Electromaster: "What? The Sisters Project? What's that?"
Misaka Mikoto frowned, puzzled. From the name, it sounded like it was related to her, but she had no recollection of such a thing.
Ding! The group leader has uploaded a memory file.
Ordinary Group Leader (Roxie Vale): "Railgun, you should take a look."
Ordinary Group Leader: "I just hope we're not too late."
Child of Nature (Brandon White): "I get why you're so anxious, but isn't it called the Absolute Ability Project?"
According to the calculations of the Tree Diagram supercomputer, if Accelerator killed Misaka Mikoto 128 times across 128 simulated battlefields, he would be able to evolve into an "Absolute Ability" user. But since there weren't 128 Misaka Mikotos, the focus shifted to the mass-produced Sisters.
By the same calculations, if he fought through twenty thousand battlefields and killed twenty thousand Misaka Sisters, Accelerator could ascend to Level 6.
It sounded unbelievable. Why would killing twenty thousand Sisters result in an upgrade? The claim that his ability would evolve through combat experience made little sense—after all, the Sisters offered no real resistance. How could slaughtering them like insects improve his powers?
In truth, the plan wasn't really meant to make Accelerator evolve. It was a smokescreen to cover up Aleister's true designs.
Ordinary Group Leader: "Ugh, don't overthink it. It all comes down to the same thing anyway."
Ordinary Group Leader: "Too bad the group's travel function isn't unlocked yet, or we could go help Railgun directly."
Rescuing the Sisters—that had always been one of her dreams.
As for Accelerator, she couldn't bring herself to condemn him too harshly. He hadn't wanted to kill the Sisters in the first place. He had repeatedly asked the researchers if this was really okay, if there wouldn't be a problem.
But then the first Sister carried out her orders and fired at him. The attack bounced back on her, killed instantly by the vector reflection he had set up. That was the first Sister he killed.
He had been shaken, stunned for a long time.
From any ordinary perspective, if someone is trying to kill you, killing them back is natural.
Even though the Sisters had emotions, the orders forced them to obey like robots. No matter how unwilling Accelerator was in the beginning, he couldn't resist. He had to convince himself they weren't human. After killing enough of them, he simply went numb.
If only the Sisters could have refused those orders—maybe…
But whether Accelerator was truly at fault, she didn't know how to judge.
Like Touma and Last Order had said, although the experiment was cruel and left Accelerator carrying the burden of sin, without him the Sisters would never have lived to see another day. They would never have known pain or life at all.
As for the researchers—were they wrong? To them, the Sisters were just data.
If the experiment succeeded, trading twenty thousand Sisters for one Level 6 would not have seemed like a mistake to them.
Different positions create different perspectives.
Roxie Vale shook her head. She could only hope Railgun would be able to resolve this problem herself.
It was a pity the travel function wasn't active. Otherwise, they could have gone to help her.
After all, against Accelerator's power, Railgun stood no chance.
Child of Nature (Brandon White): "???"
Child of Nature: "Do you even hear what you're saying?"
Brandon stared at Roxie, dumbfounded and shaken.
Child of Nature: "Did you eat some kind of Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit and stop thinking of yourself as human? Railgun's world is A Certain Magical Index! Don't forget that!"
Child of Nature: "Even putting aside those Magic Gods who can rewrite reality, Aleister himself is not someone to be trifled with!"
Ordinary Group Leader: "Crap! I forgot!"
Ordinary Group Leader: "Index really does have Magic Gods!"
Ordinary Group Leader: "If we went there and got noticed, we'd be dead for sure!"
Roxie slapped her forehead as Brandon's words sank in. Right—Index's world really did contain Magic Gods, beings who had reached the very pinnacle of the magical path.
Their power was not something the chat group could even compare to.
If they went unnoticed, fine. But if they were discovered, they'd be utterly doomed.
Uchiha Dance King: "Magic Gods?"
Evilest Spirit: "Magic Gods?"
Boil Dagu Into Soup: "Magic Gods?"
Come Be My Son: "Magic Gods?"
Glory of the Northern God: "Woof?"
Golden Flash: "Sounds like some insanely powerful beings… but to scare even the group leader and Brandon this much?"
Undefeated East: "Any existence tied to the name of a god is never simple."
Richest Man: "Really? Isn't a certain god of thunder just a mutt? picks nose.jpg"
Glory of the Northern God: "I am Thor, God of Thunder! For the glory of the northern gods!"
Richest Man: "Shut it. You're just a dog."
Uchiha Dance King: "Ignore this man and mutt. Keep going."
Uchiha Dance King: "I really want to know—how powerful are these so-called Magic Gods?"
Come Be My Son: "Gurararara… The old man wants to know as well."
Ordinary Group Leader: "Not just powerful—they're absurdly, outrageously powerful!"
Ordinary Group Leader: "In the lore, a Magic God is a special kind of magician who has completely stepped into the domain of the divine. They've mastered all magical knowledge and, through special rituals, elevated themselves to the realm of gods."
Ordinary Group Leader: "A fully realized Magic God possesses infinite power, able to overturn all laws. The very world shatters at their touch."
Child of Nature: "Life must end. Apples must fall downward. One plus one must equal two. These are the absolute laws of the world. Yet with the magic recorded in grimoires, a Magic God can destroy, reconstruct, and create even these."
Child of Nature: "One plus one could equal three. Apples could fall upward. The dead could be guaranteed resurrection."
Child of Nature: "Of course, that's within Railgun's world. In Index's cosmology, the world is layered with countless religious phases stacked upon one another, like filters covering reality."
Child of Nature: "Magic Gods can create phases at will, altering the world as they please."
Child of Nature: "So, even if we had the travel function right now, we couldn't just stroll into Index's world casually."
If magicians are beings born to pursue their wishes, then Magic Gods are what exist when those wishes are fully achieved.
And when a person's wish is entirely fulfilled—what remains for them?
Magic Gods long for the unknown. They yearn for the infinite.
If they were to discover the chat group's existence—if they learned of the countless worlds and the endless systems of power—it's likely they would pay any price to join.
(End of Chapter)