The next day would be the opening ceremony of the Daihasei Festival.

But Haruto didn't bother finding a hotel to rest in.

Instead, he strolled aimlessly through the city under the night sky.

Aleister had already carried out a large-scale purge of the city's dark side.

The main sources of darkness — Aleister himself, and the Board of Directors — had all been dealt with.

But the remnants that had spawned underneath them…

…weren't necessarily cleaned up.

Haruto intended to see it for himself.

The Academy City beneath the night sky was quiet.

And compared to when Haruto had first come here, it was much quieter now.

Well, that was to be expected — with the dark side dissolved, there weren't as many people lurking in the shadows anymore.

Just as Haruto was immersed in the view of the city's nightscape—

From a corner of the street came some noise.

"Hey, girl, how about you keep me company for a bit and I'll give you the thing?"

"Yeah, lassie, I know a great place. Let's go have some fun!"

The vein in Haruto's temple twitched.

What kind of bottom-of-the-barrel pickup line was that?

He glanced in that direction.

At the mouth of an alley, he saw a group of small-time punks surrounding a girl. They were trying to get handsy with her, their mouths full of filthy words.

The scene almost gave Haruto déjà vu.

Could it be that Mikoto Misaka hadn't gone back to her dorm, and was out here in a bad mood fishing for thugs again?

She really had done that before.

Academy City had a lot of punks — most of them Level 0s or low-level espers.

Since they had no research value, they were treated like trash by the city.

So they let themselves rot, hanging around in alleys causing trouble —mugging people with knives, harassing female students, getting into gang fights, and so on.

Misaka, with her harmlessly cute middle-schooler appearance, was often stopped and harassed.

And anyone dumb enough to mouth off at her ended up fried black.

Later, when she was in a bad mood, she'd even go out deliberately to "fish" for idiots to electrocute.

But from the looks of it, this girl wasn't Misaka.

First off, her uniform wasn't from Tokiwadai.

And if it was Misaka, with things at this stage, there'd probably already be lightning coming down from the sky.

Haruto walked over.

These punks weren't exactly "dark side" material…

…but they still needed to be dealt with.

They might not be a huge menace, but too many rats can still bring plague.

Might as well round them up and toss them into one of Academy City's electronics factories — give them a "career path."

"Please step aside, I want to leave!"

The girl in the middle said this firmly.

That was actually impressive — not many people could say no to violent thugs.

Courage was something not everyone had.

But hearing her words only made the punks angrier.

"Hey, you makin' fun of us?"

"You think you can come and go as you please? Where do you think this is?"

"Not your choice tonight! Get her, boys!"

The punks closed in.

The girl gave a startled cry, squeezed her eyes shut, and swung her shoulder bag with all her strength.

Trying to fight them off that way.

But after a long moment—

—no one came any closer.

She blinked in confusion.

Had she actually been that good and scared them off?

When she opened her eyes, the punks were already sprawled on the ground. And not far away stood a boy she didn't recognize.

"Um… you are?"

She looked at him in surprise — but only with joy, not fear.

Haruto couldn't help but think this girl was way too much of an optimist.

"Takamine Haruto. Just a nearby student. If you're alright, you should head back to your dorm. I'll let the Judgment know about this. Don't worry about trouble coming back to you — I won't mention you to them."

Haruto waved his hand as he spoke.

Tonight, he planned to take out the punks' base of operations.

The talk about reporting to Judgment was just an excuse —Judgment had been tangling with this type for years without results.

It's hard for humans to completely wipe out rats.

These guys hid in places people couldn't reach and only came out to make trouble when no one was watching.

Better to let a professional handle professional problems.

But instead of leaving, the girl thought for a moment—

Then her eyes lit up.

"You're Haruto! Frenda's always talking about you!"

That caught Haruto off guard.

He took a closer look at her. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ NovᴇlFɪre.ɴet

Long straight black hair, sailor uniform from some unknown Academy City school, and a distinctive white plum blossom hair ornament with five petals.

She did look familiar.

But she definitely wasn't part of Frenda's dark side team.

Who could she be?

Frenda had plenty of friends, but very few she'd talk about him to.

Probably only a close, like-minded friend.

The girl must have noticed his doubt, because she quickly introduced herself—

"Nice to meet you! I'm Saten Ruiko, a friend of Frenda's. Thanks for your help!"

Ah.

So it was Ruiko — the cheerful Level 0 trouble magnet.

In the story, she was friends with Misaka Mikoto, Shirai Kuroko, and Uiharu — the "Four Girls of Railgun."

He remembered that in canon, Saten and Frenda were online friends, brought together by their shared love of canned mackerel.

(Frenda considered anyone who liked mackerel a good friend.)

They'd planned to meet up in person, but Frenda never made it —she was killed in a dark side job after leaking intel.

Saten waited in a restaurant the whole day but never saw her.

They never even learned each other's real names.

But now, it seemed things had changed.

"Saten Ruiko, huh? I've heard of you — Frenda has mentioned you before."

Ruiko smiled brightly at that.

But—

"So, Miss Ruiko… why are you out here after curfew? The Daihasei Festival hasn't started yet, so the dorm curfew should still be in effect."

Since she was a friend of Frenda's, Haruto couldn't just treat her like a random passerby. He had to get to the bottom of it — so something like this wouldn't happen again.

Her smile faltered at the question.

Haruto's presence was imposing, like a strict teacher, and she instinctively lowered her head.

"Um… well… it's because… I wanted to check out an urban legend."

Haruto raised an eyebrow.

In Academy City, urban legends usually turned out to be real —because in this city of science, "supernatural" rumors were often just someone's secret project.

"And what urban legend would that be? Let me hear it."

Under his questioning, Ruiko spilled the whole story.

The urban legend was called Level Upper.

It had been spreading wildly online.

According to the stories, its true form was an audio file. Anyone who listened to it would have their esper powers awakened or enhanced.

As a Level 0, Ruiko usually had a positive outlook despite her lack of ability —but the chance to get a power was tempting.

Through various online chatrooms, she contacted someone claiming to have the Level Upper.

They said they could give it to her —but not online.

She had to meet them in person here.

So she snuck out… and ended up surrounded by punks.

Haruto frowned at her story.

If it were just some bait from local thugs, that'd be fine.

But he knew Level Upper was real.

Its true nature was a program that used human brains as computation units, linked via AIM diffusion fields into a network.

With multiple brains working in parallel, it could run complex code that would otherwise be impossible.

In simple terms — it used other people's brains as extra processors.

And since esper abilities were fundamentally based on calculation ability, boosting that meant you could awaken or level up a power.

But the problem was—

If you borrow someone else's brainpower…

What are they supposed to use?

The widespread use of Level Upper left normal espers in a state akin to brain death.