Chapter 247: The Three Major Magical Forces
Academy City, Hound Dog Unit Headquarters.
Dressed in casual clothes, George was walking toward the deepest part of the headquarters—the data archive room. All the nearby surveillance systems failed under the influence of his electromagnetic force.
Although his body in this world was that of a girl, because he was penniless, the difference from being male didn't feel significant. He didn't have to deal with troubles like a heavy chest making him lean forward.
Bathing and such could also be easily managed with magic, so it wasn't too awkward.
As for clothing, he couldn't be like Misaka Mikoto or the Misaka Sisters, walking around in short skirts all day. He always wore a standard men's casual outfit, with a hat on top.
Unless someone looked closely, it was hard to tell his gender.
"Confuse the senses!"
He cast a confusion spell at the Hound Dog guards stationed at the archive room and walked in openly, skillfully beginning to search through the materials inside.
Thanks to the efforts of his split body in the Harry Potter world, he could now perform some simple spells without a wand or incantation. However, more advanced spells still required hand gestures.
Still, with the efforts of his split selves across various worlds, it shouldn't be long before he could perform all spells wandlessly and silently.
"This world truly has magic!"
George's eyes gradually lit up as he read the information on magic.
Due to concerns about hackers and ability users like Misaka Mikoto who could invade systems using their powers, institutions like the Hound Dog Unit kept paper copies of many important documents and research results in their archives.
Once George learned of this, he frequently snuck into the archive room to read sealed materials.
Today, he finally found clues about magic in the archives.
According to the materials he had in hand, there were many magical forces in this world. The largest among them were the three major forces of the Church: Roman Catholicism, Anglican Puritanism, and Russian Orthodox Church.
In addition to those, there were also many folk magic organizations and freelance magicians.
However, the materials didn't go into much detail about those magical organizations. They only briefly mentioned that these forces considered magic to be a kind of superpower, viewing magicians as another type of ability user.
Moreover, Academy City didn't seem to welcome magicians.
Likewise, the magical forces were not exactly peaceful with one another and suffered from intense internal conflicts.
"Most magicians are in the church? That makes things easy."
Finding these clues made things simple for George. As long as he captured a high-ranking magician from the church and read their memory, he could figure out the true nature of magic in this world.
Closing the document, George walked out of the archive room. He had already read most of the research materials stored there. Many of them were about superpowers, which were very useful for increasing his own power level.
"Subject 9981, it's time for your ability enhancement experiment."
He had just left the archive room when he encountered Kihara Amata in a white lab coat.
Kihara Amata looked at George with deep suspicion.
George would always use his abilities to block surveillance wherever he went, claiming that he didn't like being monitored, so Amata had no idea what George did while wandering around the base.
However, lately, every time he found George, he was near the archive room.
Even though the guards said they hadn't seen George, Amata still felt something was off.
"No problem."
George didn't refuse and obediently followed Kihara Amata to the laboratory.
Kihara Amata's ability enhancement experiments did indeed accelerate his power level growth. However, Amata wasn't just trying to boost his abilities—he also wanted to use his body for research to understand the reason for his mutation.
But for someone like George, who could read minds and extract thoughts, Amata's petty schemes were of course no secret.
"Soul Severing!"
As soon as they arrived at the lab, George cast the Soul-Severing Curse on Kihara Amata's back and skillfully used electromagnetic force to block the lab's surveillance.
The Soul-Severing Curse worked excellently on ordinary people. With the aid of his mental powers, George could flawlessly control Amata during every experiment and make him serve his purposes.
"Let's begin, but don't extract my blood. Also, modify some of the data."
Under George's command, Kihara Amata obediently carried out the ability enhancement experiment as instructed.
After the experiment, Kihara Amata looked at the report and stated:
"According to the data, if development continues for another two months, you'll break through to Level 5."
"Very good. Change the experiment result to two years."
George stood up from the machine and placed a small vial of blood into the experiment apparatus.
Modifying the experiment result would make Aleister Crowley, who was behind Kihara Amata, lower his guard against him.
As for the small vial of blood—it had been taken from another Misaka Sister and was used to substitute his own during each enhancement session.
He had no intention of letting Academy City get its hands on his real blood for research.
Naturally, George had secretly looked through Kihara Amata's memories. From those, he gained a much deeper understanding of Academy City.
The most important thing he learned was information about Aleister Crowley.
At first, he thought the upper echelons of Academy City were the Board of Directors—that they created Academy City and developed the superpowered individuals.
But in reality, there was only one true ruler of Academy City, and only one creator—Aleister Crowley, chairman of the Board.
Kihara Amata and the Hound Dog Unit were directly under Aleister's command.
From Amata's memories, Aleister seemed omnipotent, maintaining meticulous control over all of Academy City while suspended in a life support capsule in District 7.
George had reason to suspect that the Misaka Sister experiments, and the surveillance by those small robots, all originated from Aleister.
Anyone capable of creating such a massive Academy City, developing so many superpowered beings, and possessing such terrifying power, was far from simple. Aleister's strength was unfathomable.
Therefore, George did not act rashly. Instead, he began to lie low, passing false information about himself through his control of Kihara Amata.
During his regular activities, he would subconsciously use magnetic fields to keep those small robots away or simply cast the Disillusionment Charm.
"Obliviate! Memory Implant!"
He used the memory-erasing spell to delete the recent memories and then used a memory implantation spell to fill them with false ones. Only then did George release the Soul-Severing Curse from Kihara Amata.
Once conscious again, Amata noticed nothing strange. After allowing George to leave, he took what he believed was George's blood from the machine and began another round of analysis.
Meanwhile, George left the Hound Dog Unit headquarters.
(End of Chapter)