The Distorted London Sewers
With a creak that suggested it hadn't been maintained in years, the door swung open, revealing the unfamiliar landscape of London. The dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the hazy cityscape... The sight of London wasn't much different from what I'd seen in old media. Shrrrk. Shrrrk.
"You like looking around outside too?" The Unu-octopus perched on my head wriggled its tentacles, its mood visibly improved. We'd come here for something unpleasant, but seeing it this happy made me feel a little better myself.
"By the way, Unu-octopus... Do you really have to look like this?" The one thing that bothered me was my current appearance. Nothing had changed much about me, but the placement of the Unu-octopus was the problem. From anyone else's perspective, it looked like I was wearing a book with tentacles sprouting from it. It was the kind of sight that screamed "anomaly."
Shrrrk! Shrrrk!
"Ah, fine..." But the Unu-octopus insisted this was the most effective way to stay hidden, so I had no choice but to trust it.
Thud. Thud.
"Huh?" I turned at the sudden sound of something meaty hitting the ground and saw a person walking toward me from the alley. For a moment I tensed, but the stranger passed right by without so much as glancing at me.
"...Oh. It actually works." Shrrrk?!
"No, no, it's not that I didn't trust you." The stealth mode was clearly functioning. But then what had that earlier sound been? Whatever. It wasn't important. For now, I needed to head to the sewers where that person had gone.
I stepped carefully onto the main road where people and vehicles passed. It was early afternoon, just past lunchtime. Under the characteristically overcast sky, people in long sleeves hurried about their lives. Once, I had been one of them. The thought left me briefly sentimental.
Shaking it off, I began searching for the London sewers. After walking a while, I noticed something: the Unu-octopus's stealth didn't seem to hide me directly. People beyond a certain distance still reacted as if they'd spotted me. It probably worked by dulling awareness of the surrounding area rather than cloaking me personally.
...So that thudding sound is probably some kind of operating noise. The image of the Unu-octopus straining to keep its ability active for my sake popped into my head. Out of consideration, and because I needed to reach the outskirts anyway, I decided to stick to less crowded alleys.
"Now that I think about it, how do I get a map of the sewers?" Normal maps wouldn't show the underground layout. Still mulling it over, I slipped into another alley.
...
Thud. Thud.
"Nngh...!" A long black tentacle slipped into another person's ear. It wriggled through the brain before exiting the opposite ear. Shhhrrrk!
"Kuh, kuh... Hmm?" The man's mind reset in an instant, as if nothing had happened. For a split second, his blue eyes stretched into black rectangles before returning to normal.
"...? Wait, why was I spacing out here? I need to get going." Thud. Thud.
"Kyaaah...!" Thud. Thud. "Kuhk." Thud. Thud. "Ugh."
These incidents were happening simultaneously across London, centered around a certain girl.
* * *
Ring ring!
"Magic Police London Branch, Inspector Emily speaking." Inside the massive interior of Big Ben's tower, so much larger than its exterior suggested, a telephone rang on an office desk. A red-haired woman answered the persistently ringing phone. The person who should have taken the call was absent, leaving her no choice.
"Jack the Ripper appeared...? We don't accept false reports." Inspector Emily slammed the receiver down with a scowl. "Jack the Ripper... Jack the Ripper... That guy was caught ages ago."
The protagonist of that legendary unsolved case had been arrested and executed decades earlier. Because the murders had involved anomalies, the global Anomaly Management Bureau had cooperated with the Magic Police to make the arrest. Emily didn't hold the Bureau in high regard. They were simply better at their jobs than her own organization.
"Haa. Chancellor, you bastard." Emily muttered the curse, thinking of the mage they'd been tracking. Gallerhad Chancellor, a powerful figure within the rogue organization known as the Dark Dawn Society. Just hours ago, an entire team sent to capture him had been wiped out. She'd warned her superiors, but the chief had underestimated Chancellor. And the result...
Chancellor wasn't the only problem with the Dark Dawn Society. Every member was a lunatic, making them far more dangerous than other mage groups. The Magic Police, Britain's royal arcane agency, had originally handled them, but talk of cooperation with other factions had begun. Could the Magic Police truly contain the Dark Dawn Society alone?
That question had come from neighboring European nations. If the Dark Dawn Society escaped capture or relocated, the next victims would likely be right next door.
"Those damned snail-eaters. Instead of just complaining, they could actually help." France, naturally, topped the list of complainers. Because of this, the Magic Police were now reviewing potential allies, and the most likely candidate was the Anomaly Management Bureau. The Bureau viewed the grimoires used by Dark Dawn members as dangerous anomalies and had been keeping an indirect eye on them due to the Magic Police's jurisdiction.
"They said the person in charge would arrive in London soon." Inspector Emily was the key figure in establishing that cooperation. She gazed at the darkening sky, draped her Magic Police coat over her arm, and left headquarters. Riding the elevator down, she sighed.
"Chancellor... Chancellor... Haa." She'd thought they'd finally had him, only to lose him again. Should she ask that "Baker Street girl detective" for help once more? Just imagining the girl's smug attitude made Emily's blood boil.
"...No. If putting up with a little arrogance lets us catch the worst mages, then..."
Stepping out of Big Ben, Emily spotted an unidentified East Asian girl disappearing into a distant alley. She drew her pistol and rushed after her.
What the hell is that...?! The source of her shock was the massive mass of tentacles draped over the girl's head. Another anomaly had appeared in the heart of London.
Thud. Thud.
"Augh..." Thud. Thud...?Wriggle. Wriggle. "Ugh, ugh."
A black tentacle entered Emily's left ear, swept through her brain, and emerged from the other. Then, with a shhhrrrk!, it yanked itself free as if her condition didn't matter. The tentacle tilted its "head" curiously before forcing its way back through her mouth to touch her brain again. This time it left something behind instead of simply withdrawing.
Thud. Sssrrrk...
"...Hngh. Huh...?" The tentacles vanished down the alley. A few seconds later, Emily's eyes snapped open. She scratched her head, puzzled about why she was there.
"What...?" She felt like she'd seen something... Thud. ...But there was nothing. "Chancellor, that bastard. Now I'm hallucinating too."
Emily sighed and trudged toward her meeting with the Anomaly Management Bureau's representative. She belatedly noticed the gun in her hand and hurriedly holstered it.
* * *
"Huff... huff..." After arriving in London to capture the culprit who had turned five books into text copies, I suddenly found myself undergoing a fitness test. Getting into the sewers had proven far more difficult than expected.
First, finding an entrance was awkward. I tried every manhole, but most were too narrow for a person. I kept climbing down and back up until my complete lack of exercise became painfully obvious.
Wiping away sweat, I spoke to the Unu-octopus. "Unu-octopus... Could you maybe use your tentacles to lower me down or pull me up instead of—"
Shrrrk. Shrrrk.
"...Just move normally? Seriously, why do you have to say it like that." I was tempted to wipe my sweat all over it. But in the end, I still had to struggle. Just as I was about to give up and move on, I felt something strange. Shrrrk! The Unu-octopus sensed it too.
Stepping into a sewer section larger than the others, I caught the faint trace of the same energy the five books had carried—the lingering presence of their users.
"Found it..." At last, I'd found a clue that could lead me to the culprit.