Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume3 Phase02 (section)

===Part 2===

“…”

“Now, now, Miss Henrietta. How long are you going to sulk like a child? I thought lasagna was your favorite. You need to eat it before it gets cold. Yes, you can reheat it in the microwave, but it just doesn’t feel the same then, does it? Like reusing a sweaty sleeping bag.”

“………………………………………………………………………………………………”

The lasagna was not just an offering to a ghost. Henrietta had been thrown out of the window of Floor 51 at the bottom of the Grade D zone without any warning, but Ayato had caught up with her and collected her. The Sorcery Hacker had swung his Linkage Plug sword in midair and hacked a weather balloon. The balloon had been about 2 esoule<ref>Approximately 2.4 meters.</ref> in diameter. All kinds of sorcery-related items were created and experimented with in the extraterritorial Academy Towers, so handmade sorcery devices like that could be found just about anywhere. However, he had ended up speaking with President Umihiko Darkavenue for longer than expected, so he had been forced to collect the girls lower to the ground than planned.

They were now enjoying a pleasant lunch at the dining hall in the Grade G zone of the mana tower.

“I know that was the Student Council President who leads that ''mysterious organization'', but I do not like how we turned tail and fled the instant we saw his face. I get the feeling you think I, Henrietta Split Destrius, am not strong enough to face him.”

“I assure you his strength is the real deal. His name is already going down in history for his proof of the Demon Lord Power Fluctuation Hypothesis that had been stumping academics for decades, but academia adores him for several other theses as well. We have him to thank for sorcery gun safety improving more than usually seen in two generations and he played a role in spreading the sorcery network across the entire Static Continent. His development of maid automatons for aristocrats has also earned him some friends in high places.”

“So you’re saying he’s a scrawny egghead.”

It was unusual for Henrietta to be so scathing based on a first impression. She may have been in a very bad mood indeed.

However…

“Miss Henrietta, are you familiar with the Defense of Makisdorr fought to stop a largescale invasion from another continent?”

“Of course. I have heard we would have been in a dangerous position if not for the enemy’s mechanical trouble. What about it?”

“That mechanical trouble was no accident. He sent a strategic sorcery antenna into the center of the enemy forces from ultra-long range and then sorcery hacked their machines to end the battle. He is confirmed to have ended at least three wars, but he is suspected to have ended more than ten times that. Instead of sending in any of our own people, he hacks the enemy’s military sorcery devices for a zero-cost victory. You could even say he embodies a new form of war. A soldier cannot defeat an army, right?”

“…”

“So there is no shame in having run from him,” Ayato went on trying to soothe her, but the knight refused to look his way. She puffed out her soft-looking cheeks to express her displeasure.

Ayato was also just a soldier.

He doubted he could defeat the President if he attempted to directly compete in the field of sorcery hacking.

And Sorcery Hackers did not directly compete anyway.

“So this is a school dining hall.”

Meanwhile, Mamilis was looking around with great interest.

The bell had initially frightened the dark elf, but she had since come to realize that it didn’t just indicate an increase in tension. It instead indicated the switch between class periods and break periods.

It was currently the liveliest part of the school day: lunchtime.

Long tables and mass-produced chairs filled a space as large as three ordinary classrooms. The dark elf’s curiosity was even directed at the plastic trays made by heating mist mana while it was packed inside special containers. But then she tilted her head.

“Coach, what is this ‘microwave’ thing?”

“It is a convenient sorcery device that lets you heat your food by sticking it inside and pressing a button. Whether you want beef stew or acqua pazza, it can be ready to eat in only four multi-times<ref>Approximately 5 minutes.</ref>. It works even late at night or on a weekend when the restaurant is closed.”

“I-incredible. That kind of convenience is hyper cool!! Do they have a tiny kitchen packed inside this small box!?”

“Ayato…” said Teleria, holding a finger to her temple and telling Ayato to correct Mamilis. The look on her face said “cooking is ''not'' that simple” better than words ever could.

The master of the kitchen rapped her hand on the top of the boxy microwave and explained to Mamilis.

“This can be used for vacuum-packed foods, so I will admit it is useful for cooking a large quantity of food very quickly and with uniform quality. But you need to be making a lot of food to warrant that.”

“Fascinating,” said Henrietta.

Teleria shrugged.

“I am less interested in its microwave function than its steam oven function that takes the fat out of meat. But what I really want is the dishwasher! A cook can’t find a better ally than a device that washes all your dishes with hot steam!! Sigh, if only they could invent one small enough to take on trips.”

The dining hall was packed full of hungry students from the Rhythmic Gymnastics Team, the Archery Team, and more. There were a lot of dining halls, but this one in the mana tower’s Grade G zone was especially popular with the hungriest students because of the Bonus Chance system. There was a chess board at the counter and the lunch lady had lined up the pieces on a whim. If you could get checkmate in a single move, you were given a bonus item for free. The catch was you only had until the count of five to think about your move.

Thanks to that, this dining hall was even more popular than the convenient but expensive butterfly delivery service. The growing sorcery research students apparently valued the chance to eat more over slothful convenience.

It was just like an academic institute to allow a game just because it supposedly made the students smarter.

(Keeping something as basic as the mana tower’s dining hall on the 25th floor really symbolizes how messed up this place is. The students in Grades I and H can’t even get in here.)

It may have been a Sorcery Hacker trait to take a cynical viewpoint and search out all the flaws in a system.

Whether you viewed a crowd as a lot of witnesses or as something to hide within would greatly change what decisions you made. Ayato took the latter view. He was a Sorcery Hacker who hid within a city and made use of everything around him. He was not an outdoorsy hero who ran through the wastelands wielding a sword.

Of course, the entire school was the Student Council’s territory, but the great size of that territory meant the elites of the Council were not enough to patrol and inspect every single facility right away. After all, the gem tower alone had 101 floors. The few members of the council could not check all of the rooms there. So Ayato’s group would not be so easily found after moving to the mana tower.

With so many people moving around, the room’s heater wasn’t even necessary.

A bearded Newspaper Club boy and a short Mystery Club girl were whispering to each other.

“Why do you think the strongest Forward is back at school? I can’t imagine he has anything left to learn.”

“He’s the hero who left on an expedition in the name of field training, so why would he need to sneak around? Hmm, I smell a mystery!!”

That girl probably smelled mysteries everywhere she looked, but it was concerning how right she was in this case.

It sounded like his old nickname still held a lot of sway in this tower.

“W-wowww… Isn’t that the legendary Hexajinx!? D-do they sell autograph paper at the school store? Would he get mad if I asked him for his autograph!?”

A girl in the crowd wore her blonde hair in a braid with her eyes sparkling behind her glasses. The title of ace seemed silly given his appearance, but this was actually a lot like a mild curse for Ayato.

Teleria looked troubled.

“Everyone’s noticing you here. Are you sure this is safe?”

“We would be in trouble if Umihiko could mobilize all of the Public Morals Officers and Student Guidance teachers,” freely admitted Ayato.

He never expected 100% safety on a mission. He just made sure he had enough room left to adlib if he was caught and surrounded. A tight plan worked out to the second like a train schedule might look smart and clever, but it would actually fall apart as soon as you ran into any trouble at all. So as long as he could keep the girls with him safe in the end, he didn’t worry about the intermediary steps.

Ayato reached his fork over to steal a bite of Henrietta’s lasagna and she swatted his hand away.

“But the Council is busy causing trouble and covering up the evidence of their misdeeds.”

The Academy Towers were cut off from the outside world to prevent the confusion of having their advanced technology leak out. It would be a major scandal if the Student Council was intentionally letting dangerous magic or tech leak for their own benefit.

High Priest Belbath and Jennifer’s cases were as suspect as could be, but Ayato didn’t currently have any proof.

“That means they can’t invite just anyone to join them. They will attempt this with only their trusted companions who have shared in their crimes.”

It had been possible the Council would post wanted posters around the school that accused Ayato’s group of a made-up crime, but that hadn’t happened.

Gathering attention on them would only make this more difficult. The Council preferred to kill them in some deserted corner of the school.

It was easy to see the Council was sweating.

If they really didn’t know anything, they would have submitted the ordinary paperwork without question or concern: Mana Science Student Ayato was seen circumventing security to enter the higher levels of the gem tower without permission. The lack of such a report meant ''the Council wanted to hide something from the adults.

It was like the well-known dark joke: Someone had their vehicle stolen, but they didn’t report it to the knights or the control squad. Why? Because they had stolen it in the first place.

“At the very least, we shouldn’t have trouble getting food for the time being. The Academy Towers has more dining halls and school stores than you can count on your fingers. We can slip past the Council’s notice if we only go during the busy mealtimes. Most of the students won’t be aware we are at odds with the Council. And even if they start focusing on the dining halls and stores, we can still order food delivered by those butterfly sorcery devices if we spoof our user data.”

“That gets us food, but what about the other necessities?” asked Mamilis.

But the girl was leaning forward excitedly. She may have thought they would be living outdoors again like when they had been forced to live on the run on that tropical island.

However, Ayato had to reject that idea.

“We don’t need to live outdoors this time. There are tens of thousands of mobile homes at the base of the towers. If we alter some registration data and move to a different vacant one every day, we can escape the Council’s search.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

As expected, the silver-haired girl childishly pouted her lips.

He had in fact gone ahead and rewritten some records after waiting a short time after their failed break in that morning. For now, there was no sign of anyone attacking the vacant mobile home he had given them as a test.

A criminal that stuffed a suitcase full of clothes and tried to flee across the border would be caught faster than any other. Their pursuers would first focus on the borders at the very edge of their territory. A cleverer fugitive with decent technology would focus on changing their appearance and identification before trying to gain any physical distance. That was a lot safer and would make their life easier.

Of course…

(This all assumes the President doesn’t use his sorcery hacking skills.)

Only a Sorcery Hacker could pursue a Sorcery Hacker.

Then it would be chase and be chased, attack and be attacked, trick and be tricked – on and on forever. In the sorcery information warfare using Linkage Plugs and Monitors, there was no absolute safe ground. Some positions would be better than others, but he still needed to keep several escape routes in mind because he could always make a bad mistake. Of course, he kept these concerns to himself because he was afraid the girls wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he told them the truth. Any kind of psychological or intellectual warfare would tear someone apart if they worried over it too much.

Even if there was no absolute safety, Ayato would not allow any possibility of losing any one of those girls. So he would force his methods to work. That was the least he owed them for trusting and assisting him.

Still, knowing all this would worry them.

So it was best not to let them know they were up against a Sorcery Hacker even more skilled than him.

“That was a pathetic attempt, Sorcery Hacker.”

A graceful voice interrupted his thoughts.

They all looked back to see Micha Angelos casually blending into the school life here. She did this by wearing a blue blazer and short wine-red skirt she had acquired from somewhere.

“Not only do you have trouble breaking in, but you alert the enemy to your presence? If you do not know how to advance now, then I see no reason to leave you at large. It would benefit the world if I were to arrest and imprison you in accordance with the standard laws.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Infiltrating the school much more cleverly than you.”

It was true he hadn’t heard any reports of an unidentified busty woman walking around in a uniform that clearly didn’t belong to her, so she probably was doing this more skillfully than his group.

He sighed.

“That’s a shame. I was hoping you were trembling in embarrassment after that bull bastard ordered you to dress up for him.”

“Oh, dear. Were you never taught that insulting my master is a crime deserving of death? Or were you hoping I would whip you?”

“Really? He seems like the kind of pervert who’d be into this. I bet his reaction would be pretty amusing if you walked up to him dressed like this. He pretends to be a gentleman, but he’s always staring at Miss Teleria’s butt and getting all hot and bothered about it. He claims the increased defenses of her black tights and Expansion Armor only turn him on more.”

“Ayato, I’m going to need some more detailed information on this.”

The fluffy blonde girl’s fluffy part was starting to defy gravity a little.

But Micha was also acting unusually. She had entirely frozen in place without speaking a word.

“…”

“Hey, Micha?”

“I-it is nothing.”

The busty blazer maid blinked twice, thrice and then seemed to reboot back to her usual behavior.

“I do not expect an underground Sorcery Hacker like you to make a direct attack like a knight would. Thus, you are not permitted to give up just because you cannot clear the wall ahead of you. You are the kind of coward who makes use of every person and thing around you in order to gain the upper hand. Plus, this is the Academy Towers. It is packed full of things you can use, so use them all to achieve your objective.”

“…Hmph.”

“Your job is to investigate the Student Council and eliminate any dangerous elements you discover. I will not demand you use your head to win this. We all know who would win between a dropout and the Student Council President in a battle of brains. So use your cunning, Sorcery Hacker. You excel in cheap tricks found outside your academic grades, do you not?”

He blinked and the young woman (failing to look natural) in a school uniform was now a purple butterfly. She fluttered on out the door.

Ayato clapped his hands to gather the girls’ attention.

It was indeed time to get a fresh start.

“Setting aside Micha’s personal opinion of me, it is true we need to think up a new method. The Council will be on the lookout for someone trying to climb the outer walls with the window-washing sorcery devices or curtains. We cannot attempt that one again. And based on the quick look around I took earlier, the routine for the gatekeepers monitoring the passage between floors has been altered. They will not overlook a single grain of sand anymore.”

“Forget that for a second.” Henrietta spoke in a dry voice that suggested she still wasn’t happy about being shoved out of a window about 50 floors up. “Will this ''mysterious organization'' you call the Student Council really keep all the evidence of their crimes hidden in the same place forever? They must know you are trying to reach their office.”

“Where would they move it to? The Academy Towers are surrounded by treacherous mountains and they can’t hide it in a crowded city if they did get past the mountains. Not to mention that removing those valuable items from their strictly-guarded office would be the perfect time to attack.”

“…”

“If such a simple possibility didn’t even occur to you, you need to be more careful with your mansion’s asset management in the future, mistress. What matters is the Council will be on guard now. And that caution will make them reluctant to unlock the secret door in front of the enemy. They will want to search us out and ensure their safety first. Everyone knows the top of the tower has the strictest security. So even if there is a risk, it would be even riskier to move their devastating secrets to a lower grade floor. And moving it outside of the school altogether is entirely out of the question.”

That was the main reason Ayato did not immediately leave the Academy Towers and rework his plan from square one. If he left and gave the Council some peace of mind, they might move their important evidence out of their office. Or even out of the school. Then the truth of that incident would be forever shrouded in darkness.

Instead, he would intentionally disturb the hornet’s nest.

A state of alert was not always a negative thing for a Sorcery Hacker.

“Um, then what are we going to do?” interrupted Teleria.

“Our current goal is to create a new shortcut allowing us to reach the top floors without the Council noticing,” replied Ayato. “We can’t reach their office without that.”

“But, Coach, if they know we want to reach that room, won’t they just place a guard in front of the door?”

That would of course be the best method.

Sorcery Hackers could cause any sorcery device to malfunction through the invisible mana network, but they were powerless against an actual person. So once someone knew a Sorcery Hacker was involved, they would likely switch to more analog methods to some extent.

So Ayato did not hesitate to answer the question.

“They will. Which is why completing this mission peacefully is no longer an option. No matter how cleverly we reach the top floor, we can’t avoid a battle with the Council now.”