Mahouka Koukou No Rettousei Magian Company - Volume 1 Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Pursuit
May 5th (not a national holiday in Japan of this world)
Tatsuya came to the university for the first time in a week. Tatsuya himself was feeling a sense of crisis since he had been attending college almost once a week.
Yet, unfortunately, the first period was abruptly cancelled. This is a rare occurrence at a modern university. This is because the number of canceled classes due to the circumstances of the instructor has decreased out of respect for the students’ rights, and the practice of sending a notification to the student’s personal terminal the day before a cancelled class due to unavoidable circumstances is now well established.
“Tatsuya-san”
Miyuki and Lina are taking another lecture. As Tatsuya was wandering around aimlessly, an alto voice called out from behind him.
As Tatsuya turns around, a boyishly dressed, bustless beautiful woman runs up to him.
“Fumiya.”
No, it’s actually Tatsuya’s second cousin, Kuroba Fumiya, a male student wearing unisex fashion and short haircut that would would fit in nicely with a woman.
Unfortunately, Fumiya’s height had not grown as much as he had hoped during his third year in high school. He stopped growing at 165cm in the end.
He’s only five centimeters shorter than the average height, so maybe there’s no need to bemoan his height. But most of Fumiya’s relatives were tall men; Tatsuya was 182 centimeters tall, and his father, Mitsugu, was 177 centimeters tall. His distant relative, Shibata Katsushige, stands at 188 centimeters.
Naturally (?), Fumiya hoped that he could grow up too. He may be small now, but he’ll grow up soon. ??So he thought, during his junior high school years and for two years after high school.
But in his third year of high school, he came to accept the reality. On his eighteenth birthday, Fumiya accepted the fact that he would not grow any taller…… and reasserted himself.
And as a result of this, the current, gender-neutral outfit.
However, it’s not that his sexuality has become distorted or that he has developed a hobby of cross-dressing. He has simply abandoned his concern for ‘masculinity’. No, it’s more accurate to say that he abandoned his obsession with “masculine appearance”. He mainly took in Ayako’s advice and started to dress himself in a way which suits his appearance.
Besides Fumiya’s emotional reasons, there was also a more pragmatic one.
In his bare face, Fumiya is a beautiful young man with a rosy complexion that is full of charm. He is almost 20 years old, but he is a “pretty boy”. He stands out from the crowd of college students.
But with the right amount of make-up, as much as men would use, he looks like an ordinary beautiful woman. Both male and female magicians tend to be quite beautiful, and many of them are also at Magic University. It is even rumored that the Magic University has the most beautiful women in the metropolitan area. Among them, Fumiya is much less conspicuous if he is mistaken for a woman.
As a member of the Kuroba family who is responsible for the Yotsuba family’s intelligence, it is better to be mistaken for a woman than to stand out too much. Even outside the university, it’s better to dress neutrally so that people will see you as weak. They won’t realize his true strength. Fumiya finally could take advantage of those merits when he became a college student.
But he had to be careful about using the right amount. If he made an effort to wear makeup, Fumiya would transform from an ordinary beauty to an extraordinarily beautiful woman.
……Even so, Tatsuya never misunderstood Fumiya’s gender. He saw Fumiya running up to him with a smile on his face, but Tatsuya didn’t stretch the bridge of his nose like a male student who didn’t know the whole truth.
“Was Tatsuya-san’s class cancelled too?”
“Fumiya’s was too?”
“Yeah.”
Fumiya nodded happily at Tatsuya’s counter-question.
“Tatsuya-san, would you like to go to the coffee shop outside?”
“That place?”
“Yes”
Tatsuya didn’t have a “favorite” spot like Einebrise from his high school days, but Fumiya had a familiar place. Tatsuya had been invited to visit it by Fumiya a few times. He finally went there in his third year at the university, but only a few times.
“I guess so.”
The store was about a five-minute walk from the university. So, there was no need to worry about being late for the next lecture.

Tatsuya and Fumiya sat at a table at the far end of the cafe. There are many female students in the cafe. The coffee shop has a chic interior designed to appeal to women, but the more attractive feature is the old-fashioned partition that completely separates each table from the other customers.
Fumiya took the two coffee cups at the counter and carried them over by himself on a tray without the help of the waitress, giving the impression he was familiar with such practices. His figure is so natural that it could be described as one of the shop’s waitresses. Although he isn’t wearing a dress or a skirt, nor is he wearing an apron.
Some customers indeed had such a misunderstanding, but Fumiya returned to his seat, not paying any attention to the misinterpreted glances, placing a coffee cup in front of Tatsuya.
“Tatsuya-san, you seem to be even busier lately.”
Leaving the tray as it was, without returning it, Fumiya spoke to Tatsuya as he sat down.
“I don’t want to give you guys any troubles.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s our job.”
What Tatsuya called “trouble” and Fumiya called a “job” is the pursuit of the duo of criminal magicians ‘Janus’, who broke into the Stellar Reactor Plant and tried to hack into the FLT. The task of capturing Janus had been transferred to the Kuroba family from the mercenary squad under Butler Hanabishi.
“When it gets dark, I’ll also be joining the search.”
The reason Fumiya didn’t join the chase in the light of day is not because of his college classes. It’s because Fumiya would stand out too much to move in the daytime. As one would expect, he can no longer use his girl disguise from high school. It’s not a question of liking or disliking it, it’s just that it’s too sexually appealing. Having said so, his body is that of a slim man, so he is not suited to playing with sex appeal anymore. He was also struggling a lot with this.
“I appreciate your help. I wish I could work on it myself…….”
“If Tatsuya-san makes a move, the intelligence department and the others would be in an uproar.”
Fumiya remarked with a straight face.
This wasn’t a joke, but since that day three years ago, the National Defense Intelligence Bureau and the Public Security Police had been on edge with Tatsuya’s every move.
Tatsuya could only give a wry smile in return to Fumiya’s remark.

The organization Janus is part of does not have a foothold in Japan. Without its support, the two men were in a tight spot.
The hacking had only been tracked down yesterday. It was now just before four o’clock in the afternoon. Both Bahadur and Bahman felt that even though not even a full day had passed, the siege was definitely narrowing.
Neither of them saw any of their pursuers. But their intuition, that helped them to survive the underworld, tells them “The enemy is close at hand.”
The Janus pair themselves felt that their cornered predicament was absurd.
They weren’t so careless as to leave any clues at the hotel.
It would be more understandable if they were caught on that occasion.
It’s not like they were unable to get away from the site where they were traced, so why are they being hounded.
They were currently eating in a dining room of a family apartment. It is not an empty house. There was a housewife in the house. She was watching TV idly in the next room. She must have been relaxing after a day of household chores prior to their intrusion. They don’t seem to be a wealthy family, their home automation is minimal. Even so, compared to fifty years ago, household chores have been drastically reduced, although modern Japanese women still may feel it to be an inconvenience.
The reason Janus deliberately opted for a private house is that, from their experience, the security setup is looser. Bahadur’s magic unlocked the front door and Bahman’s magic closed the housewife’s awareness. This state would only last for about thirty minutes, even on an ordinary person with no magic resistance, but it was enough time to satiate their thirst and hunger. And once the housewife regained her awareness, she would only think she had been dozing off.
“Bahman, I think that……”
Bahadur, who was chewing and swallowing the retorted chicken, spoke to Bahman, who was still eating the retorted seafood pizza.
“……What is it, Bahadur?”
Bahman returns the response as he swallows what’s in his mouth.
“We certainly left our notebooks in that hotel.”
“You think that was a clue to the trail? But we didn’t leave a drop of sweat, not to mention fingerprints.”
They were mere thieves until they joined their current organization. Without any backing, the two of them honed the skills necessary to be thieves besides their magic so that they would never be caught. Among them, the most important thing was to leave no evidence behind. Fingerprints are out of the question. DNA collected from bodily fluids could also be the smoking gun. They wouldn’t let something like sweat or spit get away without being particularly conscious of it.
“You also kept your gloves on the whole time, I’m sure.”
As Bahman said, they were still wearing gloves. Even in this newly procured house. The old gloves they had been using had been disposed of by incineration in the oven.
“You’re right, we didn’t leave any physical evidence. There’s no doubt about that.”
Bahadur acknowledges Bahman’s claim.
With that line, Bahman guessed what his partner was getting at.
“……You think we’re being tracked by psychometry or something like that?”
“It makes sense when you think about it.”
Bahadur nodded at Bahman’s words.
“The ones we’re dealing with are those Yotsuba. Is it strange that they have a psychometrist in their midst?”
Bahman backchanneled with a hint of a sigh on his tone.
“Bahman, just to be sure.”
Bahadur didn’t need to say anything else from there.
Dancing to the same beat, managed to get his intentions across to Bahman.
“Yeah. I don’t know if I can do it, but I’ll use my magic to close off any paths of residual thoughts.”
Bahman focused his mind on using ‘Close, Sesame”s magic to thwart detection by psychometry.

Bahadur and Bahman were right in their speculation that they were being tracked by the residual thoughts left on the notebooks left at the budget hotel.
“……It seems that they activated Cast Jamming. Or could this be the magic called ‘Arabian Nights’?”
“Can you follow it?”
“The thread isn’t broken, so it’s not a problem.”
But the assumption that ‘Arabian Nights’ would allow them to escape the hunt was wrong.
The Kuroba family does indeed have a few psychometrists under their command. But those who have been sent to track Janus this time are not psychometrists.
It is not uncommon for the Kuroba family to have members who can detect residual thoughts. While there is a variation in strength, about one out of every five Kuroba family members has the ability to detect and track residual thoughts.
In fact, looking at the world, it is not such a rare talent to be able to just perceive residual thoughts. There are many examples of police detectives and private investigators who are said to have a keen sense of intuition, but are using this ability without being aware of it.
There are only a few who are able to read images and clear meaningful information lingering in the thoughts. Those who have the superpower to read such “images and clear meaningful information” are called psychometrists.
Those who perceive residual thoughts can only chase after it. Those with a psychometrist ability can also only read information about the past that lingers in the residual thoughts. The ability to pinpoint the current location of a searched target would be considered more or less in the domain of a diviner. In that case, Tatsuya, a person who is able to know information from the present to the past and back again, would, in this case, belong to the realm of a transcendental being.
With the path of perception closed, it is no longer possible to follow the same signs of residual thoughts from a distance. But it doesn’t prevent them from following the residual thought in the spots where they have passed through.
The Kuroba family’s pursuit unit uses a combination of two methods: the reverse triangulation method, in which they get an approximate position based on observations of the sign’s position from three points that match the direction of the residual thought, and also the method of chasing the residual thought in sequence. Bahman’s magic interferes with the former method, but the method of following the “connected” clues does not fall prey to the concept of “closing”.
Because they can’t use the Reverse Triangulation Method (provisional name) [18] , they will be less efficient. But they already have a pretty good idea of how close they are. From this point on, there is no risk of escape. ??The members of the pursuit unit sent by the Kuroba family were confident on that.

After finishing his college lessons, Tatsuya went to the Magian Company headquarters in Machida.
“Saegusa-san, do you have any plans for tomorrow night?”
As soon as he reached her desk, he called Mayumi and asked her this.
“No, I don’t……?”
“Then there’s one thing I’d like your assistance with tomorrow night.”
Hearing these words, Mayumi raised her eyebrows quizzically.
“Assistance? Not overtime?”
“It’s not a Company job. I need your assistance as a Mageist, Saegusa-san.”
“Mageist…… Oh, you mean as a magician, right? And exactly what kind of work would that be?”
She was just reiterating that it wasn’t her job, but Tatsuya didn’t bring it up.
“Did you know that thieves broke into the Stellar Reactor Plant in Miyakijima the other day?”
“Yeah, I just happened to overhear it, though.”
As Ryousuke listened to it from his desk in the same room, he complained in his mind, “That’s not what you said!”. When Ryousuke wanted to catch the invaders of that night by himself to get rid of the accusations made against him, Tatsuya gave him the condition that he would get a partner. And the one Tatsuya chose as his partner was Mayumi.
In other words, she was supposed to be his partner to catch the bandits of that night. And yet, he didn’t expect the fact that she hasn’t been informed of the intrusion incident in detail.
Tatsuya didn’t bother with Ryousuke’s indignation ?perhaps he had noticed, but ignored it? and continued the conversation with Mayumi with a nonchalant look on his face.
“There’s a possibility that that bandit may soon break into the laboratory next door.”
“In the FLT lab? Are the thieves after a silver model?”
The Magian Company headquarters is located next to the Third Division of the FLT R&D Lab. Even after Tatsuya announced the dissolution of the ‘Taurus Silver’ at the press conference at the end of May 2097, the R&D Third Division has continued to release CAD models to the world under the name of ‘Silver Model’. The building of the R&D Third Division next door was named “Laboratory”, but at the same time it also served as a factory; not particularly unusual since the word “laboratory” in English also means a “pharmaceutical production facility”.
Nevertheless, it’s a usual response for anyone involved in the word of magic to associate FLT R&D Third Division with the CADs of the Silver Model. Mayumi’s speculation is not far off the mark.
“Probably not.”
But Tatsuya’s answer was “no”.
“Their objective is probably the Artificial Relics ‘Magistore’, which is outsourced to the Third Division.”
“The Artificial Relics are manufactured next door?!”
Even though the name Magistore is not common, it is fairly well known that the Stellar Reactor system has Artificial Relics at its core.
“I always thought that it was made inside the Stellar Reactor Plant,”
This wasn’t just Mayumi’s assumption. Many who knew about the relationship between Artificial Relics and Stellar Reactor thought the same thing she did.
“There is no need for too many Magistores yet, you see. A small production line is enough.”
There are six spells required to operate the Stellar Reactor: “Gravity Control”, “Plasma Transition”, “Neutron Barrier”, “Gamma Ray Filter”, another “Gravity Control”, and “Coulomb Force Control”. Each Stellar Reactor uses twelve Magistores, two per spell.
At the moment, there are 18 additional Stellar Reactors under construction. Considering the minimum amount of Magistore required for the unit’s operation is 6, a total of 288 Magistores is enough.The Artificial Relics, or Magistore, is not something that can be synthesized in a day or two, and is small enough for an adult woman to hold in one hand, so not much space is required to produce this many Magistores.
“So I’d like Saegusa-san to team up with Tookami-san to take vigilance on the Magistore manufacturing line. This is not Magian Company’s business, but would you be willing to take on this task?”
“Saegusa-san!”
Ryousuke eventually couldn’t take it anymore and stood up.
“Please do it for me! Help me out!”
Apparently, Ryousuke can’t keep up with his speech patterns when he’s excited. Not surprisingly, he may be a very passionate person.
“……What are the circumstances?”
Noticing Tatsuya’s gaze, Mayumi turned to Ryousuke and asked.
“I was there on the night that the thieves broke into the Stellar Reactor Plant. I just sensed something was wrong and went to check on the situation, but I was caught up in the bandit’s escape and I’m on suspicion of being an accomplice. I need to clear this frame-up! If I can’t do that, I’ll have to quit here. I want to keep my job at Magian Company!”
At first, Mayumi looked surprised, but she gradually regained her composure, and at last, her expression became cool and thoughtful. It was an expression that resembled her past self as First High’s student council president.
“I understand.”
Mayumi nodded to Ryousuke and turned back to Tatsuya.
“Executive Director. I’ll undertake security for tomorrow night.”
“Thank you. You don’t have to work for the Company tomorrow. Of course, I won’t put you on vacation or absence from work.”
“As you wish, sir. What time would you like us to come to the lab?”
“Six p.m., please. Also, Tookami-san, is that alright with you?”
“Yes, sir!”
Ryousuke answered in a booming voice and bowed vigorously to Tatsuya.
Tatsuya and Mayumi looked at it and had the same thought “Oh, so this is the type of character he is.”

Bahadur and Bahman were chased by the presence of an oncoming pursuer and blended into the foreigner’s neighborhood. It’s currently one of the most lawless areas in the metropolitan area, where the Hispanic mafia is still engaged in a power struggle with the local gangs. Despite the fact that it is right next to Tokyo, the police turn a blind eye to it.
No, they may be herding troublemakers into a corner and leaving them there to fend for themselves. In fact, it was said that this area is “easy to get in, but hard to get out”.
Even now, they could hear gunfire from nearby. Bahman, who had a preconceived notion that Japan is a safe country, wondered something like, “Is this really Japan?”
They found an empty room ??not an empty house. There was another intruder laying, or perhaps sitting, in the other room?? After taking a break, the two began to talk about their future plans.
“……We’re surrounded by them, right?”
“I have the same feeling. They don’t seem to have entered this city, but that doesn’t mean they can’t.”
“Yeah. I guess they simply hate trouble. The sooner you talk to the mafia, the sooner they’ll step in.”
“We will have until tomorrow night, at the most.”
“I guess that’s about it. If we just keep running around, they’ll still catch us as long as we’re in Japan.”
“So, let’s do it.”
Bahman nodded at Bahadur’s words.
“But where are we going to look?”
Bahman then brought up their pending issue.
“I still think it is in the FLT lab,”
Bahadur’s reply was clear.
“It looks like it…….”
“Bahman, we are cornered. In this state of affairs, we can’t afford picking up targets.”
“All right. Then we’ll get out of here tomorrow at dusk.”
“Very well. I’ll make the call to the returning ship.”
“I’ll go get a car.”
“I’m counting on you.”
“I’m on you too.”
Bahman stood up and Bahadur opened his newly stolen information terminal.

“How’s the situation?”
Fumiya looks back at the voice that called from behind him.
“Nee-san……. It’s not safe for you to come to this place.”
Ayako gave a light shrug at her brother’s candid advice.
“You say it while you are dressed like that, huh……. You don’t look all that safe either.”
Fumiya no longer uses Yami’s ?a young girl’s? disguise. He is wearing slim pants and a thin short coat. However, the slim pants look strangely tight because of the protector in the crotch area. Also, he is wearing enough makeup in terms of disguise.
Now he looks just like an over-20 year old female model. He wouldn’t look like a man even if he was placed alongside Ayako in an elegant bolero and matching long skirt.
“I’ll let anyone who gets it wrong have it to themselves.”
At Ayako’s point, Fumiya boasted in a defiant tone.
“The situation has not changed since sunset. I’ve left one escape route open, and I’ve surrounded it so we’ll never lose sight of them.”
“That’s Tatsuya-san’s instructions, right? I wonder if Tatsuya-san is trying to lure the thieves into FLT.”
“I suppose so. Excluding Miyakijima, there aren’t many places where you can let loose in the immediate vicinity of a metropolis.”
“Indeed.”
Ayako nodded at Fumiya’s point with a satisfied expression.
“Besides…….”
“There is still something else?”
Ayako urges a stammering Fumiya to continue.
“I wonder if Tatsuya-san is planning to test Tookami Ryousuke.”
“How trustworthy he is?”
“It’s how useful he is, I think”
Ayako looked at Fumiya in profile as he looked back at the center of the foreigner’s district and thought to herself, “He’s starting to think like Tatsuya-san”.