Under the pitch-black night sky, on the broken and silent street, the fierce and tense battle had momentarily fallen into a lull. Cloaked in black, Dorothy stood quietly at the center of the battlefield, while the formidable threat prowled beneath her feet.

Underground, the terrifying gargoyle was moving swiftly, circling the prey he believed had fallen into his trap, drawing ever closer. In his heart, he had already concluded that the battle was over—what remained wasn’t even a hunt, merely the harvest of prey caught in his snare.

In this eerily silent atmosphere, Dorothy reached into her cloak. After a brief moment of searching, she pulled out an ordinary Pritt coin.

Clutching the coin engraved with the current King Charles IV of Pritt, Dorothy took a deep breath—as if something within her had been triggered. The nervousness in her heart was completely replaced by calm. With eyes closed, she focused, using her abilities to sense the iron sand below, tracking the underground movements of her enemy.

As seconds passed, Dorothy sensed the dangerous being underground slowly circle behind her… and then, silently, surface from the earth.

Behind her, the towering figure of the gargoyle emerged noiselessly. Gochelle raised his blazing claws high, his ruthless gaze fixed on what appeared to be an unaware back. In the next moment, he would tear her apart with searing claw-blades.

But just then, the cloaked figure sharply turned around. Beneath the hood, a delicate girl’s face stared directly at the would-be ambusher, her crimson eyes calm and cold. At such close range, as Gochelle finally saw his opponent’s true face, he froze for a moment.

“A kid?!”

The enemy he thought was completely bound had suddenly turned to face him. A bad feeling shot through Gochelle, but it was too late to react. His flaming claws were already swinging down—but what moved even faster were the words from the girl’s mouth.

“—Fus · Ro—”

The ancient incantation came softly from her lips, but what followed was a burst of wild, overwhelming force. With a deafening boom, a concentrated shockwave struck Gochelle squarely in the chest and abdomen. Even his heavy stone body was blown back, legs lifting off the ground as he was flung nearly forty meters, shock written all over his face.

Using the power of the Dragon Shout, Dorothy disrupted Gochelle’s sneak attack and hurled him backward. But the shout alone wasn’t meant to pierce the gargoyle’s nearly explosion-proof defenses. Its purpose was to force distance and create an opening.

The forty-meter gap and the rigid staggered state induced by the Dragon Shout’s lingering force, keeping Gochelle suspended and unable to move or dodge—this was what Dorothy truly wanted.

The moment the shout was unleashed and Gochelle was sent flying, Dorothy had already turned fully and raised her arm. Between her fingers, a coin rested—poised to fire. Her crimson gaze locked on the airborne gargoyle. Invisible force surged outward, distorting the space around her. Tiny sparks of electricity flickered around her.

While Gochelle was still midair, still under the effects of the Dragon Shout and had yet to touch the ground—Dorothy flicked the coin.

In that instant, as the coin left her fingers, an immense unseen force gripped it. The ordinary Pritt coin accelerated at an inconceivable rate.

Whizz!

Driven by the immense force, the coin accelerated so fast it tore through the air with incredible speed. Friction with the atmosphere caused the coin’s surface to heat up violently. Soon, it glowed white-hot—like molten metal just pulled from a forge. At that speed, it looked less like a projectile and more like a streak of blazing light.

The radiant orange-gold shot from Dorothy’s fingers streaked through the street, its sheer velocity generating shockwaves that buffeted the surroundings. Dozens of meters downrange, now molten and beginning to deform, the coin struck its target—Gochelle’s stone chest—and pierced through it.

It all happened in under a second.

Before Gochelle could even react, the beam of blazing light had already bored a hole through his chest—piercing his heart. The skin that had withstood bullets and explosives now appeared as fragile as paper before such overwhelming force.

Everything had happened too fast.

As Gochelle was blasted backward and hit the ground, he still hadn’t realized what had just occurred. From his perspective, it was as if the girl had suddenly fired a beam of light at him, followed by a strong impact to the chest, sending him tumbling.

Normally, Gochelle never feared such beam-like attacks—only Fire Elementalists’ sacred fire-lances had that visual effect, and he was resistant to elemental users. So even as he stood up, he didn’t think much of the hit… until he felt something strange in his chest and his limbs failed him. Then he looked down—and his expression froze.

A round hole had appeared in his chest—not large, but devastating. Cracks radiated outward like a spiderweb. The edges of the hole glowed faintly, charred from intense heat. The flesh inside, once protected by his shell, had been burned black—smoke still curled outward. The scent of roasted meat lingered in the air.

His chest was pierced clean through. Though the burn sealed the wound and prevented bleeding, the damage to his heart made that irrelevant.

“…What… is this…”

Eyes wide, face filled with disbelief, Gochelle murmured. But before he could finish the sentence, darkness overtook him. Consciousness blurred. His heavy body tilted to one side—

—and crashed to the ground.

Lying on the ground, Gochelle felt the world slipping away. Beneath the deepening darkness that consumed his vision, the last thing he saw was the silhouette of the girl slowly approaching from afar. But before she could reach him, he had already completely lost consciousness, unmoving on the ground.

Clad in her black robe, Dorothy slowly walked up to Gochelle. Looking at his body—which had already reverted from its monstrous form to a human one—she used her corpse marionette control to confirm that he was indeed dead, and finally let out a long sigh of relief.

“Phew... finally dealt with. As expected, against this kind of iron-shelled bastard, unless you use spirit-based or mental powers, the only option is relying on brute force miracles.

“Gargoyles can resist this era’s firearms and mining explosives… but something like a railgun is a whole different story. After all, it’s the signature move of the Electric Princess.”

Staring at Gochelle’s corpse, Dorothy thought to herself. Yes, the move she had just used originated from Misaka Mikoto, the Level 5 esper from Academy City in the Toaru universe—specifically, her electromagnetic ability model. Dorothy had used the modified third notebook of Balaar to exchange for another world knowledge, and what she obtained was Misaka Mikoto’s superpower mathematical model.

In the Toaru universe, espers developed by Academy City use mathematical computation to activate and fine-tune their powers. Every esper has their own computation method, and builds a unique model tailored to their ability. The stronger their computational power, the more precise and complex their usage becomes—affecting range, control, and potency. Among the seven Level 5 espers in Academy City, all except the seventh—who is a naturally gifted "gemstone"—possess immense computational capacity and personalized mathematical models.

(T/N: For Context: Gemstone is the term used for natural-born Esper. Unlike Academy City’s Artificial Esper)

Misaka Mikoto is the strongest Electromaster in Academy City. After Dorothy obtained her ability model and adapted it locally, she was able to apply it to her own Thunder Summoner branch powers.

As a Revelation-path Beyonder, Dorothy herself possessed excellent computational ability. With this model, she could mathematically expand how she used her abilities—drastically enhancing her understanding and control over electricity.

The most direct result of this was Dorothy’s massive improvement in her use of electromagnetic force. Back when she first became a Thunder Summoner, she had tried to precisely manipulate metals using electromagnetism to expand her combat options, but her results had been mediocre.

For Dorothy, manipulating currents was much easier than controlling electromagnetic fields. She could do it to a degree, but complex operations were difficult. Back then, she had already considered acquiring the experience of other electric ability users from other worlds—but lacked a suitable mystical text to trade for it. Until tonight.

After obtaining Misaka Mikoto’s superpower model, Dorothy experienced a qualitative leap in her control over electromagnetic force. Now, she could not only freely manipulate metallic objects, but also sense and control iron sand underground. She could even perform advanced applications—like launching a railgun.

Misaka Mikoto’s railgun works by generating magnetic fields in space to accelerate a metal projectile to high speeds—granting it kinetic force beyond that of standard chemical firearms.

She typically uses coins as projectiles, since coins are easily accessible, uniformly dense, and conveniently shaped—far better suited for kinetic rounds than oddly shaped or inconsistently dense bits of metal from everyday life.

When Misaka fires a coin, the initial velocity reaches Mach 3. As the coin continues to fly, it remains within her magnetic field and keeps accelerating, reaching over Mach 10 within fifty meters. However, due to air friction and heating, the coin begins to melt beyond that range—so the effective range of her coin-based railgun is about fifty meters.

From this perspective, the notion of “initial velocity Mach 3” is misleading. Since the coin stays within an accelerating magnetic field, it’s similar to a bullet remaining inside the barrel of a gun the entire time—constantly pushed by expanding gases. In Misaka’s case, her coin projectile remains within the field for tens of meters. The actual “muzzle velocity” would be the speed when the coin exits her field, though by then it’s usually melted from friction.

The inaccurate “Mach 3” figure stems from how her ability was tested—using methods designed for conventional firearms. Misaka herself was treated as the launch platform, and the speed sensor was placed directly in front of her, not at the end of her magnetic field, leading to flawed data.

That’s why Dorothy had to use Dragon Shout to force Gochelle back. Unlike conventional guns where the moment a round leaves the barrel it hits max velocity, Mikoto’s railgun requires space to accelerate. Without enough distance, the projectile lacks the force to pierce a gargoyle’s armor. That meant Dorothy couldn’t fire point-blank—she needed the enemy to be at a very specific range.

The strong knockback and stagger from the Dragon Shout created exactly that setup—and for the Dragon Shout to land perfectly, she needed to strike when the enemy was closest, and most overconfident.

Dorothy understood that the reason this gargoyle came to fight her wasn’t just because she blew up his base—though that surely angered him—but also because, at first, she acted like a Pyromancer sniper. That gave him confidence. Even when he realized she wasn’t a typical elementalist, he never truly felt threatened. He thought he had the upper hand the whole fight.

And Dorothy knew: based on the style of the Dark Gold Society, if he realized he was at a disadvantage, he wouldn’t stick around. He’d flee instantly. In a city like this, trying to chase down a Wall Walker was nearly impossible.

That meant Dorothy had to let him believe he was in control all the way through—and when she struck back, it had to be with a single, lethal blow. If it failed, she’d only watch helplessly as he escaped.

Against a Gargoyle with extreme defense and absurd resistance to both physical and elemental damage, and without access to soul or curse-based attacks, Dorothy had only one trump card: the railgun. Everything she had done led up to that final decisive shot. And in the end, it didn’t disappoint—it brute-forced its way through a third-stage Stone defense.

“It’s powerful, yeah… but the cost is kind of ridiculous…”

Looking down at the corpse, Dorothy sighed again. What she’d gained wasn’t Misaka Mikoto’s actual esper ability—rooted in quantum mechanics and self-reality rewriting—but merely the usage method of her powers. Dorothy’s railgun was still based on her world’s mystical system, drawing from her own Thunder Summoner simulated ability—and that meant it consumed spirituality.

Firing that single railgun round required Dorothy to generate an intense magnetic field, which directly drained 5 points of Stone and 7 points of Revelation—and that was after she’d optimized the calculations to minimize cost. For Misaka Mikoto, this kind of output was just average. Her mathematical model contained even higher-output formulas.

“Another massive spirituality bleed... hope that profiteer’s payment is worth it.”

Dorothy murmured this to herself, then—as usual—she began rummaging through the fallen Gochelle’s equipment. After using corpse marionette control to make his body stumble into a dark corner and search himself for a while, she gathered up the spoils and tucked them away.

Dorothy had originally planned to search their hideout as well, but upon seeing the mansion in the distant courtyard now ablaze with roaring flames—already drawing crowds of ordinary citizens gathering outside the walls—she gave up on the idea and promptly withdrew before the official mystical organization could arrive.