Shopping

Aoko carefully discussed a strategy with Alice at the café to lure Touko out in person.

Aoko's plan was to take the field herself and crush all of Touko's defenses head-on. When the time came, Touko would surely lose her temper and come out to face Aoko herself.

Alice disagreed with this plan. Since it involved her property, she wanted to transform the entire amusement park into an Otherworld. That way, if Touko was hiding somewhere in the park, Alice would find her immediately and capture her.

Wasn't that just as solitary as me?

Aoko thought this with a headache, having forgotten that Alice, like herself, was a lone wolf. In the initial plan for dealing with Touko's traps, they had actually intended to fight separately, with no sign of cooperation at all.

But after thinking it over carefully, Aoko realized it was not impossible. As long as Touko did not get carried away, she was generally an extremely calm person. Their goal was to make Touko lose her head and jump out on her own, so it made perfect sense for Alice to act alone while Aoko lay in ambush "nearby."

To that end, Aoko took out a Teleportation scroll she had previously spent a 5th-level spell slot to create. As long as Touko appeared, or Alice encountered danger, she would immediately enter the scene and join in the righteous beatdown.

Once the broad plan had been settled, Aoko briefly explained it to Alice. Alice fell silent for a while, then expressed some surprise that Aoko could actually use a spatial transfer spell. She asked whether this was part of the Fifth Magic.

"It isn't," Aoko explained. "Although the Fifth Magic can achieve something similar, the costs are completely different. There's no value for money at all."

After receiving Aoko's answer, Alice said she could accept that.

The time was set for tonight. KistyLand was relatively close to both this café, "Dawn," and Misaki High School. That was also why Alice had made the unprecedented decision to come looking for Aoko at school today.

Still, Aoko guessed that Alice might also have been curious about Aoko's high school. Aoko had told her some interesting things about Misaki High School before, perhaps stirring the girl's curiosity.

The specific time for the operation was set for after eleven tonight.

That meant they still had quite a long time to pass before then, and Aoko could not possibly waste today's spell slots copying new scrolls.

So, she decided to go shopping with Alice.

After parking her motorcycle in the lot, Aoko took the initiative to link arms with Alice and head out onto the street.

The two of them drew the attention of nearby pedestrians, who could not help stopping to stare. Alice and Aoko were undoubtedly both rare, peerless beauties.

What was even rarer was that their styles were entirely different, yet when they walked together arm in arm, they looked perfectly harmonious, like a painting by a master artist.

It was a beauty that transcended gender. Both men and women were drawn to them.

At first, Aoko had thought it was rather nice, giving her the feeling of being the center of attention. After all, she usually did not attract this much notice when she went out alone. But once she made it clear that she and Alice were close, the people around them began to seem a little abnormal.

Aoko looked at Alice's face. Although Alice still wore her usual expressionless look, Aoko could sense that she was starting to become unhappy.

After all, Alice was accustomed to and preferred quiet surroundings. A little shopping would have been fine, but being watched by so many people like this could only make her uncomfortable.

Aoko raised a hand, circulated a little magical energy, and snapped her fingers with a snap. An invisible ripple spread outward, and the people around them suddenly seemed to remember something important they had forgotten to do, hurrying away from the area.

"Suggestion magecraft?" Alice asked. "It was rather sophisticated."

"Mm... actually, it's a type of bounded field magecraft," Aoko said. "Among my grandfather's belongings was a book about Thought Key magecraft from the Continent. It described a bounded field for 'keeping people away.' I drew on some of its principles to develop this simple bounded field magecraft, which activates using a certain sound as its trigger."

"Of course, since I can't connect to the Thought Disk, my magecraft is only a crude imitation. It can only deal with ordinary people." Aoko spread her hands helplessly.

Alice merely nodded slightly. She was rather satisfied with Aoko, who had learned magecraft alongside her. In Alice's opinion, this kind of people-repelling magecraft was far more convenient than ordinary suggestion magecraft or large-scale people-repelling bounded fields. Thus, Aoko's talent for magecraft had earned Alice's approval.

"Ah, right," Aoko said as if she had suddenly remembered something. "I found a pretty good shop before. Want to go take a look together?"

In order to eliminate the obstacles around her sister in advance, Touko chose, after "careful consideration," the magecraft testing ground of a former friend. Touko had sent a familiar to investigate it and discovered that important magical tools were still there. If she openly took that item away, that friend would surely come to inspect the place in person.

The leyline node she had destroyed before had already been repaired by her little sister, and the doll guarding it had also been easily defeated. However, this had not surprised Touko. She had merely wanted to use that opportunity to test her sister's combat ability.

If one looked at it "on the surface," her sister's magecraft was undoubtedly incapable of dealing with Beo. But Touko did not know whether Aoko had already mastered the Aozaki family's Magic. To Touko, that was the greatest uncertainty. She had to find a way to force out the truth of her sister's "Law" in advance. Therefore, eliminating the support around Aoko beforehand was something she had to do.

Thinking of this, Touko could not help quickening her work. To be safe, she would not only need to send Beo out tonight, but also prepare some special tools to ensure that Alice Kuonji could not interfere with her actions before she defeated Aoko Aozaki.

However, she had only just reached the halfway point when she saw the bird-shaped doll familiar she had sent out to scout fly in.

Touko removed the image storage device from the familiar and inserted it into something resembling an antique projector, then examined the footage it had recorded.

When she saw her little sister and Alice Kuonji holding hands and seemingly happily walking through the shopping street, Touko accidentally crushed her scouting familiar.

In the middle of the night, Alice Kuonji arrived at the entrance to KistyLand, dressed in her classic outfit.

She raised her wrist, and several chattering gray starlings landed on her fingertips, seeming to report something.

"...Is that so?" Alice's expression grew slightly colder. "The mirror shard of the Mirror of Afternoon Nap was destroyed..."