Restrictions / Scheming

Someone shouted, and the aunt was so frightened that she immediately lay down on the ground, covering her head with her hands.

"Help! Help! There's a war! There's a war!"

She stared wide-eyed in terror and screamed incoherently.

An eerie silence fell over the group playing games in the dormitory.

"We're doomed, I think we're going to get beaten up." Kuroko broke out in a cold sweat and looked to Rikku for help.

"It's alright, we just need to create illusions for her."

Rikku performed a series of actions, and the game screen changed.

"Resident Evil."

Countless zombies rushed out.

With a scream, the dormitory supervisor scrambled away.

"Is this really a good idea?"

It's safe for now, but I feel a little guilty about scaring away the dormitory supervisor.

And unexpectedly, the serious and terrifying dormitory supervisor was scared away by this kind of game.

"She seems to have taken it seriously, but she'll probably realize it after she leaves the dorm."

Su Lin calmly stood up, and then, in front of the others, slowly turned into Kurotama.

The visible changes in shape shocked Kuroko immensely.

"You, you, you..."

"What's wrong with me? Besides being able to separate, I can also transform directly. Luckily, the game screen blocked it just now, otherwise, if the dormitory supervisor had seen my true form, I would have definitely gotten a scolding."

It was quite late, and everyone had lost the mood to continue playing around. So, Railgun and Kuroko went back to their dorm to rest.

In the days that followed, Random Disorder Incident occurred frequently, and the frequency of these incidents increased.

The initial small-scale earthquakes and object displacements, followed by injuries, all occurred within a few days.

Kuroko, a member of the Judgement, begins to investigate this matter, and Kurotama, through their introduction, meets Haruue Harue... a slightly naive and cute girl.

However, Haru-ue-san always acts strangely whenever there is Random Disorder Incident, which makes Kuroko suspect that she is the one who created the Random Disorder Incident.

Chuharu, however, clearly disagreed with this view, insisting on protecting her classmate and believing that Haru was definitely not the cause of the incident.

Kuroko and Chuharu started arguing over this trivial matter.

In Kurotama's eyes, this was just a child throwing a tantrum.

Of course, the incident developed in a positive direction, meaning that Haruue was not the criminal.

As the Random Disorder Incident worsened, through questioning MAR Captain, who is also the director of the Advanced Situation Rescue Team's affiliated research institute, Teresutina learned that the incident pointed to Kihara Gensei. Kihara Gensei is the culprit behind the uncontrolled experiments on ability users that left the children unconscious to this day.

According to her, everyone also learned that Kiyama Harumi had been released on bail.

After investigating Kihara Gensei's thesis, Kuroko learned a terrible truth.

That is, the Chaotic Opening is the result of the uncontrolled resonance of the AIM Diffusion Field of the same system. And those ten children, after losing consciousness, may have lost control of their abilities. Once they resonate with other ability users of the same system, the scope of influence will expand to 78 percent of the students in the entire Academy City, creating Chaotic Opening that is enough to destroy the entire city.

Although this information was terrifying, Kihara Gensei had already disappeared without a trace, and all data had been lost.

"So, unable to understand the situation, they resort to insults?"

Railgun asked Kuroko a question.

"That's about right."

"All right."

I shut down my computer and checked the time; it was already very late.

After falling asleep, Railgun naturally didn't want to give up, so while Kuroko was sleeping and having some embarrassing dreams, she secretly got up and prepared to go to the closed research facility alone to investigate.

However, when Railgun reached the dormitory entrance, Kurotama's voice suddenly came from beside her.

"Aren't you going to take me with you on this kind of thing?"

Chapter 230 Restrictions

"Kurotama, you..."

"Yeah, I know what you're up to. After all, I overheard the conversation in the dorm earlier. I figured Misaka Mikoto Upper Rank One."

Kurotama was surprised by the way Railgun smiled, "You, how did you know me..."

"Do I even need to guess? You're just that kind of person."

"..."

It seems I understand it quite thoroughly. Is it still Kurotama's intuition?

Slightly confused, Railgun sighed and said, "Okay, but my abilities are actually more suited to this kind of thing."

She put on a frog mask that could only cover her face.

"Look, a perfect disguise."

"Yeah, even a fool would know that the one who infiltrated the research institute was A Certain A Certain Scientific Railgun Level 5 from Academy City." Kurotama nodded and took out a simple mask as well. "I know it's useless, but at least it's some psychological comfort."

"Is... is it really that bad?"

"Certainly."

The research institute was not far away, and the two arrived at their destination quickly.

Using the electric current, she easily opened the combination lock. Once inside, Railgun assumed there was no power source and no one else would be there, so she removed her mask.

"I think there are still people, like... Kiyama Harumi."

"Eh, is... is that so? Could she really be the culprit?"

The two spoke softly, but Railgun's emotions still became a little agitated.

"No, she would never intentionally cause such a large-scale casualty incident. Even if she appeared here, there must be some legitimate reason."

As they walked to the old test bench, a figure came into their view.

"Mushan... Chunsheng."

"Is it you?"

Kiyama Harumi had just hung up the phone, saw the two of them but showed no surprise.

"Why are you here? You must be the culprit after all."

Railgun got excited.

"Calm down, don't activate the security system by discharging electricity."

Kurotama reached out and patted her shoulder, only to feel a slight tingling sensation.

"All right."

Railgun calmed down.

The two got into Kiyama Harumi's car and arrived at the hospital.

There, they met the children from before.

"You, who have peeked into my memories, should know the identities of these children, right?"

Standing in front of the glass window Kiyama Harumi asked Railgun a question.

"So, you really are the criminal who caused this Chaotic Opening?"

"Yes, that's right," Kiyama Harumi admitted.

"You..."

Just as Railgun was about to unleash her electric powers, an unexpected voice rang out.

"However, there are some reasons that are difficult to explain. Besides, this is a hospital, so please go easy on me if you're going to try to charm me."

"Who are you..."

Upon seeing the newcomer, Railgun was clearly taken aback.

Guatai?

Her anger dissipated instantly.

"The Meido Chaser." Kurotama saw him and uttered that name in his heart.

The other person stood at the corner and said very calmly, "Kihara Gensei is the culprit behind all the incidents. His sole purpose is to create Absolute Ability User, and he is willing to make any sacrifices for this goal. Refining Ability Crystallization and using them on selected individuals is his method for creating Level 6 espers. These children were also part of the experiments conducted for the purpose of refining crystals."

"The detonation experiment used to analyze the patterns of runaway abilities is just a superficial name. What you're seeing is actually an experiment using Ability Crystallization." Kiyama Harumi clenched his fists, his calm tone concealing anger.

"So, it was for that absurd and unrealistic experiment at LV6 that these children were turned into this?" Railgun's voice trembled with anger.

"All I can do is try my best to keep the children alive. Fortunately, it didn't take much time to gather them, and I still have some influence in this city..."

These words made Kurotama's face twitch.

Is that what you call saving face? That's too modest.

However, the next second, Kurotama's expression changed almost imperceptibly.

Because at that very moment, Kurisu Makise, who was working hard in her dormitory, stepped away from her work.

The dormitory lights were off; she had been using a tablet to perform formula calculations.

The final result of the calculation left her feeling somewhat incredulous.

This world supports time travel via text messages and memories, but not physical entities.

In other words, time travel, like the part-time warrior in Steins;Gate, where the body can directly travel back in time, is no longer possible.

Since a physical being cannot travel, it means she cannot change the time before she came into this world.

"If this conclusion is true, it means all my previous considerations were in vain. System, do you have any objections?"

Kurisu Makise leaned against the table, picked up her coffee, and took a sip. Finding the taste unpleasant, she added a piece of sugar and a packet of creamer.

Time travel has a greater impact on the workings of the world; excessive interference in history will have consequences that will be directly detected by the Demon God.

[However, previous use of the Phone Microwave revealed that the Worldline correction itself also corrected the history of the Demon God, making them unable to perceive the changes that occurred in the past. Therefore, the system can provide corresponding assistance, namely: high-level interference, using a higher level of power to manipulate the timeline of the entire A Certain Magical Index Worldview, causing it to rewind to the past.]

"Isn't that a huge price to pay?"

Upon seeing the system's message, Kurisu Makise already felt that things were getting a bit unreliable.

Generally speaking, anything involving the global level, even communicating with the World Will, requires an extraordinary amount of energy.

Not to mention that the world of A Certain Magical Index is a very advanced Worldview, in which even autonomous gods can be born.

Generally speaking, if a being from another world wants to conduct a high-level transaction with the world of A Certain A Certain Magical Index, the Demon God are fully qualified to speak on behalf of the entire world.

As she expected, the system provided the following answer:

[To manipulate the timeline of the A Certain A Certain Magical Index Worldview from a higher set of rules, and even rewind the time of the Demon God themselves, would require sacrificing at least all the energy obtained from the Black Bullet World. There's a probability of error in this process; if a mistake occurs, the Demon God are likely to become aware of the impact. However, it's certain that due to their status, even with Demon God authority, they cannot prevent time reversal. They will realize that their control over this universe is not absolute, and that there exist unknown entities from unknown regions capable of challenging their position in this world.]

"If I go to that extent, won't I incur the hostility of the Demon God?"

Kurisu Makise put down her black tea, feeling a slight headache.

"It may not be hostility; the specific choice depends on the individual Demon God."

"Alright, there's no need to go to such great lengths. Saving Misaka Sister isn't as important as my own safety. I'll just do what I can."

She's not a saint after all; she can't sacrifice herself to save others.

In the past, kindness was based on the premise of one's own safety. If one's own safety cannot be guaranteed, how can one talk about saving others?

Kurisu Makise washed her face, glanced at the time, and then disappeared from the spot.

———Divider Line———

P. S.: The previous chapters might be posted starting tomorrow at the latest. Also, the content of the first chapter is similar to the old version because I really didn't know how to write the beginning, and then I realized that the original beginning of this book was actually quite good. As for the world choice, I've basically decided on Charlotte. To be honest, having read this far, there's probably no need to go back and read the beginning, lol.

Chapter 231 Schemes

At the hospital, Kurotama was still listening to their conversation.

"With the equipment here, I found a way to wake these children up, but problems soon arose." Kiyama Harumi explained her process of saving the children. "Whenever they were about to wake up, the AIM Diffusion Field would show abnormalities, that is, the ability would go out of control, and it would also trigger the simultaneous outbreak of RSPK Syndrome."