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"Ahhh!!!"
The piercing scream made Ethan feel like his eardrums were about to explode. His head rang — damn, that sound wave attack was no joke.
Smack!
A soft, pale hand reached toward his cheek, maybe to check if he was okay. But Ethan, being a man of principle, believed men and women shouldn't be that close, so he quickly caught the hand midair instead.
"Y-you—you pervert! What the hell are you doing in my dorm room?!" Misaka Mikoto's voice rose an octave with fury. Sparks of electricity crackled around her body, gathering into a blinding torrent that shot straight at Ethan.
"Huh?" Ethan blinked, finally snapping back to his senses. The girl in front of him—well, probably a girl—looked kind of cute, but… flat. Like, really flat.
"A trap!" he blurted, diving to the side to dodge. He decided to keep a safe distance from this maybe-girl. She looked vaguely familiar, but thanks to a certain dream he'd had recently, Ethan had developed a strange trauma: if he couldn't confirm someone's gender personally, then anyone flat-chested automatically got flagged as "probably a guy in disguise."
"Ha?! You—you disgusting pervert! I'll kill you!" Misaka roared, furious. She'd always been self-conscious about her airstrip runway of a chest—and now this random stranger had the nerve to stare directly at it while calling her a trap!
"Where the hell am I, anyway?" Ethan asked, casually glancing around the room. As for Misaka's attacks—well, with his defense and reflexes, they were basically tickles.
He sidestepped another arc of electricity and looked around thoughtfully. Judging by the furniture and faint floral scent, this was definitely a girl's dorm room.…Or a trap's dorm room, he mentally corrected, stealing another glance at her chest and nodding solemnly to himself.
"You bastard! I'll fry you alive, you hear me?!" Misaka shouted, seeing him still staring with that infuriatingly smug, judgmental look. Her electricity flared, lighting up the entire room.
"Tch. Acting like some delicate little girl when you're clearly a guy pretending to be one… pathetic," Ethan muttered, clicking his tongue. He effortlessly dodged the next blast, vaulted toward the window, and leapt out into the night sky.
Yeah, time to bail. This was obviously her turf, and he didn't need more trouble.
Misaka gritted her teeth as his silhouette vanished into the dark. If he hadn't flown off so fast, she would've shown him exactly what a Level 5 Railgun could do.
"Ugh! That jerk! Who even was that guy…? He felt… weirdly strong." She frowned, lost in thought.
Before she could piece it together—BANG!—her dorm room door swung open. Standing there was a woman in a sharp suit and sunglasses, her face cold as ice.
"W-Warden…!" Misaka stammered.
"Hmph."
"Ahhhh! No! I swear I'll behave! Stupid pervert! Just wait till I find you again—you're dead! Aaaahhh!!!"
Her screams echoed through the entire dorm building, followed by a very awkward silence.
Meanwhile, Ethan had landed in a small park not far away. He sat down on a bench, rubbing his temples.
"Okay, let's think. I came to this world on some sort of… job, right? A commission or something. But what was it again?" He frowned. "And that 'trap' from before… why did they look so familiar? Could that be my client? Hmm. Could be. I mean, why else would I appear in the same place as them? Damn it… my client's a trap. I hate traps. And now I've gotta work with one."
He sighed heavily. "Whatever. If I run into them again, I'll just ask about the job directly. Ugh, this world feels familiar somehow, but thanks to those stupid dimensional rules, my memories are all fuzzy."
Poor Ethan. Because of the Time-Space Agency's memory seal, he'd completely mistaken Misaka Mikoto—the Railgun herself—for a crossdressing boy.
Not that it was entirely his fault. That nightmare he'd had before arriving here had scarred him so badly that now, whenever he saw a cute, flat-chested girl, his first thought was always: trap.
Truly tragic. Who knows what kind of trauma that dream left behind… maybe even permanent damage.
He leaned back with a sigh. "Ugh, strange new world… wait, crap, I don't have any money! Sayuriko's the one who handles our funds, and I forgot to ask her for cash before I left! And even if I had any, the currency here's probably different anyway. Great. Just great."
Scratching his head, Ethan looked thoroughly defeated.
"Don't tell me I'll have to go back to my old job just to make money again. Come on, give me a break! I came to another world—can't I at least relax for once?"
He groaned and flopped back on the park bench. Within minutes, soft snores drifted through the cool night air.
"..."
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