Another World

Accelerator’s eyes widened, his red pupils contracting. Teleportation, an unknown defense, physical enhancement—Duke had used three entirely different abilities before him in succession.

"Who… are you?"

For the first time in his life, Academy City’s strongest showed fear. A bead of cold sweat ran down Accelerator’s cheek, and the sense of foreboding in his heart grew ever more pressing.

Although Accelerator was not an experienced researcher, he was not an ignorant amateur either. Academy City’s No. 1 was far from clueless. In their brief exchanges, he had clearly sensed Duke’s abnormality. He dared say with certainty that Duke was absolutely not a Gemstone, and that what he used was not even an esper ability.

Gemstones could use esper abilities without calculation, but their AIM Diffusion Fields were completely different from those of ordinary people. As for Duke… in Accelerator’s perception, Duke’s AIM Diffusion Field was like that of a monster. If he had to describe it, it was probably some bizarre aberration formed from countless twisted fields.

"I’m just someone acting on a whim… I only came out to buy coffee." Duke gave a perfunctory reply. Looking at his fully healed arm, he furrowed his brows deeply.

He suddenly realized that the original story had fooled him!

Accelerator’s weakness: at the instant of contact, if the direction of an attack was forcibly reversed, Accelerator would suffer actual damage because he had actively altered its direction.

As long as the timing was grasped precisely, it was theoretically entirely possible… Theoretically possible, my ass!

What determined the strength of his reflection was not the ability Vector Manipulation itself, but Accelerator’s own calculation ability. He controlled the strength of the reflection himself. At its weakest, it blocked out noise; at its strongest, it could isolate a nuclear explosion. The intensity of his reflection was not fixed. On the contrary, it changed constantly with the environment.

Accelerator was neither a machine nor a corpse. His calculation ability fluctuated unconsciously. In other words, there were no rules governing his reflection ability… How was Duke supposed to grasp the timing? He did not even know what that timing was.

Kihara God Fist, the strongest martial art created by a grandmaster and supposedly a close-combat technique made specifically for Yuriko, was completely a trap.

"Right! That guy was Accelerator’s researcher and knew Accelerator’s data inside out. He could break through the reflection field only after countless experiments proved it possible, and he probably had scientific equipment to help him too… I’m such an idiot!" Duke shook his head speechlessly. The instant his fist touched Accelerator, he knew that the so-called timing was nothing but wishful thinking, because there simply was no pattern to it.

To utterly crush a Level 5 as an abilityless person, and Academy City’s No. 1 at that—behind Kihara Amata’s brilliance lay one desperate, relentless experiment after another. One minute of glory onstage took ten years of effort offstage. Kihara Amata’s glorious second was built upon bitter, unknown years.

Otherwise, any random physical ability user could have treated Accelerator like a punching bag. Academy City’s No. 1 would have changed long ago!

"Answer me. What are you? The latest experimental product?"

Duke, busy complaining to himself, did not know that in Accelerator’s eyes, he had already become a scientific product of Academy City, with a secrecy classification on par with an Absolute Esper.

Duke looked over and reevaluated Accelerator. He felt truly foolish. Academy City’s top dog, personally favored by Aleister—how could he possibly be knocked down with a single punch? He had lost to Kamijou because Imagine Breaker was too broken; he had lost to Kihara Amata because his information had leaked; he had lost to Last Order only because his soul for little girls had awakened…

Obviously, Duke belonged to none of those three categories. With all three of Accelerator’s weaknesses unavailable, his only choice was to use the power of another world.

Just like that perennial runner-up, who had once gained the upper hand using Dark Matter. Duke felt that if not for the male lead’s plot armor shining brightly, Accelerator might really have been defeated.

"Answer me. What exactly are you?"

Duke’s repeated disregard completely enraged Accelerator. His earlier fear magnified his fury even further. Having never experienced fear before, he felt only profound humiliation.

Accelerator thrust both hands outward, controlling the flow of air and creating a violent hurricane comparable to a natural disaster. The wind pressure poured down, crushing the ground into powder. Layers of concrete were peeled away, while countless steel bars and beams were torn from the collapsed buildings around them and shot toward Duke in unison with an unstoppable, chilling momentum.

Casting aside any thought of playing around, Accelerator fully expanded his mental capacity. With calculation ability more than twice that of an ordinary Level 5, he locked down every possible route Duke could take to evade in an instant. Steel closed in from all directions, forming an inescapable encirclement.

For any Level 5, this would have been an extremely troublesome attack. Leaving aside the restraints of Personal Reality, Accelerator’s calculation ability alone was enough to crush them.

Crack—crack—crack crack crack—

The ground beneath Duke’s feet froze solid. A mountain-sized mass of ice took form, rapidly growing into an ice-blue dragon with wings on its back. Its wings, vast enough to blot out the sky, folded down and shielded Duke within them.

The enormous, ferocious dragon head stared fixedly at Accelerator. From its two hollow, indifferent eyes shone endless cold light. Only half of the dragon’s massive body had emerged, but even that half possessed undiminished might. Its sharp, aloof aura suddenly condensed, and the air congealed into something incomparably heavy. The skies over all of District 7 were filled with a stifling pressure.

Steel bars and pillars rained down upon the dragon’s back, piercing through its swordlike dorsal spikes and driving rows of black nails into it. Its head, neck, wings, and spine were soon riddled with holes, a miserable mess.

A faint light ignited in the dragon’s eyes. Cold swept across the area, creating vast quantities of ice from nothing and filling its wounds. Countless razor-sharp spikes surged forth densely, lifting the steel pillars embedded in its back and driving them into the earth.

The dragon swept its tail sideways, smashing the steel pillars toward Accelerator.

Startled by the sudden appearance of the ice dragon, Accelerator instinctively deflected the incoming steel pillars. The ominous feeling in his heart grew increasingly clear. An intense sense of danger lingered in his mind, impossible to shake.

After blocking the steel pillars for Duke, the dragon let out a low cry and sank into the ground like an illusion. Only the frost covering the earth proved that it had ever existed.

Duke stood on the frozen ground, his hair and eyebrows coated in a thin layer of frost, his lab coat frozen stiff and hard. He raised his right hand and pointed his index finger into the air. A burst of cold shot from his fingertip.

Ice Beam!

The moment Duke raised his hand, the alarm bells in Accelerator’s mind nearly ruptured his eardrums. His pupils shrank to pinpoints, and he reacted almost instantly. As if springs had been fitted beneath his feet, he fled from his original position at supersonic speed.

A dazzling beam flashed past without a sound. Everything in its path was stripped of life, leaving behind an ice trail radiating bone-chilling cold. A straight line of ice stretched across the ground, releasing a frigid mist.

Accelerator stood some distance away, staring at where he had just been with lingering fear. His mind was filled not only with awe, but with countless doubts. "It’s clearly such an ordinary ability… Why is my analysis so slow? What kind of ability is his?"

Just moments ago, Accelerator had tried to forcibly use Vector Manipulation to reverse the direction of the force within the Ice Beam, only to discover that his AIM Diffusion Field had collectively fallen silent the moment it touched the ice. Silent was not quite the right word. Frozen was more appropriate!

"There are vectors in this world that I can’t control!?" Possessing Academy City’s strongest calculation ability, Accelerator himself was among the sharpest minds. He quickly broke free from his mistaken assumption, his eyes lighting up as he said, "I see! The power you’re using isn’t from this world…"

Hearing Accelerator confirm it with his own ears, Duke could not help viewing him in a new light.

A Certain Magical Index World had gods and demons. Duke had not wanted to reveal too much, since he had never met a god and could not guess what kind of authority they possessed. But when he thought of that perennial runner-up’s ability, he relaxed. Someone could create matter from another world out of thin air without attracting attention, so using abilities from another world was hardly a big deal.

"Hurry up and use your ability. As long as I can analyze it all, I’ll be able to glimpse the vectors of another world… The time it takes for me to become Level 6 will definitely be greatly reduced." Accelerator growled excitedly.

"Ice is low temperature!"

Duke spoke softly. Behind him, the enormous head of the Blue-Ice White Night Dragon rose up. Following his words, it opened its gaping maw filled with sharp teeth.

"If you can withstand this, you might really be able to glimpse another world…"

"Absolute Zero Freezing Air——"

Thanks to readers ‘A Leaf Drifting from the Horizon,’ ‘Collecting 16 to 25 Year Old Beautiful Girls,’ ‘Reader 20170810124255343,’ ‘Reader 161002141153678,’ ‘Reader 160301114939634,’ ‘Failed Pseudo-Geek,’ and ‘Scallion Ghee Pancake’ for their tips!