Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume3 Phase02 (section)

===Part 3===

A distant voice was repeating a strange call of “One, two. Three, four.”

It apparently came from a swimming class engaged in warmup stretches. The girls’ excited voices could be heard all the way in here. The Academy Towers’ advanced technology allowed them to use a heated indoor pool since they were so far up in the mountains that you could see your breath during the mornings and nights.

“Ayato,” warned Teleria in the curving hallway.

“Don’t worry. I am not at all tempted by that. However, Miss Mamilis has been so curious about what a school life is like and it is my responsibility to accompany her to ensure she does not get lost while taking a look around.”

“Coach, stop using me as an excuse. I sense an ulterior motive here.”

The dark elf actually picked up on something for once and put a stop to it with her mouth forming a small triangle, so Ayato was not allowed to take a very eager detour here. Farewell, school swimsuits, bare skin, and the disinfectant smell of youth. Now he had to focus on the task at hand.

They needed some way of sneaking into the Student Council Office on Floor 101 where not even Grade S was allowed.

“Towers have always served one of two primary roles,” quietly began Ayato. “Watchtowers and prison towers.”

Their extreme height made movement difficult, so they could be made into tall mountain peaks that were difficult to attack or remote islands that were difficult to escape.

And…

“I want to start by reviewing what information we have. You could say I want to map out what we know,” he said as soon as they were outside again.

Striker Henrietta put her hands on her hips to view the towers rising high into the sky and explained her warrior’s logic.

“When you want to attack a castle located high in the mountains, the standard play is to cut off their supply line and starve them out.”

“Even though they can order online deliveries using flying sorcery devices? You can get an endless supply of food through the window without providing a single physical coin. Besides, we can’t see inside the Student Council Office until we sneak in ourselves, so we can’t just wait for them to give up.”

While they walked across the dirt schoolground, Ayato stabbed his Linkage Plug sword into an oblong object with a grip attached. The two-wheeled device would automatically draw out a white line as it moved.

“Personally, I see only two general options. Either we acquire a new means of travel that no one has even considered before, or we sneak through all the security colosseums built at every 10 floors.”

“Be more specific.”

“Either we cling to a flying sorcery device or we hide inside a sorcery device that travels through the halls.”

“Isn’t there a, you know, a safer option than that, dangerous individual!? The former would mean crashing and dying after the slightest mistake and the latter could get our hair or skin crushed in a giant gear or crank!”

That was why he had tried being vaguer before she demanded he be more specific. He really wished she would realize that instead of glaring at him so tearfully.

“Admittedly, there is a third option that sounds more up your alley, Miss Henrietta.”

“Quit beating around the bush and tell us.”

“We attack the base of the tower to send it toppling down. Then we snatch up what we need from the ground. I don’t know if it is a secret drawer or locker, but if it’s been locked to the Council’s standards, it should survive crashing to the ground.”

“And how many thousands of people would we be killing in the process?”

He was of course only kidding. Not even Henrietta with her asphalt-colored armor and magic boosting her muscles could bring down one of these towers.

The Academy Towers were designed to protect their technology from being stolen.

“Anyway, if we are going on an adventure, we need a map first. We can make our move after collecting enough accurate data.”

“What more do you need, dangerous individual? You should know more than enough about this place after living here for so long.”

“The Council controls all the official data, so they may have altered what is provided on the website. And the towers themselves might have some kind of trick art worked into their design so the apparent distances are not accurate. When you don’t have an answer, the best plan is to investigate everything until you find one. Think of it like a crossword puzzle. The strongest security is to not give even single letter as a hint. You can never work out the puzzle if you don’t have all the pieces.”

That said, they were currently on the run from the Student Council.

They could blend into the crowds during lunch or afterschool, but they would stand out if they walked around as a group during classes.

“So what kind of measurements are you hoping to take?” Henrietta sounded exasperated. “Are you going to run around with a long tape measure?”

“It would be both faster and safer to let a handy sorcery device take care of it. And a hacked device can’t be tortured into giving us away even if it is discovered and captured.”

A field army could measure the enemy’s range of movement based on their temporary camps and footprints, so taking measurements was a crucial step. Henrietta did not mention any of this, further proving she was a very urban knight.

“A line marker, a delivery flyer, and a garbage collector. Yes, that should be good for now.”

“You can cause trouble with just that, Coach?”

The innocent way Mamilis leaned forward at that prospect made straitlaced Henrietta hold a hand to her head like she had a headache. She wanted that pure girl to be more cautious when it came to the kind of “trouble” that Sorcery Hacker loved.

Ayato smiled and responded.

“I can use any sorcery device that can move inside or outside the towers and has lenses and sensors. They are designed to not run into people or the walls, so they will have some way of measuring their distance from things. And I can use that to measure out a diagram of the building.”

“Huh, that’s neat.”

That also meant this kind of sorcery device could peek up your skirt if it got close, but that didn’t seem to occur to the pants-wearing dark elf.

“We should have all the data we need in half a day and then I can have a Media Summoner calculate everything out and compile the data. That will give us a diagram of the Academy Towers. From there, we can sit around that accurate diorama and plot our enjoyable mischief together.”

“It will be night by then, won’t it?”

“This gives us time for you to visit anywhere you wanted to check out. Miss Henrietta, I highly recommend the heated indoor pool full of beautiful girls.”

“There’s that ulterior motive again!”

He nonchalantly attempted it a second time, but Mamilis scowled and firmly rejected that option. That was a disappointment, but where ''did'' the dark elf want to go?

“I want to wear that frilly red thing those Cheer Squad girls were wearing. Their outfit was really cute.”

“Ah ha ha. You have fallen for their trap, Miss Mamilis.”

“?”

“They look beautiful enough, but rumor has it they are actually trained in advanced intelligence gathering techniques. They ‘cheer on’ their team by stealing the opposing team’s strategies and signatures to ensure their own team wins. And the teams at these tournaments are all volunteers from the guilds or members of the control squad who hope to improve their strength.”

Henrietta seemed interested in seeing a warrior’s training ground.

But this was not just for fun.

“So that is where all the students here train their bodies and minds? Then viewing the environment and equipment they use to train can help us predict their basic tactics and idiosyncrasies before the battle even begins. It can even be worth it to simply check the length and weight of their wooden training swords and the scrapes those swords have left on the floor.”

However, what they found was very different from the rough circular training ground where a knight trained the soldiers who fought for her.

The Academy Towers instead offered a wide selection of high-tech training equipment in a clean and heated space behind a thick glass wall. The cutting-edge training gym could accurately monitor basic data like breathing and heartrate as well as more complex data like stance and center of gravity.

Henrietta looked like she was peeking inside a ship that had arrived from another planet.

“Wh-what is this place?”

“Um, those things the Fencing Team and Mixed Martial Arts Team are using are running machines. They only cover a limited space, but you can run forever on top of their moving conveyer belt.”

“But, um, this is not the way of the warrior! There are springs and gears… It looks to me like everything is being managed by cold numbers!”

“Well, yes?” said Teleria. “The effects are diminished if you don’t place the most efficient burden on your body, so you would end up wasting your efforts.”

Henrietta had thought of Teleria as relatively sensible, so the girl’s confusion left Henrietta’s mouth flapping wordlessly. She was legitimately shaken. She couldn’t believe no one was even talking about training their mind and ensuring they had the resolve needed to battle the enemy.

Mamilis pointed at some water dispensers lined up along the wall. Except the liquid contained in each of them was a different toxically bright color.

“Coach, I’m thirsty, so can I get a drink from there?”

“I wouldn’t if I were you. Those are all strength boosters made by mixing several types of alchemy and witchcraft. You are fine the way you are. I know dark elves live long lives, but it would sadden me if you traded that longer life to become a mass of muscles.”

“This place really is a den of eccentrics! I can’t believe this!!”

Henrietta boosted her muscles with her armor and magic, but this apparently crossed some line for her. She may not have liked that they took the easy route from the beginning and efficiently altered their body from the ground up instead of adding an extra boost on top of a body built up the old-fashioned way.

And while the girls excitedly tried out the various training equipment…

“Sneak, sneak.”

“You do know saying that out loud makes you ''less'' sneaky, right?”

“Eep!?”

When Ayato spoke toward the exit, something jumped out into view. It was a glasses girl with her blonde hair worn in a braid. For some reason, she had been out in the hall in the middle of class. Instead of the usual blazer uniform, she wore a wet school swimsuit, suggesting she had left class early.

“U-um, um. You are the legendary Forward I’ve heard so much about, aren’t you? Um, I really wanted your autograph, so I went around trying to find you.”

“Is that so?”

“But I’m sorry. I found a marker, but they weren’t selling autograph paper at the school store! So, uh, could you write your autograph somewhere else, Ayato!?”

He frowned as she shoved a thick permanent marker in his hand.

This was an unusual mission. Even more unusual than sneaking into a corrupt merchant’s mansion and searching out their secret ledger.

“You could have just brought a notebook.”

“Yes, but I was in swimming class.”

“So…what? Write it on your skin?”

“S-somewhere more permanent would be nice.”

He couldn’t cover her glasses with the marker and the black marker wouldn’t show up on her dark blue swimsuit. After some thought, he finally found a workable spot.

White cloth for a big nametag was attached to the chest of her swimsuit.

Since it was meant to be written on, it would be noticeable there and it wouldn’t wash off. She had never written her own name there, so it remained entirely blank.

“This looks like the only spot. Mind if I write it out real quick?”

“Go ahead.”

“Stay still. Pull her arms back, push out your chest, and hold that pose.”

“O-okay. Ahh, b-but I want it to last, so make sure to write it out nice and neat. Nh!”

He guessed she was younger than him, but her chest had grown quite well for her age, which made signing it a challenge.

Then Henrietta noticed the unpleasant aura surrounding the trembling glasses girl. The scene must have been reflected in the wall-sized mirror meant for dance lessons.

The heroic knight drew her axe-bayonet sorcery gun without bothering to ask any questions.

“So you have finally crossed the line into sex crimes, dangerous individual?”

“E-eep!?”

But the one who jumped in fright was the blonde braid glasses girl (in a school swimsuit).

Her shoulders tensed and she bowed a jiggly 90 degrees.

“W-was I supposed to take a number and wait in line!? Oh, of course I was. Why did I even think a newcomer like me could just walk up to him like this!?”

“Huh? Eh? What?”

Henrietta stared blankly and Teleria gave her a troubled look.

“Ayato’s reputation under his old identity has taken on a life of its own. The students who never knew the real him may have exaggerated the stories about him during his long absence. The underclassmen who have never even seen him have put on plays in the Central city and the Comics Club has released a Media Summoner comic that imagines him as something like a girl’s comic love interest.”

“Ah! Are you his rumored wife!?”

“Bffffffff!?”

Now the only person bothering to explain anything was freaking out.

And with the eye of the storm now blushing bright with her eyes swirling, there was no one left to stop things from escalating. The braid girl pointed straight at her rival.

“You might think you can keep him away from other girls, but this autograph is mine now. You can’t take it from me when that means stripping off my swimsuit!”

Mamilis childishly tilted her head.

“Coach, what is that?” she asked.

“Hm? The design is admittedly a little unusual, but I know you know what a swimsuit is. You showed off plenty of your beautiful skin back on that tropical island, Miss Mamilis.”

“Not that. The thing on her chest. Is it a nametag? But that makes it look like her name is Ayato Criminaltrophy.”

“Ah ha ha. Now it looks like she belongs to me. I – have – dibs☆”

When the glasses girl heard that, her face grew even redder.

And the red kept growing brighter.

Until…

“Eeeeeep☆”

“Ahh!? This dangerous individual’s suggestion was so horrifying she fainted!!”