Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume4 Phase04 (section)

===Part 1===

“Secondary Icicle Rock!!”

Teleria Nereid Aquamarine’s cry echoed through the vast space.

“Whoa.”

“Don’t fall, Mamilis! Or you, half elves!!”

Henrietta pulled a thin needle from her armor and readied her bolt-action carbine once more.

They were no longer underground.

The space below the palace was now filled with transparent tentacles. Staying there would get them crushed to death before they could even fight.

Queen Astaroth Revolver only had to extend those tentacles like limbs to collapse the bedrock and send devastating cracks through the palace’s walls and ceiling.

With support from Teleria’s water magic, Ayato’s group had no choice but to make large jumps with water jets and land on ice platforms to continue ever upwards and away from the transparent tentacles threatening to engulf them.

But this couldn’t last forever.

(Where is this?)

Ayato carefully observed his surroundings as he prepared his linkage plug sword.

The space was filled with chandeliers and candlesticks that glowed with the pale light of sorcery instead of lit candles. It was more than 1000 esoule<ref>Approximately 1.2 kilometers.</ref> deep and wide, making it an especially large part of the palace. The space alone rivaled a small castle or town and it formed the very center of the palace. The gorgeous space looked empty now that the aged king was gone. It was…

“The audience chamber, huh?”

“Not a bad location, don’t you think?”

Something flowed out from the cracks.

But the voice came from the ceiling.

Something fell straight down and splatted down onto the floor like boiled pasta dumped from the pot onto a plate. She wasn’t limited to the underground anymore. How far did she spread?

Queen Astaroth Revolver.

The blonde devil glared down at them from atop a 100 esoule<ref>Approximately 120 meters.</ref> mountain of transparent tentacles.

“It is known as the audience chamber, but it is in fact a great hall that can take on any number of forms depending on the furniture and decorations brought in: a dining hall, a dance hall, a strategic headquarters, and even a court for judging traitors.”

“…”

A court. Judgment.

Was she saying that made this the perfect venue to determine the fate of their Static Continent and the wider world beyond it?

“Do you think you have the right to judge others when you refuse to face your own misdeeds?”

“My strength gives me the right.”

Something solid audibly snapped apart. When enough were brought together, even those transparent tentacles took on a cloudy hue. The Queen’s tentacles continued to grow as they crushed the furniture and lights around them. No, this wasn’t just destruction. What was this?

“Strength has always been beautiful,” said the devil, a spellbound smile on her face. She might be wrong about that, but she was still the ultimate weapon that had charmed so many people. “Everyone wants my strength. They want to be stronger than anyone. You say weakness is just another personal trait? You think everyone should be treated equally? Only the people looking down from a position of superiority say that. No one wants to be pitied by the majority who refuse to even try to understand them, do they, Ayato?”

She really did only look to the person whose strength she acknowledged.

She paid no attention at all to Teleria, Mamilis, Henrietta, the Philosommelier half elves, or anyone else.

Disturbing cracking and snapping sounds came from inside the mountain of tentacles and the Queen sneered.

As if showing off a new toy.

“''Physical hacking.'' Kee hee hee. If I must compare it to what you do, I can destroy any kind of material, break it down, and scan each individual component to make it part of my own power. Like this.”

The mountain of tentacles split to the sides and a thick silver gun barrel emerged from the center.

This was not a mere sorcery gun.

That was a…!?



“''Railgun.''”



Even the boom sounded distant.

A sharp ringing in the ears and powerful nausea. If Ayato hadn’t instinctually gotten down on the floor, his upper half would have been blown away before he could even feel pain.

He couldn’t get the girls involved without being 100% certain of their safety.

He gritted his teeth against the pain in his temples, but then he felt a gentle tap on his shoulder.

From Teleria.

A short distance away, Mamilis and Henrietta nodded too.

Their eyes were telling him to ignore that personal rule just this once and rely on them.

Finally, he regained just a bit of his calm.

(Really, I don’t deserve them.)

And this meant he could not let them die here. No matter what.

The devil’s mocking laughter forced its way past the ringing in his ears to rattle his mind.

“This is a microwave incinerator and this is an electron beam!! Ah ha ha! Oh, do these weapons not exist yet!? I do more than just create weapons – I can rearrange the existing blueprints to create brand new weapons the world has never before seen!!”

He didn’t know how far she could take this.

Whatever the case, Ayato decided they couldn’t give the Queen time. In the worst case, leaving her to her own devices could allow her to complete some ultimate bomb that could destroy the entire continent or world at once.

“This is the royal palace at the center of the capital at the center of the Static Continent. There are more weapons and sorcery devices than you could ever want here! Which I will use to cast off my outdated sorcery gun category of revolver and rocket up to a new stage. Heh heh heh ah ha ha. Now watch, Ayato, this is my new power!!!”

She shoved a lithe arm into a clump of transparent tentacles and pulled something out.

The Queen raised a giant object.

Time froze.

The object in her hand was horribly twisted and as big as a cannon, but it was a ''revolver''.

“Wha-?”

Queen Astaroth Revolver’s smile froze in her face.

Her temples writhed disconcertingly.

“Queen. The boundaries of the species you were born as are not so easily surpassed. Yet people have learned to accept and join hands with people different from themselves. And that’s what allows this world to function in its own complex way.”

Ayato kept his voice low.

And he raised his linkage plug sword with a demon girl by his side.

“You’ve done nothing but scorn everything around you and tear apart everyone’s bonds, so how do you expect to find the means to evolve? In fact, it was you messing with your own body that violated the rules of the universe to give yourself that twisted revolver form in the first place. Don’t run from what you’ve done. No one can do that. Aren’t you the one who created the revolver’s curse that infects its owner, drives them to failure, and ultimately kills them?”

“Uh, kh…”

“You can’t evolve.”

The light in the boy’s eyes and his words tore into the truth.

“All a devil like you has is stagnation.”

That was the difference between Ayato and the Queen.

The boy had gone as far as throwing out his position as the strongest Forward and become a Sorcery Hacker to continue the pursuit of his past sins, so he would never accept this devil who was so easy on herself.



“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”



A screamed exploded out.

The transparent tentacles raged even more violently than before.