Dimensional Codex System: I'm really not a cultist!

”Um... Fang Zheng, what do you mean by ’Another World’?”

She’d gotten an answer, but Misaka Mikoto was still feeling nervous. She wasn’t really a kid, she knew what euthanasia was. In fact, from a purely realistic standpoint, euthanasia really was a last-resort yet simplest solution. But... Fang Zheng shouldn’t be the type to do something like that, right?

Yet he also said he was going to send her little sisters to Another World...

”Another World is just Another World.”

Fang Zheng had no intention of hiding it.

”You don’t seriously think your side is the only world, do you?”

”Uh... an Alien Planet?”

With Misaka Mikoto’s imagination, that was pretty much the farthest she could go.

”Fang Zheng, are you an Alien?”

”Alien my ass... whatever, when the time comes you can just come over once and see for yourself, won’t that clear it up?”

”Mm...”

Since Fang Zheng had said so, Misaka Mikoto naturally didn’t press him any further. Just like he said, once the time came and she saw it with her own eyes, everything would be clear.

Transferring over ten thousand people was no easy task. ”Ten thousand” didn’t look like many characters written on paper, but if you really put all ten thousand in front of you, that was no small number. Normally, a school sports field packed with two or three thousand students doing radio calisthenics was already full. Over ten thousand people—how many fields would you need to fit them?

Fang Zheng’s institute obviously didn’t have that much space.

Of course, out of consideration for Misaka Mikoto’s privacy, Fang Zheng hadn’t told Kuroko Shirai and the others about this. As for the transport schedule of those clone little sisters, that was arranged for late at night. By then, most people had already gone home, and the kids staying in the institute were all asleep, so there was no need to worry about leaks.

As for how to arrange the Little Misakas... Fang Zheng naturally had his own way.

Arestar moved fast, especially when his own neck was on the line. Just after one in the morning, the first batch of vehicles transporting the Clones arrived outside the institute.

By then, Misaka Mikoto had long since grown impatient from waiting.

When she saw the car doors open and rows of girls in Tokiwadai uniforms, each wearing safety goggles, stepping out of the vehicles, Misaka Mikoto’s body trembled once again.

She knew on paper that there were over ten thousand clones of her, but reading it in a report was one thing; seeing it with her own eyes was something else entirely.

”Alright, don’t be so tense.”

Fang Zheng patted Misaka Mikoto’s shoulder, and just then, a flat, emotionless voice rang out.

”Amazing. I didn’t think you’d really be able to pull this off.”

Fang Zheng and Misaka Mikoto looked up to see a girl walking toward them, wearing a Nagatenjouki Academy uniform under a white lab coat, with a pair of dead-fish eyes. She quietly approached, looking at Misaka Mikoto.

”It’s you...”

Seeing the dead-fish-eyed girl in front of her, Misaka Mikoto clenched her fists.

”Why? How could you do something like this? I don’t really get the whole LV6 thing, but is that kind of thing really so important you’d slaughter this many people for it?!”

As she spoke, Misaka Mikoto angrily pointed at the rows of little sisters not far away.

”Was everyone involved in that experiment a bunch of lunatics?!”

However, in the face of Misaka Mikoto’s questioning, the dead-fish-eyed girl fell silent for a moment.

”I won’t deny that it may indeed be insane, but you can’t conclude from that alone that conducting this experiment was wrong.”

”Haaah? What did you just say?!”

Hearing this, Misaka Mikoto nearly jumped up in rage, but the dead-fish-eyed girl just stared at her.

”If there were a chance to develop a wonder drug for cancer, but you needed twenty thousand lab mice to produce the data required for research, you’d probably think ’there’s no helping it’ too, wouldn’t you?”

”......”

”Alright, quit spouting nonsense.”

Fang Zheng patted Misaka Mikoto on the head and turned to the dead-fish-eyed girl.

”You’re swapping concepts. So what if twenty thousand white mice die? I wouldn’t care even if it were two hundred thousand, because mice can’t talk, can’t communicate, can’t think. But people can. Flip it around: if cows could talk, think, and communicate with us, would anyone still eat beef? Why do we use apes in experiments? Aren’t apes, like us, primates? But they also can’t talk and can’t communicate with humans... You’re a brain science researcher, so stop using your half-baked logic to lecture other people.”

”......And you are...?”

”Fang Zheng, director of the Quantum Neural Research Institute, and the one taking custody of this batch of Little Misakas. Anyway, you’ve delivered them?”

”Yes. What are you planning to do with these children?”

”Just watch and you’ll see. That 884... no, 9982?”

”Here.”

Hearing Fang Zheng’s call, the Little Misaka who’d been staying at the institute stepped forward, still holding a triangular tour guide flag in her hand.

”Take them over to the Gate.”

”Yes.”

nodded, then walked to the front of the other little sisters and waved the flag. The Little Misakas, still wearing their safety goggles, silently fell in line behind 9982 and followed her into the institute.

”Okay, let’s go too.”

Fang Zheng gestured to Misaka Mikoto, and she nodded, nervous and uneasy, and followed behind him. The dead-fish-eyed girl watched the two of them for a moment, then invited herself along and trailed after them.

Soon, Fang Zheng led everyone to an empty room on the other side of the institute. At first glance, it looked just like a large warehouse, except there was a big iron door set into the wall opposite them. Its style was completely different from the institute’s scientific look; it seemed more like something out of a fairy tale castle.

Fang Zheng walked up to the Daimon and reached out his hand. Soon, tiny points of Radiance began to shimmer around the iron door, gathering and condensing into a ring of light. Then the Daimon opened, revealing a spinning vortex of light within.

”Eh?”

Seeing this scene, Misaka Mikoto let out a startled cry. Others might not have noticed, but Misaka Mikoto realized that this thing wasn’t powered by electricity at all—at least as an Electrokinetic User, she couldn’t sense any of the brainwave-like electrical activity of a device running inside this door.

”What... is this?”

Right now, the dead-fish-eyed girl was also frowning, carefully studying the vortex of light in front of her.

”Magic. Magic that leads to Another World.”

”Ma...gic?”

Hearing this, Misaka Mikoto’s eyes widened as she stared at Fang Zheng in disbelief.

”Fang Zheng, you’re not messing with me, right?”

”Hehe, believe it or not, just go in and you’ll find out.”

With that, Fang Zheng simply turned around and walked straight into the vortex of light. Misaka Mikoto and the dead-fish eyes saw his figure ripple a few times and then vanish into the vortex.

Seeing this, both of them stared, eyes wide in shock.

”N-no way, is it really Magic? Does Magic actually exist in this world?”

Misaka Mikoto muttered to herself, while the dead-fish-eyed girl fell silent for a moment, then briskly stepped into the vortex. Seeing this, Misaka Mikoto hurriedly chased after her.

”Hey, wait for me!”

Before she finished shouting, the two of them vanished into the whirl of light together.

The Radiance in front of their eyes flashed and was gone.

When Misaka Mikoto came back to her senses again, what appeared before her was a completely different landscape.

A vast grassland stretching to the horizon, a lake, night wind gently blowing by, giving off a quiet and peaceful feeling.

But... where is this?

Looking up at the two moons in the sky, Misaka Mikoto and the dead-fish eyes were completely dumbfounded.

They could be sure of one thing: this was definitely not Earth!!

”Fang Zheng!”

Just then, Emilia and the others came over from not far away, smiling as they greeted Fang Zheng. Kiare had already told them Fang Zheng was bringing people to this world, so no one was surprised—just curious. For them, people from Another World beyond the Great Waterfall were still fairly rare.

”Yo, everything going okay lately?”

”Everything’s great. With Miss Katori around, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Emilia answered with a smile, then curiously turned her gaze to the dead-fish-eyed girl and Misaka Mikoto behind Fang Zheng, who were still doubting reality itself.

”Are they the ones from beyond the Great Waterfall, Fang Zheng?”

”Yeah, but not just them. Just wait and see.”

As he spoke, under 9982’s lead, groups of Little Misaka filed out from the Light Gate in neat rows. They quickly lined up, standing on the grassland not far away.

Seeing this, everyone else was stunned.

”W-what is going on here, Fang Zheng?”

Looking at row after row of Little Misaka wearing goggles and identical outfits, this group was completely freaked out.

”How can there be so many... that look so alike...”

”Oh, there was a little problem in that world. To put it simply, a crazy Mage wanted to create the ultimate Creature, so he used some sort of Alchemy to create twenty thousand Clones of that kid... Just think of them as Alchemical Creatures made from that child’s blood. Originally he planned for that Creature to kill all twenty thousand Clones to become the strongest, but I stopped him. Leaving those kids in that world would have been a hassle, so I brought them here.”

”Something like that actually happened...”

Hearing this, everyone was shocked, especially Emilia. The way she looked at Misaka Mikoto was full of sorrow. She walked straight over and took Misaka Mikoto’s hand.

”Little sister, don’t worry. Now that you’re with Fang Zheng, nothing bad will happen to you...”

”Eh? Eh? What are you talking about?”

Misaka Mikoto was utterly bewildered by Emilia’s words, because... she couldn’t understand a thing!

This world was a complete ”Another World.” Unlike those so-called Another Worlds in stories that still used Japanese language and writing, the people here spoke a completely different tongue and used a completely different script. When Meiyin first Time Traveled here, she was pretty unlucky. She retained her memories so she could at least communicate verbally, but when it came to the written language, she had to learn everything from scratch.

As for Misaka Mikoto, to her this really was just listening to a foreign language.

”It’s nothing, she’s just comforting you... not that you understand her anyway. Alright, then—”

”BOOOOM——!!”

But before Fang Zheng could finish, suddenly, with a violent explosion, a mass of flames comparable to a nuclear blast shot into the sky, making Misaka Mikoto jump in fright. All the Little Misaka instantly and uniformly dropped flat onto the ground.

”W-what’s happening? Is this world at war or something? Was that a nuclear explosion?!”

Misaka Mikoto grabbed Fang Zheng’s arm in terror, shouting her questions. Fang Zheng patted her head, signaling her not to get so worked up, then looked toward the group on this side. Soon, the Priestess of the Goddess came running over, apologizing non-stop to Fang Zheng.

”I’m sorry, Sir Knight, it was Megumin, she...”

”...Hasn’t done today’s Burst yet?”

”Yes, um... Megumin heard people from Another World were coming today, so she wanted to give them a surprise...”

”......”

He’d deal with that Burst-brained idiot later.