Chapter 1: The Magician Lands on the Tower. Part 1

"You Aquarii born between January 20th and February 18th have the greatest luck in love, work, and money! No matter how incredibly improbable things may get, only good things will happen, so how about you go play the lottery!? But no matter how popular you may be, don't try dating three or four girls at the same time?."

"...Y'know, I knew it would be something like this, but still."

It was July 20th, the first day of summer break.

Kamijou Touma was at a loss for words in his Academy City dorm room that was ruled by a boiling heat due to a broken air conditioner. Apparently, lightning had struck during the night and had taken out 80% of the electrical appliances, meaning that the contents of his fridge had been wiped out. When he tried to eat the cup yakisoba he kept as emergency rations, he had spilled the noodles all over the sink. With no other option, he decided to eat out, but he stepped on and broke his ATM card while searching for his wallet. When he spitefully crawled back into bed to cry himself to sleep, he was woken by a love call on the phone from his homeroom teacher saying, "Kamijou-chan, you're an idiot, so you need supplementary lessons?"

He had always felt that horoscopes given on TV like weather forecasts tended to be just that, forecasts, but he was unable to laugh it off when it was that false.

"…I really do get it. But I can't fully grasp it without speaking to myself."

The horoscope was perpetually wrong and Kamijou never encountered a true good luck charm. It was simply everyday life for Kamijou Touma. He had believed that his fantastic misfortune ran in the family, but his father had won fourth prize, about 100,000 yen, in a lottery and his mother had won a vending machine roulette again and again without end. At times he wondered whether he was not blood related to them, but he could not enter the "heir to the throne" route without activating the little sister flag, so that kind of pointless foreshadowing would actually be a problem.

To sum it up, Kamijou Touma experienced nothing but misfortune to the extent that his life could in essence be called a running gag.

But he had no intention of just lazing around because of bad luck.

Kamijou did not rely on luck. In other words, he had a lot of drive.

"…Now then. The immediate problems are my card and the fridge."

Kamijou scratched his head and looked around his room. As long as he had his bankbook, he could get a new card easily enough. The real problem was the fridge… or rather, breakfast. They called it supplementary lessons, but he was sure to be forced to take Methuselin pills and Elbrase powder for the sake of power development. Doing that on an empty stomach would not be a good idea.

As he changed out of the T-shirt he wore instead of pajamas and into his summer uniform, Kamijou considered stopping by a convenience store on the way to school. Living up to his position as an idiotic student, Kamijou had pointlessly stayed up all night as summer break approached, so a grinding pain was running through his sleep-deprived mind. However, he forced himself to think positively.

Well, I guess I'm getting off easy if a single week will wrap up everything I missed in the four months' worth of class I skipped this term, Kamijou thought.

His mood rebounded to the extent that he suddenly muttered, "The weather sure is nice. Maybe I should air out my futon."

Kamijou then opened the screen door to the balcony, where he expected the futon to be nice and fluffy once he got back from his supplementary lessons.

But on that seventh floor balcony, the wall of the neighboring building was less than two meters away.

"The sky is so blue, but my future is pitch black?"

His spirits dropped sharply. Forcing himself to say it cheerfully only had the opposite effect.

Having no one around to act as the straight man only tormented him with a feeling of loneliness and he used both hands to grab the futon on his bed.

All else fail, I at least have to get this nice and fluffy, he thought.

While thinking, he felt something soft squish under his foot and looked down to find yakisoba bread still in its plastic wrapping. It had been in the aforementioned ruined refrigerator, so it had surely gone bad.

"…I just hope it doesn't suddenly start raining this evening." Voicing a sudden bad premonition he had, Kamijou trudged out the opened screen door and to the balcony.

He spotted a white futon already hanging there.

"?"

Though it was a school dormitory, the layout was exactly like a one-room apartment so Kamijou lived alone. As such, no one besides Kamijou Touma would hang a futon over the railing of his room's balcony.

When he looked closer, he realized it was not a futon at all, but a girl wearing white clothes.

"Hahh!?"

The real futon fell from his hands.

It was a mystery. In fact, it was nonsensical. As if she had exhaustedly collapsed across a metal rod, the girl had her waist pressed up against the balcony railing and her body bent such that her arms and legs were dangling straight down.

Her age was about 14 or 15. She looked about a year or two younger than Kamijou. She must have been foreign because her skin was pure white and her hair was as well... No, silver. Her hair was rather long, so it completely covered her upside down head, hiding her face from view. Kamijou guessed it must go down to her waist normally.

Her clothes...

"Wah, it's a real sister… The nun kind, not the sibling kind."

Was habit the term for what she wore? It was that outfit you expected to see on a nun in a church. Her clothes looked a bit like a long dress that reached her ankles, and she wore a one-piece hood over her head that was a bit different from a hat. However, while normal nun habits were jet black, hers was pure white. Was it made of silk? Also, at all the important points of the outfit, embroideries made of golden thread were sown in. Kamijou could not believe just how much the impression given by the same design could change by altering the color scheme. What he saw reminded him of a nouveau riche teacup.

The girl's lovely fingertips twitched. Her head slowly rose from its hanging position. Her silk-like silver hair smoothly split to either side like a curtain and the girl's face appeared from between the long, long hair.

Wah, wah…!

The girl's face was relatively cute. Her white skin and green eyes were a new experience for someone with zero overseas experience like Kamijou, and she somehow seemed like a doll to him.

However, that was not what had left Kamijou so flustered.

She was a foreigner and Kamijou Touma's English teacher had suggested he take up a lifelong policy of avoiding foreigners. If someone from some strange country suddenly started talking on and on to him, he would likely end up buying a down comforter without even realizing it.

"I…"

The girl's cute but slightly dried lips slowly moved.

Kamijou thoughtlessly took a step or two back. With a squish, he stepped on the yakisoba bread once more.

"I'm hungry."

"…"

For an instant, Kamijou thought he was so dim witted that his mind had automatically substituted the foreign language he had heard with Japanese. Similar to how dim elementary school kids would give ridiculous lyrics to songs that they did not know the real lyrics to.

"I'm hungry."

"…"

"I'm hungry."

"…"

"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm hungry?"

The silver-haired girl seemed to get a little irate at how Kamijou stood there, frozen.

No. That settles it. This can't be anything other than Japanese, he thought.

"Ah, umm…" he said as he stared at the girl draped over the balcony railing. "What? Are you trying to say you collapsed from exhaustion or something?"

"You could also say I have collapsed and am about to die."

"…"

The girl could speak Japanese really well.

"It would be great if you could feed me enough food to fill me up."

Kamijou looked down at the squished and likely spoiled yakisoba-pan still in its wrapper at his feet. He had no idea what was going on, but knew he would be better off not getting involved. In the hopes of happily sending the girl off to some distant place, he stuck the squished bread up to her mouth. He was sure she would run off once she caught a whiff of the sour smell, so he meant it as something similar to chazuke being offered to a guest one wanted to leave in Kyoto.

"Thank you. And it's time to eat."

Her mouth engulfed it along with the wrapping, Kamijou's arm included.

Once again, Kamijou's day began with a scream and a taste of misfortune.