Chapter 2: After School. Break_Time.[Part 8]

Having changed back into their usual clothing, Index and Kazakiri's moods were completely different. Index was jumping around in excitement after seeing the huge poster, and Kazakiri was in complete despair, with the depressive sound effect of a New Year's Eve bell. Being seen naked and having an embarrassing photo taken, that double whammy was quite a hit to her.

"Here, Hyouka, each one takes half."

Index didn't care about Kazakiri's response as she folded the group of 16 photo stickers in half along the fold crease, and handed 8 of them to Kazakiri. To Kazakiri, the photos of her were so embarrassing that she wanted to slam her head against the wall and die. However, she also wanted to treasure the photos that she took together with her friend like a precious gift; her face revealing a complicated expression.

"It sure feels like a day passed by really quickly."

Index stared at the half portion of photo stickers that she had, and lamented,

"Is this school life? Hm…so good."

"No no no. School is never fun. School is boring classes and hellish exams."

Truthfully, having lost his memory, Kamijou didn't remember anything, but he still managed to say it in a convincing manner.

Index showed a delighted look to Kamijou, and said,

"Being able to think that such a life is boring is already a blessing."

"…You're right."

After thinking for a while, Kamijou nodded his head.

The world that Index originally lived in was completely different from the world that Kamijou lived in, this was undeniable. Though it was unknown whether that world had school education, any future planning like 'getting into a good school and getting a good job in a good company' was probably just daydreaming.

To her, an ordinary school life was like a treasure that she could never ever get. Among it contained a peaceful world without war, and the warm times that were criticized as boring.

If they continued to stay inside the playground, the coins would continue to disappear at an amazingly fast rate, so Kamijou and the rest decided to move out first.

It had been a while since they had walked into the shop, but the warmth of the underground street didn't look like it was going to subside anytime soon. However, there was gradually an increase in number of students wearing plainclothes as compared to uniforms as they were walking on the path. Seemed like they went back to their dorms before coming back out to play. There was no sunlight in the underground street, and the lights were always set at a certain brightness, so they could only use that to experience the passing of time. In order to prevent themselves from blocking other people's path, Kamijou leaned against the wall as he talked to Index and Kazakiri. At that moment, a high school student-looking girl ran past them. The girl was wearing a Judgment armband.

"…hm?"

Kamijou casually looked away, only to find the Judgment member stopping and glaring at him. Kamijou was shocked as the girl angrily stormed forward at him in large steps.

Then, the girl mightily stood right in front of Kamijou, and said,

"Hey, how many times have I told you already? Why are you still standing around casually? Hurry up and escape! HURRY!"

Suddenly being scolded, not just Kamijou, even Index and Kazakiri were shocked.

(Eh…hold on, did she talk to me just now?)

The first thing that this stranger said to him made Kamijou all confused. On seeing this, the Judgment member frowned and said,

"Telepathy! Couldn't you hear it!?"

The girl was so nervous that her face was becoming red with anxiety. Index and Kazakiri let out a 'WAH!' and 'KYAH!' at the same time. Both of them frantically looked around, saying,

"Ah…that's strange…I seemed to have heard…it came from nowhere…"

"Uu…I seemed to have heard a voice in my mind…"

Index and Kazakiri let out an incredulous look, with Kamijou being the only one with no response at all.

"Ah…telepathy, it's that ability to talk to others from far away, right? Komoe-sensei seemed to have said it before during remedial that there are many types of information transfer abilities, like reading body currents, hearing low frequency sounds from outside a domain…but this is like a wired telephone, isn't it?"

Kamijou raised his right hand and placed it in front of Index, and Index revealed a surprised look. Seemed like the telepathy ability was cut off, so Index couldn't hear the 'voice' in her mind.

A wired call.

Like what the name implied, it manipulated air vibration to create a frequency, an invisible 'wire'. That was also one of the information transfer abilities. The 'wire' was like an acoustic tube, able to pass the vibrations created by the 'sound', and passing it out through a 'connected circuit' in mid-air, ending up with the ones standing at the exit being the only ones able to hear it. As the 'wire' was invisible, Kamijou didn't understand the path, but it was likely that Kamijou's right hand touched the telepathy 'wire' between him and the girl, so only Kamijou couldn't hear it.

"Speaking of which, is the research on telepathy still ongoing? Didn't I hear that with the prevalence of handphones, it's becoming obsolete together with pagers?"

"…You."

The Judgment girl was popping blue veins out of her forehead, and said,

"Why can't my 'voice' reach you? Never mind, I'll just say it to you then."

The girl stepped towards Kamijou.

"Eh?"

"Right now, there're terrorists in this underground street. A red alert was issued from above, and the arrest operation shall start in…902 seconds. At that time, we'll lower the separation wall and seal off the entire underground street, and there'll be a gunfight. Thus, I was ordered to instruct everyone to escape as soon as possible, do you understand me now?"

On hearing that, Kamijou couldn't help but be shocked.

Index didn't understand what a red alert was at all, and though Kazakiri did, she was revealing a look of utter disbelief, and both of them could only stand around blankly after hearing the Judgment member's words.

"If the terrorist knows of the arrest operation, the terrorist may try to escape, so we can't broadcast it outside, and can only use my telepathy. You people also need to remain natural as you escape, don't make too much noise."

"Oh…giving telepathy to people other than the terrorist? Eh? So that means you people know how the terrorist looks?"

"As an ordinary civilian, you don't have to worry about this. The warrant we have has a photo, so there's no need to worry."

The Judgment member pulled out a foldable cell phone and flipped it open. The screen displayed a photo, and thinking logically, one would assume that it was the photo of the terrorist. Kamijou got close as he tried to take a look, but the girl had already folded the photo back with one hand.

"Alright, alright, since you understand, hurry up and leave. There's about 800 seconds till the sealing of the underground street."

The Judgment girl said these words before leaving.

Kamijou again looked around. The students who heard the 'voice' were obviously looking panicky, but they still followed the instructions of moving towards the exit in a natural way. However, to an outsider, it was like they were taking a stroll, doing an evacuation drill as if it was just practice.

"Oi oi, this is troublesome…let's get out of here first, Index."

There was no need to attract trouble. Kamijou decided to take Index and Kazakiri along and quickly leave the place.

However…

(…Ah, hold on, this is bad.)

While arriving in front of the staircase exit of a certain department store, Kamijou inadvertently stopped in his tracks. The two girls stared at Kamijou suspiciously.

There were 4, 5 fully-armed male Anti-Skill member standing near the exit. They were all clad in black, wearing safety helmets and goggles on their heads, looking like robots. Each of them was holding a rifle that Kamijou had never seen before.

Index wasn't a resident of this city. Even though it was unknown who had issued her temporary ID, her real identity was still of an illegal immigrant.

If she was investigated…she may be arrested.

Normally, they wouldn't be so mindful, there was no problem for Index to walk around like an ordinary person. However, it was now an emergency, Anti-Skill had set up a checkpoint, and any suspicious personnel would be thoroughly investigated. If so, they may discover that Index was an outsider.

Truthfully, during events like the Olympics or the World Cup, due to the heightened security, even drunks who weren't affecting the operations of the event would be arrested. Right now, the security situation with Index was similar to that.

Though he didn't know who was the terrorist who had snuck in, because of this, Kamijou and company were in a dilemma now. If they were to casually approach the exit, they may be arrested by Anti-Skill, but if they were to stay in the underground street, they may end up involved in a gunfight.

(Sigh, looks like we can only move in head on. Being arrested by Anti-Skill and getting involved in a gunfight, at least the former's a bit better. Damn it, it's irritating to have to make such a rough decision.)

Though there was an element of danger to this, Kamijou decided to leave first.

However, he was unable to finish this idea.

An anomaly in this everyday life blocked his exit.

"—Found you."

They could hear a woman's voice.

The problem came from within the wall that's empty.

Kamijou turned around, and was momentarily stunned. At approximately his eyes' height, there was tea-colored mud that was as big as a palm. It looked like chewing gum that had been spit on the wall.

And right in the middle of the mud was a human eyeball.

The eyeball acted like a camera lens, moving continuously.

On seeing the eyeball, Kazakiri was stunned. Maybe it was because she couldn't believe what she had just seen, she just treated it like a fake eyeball that was made of glass. Truthfully, Kamijou was almost the same. The back of his brain felt numb, making him unable to process the information in front of him.

Only Index didn't seem to be surprised, as she inspected the eyeball calmly.

The surface of the mud trembled slightly like ripples, making a 'sound'.

"Hoho…hohoho…hohohohoho. The Index, Imagine Breaker, key to the Imaginary Number District. Which should I choose? I can choose anyone of them? Hoho, how troublesome. Too many options can also be quite a bother."

The woman's voice was rather bewitching, yet ridiculously heavy, such that it made one think of a songstress who's vocal cords were damaged from smoking.

But that dispirited tone suddenly changed drastically.

"—Never mind, I just need to kill you all anyway."

It became an overly rough voice even if it was from a pub in the suburbs.

Kamijou was unable to tell where the mysterious invader was, and he had no idea whether the mysterious block of mud was of esper power or magic.

But Index said without hesitation,

"A human image that's made from dirt—this spell that's interpreted from the Kabbalah is similar to those that we Anglicans use, especially the Jewish guardian stone golem that was forced to be a guardian angel of England."

Facing Index's sudden change, Kamijou was unable to respond quickly. Even though he was about to ask her for an explanation, he didn't understand anything at all.

So, Kamijou decided to ask this first.

"Stone golem…you mean this eyeball?"

He inadvertently pointed towards the mud and eyeball that was on the wall. Though he wanted to puke at such a disgusting thing, at least it was not life-threatening. Besides, in Kamijou's mind, a 'stone golem' was one of those huge stupid stone puppets that appeared in games.

However, Index continued to stare at the eyeball, and said,

"It was said that God created humans through dirt. The stone golem is the end product of this theory. This magician must have created a stone golem that focuses on the eyeballs in order to search and monitor. Normally, the caster can only create one such stone golem, but if there's only one eyeball, the composition to create a stone golem will drastically decrease, allowing the caster to create even more of it."

After Index finished, the eyeball started to shake the surface and let out a bewitching laugh.

Kamijou didn't understand the secret behind this, but at least he managed to understand that the mud and eyeball were like a remote control, there was someone controlling it.

"If so…this magician is the terrorist?"

"Hoho."

The mud laughed.

"A terrorist? A terrorist!? Hoho, this so-called terrorist, are you talking about someone who does this?"

PAM! With this sound, the mud and eyeball exploded, melted into the wall and disappeared.

The next moment,

BOOM! The entire underground street trembled violently.

"What…?"

Kamijou felt like he was sitting on a boat in the midst of a storm as he started to tumble around. From the corner of his vision, he saw Kazakiri holding tightly onto Index, who almost fell down.

The tremendous tremor again struck the underground street as if it had been hit by a direct cannon hit. The center of the attack seemed to be far away, but it instantly spread throughout the entire underground.

Copious amounts of dust scattered down from the ceiling.

After the lights flicker twice, all the lights disappeared at the same time. Several seconds later, the emergency red lights were lit, vaguely illuminating the surroundings.

The crowd that had been slowly walking towards the exit as if it were an evacuation drill instantly collapsed into chaos. The sound of wild bull-like footsteps could be heard.

After that, a low, heavy sound echoed throughout.

Anti-Skill lowered the separation wall a lot sooner than expected.

It was unknown why the separation wall was abnormally thick, maybe it was used to prevent flooding in the underground street during a flood, or maybe it was meant to be an air-raid shelter. The steel doors descended down from the ceiling, slowly sealing the exit. The rear end of the escaping crowd got cut off, and the separation wall touched the floor just like that. The students that were nearly crushed and the students that didn't manage to escape were in a frenzy as they continued to hit the thick and heavy steel wall. Some of them rushed over to the Anti-Skill personnel who were at the checkpoint.

They were shut in.

The crowd was squeezed in at the narrow exit, forming a human wall, so Kamijou and company were unable to get near. If this situation was already anticipated by the enemy, it seemed like the enemy had already confirmed Kamijou and company's location, the layout and the crowd flow. Had the enemy collected all this information through the mud eyeballs scattered all over the place?

"Come on, let the party begin—"

From the corroded mud, a woman's voice could be heard. It was like a pre-mortem cry made by the 'destroyed eye', yet also sounds like a broken trumpet.

"—continue to scream in this foul smelling grave of dirt."

Again, a larger impact shook the entire underground street.