t they!? That meant the original sexy young woman she was based on had to exist as a “species” in some world myth! There, he had an excuse!! Now he could finally transform this horrific hell into a wonderful picnic!!!

“Boy, you assume the Western hell is crawling with demons, don’t you? In truth, hell is managed by angels like Uriel, Kushiel, Anafiel, and Mastema. Hell is not a lawless realm of demons – it is a part of the omniscient and omnipotent god’s plan for all parts of the world from heaven to hell. A place where humans have their souls removed and laundered after they make a deal with the devil? That is no more than an idea created by folklore and fiction.”

“…”

Had it already been influenced that much?

The majority of Kamijou’s knowledge came from video games, so he was completely out of luck.

He could at least pick up that he wasn’t going to find a tiny silver-haired and horned goth loli demon lord seated in an oversized throne or any succubi in the kind of sexy underwear that makes it look like they lost a bet. Apparently this was a place bound by more serious rules than that. Was he allowed to despair yet? What fun was a hell like this!? Supposedly this was what god had created as part of his plan, but what kind of loving god would create that bull-head minotaur instead of a busty loli in a cow print bikini (who was actually super strong)!!!???

Maybe it was wrong to be looking for fun in hell.

The idea of the good guys managing hell reminded Kamijou of Lord Enma.

Kingsford laughed.

“But this vagueness can be exploited. We can manipulate this hell with our 🧠 images.”

Manipulate hell.

Kamijou knew better than to think it was really that simple.

That was a miracle only possible with the help of monsters like Christian Rosencreutz and Anna Kingsford. If an ordinary person wandered into this undefined hell, they would wander endlessly through the nightmarish world without any hope of finding their bearings, until they were so worn down their soul itself was snuffed out.

(I need to be careful. Who knows what we could come across from here on.)

They had already seen a minotaur.

It was easy to overlook thanks to the two experts, but if Kamijou had been alone, he was certain he would have been helplessly pummeled to death.

As the three of them continued walking through the shadows while a wind blew through, two rising shapes came into view in the distance.

(Are those mountains?)

Kamijou tried to ask that aloud, but his throat suddenly went dry and the words never came out.

He had a bad feeling about this.

But what was it this time? A hell of precipitous mountains or a hell of fire and ice? Since this was hell, he doubted whatever it was would be any fun. He honestly wanted to stop and assess what they were approaching, but Rosencreutz and Kingsford plowed on ahead.

“Hey, wait…”

“Nothing good will come of 🛑ing.”

“This is hell, after all.”

The spiky-haired boy had no choice but to keep up with them. He wasn’t even remotely emotionally ready, but being left alone in these shadows would be far worse.

As Kamijou Touma reluctantly approached the two mystery mountains, their shape gradually came into view.

He was speechless.

The two towering shapes were a pair of enormous breasts.

“Um!?”

The spiky-haired boy collapsed on the spot.

Supposedly, their thoughts could influence hell, but it was obvious whose thoughts were at work here. Because the other two were serious, expert-level magicians! And while he really didn’t want to accept it, those colossal boobs were very clearly contained in a swimsuit!!

It couldn’t be more obvious what Kamijou Touma had been looking at to put that image in his mind.

That swimsuit was very familiar.

Plus, there was only one woman in the group.

The glasses woman walking right there was wearing a racing swimsuit! And she was more casual about it than the people at a Los Angeles beach! The shape, the firmness, and the way they seemed ready to swell right out of the swimsuit were all identical to that gentle woman!!

(This is hell.)

The teenager wanted to die of embarrassment, but he wasn’t even allowed that.

Because Kamijou Touma was already dead.

He felt like his spine was twisting and his entire body was itching, but all he could do was shed tears of blood and clench his teeth.

Intentionally manipulating hell was apparently ultra-high-level magic, but uncontrollably influencing it appeared to be a different story.

(This really is hell!! Just standing here is damaging me more than any demon ever could!!!)

“Oh, dear. Oh, my, my, my.”

Anna Kingsford placed a hand on her cheek and gave a wonderfully elegant smile. There was no bitterness in it. And even that action was enough to cause some jiggling. Kamijou would have preferred it if she yelled at him and zapped him. The unconcerned deflection of his teenage desire was far more painful. Why couldn’t she at least rebuke him?

Christian Rosencreutz stared into the middle distance.

He appeared to understand.

“If you ask this old man, the blame lies in the careless woman who chose to dress like that and jiggle everywhere.”

“N-now this is true misfortune. I can’t believe I’m getting pity from a weirdo like him…”

Kamijou hung his head and trembled with humiliation.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at the colossal boobs that symbolized his sin. He wanted to get away from here as quickly as possible. That was the only thing driving him as he somehow managed to get his legs moving again. They did choose to avoid the mystery boob mountains because they had no idea what kind of powerful enemies or traps might be waiting there.

Once Kamijou had finally shaken free of his past mistake, he managed to look out ahead again.

He saw a pair of mountains.

Of jiggling fruits.

Together, they formed a colossal butt.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………My what is colossal?”

She came to a stop.

While still smiling. The dense pressure radiating from the glasses woman was intense. Kamijou hung his head and couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye. Apparently Anna Kingsford was the type to overlook a first mistake but never a second. Her warmth with the boobs had vanished.

But this was the same.

The shape, the firmness, the way the swimsuit rode up into it.

She was wearing a pareo over it, but he could tell! Because it occasionally swept backwards or blew upwards!!

CRC came to the teenager’s defense.

He roared with unclouded eyes.

“Put some clothes on before you scold the boy!! This old man is taking the boy’s side. Heh heh, ha ha ha ha ha! Why are you wearing so little over your enormous breasts and butt when this isn’t even a midsummer beach!? Gweh heh heh! Are you so unsatisfied you felt the need to seduce the poor boy!!?”

“Stop pouring oil on the fire for your own entertainment!! I’m the one who will catch all the flak for it!!” shouted Kamijou, bristling.

He took it all back. Rosencreutz might be able to enjoy himself since he was a monster, but they were up against an expert like Kingsford here. What would that curvy woman do if she got mad? A single “eek, pervert!” slap would snap Kamijou’s neck and send his head flying from his shoulders. And what happened to him if he lost his head in hell where he was already dead!?

“Boy, if you let safe and peaceful sex appeal rule the conversation, you might just be able to prevent a truly dangerous threat from rearing its ugly head.”

“Don’t give me an out, CRC. I might try to take it.”

Then the boy tried to change the subject.

While looking up at the colossal swimsuit butt.

“So what do we do now?”

The terrain wasn’t going to change into a brutal dungeon whenever he got hungry or tired and wanted a break, was it? Kamijou was worried. He only had a vague understanding of it, but wasn’t gluttony one of the Seven Deadly Sins that often appeared as bosses in video games?”

Part 3

Hell continued on and on.

They kept trudging along.

The place was apparently shaped like a bowl, but how many levels did it have in all? The clear jigsaw puzzle-like pieces of CRC’s miniature model were still clinking against each other without fitting together, so they could see the overall shape but not their exact position.

“Phew.”

After walking for a while, an odd thought occurred to Kamijou.

Hell was a dark, unpleasant place crawling with dangerous monsters. But when he just stood there, he didn’t feel any strong rejection to being there, like the intense pain or suffering of being in a fire or underwater.

He more felt an emptiness or blandness.

He had a vague idea staying here for too long would be a bad idea, but there were times when he wondered if coming to stop was really such a big problem.

If there was no immediate danger, was there any need to hurry on like this?

“Not wanting to die is a perfectly normal thing for living people,” said Rosencreutz as he walked nimbly alongside Kamijou. “That is because their instincts bind them there as long as they remain alive. Like the proverbial drowning man grasping at straws, their instincts will generally overpower their rational mind. Even if they have no dreams or hopes for the future, everyone knows dying is painful and frightening. So even without a reason to live, they will not want to die. Living people are fixed in that state.”

“Fixed?”

“Indeed. But the same is not true of the dead,” continued CRC, viewing a few unsteady shadows passing by in the darkness up ahead. “Because once they lose their life, they are freed from the bonds – the instincts – of life. Boy, do you have a dream for the future? Or a hope? Now that you are dead, you cannot rely on the ordinary instincts of a living being. Which means if you are to live, you must find an answer with your rational mind.”

“You mean…?”

“You can no longer rely on the lazy delaying factor of not dying simply because you do not want to die. Your values and definitions have changed since you were alive. For the dead, being dead is the default state, so it is a very painful thing to wish strongly to return to life no matter what it might take. You must find a purpose equally strong to the purposes that motivate the living to accept death.”

Before, he hadn’t died because he hadn’t wanted to die.

To overcome that required the willpower to sit down below the water and keep yourself there until your breathing stopped and death arrived.

Now, he didn’t live because he didn’t want to live.

How much willpower would it require to overcome that?

Was the pain and suffering of fighting his current “state of being” what Kingsford had meant by making a jailbreak from hell?

“…”

Kamijou stopped breathing.

Nothing felt wrong.

It wasn’t pleasant. He felt the pain of not breathing, but nothing more than that. He wasn’t afraid. He felt like he could keep doing this indefinitely as long as he didn’t decide to stop.

Did he have a powerful enough purpose?

Did he have a dream for the future? Did he have any hopes he wanted to ensure came true? Of course he wasn’t going to find anything like that. He was a 1st year in high school, so he wouldn’t be preparing for college or trying to find a job anytime soon.

He had always thought he didn’t want to die.

But he had accepted death to save Alice Anotherbible.

He had pushed himself to the limit.

And he really had died.

…It all made perfect sense. So what was there to complain about? Sure, dying was normally considered a painful thing, but he had taken that journey to accomplish what had to be done. And he had done it. So why should he keep fighting, keep struggling, and cling to the material world now that he was a ghost or a soul?

Attachment?

Regrets?

Or a grudge even?

Did he really have something like that in his heart?

“Oh, dear. It seems this bland hell has affected you faster than I 💭.”

“Affected?”

“🎯.”

Kamijou frowned and Kingsford nodded without turning toward him.

She spoke casually.

“That is how hell works. It removes one’s regrets about and ⛓️ to the world of the living so they will eternally wander this world of punishment. Thus, what you are feeling was ❌ born within you. You must ❌ let this false resignation deceive you. That is only the great device known as hell externally manipulating you. In a most efficient and effective manner.”

“But…”

Kamijou was hesitant to speak.

Like he was ashamed by the emptiness within him.

“Rosencreutz was right. You will normally grasp at straws when drowning. Because you can’t breath. But what if you don’t breath? Do you need to grasp at the straws then? If you can remain below the water without issue, why would you need to swim up to the distant surface? I am dead. That’s a fact. I have no dreams for the future. I can’t think of any reason why I would want to go to such lengths to come back to life.”

“❌.”

Kamijou himself couldn’t come up with anything, but Kingsford had an answer immediately.

An expert never made mistakes.

“You do, Kamijou Touma. You must clench your 🦷, crawl through the mud, and do whatever else it takes to escape hell and return to the world of the living. You have an all too obvious reason.”

“?”

Kamijou didn’t understand.

Anna Kingsford pointed her index finger to the side and moved it in a circle.

What kind of trick was she using?

A girl sat below a spotlight there. A silver-haired green-eyed girl in a white nun’s habit with gold embroidery decorating it like a fancy teacup.

What had that expert just done!?

“Wha-? That’s…Index?”

Kamijou’s eyes widened, but Christian Rosencreutz simply looked bored. Apparently this wasn’t worthy of surprise for another expert.

“Hmph. Made a connection, did you? But it’s only a pinhole.”

“Well, yes. The Qliphoth is a 🗺️ of the entire realm of 👻s and curses, but it is also an access route from hell to earth.”

That didn’t explain much for Kamijou.

But below the unseen surface, some kind of rules and laws must have fit together. Hell hadn’t counted this as a violation, but it sure seemed like a cheat or a loophole to Kamijou.

More importantly, that was Index.

Kamijou and Rosencreutz’s presence made sense – they were dead. But what was she doing here? Hadn’t Kingsford said this was hell – a destination for the dead!?

“Index!!”

“She can ❌ hear you. This is much like 👁️ing out through your front 🚪’s peephole.”

“Also, she isn’t here. You’re only spying on another territory located far from here. The world is made up of countless overlapping phases, but the distance between each phase is unimaginably great.”

“This is a different place. If you wish to open the 🚪 to meet her, you must first escape from this hell.”

“…”

Index wasn’t in hell.

That was a relief, at least.

He hesitantly reached out for her slender shoulder with his right hand, but stopped partway through the action. He didn’t know whether or not he still had Imagine Breaker, but negating this image of Index would be more than his heart could bear.

Maybe it was only an image, but he had finally seen Index again.

After he wasn’t even able to say goodbye.

“Touma…”

It felt like forever since he had heard that voice.

He relished the sound for just a moment. Because he had thought he would never hear it again.

But…

“Why did you have to die?”

He froze.

Index was seated on the ground and didn’t raise her head.

She looked anything but happy.

But wait.

Kamijou could accept his own death, but what did this mean for Index? She had been living in his dorm room. So had Othinus. He hadn’t seen Anna Sprengel since that time in the hospital, but she hadn’t even had a temporary place to stay.

And this wasn’t limited to the magic side.

He also had friends on the science side – in Academy City.

“How could I just let him die like that? And I call myself Academy City’s #3? I never even thanked that idiot. Not even for saving all my sisters!!”

This time, the image was of Misaka Mikoto.

She was hanging her head and her voice had no strength to it.

And it wasn’t just that special Level 5. He should have started the third school term like normal after the final day of winter break, but now he wouldn’t be able to see any of his classmates.

What about New Board Chairman Accelerator? He had directed all of Academy City’s forces against CRC because he bet on Kamijou winning. He had apparently been defeated by Trismegistus and taken out of the fight when Alice arose as a threat afterwards, but he had still bet on the city prevailing. He had trusted the rest of the city could solve the problem without him.

How had all that turned out in the end?

“We were classmates. Of course I just assumed you’d be here. …What do you mean I can never see you ever again, Kami-yan?”

“Everyone, please gather in the gym first thing that day. Sob. We will be heading out to the funeral afterwards, so the opening ceremony is going to take up the full half day.”

The mood in the classroom was bleak.

One desk stood out from the rest by having no one sitting in it.

Those classmates were seeing each other for the first time since before the break. They had to have plenty they wanted to share, but not one of them was smiling. They were all turning emotionless eyes toward the empty seat.

“…”

This wasn’t right.

Kamijou had an extremely bad feeling. Like realizing he had buttoned his shirt up wrong. Or like he had turned in a test with supreme confidence, but then couldn’t remember if he had actually written his name on it.

He was satisfied with his death.

But…had he actually thought that through?

And.

And.

And.

The last person to appear in the spotlight was Alice Anotherbible. The girl who had used herself as the ingredients to remake herself. The girl Kamijou had risked his one and only life to save.

But something wasn’t right.

Her head was lowered. Her shoulders were slumped. She wasn’t looking out ahead. Left all alone in an uninteresting world, she couldn’t bring herself to go anywhere.

What had happened to her?

“Al-”

But Kamijou Touma couldn’t speak to her.

Just before he tried, she whispered to herself.

“Teacher died.”

Kamijou’s shoulders shook.

He froze in place.

Her voice was void of all emotion. She sounded worn down. Like her life, her soul, or some other intangible something had critically worn away. She seemed in an even worse state than Kamijou who had wound up in hell.

Something felt intensely wrong to Kamijou.

He had made the right choice…he thought.

He had saved Alice.

He had seen no option except to sacrifice his life.

And he had succeeded, hadn’t he?

Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling.

He looked back at his choice over and over, confirming he had done the right thing, but the anxiety wouldn’t leave him.

He felt like he had missed some crucial fact, like he thought he had followed the bungee jump instructor’s directions flawlessly, but then, just before he jumped, he saw the other end of his lifeline dangling down, not connected to anything.

“The girl killed him. She shouldn’t have hoped he would save her. If only she hadn’t thought about making up with him. If the girl didn’t exist, none of this would have happened.”

She burned with resentment.

But it wasn’t directed at Kamijou who had died and left the stage, satisfied.

That girl was pure, innocent, and honest.

So.

That resentment was directed entirely at Alice Anotherbible.

She could no longer forgive herself.

“It’s all the girl’s fault. She is a murderer. …The girl wishes she had never been born.”

There wasn’t even noise.

Only an endless span of pure silence.

“No…”

Kamijou was trembling.

He couldn’t believe what he had just seen.

“No!! Are you kidding me with this!? This isn’t what I gave up my life to see! Was it all a waste…? I sacrificed my life and it still wasn’t enough!? I mean, Alice did nothing wrong. I chose to sacrifice my life. I’m satisfied with my choice. So why should Alice blame herself!?”

“But your 🗣️ can ❌ reach her.”

With that simple statement, Kingsford shook her head.

“If you look at just the objective and mechanical facts, Alice Anotherbible gave a ☠️ly wound to Kamijou Touma. …That is the whole of it. She ☠️ed you. The truth has a way of being omitted. Without you there to 💬 it was your strong willpower that burned away your life, the feelings behind the event have no way of reaching anyone. They can ❌ reach the 🌍 at large which burns with misguided accusations and they can ❌ reach little Alice who you tried to save.”

“But…”

“As things are, the mechanical fact that Alice Anotherbible ☠️ed Kamijou Touma is all that will remain. There is ❌ time. And if she accepts the plain and simple abbreviation as the truth, Alice herself will be crushed under its weight. She will believe she is a ☠️er who is ❌ allowed happiness. She will 🪤 herself in that mistaken definition and reduce her own value.”

“…”

“Do you want to 👁️ her carry the burden of your ☠️ and choose for herself to fall? A meaningless fall taking her all the way to these depths?”

Of course not.

It was so easy for the one who died.

He could experience satisfaction in his accomplishment and die. End of story.

But what about the one who killed him?

Was it easier for the victim or the killer? Kamijou had no way of determining that. But at the very least, Kamijou Touma was the satisfied victim while Alice had been made into the killer against her will. He didn’t even need to wait for Kingsford to say more. Why had he been so smugly certain he had saved her all on his own? This wasn’t right at all!!

What exactly had he done?

He had discovered a girl who had been wandering for so long, unable to seek out help. But instead of saving her, he had bloodied her hands and placed the crime of murder on her head.

That wasn’t her crime.

It had been Kamijou’s plan.

He had made the choice all on his own. She had never agreed to any of it.

So…

So why did she have to be crushed by his selfish actions!?

Anna Kingsford was always correct.

Which was why she was known as an expert.

“What will you do?”

“…”

A dull thud rang out.

Kamijou Touma had slammed his right fist into his own cheek.

The boy used the back of his hand to wipe the taste of blood from his lips.

For the living, being alive was the default state. For the dead, being dead was the default state. A dead person trying to force themselves back to life required just as much willpower as a living person keeping themselves underwater until they drowned.

That was probably true.

Kamijou had no job he wanted in the future and no dream he wanted to achieve. He didn’t even know if he wanted to get a job after high school or continue on to college.

But this was wrong.

It was wrong.

“Are you kidding me?”

He had done everything he could to save Alice Anotherbible, the girl who had wandered the wide world all alone and decided to destroy it all. He had accepted that maybe he had no choice but to lose his one and only life to accomplish that goal.

But what if it didn’t end with his death?

What if he hadn’t actually saved anyone?

What if his death had been wasted, or even made things worse? What if his final choice had only dragged Alice even deeper down toward the depths of hell?

Then he had to start by destroying that illusion.

Kamijou Touma clenched his right fist as hard as he could.

He raised his lowered head to stare straight ahead. So he could accurately view the exit from hell.

He felt real strength once more.

Part 4

No compromise.

He would challenge reality, surpass reality, and return to reality.

Chapter 2: Journey – What’s_That_Adventurer’s_Party?

Part 1

The rain poured down.

Everything a step below the hill Kamijou stood on was a mess of dirt and mud. The place was like a giant, empty pool cut out of the ground. Countless figures squirmed within. They appeared to be fleeing from something, but when he tried to get a look at what that something was, Kingsford’s hand covered his eyes.

“That would be Cerberus. ❌ a good sign.”

“Cer-what?”

What was that?

He was pretty sure he had seen that name in RPGs before.

Wasn’t it usually a black doglike thing that used fire? Or was that a hellhound?

For that matter, what was a hellhound?

He was getting distracted.

“It is ❌ enough of a monster to ☠️ if you simply 👁️ it, but it will dull your soul.”

When Kingsford-sensei sounded that serious about something, it was probably a good idea to do as she said.

And what happened if his soul lost its luster?

Regardless, he didn’t want to climb down where a monster like that was lurking. The bottom looked like a muddy bog, so if it did pursue him, he doubted he could escape on foot. And he didn’t want to even think about what happened if it took a big chomp out of his side.

He doubted hell had rules about keeping your dog on a leash.

Christian Rosencreutz chuckled cruelly.

“It is a three-headed demon dog. What, you aren’t going to tame it by feeding it lumps of dirt?”

“With all this mud around, I do ❌ 💭 that would have much of an effect. It will have already 🍴en plenty.”

“?”

Kamijou didn’t understand.

Was that conversation based on some myth or another?

That aside, what were they going to do?

A dog the size of a light car was terrifying.

Anna Kingsford pointed at a stone pillar(?) nearby.

It had a small hole at around hip height.

“Looks like we need a 🗝️ to operate the draw🌉.”

“Whoa!?”

It was so big Kamijou hadn’t noticed.

The massive structure the size of a broadcast tower was apparently a stone bridge with chains that could lower it by 90 degrees.

Were you supposed to insert something into the small pillar to work it?

“But what key?”

“It appears the harpy has it. I see it glittering in that 🐦’s 🪺.”

Did Kingsford mean that thing cawing up there? It looked kind of like a girl.

And sure enough, there was the key.

But it was up in the tree. And the tree trunk looked eerily like a human silhouette. But this wasn’t the same as the lewd tree crotch that made the little kids at the neighborhood park (and Aogami Pierce) laugh so hard.

The key was too far up to reach from the ground.

Could Kingsford or Rosencreutz just fly up and nab it?

“I can climb up onto your shoulders.”

“That’s an awfully grounded idea.”

“There is ❌ need to use secret tricks when the standard solution works just as well. Okay, I need you to crouch down.”

The spiky-haired boy went ahead and obeyed.

He should have thought this through some more.

“Here goes.”

She approached from behind him.

A soft weight pushed in at the back of his head and at his cheeks.

Were those her thighs squeezing his head?

Was that also her thighs resting on his shoulders? Or was that actually part of her butt?

And what part of her anatomy was that soft sensation he felt on the back of his neck!? Teach me, sensei!!

“That should do it. You can stand up now. Is something wrong?”

“…I think the pareo has the opposite effect here.”

“?”

He had thought a pareo was like a safety device meant to cover up the body, but here it created the illusion that he was sticking his head up this soft young woman’s skirt. But it was only an illusion, okay?

He gathered strength in his knees and slowly stood up.

The pressure from the sides increased.

“Oh, dear. Ah ha ha. Doing things I am ❌ accustomed to is kind of nerve wracking. But this should work.”

“Bwgohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

“Hm? Why the 💥ive roar?”

Yeah, this was a bad idea. Letting a clueless swimsuit woman ride on your shoulders was a terrible idea!!

But for now, they had to accomplish what they set out to do.

“➡️, ➡️.” “A little further ⬅️.” “➡️ again.” Kamijou kept tottering side to side to fulfill Kingsford’s requests.

When he tried to look up to see the harpy nest for himself, he was greatly distracted by the pareo falling over his face. The sweet young woman scent was powerful.

He decided to just let Kingsford guide him.

“Got it. This 🗝️ will let us continue on.”

“G-glad to 👂 it…”

Her way of speaking was contagious.

His brain was breaking down.

The shock was like unwittingly drinking a super-sweet chain coffee from a cafe that gathered customers with its whipped cream covered donuts and pancakes more than the coffee itself.

Even so.

The shoulder ride that felt like having his skull pried open and having sugar dumped directly inside was finally ov-

“Wait, do ❌ move.”

“Why!?”

“The harpy noticed us. I will deal with her, so do ❌ move from there.”

“Can’t you do that after I lower you to the ground, Sensei!?”

She gave his face a squeeze.

A hard squeeze.

The glasses woman was probably only entering combat mode, but this went beyond a simple thigh-based reward.

His head didn’t feel right.

It seemed to be swelling, but it wasn’t quite the same as suffocating.

Could she be constricting his carotid artery rather than his windpipe?

“I need to convert to the reverse tree. Gevurah corresponds to Akzeriyyuth. The reverse of justice is cruelty. The element is 🔥. The wicked name that rules Sphere 5i is Golohab. You who are bound by the name and the number, obey my right 🖕 and display your power!!”

A tremor shook the place.

Almost like an artillery blast. Whatever Kingsford had done, a bright beam of light shot out and her upper body was knocked back as if by recoil.

It was a fairly large action made while still gripping Kamijou’s neck between her thighs.

The spiky-haired boy recalled a life hack for using a door’s hinge to crack a tough walnut.

Wait! But if the fulcrum is my neck, or my carotid artery really, then-

“Oh, dear???”

It happened far too easily.

The spiky-haired boy was rendered unconscious much like some kind of judo chokehold.

Part 2

What were they doing again?

Kamijou Touma’s mind was too woozy to remember.

Regardless, he opened his eyes.

What he saw looked strange. Was he lying down? He felt something soft below his head. Someone was peering down at him, but he couldn’t tell who it was due to the large pair of breasts blocking his view of their lower face.

The glasses jogged his memory.

It was her.

“Whoa!?”

He was resting on Kingsford-sensei’s lap pillow.

And since she was wearing a swimsuit, it was a bare lap pillow.

“Oh? You could have 💤ed longer, you know?”

The glasses woman placed a hand over her mouth and laughed elegantly. He decided he needed to get up before he developed any further problems with his heart rate. Why did he feel like he was losing years from his life when he was already dead?

Surprisingly, Rosencreutz did not seem exasperated.

He stroked his beard in his hand and commented on the situation.

“Hm. It would seem sleeping in hell does not eternally bind you here.”

“Old man, do you have to take this so seriously?”

“Hm, hm. You should count yourself lucky that sleeping does not eternally trap you in a dream within a dream within a dream…to the point you lose track of how many dreams deep you are.”

“Wait, what? Are you telling me even a woman’s thighs could be a devious trap in hell!?”

Kamijou’s party continued trekking through hell while taking the occasional short break.

They traveled through a variety of different hells, which mostly seemed to be fire based.

They had managed to descend a few levels thanks to Kingsford’s guidance.

“Wow…”

Kamijou hadn’t actually been counting what level of hell they were on, but in this hell, tons of embers were pouring down on them like a blizzard. The embers were especially noticeable in the darkness and they continued burning without extinguishing even after falling onto the sand. He knew nothing good would come from having those land on his skin. He doubted any kind of unexpected romance would be starting here. The embers reminded him a lot of white phosphorous or napalm.

The wind changed and the fiery snow blew this way.

Kamijou froze in place.

What was he supposed to do?

There were no gaps in that. Was he supposed to play a real-life bullet hell game!?

“Bwah, bwah, bwah!? Ah, no, it’s burning, it’s on fire, gya, gya, gya, gya, this old man’s beard is burning, bwah, bwah, bwah, bwah!?”

Kamijou had hoped there was some kind of loophole or safe zone hidden away in this general area-of-effect attack, but that hope was dashed when he saw the person rolling on the ground and burning. The distribution was just too even. Unlike in a shmup, there were no gaps at all. And once one of those embers touched your skin, it apparently kept on burning. The fact that water was immune to fire and the human body was 60-70% water didn’t seem to matter. Kamijou Touma learned the all-too-unpleasant fact that humans really did dance when they were burned alive.

Oh, right.

He had forgotten.

Tears formed in Kamijou’s eyes. The dead were horrifically punished after descending into hell and, since they were already dead, they wouldn’t die even if they were burned and stabbed in hell! Even if the total damage was well past a fatal level and even if it was complete overkill, their lives wouldn’t shut down at the moment of death, in a way making this even worse than the world of the living!

“Phew.”

Kamijou heard a sweet sigh.

It came from the teacher-like glasses woman.

Anna Kingsford untied the pareo she wore around her hips and spread it out overhead. She provided an umbrella not for herself but for Kamijou walking next to her. As if to protect just the spiky-haired boy from an unexpected rain shower.

Apparently she considered her witchy hat to be protection enough.

“You will be safe now. I guarantee it as an expert. I will ❌ allow your soul to be lost until you have been safely returned to the 🌍 of the living.”

A sweet scent wafted over to Kamijou.

It may have been the scent of her sweat.

When she was this close, he couldn’t ignore the warmth of her shoulder against his even if he wanted to. Her newly uncovered thighs were dazzlingly bright and his attempt to not look at them hurt his neck.

“?”

The oblivious woman tilted her head.

At extreme close range.

…Hold on, Kamijou panicked. Could it be that the sexy young woman was rapidly becoming his greatest obstacle in this journey through hell? She rattled his adolescence in a different way from the Bologna Succubus who walked around in her underwear or Aradia who did the same in a star-shaped bikini. Anna Kingsford wore something like a near-future racing swimsuit, so she didn’t show off all that much skin.

But.

Did she have to act so clueless and unguarded? This probably was necessary for them to pass through the fiery snow and continue on their journey, but the pareo umbrella made him feel like he was sticking his head up an ordinarily meek glasses woman’s long skirt. His worldly thoughts meter was on the rise and he already knew hell would react and make those thoughts visible!!!

“Eh heh. I’m burning. Eh heh heh. Now that I’ve lost all feeling, this old man is kind of enjoying it.”

Half of Rosencreutz’s surface area was now pockmarked with burns several centimeters in diameter, a sight that helped recover Kamijou’s SAN a bit.

If he made Kingsford go “eek, pervert!” and shove him out from under the umbrella, he would end up with that fiery snow all over him too. He would end up traveling beyond the realm of pain and start twitching on the ground.

(Come to think of it.)

Kamijou started to reach his right hand out from under the umbrella to touch an ember.

“Kh.”

But he pulled back.

Was that really safe?

He wanted to test if he still had Imagine Breaker, but surely there was a safer way.

If he was wrong, he would end up seeing his own finger bone.

Kingsford, meanwhile, decided to completely ignore her fellow expert, Rosencreutz.

Her kindness must have been limited to amateurs.

The traveler with no sympathy for the scorched first-rate pro began to speak.

“Sigh. This area of hell is still partway between the medium and 🌶️ levels. To be blunt, Westcott, Mathers, and my other students saw much worse when they made a mistake.”

“…”

What was education like in the late 19th century?

Kamijou had trouble imagining it. He lived in an age when no one was even asked to stand out in the hall holding buckets, so this was beyond anything he could imagine. And was the Mathers she mentioned the Mathers he had seen in London? Had that ultimate genius actually cried after being beaten up by his teacher? What in the world had he done to deserve that?

Rosencreutz (who was lying burnt at their feet) joined the conversation.

“Pant, wheeze. B-by the way, a little later in the early 20th century, the famous Crowley had this to say to his students: ‘You made a mistake? Then slash your arm with a razor to leave a permanent scar. That pain will teach you your mind is capable of controlling you.’ ”

“Who let a guy like that reign at the top of Academy City?”

Had Aleister been that strict? Then again, he did seem like the type who would writhe on the floor in agony when someone dug up a story of his past.

But apparently Anna Kingsford was from the era before even that.

She looked like a gentle and smiling glasses woman, but maybe Kamijou needed to focus a little more on what was hidden deep inside?

Rosencreutz was still smoldering, but by the time he returned unsteadily to his feet, his burns had all vanished.

He really was an expert.

The ability to turn horrific burns like that into a joke was anything but normal.

“But, well, you know.”

“Hm?”

“You know. If Anna Kingsford were only a little nicer, this old man would see her as a certain ideal.”

“She seems nice enough to me.”

“Does she now? Then are you saying you see her as the ideal you-know-what, boy? I envy you.”

The ideal what?

Did he know what?

Kamijou Touma felt a cold sweat dripping down his back.

Oh, no.

He shouldn’t have let himself think it. But now that the thought was in his mind, it wouldn’t leave.

It was the worst possible thought.

Yes.

Wasn’t Anna Kingsford a lot like the ideal dorm manager?

He knew he shouldn’t think it, but he couldn’t escape the image he had conjured into his mind.

The ideal.

She was a generally clueless and gentle woman, but she was stylish, sexy, older than him, could do both her job and housework, and she would accept anything he might do, but she also loved his attention as the sweet and lovely school dorm manager. That ideal was so powerful he couldn’t shake it. Don’t give in. Harness your mental fortitude. Weren’t you going to crawl out of hell and wipe away Alice Anotherbible’s tears back in the world of the living? C’mon, Kamijou Touma, you’re better than this. Just remember that crying face waiting for you! You need to return. Don’t think about if it’s possible with ordinary methods. You have two extraordinary monsters with you. Didn’t you decide to escape from this hell with Kingsford’s help and Rosencreutz’s power!? This isn’t about a dorm manager!!

…But wait. As well guarded as her front is, the back of that racing swimsuit is wide open, leaving a lot of exposed skin. Isn’t it a lot like a naked apron? No!! Don’t let her swimsuit distract you. Refocus your mind. This is only the starting point. There has to be more to this. This place is called hell, so there’s bound to be some hellish obstacles here. So stay focused! Shut down your imagination! Keep that image out of your head!! But it’s true a dorm manager would be at a city pool, not a midsummer beach. And she would wear a racing swimsuit instead of a flashy bikini. Wait!! I don’t need to pursue a dorm manager all the way to hell when there are plenty of them back on earth!! Nwoahhhhhh!!! Good morning, Kamijou-san. Hee hee. You have some bedhead. My, my, did you only just get up? What a naughty boy you are. Oh, by the way, Kamijou-san, do you have some free time? I can’t figure out how to hook up my TV and digital recorder. Oh, this? I made too much nikujaga, so I thought I would share some with you☆

The world warped around Kamijou.

He paled. He had noticed the change.

This was bad.

Very, very bad.

Nothing could be worse right now! This wasn’t just the surface-level stuff like boobs or a butt. This was the very core of what made Kamijou Kamijou. He had to admit it. If a young woman gave him an icy look and rejected this softer part inside him, he really would cry. The boy’s soul was wracked with the fear of a lack of acceptance and understanding. No, wait! Anything I say now will only hurt me. If they find out about this, they can directly attack my innermost desires!!!

“S-stop this, hell!! Don’t react now of all times. Ah, ah, ah, nooo. Why does hell have to be so merciless? Why does my dorm manager dream have to appear like this? Damn, the very center of my heart is blooming before my eyes! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”

Hell shined bright.

He was dead.

Kamijou flailed his right hand at the empty air, but hell refused to disappear. No matter what. Unable to bear it, the teenager covered his face with his hands. Couldn’t someone silently kill him right this instant? Without speaking a word?

But he waited and waited without hearing any comments from Kingsford or Rosencreutz.

He puzzled over this in the darkness of his hands.

…Were they too disturbed?

…Had his open display of worldly desire left them speechless?

But something still felt off. There was a tension in the air. A serious tension. He didn’t get the sense they were going to criticize his desires. Nervously, he moved his hands from his face and viewed the outer world through the gap.

“What…is that?”

This wasn’t at all what he had expected.

He saw some kind of city.

However, it wasn’t a modern city of concrete skyscrapers and asphalt streets. This was something older – much older – with nothing but stone-paved roads and pointy roofs he could imagine an RPG king living below.

So was this a fantasy world?

No.

“I see. This imagery comes from him. Hell is designed to reveal each individual’s sins and provide an appropriate punishment. So even an expert – ❌, especially an expert – will have his greedy and defiled soul revealed before us.”

Anna Kingsford still had her back to them. As if protecting them from the scene spread out before their eyes.

Yes, them.

It wasn’t just Kamijou this time. She was protecting the other one as well.

Christian Rosencreutz.

“…”

His head was lowered.

He was averting his eyes.

CRC was never slow to provide verbal abuse or mockery, but now he said nothing.

(Is that monster afraid?)

“1602, the Holy Roman Empire, the University of Tübingen. That would be modern day 🇩🇪. Back then, you were ❌ more than a 15-year-old boy who was still learning theology while also engrossing yourself in the works of John Dee, the queen’s 🧙‍♂️.”

Had that monster really been 15 years old once?

And a student?

Wait, wasn’t 15 the same age as Kamijou?

It should have been obvious, but Kamijou found that obvious fact surprising. He had more or less imagined that Rosencreutz had been born an expert in magic who destroyed the world as he pleased while shouting about how he was an old man.

But that wasn’t the case.

“This is your origin, CRC. The center point of your sin and your distortion upon the 🌍. …This is why Anna Sprengel chose the path of 🪄, why the Golden cabal was born, why Westcott, Mathers, and my other students strayed in pursuit of their own desires, why the 👿 lord known as Aleister Crowley was awoken within the world’s greatest cabal and destroyed it all, and why some unknown person created Alice Anotherbible without Crowley noticing.”

Aleister.

And Alice.

Kamijou leaned forward at the mention of those familiar names.

Yes, this wasn’t something from a game or an isekai fantasy story. As large as the scale was and as absurdly unrealistic as it might sound, this story was directly connected to the real world.

This was a story Kamijou Touma needed to know.

“So he was 15 back in 1602? But what happened there?”

“The beginning happened.”

Anna Kingsford’s voice was stiff as she responded without turning back.

“The beginning of it all. The very moment that the Rosicrucian cabal, the world’s most mysterious 🪄 cabal, came to be.”

Part 3

A light clanking sound continued endlessly.

It was a lot like ancient gears fitting together. But this lacked the precision of a clock. It moved sometimes fast and sometimes slow. This was an old machine supported by the tolerance of the viewers, from a time when the slight margin of error caused by the hand crank was thought to give it “flavor”.

This was a film projector.

In a flat world confined to a rectangle, something danced in grainy black and white. It was a boy walking across undulating dunes of scorching sand, a young man gathering students from across Europe, and an old man with a bald head and long beard writing silently at a desk.

“Christian Rosencreutz,” said Kingsford as she viewed the images. “He abandoned a privileged life to travel east where the great professors living in secret in the depths of the desert granted him wisdom, which he chose to distribute freely throughout his homeland of Europe after managing to bring it back with him. But the foolish European educated class – that is the ignorant religious leaders who ruled the Dark Ages that preceded the Renaissance – rejected his wisdom and silenced him. Eventually, he established the House of the Holy Spirit where he could learn along with the few students who shared his vision. He fought against vested interests while healing small human illnesses, correcting the great distortion of the world, and leading humanity as a whole toward goodness. He was a truly benevolent expert.”

“…”

Much like a children’s picture book, it was all so abstract and simple, but it didn’t sound anything like the red-clad young man standing silently next to Kamijou now.

Kamijou felt more like he was viewing images of a handsome prince charming.

That is, it was all so perfect it felt flimsy.

This didn’t feel like a living human being.

“But all of that was an illusion.”

Anna Kingsford left no room for doubt.

At the same time, the flimsy story projected by the projector shattered like glass. With a single statement, the thick stone wall acting as the white screen crumbled away, revealing a hallway on the other side.

The expert spoke while staring down that.

“The mysterious Rosicrucian cabal was first revealed to the 🌍 by a booklet, which only presented him with the mysterious initials CRC. The full name of Christian Rosencreutz did ❌ appear until much later. An individual by that name did ❌ yet exist, so it is more accurate to say Rosicrucianism was created by the person who ✍️ that booklet.”

Kamijou Touma had not been present when Alice took revenge on CRC, but he had been told that the mysterious Rosicrucian cabal didn’t actually exist. Really, he had just suddenly discovered the smart people like Othinus and Anna Sprengel were talking based on that assumption, so he had found it difficult to keep up.

He had also learned that the person named Christian Rosencreutz had been invented.

Kamijou wasn’t going to doubt the man’s power.

It didn’t matter to him if someone dressed up as the god or demon of their choice to draw on that figure’s abilities to reach out a helping hand to whoever they had decided to save. It didn’t matter to him if they didn’t actually throw out their magic name to become a Magic God. That was the foundation of the Transcendents like Aradia and the Bologna Succubus. That had also become the driving force for Anna Sprengel who monopolized so much power yet always fell short of Kingsford and who had pushed past all that to face Alice Anotherbible’s distortion and prevent the destruction of the world.

“…Johann…”

Kamijou heard a voice from down the hallway.

It belonged to a boy his own age. He doubted the boy was speaking Japanese, yet he could understand it even though he couldn’t even speak English well.

“Johann.”

It was a name.

The man next to him.

The silver-haired young man in red hadn’t said anything for a while now. His constant insults had vanished. Like he sat in the defendant’s seat in court. Was this what happened to anyone who was accused?

A step.

Kingsford took a step into the hallway beyond the screen as she spoke calmly.

“The legend of Rosencreutz is said to have begun in 1378, but the real 📅 is much later. It truly began in 1602. It happened here at the University of Tübingen, in what is now known as 🇩🇪. …It happened in a tiny room at one corner of that massive educational institution where people were free to learn the natural sciences thanks to the Renaissance but it also taught theology, in which people learned how to read the Bible in greater detail. It all began as nothing more than a single 💧 being added to the 🌍.”

So at this point, it didn’t matter if it was real or fake. There was something else they had to pursue further.

The false information was intentionally distributed.

What had someone hoped to accomplish by creating the fictional image of CRC – Christian Rosencreutz – as if he were a real person?

What were his intentions and goals?

Kamijou had already been told he was still only 15 at the time. Kamijou didn’t know anything about the educational environment of 17th century Germany, but he could guess it wasn’t something just anyone was allowed to attend.

The University of Tübingen allowed humans to learn about god in detail.

Including his mysteries.

This somewhat reminded Kamijou of Academy City, which looked like a peaceful city of children but actually had massive gears turning below the surface. However, this seemed even more blatant. Instead of enacting some kind of plan in secret, no effort was put into disguising the truth and all effort was dedicated to a single grand objective.

Rosicrucianism had caused so much trouble.

It had created all the foundational theory that had formed the basis for the Golden cabal.

There had to be something there.

There just had to.

So Kamijou prepared himself for the worst. He felt his heart pounding even though he wasn’t sure he really had a heart anymore.

They arrived at the end of the hallway.

There was a small door there.

It was a thick oak door in a stone wall, yet it had none of the grandeur of the door to a cathedral or to the audience chamber in the demon lord’s castle. It was smaller, more grounded, and something even a high school boy like Kamijou could picture.

The actual parts used were different, but the overall scene brought a term to Kamijou’s mind.

(A clubroom?)

No, it couldn’t be.

Kingsford threw open the oak door without knocking.

Johann Valentin Andreae.

His true form was finally revealed.

Voices flooded out from the small room.

“Johann, are you planning another prank? You only just got reprimanded for that phony newspaper saying Bacon and Shakespeare are one and the same. …What are you plotting now, writing up some weird booklet?”

“You had better be ready, Christoph, because this one’s a doozy! Once this young man finishes writing this, I’ll finally get back at those professors lording it over us from their lecterns. This young man calls it the Great Rosencreutz Operation!!”

Part 4

A prank.

Those professors.

Operation.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………Umm?”

Kamijou had heard it himself, but he still couldn’t believe it.

What was with this light mood?

Those cheerful voices sounded like two children digging a pitfall in a field somewhere.

“Johann Valentin Andreae.”

Anna Kingsford sighed again.

In exasperation.

“It all began with him. And ❌ everything that changes the 🌍 begins as some grand strategy or plan.”

The two boys had no idea Kamijou’s party was observing them.

In fact, they were upset about being crammed into such a small room.

“Besides, the Dark Ages are over. Over! No longer will our Germanic people be seen as the enemy of European culture by the fools who refuse to think for themselves. We live in a new era where everyone is familiar with the concept of the Renaissance! Instead of waiting for a drop of miracle to trickle down to our parched lips, we can mix our own potions and publish our own newspapers! Paintings have depth thanks to perspective and there are naked statues aplenty! The people and the cities have received the visual blessings of the Renaissance, so it’s wrong to force everyone to think of god in the one ‘accepted’ view.”

“Johann.”

“This young man is not arguing against there being just one god. I’m not interested in the complicated arguments over what exactly the Greek Zeus or Roman Venus were or over whether the great Caesar and Aristotle went to heaven or hell because they died without being baptized. Those kinds of details aren’t for the young. I’m just saying each individual theologian should have their own stance on how they think about and view the one god. This is Tübingen! We’re paying an arm and a leg in tuition to receive an education in that subject!! So what is this!? The professors think they’re better than us just because they’ve lived longer. They think the world’s reformation ended with criticizing the old church for its indulgences and all that. Give those educated idiots enough free time and they’ll stir up trouble by writing a book criticizing innocent witches or something. Like our country’s greatest author of nonsense: Heinrich Kramer! There are still so many real problems to deal with. The ideal is to allow free debate of all possibilities and then collect the best of them and link them together into an even better theory, right? This is a university, so that’s what we should all be collaborating on. But how are we supposed to debate anything when simple thinking is deemed ‘sinful’!? What’s even the point of attending university then!? You might as well go to a tiny rural church and listen to the ancient priest’s sermons!!”

“Johann, you’re rambling. And this is why everyone says you’re dangerous. You’ll be burned as a witch eventually, I swear.”

“But it’s all true. The adults just don’t like it when you question them, so they try to silence anyone who’s too smart for them. Right?”

“Don’t drag me into this. Your grandfather is weeping.”

“You sound just like the teachers, Christoph. It’s true my grandfather is famous in the field of theology, but that’s all anyone knows about him. Just so you know, he’s far more active and playful than me back home. If he was as strict and serious as everyone thinks he is, he wouldn’t have fathered 18 children, now would he?”

“No comment. Geez, there’s nothing like an insider’s view, huh? So what’s this Rosen thing? What does all this have to do with that flimsy booklet? I don’t want to be in the dark when your trouble hits the university, so tell me how this prank works. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

“This young man is glad you asked!!”

Johann Valentin Andreae energetically swung his hands around and spoke theatrically loud.

“Rosen…creutz!! The rose and the cross. Heh heh. A mysterious combination like that is sure to grab everyone’s attention, don’t you think!?”

“Is it? But there’s a trick, right? Tell me.”

“Heh heh. My erudite and impoverished friend Christoph Besold. Are you familiar with the Andreae house crest?”

“So that’s it, you troublemaker.”

“Yes, it is four red roses and a diagonal white cross. Everyone will be worshiping this young man!”

It wasn’t just Kamijou’s modern viewpoint.

Johann’s friend from the University of Tübingen was also exasperated.

In the distant illusion, Johann waved the booklet between his fingers.

“Rosencreutz. The two of us will set this up as a legendary magic cabal. This young man would like the help of your unnecessarily knowledgeable mind! The Chemical Wedding. It’s the perfect name for the current era. Everyone is familiar with flasks and beakers now, so even the general public will be interested! Because the Renaissance changed the world a short while ago!!”

“To make it a legend, you’ll have to cover a long period of time.”

“This young man is well aware. What if we say it was established 200 years ago? A mysterious organization acted from the shadows to smash the petrified knowledge of the church and end the mysterious Dark Ages while they spread the light of the Renaissance across the current age, but this collection of true wise men was not satisfied with just that. They are a cabal capable of changing the world. A good lie is not a perfectly flawless myth. To give it verisimilitude, it must feel lived in and match the changing of the world around us all. The people have grown bored of the Renaissance. They seek the next great change!! See, see!? The general public will believe it in a heartbeat!”

Bored of the Renaissance.

The changing of the world.

Like when high-speed flat-rate internet swept across the world, or when online shopping and smartphones changed how people lived their lives. Had Johann taken advantage of the idea that a single good idea could change everything?

In an age of plenty, people were not necessarily satisfied.

Those people would have their own complaints.

“This young man will release these all-consuming omnivorous fish into the waters of public opinion,” said Johann with a grin and the thin booklet in hand. “This young man hasn’t decided how long yet, but probably at least 2 years. Just the one booklet will seem too sudden, so we need to set the stage by first leaking a few fragments of supposed documents. Of course, if it looks like the truth is coming out early, we can make our move before it all falls apart.”

“You’re going to hide that you faked it all for no good reason for two whole years? If nothing else, this is a great example of the terrifying focus of someone with too much time on their hands.”

“Ideologies spread in no time. And if the topic is to spread among the educated, maybe we should aim for the salons for playwrights or composers? Those people are always searching for mystical material, be it Greek or Roman or even the Germanic Valkyries or Egyptian Isis and Nephthys. They’ll leap at a mysterious world-spanning cabal that no one’s ever heard of. If we add in a king or queen or princess, we’ll be reeling them in like salmon or anchovies.”

“I’m impressed, Johann. Just how many enemies are you planning to make? Trying to set a new world record for how much trouble you can cause with words alone?”

“No one in the world can put a lid on the truth for their own convenience. This might only be a thin handmade booklet right now, but once plenty of copies have spread around and people are whispering of its existence, even the most absurd story starts to sound a lot more real. We can fake multiple sources all on our own. That way it will grow to the point that not even those professors can ignore it. They look all dignified now, but just you wait until they’re onboard with it too.”

“Well, those old men have all learned the history of what happened to the hardheaded Christians who refused to get onboard with the Renaissance when it showed up.”

“This young man just know they’ll claim to have known all about it before the general public found out or even claim to secretly be a member. …Heh heh. After all, it’s the rose and the cross. Those proud adults will all be smugly confessing their association with a secret organization that reveres the house crest of the very same Johann Valentin Andreae they look down upon. They will claim to have sworn allegiance to this young man!!”

“Bff!? …S-sorry. Unlike you, I have this thing called common sense. I am extremely concerned about the trouble I see brewing in the future. I certainly wasn’t laughing.”

“Don’t try and hide it. Ah ha ha ha!! Those narcissistic teachers act like they’re omniscient despite being as human as the rest of us, so this young man can’t wait to have them bowing their heads to me with looks of utter solemnity! Oh, I already can’t wait until the day we can reveal the truth!!!”

It could hardly be worse.

The corners of Kamijou’s mouth were more than a little stiff.

Was this really acceptable?

Maybe it didn’t matter if it was nor not.

The hidden truth of Johann Valentin Andreae may have been even worse than Aleister Crowley’s.

“Really…?” said Kamijou without thinking.

Rosencreutz(?) refused to turn his way. For a while now, he had been avoiding Kamijou’s eye.

This was the unvarnished truth.

It may have hurt him.

Kamijou took a deep breath and kept a straight face.

“Are you stupid? No one asked you to, but you went right on ahead and created your own original myth with yourself as the leader? I’ve heard most people write some embarrassing things in their youth, but this is ridiculous. Could you not look at yourself objectively and see why you were an outcast?”

“Salt in the wound!? And this old man means the sea salt with pieces bigger than sesame seeds!?”

Kamijou spoke plainly.

This was his chance.

He was so glad he had lived an honest life. He could now take revenge and give this man his just deserts.

“Heh heh heh. Don’t try to pretend you don’t deserve it, Rosencreutz. You did your best to torment me when Kingsford’s giant boobs and butt appeared. That ended peacefully because Kingsford is a wonderful person, but I was this close to receiving a blow powered by an expert’s arm strength, sending my head spinning all the way around. Heh heh, ha ha ha ha! At the hand of Kingsford, the owner of the giant boobs and butt!!”

“Shut up, be quiet, take this: racing swimsuit woman armpiiiiiiit!!!”

That was a curse.

CRC’s cry dragged out the boy’s adolescence.

And hell reacted.

The earth split apart and something emerged. It had no head, arms, or anything below the hips. It looked so much like an indecent silicone doll made with only the necessary parts, but it was enormous. It rivaled a high-voltage transmission tower in size. And hell had even included the racing swimsuit. Was hell particular about such things?

Kamijou Touma seriously screamed as he looked up at the giant something towering above him.

“Ahhhhhh, now that is a niche thing. Boobs and butts are mainstream, but I’d have a hard time calling this sexy. But…if it belongs to a young woman…maybe? If you see it as the one small chink in the young woman’s perfect armor, then maybe an armpit is pretty nice after all!?”

“…”

A short distance away, Anna Kingsford placed a hand on her cheek and remained absolutely silent, but that wasn’t the problem right now.

The fake booklet.

Was that the initial motive?

After spreading the lie everywhere and waiting for enough people to believe it, he would announce it was all a lie to pull the ladder out from under them. And once they were all trapped up on the roof, he could point and laugh at them.

That was all.

The reveal wouldn’t do much damage to Johann and his friend as they stewed inside their little room, but the same could not be said of the important scholars.

This was mischievousness taken to an extreme.

But.

“?”

Kamijou couldn’t believe what he had seen, but then something occurred to him.

Something didn’t add up.

This was something he could only notice because he was looking back from the present time and already knew all the answers.

He gave voice to his confusion.

“But wait… Rosicrucianism was all a lie and it all came to an end when Johann confessed to his enormous prank once the time came, right? Then why do people in later times believe that Rosicrucianism and Rosencreutz were real? Like Anna Sprengel who claimed to be an important figure in the Rosicrucian cabal. Hell, you even said Rosicrucianism is a foundational part of the Golden cabal.”

“It did ❌ come to an end.”

Kingsford’s answer was a simple one.

Generally speaking, that expert did not make mistakes.

“Johann Valentin Andreae abandoned his plan ❌finished.”

That would explain it.

But that called into question the earlier assumptions.

“Johann knew it was all a lie from the beginning, right?”

“🎯.”

“And his prank was meaningless if he didn’t tell everyone it was a lie, right?”

“🎯.”

…Then why did he abandon it unfinished? For hundreds of years, it would seem.

For Johann, the prank lost all meaning if he abandoned it unfinished. Had he lost interest in it? After resisting for two whole years waiting for it to charge up, had he abandoned it all without actually pulling the trigger?

Or.

Could it be…?

“Johann’s greatest error was ❌ accounting for his own perfectionism. While he was a 15-year-old prankster, he was also a student at the University of Tübingen and through his own self-study he had accumulated a great wealth of knowledge in many subjects including theology, alchemy, and astrology. ❌. He lived in the 1600s, the 17th century. The Dark Ages had already ended, a reformation had occurred in a massive system, and as long as they knew Latin, anyone could broaden their horizons past ✝️ and learn about Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, and so many other aspects of the occult.”

“…”

“❌ wanting his prank to be discovered early, he was very careful as he built up his Rosicrucian mythology from the ground up. ❌ matter how detailed a story is, it can still all fall apart if the author says the fraternity does ❌ exist. …But Johann’s greatest error was letting his great knowledge and perfectionism drive him to create such an intricate story that ❌ one saw it as a mere story.”

The fraternity bearing the crest of Johann’s family was spoken of in the utmost seriousness and even the university professors had bragged about having long known of it or even of being a secret member. It must have a wild experience for the author who knew the truth.

But.

A mere student’s voice had less strength than the voices of influential scholars. Once it became a trend flooding the public, nothing the prankster could say would overcome the wall of majority rule.

No matter the truth of the matter.

So what would happen if he tried to explain what had really happened?

“Are you saying he made his big reveal…and no one believed him?”

Part 5

Anna Kingsford pinched the center of her racing swimsuit(?)’s ample chest and tugged.

She let air into the cleavage. Or rather, the created tunnel.

Damp with sweet sweat, she used the back of her other hand to wipe the sweat from her brow.

“Phew. It sure is 🌡️ here. I’m soaked with sweat. Yet the bottom level of hell is supposed to be an 🧊 prison.”

“Is that really necessary? Hey, I thought you were just dragging a really serious truth out into the open!! Why are you trying to overpower that with your unbeatable femininity!?”

“?”

She looked confused.

Ms. Sexy’s glasses had started to fog up.

And her air of natural gentleness seemed to press in on him.

…Was she not even aware she was doing it? No, it couldn’t be! It was true his adolescent brain’s memory was more stimulated into activity by the faintly flushed skin of this busty young woman than it was by the distant past of some historical old man!! But not even he was going to focus on the sexy woman in this moment. Wouldn’t that be as extremely inappropriate as ogling the wife in mourning clothes during a tearful funeral ceremony? Did that glasses woman’s hair and skin have to smell so sweet!? Was she like the ultimate mayonnaise that overwhelmed all the other more subtle flavors!?

The silver-haired young man in red was hanging his head.

His expression was hidden, but his shoulders were shaking. In this gloomy atmosphere.

It was no use.

Trying to be nice would probably just make him cry here.

Apparently CRC’s selfishness and capriciousness had all been an act to make himself look bad and he was really just a diligent 15-year-old deep down.

Kamijou Touma had to harden his heart if he was to protect Rosencreutz’s pride and soul.

“Ah ha ha, bwa ha ha, hee hee hee hee hee!!! …I-I can’t do it. I can’t. It makes me laugh every time I think about it. Christian Rosencreutz. Oh, I can’t stand it. Bwah ha! I’m sorry. Pfft. But all this talk about – pfft – the secrets of the world – kee hee hee hee hee – and it can’t hold a candle to a woman in a swimsuit! Pffffft!!!”

“Answer me, hell. Send Kingsford’s giant glasses plummeting toward us. I call upon you, meteor, to crush this insolent boy.”

CRC raised his arms and recited a curse.

But hell did not react this time.

He had fumbled it. Not even Kamijou had taken his adolescence to such an extreme that he couldn’t control himself when it came to glasses that weren’t currently on a woman.

Apparently CRC wasn’t all powerful.

In fact, it sounded like his failures had outnumbered his successes in the past.

Magicians were the end result when a failure kept on struggling. Which was why they tried to distort reality. They wielded supernatural power, but they were entirely different from the Level 5s who had mastered their innate talents. Since Rosencreutz had risen to the level of expert, he must have had a reason behind it all…right?

But in that case…

Noticing Kamijou’s eyes on her, the other expert smiled a little.

“Yes. My past is full of failure and regret.”

And so she had mastered magic.

Unable to forgive her own weakness or tendency to give up, she had decided she would change the world even if it meant remaking herself.

But be that as it may, Kingsford was still perfection as far as Kamijou was concerned. She continued saving people even after dying, but she had also thrown out her resurrected life and descended into hell to collect Kamijou there. This wasn’t like Othinus or Aleister. He sensed something that set Kingsford apart.

He needed to behave himself.

He had to.

“But I just can’t help it. Pft, we were talking about Rosencreutz, but Kingsford is all I can think about.”

“I hope this boy is devoured headfirst by a giant vagina-shaped monster. A horrifyingly hairy vagina!! It can abduct him in a beam of light like a UFO!!!”

Something suddenly exploded.

It came in the form of a fist. The smiling glasses woman had sent a blow right into the center of CRC’s face.

Kingsford was fairly merciless when it came to a death-dealing expert.

Kamijou was glad hell hadn’t reacted to that one…

“While this is CRC’s starting point, we are only looking at echoes of the past. Kamijou Touma, this may be necessary information for you in the present, but do ❌ let it influence you too much.”

“…”

But this was about Rosicrucianism.

He had seen the truth about Christian Rosencreutz.

This was the foundation that had, on some level, influenced the Golden cabal and their greatest mutation Aleister, influenced Anna Sprengel, and even influenced Alice Anotherbible and the other Transcendents.

Kamijou had no idea if he could return from hell alive.

But it still wouldn’t hurt for him to learn all of-

“By the way, Kamijou Touma. While there is 🔥 and lava bursting from the ground here, hell’s 🌊 quality means there is ❌ much hope for a ♨️. But do you think we could manage a hot stone spa?”

“Aren’t we supposed to be discussing Rosencreutz!? I’m sure hell is a boring place for a perfect and flawless woman like you, but stop filling in the gaps with merciless condensed milk!! Everything will end up having that super sweet Kingsford flavor!!!”

Immediately, Kamijou noticed a pale glow.

At first, he thought he was going to get to see a giant young woman enjoying a hot stone spa, but this appeared to be something else.

He sensed a different current or trend to this.

A familiar scene emerged from the scenery. He was again seeing the University of Tübingen which shouldn’t have existed here or now.

Hell had activated.

Part 6

A great commotion was underway.

Asking where was meaningless. Talk of the rose and the cross was so popular it was happening pretty much everywhere.

Even though it was all made up.

He had loudly insisted it was all a lie, but no one had listened.

Rosicrucianism had completely left Johann’s control. It now belonged to everyone else.

If they wanted to enjoy it, so be it.

As long as that was what they wanted, an individual might be happy living a blindfolded life.

But.

This was on another level altogether.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I am an official Rosicrucian member. Pray to me and you might just acquire a potion capable of curing the ailment destroying your body.”

That was one of the professors.

One of the important scholars who taught at the university. As much as the boy was loath to admit it, that man was a respectable theologian who had supported the protestants to critique corruption in the monasteries and the selling of indulgences in order to drive out the vested interests of the old world.

But…

This wasn’t the same as an individual refusing to face reality and blindfolding themselves. Stealing reality away from those who had yet to be deceived was something else entirely.

The boy attempted to fight it.

Recklessly.

The worst part was that this professor was a professor.

That meant he wasn’t trying to deceive people maliciously. He believed the Rosicrucian legend from the bottom of his heart and had truly convinced himself that praying to a member of the cabal would heal other’s ailments.

So.

This was well past the point where a good argument could function as a weapon.

Only academic theories could be beaten with logic.

Logic was powerless against faith.

“You say you created it all yourself? …Nonsense. Even I have barely even begun to scratch the surface of its true depths, so you – you who are so close to flunking out – could never understand even a fragment of the Rosicrucian truths that flawlessly combine mind-bendingly complex theories with supremely simple answers!!”

There is no deeper meaning! It’s a joke! It’s my house crest!!

Johann’s shouts reached no one.

No one at all.

The people who spoke of his invented nonsense as if it were real instead mocked him as ignorant and uneducated, shunning him.

They were like a naked emperor who no one could judge.

They all were.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Johann wasn’t alone. The friend who had accompanied him in that small room was the only other one who knew of the prank. In that topsy-turvy world, only he understood the same truth as Johann. He had helped created this trend. So if they worked together, surely they could bring an end to this ridiculous festival.

Or so Johann thought.

“It wasn’t us.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The original assumption had crumbled away within his friend.

“We didn’t create this. You said you searched through all sorts of old non-Christian texts, right? Well, couldn’t you have stumbled upon some real secret Rosicrucian document in there? That must be it. That makes so much more sense than thinking the two of us somehow managed to remake the world!! Right!?”

Johann could not forget the strange light deep in his friend’s eyes.

He could never forget.

Something had taken root deep inside his friend.

The monster those two had created had taken on a life of its own and grown to the point it could travel freely from person to person. And even swallow up one of its own creators.

Had that friend been unable to bear the pressure of breaking the world?

Or had he not wanted to destroy the Rosicrucian illusion. Even if it meant altering his own memories?

Yourself or the world?

When one or the other had to be wrong, an individual mind would give into the majority rule and rewrite its own memories. People would fabricate memories in no time as long as they were aware that simply lying to themselves would let them escape eternal isolation and join the crowd.

Hypnosis only worked when the subject wanted it to.

This was a perfect example of a self-suggestion no one had asked for.

…Johann didn’t know what happened to his friend afterwards. They had continued attending the same university, but they had barely spoken. He may have begun a search for nonexistent old texts related to the rose and the cross.

Johann had no allies left.

He was all alone.

In a storm of fierce words, Johann was forced to endure the gale of text all alone.

Meanwhile, the important people who believed in Rosicrucianism began pulling out dusty old documents. They discussed whether Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, or other things might point to a piece of the Rosicrucian secrets and they tried patching it all together. The powerless invented story began to to change as the patchwork gradually took on a new form. By the time the original flavor was no longer recognizable, a drop of true poison had found its way inside.

In other words, various forms of eastern and western magic.

They must have decided this would make good camouflage and help them in their factional conflicts.

So a kernel of knowledge taken from, of all places, an original grimoire was included.

Once the ball began rolling down the hill, no one could stop it.

Not even Johann.

He was its creator, but he had lost control.

Once people were wielding visible miracles, it became impossible to say whether it was a lie or the truth.

“Ahh.”

“Pray to me.”

“Help me.” “I’ll pay anything.” “Give it to me too.”

“No.” “It hurts.” “That’s weird.” “Help.” “I heard the Rosicrucian book could heal me.”

“L-L-Lord Rosencreutz!!” “Argh, I’m willing to spend my entire fortune to track down CRC!” “Are you sure that’s safe?” “Hee hee. Care to try some divination of the rose and the cross?” “Uweeeeaahhhhhhh!” “Please don’t leave me.” “This here is the sequel to the primary text of a secret cult! Any takers!?” “Wait, you seriously don’t believe in CRC?” “I heard you shelter Rosicrucians in your territory.” “Are you the enemy of mankind who dares defy Lord Rosencreutz!?” “All you have to do is believe, so stop making waves.” “They say it’s complete.” “You got what you deserved. You wouldn’t be sick if you hadn’t insulted the Rosicrucians.” “I am Rosencreutz reborn!” “I have the elixir of life!!” “You must be removed. Your lack of belief in CRC makes you an illness upon this world!!” “Hee hee. I’m making a killing off of this.” “Can you really call yourself an intellectual if you aren’t well-read on the rose and the cross?” “Help me!!” “Don’t worry. Everyone will be saved as long as they do as Rosencreutz says.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Johann Valentin Andreae.

He was defeated by Christian Rosencreutz.

Reality was stolen from him.

He had invented it, but he was labeled the liar.

CRC had transformed into a secret truth. And the Rosicrucian legend with him at the top had left the control of the 15-year-old boy who had created it. He had been able to switch it on, but switching it off wasn’t so easy.

He heard the world changing.

Distorting.

Bending.

Twisting.

Breaking.

He had created an engine that convinced so many people they were happy even as it dragged them down to hell.

Part 7

“Mugyu.”

That was a sound effect.

It came from Kingsford’s lips.

And Kamijou Touma’s face was fully buried in the large chest of her swimsuit-like outfit.

Her arms were holding him tight.

(Why!?)

“!!!???”

“🤫.”

Anna Kingsford was perfectly calm.

The heat must have been too much even for an expert because her body felt overheated and was slick with sweet sweat!!

“There is something here. But this is ❌ as characterized as the Malebranche, so it must be a more primitive concept. Perhaps a manifestation of Nyx who surrounds Tartarus.”

“(Mghghmgh, what does that have to do with these boobs in my face, mgh!?)”

“Nyx seems to calculate the #️⃣ of souls wandering in hell and 🔒s onto them, so by bringing our souls close together, the difference between one and two vanishes and we can avoid her.”

Kingsford explained a mysterious concept as if it were obvious.

Of course, Kamijou’s confusion was probably his fault for being ignorant.

Also, Kingsford appeared to be counting them as souls, not bodies. That was a weird feeling for Kamijou. Did it mean he was sensing this body heat, sweet scent, and large soft boobs without them actually having bodies!?

“Also, it seems CRC will be attacked because he is all alone over there.”

“Old man!! Quit feeling sorry for yourself and run away!!”

He was right there next to them.

And in an instant where the soaring beads of sweat seemed to freeze in space like jewels, Kamijou’s outstretched hand just barely failed to reach him.

He was pulled back.

Forcefully.

He had lost to Anna Kingsford's big boobs.

“You trait-”

Something rushed right past him and then the silver-haired young man in red vanished in the middle of shouting something. There was now nothing past Kamijou’s fingertips. The selfish and capricious old man who was surprisingly diligent deep down had disappeared.

Something like a great wave of pitch black sludge being slung around by the color white tinged with red enveloped and took away Rosencreutz. The language may have broken down there a bit, but that was unavoidable when something so strange had happened. That was just how it was in a hell beyond human understanding.

It was now a level lower.

It was rolling down.

Making an unpleasant sludge-like noise the entire time.

That extraordinary monster had made a physical attack just as its target was immobilized by their past trauma. That showed just how unforgiving hell was.

Now was not the time to be buried in a kind glasses woman’s sweaty boobs.

“Ahhhhhh!! I-I don’t believe it. CRC was taken out in a single blow? What, are we playing on hell difficulty!”

“Um, do you need to specify that when we’re in hell?”

Yes.

This truly was hell.

“By the way, Nyx is a girl, so you could say CRC was just attacked by a goddess of the night. Yes, a very passionate mounting attack.”

“Did you say a goddess of the night!?”

Why did that sound so extremely indecent!? Based on the white statues, he could guess Greek mythology’s surface-level standards of beauty weren’t all that different from the modern standards, so if he wanted to see an extremely lewd and beautiful goddess, was his best option to wait and see what happened!? …That would be fine, right? CRC was an expert, so he had to be pretty sturdy and waiting a bit before rescuing him wouldn’t make all that much difference, right!?

The glasses woman tilted her head.

“Sigh. I do ❌ know what has inspired this desire to learn more about the Hellenistic gods, but one of her most notable traits is that she goes on to marry her older brother.”

“She’s a goddess of the night, a little sister, a young bride, and a divine wife!? D-do gods just exist at a level beyond human imagination? This goddess has way too much going on. I’m having a hard time even visualizing her!!!”

Kamijou’s adolescent soul took a powerful blow, like he snuck into a park full of lovers at night, but that probably wasn’t what this was.

Look, Rosencreutz had been taken away by the color white tinged with red, pitch black, and a flash flood.

What about that was a girl?

“Um, Kingsford-sensei?”

“Yes?”

“The limbs and back can be as monstrous as you want, but the face and body need to maintain that soft femininity. What I mean is, the end result should look someone wearing fancy thigh highs and long gloves.”

“?”

It was actually extremely rare for the benevolent expert to be left tilting her head in confusion, but Kamijou failed to notice that.

Listen.

This was a very important discussion for the pointy-haired boy.

“My point is, if you don’t follow those rules, I’ll have a hard time accepting it as a niche type of moe. The way things are, Nyx-chan seems more like a traditional monster than the kind with ‘girl’ tacked on the end. And that sludge doesn’t even seem like a translucent slime girl where you can see right through her!! So can you please explain what this even is, sensei!? Senseiiii!!!”

“Well, while I did call her a goddess, the Greek Nyx is actually a giant amorphous something that surrounds hell in place of the river of the ☠️.”

“Wh-what the hell!? These old mythologies just don’t get it! Are you kidding me!? How is that supposed to be my little sister young wife goddess of the night!?”

“Hm??? Your?”

“No sheer negligee and no frilly apron? If I asked Othinus about a long thing surrounding the world, she’d probably tell me it’s something like a giant serpent. Which means this is a legit mythological creature!!”

“How many times do I need to tell you that Nyx is a Greek goddess, dammit?”

“That’s just a horror monster trying to kill Rosencreutz! There’s nothing cute about it! It’s a scam! Did you think there were boys out there who would get excited over a hug from a female tyrannosaurus!?”

“Oh…I 💭 you hurt Nyx’s feelings. She’s leaving CRC and trembling.”

“Are you serious? Have I finally reached the point of making a goddess cry?”

“I 💭 she 💭 she was just playing with him.”

That kind of playing seemed like it would kill a human, though. Also, it turned out that big wave of black sludge was in fact a clump of filthy wet hair.

Kamijou Touma had accidentally saved Rosencreutz.

This was a new record for him.

He couldn’t imagine what kind of damage being mounted by Nyx would cause, but the silver-haired young man in red lay unmoving on the ground. No. Don’t laugh. Yes, he’s sizzling with smoke rising from him, but that damage is serious. Don’t laugh! I have no proof, but I’m certain that would have killed me. But I can’t help it. Peh heh heh. The more I try to tell myself it’s inappropriate, the more hilarious it seems. This is the same guy who strutted across Academy City trying to destroy the world. Bwa ha. It’s just too funny. Ah ha ha. He really is lying there on his back like a dead cicada, sprawled out with some smoke rising from the very top of his head. Hee hee. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

This was hell.

Kamijou swore to himself he would take this seriously.

“I-I am pleased to see Rosencreutz is safe?”

“Boy. For as long as I live, this old man will never forget that grinning face twitching on the verge of exploding into laughter.”

Now he had a lifelong promise from a legendary figure.

But this didn’t sound like the beginning of a love story.

And hell began to glow once more.

The cycle seemed to be speeding up.

Part 8

The Rosicrucian social phenomenon proved to be more than just a temporary fad.

It had taken root.

The educated class had developed an understanding that anyone who wasn’t well-versed in Rosicrucianism was behind the times.

Or to put it another way, simply being able to discuss it came with advantages.

At that point, the instigator was no longer needed. A cycle had been established, allowing rumors to birth further rumors.

It all began at the University of Tübingen in the Holy Roman Empire.

That university was a base of the Lutherans who had thoroughly criticized the self-interest and bad habits of the old church, meaning it was a protestant institution. Thanks to this, the three major Christian powers – the Anglican Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Russian Orthodox Church – were slow to react. They were slow to identify the source and this delay allowed the delusions of the rose and the cross to spread too far to be stopped.

The witch hunts that began in the 12th century and spread rapidly in that period were another problem. To stop the people’s emotions and the standardization of vigilante justice, the three major Christian powers were trying to apply the brakes on the rejection of heretics at the time. Public executions were a symbol of fear from above, but when an execution failed, the furious public were liable to rush in and kill the executioner.

In the 17th century, the Renaissance had split the public in two and changed how rational people thought. The people once more accepted ancient Greek and Roman art, they let their imaginations run wild about the Egyptian pyramids, and the old church, which had oppressed such things and even slaughtered the public they were meant to protect, fell out of favor. At first, the three major powers tried to pin the blame for this failure on each other, but they were also hesitant to act for fear of repeating the same mistakes and reopening the half-healed wounds.

This allowed the legend of Christian Rosencreutz to spread too far and endlessly alter the world.

If they were truly in the right, they shouldn’t have hesitated.

Of course, there was a downside to the Rosicrucian movement sweeping across that era.

Use a certain special method and you will be successful.

You must not follow any other method.

Training came with danger.

If it was easy, everyone could become an expert, so the creator of the myth had to make sure the task was difficult to achieve. So difficult that people would give up before they even tried.

Nevertheless.

Visible rituals weren’t a problem as long as they were on the level of putting stockings out on Christmas Eve or writing on a tanzaku for Tanabata, but when they escalated to the point of severely restricting people’s actions, they could lead to a dangerous path.

Looking back, it was all the work of a 15-year-old boy.

Who hadn’t given it all that much thought.

He had only sought simple ways of making it seem more realistic so his prank would succeed.

And because that creator hadn’t properly ended his prank, the truth born from the lies produced real victims. He struggled for years but couldn’t change it. In fact, he learned that this would likely continue well into the future. Possibly even after his own death. Maybe forever.

So…

“This is this young man’s responsibility…”

The words leaving the former-boy’s mouth carried resentment.

True resentment.

The magician raised his head and made a howling announcement to the world.

“So. So! Listen, you fools claiming to be members of the phony Rosicrucian cabal!! And you masses dragging yourself down to the depths by innocently believing in the nonexistent Christian Rosencreutz!! No matter what it takes – even if it takes centuries. This young man swears he will obliterate every last trace of this ridiculous legeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend!!!”

Part 9

Kamijou heard that cry.

He listened to the entirety of the lament, the wail, the roar.

To the cry of the boy who had once been 15.

That monster turned out to in fact be unexpectedly responsible. He felt so responsible for the problem he had caused that he had dedicated his entire life to ending it.

That was Christian Rosencreutz.

No, that was Johann Valentin Andreae wearing the costume.

He was indeed the cause of it all.

But was he really such a villain that he deserved to suffer even after his death?

“And so he became Christian Rosencreutz,” whispered Kingsford. Quietly but firmly. “He had created the character, so he knew what weak points to target to make him crumble. He concluded that dressing up as his most hated character and causing nothing but violence was the quickest way to disillusion the 🌍 and its people with Rosicrucianism and thus saving them. The man named Johann Valentin Andreae built up his status as a theologian while secretly using his Rosencreutz guise to ruin the people who believed in him.”

Like a bandit.

Like a phantom thief.

Like a con artist.

He became a mysterious and elusive miracle of a man who seemed to exist in that same era, but no one in the world could come in contact with.

“Come to think of it, hell has a spot to punish liars and frauds. It was believed to be near the bottom of hell as a whole, which shows just how sinful an act that was thought to be. Hell is another part of the mythology. If he had studied theology a little more seriously, this may ❌ have happened in the first place.”

“…”

“Let’s go. We are still only partway through hell. We are ❌ even close to finished.”

Kamijou suddenly realized Tübingen was nowhere to be found.

This was no longer a university.

It was hell.

Everything he had seen was so overwhelming he had lost sight of where he was walking, so it had taken a bit to notice. Without that benevolent expert guiding him, he doubted he could have even walked in a straight line here. It wasn’t just the fiery hell and the mountainous hell. Simply following the path was a challenge. He hurried after Kingsford so he wouldn’t be left behind.

But still, this was hell.

Kamijou once more gulped at how effective it was. It wasn’t just an ordinary high school boy like him. Hell would even mercilessly attack a monster like Christian Rosencreutz.

And…

“I see. The benevolent expert, hm? But do not think you can hide it forever. The truth is gradually coming into focus for this old man.”

“?”

Kamijou thought this was only some nonsense from the selfish and capricious expert.

No matter how it had begun, that man had become someone who brought ruin to everyone who believed in him. Kamijou knew how dangerous it was to carelessly listen to anything CRC said.

But…

“Hmph. Anna Kingsford has some guts saying all that while ignoring her own presence.”

That statement caught Kamijou’s attention.

CRC made it sound like the benevolent expert – perfect Anna Kingsford – had some kind of flaw.

Kamijou had trouble imaging that.

If this was a baseless accusation made out of sour grapes, surely CRC could do better than that.

It felt completely out of place.

Which bothered him.

“What? Boy, have you really not noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

Rosencreutz’s surprise looked fairly legitimate.

They had fought a deadly battle in Academy City, but this was an unusual look from him.

“There is no such thing as a perfect person. Sigh, she really has tamed you, hasn’t she? Has the boy who defeated this old man regressed to being a baby bird that can only follow after its mother?”

“Hey, even I know to remain a little caut-”

“Was it her boobs or her butt that ensnared your soul? You can tell this old man. Or is this something more psychological? Is it based on your dream of being babied by a dorm manager in a naked apro-”

“(Shut your mouth. Kingsford-sensei can hear everything you’re saying at this range!!)”

“?”

The point of Kingsford’s witchy hat wobbled a bit as she walked up ahead…or so it looked to Kamijou.

Which scared him.

The adolescent frantically covered the young old man’s mouth with his right hand.

The two filthy guys spoke from extreme close range while Kingsford walked a few steps ahead.

“Now, then.”

Something floated in the air.

It was a clear jigsaw puzzle. That miniature model of the world was too bugged too function here in hell, but Rosencreutz was still trying force it into a V-shape.

Was that supposed to be a cross-section of the mortar-shaped hell?

Rosencreutz poked at a piece wiggling a bit below the middle.

“Even if you are unfamiliar with the structure of the western hell, you must remember that we started by passing through the gate, correct?”

Now that he mentioned it…

Of course, Kamijou couldn’t remember much about that gate with the later impact of the giant boobs and butt, Rosencreutz’s secret, and Nyx-chan.

“There is a reason you barely remember it,” said Rosencreutz, sounding deeply exasperated. “That was the entrance to hell. That is, it was the earliest stage on the easiest difficulty setting.”

Oh, is that all? thought Kamijou because it had seemed more like a dark forest and stone, which wasn’t very hell-like. Things had seemed a lot more like hell once they started seeing orange-glowing magma.

…But then Kamijou froze.

Wait.

Hold on.

“Caught on, did you?”

“Um. Weren’t we trying to stage a ‘jailbreak’ to escape hell?”

“So you have caught on.”

“Then why did we all pass through the entrance and then start walking down toward the bottom of hell?”

Kamijou took another look at Anna Kingsford’s back a few steps ahead of him.

His impression of her had changed.

Kamijou had already walked through the gate. He may have only been one step into the afterlife when he first woke up, but then he had crossed hell’s starting point of his own free will.

“You will die.”

“That doesn’t change my answer.”

He recalled his past conversation with Alice.

Could it be?

Was it possible that he had once again made a fatal decision right at the very start before anyone had even explained it to him?

“Umm…”

“Is something wrong?”

Kingsford sounded unconcerned. She turned back to look at him, but he could only manage a noncommittal smile in return.

Unconcerned?

He of course had no clue what her truth was. That expert had complete control over her body and mind. It was possible her willpower was strong enough to manipulate the value of her heart rate, so he could never hope to see through her poker face.

He had seen and heard a lot in this hell.

But he hadn’t put any effort into any of it. The fact that a benevolent expert like Anna Kingsford had shown up in hell was too good to be true for someone for whom misfortune was his default state.

With his misfortune, he would more likely be left behind on a school trip after the bus tour guide forgot all about him.

He had no actual evidence to back it up, but his instincts were screaming that he shouldn’t trust that everything was as it seemed concerning this lucky turn of events.

So he had been prepared to find a lie somewhere.

But…

(Come to think of it, I never did learn what Anna Kingsford’s goal here is. Can I really just assume this is just a kind young woman acting of a maternal spirit of volunteerism? But what if she does have her own purpose here and I can’t trust her either?)

He heard some screeching.

It almost sounded like birds, but he doubted it really was.

If he did peer into the shadows to find out what it was, he had a feeling it would shatter his soul. That was a perfectly plausible outcome in hell.

(Then should I get away from Kingsford and try to escape without her? All on my own while already past the midpoint of hell!?)

“Be careful,” whispered CRC.

He even kept his lips motionless to keep the benevolent expert from noticing.

“This old man is an obvious threat…but the truly terrifying threats are the ones that aren’t so obvious at first glance.”

Monsters

Cerberus

Originally the guard dog standing at the entrance to the Greek underworld. Was incorporated into the Christian view of hell, where he is a beast that chases down sinners and crushes them in his great jaws.

Looks terrifying but has a strong canine side, so it may be possible for a human to tame him if they know the correct method?

Nyx

Goddess of the night and the being that fully surrounds the Greek hell of Tartarus. She is depicted in many different forms, but here she is depicted as a woman with exceedingly long hair.

While she is in hell, she does not necessarily do bad things and she is heavily involved in the structure of the world.

She acts as an extremely solid border, so her appearance indicates you are approaching some kind of taboo.

Chapter 3: A Single Lie, A Single Answer – Seat_the_Only_One.

Part 1

The situation had changed.

Anna Kingsford.

That absolute safe zone had been shaken.

No one was perfect.

No one was flawless.

…That should have been obvious. And since Kingsford had seemed that way until now, wasn’t it natural to suspect she was hiding something?

Was she a wholly good person?

Or was she a person who only let her good side show?

Stay calm. That would be dangerous in a different way from Rosencreutz who didn’t hesitate to let his dangerous and ugly side show. Kingsford was obviously hiding her true intentions. She kept everything perfectly clean, not allowing even the slightest stain or mistake. Why had he accepted what she said when it was more suspicious than a chemical bleaching agent?

He kept telling himself not to trust anything, but he had still entrusted everything to Kingsford.

He had been reunited with Kingsford and Rosencreutz.

And he had encountered this giant phenomenon called hell.

Had he actually made any effort to organize the information in his mind and come up with an explanation for it all?

Kamijou did not know what Anna Kingsford had actually done while she lived. He had a vague impression of her being with Aleister and Miss Sprengel in Shibuya and Academy City and giving them advice, but he had not been directly involved with any of that. So he had no chance at all of guessing what she had been doing behind the scenes.

She had simply guided them toward victory in the battle against Christian Rosencreutz.

And she had simply guided them toward victory in the battle against Alice Anotherbible.

…But could anyone actually explain why Kingsford lent a helping hand and what she had gained from it?

Kamijou couldn’t see even a hint of an ulterior motive there.

Which made her look like a good person without even the slightest dark side.

“CRC…” said Anna Kingsford.

Always a step ahead and still with her back turned.

Or to put it another way, keeping her face hidden from Kamijou.

“❌, I should call him Johann Valentin Andreae who took on that name and became one with the legend. Now, he did ❌ manage to live for 106 years and he could not resurrect himself 120 years after his ☠️. He extended his life as Rosencreutz, but eventually hit a limit and met his end as a human in 1654. He never managed to destroy the Rosicrucian illusion he had created and he ☠️ed wracked with disappointment and a grudge toward the people around the 🌍 who refused to see the truth.”

“…”

“Once Rosicrucianism had truly left its owner’s control, the term was free for anyone to use. New 🪄 cabals could give themselves clout by claiming to be the legitimate descendant of the Rosicrucian cabal and ❌ one could actually prove them wrong. Plenty of 🪄 cabals with nothing to do with Rosicrucianism used the title too. That is one reason it mutated into a massive collection of 🪄al methods that gathered spells and spiritual items from all over the 🌍. For better or for worse, it was used as the foundation of a wide variety of cabals.”

Her words flowed smoothly.

“This includes theosophist and Hermetic societies, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, and the Golden cabal created by my students Westcott and Mathers, which went on to be known as the 🌍’s largest 🪄 cabal. The extent differs, but ❌ one of them escaped the influence of CRC who had been sent out into the 🌍 by Johann. Miss Sprengel seems to have felt guilty for using the concept for her disguised life, but she need ❌ have. Because there was ❌ true Rosicrucian cabal. Her guilt over calling herself their true descendant despite her lack of knowledge was entirely misguided. …Our efforts were wasted as we poured our strength into true emptiness while trusting that the foundation could be an illusion as long as we could save the 🌍 that way.”

This was news to Kamijou. He probably would have never learned this if he hadn’t been taken to hell along with these extraordinary experts.

Come to think of it, hadn’t Magic God Othinus sacrificed her eye or life to receive terrible knowledge after mastering her path?

High Priest, Nephthys, and Niang-Niang had done the same.

But…

(Why?)

Kamijou had a question.

His desires had gained visual form in this hell. Rosencreutz’s – no, Johann’s – past sins had been revealed.

But he hadn’t seen anything from Anna Kingsford.

Hell hadn’t reflected any of her inner thoughts, nor had she revealed her past or objective.

(Has she been avoiding that? Rosencreutz’s surprising truth came as a shock, but why were we shown that? It doesn’t seem directly related to our jailbreak from hell.)

In that sense, Kamijou needed to dig deeper on Kingsford.

And if this massive soul-processing device called hell wanted to prevent a (from its perspective) illicit jailbreak, reading Kingsford’s mind and calling up some past trauma would be a great way to obstruct them.

Yet that hadn’t happened.

That seemed odd. And unnatural.

When he looked at it rationally, Kamijou Touma realized he didn’t know Kingsford’s overall intentions, or even the slightest flaw, like what food or genre of music she disliked.

She was perfectly and flawlessly good.

That was all he could see there.

There had to be something more to her.

He just didn’t know if that something would help him or hurt him.

(But…)

If so…

Kamijou had been guided deep into this unfamiliar world. He wondered if this was what it felt like to board a strange taxi in a foreign country where he didn’t know the language. He knew the driver was dangerous, but he really didn’t want to be abandoned in the middle of the jungle or desert. Even if they were a dangerous criminal, he had to pretend he was still fooled and wait until they arrived back in human civilization.

Their destination was the depths of hell.

But what did Kingsford gain by guiding Kamijou’s soul there?

Why had she gone to the trouble when he had already died and would disappear all on his own?

(If I only knew her ultimate objective, I could work backwards from there to escape her plans.)

He could only pray this wasn’t a case of a high school boy being unable to understand the thoughts of an expert.

And was their travel companion his one and only trump card here?

Christian Rosencreutz.

As terrifying as he was, he was still an expert. He should be able to properly determine the logic behind Kingsford’s actions.

Part 2

Lots of legs grew from the ground.

The ground was covered in them.

“Umm.”

“This is ❌ an unusual sight in hell. This is where the simoniacs, sinners guilty of simony, are punished.”

The glasses woman provided an explanation, but the high school boy had no idea what simony was. The sight was more surreal than frightening. With the victims flipped upside down with only their legs sticking out, it reminded Kamijou of a scene from a very famous mystery movie, but there were just so many of them. It went beyond looking like an aquatic performance done in a pool and looked more like some kind of farmland.

“🔥 burns at the bottom of the pits to burn the sinners’ heads while they are never able to escape.”

“That’s a lot more horrific than I was expecting!”

“We are approaching the bottom of hell, after all. We will be 👁️ing more facilities designed to punish more serious sins.”

But all Kamijou could do was shout.

He tried grabbing one set of legs and tugged on it like it was a daikon radish, but the legs started thrashing wildly. He heard a sound like something thin peeling away, a tremor ran through the legs, and they stopped moving. Kamijou felt like he had only made the situation worse for whoever that was.

He realized he had touched them with his right hand, but they hadn’t disappeared.

What did that mean?

(It’s probably bad if I get too accustomed to the cruel scenes here in hell.)

He felt like his common sense and the ordering of events was breaking down, just like in a hell.

If he couldn’t help those people, this place left him with only guilt. They couldn’t take a break, so Kamijou’s party continued across the simony punishment zone.

“Another river,” muttered Kamijou.

That was something he had seen a few times already.

“The Rivers Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon. Many rivers flow through hell. The idea of a river forming the boundary between life and ☠️ is ❌ unique to the 🗾ese Sanzu River. I 💭 this is the Phlegethon, but this is ❌ the original river. It should be red and flaming.”

“You don’t say,” said Kamijou offhandedly.

He was in fact listening very carefully.

Everything she said held so much more weight after Rosencreutz’s warning.

(Come to think of it, why does Kingsford know so much about the structure of hell?)

If you lived an honest life so you could go to heaven, you wouldn’t need to study how hell works. And Rosencreutz himself had said god didn’t give all that much thought to hell compared to heaven, which allowed people to imagine it in so many different ways.

Yet Kingsford knew so much about it.

Why?

And she had said the Qliphoth was a map of the realm of ghosts and curses. If she had gone to the trouble of studying that, she might be an expert in that sort of field.

She had learned it because it had felt necessary to her.

And if she knew more about it than anyone, she might have acted on that knowledge.

Kamijou was curious, but if he directly asked her about it, wouldn’t she just dodge the question? Especially if she was hiding something.

It was too soon to reach a conclusion based on her reaction, so there was no need to ask a question that would put her on guard.

Kamijou looked to the opposite bank of the river.

“But…how do we cross it? It looks too wide to swim.”

“🏊ing across would be suicide. We must use a boat. A simple raft should ❌ be too difficult to construct.”

Kamijou had pictured hell as rocky mountains and lava, but it actually had many different faces. It had forests and it had fields. The weather changed and it even rained. But he was still surprised to see Kingsford wander off and return with a toolbox she had found somewhere.

In fact…

“Um, that isn’t a torture box used for doing some DIY work on a human, is it? Y’know, like that girl in Gremlin with the silver hair and dark skin!!”

“You can’t remember her name?” growled Rosencreutz, but Kamijou chose not to react.

He wanted to hide that he had been about as serious about that comment as when watching a trivia show on TV. If the naked overalls girl with the glasses and braid found out, she would probably cry. But he could remember what she looked like at least!

“There are boats and villages in hell. And if it has been influenced enough by the Greek Tartarus, there should be an area protected by a bronze wall. So of course the tools used to build such things are lying around.”

This was the first Kamijou was hearing of this.

Were there weapon shops and inns in hell too?

“Hell will react to your unnecessary thoughts. Do you want to be pursued by obsessive oni who have boosted their deadly strength with the nonexistent legendary orichalcum series?”

CRC whispered a truly frightening idea into Kamijou’s ear. He could see that happening here. It was like the difference between a Yeti and a Yuki Onna. If the oni was a little girl oni in a tiger print bikini and with little horns growing from her head, or if it was a graceful and busty young woman oni with her kimono slipping off, he might be okay with it, but if it was a traditional muscle man oni with all the usual deadliness before even taking into account the ultimate gear, there was no upside to it at all.

But that aside, they had to build a raft.

Kamijou pictured a raft as several logs lined up side by side and tied together with rope, but apparently that wasn’t accurate.

Kingsford had also collected a few long, skinny sticks similar to clothesline poles.

Before tying them together with rope or nailing them together, she lined up the logs and poles on the ground in the general shape of the finished product. The long poles stuck out from the sides of the raft itself. And she was apparently going to tie something like empty jars or water jugs to the ends of the poles.

“What are those?”

“Tying together 🪵 will ❌ provide enough buoyancy or stability. Capsizing in a river of the ☠️ would be disastrous, don’t you think? So it’s safer to attach some extra crossarms.”

That made sense.

Jars and water jugs would act like floats using the same principle as the powerful resistance felt when trying to push a wash basin down into the bath. But where had she found those things?

The end result was shaped something like a water strider.

“Hold that 🪵 down for me. I will hold it down on this end. Oof.”

Crafting time had begun.

Kingsford lined up a few logs and tied them together with rotting rope, but that apparently wasn’t enough so she drove in a few long nails to fully fix the logs and poles together. Instead of the usual nails seen in a hardware store, she used giant nails shaped something like an upside down L. She said they were used for train tracks. Piercing the poles through would split them, so instead the horizontal protrusion of the upside down L held the thin pole tightly down instead.

However…

“Um, wait, Kingsford-san? Sensei!?”

“?”

They were jiggling.

When the racing swimsuit woman crouched down, held the nail in place with one hand, and held the hammer with her other hand, her large breasts were squeezed between her upper arms. And when she started hammering away, the jiggling began. Those huge boobs were out of control! Right in front of Kamijou!!

“I-I’m doing my best not to look, but you started doing this right in front of me, so it’s fair game for me to look, right, Sensei? You won’t be mad?”

“😠 about what?”

She looked confused.

He refused to believe she didn’t know. He took that as her hitting the “consent” button, so he replenished his mental health by enjoying the joyous view. No matter who they belonged to, big boobs were big boobs. Rejoice.

Now, the raft lacked a sail like a yacht might have.

They all pushed it down the riverbank.

From the look of it, the hell river had no current at all. The raft floated in water that seemed more like a stagnant swamp than a river. Then the three of them boarded it. Kingsford held an extra of the long poles which she stuck into the water to control the raft.

Just like in the old samurai movie Kamijou had seen while playing on TV at midday during summer break.

Instead of rowing in the water, she pressed the stick against the river bottom to push the raft forward.

And if that pole could reach the bottom, the river couldn’t be all that deep, could it?

“Falling in one of hell’s rivers would be quite the tragedy. But if you want to be stuck here for all eternity after being stained by someone else’s sin, be my guest.”

Slowly but surely, they crossed the…Phlegethon, was it?

“…”

Anyway…

This was a river.

The line between life and death was simple enough, but what did these borders within hell mean?

Kamijou had died and gone to hell, but were there any further lines he couldn’t afford to cross?

“I feel like I’ve already crossed some of those. Without really thinking about it.”

“We are aiming for a jailbreak. And we can ❌ achieve that just by doing as we are told.”

That wasn’t true.

Kingsford’s objective was the very center of the mortar-shaped hell, which was the furthest point from the gate at the entrance.

He didn’t know what she wanted to do there, though.

“There is nothing beautiful about this river 🌊, but the wind feels nice. …Phew.”

Kingsford stopped working the pole and ran a hand through her long hair shaped like a big fried shrimp.

Maybe it was from being a fiery hell, but gem-like beads of sweat scattered from her hair and a sweet aroma wafted back from her revealed nape.

“Long hair really is a pain at times like this. It gathers a lot of air, which creates a thermal insulation effect on your back.”

“Please show some restraint before a giant nape emerges from the middle of the river.”

“?”

Kamijou Touma gathered all his might to fight against his own adolescence.

The bastard sharing this raft with him began taking revenge yet again.

“The surface area on the front is far greater than on the back. You could compare it to a naked apron, or perhaps like a dorm manager? Focusing on the nape is all well and good, but do not ignore the bare shoulder blades or the line of her spine. And if you lower your gaze to the back of her hips, you can even make out the bump of her tailbone showing through the thin swim-”

“Oops, excuse me.”

“Bwohhhhhh!!” screamed CRC. The raft suddenly lost its balance just as something grabbed and tugged on his long silver beard. What did? Something that emerged from the filthy river. In fact, several giant canine heads emerged and chomped at the young old man’s beard.

“My, my. It’s Cerberus again. I should have known he would do the 🐕y paddle. Perhaps we should have defeated him on the higher level while we had the chance.”

“Do dogs just really like CRC or something?”

That one had just been some silly nonsense.

There couldn’t have been any deeper meaning.

Rosencreutz hadn’t hidden any kind of code inside it…had he?

“Ghhhh. Question, boy,” said Christian Rosencreutz, who was in a very serious situation with his prized long beard being bitten and tugged on by giant canine jaws. He took the tone of a late night chat during a school trip. “Who do you have a crush on?”

“Um…”

“You…have to think about it? Wait, wait, wait. You mean it isn’t Anna Kingsford!? Then why the giant boobs and butt? Didn’t you dream of an older dorm manager in a naked apron? A-adolescence is so cruel. Are you telling me you were only ever interested in her body!?”

“Old man, you’re just trying to stir up trouble again, aren’t you? You want to increase Kingsford’s hate value and direct it this way so she’ll attack me in the middle of a river where I have nowhere to run!!”

“But none of that refutes my asser- bghbbhfgbfgh!?”

To silence this massive conspiracy, Kamijou crouched down and grabbed the red-clad old man’s ankles. He then flipped the man over, held him up by the ankles, and dipped his head into the stagnant river so he couldn’t say anything else. The world knew peace once more.

Anna Kingsford used the long pole to keep the raft moving along.

“And we’re there.”

They had arrived on the opposite bank.

They might need to turn back at some point, so they pulled the raft up onto the land so it wouldn’t float away. It looked light while afloat, but it was so heavy when dragging it along the ground. Which made sense when it was made from several logs. And the raft shape meant they couldn’t roll it along.

A question suddenly occurred to Kamijou.

In a way, there was no question where a horrific expert like Christian Rosencreutz would go when he died. Kamijou could accept his own destination too. He had selfishly chosen death and brought sorrow to quite a few people, so he wasn’t going to complain about winding up in hell.

But.

What was that purely good and benevolent expert doing here?

Maybe she could switch between life and death at will by switching off her preserved corpse. But wouldn’t someone so dedicated to goodness end up in heaven after death?

Yes.

What if Anna Kingsford was also the kind of person who would be damned to hell?

Part 3

Kamijou had pictured hell as dark, empty, and dry.

He had also associated it with heat and flames.

But he noticed things gradually changing as he followed carefully after Anna Kingsford.

He felt chilly.

He looked around and noticed he could see his breath.

“We are approaching the bottom of hell,” said Rosencreutz. His breath was visible too. “Boy, have you ever encountered the term Cocytus?”

“Isn’t it usually a kind of ice magic, or a magic sword?”

“But where did modern people find the term they now incorporate into their entertainment?” The young man stroked his long, long beard. “Cocytus is the name of the bottom level of hell. And Cocytus itself is divided into four areas like the rings of a tree stump: Caina, Antenora, Ptolomea, and Judecca. From outermost to innermost area, the severity of the sin grows and the very center area – Judecca – is where the world’s three most sinful people are eternally punished until the day the world ends.”

“…Wait. Did you say three?”

“My, what a predicament. This old man is quite concerned by how perfectly the numbers match up.”

Kamijou looked to Kingsford’s back as she continued walking through this frozen world.

The three of them were walking through hell. Toward the prison for the three most sinful people.

Could there be something there?

But wait…

(That logic would mean Kingsford was leading herself to her doom too. If she wanted to take us to the bottom of hell to trap us, she would need another person with us.)

Think as he might, he couldn’t figure out what she was after.

And without knowing that, he couldn’t prepare.

His anxiety grew.

Their surroundings became darker and the chill much more biting, hinting that something was changing. He had to do something soon, but he couldn’t even run off at random while he was guided deeper and deeper.

That was like running full tilt in a random direction inside a trap-filled pyramid because he couldn’t trust his guide.

He should have thought for himself more.

If he had at least kept track of the path they took, he could have turned back the way they had come. Then he could have at least safely reached the gate to hell.

He could tell he was being guided down a path.

A wide world was spread out around him, but he couldn’t escape that path.

That only worried him more.

“What is this place?”

The deepest depths of hell were covered in ice.

It looked a lot like a vast subterranean lake that had fully frozen, but he couldn’t tell if there actually was any water below the thick layer of ice. And that ice was a lot clearer than he had expected.

He had expected the center of hell to be a vortex of dark filth, but maybe this was like an isekai fantasy where the demon world was generally dark and creepy but the demon lord’s castle was bright and shiny inside.

That meant this was a special location.

Kamijou didn’t know much about the layout of the European hell, but he could tell that much.

Anna Kingsford came to a stop.

The benevolent expert had continued unstopping for so long, but here she stopped.

After leading them this deep with such confidence, he was afraid she was about to turn around with a smile and say she was lost, but apparently not.

“This is the place,” she said.

There was…

…something there.

Kamijou’s breath caught in his throat.

There was nothing like that in the world of the living. That was a monster you had to die and go to hell to see. It was bad news. It was somehow different from powerful foes like Othinus and Aleister. He could tell just coexisting in the same place as it would lead to his destruction.

Before he could even grasp its true nature, he saw just a vague silhouette.

What would happen if he did get a direct view of it?

He usually thought of darkness as something that brought unease and fear to the human heart. This wasn’t just his view. Giving the light side the position of the good guys was common across the globe.

But things worked differently here.

Was the deep darkness a comfort here? Because he wanted to avoid viewing the thing that lurked beyond that thick veil before he was ready.

Kingsford had said Greek mythology had Nyx, goddess of the night.

So had there been an age when this sort of comfort was valued to the point it was worshiped as a god?

He must not see that.

Seeing it would mean his demise.

No one had told him that and he hadn’t actually checked for himself, but he could just tell. No matter what power might reside in his right hand, he could never even stand up to that thing.

“The 👑 of the demons…or the 👑 of hell,” said Anna Kingsford.

Was this her goal?

To contact that thing?

“Some 💬 he is Satan, some 💬 Beelzebub, and others 💬 Lucifer, but he has only one role. To provide the ultimate punishment by eternally gnawing on the three greatest sinners. In this view of hell, the demon 👑 has rebelled against god and gathers strength in the depths of the earth, yet he is still doing the will of god by tormenting the sinners damned by god.”

“What…?”

Kamijou was dumbfounded.

What did Kingsford hope to accomplish here? Kamijou had been led down here by deception, but she had come here of her own free will. She had come to this extremely dangerous place where a great monster lurked in the shadows. If Kamijou had full control of the situation, he never would have come here no matter his goal and no matter what benefits it might provide. So why had Kingsford come here?

“What are we supposed to do here, Kingsford!? I thought you said our journey would take us from hell and return us to the world of the living!!”

“I did.”

The benevolent expert – or the woman wearing that mask – immediately nodded.

With a smile.

Would she offer Kamijou and Rosencreutz’s souls to that giant thing lurking in the shadows so it would send her back to the living world? That useless idea came to Kamijou’s mind. But no amount of speculation would give Kamijou any kind of useful answer or countermeasure.

However.

“Like I 💬d back at the beginning, hell is shaped like a mortar,” she said.

…?

Nothing had changed?

She spoke in the same gentle way she always did.

But now that she had the other two in the depths of hell, she no longer needed that good guy act.

“So if you wish to take the shortest route from hell to the living world, the answer is obvious: You secure a ↕️ starting at the very bottom and climb up. That is the only way.”

“Oh.”

“When people 💭 up this structure of hell based on the limited depictions in Revelation and other sources, elevators, 🚁s, and 🚀s did ❌ yet exist. Only the 🪽ed angels in charge of hell could take that vertical route. They used it as a shortcut.”

Something sparkled in front of her.

It looked like tiny particles.

But it wasn’t. It was something made of highly transparent glass. A thick pane. And more of them floated in the air with a regular pattern. It looked like a spiral staircase to Kamijou. But as his gaze traveled up the clear staircase, perspective threw off the sense of scale and it ended up looking like a single line of light shining down from heaven.

“The gate to hell is often mentioned, but it is never mentioned that turning back there will bring you back to life. When standing on the outer edge of a mortar, what good is walking further outwards? If you try that, you will end up forever wandering in the dark forest at the top level of hell.”

So…

What did that mean?

When Anna Kingsford led him from the gate to the very bottom of hell, she hadn’t had any kind of ulterior motive? She had simply chosen the shortest and quickest route to escape straight up from the bottom?

She hadn’t been hiding anything.

Was that really all it was?

“The Qliphoth references the territory stretching from the living world to hell. If you contact it while viewing it as a heretical thing that specializes in 👻s and curses, it will bring disaster, but the Crowley faction has a fully-equipped expert very carefully contact it to acquire countless tricks and loopholes ❌ found in the proper methods.” Kingsford stared at the sparkling staircase as she presented a miracle, free of charge. “And the standard meditation technique of the Crowley faction says the one and only way to travel between worlds is to ascend vertically while ❌ being tempted to either side by existing standards of morality. …If you were to directly visualize the modern theory, it might look something like this.”

There was nothing more to Anna Kingsford.

She really had stopped her own functioning to leave the living world and descend into hell for no other reason than to save Kamijou Touma. Free of charge. She gained nothing at all from this.

Kamijou was the one being saved, but he had still doubted her.

It was like red cabbage indicator.

Or like this hell.

What someone thought when faced with Kingsford’s true benevolence revealed how shameful they were. There was no hiding it before that true expert. In the face of the ultimate righteousness, the very act of feeling shame and trying to hide something would reveal that something.

Yes.

Now that he knew Anna Kingsford was innocent, a new question came to Kamijou’s mind.

Why had he begun doubting her in the first place?

However it had started, that doubt was his own. He wasn’t going to blame his own ugliness on someone else. But it had started somewhere. There had been an initial push that had led him to doubt that benevolent expert who had thrown out her own life for pure volunteerism.

It wasn’t a difficult question.

The process of elimination was enough to solve it.

It hadn’t been benevolent Kingsford. It was the ugliness in Kamijou’s heart that let him be influenced, but he had only been influenced. It was someone else who had guided him in that wicked direction.

Who else was here in hell?

When the two of them were removed from the three, who remained?

Kamijou Touma spoke the name of the culprit.

“Christian…Rosencreutz?”

Part 4

Time froze.

Kamijou Touma couldn’t believe it.

But maybe that disbelief was proof that he had already been taken in.

There was precedent.

Rosencreutz was the opposite of benevolent expert Kingsford. Unlike the common legend, he was an expert who selfishly and capriciously spread death.

Had Kamijou forgotten how dangerous he was?

Had he forgotten what had happened in Academy City?

He had been deceived by the idea of a truth that couldn’t be found by simply following the righteous path, a cynical view, a possibility of using a trick or a loophole.

Hadn’t Kingsford said that the Qliphoth could only be used by a fully-equipped expert? And that any normal person contacting it would simply be engulfed by disaster?

This was the stereotypical example.

If Kamijou had doubted Kingsford enough to part with her, what would have happened to him in this hell?

Demons did not rely on simple physical strength or shoot fire from their mouth. They used apparent kindness and tempting words to send people racing toward a mistaken ending. Everyone knew demons were dangerous, but they assumed they alone were built different and could take advantage of the world’s hidden rules to escape unscathed.

Kamijou had been directed toward his own doom to eliminate him without Rosencreutz having to dirty his own hands.

Was that why Anna Kingsford had responded so coldly to Christian Rosencreutz when compared to Kamijou?

“That expert was back at work even if he had to do so from beyond the 🪦. Just ☠️ing you once was never going to be enough, was it, CRC?”

Kamijou had thought it was just the difference between an amateur high school boy and a professional expert.

But the answer was simpler: CRC was the villain from the very beginning. Kamijou had completely forgotten, but the benevolent expert had seen right through him all along.

Anna Kingsford revealed people’s true nature in a different way from hell.

Not only had she revealed Kamijou Touma’s shameful side like a red cabbage indicator, but she had also stripped away the demon’s kind and pretty makeup to reveal the true nature hidden below.

The one and only villain had been obvious from the very beginning: Christian Rosencreutz.

“This hell…”

He was shaken. The silver-haired young man in red trembled and raised his voice.

Was this some kind of irony?

Or did hell flip everything on its head?

The death-dealing man was pleading his own righteousness.

“This hell is a great device meant for this old man. This old man made it himself!! It is not for the two of you who showed up later!”

“?”

Kamijou didn’t understand.

“🎯.”

But the benevolent expert did.

Generally speaking, there was nothing she did not know. Nor did she stray from righteousness. To oppose her was a truly terrible idea. Not because of her strength in battle. No matter who you were, if you opposed her, that alone was proof that your being or thoughts were not righteous.

“This is ❌ the real hell,” said the benevolent expert. “It is a temporary space created by combining different 🖼️es of hell. It covers up a supposedly ☠️ soul with a phony hell to shuffle its destination and forcibly convert its affiliation to a vague near-☠️ state that is neither wholly alive nor wholly ☠️. It exists solely to fake the qualifications needed to return a ☠️ soul to the living world. Simply put, it provides a miraculous survival after the fact.”

This was not the real hell.

Kamijou had seen figures flitting through the shadows and legs sticking upside-down from the ground. But he had mostly passed them by as just a part of hell instead of trying to save those suffering people. Thinking back, that felt unnatural, but did this explain why?

Everything here, including those figures, had been hollow, so none of it sparked any emotion in him.

But…

“Are you saying you created this resurrection zone?”

“❌.”

Kingsford immediately rejected that idea.

Unlike the masses who had once been swept up by the Rosicrucian movement, she would not bend the truth for her own advantage.

“This hell was inserted by Johann Valentin Andreae who is currently going by Christian Rosencreutz.”

“You mean…?”

Come to think of it…

If Kingsford had created this hell, how had Rosencreutz ended up here? If she had only wanted to save Kamijou, only the two of them needed to be here.

Rosencreutz was a mystery addition.

Except he wasn’t.

“We found Rosencreutz at the gate – at the very starting point of hell. But we never saw when he arrived here.”

“Of course you didn’t. This old man arrived here first. It’s you two who arrived later who don’t belong here!!”

“🎯, that is true.” The righteous one never made any attempt to hide anything. “But I made a promise to Aleister that I would save Kamijou Touma ❌ matter how much I must break the rules. So I must keep that promise. CRC, I will do so even it means breaking your pure but destructive ambition and using it for my own ends.”

“This old man will be resurrected.”

“So you can remove all trace of Rosicrucianism from the present 🌍?”

“This old man has things he must do in the living world!! So I cannot remain here!!”

“Even if that would result in the direct destruction of the 🪄 side’s countless 🪄 cabals and the resultant chaos would indirectly cause the science side to collapse as well?”

The hell this group had walked through all this time was a temporary space created by Rosencreutz so he his dead soul could return to the realm of the living.

But Kamijou and Kingsford had broken into it.

That was the accurate view here.

That was why Johann’s past and sins had been revealed along the way. The path had been tuned to him from the very beginning.

And Rosencreutz wouldn’t have cared as long as he could achieve his jailbreak. And if he had only paid the smallest possible cost to escape this hell, Kamijou could guess at something else.

That is…

“This hell was only made to return a single soul to life.”

“…Are you going to take it from me?”

“After the damage it took, Academy City is in ❌ state to endure another attack by CRC. A second attack would truly finish it. Johann, your resurrection must be 🛑ed at all costs.”

“You are going to steal this old man’s seat!? By giving the resurrection ticket to Kamijou Touma who so conveniently died, you will waste that one and only ticket so that this old man can never be resurrected!!!”

“The boy’s ☠️ was inevitable. Nothing at all could be done to prevent it. So the best option was to take that ☠️ into account and find a way to still save him. And it is my responsibility for making use of him to send his young soul back to the living 🌍 where there is so much he has left undone.”

That was all of it.

But this did not account for two things: Anna Kingsford and Christian Rosencreutz.

“❌ matter how powerful we are, we are 🧙s who have already ☠️ed. I will not allow either of us to foolishly and shamefully resurrect ourselves at the expense of a still-living boy. The 🎟️ to survival should go to the living, CRC. So with just the one 🎟️ available, we should hand it to the boy. It is ❌ our place to intrude.”

Kingsford did not hesitate.

From the very beginning, she had not even considered the possibility of her own resurrection.

“Young lady…are you really satisfied by that?”

“I am.”

“By that silly argument!!!? T-this isn’t just about this old man. You really can reach the door to the realm of the living. If you were to abandon that boy and resurrect yourself, you could save far more people. Since you name yourself an expert, you must be able to perform the actual calculation. So why give him the ticket!? Why throw out your life for such foolishness!?”

“Everything I do is in service of those around me. Even if that was all nonsense you wrote for a prank and even if the groups naming themselves followers of the 🌹 and the ✝️ were something else entirely, there were indeed experts who believed in the ideals ✍️en there and dedicated their lives to upholding them. Those true experts saved people in secret and many people reclaimed their ☺️s thanks to them. I am merely joining their ranks. As long as there is a lost one before me and I have been blessed with the opportunity to provide a helping ✋, it makes little difference if it all began as a truth or a lie.”

“…”

“CRC did ❌ actually exist? Rosicrucianism was a made up story? You can tell me that all you like, but there is ❌ need for me to come up with some clever trick to counter it. I need only 💬 that I truly believe in the great deeds carried out in Rosencreutz’s name. Christian Rosencreutz – or the illusion of him – has moved many 🧙s’ ❤️s into saving so many people. And so I wish to become one such 🧙 and join the ranks of my predecessors.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………”

Silence.

Even Rosencreutz was driven to silence.

“Blessed with,” Kingsford had said. If not for the excess baggage that was Kamijou, she could have used this to resurrect herself. In fact, she wouldn’t have had to visit hell in the first place.

But she felt no hesitation or reluctance.

She was really and truly looking only toward sending Kamijou Touma back to life.

And by preventing CRC’s resurrection here, she could save Academy City and the world as a whole.

Even if he had been cleverly tempted into doubting her.

The complete lack of doubt in her eyes made Kamijou feel his own foolishness all the more vividly.

“This old man won’t let you.”

The expert who spread death and destruction had failed.

He had said death was the default state for the dead and that Kingsford must have some kind of ulterior motive. But after all that whispering in Kamijou’s ear, this was his true nature.

He was only interested in himself.

Once you knew that, the truth or fiction of the rest of the information fell into place nicely.

“This old man created this hell!! So whatever you say, this old man will be using it! You wretched thieves. Act as benevolent as you like, this old man holds the legitimate claim here!!”

“Weren’t you 👂ing, CRC?”

“Kh.”

“I promised to save Kamijou Touma ❌ matter how much I must break the rules.”

CRC. Christian Rosencreutz.

Or Johann Valentin Andreae.

His true nature was dangerous through and through. Kamijou couldn’t forget what he had done in Academy City. But at the same time, that silver-haired young man in red had never once lied to himself. Even if that worked against him and led to his own downfall.

He had in fact wandered between the realms of life and death for more than 400 years.

He had just one goal: take responsibility for what he had done.

That was all.

So the man who had once been a 15-year-old boy had turned himself into a monster.

He had achieved this after so much hardship, so what was the point? He wasn’t gathering wealth or fortune for himself.

That didn’t matter to him.

He hadn’t done it for his own happiness.

He had continued on while thinking only of punishing himself.

He had thrown out his name of Johann Valentin Andreae and dressed up as the person he most loathed: the fictional Christian Rosencreutz. He had poured all his energies into eradicating the Rosicrucian legend spreading through the public consciousness, but he had failed to keep up with the self-replication rate of the story spread by word of mouth and the story’s own inventor had ultimately become a corpse and vanished from history.

“This old man will be resurrected.”

This identity.

And his sins.

They had both been revealed by the benevolent mirror, but Rosencreutz still gnashed his teeth and roared.

“It will happen, no matter the damage to my reputation and even if this old man must abandon himself to do it!! Can you do that, boy? You cannot even have a dream for your future or a picture of what occupation you will take up. But do you still claim to have a reason to crave resurrection that surpasses this old man’s 400 years of regret and resentment!!?”

The words pushed in.

Like a great invisible wave.

Kamijou Touma was in fact a mere high school boy who hadn’t even decided if he would continue on to college or get a job after graduating. Presented with the 400 years of persistence and righteousness of Christian Rosencreutz after becoming one with a legend, he could easily lose sight of his position and have his soul shattered.

“Are you kidding me?”

But he managed to speak.

He didn’t even need to use his right fist. His words alone shattered a 400-year-old illusion.

He wouldn’t doubt himself anymore.

It was easy to listen to tempting words. At times, joining the dangerous one in skepticism could look more clever than trusting as the benevolent one did. But that was wrong. The truth was straightforward. Always choosing the clever and sly path was not guaranteed to take you to a happy future. Trusting a shady expert could make you a laughing stock, but that did not mean that always doubting anything and everything would make you happy. Forcing yourself to always take a cynical view accomplished nothing.

You had to decide for yourself.

Focus your mind there and you would feel a great power in your heart.

No one was asking you to choose based on what was more solid, more clever, more savvy.

To put it another way, what was wrong with making the flimsy, silly, and foolish choice?

So.

The words seemed to come to Kamijou Touma’s lips of their own accord.

He did not lower his head.

He stared straight ahead and accepted the deadly expert’s gaze head on.

“I want to talk with Index again.”

“I want to return to Academy City and apologize to Misaka and the others I worried so much. As many times as it takes for them to forgive me.”

“I want to see Aogami Pierce, Fukiyose, and the others at school during the third term and discuss our winter breaks. I want to enjoy our time together at school now that we’re second and third years!”

“I want to wipe away Alice Anotherbible’s tears with this hand – this fingertip – right here!! I want to tell her I died because of my own choice and it wasn’t her fault! 400 years of regret and resentment? Sure, I don’t have anything on that grand a scale. But that doesn’t mean it’s any better than my reasons, CRC!!!”

Anna Kingsford said nothing, but she did appear to be smiling.

She may have seen a small, pale light.

All people had the right to live and hope.

All people had the right to work toward bettering themselves.

Kamijou Touma would use all of his rights here. He would throw out the arrogant idea that he should back down or give up in advance due to some kind of hierarchy or ranking. He would return to the living world no matter what. And if Rosencreutz was trying to once more bring ruin to Academy City and the rest of the world, he would do whatever it took to put a stop to it.

CRC.

This wasn’t like before.

He couldn’t rely on everyone else in Academy City.

This time, just the puny boy had to challenge that man and win.

So what?

If it had to be done, then it was up to whoever was here to save the world.

Strongly.

Kamijou Touma clenched his right fist very, very strongly.

“Christian Rosencreutz.”

“Why did that power choose you? Why can you have it without any kind of objective or direction for it?”

But this received an odd reaction.

It came from CRC’s expression.

His face crumpled up, but not in rage or resentment. The faintest hint of envy was displayed there.

“if you believe you can achieve your dream by trampling everyone else underfoot…”

“If this old man only had that…if my hand only possessed that one supernatural power…”

“And if you intend to continue destroying the world once you return there…”

“This old man wouldn’t have had to wander for 400 years! I could have destroyed the illusion of the rose and the cross back theeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!!!”

The boy made his announcement all the same.

He trusted that it still remained in his right hand.

It too must have stuck around because he wasn’t really dead yet.

So he came out and said it.

“Then I’ll destroy that illusion!!!”

Monsters

Lord of Demons

The demon lord found at the center of hell’s bottom level. Has six wings and three faces used to gnaw on the three most sinful people. Referred to by different names, such as Satan, Lucifer, and Beelzebub. When he fell from heaven, even the ground bent and fell away to avoid him, producing the great crater now known as hell.

Chapter 4: I’d Wanted To Do This With You – Duel_and_Struggle,_XXX.Revenge.

Part 1

Kamijou Touma and Christian Rosencreutz.

The result of a direct battle between the two of them should have had an obvious result. Before, Academy City had gathered all its forces to oppose that man and Kamijou had relied on the Dragon Strike emerging from his right arm, but he had still failed to fully defeat him and Alice Anotherbible had needed to deliver the finishing blow.

He was that much of a monster.

If a mere high school boy faced him, it was a foregone conclusion that he would be turned to mincemeat in less than a second.

And yet.

Pop!!!

The instant Kamijou swung his right hand horizontally, something in the empty air burst and vanished.

Everything about this hell was twisted and wrong.

The right hand that acted as a reference point negated and destroyed the magic of the living that was considered out of place by that negative world.

In that moment, it wasn’t Kamijou Touma whose eyes widened in surprise. It was Christian Rosencreutz who had held his palm straight out from a short distance away.

The puny boy was a step ahead of CRC.

That alone should have been impossible.

“!!”

Rosencreutz slashed his fingers through the air a few more times, but still he could not hit.

Kamijou swung his right hand in the same way, negating each extraordinary piece magic just before it hit.

They were evenly matched.

They were fighting on equal footing.

Was it Imagine Breaker?

No, that wasn’t enough to explain this.

The boy shouted at his opponent.

“What’s next, CRC? Citrinitas? Or maybe the Pneuma-less Shell!?”

“!?”

A giant silver sphere slammed down behind the red-clad young man. Kamijou’s prediction was correct. Rosencreutz finally realized that his actions were being predicted. He panicked as he reached behind himself and rotated the round handle to randomly produce one of the world’s oldest causes of death.

It produced a thin tree branch.

That was the world’s oldest whip. But that cause of death had to have more openings than uranium or plutonium.

Did bad luck tend to stack?

Conversely, the momentum and trend were tilting in Kamijou’s favor. Which was unusual thanks to his misfortune.

That meant something other than luck was controlling this.

CRC clicked his tongue and tossed the tree branch aside.

“What did you do? Boy, nothing about your body has changed. Or is this old man expected to believe that a boy with no knowledge of magic manipulated this entire hell to produce something to your advantage!?”

That wasn’t the answer.

Kamijou couldn’t possibly control hell.

The answer was much simpler, which may have been why that overthinking expert had missed it.

“We walked through hell together, didn’t we?”

That brief explanation was his immediate answer.

“You haven’t forgotten, have you, Rosencreutz? When we fought you in Academy City, it was our first time seeing any of it. None of us knew who the legendary CRC was or what he could do. It was new to us. So we had no choice but to run defenseless into it all! …But that’s changed. I’ve seen all your spells. And more than that, I know you’re actually Johann Valentin Andreae! I know how you use everything at your disposal and I know how you use familiar attacks to trap us!! No matter how strong you are, this isn’t the same as our last battle!!!”

And it wasn’t just Kamijou who had drawn out Rosencreutz’s various methods of attack back in Academy City.

Anti-Skill had been there. And Judgment.

Misaka Mikoto, Aradia, Index, and Aleister had all been there.

Kamijou had to remember the home he was to return to.

The life he still had ahead of him.

The people waiting for him in Academy City.

Kamijou could only stand here now because of the cards they had each flipped over.

He now understood both CRC’s tactics and Johann’s way of thinking.

No longer did he have to agonize over this game of concentration.

Once it was his turn, he could take all the cards for himself!!

“No…”

CRC audibly gulped.

He couldn’t believe it, but he also couldn’t deny what was happening here.

Because he was wiser than anyone else.

“You cannot make up for your inferior skill that way. You are no more than a high school boy, while this old man is the Christian Rosencreutz of legend. Nothing can ever fill the endless gap between us!”

Kingsford then spoke to the shocked-looking silver-haired young man in red.

As if returning to the start of the boy’s words.

“Have you forgotten, CRC?”

“…”

“You left after Alice ☠️ed you and have spent the rest of your ⌚ holed up in your false hell preparing for your resurrection, but ❌ so for him. He lived on after that. It was ❌ for long, but in that ⌚, Kamijou Touma defeated Alice Anotherbible.”

“He…what?”

“On his own. Without relying on 🐉 Strike.”

He finally fell silent.

Common reality had surpassed his imagination.

“Kamijou Touma has already done one thing that CRC could ❌. Do you 💭 he gained nothing from that?”

The benevolent expert was unshaken.

The simple act of living was precious in and of itself.

Those words would sound so cheesy coming from an ordinary person, but Kingsford properly understood their meaning. So even as she easily crossed between life and death, Anna Kingsford would never treat lives and souls with anything but the utmost care.

“The ☠️ are forever stuck in place, but the living are always growing. A puny boy? Do ❌ assume he is the same as he was when you ⚔️ him.”

On his own, Kamijou Touma might have understood this intellectually, but his body wouldn’t have kept up.

But he had that benevolent expert with him.

Kingsford supported and realized the inexperienced boy’s ideas.

And the opposite, the expert who brought only death and destruction, responded.

While cynically returning to the same starting point.

“But did you forget, boy?”

Part 2

Kamijou heard a low rumbling.

And felt a tremor.

Th entire hell shrouded in darkness began to shake vertically.

Christian Rosencreutz spread his arms wide and made an announcement.

With great force.

“This old man built this hell on his own. The two of you are no more than unwelcome visitors. So this old man can control this false hell at will!!”

According to Kingsford, this was not the “real” hell.

Christian Rosencreutz – or Johann Valentin Andreae – had constructed this temporary collection of images in order to forcibly shove this dead soul back into the living world. That was the purpose of this hell.

So it was best to assume he could freely control anything here.

Which meant…

With a great crash, something fell straight down as if from heaven to earth.

For an instant, Kamijou thought it was holy divine punishment.

But that had no place in hell.

It was something like an ultra-high pressure water jet.

If Kingsford hadn’t immediately pushed him aside, Kamijou would have been bisected before he could even think. Bisected vertically.

“The Acheron, the Styx, and the Phlegethon – you have redirected the rivers flowing through the levels of hell to use them as a weapon, haven’t you? Those special rivers act as the border between life and ☠️ and prevent the living or the ☠️ from reaching the wrong side. By forcibly increasing the pressure for use as a direct attack, the 🌊s work their way deep inside the target, allowing you to make use of their ‘division into two parts’ power.”

“Sorry, Kingsford-sensei, but can you just tell me what I’m supposed to be looking out for as I fight!? If something like that hits me, it’s all over, but I don’t know what kind of initial action to look out for to dodge it. Hurry, Sensei!”

“This is only the beginning. Much more is coming.”

“Yes, of course that was only the beginning!!” roared Rosencreutz.

“You stupid geniuses move too fast! Stop skipping three steps in your head and actually explain everything one step at a time!!”

Kamijou’s tearful shouting received a gentle sigh from Kingsford.

“You do ❌ understand?” asked the glasses woman.

“Understand what!?”

“Hell is shaped like a mortar that narrows in toward the center. So if hell as a whole shakes violently, all the giant objects that appeared on the various levels along the slope will come rolling down to the bottom.”

“Wait, are you serious?”

“You should assume that every single level of hell you have seen thus far will now be your enemy.”

It wasn’t just the one thing.

A big stone gate dropped like a meteor. Was that the gate into hell? If that happened to hit Kamijou, he would be smashed into little pieces. And it wasn’t just structures. The bull-headed minotaur and Nyx-chan slinging around dark sludge came tumbling down as well.

This was worse than just falling rocks.

A single hit from any of this would mean instant death.

…Or wait. Would he remain conscious even after being smashed into a pulp? But if he couldn’t move, then CRC could torment him at his leisure.

And he would have no way of stopping CRC from climbing the spiral staircase back to life.

“Whoa!?” shouted Kamijou as a whole bunch of objects fell in front of him.

Something else came rolling down the mortar-shaped hell. And if it came from the higher levels, it had to be something he had seen during their journey here.

It was a giant breast.

“Now this is divine punishment!!!”

He leaped aside to dodge it.

He had forgotten that his worldly thoughts had caused that to appear on a higher level of hell. And thinking back, they had just left it there, hadn’t they?

He had just about been killed by his own sin.

But diving once wasn’t enough to make him safe. He scrambled back to his feet and ran full speed away from there, but this wasn’t like a round soccer ball. The mountain-sized breast was much more dangerous in how it bounced every which way as it rolled.

It was going to kill him.

He was going to be killed by a giant breast.

But once he started running, he couldn’t stay on the ground forever. This was the bottom of the mortar-shaped hell, so there was only so much space.

He had no choice but to trust in the sturdiness of the thick layer of ice and head out onto the frozen lake in the center.

Ironic that he had to trust in something about this hell that was thoroughly unkind to anyone inside it.

“I-I just have to go for it… I’m sure there’s still plenty of stuff still caught up on the higher levels. Oh, right. I forgot about Kingsford’s armpit and giant butt. I don’t want to be crushed to death by those, so I have to risk the ice!! Isn’t that right, Sensei!!?”

“…”

This was an exceedingly serious situation with their lives and the outcome of the battle on the line, yet the benevolent expert did not agree with him as she held a hand to her cheek with a smile frozen on her face. She looked as gentle as ever, but the pressure radiating from her was terrifying.

But that wasn’t his biggest concern.

With so many things falling from higher up in the mortar-shaped hell, they couldn’t stay on the outer edge forever. So they had to walk out onto the thick frozen lake. That much he knew.

But that layer of ice was not just ice.

There was a lord there.

“Hey, Kingsford?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“So, uh, since Rosencreutz can control and attack us with everything in this hell, is that giant thing lurking in the shadows going to attack us too!?”

“The six-🪽ed being at the center of the 🧊 is known as the 👑 of the 👿s or the 👑 of hell. Some 💬 he is Satan, some 💬 Beelzebub, and others 💬 Lucifer.”

“I don’t care what his name is! Besides, those are all top-level star players, aren’t they!?”

“Well, he is the big boss at the bottom of hell.”

Fair point.

Finding a tiny goblin or pixie awaiting them all the way down here would be terrifying in its own way. Because that monster would probably be extremely high level.

A low straining sound reached them.

Coming from the beyond the veil of shadow.

From the lord – or core – of hell.

Seeing that would be deadly.

Kamijou was certain of it despite the fact that you couldn’t die in hell, even if your whole body were burned to a crisp or you were skewered through. He could tell that seeing that thing was the one exception and a single attack would be enough to shatter his soul.

And for some reason, Christian Rosencreutz had his arms spread as he leaped forcefully toward those shadows.

And a loud voice came from the shadows.

“Fus☆ion!”

“Ahhhh!! Someone stop that childish old maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!”

Kingsford slammed her fist down in empty air and (however it worked) Rosencreutz crashed down into the ice lake while only a meter away from the lord of demons.

That was a close one.

His transformation sequence had been stopped before he cast off his clothing.

The birth of Demon Lord Girl Belzebu-tan – who had transcended both age and gender – had been prevented.

Part 3

The lord of demons remained in the shadows.

Kingsford and Rosencreutz’s clash began before he could slowly start to move. Something exploded. Kingsford fought evenly with Rosencreutz while sometimes sending her fingertips racing through empty air and sometimes using a single hand to grab and swing around a large tree or castle wall pouring down from above.

Kamijou could only watch.

“Hee hee! You’ll need more than that!!”

CRC took a few steps back to put some distance between them.

She had not managed a clean hit so far, but Kingsford did not look concerned as her opponent escaped beyond her range.

She wasn’t fixated on a quick resolution.

She had prioritized keeping Rosencreutz away from the lord of demons.

“As if that could control this old man.”

“I did ❌ 💭 that would be enough.”

“This old man won’t let you forget who created this hell.”

All of a sudden, a thick shadow bared its fangs and engulfed Kingsford from the head down. That was not the veil of kind shadow protecting Kamijou by obscuring his view.

That was Nyx.

More than just inanimate objects were rolling down from the higher levels of the mortar-shaped hell.

“Adonai Melekh Ne’eman.”

Anna Kingsford crossed herself.

That was all.

Some self-styled specialists might scoff and say that wasn’t even a spell. In Christian regions, people even prayed before meals, so crossing oneself was a mystical act known even to elementary school children.

But a true expert did not neglect the fundamentals.

By mastering them to the extreme, they could elevate every spell they knew to deadly levels.

The amorphous silhouette of reddish white and sludgy black was blown straight back up just before contacting her. Afterwards, it slithered away as if to avoid Kingsford. Almost like a slug that had finally realized it had leapt at a pile of purifying salt.

“Hell and the 👿 world seem like similar concepts, but they are ❌,” said the benevolent expert.

Kingsford had not lost her shine even in the depths of such darkness.

“Hell is not where the 👿s gather their strength while waiting for a chance to rebel. It is a righteous device created by god to eternally torment the sinners he has damned there. The 👑 of the 👿s resides in Judecca at the very bottom of hell, but there he only gnaws on the greatest sinners in the 🌍. …That makes him a part of god’s plan, so the glory of god can be found even in the very depths of hell.”

The color red twinkled overhead.

In countless places.

That fiery snow would burn away the body if it came in contact, but it oddly never seemed to reach Kingsford. She wasn’t actually doing anything. The fiery snow avoided the benevolent expert.

“Like I 💬d, hell is a part of god’s plan. Past the forest of suicide is the wasteland of scorching sand. That hell of 🔥y ❄️ is used to punish the sinners who violated the providence of god or the laws of nature. So if you have ❌ stained your ✋s with heretical acts, you need ❌ fear punishment.”

Kamijou’s ignorance prevented him from even thinking of heretical spells, so he too had made it through unharmed.

Which meant…

“CRC.”

“Kh.”

The tides were changing.

Past the fiery snow was Rosencreutz who had supposedly set this in motion.

(Can he not control it?)

Kamijou groaned.

A benevolent expert and a deadly expert.

It was like a massive device. Had they begun fighting over control of hell below the surface?

“This is ❌ the real hell. It is undoubtedly a phase you forcibly inserted. But even if you are its creator, you still need to be careful. Haven’t you already had a bad experience with your own creation turning against you?”

“You would mock this old man!? You, the false expert whose blind belief has led to nothing but stagnation!!?” roared the silver-haired young man in red.

Something responded.

Kingsford was not fazed. When the minotaur swung its massive axe in from the side, she stopped it with two fingers, swung it around herself, and tossed the minotaur away such that the three-headed cerberus was taken out as well.

She had an overwhelming advantage.

But the situation was still in motion.

The thick ice below their feet cracked.

“Kh!!”

Kamijou tried to stay in place, but after noticing something, Rosencreutz held his palm out this way.

A few explosions followed.

If the orbs of light were flying toward him, Kamijou could have negated them with his right hand, but that wasn’t enough for this.

This attack struck the thick ice.

Had Rosencreutz not meant to hit Kamijou?

Then what? Was sending a stray shot down into the thick ice of the frozen lake supposed to accomplish something?

(Oh, no.)

“Kh!!”

Kamijou braced his legs the best he could.

The ice below him slanted.

He couldn’t afford to stop running, so he kept jumping from foothold to foothold as giant fissures ran through the ice. Unlike Kingsford, who he had a feeling could fly through the sky if she wanted, he had to keep his feet on the ground, meaning this was a matter of life or death.

More and more of the thick ice shattered, some pieces sinking down and others jutting up.

If he carelessly contacted any of that, his leg could get caught and broken.

He was afraid that one of the fissures would end up too wide, but a cliff like height difference would be just as bad. Choosing the wrong place to stand would leave him stranded with nowhere to move and then Rosencreutz could concentrate his fire on him.

This was Judecca, the very bottom of hell.

That frozen lake wasn’t just ordinary ice. It was a negative holy ground created to eternally torment the three greatest sinners in the world.

This footing was only temporary.

Kamijou couldn’t imagine what would happen to him if he fell from the edge of this thick ice. He could guess it would be worse than being chewed by the great maw formed by two giant pieces of ice.

Not knowing was a form of fear.

He would have been less concerned fighting over a pool of lava.

And…

(Damn, where’d Kingsford go? We got separated in the darkness!!)

He was panicking, but the situation wasn’t going to wait for him to catch up.

The enemy was directly in front of him.

He was afraid that even moving his gaze around his surroundings would give CRC extra information.

And in that instant of hesitation…

“!!”

Something grazed the side of his head as it flew past.

He felt scorching heat from it.

He had to change his focus. If Kingsford wasn’t here, he had to do this on his own.

He was willing to give up an ear.

He probably wouldn’t die in hell even if his heart was gouged out or his head was blown off. This territory was thoroughly unkind to humans, so it wouldn’t provide an easy way out like the comfort of death.

So Kamijou had only one thing to focus on.

If his body was smashed to a pulp, the wrong person would climb the spiral stairs back to the realm of the living. He would only be able to watch as it happened. Come to think of it, what had happened to CRC’s body after Alice killed him? Or would Rosencreutz’s soul enter Kamijou Touma’s body to be revived? Either way, the threat of Christian Rosencreutz would appear within Academy City once more. Academy City had yet to recover after the first time, so it probably couldn’t stop a second attack.

Index was there.

So was Misaka Mikoto, Aogami Pierce, Komoe-sensei, Aradia, Aleister, and Accelerator.

How could he let that happen?

No one else needed to die and experience this.

So even if it meant the destruction of his body or soul, he would stop Rosencreutz here.

No matter what.

If Kamijou Touma climbed the spiral staircase even one step ahead of him, CRC’s resurrection could be stopped!!

“Hee hee. It would seem this old man cannot end this so easily with direct attacks, boy.”

“Kh.”

“But what about less direct methods? That right hand lacks the power to destroy illusions without touching them first!!”

CRC directed his palm overhead.

That hand held an eternal lamp that’s light would never be extinguished.

The bright light shined into the emptiness. However, no fiery rain poured down like a cloudburst and no massive explosion consumed all the oxygen in the vicinity.

This was much worse.

Did you forget?

Kamijou had only managed to maintain his sanity here in the depths of hell because of the thick veil of darkness so kindly protecting him. The lord of demons, the lord of hell, Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer. He went by many names, but Kamijou had been spared from seeing that being without a known identity or settled name.

What if a powerless signal flare had just been launched here? But was that really so harmless? Even if it was nothing more than a bright and gentle light, what would happen when the thick shadows at the bottom of hell were thoughtlessly swept away, revealing that which was hidden behind them!?

“Take this, uncultured boy!! You need not even touch it. Simply observing or speaking of this blot upon the world is considered a sin. Knowing his wicked nature is enough to corrode your very being!!!”

Part 4

The darkness was pulled back.

Everything was exposed to the light.

The lord of demons, the lord of hell, Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer. He had many important-sounding names, but what was he really? Not knowing the answer had to be the better choice in this case, but the answer was presented to Kamijou against his will.

“!!?”

He seriously considered crushing his own eyes before anything could happen.

But he didn’t have the time or the resolve. His sensibilities from his time alive got in the way.

The wicked light swept aside the kind darkness before he could do anything.

Yes.

There was nothing there?

“Wha-?”

The expression of shock actually came from Rosencreutz.

A rumbling sound followed.

The tremor thundered out and the thick ice shattered in a chain reaction.

But it wasn’t that CRC had miscalculated. Something clearly unnatural lay before them. There was a gap in the center of the frozen lake. Located past the source of the mystery impact. It was located unnaturally far away from the center of the giant piece of ice.

There was no point in discussing who had done it.

There were only so many experts who could handle a direct battle with the true lord of hell who could shatter souls just by being seen.

She had done it empty handed.

Her arms were spread wide.

And she hadn’t hesitated.

“Anna Kingsford!? Did you directly challenge him without a second thought? He is the very core of hell, a part of the almighty god’s plan!!”

Now that the ultimate attack had ended in a dud, nothing remained to stop Kamijou.

He once more stepped toward CRC.

Powerfully.

Rosencreutz immediately slashed his fingers through the air.

Kamijou was faster.

His right fist shattered the magic and the tip of the silver-haired young man in red’s fingernail split. Producing a single drop of blood

It was 1-on-1.

Kamijou refused to rely on the reckless Dragon Strike which required cutting off his own arm, but he had still hung on this far. The young man’s face twisted at that fact and Kamijou Touma whispered to him.

“I might not have been able to win if you were Christian Rosencreutz.”

“Boy, what are you-”

“But right now, you aren’t the CRC who attacked Academy City.”

Yes.

That was it.

Something had felt off. He had thought hell was such hopeless place that there was no entertainment here, but it had still been odd.

CRC was somehow different from when he had fought in Academy City.

“You showed an interest in everything and made all sorts of detours. You cried at the drop of a hat and displayed empathy which led you to readily destroy an entire country or the whole world.”

“Kh.”

“That was the unmanageable disaster named Christian Rosencreutz!! But I’ve been watching you throughout our journey in hell. You never complained to our guide Kingsford and you just followed the standard path. You can’t afford to play around now that you’re in hell, can you? Rosencreutz was selfish and capricious, which made him hard to predict, but that identity’s been stripped away, leaving only Johann Valentin Andreae!!”

The hints had been found all throughout hell.

None of it had been a waste. You could not lie to yourself.

The path here had shown Kamijou the answer.

“You might have the same cards in your deck, but now the more responsible Johann Valentin Andreae is in charge. You’re easy to predict. I know all your cards and you have a terrible poker face, so you have no chance of winning!!”

Kamijou wouldn’t let him escape.

Kamijou wouldn’t allow another tragedy.

Kamijou wouldn’t let anyone else cry.

This one attack would save him and the world.

He had a tightly-clenched fist.

He was already in range.

Whatever CRC thought of that fact, he let out a roar.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

No, that was not Christian Rosencreutz.

It was Johann Valentin Andreae.

That dangerous expert had to know that his odds of defeating Kamijou would be higher if he stuck to playing the selfish, capricious, and unpredictable CRC.

But in that final moment, he was not Rosencreutz.

Johann came to the forefront.

As Kamijou Touma exposed his entire being and moved in for the attack, the man who had once been a 15-year-old boy may have wanted to also attack as himself.

Even if his coldly calculating side knew that would reduce his odds.

One of them spoke.

“I want to go back…”

“Yes,” agreed the other. “I want to go back.”

And they shouted as one as they reached each other.

“I want to go back!!!” “I want to go back!!!”

A dull impact exploded out.

Kamijou Touma’s right fist caught the young man’s cheekbone and pushed in.

Epilogue: End of the Ritual – Flat_Line…

The silver-haired young man in red lay collapsed on his back.

Atop the shattered frozen lake.

He stared vaguely upwards.

The spiral staircase – that thin strand of saving light – was already in use. He could tell because the entire staircase was glowing in a way it hadn’t been before.

The trial had begun.

Rosencreutz slowly got up.

Did he have no regrets?

Of course he had regrets.

“Hee hee.”

A shadow covered Christian Rosencreutz from behind.

It belonged to Anna Kingsford.

She too was looking overhead.

“Oh, I am so ☺️ that boy managed to climb those stairs. If, after everything, he had seriously said ‘I refuse to let anyone sacrifice themselves, so you take the stairs, Kingsford’, all of my work could have been for nothing☆ …Of course, if that happened, I would have knocked him out with a quick 👊 and shoved him onto the stairs.”

“Damn you. …Did you guide him in that direction? Did you push his thinking towards taking the stairs just like a demon’s temptations!?”

“🎯.”

She smiled.

She had used the exact same trick Rosencreutz had in order to keep Kamijou Touma from suspecting.

The Qliphoth would bring disaster if an ordinary person contacted it. But not so for an expert with sufficient knowledge and sufficient equipment. That expert would have access to tricks and loopholes far greater than the standard methods.

That meant Anna Kingsford could make free use of the secret arts belonging to demons and hell. Such as the sweet temptations of a demon.

And this time, she had promised a certain human she would save Kamijou Touma even if she had to break the rules.

But even so, Rosencreutz found this hard to believe.

“You would go that far…but why? What do you gain from this? Now you cannot take that single-use staircase and this old man knows you know what awaits us down here.”

“I already explained that, CRC.”

As usual, Anna Kingsford did not hesitate to respond.

A benevolent expert did not make mistakes.

Even if it was all a fairy tale spread by Johann Valentin Andreae as a prank, righteousness could be found there if one dedicated their life to it.

That was the truth.

“I will save everyone I included in my plan.”

“…”

“Our next destination is ❌ a false phase like this one. But with two experts working together, we should be able to mitigate the eternal torment to an extent. Don’t you 💭, CRC?”

“Damn you.”

“Nowww then. Let us 👁️ together what the real hell is like, CRC. We are ❌ approaching from the direction I would have liked, but we are about to visit a true world of myth. Hee hee. I do hope I will not be disappointed.”

This tiny salvation surpassed the imagination of Johann who had created this place.

A solid cracking rang out.

Just the one at first, but more and more came with increasing frequency.

At last, the vast frozen lake of Judecca was well and truly shattering. But this wasn’t just the thick ice attached to the surface. That had already been broken and split by the clash between Kamijou Touma and Christian Rosencreutz.

This was something more fundamental.

It had been mentioned several times that this was not the “real” hell.

That was the issue here.

Rosencreutz, the expert of death and destruction, and even Kingsford, the benevolent expert, had wielded heretical power to accomplish their ends.

Something had reacted to that.

So the real one was finally making its appearance.

Christian Rosencreutz clung to the woman from behind and looked up at the long, long spiral staircase. It looked so much like a single ray of light shining down from heaven. He could no longer even see where his recent opponent was on it.

“To serve those around you, hm?” he muttered.

“🎯. That is one of the ideas you yourself sent out into the 🌍.”

The meaning of his upturned gaze changed.

That was no longer Christian Rosencreutz.

Johann Valentin Andreae spoke.

Along with benevolent expert Anna Kingsford.

In the very instant they arrived in the same place.

“Live a happy life, Kamijou Touma.” “Live a happy life, Kamijou Touma.”

The frozen lake had fully shattered.

The false bottom was gone.

The phase forcibly inserted by the deadly expert had broken, so the thin film peeled back in places, revealing another layer. That was the moment when the real hell really did open its great maw.

Welcome to the first level of hell, located across the Acheron.

“Phew…”

Meanwhile, Kamijou let out a heavy breath.

He hard a crumbling sound. What was happening down below? He didn’t have it in him to check. But the rumbling of the collapse was approaching. Most likely, the transparent spiral staircase would start breaking apart from the bottom eventually.

Everything would be swallowed up.

A horrifically great maw gaped below.

That was the real hell.

Did that phase really exist?

“Pant, gasp.”

The spiral staircase appeared to be made of thick panels of clear glass. But that probably wasn’t accurate. No matter how endless the staircase, he wouldn’t be experiencing this just by climbing step after step.

His strength was fading.

“Gh!!”

With each new step he took, his strength seemed cut in half. He had easily continued on up at first, but his strength was really and truly fading fast. He felt like his whole body was tangled in long, long hairs while he struggled underwater. It didn’t matter how much strength he had to begin with. No matter how much strength he built up, he would eventually collapse during the eternal cycle of halving and halving and halving. That was the trick.

Was it just that difficult for the dead to be revived?

Ordinarily, that should never happen.

So things had been firmly programmed to prevent it from happening.

(I will go back.)

He fell to his knees.

He was still only partway up, but he could tell he no longer had enough willpower to get back on his feet.

Nevertheless, he reached his arm forward.

He grabbed the next step up even if he had to force it. And he pushed his body up.

“I swear I will go back.”

He spoke the words.

It didn’t matter his legs would no longer move. He would continue forward even if he had to use his hands or even bite the steps. He spoke to himself to gather the necessary strength.

But the halving was absolute.

When he drew on some untapped strength, that would then be halved. Just by climbing the next step.

“I will see Index again and talk with her.”

He spoke aloud.

And he climbed a step.

“I will go back to Academy City and bow to Misaka and the others.”

His voice was falling apart.

And he climbed a step.

(I will…my class…stupid stuff with…Pierce and Komoe-sen…)

His voice had vanished.

And he climbed a step.

(I will…Alice Ano…ble…wasn’t her fau…I died…)

Even his thoughts were breaking up.

But he still climbed a step.

“…”

…It wouldn’t end. The spiral staircase never ended. The great pain and exhaustion began to form suspicion and obstructive thoughts in a corner of his mind. This looked like a helping hand meant to save people, but it was really just a cruel trick designed to obliterate people’s minds and conviction. Instead of filling in all the exits, this hell prepared just the one exit and then watched as people failed to reach it. It was a soul disposal device wrapped in starvation, agony, and exhaustion, that provided no kindness at all to the people suffering within it. It seemed like nothing more than an intentionally calculated obstacle. But…

Where am I?

What am I doing?

Even as he occasionally forgot those fundamental things, Kamijou Touma forcibly dragged along his body which felt like a wet rag clinging to the stairs, using just the strength of his hands to bring himself to the next step.

His fingertips trembled.

Even his eyeballs must have been losing their strength because his vision grew dark.

He had to be approaching the surface.

There had to be light shining from there.

But the world was gradually enveloped in darkness.

“I…back.”

He knew it would be immediately robbed from him, but he still gathered new strength.

He could no longer see.

Or hear.

Still, he relied on the touch of his trembling fingertips to grab the next step.

“I…will retu…to liiiiiiiiiiiiii…iiiiiiiii…iiiiiiiiiiiiii…iiiiiiiife!!!!”

Afterword

If you picked them up one at a time, welcome back. If you bought them all at once, welcome.

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

Hello, everyone whose heart was left pounding by the gloomy mood of the GT10 afterword☆ I think different authors see it differently, but I personally view the afterword like the end credits of a movie, so I think it is a part of the whole and an important part of setting the right mood. So I always need to keep that mood in mind. I can never get careless.

Anyway, this time had Anna Kingsford galore!! How did you enjoy GT11 and all its secret tricks? As a good person with only goodness in her, she is a truly extraordinary character, but can you really trust that ideal? That was the major theme this time. When Rosencreutz planted the seeds of doubt, were you able to go on trusting Kingsford? I’m sure anyone who has been following my books for more than 20 years knows this already, but I could never manage it. Yes, it’s true. I love taking the cynical view.

Dying and being sent to hell sets a mood of ultra despair, but the entire story actually had a weirdly light tone. Heavy Object is probably the best example, but in the worlds I write, when fear and grim resolve pass a certain point, the amount of jokes actually increases. That may have played a role here.

…My original idea was for Kamijou to die and be lost in hell until he encountered Rosencreutz and journeyed through hell alone with him, but instead of having him alone with an old man, I wanted a girl in there too!! So I had Kingsford-sensei take the role of hell’s bus tour guide from beginning to end. The difference in her reaction to the giant boobs and the giant butt might hint at a different side of the expert who was in contact with Aleister and the others.

This was a hell created by Rosencreutz instead of the “real” one, so it was a collection of a few different versions of hell, but the Qliphoth has been mentioned a few times in previous volumes. The most obvious example is probably artificial demon Qliphah Puzzle 545. If a normal magician attempts to learn it, they will only meet their doom, but if an expert with sufficient knowledge attempts it while fully equipped, they can acquire tons of secret tricks. …The Qliphoth really sounds like a great deal, but in GT11, I had Rosencreutz correspond to it, since it wasn’t clear if he was an enemy or an ally (even if he did ultimately create the hell setting). When a friendly demon whispers in their ear, how do people use that knowledge? After reading this book, you should know just how dangerous that can be.

Also, in GT10, I repeated over and over that, by cutting off his own right arm and relying on the Dragon Strike, Kamijou could no longer choose a future where he stood side by side with and smiled with Rosencreutz, but that was a setup for the two of them having a great picnic together in GT11. If you were disappointed when comparing his fate to Fiamma of the Right or Magic God Othinus, then I hope you were satisfied with this.

I give my thanks to my illustrators Haimura-san and Itou Tateki-san and my editors Miki-san, Anan-san, Nakajima-san, and Hamamura-san. For better or for worse, the serious scenes and the comedy scenes were set in a surreal hell. Also, Kingsford maintained her spirit of stripping in that situation and Kamijou Touma was at the mercy of his worldly thoughts. The overall mood had to have been a complete mess, which couldn’t have made things easy. Thanks again!

And I give my thanks to the readers. This one was a picnic in hell where Kamijou doubted the benevolent Kingsford and stood alongside the deadly and destructive Rosencreutz. This was only possible because all of you accepted it. Thank you so much!!

It is time to close the pages for now while praying that the pages of the next book will be opened.

And I lay my pen down for now.

…Crushed to death by giant boobs might not be all that bad a way to go?

-Kamachi Kazuma

Ending

They were in District 7.

Specifically in a room located in an inconspicuous part of a certain hospital.

“Doctor.”

“Yes?”

“I know we do this every time since it’s our job, but the work is so much harder in Academy City. With students making up 80% of the population, cases like this are a lot more common. Working in this city is so psychologically taxing I’ve heard people in our field tend to retire after around ten years.”

“I know it isn’t easy, but it is a necessary job.”

“Still, it’s so much more painful when the deceased is a minor.”

“How is he?”

“Done. The embalming is complete. I’ve added the makeup to his face and put the stuffing behind his eyelids so his eyes don’t sink in. It’s January, so the embalming should be fine without dry ice. And there was no sign of any maggots or roaches crawling into his throat or lungs to stay warm.”

“Thank you.”

“Why are you thanking me, doctor? You’re the one who sewed back together such a badly damaged body. Professionally speaking, I really would have recommended an empty casket for this one. We only really need to sew them back into one piece, but you did it like you were healing a living person.”

“I just couldn’t bear to give up on him.”

“I know what you mean.”

“…But his heart really has stopped.”

“That isn’t your fault.”

The frog-faced doctor and a specialist walked to the morgue’s exit.

Just once, the doctor looked back.

“…”

But that was all.

No miracle occurred.

The only sound was the solid click of a switch flipping off.

Late at night, on January 7, only a chilly darkness filled the morgue which smelled faintly of incense.

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Dengeki Island: A Girl’s Battle (Still Growing) Kamijou Touma Visits Another World Toaru Majutsu no Index X Apocalypse Witch Crossover SS Toaru Majutsu no Index X Apocalypse Witch X Heavy Object Crossover SS I Still Want to Do a Summer Fair A Certain Collaboration Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 Kamachi Crossover Illustrations - Preface - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - A.E. 02 - Afterword Durarara Crossover Preface - Academy City Chapter - Ikebukuro Chapter	Next