Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume1 Phase5 (section)

===Part 1===

There was only one thing to do now.

“Let’s get out of here.”

After confirming that Demon Lord Nirvelphany was holding the old man in her arms, Ayato Criminaltrophy jumped down from the stage with his Linkage Plug sword in hand. But would the crowd use their numbers to restrain the criminal?

Of course not.

The crowd was unarmed and he was armed. And those ordinary people could not tell that his weapon was meant for Sorcery Hacking and could not actually do much direct harm. They cried out in alarm and parted in front of him. It was amusing to see a Moneylender get separated from his bodyguards and shoved around as people took out their daily frustrations on him. Ayato’s group ran to their destination before the crowd could regain their cool.

“Nirvelphany, can you use that orbital sorcery cannon again!?”

“…”

The woman in red leather shrank down a bit while holding the old man, but then…

“Stay back unless you wish to be blown to smithereens!! I am the great Demon Lord Nirvelphany and I will not hesitate to fire my diabolical cannon from the heavens!!”

The crowd froze in place. Whether or not she really was the Demon Lord, they had seen that attack from the heavens break through the Guardian Umbrella. But Ayato had noticed her brief hesitation.

…He could not count on that anymore. They had to find some other way to escape the army pushing in toward them. And with that in mind, there was no way they could escape Light Castle Brightio on foot.

For one thing, Teleria, Mamilis, and Henrietta were still up in the towers.

So…

“Get on, get on!! Let’s take this thing for a spin!!”

A giant object had fallen surprisingly close by. It looked like a wide isosceles triangle made from several thin, bat-like wings. That flight device measured 30 esoule<ref>Approximately 36 meters.</ref> wide and it was known as an Armored Dragon.

Level 32 was pretty high, but he could easily cover that after arriving at the castle with Level 20 and hacking high-level knights and flight devices during the battle.

Whatever it might be, a Sorcery Hacker could hijack any product of magic as long as they had the necessary level.

He stabbed his sword in, pulled the trigger, and then yanked the grip back, leaving the blade behind.

He finished hacking it by interfering with the mist mana circulating through the sorcery device just as Nirvelphany hopped onto the bat-like wings.

“The old man is on too! We’re ready when you are!!”

“Y-you fool!! I told you to live the life you want to live, but your life is essentially over after opposing Celedileka like this!!”

“Oh, shut up!! How many times do I have to tell you this is what I want to do!? I am not interested in the concepts of good and evil that you humans have invented to bind the masses! I am not about to turn my back on the decision I made for myself!!”

The device itself was thin, but if you placed your arms or legs on the top or bottom surface, they would stick there. It must have used some kind of gravitational control. Since they were accustomed to walking on the surface, Ayato’s group chose the top surface.

“You know how to fly this thing, I hope?”

“I couldn’t call myself a Sorcery Hacker if I couldn’t do anything I put my mind to.”

Compressed air roared as it slammed against the ground and the nearby crowd was blown away. It then twisted around to rapidly ascend and fly toward the top of the towers. They were soon attacked by the knights who had been pummeled by the shockwave but still managed to stay airborne with their rotating wing crafts.

“What now, Sorcery Hacker!?”

“This thing is a lot bigger than them, so we can break right through them if we ram them!!”

The girls had been hit by the orbital sorcery cannon’s shockwave, but they had come to in the short time since.

Ayato first crashed through the bottom of the small pieces of rubble suspended in midair to destroy them while picking up Henrietta who was on top of them. Artificial gravity created via sorcery made sure the Striker’s body stuck to the smooth surface of the craft like it was a giant magnet.

“Whoa.”

There was no time to listen to her complaints. The impact of the collision had altered the Armored Dragon’s course a fair bit, so he directed it toward one of the towers. Ayato and Henrietta reached out to grab Teleria and Mamilis as they flew past.

After feeling their weight in their arms, they lifted the Armored Dragon’s nose.

They shot upwards and flew out above the ostentatious castle.

“Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah!! Wahhhhhh!!!???”

The blonde girl flailed her legs wildly, but Ayato managed to pull her up and hold her in his arms. Henrietta easily collected the Dark Elf.

He had neglected to control the Armored Dragon while dealing with Teleria, so it veered off course. They lost the altitude they had gained and nearly crashed into the ground.

“Dammit!!”

Ayato frantically focused on the crystal tarot card Linkage Monitor floating in the air and regained control of the Armored Dragon.

“Where are we!? It looks like we’ve flown past the castle walls at least!!”

“Coach, I think this is Water Castle Town Aquaria,” said Dark Elf Mamilis.

Either she had not had time or she no longer cared because she had not hidden her distinctive long ears.

This was a town of boats. The entire area was covered in water that reflected the sunny and starry sky and countless boats of various sizes floated there to form a town. No, the water’s currents had far surpassed the pull of gravity. The water looked too crowded to actually navigate any of the boats, but a massive amount of water formed giant arches reminiscent of rainbow bridges and the boats used those to move around. It looked a lot like a giant arm reaching down to a flat diorama and rearranging the miniature houses.

They flew through there at high altitude.

They sometimes just barely avoided the sails of a large ship and sometimes slipped below a giant steamboat lifted up by a water arch.

Their max speed was about 80 Scuz<ref>Approximately 136 kilometers per hour.</ref>. The only faster flying devices were the largescale airships that rode the manaflows in the atmosphere. They were moving fast enough to tear through the air, but they did not have to worry about frictional heat, air resistance, inertia, or anything like that. Celedileka’s sorcery devices were most suited for use in the sky.

“I think there was a model of one of these in my grandma’s room,” said silver-haired Mamilis while she reached her chocolate-colored hand to the side. Her fingers easily snatched a white seabird from the air just above the water.

Yes, even though they were moving faster than a train.

“It really does work just like grandma’s designs said. When the powerful safety is in effect, you can ignore the relative speeds, Coach. We shouldn’t have to worry about hurting ourselves.”

“Tch. I really wish I could have met her before leaving the city. That is some impressive talent.”

She made it sound so simple, but that meant the riders could tear away the opponent’s weapons and armor while moving at these speeds. It was basically cheating.

(Now, I’ve got a decent idea of what this area is like.)

Whatever the case, rescuing Nirvelphany and the old man would require escaping Sky City Celedileka as a whole.

“Ahh,” groaned Thomas in Nirvelphany’s arms.

“Don’t look so reluctant to leave this city,” she said while he stared blankly out from her arms. “I will show you what you can find on that vast blue planet. This isolated and artificial land is not everything. You may have given up on this world, but I will show you just how vast, strange, and beautiful it can be!! That much I can promise you!!”

“…”

He may have already seen that. When he was driven to the edge, several people had gathered to pick a fight with the regional monarchy itself. That may have begun the process of truly saving him.

Although Ayato was not crass enough to say that out loud.

They had just the one destination for now:

“The outer edge and outside!! Hold on, everyone!!”

“That is fine, but look behind us, dangerous individual!!”

Henrietta shouted something odd.

Ayato had been busy using the arrangement of crystal tarot cards to gradually stabilize their flight, but he finally had enough time to look back.

And there he saw it.

“Another Armored Dragon is pursuing us!” said the Striker. “And it’s moving oddly! This is no normal flight!!”

Armored Dragons were large even for flight devices, so it could easily shake free of the personal gliders or rotating wing crafts that used a propeller on the top and back of the exposed cockpit. That meant only another Armored Dragon could pursue them.

But all of the flight devices supplied through the standard route should have been knocked from the sky by the shockwave and blizzard caused by the orbital sorcery cannon. A Sky Pirate girl with an eyepatch and miniskirt had used the confusion to steal and patch up a broken flight device to use herself, but who was this person who had forcibly snatched up a different crashed Armored Dragon to pursue them? Ayato could only think of one person with this strong an obsession with avoiding failure here.

Namely…

“It’s that High Priest. Isn’t he a little old to be playing a game of chicken!?”