Toaru Majutsu no Index Light Novel Volume SS2/Chapter 7

Synopsis
A man named Ollerus has just finished eliminating a human trafficking organization in Milan, where he returns to his apartment only to face the wrath of Silvia, his acquaintance. She pressures him into revealing he had brought about the 100 children that he rescued with him home. Silvia questions he brought them here, to which Ollerus explains that he was originally planning to only destroy the human trafficking headquarters before leaving, but the captured children all started coming out. He claims he had no choice but to take them here, since there was a chance they would get captured by someone else if he had left them by themselves. Silvia compares his actions with that of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, causing Ollerus to fall silent in response.

Silvia tries to close the door in exasperation, but Ollerus pleads that the children will only stay in their apartment until they can find foster parents. Unmoved, Silvia orders Ollerus to throw them out, causing him to tell her in dismay that there is no way he can do that, and that she is a heartless woman. In response, she swings the door in anger, hitting Ollerus in the face and knocking him down to the ground, reminding him that everything wouldn't be so hard if that was how life worked. With her hands on her hips, Silvia tells him he's making promises he can't keep, seeing as how speaking all these self-important words wouldn't give the children food and blankets. Threatening to make him straddle the dog house by tying him up, she lectures that such a punishment would teach him what it meant to anger the Bonn Dame Silvia. Silvia does eventually invite the children into their apartment as she was unable to leave them outside, although Ollerus is chagrined at having the children watch him be punished.

However, one small girl approaches Ollerus, saying that she wants to repay him for what she did for her. With a laugh, Ollerus replies he didn't save all of them because he wanted something in return. After staring at him for a while, the girl asks if everything is fine now, but Ollerus admits that everything he did was meaningless. He says that chaining up the human traffickers and forcing them into manual labor is no different than what they did and that's not the kind of method he wants to use. The girl continues to insist that she wants to repay him however, causing Ollerus to promise her he wants her to make herself happy with her own power if that was truly the case. After all, Ollerus had saved her and the others even though it would result in facing Silvia's wrath, and says that it doesn't make much sense for him to wish for anything else but for her to be happy.

Meanwhile, Silvia is bowing down in apology to their landlord, wondering how she would feed 100 children and procure enough blankets and space for them to sleep in. The little girl then approaches Silvia for answers in order to learn more about Ollerus, who tells her that Ollerus is someone who should have become a Magic God. She explains how a Magic God was somebody who had mastered the path of magic and entered the domain of God. Silvia says that reading original grimoires would likely cause ordinary humans to die, but that problem didn't mean anything to Ollerus due to the immense power he would have wielded as a Magic God. However, she says that even if one has the needed knowledge to perform magic, it would be meaningless if one doesn't have the energy required to implement it. Instead, Ollerus is able to barely survive the process by using a theory of Hliðskjálf to purify his body's life force so that it transforms into a special magic power.

Despite having heard all this, the little girl still did not understand what Silvia meant, even though she had just received a very simplified explanation. In response, Silvia reiterates that becoming a Magic God is basically like achieving a dream job, comparing it to major league players in the World Cup. The girl notices Silvia stated Ollerus should have been a Magic God, to which Silvia confirms that he lost his chance to become one because he had ran around town looking for an animal hospital for an injured kitten. She then reveals that the rare chance of becoming a Magic God only comes once in 10,000 years, and that nobody knows when it will come again when it's over.

As the girl is stunned into silence, Silvia continues saying that Ollerus just keeps getting into all sorts of trouble after having thrown away his chance, and then complains that he is an idiot. Even though some people may call him sentimental, Silvia knows Ollerus isn't perfect since he sometimes cries at night thinking about his lost chance. She clarifies that Ollerus says that he had always regretted it and there was no guarantee that he would end up doing the same thing again. Despite that, he truly believed that giving up the opportunity to become a Magic God in order to save a kitten was the right thing to do at that time. Silvia says that whenever she looks at him she gets the idiotic idea that she should protect him, hence the reason why she continues to stay with him instead of going back to England.

Later on in the day, Silvia collapses onto a table in exhaustion after managing to acquire blankets for all the children in the apartment and letting them fall asleep. She threatens Ollerus that she will give him a taste of the horror of lacquer afterwards, causing Ollerus to complain about its itchiness in displeasure. Silvia retorts that until until the children can be taken care of by a local church, he will have to just bear with it. Changing the subject, Silvia asks if the children were marked, to which Ollerus confirms that the children matched the list, though only a few of them were actually Gemstones. Ollerus says that he had verified that the human trafficking organization dealt with people that had certain idiosyncrasies. He remarks that he will be busy again, before leaving the city that same day.

Characters
By order of appearance

New Characters

 * Ollerus
 * Silvia

Cultural References

 * Silvia references the when criticizing Ollerus's decision in bringing the kids home.