(Heartfelt thanks to Yume no Shouyou, Lei Xiang, Sanshan Ershui, Ten Million Year Lolicon, npctaojie, and Yunqi Qinggu for their tips!)
AST was an anti-Spirit unit!
A special force dedicated to killing Spirits!
In order to deal with Spirits, whose very existence posed an enormous threat to the world, AST had been granted the authority to use Manifestation Devices and CR-Units, turning each of its members into a magician with superhuman power to face those formidable Spirits.
Every member of AST had been carefully selected from ordinary civilians as someone with the aptitude to become a magician. Only after training and evaluations confirmed that they could skillfully operate a CR-Unit could they join AST.
After all, if they could not operate a CR-Unit, how could they fight with Spirits as their targets?...
As for those who ultimately failed to join AST and become part of the army of magicians, their memories had to be erased with Manifestation Devices, making them forget everything about AST and Manifestation Devices before returning to ordinary lives.
Whether it was AST, Manifestation Devices, or Spirits, all of them were secrets that ordinary people could not be allowed to know. Otherwise, they would inevitably bring tremendous chaos to the world.
Therefore, AST was not an organization one could join just because one wanted to, and naturally, it was not one Tobiichi Origami could leave just because she said so.
Of course, Tobiichi Origami could submit her request to AST's higher-ups. AST would not forcibly keep her, even though an outstanding magician was exceedingly rare. But AST was not a heartless corporation like DEM. It was a legitimate national Self-Defense Force, so it was impossible for them to refuse someone the right to leave.
However, once Tobiichi Origami submitted a request to leave AST and it was