This Really Is...

Luo Yifang sat on the sofa. When he saw Saten Ruiko manage to barely form a small fireball, he was too stunned to even react. In just a few short hours, Saten Ruiko had gone from half a mage apprentice to a true mage apprentice—at least she could make fireballs now! The core skill of a mage!

"Great! I did it, Senior Yifang!" Saten Ruiko held the fireball in her palm, feeling the light and heat it gave off, utterly thrilled.

The problem that had plagued her for so long had finally vanished into thin air! Though it was not an esper ability, Saten Ruiko had finally obtained her own—Personal Reality!

"I never expected you to be so gifted in magic." Luo Yifang affirmed Saten Ruiko's talent. This girl, who had always buried her inferiority deep in her heart, was truly beginning to emerge from the shadows of her past for the first time.

But Saten Ruiko's surprises for Luo Yifang did not end there. Her talent in both major specializations, Arcane and Elemental, was outstanding. Aside from her exceptional talent for Arcane spells, Saten Ruiko could also wield blazing flames and frost without any difficulty!

If this were Azeroth, she'd definitely be a Grand Magister... Luo Yifang blinked, wondering whether he might get the chance to visit Azeroth someday and bring something back for Saten Ruiko. After all, hadn't Paqi said that once SCP-4972 was modified, it could serve as a gateway between worlds?

"Wonderful! That means I'll be able to help Hatsuharu and the others in the future too!" Saten Ruiko tirelessly played with the flames in her hand—though this was actually quite dangerous. At her current stage, she still could not control the magic she released very well and could easily hurt herself. Otherwise, why were there so many mages who burned themselves while playing with fire? Flames might not be as unstable as Fel Energy or Shadow, but the chances of them going out of control were not low at all.

Seeing that the ball of fire in Saten Ruiko's hand was practically about to ignite her clothes, Luo Yifang's eyelid twitched. He hurriedly said, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, Saten-san, be careful! That fire is about to burn you!"

"It won't, Senior Yifang. I've got this under control!"

As she spoke, Saten Ruiko even waved the flame around recklessly, leaving Luo Yifang terrified—every appliance and figurine in his home came from the Myriad Worlds Mall. If they got burned, there was nowhere in Academy City to repair them, and he would have to pay Paqi to do it.

"Ahem, well, you should put the fire out first. It wouldn't be a big deal if you set my house on fire, but it'd be bad if you burned yourself..." Luo Yifang reminded her.

After hearing that magic could hurt her, Saten Ruiko hurriedly extinguished the flame, no longer quite so bold. "Senior Yifang, this fire can burn me too?"

"Obviously..." Luo Yifang was speechless. "Esper abilities can go out of control, and magic can too. And when it does, it's even more terrifying."

"Huh?" Saten Ruiko became a little intimidated.

"But that's only if you forcefully seek power beyond your control," Luo Yifang shrugged. "The world is fair, at least in this regard. No matter what kind of power it is, blindly coveting greater strength will never end well."

Saten Ruiko nodded as though she only half understood.

Checking the time, Luo Yifang said, "All right, that's about enough for today. You can go home and study the rest on your own. Come back once the mana in your body is enough to use Flame Strike once."

"Yes, Senior Yifang!" Saten Ruiko picked up her bag, happily gave him a salute, and skipped away.

When she reached the door, Saten Ruiko suddenly seemed to remember something. Turning around, she said to Luo Yifang, "Hey, Senior Yifang, can we come over to your place to play next time? Senior Misaka will definitely like the games you have here."

"You're welcome anytime." As far as Luo Yifang was concerned, the stuff would just sit there unused otherwise. There was no way he could play all the gaming equipment filling the room by himself at once.

After watching Saten Ruiko leave, Luo Yifang stretched and asked Paqi, "Paqi, what did you say we were supposed to do about those Misaka Sisters who got teleported away by SCP-4972?"

"You'll have to find them one by one. After all, no one knows where they were teleported to." Paqi spread her hands, indicating there was no shortcut to this matter.

"Ugh... damn... what a hassle..." Luo Yifang leaned back on the sofa and said helplessly, "There are so many places. How am I supposed to find them?"

Paqi thought for a moment before saying, "When the time comes, you can bring a Misaka Sister with you. If she can connect to the Misaka Network, it should speed things up considerably."

"Fine... But for now, I can finally deal with No. 2 without holding back." Luo Yifang rubbed his nose. "That guy gave me a strange feeling when we fought last time..."

After uncovering the truth behind the Misaka Sisters' disappearances, Luo Yifang planned to deal with Kakine Teitoku first. As long as he remained alive, the plan could be restarted at any moment. Although the disappearance of so many Sisters had temporarily halted the experiment, once they came to their senses, gathering another batch would not be difficult.

"Busu Dixin is something else too. She refused when I asked her to come help me directly and insisted on running around doing things herself." Although he understood Busu Dixin very well, her attitude of trusting no one but herself still left Luo Yifang slightly dissatisfied.

"Maybe she wants to make up for her mistakes with her own hands."

"All right, I'll get ready and head out. I heard the outdoor experiment is starting again tonight. The tracker I planted on Kakine Teitoku during our last encounter has finally come into play."

And so, a certain esper named "Accelerator" leisurely headed out to cause trouble.

"Hey, Frenda, are you done yet? This place is seriously boring!" Kinuhata Saiai leaned against the wall, impatiently flicking the coin in her hand.

Frenda was picking through things nearby, apparently looking for something. "Geez, geez, don't rush me. I'm trying to decide which bomb would be better. Their demands are such a pain—they insist on taking the target alive."

"All right, all right, it's seriously troublesome, so hurry up and finish it. There's still a movie tonight!"

Another one of those boring trashy movies? Frenda sighed inwardly. She had no idea why Kinuhata Saiai could enjoy those kinds of films so much every single time.

"Okay! Found it!" Frenda pulled an extremely inconspicuous item from a pile of dangerous explosives. "The anesthetic version I put so much effort into making! It was such a hassle that I only made a few ages ago, but I finally found it!"

"Totally workable! Then hurry up and install it, and we can wait for the 'target' to come back!" Kinuhata Saiai took out her phone to check the time. "Hey, hurry up! The 'target' will be here soon! They're seriously close!"

"Okay, okay, just give me a moment!"