Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume1 Phase1 (section)

===Part 2===

Once the two of them had their feet back on the stone pavement, it was time to get to work.

They walked through a narrow alleyway instead of the larger road.

“Miss Teleria, I know you want to stay hydrated, but you will find yourself running for the bathroom soon if you chug down bottle after bottle of water.”

“Don’t speak that way to a pure maiden. Ugh, it’s just soooo hot.”

In this large city, the mist mana known as Intangible Mist was arranged into something like a long and narrow spider web using the tug of the magnets in the countless relay devices dotting the streets. That mist mana would pass right through people as long as they were not using a magical device, so even the light would pass right through them, making it invisible.

Also, connecting a household sorcery device to that mist mana gave you access to a variety of information services.

It was essentially wireless, but the midway infrastructure used stationary devices that were connected by lines of mana much like wires.

That was something a Sorcery Hacker had to always be aware of.

“Now, then.”

It was time to observe the visible world around him once again.

Instead of a tourist area, this was an industrial airport used to ship out various industrial products manufactured using mana-conducting silver. The street itself looked nice enough, but all the buildings here would be occupied by sorcery craftsmen. There were no barkers calling out to potential customers, gawdy posters, or other ways of gathering tourists here. Nor were there any Traveling Salesmen with clear refrigerators or metal products.

Ayato heard a howl and looked up to see a Wolf Girl in a dress crouched on a rooftop and releasing a call of rebellion into the heavens.

Past the evenly-arranged white walls and orange roofs was a large tower and something like a collection of fishing poles. That was apparently the crane that symbolized the industrial materials harbor. He was not interested in factory sightseeing, but a large landmark like that meant he would not lose his bearings.

Also, they were on the front line of the cannon fire here. The armored train equipped with as many legs as a centipede came to a stop on the rails and aimed its cannons toward the starry sky while the crimson dragon spread its gigantic wings to cover them all like a canopy.

There was of course more cannon fire coming from beyond the crimson dragon.

Like the Gondolier had said, the humans were firing on the dragon from an airship in addition to the sky city. The crimson dragon was sandwiched between the two directions of fire, but that meant any shots the airship missed would send high-level attack magic raining down on the city.

“This block has been designated a Type Three Danger Zone. Please shelter inside. I repeat…”

That voice came from the large street.

It was an unpleasantly mechanical female voice that repeated itself over and over. The source seemed to be moving. The people would be buried alive if the building they were sheltering inside was hit, but the warning must not have wanted to let people imagine that possibility.

Teleria was still somewhat dizzy, but she managed to recall their tense situation.

“Is that an independent sorcery device?”

“Shh.”

Ayato dragged his partner girl behind a wooden box. He had seen something larger than the taxi he had left with their luggage. He quietly observed a scorpion-like mass of mana-conducting silver. If the information he had been given in advance was accurate, that was one of Celedileka’s official Zootoxin Mk. IIIs. It appeared to be following a set patrol route while repeating its warning announcement, but the movement of its tail was odd. The official model was known to have a blind spot behind it, but this one was occasionally slamming the end of its tail into the ground behind it to eliminate that blind spot.

Just like the taxi, this kind of independent device created a small tornado inside itself like a powerful vacuum cleaner to trap the mist mana in that small space and continually receive the informational benefits of that mana. The Intangible Mist was laid out like a spider web along the lines connecting the relay devices, but by taking the mist mana inside, these devices could make decisions for themselves for a while without plugging into one of the terminals known as stations.

But that was useless if that was corrupted.

“''It’s already been hacked.''”

Ayato Criminaltrophy’s voice grew deeper.

If your defense weapons had been turned into a plaything for a sorcery criminal, you were out of luck.

“That means this really is ''their'' collection spot.”

“Ugh, which means…”

“That thing is acting like it’s on an official patrol, but if it detects us in this area, it’ll shoot us with instakill poison magic. That thing’s tail concentrates the power of its magic on a single point to break through any defenses, which is incredibly useful for status effects like poison or oxidation that spread throughout the body once they get into the enemy’s body tissue or body structure. If you don’t want to be stuffed or soaked in formaldehyde and sold off to some freak, then be very careful.”

They needed to pay careful attention to what route they took.

After waiting for the Zootoxin Mk. III to pass by, Ayato climbed up a white wall using the downspout to reach the building’s roof. Either way, he could not start fighting right away. If he was to use his weapon as a Sorcery Hacker, he had to make the proper preparations first.

(A chimney exhaust management system, a rain guidance pump, a bird-repelling weather vane, and a lightning rod… Yeah, that should work as the starting snowball.)

He worked his mind like he was recalling the day’s menu and drew the sword he used as a Linkage Plug.

Magic was found everywhere these days and devices that used it were just as ubiquitous. The rooftops of ordinary buildings were no exception. He took his 0.5 esoule<ref>Approximately 60 centimeters.</ref> sword and stabbed it into the chimney rising straight up from the building.

When he pulled the trigger at the grip and pulled back, the blade detached and remained in the chimney.

A new blade compressed within the hilt popped out and he moved on to the boxy pump managing the gutters. Then the base of the lightning rod and the bird-repelling weather vane. He stabbed a blade into each of the sorcery devices that used magic in any way.

Once he was done, he pulled the crystal tarot cards from his blue blazer’s breast pocket and tossed them into the air. Those Linkage Monitors floated on their own, drew out various arcana images, and visualized the manaflow – in other words, the structure of the magic.

(I’ve hacked each of those household items. Starting from my Level 1 sword at the base, I hacked the Level 1 chimney, pump, lightning rod, and weather vane. I can combine them and have their processing space resonate. Then it’s a simple matter of addition and repeating the process until I reach the level I want. At Level 5, I can hijack anything up to Level 5. And at Level 10, up to Level 10.)

Modern magic was performed by extracting the mana found thinly in the air, pressure sealing it in containers, sending it along thin metal lines, and guiding it to a board made from the gems crystalized in the gemflows hidden underground. The work was almost entirely automated, but there was one fundamental rule: all magic had to be activated by someone.
Sorcery guns were the most common form of ignition. While a home management system or that scorpion appeared to be moving on their own, they were actually being subconsciously controlled by someone. For a home device, it was linked to a resident who was controlling the lights and air-conditioning. For public devices like the scorpion, hundreds or thousands of government workers in a theatre-like space would combine their mindpower to control them all. The magic for that balloon bungalow they had taken here had technically been activated and controlled by the blonde girl. It was just that people were barely aware of it and it caused almost no exhaustion.

A Sorcery Hacker had to fool more than just the gemboard that was connected to the thin threads of mana mist gathered together by magnets.

The linking sensation was no longer even verbalized, but odd sensations would sometimes rise to the surface like waves and a hacker did not want someone to notice their presence based on having “a bad feeling”.

“Okay, I’m at Level 10. Now I can reach that damn scorpion walking around here.”

“Pant, gasp… P-please wait.”

He heard some oddly alluring breaths as Teleria finally managed to climb up onto the roof using the downspout.

“What are you doing up here? I was just about to jump down.”

“You mean I climbed up here for nothing!? You need to tell me these things! …Wait, huh? What the hell did you just say?”

“That I’m about to jump down.”

“Wait, no, this is a three-story building! Wait! Don’t drag me along with you!!”

He ignored her complaints, grabbed the slow blonde girl around the hips, and jumped down. And he landed right on top of the (already hacked) Zootoxin Mk. III making its patrol on the surface.

“Mugyuhh!”

“Ha ha ha. Miss Teleria, I appreciate the usual happy sensation. Scaring you is always worth it.”

“Don’t you dare pick up the juvenile habits of an elementary schooler picking on the girl he likes!!”

The scorpion must have detected the impact from above, but the toxic needle tail rising up and glaring at them was not actually a problem. That mana-conducting silver scorpion could only pursue its prey using the eyes on its face. Even with that armor-piercing toxic needle right in front of them, it could not attack them without seeing them with its crystal eyes.

And he had a logical reason for getting this close.

His Linkage Cable sword worked by stabbing into a device and interfering with the mist mana that was arranged in a long and thin string to transfer so much information. Hijacking control with that interference was known as Sorcery Hacking. You can think of it like having a long and thin string of mist or a ring of smoke and placing a net in its path. The Intangible Mist would pass through anything, so by having it pass through his device, he could create an external antenna for himself. Then he could extract the information dissolved into the mist and send in his own false information.

This underground technique was known as The Ring because it was similar to the relationship between a loop of gold and a jewel, but you could not actually stab your device just anywhere.

If his sword did not get into the wiring, it was meaningless, but a weapon would be entirely covered in thick armor, leaving him with no good access points.

He needed an exposed sorcery component not covered by the armor.

And the best option was…

(The eyeball lens. And I have to attack from a blind spot so the enemy Sorcery Hacker doesn’t catch on!)

He stabbed the blade into the scorpion’s head, pulled the trigger, and pulled the hilt away.

The mass of mana-conducting silver immediately started behaving differently.

The violent shaking of its unmanned movement came to a stop and it began walking with the smoothness of its shock-absorbing legs. The comfortable ride was quite a change from their previous tension.

“Miss Teleria, let us review the situation.”

“Whaaat?”

“Recently, Sky City Celedileka has fallen victim to frequent attacks from large monsters like dragons and griffins. Now, an advanced metropolis like this is probably a more likely target than some small village hidden in a remote area, so that is not that unusual on its own. Celedileka has been placing defense of the city as their top priority by firing with reckless abandon, but their thoughtless pincer attack means the airship shots damage the city below.”

“Um, and the problem isn’t the stray shots themselves, but ''the people using that as cover for their misdeeds'', right?”

“Since warfighting shells are flying around instead of just gunfire, I supposed the crime would technically be looting during a military action.” Ayato readily made that dangerous comment. “And since one of the government’s Zootoxin Mk. IIIs was hacked, the culprit is a Sorcery Hacker like me. They use the damage from the shellfire as cover to achieve their goals. After all, even if they break open someone’s safe, that person will be repaid and then some by the government’s stray shot policy. The government is not going to examine the scene all that closely because anything they did find would only be showing off their own mistakes.”

They could of course see more Zootoxin Mk. IIIs walking around, but checking the internal memory of the one he had hacked showed him their cooperation pattern. That meant he knew the patrol routes for them all. If he used that while heading deeper in, he could avoid any unnecessary combat.

The Sorcery Hacker group running rampant in this damaged area of the city had prepared a toy like that in order to keep any witnesses out, so if anyone set foot in here without knowing the patrol routes and was caught by that mechanically-calculated net, they would probably be silenced by instakill poison magic.

“This is really the perfect situation for them. Destroyed buildings can be paid for, but lives aren’t so easy. That means the government will stubbornly refuse to admit to anyone dying or going missing after a hit from a stray shot. If there is any fear of that happening, the official documents will be rewritten to cover it up. It will say the person was mildly injured, received the proper treatment at a medical facility, and decided to leave the city with their juicy payment in hand.”

“So they’ve created a social security system where no one will notice if someone disappears.”

“Yes. Maybe the air of this castle town full of fire and blacksmithing has gotten to their heads. This is honestly more frightening than that dragon that ''can only'' use obvious violence.”

Ayato nodded quietly atop the doubly-hacked scorpion.

“Just as our ''client'' feared, this is a criminal paradise for human traffickers.”