Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume1 Phase3 (section)

===Part 4===

Just like in the tunnels the humans had so thoughtlessly dug through the mountains, this pitch-black area was only lit by the mana light in the bare minimum of crystal tubes installed at even intervals, but restricting the amount of light probably had its purpose.

A prison was meant to let the jailors know what the prisoners were doing, but the opposite had to be avoided. Directing the flow of information in a single direction created an absolute barrier between the rulers and the ruled. That was a truly basic tactic.

When the artificial light crawled across Nirvelphany’s skin, that irregular sticky sensation returned. She felt a heated pain like her body was rotting and filled with pus. It was all an illusion, so she slowly exhaled and brushed off the remnants of that forgiven wound.

“…”

This space was so large it was hard to believe it existed in a sky city.

This vast subterranean space continued every downward. Beyond a bottomless-looking pit that measured 100 esoule<ref>Approximately 120 meters.</ref> across, she saw barred cells installed on separate levels with this side of the pit converted into a large guard tower. The guard tower was installed with a large spotlight made by converting mist mana into fire magic within a giant vacuum crystal. That shined inside the cells to see within, but that same bright light would make it impossible for the prisoners to see inside the tower. It was intentionally set up that way.

Of course.

In this underground space with no concept of day and night, constantly shining blinding lights on people would prevent them from getting much sleep. Not only did this place rob people of their freedom by trapping them behind bars, but it drove them ever closer to death by sapping their physical and mental strength simply by being there. They avoided direct violence like punching and kicking and instead designed everything to simply direct information in a single direction. The facility was like a crystallization of the ugly side of humanity that could claim righteousness while harming others.

They liked to talk about the Light-Dark Duality.

If anyone complained they could not sleep because of the bright light, they would simply be mocked for fearing the light because that pointed to a darkness filling their heart.

There were bridges connecting the guard tower to the cells on the other side of the pit, but they were drawbridges made to be immediately raised in case of emergency. There were no safety standards here. That single light source could start a fire if it malfunctioned, but if a fire did break out, the prisoners would have nowhere to run and they would be surrounded by flames and smoke in no time. The jailors did not leave the guard tower except to provide the bare necessities like food, so they had no problem with the current arrangement since they could climb up to the safety of their tower to escape danger.

The people in those cells were not necessarily guilty of serious crimes. One of them was a girl with unnaturally clear hair and skin. She almost looked like a sculpture. She was probably a Homunculus, but how had she ended up in here? Was the Alchemist who created her looking for a chance to break her out?

After seeing all this, Nirvelphany saw no reason to hold back.

She had never thought she could reach her destination without being detected anyway.

She would need the proper keys to open the prison’s doors.

“Now, then.”

While carrying a rope she had found tying a light fixture in place, she snuck up behind a young jailor in the guard tower and wrapped the rope around his neck.

“…!? …!!”

He only started clutching at his throat and kicking his feet after he had been lifted from the ground by his neck, but by then it was too late. There was no hesitation in her high heels. He could not resist at all and he could not cry out to alert the others, so he could only accept his fate.

On the other side of the pit, his colleagues were chucking what amounted to table scraps into the cells on the wall there, but that put them on the other side of the bright light they had set up as the ruling class. They could not see the tragedy occurring so close by.

Killing someone by blocking their windpipe would take time and she was not going to bother with that. She considered shaking him up and down to break his neck, but…

''“It must have been hard surviving so long surrounded by so much rust and dust. You are not human yourself, so you don’t need to let human circumstances control your fate. Live the life you want to live. That is what I want for you.”

“…Tch.”

She had killed plenty of people already, so why was she remembering those words here?

She clicked her tongue, subtly shifted the force applied by her arms, and constricted the jailor’s carotid arteries on the sides of his neck instead. With the blood flow not reaching their brain, puny humans would pass out before you could count to ten. Before the lack of oxygen could damage his brain cells, she loosened the rope in her hands and tied the limp jailor’s arms behind his back.

That choice only introduced further risks, but she did not feel like turning back to finish off a defenseless life.

Perhaps this was like not wanting to dirty your hands before heading to your birthday party. You wanted to remain clean for that special day at least.

At any rate.

(This panel operates the drawbridges. And this is the key for the cells. Hm, so they aren’t using separate keys for every cell. Well, they can’t exactly walk around with hundreds or thousands of keys, so a single master key is easier.)

She blindly operated the control panel, lowered the levers, and raised all of the drawbridges connecting the guard tower to the cells across the pit.

“Wait, what’s going on!?”

“Hold on! Now we can’t get back!!”

This was like angering a hornet’s nest, but those on the cell pathways were stuck where they were and could not move up or down between levels. More than half of the jailors had been locked in place.

On the other hand, nearly half of them were at the top or bottom of the guard tower, but she did not have to fight them.

“Let’s do this.”

There were staircases connecting different levels of the guard tower, but there were thick metal doors installed to prevent jailbreaks and riots.

She raised her giant anti-dragon rifle, pressed the top against her forehead, and focused on the disintegrating lead bullet. She focused her mind on the magic she would use.

This was the weakest of the weak.

By carving the necessary letters and numbers with her willpower, she had set up the muzzle flash in the color she wanted like a fireworks craftsman. The color was yellow, the vertices were three, and one of those vertices was kept shorter to intentionally break the balance.

“Tertiary Arc Charge.”

While drawing out as much power as she could, she pressed the stock against her shoulder and fired. The intense heat fused the door and wall together, so no one could open it anymore. No one could reach this level.

The recoil hitting her shoulder sent pain through her body like spreading cracks. It was like the bag of pus built up below her skin finally bursting. Of course, that old wound was not really there. ''I am overthinking this,'' thought the Demon Lord with clenched teeth. Just to be safe, she leaned over and collected the giant empty cartridge that was covered in a hardened film of mist mana thanks to the impurities and heat.

Once she hit the button on the control panel to lower the drawbridge to the cell she wanted, her objective was halfway complete.

She followed the path she had created for herself.

''“Freeing me is a bad idea, human. Once my seal is broken and I regain access to the object embedded in my chest, I will regain my full power as the Demon Lord. Although that is assuming it still runs after being disconnected for so long. Also, you humans have a bad habit of shifting the target of your hatred to revel in a false sense of satisfaction. If I escape from their grasp, they will try to satisfy themselves by tormenting you in my stead.”

She recalled something she had said before.

Yes, she had known it would turn out like this from the beginning.

''“I am an old man and I have lived long enough already.”

But none of her warnings had done anything to remove the smile from that old man’s face.

He had not even been aware of his own value.

How could a truly normal human have opened the door to where the Demon Lord was sealed? Not to mention the many charms and chains. Why didn’t he realized doing that was all the proof anyone needed that he carried the blood of the Hero whose sword she had once taken.

In the current legends, the Forturiana Church insisted quite loudly that their ancestors had defeated her to prove their religious authority and to justify their position as rulers while they worked to curry the favor of the regional king who ruled this land. That had reached the point of an effective rule and they were even putting on a ridiculous event they called the Temple Moving Ceremony.

So if the old man’s identity became known and those in power sensed danger, that forgotten old man would be the one in real danger.

Those ugly humans would not hesitate to silence someone.

''“Ha ha. I’m no one that important.”

And yet.

And yet.

''“But I still want to help out when I see someone like you. I don’t have much time left in this world, but you can live forever. The few Combo-Years I have left is a small price to pay for reclaiming your eternal life, don’t you think?”

Then that old man had removed the many curse charms and chains one by one.

He had even placed his hand on the ugly wound running diagonally down from her neck to heal it and provide forgiveness.

He himself had seemed surprised when it happened.

That was when it had hit her.

It had been a real revelation for her.

She no longer needed to hold that hatred inside her. She did not need a weapon. It was over. The age of conflict from so, so, so, so long ago had long since ended.

There was no point in continuing to live as a Demon Lord.

She could fly free now.

It was that Hero’s healing and forgiveness that had taught her that.

The old man had not known anything.

He had even forgotten the duty assigned to his bloodline. The flow of time had washed away all the bad blood.

“…”

She ran across a group on food duty, but there were only two or three of them equipped with just enough to deal with unarmed prisoners. They carried no sorcery guns, presumably so rioting prisoners could not steal them. Aiming her gun at them might have led them to jump off the edge, so she instead beat them down with the stock of her anti-dragon rifle and continued on.

(I have no interest in the division between good and evil that the humans have so selfishly defined for themselves. Fire, water, wind, and earth are the only real divisions, but they still insist on dividing the world between the nonexistent elements of light and darkness.)

In the end, it had played out exactly as she had expected.

If they hated her, they only needed to attack her, but they forgot all about challenging that powerful foe and instead redirected their excess righteousness toward ''an enemy in their grasp'' to enjoy a false sense of satisfaction.

An innocent old man had been accused of the Demon Lord’s crimes and he was to be executed in public for it.

No, even that was an excuse.

In truth, the powers that be needed to eliminate that old man because he could reveal their lies. Wounds caused by the Hero could only be healed by the Hero. That was all the proof anyone needed of who had defeated the Demon Lord. So they were trembling in their boots and too scared to sleep at night. They had needed to find anything they could accuse him of so they could kill him. That was the entirety of the emotion behind it. And if they could use him as the evil to be slain at their Temple Moving Ceremony, that was two birds with one stone. He could act as the cornerstone of the foothold the Forturiana Church needed to earn the official approval of the king. Money, money, money. It all came down to those filthy holy men needing to support their indulgent lives.

How could she let this happen?

She could not. Not for a second.

(But I am the lord of wisdom who rules the demons, so I will use everything at my disposal to make you pay. I carry a noble soul that will always repay any debt that I owe!!)

For some reason, she came to a stop just before this reunion.

She toyed with her hair, slapped her cheeks, twisted her body, and pinched at various parts of her red leather outfit to check on it. Not even tapping her sharp heels on the floor was enough to calm her down. Her pulse was racing and she was nervous despite being the Demon Lord. She took a deep breath to try to relax. What would she do and say when she saw him again? She had rehearsed this countless times in her head, yet now she found her mind had gone entirely blank. And that seemed fine to her. She would face this as her honest and unadorned self. Once she made that decision, she took that final step forward to reach the bars of the cell.

“Hi, old man.”

When she spoke, the words that came out were entirely ordinary.

She hated how poorly her mind was working right now, but there was no redoing it at this point.

She powered through it.

She gave up on trying to look good in front of him and that resignation felt kind of nice.

She smiled thinly and spoke with countless emotions in her voice.

“I apologize for the inept execution, but I am here to rescue you, old man!!”