Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Kanzaki

Chapter 6: The Best Moment. BIFROST.

Part 1

I will now explain the contents of the requested investigation.

We have located the base of Orlentz, a magician who we have been recently pursuing.

Please take care of Orlentz who has built base at the point indicated on the map attached to the other document.

Orlentz was performing research in the field of immortality, but an investigation by a separate unit made it clear that his theory has already failed. Even so, Orlentz is showing no sign of ending his research and we fear he could get the lives of many people involved.

Please quickly and definitively deal with Orlentz.

As we know that his theory has failed, Orlentz’s equipment and documents need not be preserved. Give Orlentz top priority and do not worry if the equipment or documents are destroyed in the process.

That was the situation, but Kanzaki Kaori was sitting in a seat rather than swinging her drawn sword around. Her long legs and her arms were crossed and she did not have her usual atmosphere of calm. To put it bluntly, she was clearly in a bad mood.

The jeans shop owner and the tour guide girl were not with her.

Kanzaki was the only one participating in the current mission.

The shop owner had rejoiced that he was finally free to pack up and ship out the jeans for online orders, but he was likely magically monitoring Kanzaki’s actions in order to provide backup if necessary. Kanzaki did not particularly care.

She was in a small space.

It was something like a larger version of a Ferris wheel car.

It was made of a cold black stone, but a geologist would probably frown upon seeing it. Or he may rejoice at having discovered a new material.

She was in Orlentz’s base.

Or more accurately, she was in one portion of it.

It could be thought of as something like a ship and a port. Orlentz hated having others get near his base, so he had constructed a long passage that had to be traversed to reach it. Kanzaki was hiding aboard the “ship” that travelled down it.

“Hey.”

Kanzaki suddenly heard a girl speaking.

A girl of about 12 was sitting in the opposite seat. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and an intimidating look in her eyes. She wore a white blouse and skirt and her slender legs were covered in black stockings, so she somehow gave a grand piano-like impression. She was not even 140 cm tall, but she was quite an arrogant child. The girl was accompanied by a man in black formal clothing and she toyed with the hair touching her cheek as she spoke to Kanzaki sounding annoyed.

“This is ridiculous. Can we quit just glaring at each other like this? I know you are from Necessarius and I can find no reason to overlook you. Given what you have come here to do, you do understand that it is only logical that I kill you, right?”

“Oh, what a coincidence,” Kanzaki responded with a thin, thin, thin smile of the sort that was almost never seen on her face.

Her fingers slowly moved for the scabbard of the long sword that lay horizontally on her lap.

“My job here lies elsewhere, but that is no reason for me to overlook members of the Dawn-Colored Sunlight. You are Birdway, the leader of the largest Golden-style magic cabal in London. Do I need to give you time to recall what inhuman things you have done to Necessarius in the past?”

Kanzaki had come there to deal with the magician Orlentz, but she had run across an even more dangerous enemy.

At first, she had thought the Dawn-Colored Sunlight and Orlentz may have been working together, but she had denied that possibility herself. According to prior information, members of the Dawn-Colored Sunlight had attacked the vault containing Orlentz’s assets and the plantation for his magical plants. There seemed to be some discord between the magicians. They had come to deal with Orlentz for a different reason than Kanzaki.

But there was absolutely no need for them to cooperate.

That girl was the boss of a magic cabal that was known to cause damage in 10 areas for the sake of a single goal. If Kanzaki took her out there and moved her to the magical prison within the Tower of London, London’s…no, the world’s safety would increase by a few percentage points.

“Mark.” While still sitting down, Birdway held her small hand out toward the man next to her. “She seems to have chosen the kind of option I enjoy. Bring out my Symbolic Weapon. Let’s go with the cup this time. Any stubborn stain can be washed away with water.”

In that case, Kanzaki could not just wait for the man to hand her the weapon. She frowned and thought about drawing her sword and striking with the back, but the man named Mark took no action.

Instead of complying with his boss Birdway’s command, he shook his head. He showed no sign of handing over the cup.

“I cannot do that, boss.”

Birdway frowned with her hand still held out toward Mark and the man looked over toward Kanzaki.

“You should restrain yourself as well, Miss Anglican Saint. I do not know how much of the country’s tax money you receive, but I doubt you are a zealous salaryman who is prepared to take us down with you.”

Birdway finally looked over toward her subordinate.

She moved only her eyes in his direction and her glare was so fierce it almost seemed audible.

“Don’t tell me you think I would be defeated by some woman with huge tits? All she can do in battle is please men as they bounce around.”

“Those words alone are enough to warrant me kicking you ass.”

It seemed as if the slightest thing would send the two girls at each other’s throats, so Mark headed for the door. With the demeanor of someone who was about to simply leave the room, he reached for the doorknob.

Kanzaki and Birdway’s expressions quickly changed.

“Wah!! What are you doing!?”

“You fool, don’t you know what will happen if you open that!?”

“Have you recalled what it is like outside?” Mark responded and removed his hand from the doorknob.

“Uuh..”

“Uuh…”

The two VIPs looked slightly embarrassed and Mark rubbed his forehead. He too was not exactly pleased with the situation.

“If two monster-class magicians fought in an enclosed area like this, the outer walls would definitely be destroyed from within. If that happened, we would be done for. It may be no problem for you two to survive with zero pressure and no oxygen, but unfortunately, I have not abandoned the laws of physics to that extent. I beg you to not get me wrapped up in this. Do you understand?”

Outside.

They were not in an area protected by Earth’s atmosphere.

Only darkness could be seen outside the small window. Kanzaki’s long ponytail was naturally floating and Birdway’s skirt looked as if it would float up if she was not holding it down.

The two monsters glared at each other, but they did not get up from their seats.

They were both planning to kill the other as soon as they arrived at Orlentz’s base, but neither of them said so out loud.

With a dissatisfied look on her face, Birdway clenched her small fist and waved it around in front of her own face.

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“You’re right, but I can’t stand for you to be more right than me. Allow me to let my anger out on you.”

“That thought process itself is completely wrong, don’t you thi—waahhhh!?”

She punched Mark with all her strength, but her attempt to brace with her legs failed with no gravity, so it only had the strength of a cat punch. Also, despite being the one throwing the punch, Birdway was sent out of her seat and spinning in midair.

(I just want to leave…)

Kanzaki Kaori let out a rare sigh.

The magic cabal boss who could frighten a crying child into silence had her panties on full display right next to Kanzaki’s face.

Part 2

Quite a bit of time passed.

Due to its location, it was taking a while to reach Orlentz’s base.

An awkward silence filled the small space.

A slight noise was mixed in with the silence.

It was the sound of Birdway, the boss of the magic cabal Dawn-Colored Sunlight, repeatedly pressing the buttons of her folding handheld game system with her slender fingers. She was so focused that she did not seem to notice that she had floated up from her seat and was rotating.

“…My sister is much better at this kind of thing. Hey, Mark. If you’re going to join in for some co-op play, how about you actually help? This boss is unusually tough.”

A sigh came from the man in formal clothing operating a similar game system over by the wall.

“I’ve barely played this before. How about you just ask Miss Patricia to trade you a powerful item?”

“I’d rather play for 100 hours and beat this on my own than bow down to her. …Damn, you suck! Mark, you’re in charge of healing, so quit almost getting killed so quickly!! You’re just putting more of a burden on me when you’re supposed to be assisting me!!”

“Boss, why don’t you stop relying on me and just do this on your own?”

He must have been forced to do that kind of thing quite a bit before because Mark was half in tears. Meanwhile, Birdway hit the pause button and sighed in annoyance. She then glanced over toward Kanzaki who was flipping through a pocket sized bible in the opposite seat.

“Hey, can you play this? Mark’s reflexes and kinetic vision are completely useless. This is the English version of a game that was really popular in Japan, so you should be familiar with it, right?”

“I have no interest in that kind of thing. I admit that my home country is a major producer of certain types of games, but please do not think that everyone who lives there is an expert in them.”

Kanzaki gave her response without even looking up from her bible and Birdway clicked her tongue.

“…So you’re just some old women that can’t even keep up with technology of this level.”

“It looks like someone needs to give you a spanking to teach you some manners, you brat.”

The area was once more filled with a hostile atmosphere and Mark cleared his throat in order to prevent any needless deaths.

“If you insist on making this more complicated, I will vomit in this zero-g space.”

“Kh.”

“Kh.”

The two girls fell silent as if they had been taken hostage.

Once they had relaxed their battle postures, Mark looked over toward Birdway.

“Boss, shouldn’t you start focusing on our job here? I am not sure someone who cannot distinguish between work and play has the qualities needed to be a leader.”

“Hmph. Then let’s head back to the save point. Mark, if we get hit by any more electrical paralysis attacks, just run away rather than healing it.”

The magic cabal boss stared at her portable game system a bit longer, but finally switched it off, folded it in two and tossed it to Mark. She must have reached a stopping point.

“Orlentz is a capricious magician,” Birdway said after sitting back in her seat. She may have been filling the time while her subordinate dealt with the game system. “His reasons are not a desire for eternal life or to bring a loved one back from the dead. He simply enjoys using his own power to toy with others. Stretching someone’s lifespan as if it were a rubber band is nothing more than one of his hobbies.”

“It seems he has put just as much effort into researching how to shorten people’s lives as he has how to lengthen them.”

Kanzaki decided to go along with her in order to kill time. She put the small bible in her jeans pocket and joined the conversation.

“In other words, he wanted methods of killing people.”

“But he failed in both directions,” said Birdway sounding annoyed. “The results he got were much too small compared to the costs. Even when using a human life, he can only create something less than a human life. This led other researchers to dislike him. He did not construct this over the top base for any grand reason either. He simply lost his place and was driven out here.”

“It seems a few of the techniques that went into constructing this base were in violation of Academy City and the science side’s rules. Thanks to that, I was ordered to resolve this as quickly as possible.”

“And a Saint was deployed for that? Are you cleaning up for Academy City as well as the Anglican Church now? I doubt a bitch who just uses her female body as a weapon will last too long doing that.”

“Will the impudence stop if I tear out your front teeth? Or will I need to tear out your throat, too?”

Since things seemed to be getting complicated again, Mark silently headed for the door. Kanzaki and Birdway frantically started to get along.

“Putting Orlentz’s theory aside for now, do you think eternal life is possible?”

“That is a difficult issue.” Kanzaki worked her head in order to continue the conversation. “There are a few ways for people to create life in whatever form they wish. Similar to clone technology, a physical body that contains life can be created without understanding what exactly ‘life’ is. I actually recently met a magician who had created a special Alfar. But even though this Alfar was created with a fossil at the base, she did not seem to have been created modeled on the fossilized life form.”

“So we can create new life, but we can’t create an identical life to one in the past.”

“Yes, and extending existing life is tricky because the human form it is based on is quite fragile. There is a very slight deviation in the program for cell division. You would not gain eternal life just by infinitely stretching your telomeres. Most likely, your cells would just end up growing cancerous.”

“It seems there is research being carried out into a few methods of transferring a human life into other objects or materials.” Birdway smiled as if she had suddenly recalled something. “I believe it involves taking brain tissue that has been turned to paste and mixing it with lime. It was based on the method of creating the magic bullets used by Celtic gods. They seemed to glow nicely with an odd light, so perhaps they thought a human soul resided within them?”

“Even though no one knows what exactly a soul is?” Kanzaki asked with an expression of disbelief. “In fact, how reliable is the theory that the soul resides in the brain? In Taoist meridians and Yoga meditations, mental stability is gained by passing power through various points in the body.”

“It really is strange. We refine our life force into magical power and cause various phenomena with it, but we cannot touch the soul that is the source of it all.”

“At any rate, might that have the opposite effect?” Kanzaki said, arbitrarily continuing the conversation. “I feel that the human body is the ideal container for the human soul. After all, our bodies have evolved this far to become the most suitable container for our souls. If we force our souls into different containers, wouldn’t that just increase the speed at which the soul deteriorates?”

“Well, even if some magician artificially created a different container, that might be nothing more than the form humanity will take far into the future.”

Birdway stabbed a straw into an orange juice box and caught the liquid in her mouth as it floated around like soap bubbles.

“It seems there are some out there who want to abstractly grasp the direction evolution is taking us so that they can go to heaven without having to wait around for the final judgment.”

“There is no way of proving if that is even possible.” Kanzaki sighed. “And there is already a method in place allowing people to get to heaven by behaving properly throughout their natural lifespans, so that kind of strange originality is not needed. In fact, I get the feeling normal people have much higher odds of getting into heaven than those questionable magicians.”

“Yes, anyone who attempts to get into heaven through some kind of trick has some reason why that is necessary. It’s the same as how a child who can study properly will not rely on trickery to get accepted into a school.”

“And is there really any point to eternal life?” Kanzaki shrugged and then frantically grabbed the back of her seat when the motion almost made her float up into the air. “This planet and this universe will eventually be destroyed. Even if you could have eternal life, the rest of the world would be destroyed around you, so wouldn’t that be something like a personal death? Well, I suppose you would be fine with it if you just loved floating around in an area with no oxygen.”

“You could overcome that by eternally storing the resources of all of humanity and the planet as well as the light and heat energy from the sun. But to do that you would need some method of drawing in the resources from the planet and sun. Well, you could probably manage it if you gathered as many resources as 100 earths,” Birdway arbitrarily calculated.

Of course, it would be easier for humanity to just leave the earth than to gather that much in resources.

“Come to think of it, what was Orlentz’s theory?”

“Oh, c’mon. You didn’t even look into the specialty of the man you were coming to kill?”

“I was only told his theory had already failed. Since I was not given a detailed explanation, they must have determined that it was not important in regards to the battle and that I could win without knowing about it.”

“Saints really do just force everything through with their strength, don’t they?”

Birdway squeezed her juice box sending an orange liquid flying from the straw and into Mark’s mouth next to her.

“Before, you said that this planet and this universe will eventually be destroyed. However, humans have already created something that is similar to a truly eternal life.”

“?”

“Original grimoires.”

Part 3

Birdway must have gotten tired of talking because she took a break there giving no concern for the pace Kanzaki wanted. She may have been fairly selfish due to constantly being surrounded by subordinates as the boss of a magic cabal.

“I’m hungry. I think I’ll eat the emergency rations.”

“…Didn’t you just drink some juice?”

Kanzaki looked suspicious, but Birdway showed no sign of caring.

“That isn’t going to fill me up. Hey, Mark, bring out the emergency rations. I feel like the caramel ones.”

“Okay, okay,” Mark said as he reached into his pocket.

He pulled out a type of snack that was sold even in Japan. Subordinate work for a cabal seemed to be difficult in many different ways.

“Boss, as we are currently in zero gravity, please make sure you do not scatter them around. Be careful when you open the bag. If the bag bursts, this area will be filled with these snacks.”

“Give it a rest. It’ll be fine. Who do you think I am?”

Birdway accepted the bag of snacks with a sigh. She used her small hands to forcefully rip open the top of the bag.

However, they were in zero gravity.

The force she had exerted somehow caused the bag to spin around her hands like a back hip circle. In no time at all, the contents of the bag were set free and spread out throughout the narrow space.

Kanzaki could not remain silent.

“So who am I supposed to think you are now!? You just scattered them everywhere!!”

“This is my farewell gift to you. Be thankful while you eat them.”

“I cannot take this anymore. You in the formal clothes…Mark, was it? You are fine with me kicking this brat’s ass now, right!?”

“It is true that I would like to give her a slap right now, but if I leave this to you and a large battle breaks out, I have a feeling we will all be sent out into an area with no oxygen or pressure. I beg you to restrain yourself.”

As he spoke, Mark was quickly and accurately grabbing the floating snacks and returning them to the bag he had confiscated from Birdway. He seemed to be treating any that had not touched the floor as safe.

Meanwhile, Birdway puffed her cheeks out with dissatisfaction.

“…I’ve told you before, but that self-important look you have when you spout some logical argument pisses me off to no end.”

“Eh? Why are you grabbing my legs, boss!?”

“There has been a bit of research I have wanted to do for a while now. What happens if you perform a giant swing in zero gravity?”

With a shout, Mark started rotating around like a helicopter. This caused the snacks he had finally managed to gather up to scatter about once more which caused Kanzaki to snap.

“You damn brat!! Those things have been getting caught in my hair and it is very annoying!!!!”

“Shut up. Japan customarily gives you your food for free if it has a hair in it, right? Then you’re actually quite lucky.”

“That is not the same thing as winning something with your popsicle and it has nothing to do with the current situation!!”

“Don’t go off on tangents during my independent research, you old hag. Ha ha, this is amazing, Mark. With no gravity, even I can swing a large man around for extended periods of time.”

“B-boss? The way my rotation speed keeps rising as time goes by is quite frightening. Could you please forgive me now?”

“Hm? My feet have actually left the ground. I can’t brace myself on the ground while in midair, so I actually can’t stop.”

“Nyaahhh!!”

After that cat-like scream, Mark’s upper body collided with the wall of the small area.

Birdway seemed to be satisfied with having played around with him and she grabbed a few snacks floating about and tossed them into her mouth before heading back to her seat.

Kanzaki was dangerously close to reaching for Shichiten Shichitou, but she stopped herself just in time.

She would fight that girl once they arrived at Orlentz’s base.

“You said that Orlentz was using Original grimoires…”

“Yes. It is true that, of all the objects in the world, those are the ones that currently seem as if they will last the longest,” Birdway responded cheerfully to Kanzaki’s question.

Grimoires.

A grimoire was a book filled with magical knowledge. The ones known as Originals were especially dangerous. They held such high quality foreign knowledge that they were said to “contaminate” the brain of anyone who read them. In all seriousness, they were able to forcibly demolish a human’s personality.

Normally, the majority of grimoires used for studying were copies. A copy was a grimoire where the purity of its knowledge had been lowered from the Original. Depending on their purpose, there were countless variations in how much of the Original was used within a copy, so there were many different subtypes scattered about like they were some type rogue computer virus.

“Hmm. Come to think of it, that’s pretty risky too,” said Birdway lightly. “Despite the fact that reading an Original is said to destroy your personality, there are people who go out of their way to create copies. Do you know what happens when they do? Towards the end, they seem to faint while they foam at the mouth, but their fingertips continue to move like some kind of machine.”

“Yes, but it seems certain people with a special disposition have a natural mechanism in their brain that defends against the contamination from an Original.”

“Like the Index Librorum Prohibitorum? That too is pretty risky. Just how many defensive mechanisms does she have put inside her? You can call them religious defensive walls all you want, but one wrong step could modify her mind to the point that she loses all her functionality as a human dozens of times over.”

“…That’s true.” Kanzaki Kaori fell silent for a second. “But I am asking you what that has to do with Orlentz’s theory.”

“No one can destroy an Original.” Birdway grabbed a juice box from out of the air and tossed it away again once she realized it was already empty. “An Original is a collection of high purity magical knowledge and each page, topic, and diagram acts like a high level magic circle. You could say it is an autonomous magical device. They gather up the faint power leaking from leylines, amplify it hundreds of times, and create thorough defenses and counter attacks in order to ensure that not even a tiny bit of the knowledge held within itself is destroyed. This effect does not allow any natural weathering of the parchment and prevents it from being destroyed even if all sorts of magicians work together in a group.”

“What would happen to them if they were brought away from the planet? If they were brought well away from the earth where the leylines they draw power from are, that theory could possibly be overturned.”

“I don’t know, but if an Original would lose its power from that, I doubt the defensive functions of the Original would allow you to take it from the earth.”

“So why are you bringing up the Originals anyway? Was a description of eternal life found in one of them?”

“No.” Birdway lightly shook her index finger. “Orlentz turned toward Originals for a much deeper reason than that. He was wondering if the defensive functions of an Original could be applied to the human body.”

“…That’s suicide,” Kanzaki said in a half-groan.

Birdway sighed and said, “It seems there was a method of creating armor in ancient China using bundles of paper. They were made in the same way that cheap bulletproof vests are, but it’s said that they may have been heavier than an actual metal suit of armor. It’s perfect, don’t you think? You just have to switch out the random leaflets with something else and you have the dream come true of Original armor.”

“What was he going to do about the contamination due to the high purity magical knowledge?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“Even expert magicians will get headaches so bad they almost pass out from just a glance at one page. If you had those things surrounding you at all times, you would be destroyed from within long before any outside factor could do anything to you.”

“Hm? Did you forget what you were told in your mission description?” Birdway tapped at her temple with her index finger. “Orlentz’s theory has already failed and is of no use.”

“…”

“And that’s exactly what it is. His theory was destroyed. In a way, he may have overcome the fear of death and is living in a utopia, but it isn’t a way of living I want to think about.”

“I was told Orlentz was continuing his failed research and that there was a danger of him getting many civilians involved.”

“I haven’t heard anything about that. All we know is that this Orlentz went a bit crazy while trying to create his Original armor and started planning to make Original equipment on an even larger scale. He seems to claim that paintings on the walls of ruins being based on religious legends rather than simple designs is proof that they tried to interfere with the king’s body somehow by turning his tomb into an Original grimoire.” Birdway twisted her lips into a mocking smile. “So maybe the base we’re headed to has been turned into a pyramid. I believe there was a custom of burying many commoners alive in the king’s tomb in order to serve him in the afterlife. He may have named it Bifrost or something like that. That’s the rainbow bridge connecting to Valhalla in Norse mythology.”

“…”

Kanzaki Kaori’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Just how much had his theory failed?

However, writing the contents of a grimoire on an even larger object would coincide with the Original grimoire’s drive to spread its knowledge to as many people as possible. It was possible the Original’s protective functions would help Orlentz to a certain extent.

“If the base itself has been turned into armor, this could be quite bad. If it has the same toughness as an Original, none of humanity’s current techniques can destroy it.”

“Theoretically, yes. But I doubt it would be that easy to pull off in reality.”

“Why?”

“None of this was mentioned in your mission description, right? You said they had sent you to the battlefield without telling you anything because they thought you could win without knowing any of it. In other words, your superiors knew that the situation was not that bad.”

“Now that you mention it…”

“Originals are not so easily won over. I can’t see a grimoire’s defensive functions allowing its pages to be split up as would be necessary to create a large scale Original armor.”

“But it is a fact that he has an Original there.” Kanzaki sighed heavily. “Grimoires ally themselves with those who will spread their knowledge and oppose those who will seal it. That means we may have to fight the defensive functions of the Original he has when we enter his base regardless of whether he has created armor out of it or not.”

“Oh? Who says we of the Dawn-Colored Sunlight plan to kindly seal the Originals’ knowledge?”

“You damn brat…”

“Just kidding.” Birdway stuck her tongue out a bit. “We have no real interest in Orlentz’s Original. In fact, we hold a kind of hatred toward the grimoires that contaminate the world. After all, we are technically not a mere magic cabal.”

“?”

“Just so you know, I was not kidding there.”

“Boss,” said Mark as he stared out the small window while standing next to Birdway. “It seems we will be arriving soon. Make your preparations.”

“Will do.”

The magic cabal boss started to stand up from her seat and ended up spinning around in midair the instant she kicked off the ground. She appeared to be enjoying the zero gravity environment, but Mark unassumingly grabbed the edge of her skirt and advised her to not let it spread out.

“Hey, Mark, bring out my Symbolic Weapon already. The cup. I need to finish things with that giant-chested Saint when we arrive.”

“Kids just say whatever they want, don’t they? …Well, I can understand that you can’t leave this issue of size alone due to our difference in age, but let me be frank with you. They will grow on their own if you give them time, so you don’t need to rush things. …Although there are people whose never grow.”

“…Mark, change of plans. Not only is she treating me like a child, but she’s implicitly declaring her tits the winners, so she must be executed for her crimes. Bring out the magic sword that acts as a conductor’s baton. I’ll take the Hebrew text from the cross medal and draw a sigil to blow her to pieces.”

“I don’t quite get what you’re trying to say, but…cross medal? Can you not draw a magic circle without staring at a diagram of a cross medal? Even though you’re the boss of a Golden-style magic cabal?”

“It must be nice not having to prepare anything because you’re some idiotic muscle-bound woman who can do nothing but swing her sword around and shake her tits. I assume you don’t mind if I call in a bit of power from Michael.”

“Oh, so the young lady has so little confidence in her own abilities that she has to try and look good by borrowing power from one of the major sources.”

The situation seemed to be getting troublesome once more and Mark headed for the door yet again. The two girls turned their gazes in his direction, but…

“No, no.” Mark shook his head. “It seems we have finally arrived.”

Part 4

The magician Orlentz Trice’s preparations were complete.

He already knew that foreign materials had gotten inside the container bringing in resources. He had left it alone because he had no way of destroying just the one container. If he did destroy it, he would temporarily lose the route it was travelling along and would destroy all of the containers on route as well as their contents.

He had expected enemy magicians to show up eventually.

He had prepared for just such an occasion.

An Original grimoire.

His project to split apart the pages and make armor out of it had not been completely successful. However, by putting a metal plate under the large leather book cover, he had tricked the Original’s automatic defensive functions into protecting the book with that thick book cover that could sort of be used as a breastplate.

Orlentz’s base was in an environment that the power from leylines that was the source of Originals’ power had an exceedingly hard time reaching. However, that acted in Orlentz’s favor. Originals were so powerful that Orlentz could not deal with them normally, so it was perfect to have the Original weakened a bit.

He could take out a normal magician.

Equipped with his grimoire, Orlentz stood before the container that had entered his base. His enemies may have been attempting some sort of Trojan horse plan, but they would be the ones who would experience hell.

(I just have to wait for them to come out.)

Orlentz tapped his fingers against the Original equipped on his chest as he thought.

(By defeating them fairly, they cannot complain when I show them despair.)

He heard a clunk as the container door opened.

And…

Orlentz Trice was suddenly blown away by a tremendous beam of light.

Technically, the attack may not have been aimed at Orlentz. After all, beams of light shot out evenly in every direction destroying the outer walls of the container. The container exploded outward as if spreading out like a giant flower. An instant before the explosion, a man in formal clothing could be seen escaping the container with an annoyed look on his face.

Having been knocked away by that one attack, Orlentz was spinning around in the zero gravity environment.

In the center of the explosion, two figures were pressing two types of swords together. One a katana and the other a western sword.

“What? You didn’t come here champing at the bit to defeat me?” Orlentz barely managed to say as he foamed at the mouth.

The battling girls’ response was an exceedingly simple one.

“Quiet, you damn magician!! I’ll deal with you later!!!!”

“Quiet, you damn magician!! I’ll deal with you later!!!!”