Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume1 Phase1 (section)

===Part 3===

The law enforcement agencies like Government Security and the knights were paid from a city or state’s public funds, but there were also many jobs for individuals where a third party made a request and paid them a reward. There were the Bouncers who protected a specific location or person, there were the Ransackers who searched out a specific material such as a plant or animal, and there were the Forwards who would be sent to the scene of some brutal crime to resolve the issue.

“Now, then.”

The area under fire from the airship was quite large, but there were a few pieces of information they could use to narrow that down to a single point. The enemy Sorcery Hacker…no, the human traffickers were using the airship’s cannon fire to get the government to cover up the evidence of their crimes, so they would naturally choose the area receiving the most intense fire.

“I wonder if this will be written off as looting by a mob that formed during a military action.”

“Ugh. I bet that counts as a crime I’ve never even heard of before.”

Also, the patrol routes of the hacked Zootoxin Mk. IIIs had been subtly changed to protect the criminals. That meant Ayato and Teleria could find the criminal group if they made their way to the center of the circular off-limits zone being protected by those mana-conducting silver scorpions.

They approached that area while using the giant crane in the distance as a landmark to keep their bearings.

“This should be a good spot.”

They did not actually enter the collapsed house they found there.

They stopped their scorpion a short distance away and got down onto the stone pavement. The Zootoxin Mk. III’s great size was not suited for a stealthy infiltration. They had it use its many legs to climb up a wall and take a position on a building roof where it could overlook the surrounding area. Meanwhile, the boy and the girl peered out from behind a corner.

“Found them. Four of them have cheap magnum sorcery guns and one has a large bowgun that’s as customized as my sword. That must be his Linkage Cable.”

“Th-those are handguns?”

“Yeah, I’ll admit it can be hard to tell since they have shock-absorbing shoulder stocks and the guns themselves have been lengthened to make them look more like submachineguns.”

The purpose of those thick magnums was obvious. They must not have had the proper technology for manufacturing the cartridges filled with mist mana. You could not just compress a ton of mana inside to make a powerful round. Without the optimal balance, the mist would grow too dense and turn into liquid drops inside the cartridge. That was the stereotypical reason for the round to blow up in your face. To avoid that, they had simplified the structure and made the gun sturdier to prevent it from rupturing. It did not even look like they had used mana-conducting silver. Whether they had made those themselves or had gotten help from the black market, they looked a lot like poor-quality imitations made by melting down scrap metal. That said, the caliber itself was quite large and each shot would pack quite a punch. A large bullet meant intense recoil, but it also allowed you to draw a much more complex and colorful muzzle flash that would consume a lot more mist mana and produce much more powerful magic. And the louder gunshot would mean a longer range.

Meanwhile, the large bowgun was technically a Linkage Plug just like Ayato’s blade, so it was not even a sorcery gun that fired mist mana cartridges to use magic. It was made of brightly polished mana-conducting silver and it launched the antennae needed to take control of other sorcery devices by interfering with the circulation of mist mana flowing in very thin lines through that device. In other words, it was a Sorcery Hacker’s weapon.

There was an obvious difference in how much had been spent on the different weapons.

A top-level Sorcery Hacker must have been hired on with a lease contract to give a small-scale criminal group a boost.

And Ayato knew his prey’s name.

Although this was only a nickname the man went by in that shady business.

“The information from our client was correct. That’s Funny Snatch, a sorcery criminal who specializes in spiriting people away.”

“Th-they’re dragging someone out of the rubble.”

“Does that look like a rescue operation to you? No, that’s clearly their main dish for the day.”

The rough men were grabbing the arms of a skinny girl with brown skin. She was tall but slender, making her the opposite of Teleria, and she wore a leather vest and pants faded to a white color. However, there were large slits open on either side of her legs and they were sewn together by something like shoelaces. Her entire outfit seemed to be emphasizing just how slender she was. Perhaps to further emphasize the skinniness of her waist, she wore a thick leather belt style of Expansion Armor that floated around her bare midriff without touching her body. Her long straight silver hair had as beautiful a shine as the jewels in her earrings. Needless to say, she had the kind of beauty that a certain type of people would be searching for.

“Ow, let go of me, ow!!”

“Her manners could use some work, but we can always break her later on.”

“Ugh…”

“No, let’s leave that to the buyer. We might be able to find a pervert who enjoys doing that themselves. Let’s get her out of here.”

Ayato clicked his tongue while still hiding.

Teleria’s face had gone entirely pale.

“Th-they can just do that!? Are you saying the government has been covering up this kind of thing!?”

“Not so loud. …Defeating the four with the sorcery guns will be easy, but the problem is Funny Snatch with his bowgun and the Zootoxin Mk. IIIs he’s taken over. Attack them to carry out justice, and all the other ones patrolling this area will focus on you. Hacking them ourselves is the play here. Even if we went with a direct attack using your sorcery gun, their armor would just deflect it all.”

Plus, Teleria’s sorcery gun was constructed with safety in mind, so it used a rapid-fire barrage of smaller magic to prevent the enemy from making a counterattack. It was meant to knock back the target and keep doing damage until they had been worn down. It had little recoil and maintained its stability even with full-auto, but it did not have the best penetrative power and it could not trigger large explosions. An opponent with thick mana-conducting silver armor was a poor match for her.

“But if we don’t do something, she’ll be taken away.”

“I’m aware of that. I sent our scorpion up onto the roof, right? When a single hacker has taken control of nearly 20 Zootoxin Mk. IIIs, you can assume there was some kind of trick to it. This wide-range control probably means he has a transmission spot set up at an elevated location.”

“B-but doesn’t Sorcery Hacking have to start at Level 1?”

“That’s why he would have built up his Level bit by bit until he could target something bigger. Just like you can take 1+1, 2+2, and 3+3 to reach 12. If we can find the ‘bigger half’ of the equation and hijack it ourselves, all 20 of those pawns will be ours. And then we surround them with those to put a stop to this.”

Ayato had hacked a Zootoxin Mk. III himself, but he had not done it on his own. He had needed to get some help from the duct, weather vane, and other household items on that roof. If those were destroyed or rehacked by someone else, he would lose control of that scorpion.

The vulgar men must have read the stitching on the inside of the girl’s clothing.

“Let’s see, her name is…M-A-M-I-L-I-S C-O-S-T-E-R? Hah hah! Coster!? We actually got someone from the Coster family!? Well, you have our thanks, girl!!”

“?”

“Those sorcery devices guarding us right now were handmade by this family’s craftsman, after all. Bet they never imagined the devices they poured their heart and soul into would be used to spirit away their beloved granddaughter!!”

Ayato only had to do the same thing

Where had that man fired his bowgun to expand his processing space?

Finding it would not be difficult if he had their scorpion jump from rooftop to rooftop.

The complex movements of the floating Linkage Monitor crystal tarot cards gave him a report from the hacked scorpion.

“Found it. The bell tower in this same area, huh? It does have a lot of processing space for the time calculations, wide-range auditory transmission, and stress reduction acoustics. Abusing its processor core would give him plenty of power all at once.”

Of course, using one big device instead of distributing the source of your power made you more vulnerable to obstruction. Since there was no actual schedule for the airship attacks that the human traffickers were using for cover, there work location would change each day and they would have to adlib. That did not give them much time to prepare and Ayato could use that against them here.

“Okay, let’s get going. We can use the roofs to reach the bell tower. If we remove the bolt he fired and stab my sword in instead, I can hack all of the Zootoxin Mk. IIIs that are supposed to be protecting him.”

“Eh? Eh? You mean you’re going to leave that girl there?”

“We aren’t the cavalry that charges in with sorcery guns in hand. If we have a sure thing, I can’t think of any reason not to use it.”

But just as Ayato said that…

“Wait, what’s this?”

“Ow!!”

“I thought I sensed some magic. Look what she was hiding.”

“D-d-don’t pull on my ears!!”

The brown girl frantically raised her voice. When Ayato looked again, he saw her ears were unnaturally long and slender for a human’s. One of the men with a sorcery gun had grabbed and pulled at her jeweled earrings just for fun.

“Looks like she’s actually a Dark Elf. What are you doing living in a human city?”

“…”

“Is the entire family like this, or did they adopt you from somewhere? Well, either way, I bet this is why the Costers do everything the government says. They turned themselves into merchants of death to keep their cute little granddaughter from being kicked out.”

“Uuh.”

“So isn’t this for the best? With you gone, your family can break free of their bondage. They won’t have to make murder weapons anymore. Although there’s no washing their hands clean of the blood at this point! Gah hah hah hah!!”

He heard someone biting their lip.

It came from blonde Teleria watching this next to him.

“Grandma’s sorcery devices aren’t murder weapons.”

The dark elf girl squeezed out her voice.

Ayato was a Sorcery Hacker. He achieved his goals by infiltrating and hijacking the tools other people had worked so hard to create, so these were feelings he could never reach himself.

“She says she made them to protect everyone. She says they’re on patrol to stop crimes before they happen. She says she’s creating the power to fight bad guys without having to hurt anyone. So so!!”

“So – what?”

[[Image:SorceryHacker_v01_BW02.png|thumb]]

Her words rang hollow when those very devices had already been hacked.

But the she still spoke with the pride of the person who had created them.

“Grandma’s sorcery devices won’t obey the likes of you!! No matter what! They exist to fight people like you and that’s what they’ll do in the end!!!!!!”

Ayato Criminaltrophy sighed.

His plan was going well. He had located the core of the enemy Sorcery Hacker’s calculation space. If he used that to hijack all the other Zootoxin Mk. IIIs in the area, he could use those scorpions as his weapons. There was no need for him and Teleria to stand in front of the enemy. In fact, letting the enemy know your identity and location was a critical mistake for snipers and Sorcery Hackers alike. So the best option here was to remain hidden while hacking what he needed to end this safely and smartly. And he had made all the preparations necessary to do just that.

(Grandma’s sorcery devices aren’t murder weapons? She says she made them to protect everyone?)

But Ayato Criminaltrophy stepped out from behind cover.

He threw out all of his plans in order to pay respect to what that girl had said.

With his face and body exposed, that ill-natured Sorcery Hacker smiled and spoke.

“Well said, young lady.”