Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume1 Phase2 (section)

===Part 5===

Teleria entered the bathroom once Ayato left it.

They had a lot of problems to deal with. The crimes that mysterious sniper had framed them for was the biggest one, but surviving this night in this cramped room was a smaller crisis for this blonde girl.

“Phew.”

At least she could take a bath. She never knew whether that would be an option from one day to the next, so she wanted to use any chance she had to get herself nice and clean.

Plus, her special circumstances meant she needed a completely private space if she was to take a bath.

She stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom which contained a bathtub embedded in the floor. She reached for her blue blazer and then the blouse with a popped-off button. Then she switched off the floating function of her princess dress Expansion Armor. After that came her leather holsters and wine-red miniskirt. Once she had unfastened those, she was down to her underwear and black tights.

“Now, then.”

She reached to the sides of her hips, slipped her thumbs below the tights, and paused for a moment. She intentionally tried not to think of this as anything special, but that actually caused her to move more stiffly, like a clockwork doll.

“I thought I was used to this,” she muttered below her breath as she pulled the black tights down all at once.

[[Image:SorceryHacker_v01_BW03.png|thumb]]

There was an immediate change.

The two slender legs entirely disappeared and the back half of a giant fish appeared instead.

This was known as a Mimic Option.

As soon as its effects were gone, her Mermaid body could no longer stand upright and she slumped to the floor.

The temperature was not hot enough to call a real bath, but the tub full of water still called to her.

(Hyah, I get really bloated after a full day of hiding it. I need a massage.)

This, she had not revealed to Ayato. That was why she always needed to find some alone time even on a long journey together.

Instead of entering the small tub, she sat on the edge and soaked just the fish part in the water while she thought. Having water made all the difference. As she gently massaged her lower body with her slender fingers, she felt like the day’s weariness was leaving her.

She did not know how the device worked, but that sorcery item allowed her to be accepted in human society without issue. Lamias, Echidnas, Harpies, Sirens, and any other ''species relatively similar to humans'' could wear a Mimic Option tailored to their needs in order to blend into human society.

It was this kind of magic effect that had hidden Dark Elf Mamilis Coster’s long ears. With just the ears, she did not have to disguise very much of herself, so those earrings she wore were probably tiny Mimic Options.

The leader of the various species who humans called “demons” had been known as the Demon Lord, but there were no accurate records remaining of how long ago it had been since they had officially disappeared. There were plenty of rumors – such as a human hero defeating them and sealing them in a small shrine, or the Demon Lord blowing themselves up in a failed sorcery experiment in the search of even greater power – but there was no concrete evidence for any of it.

Only the fact of the Demon Lord’s disappearance remained and that continued to bind Teleria and the other “demons”.

The demons had not been eradicated when their leader was lost, but they had been vulnerable without someone to lead them. Some had attempted to become a charismatic leader to replace the Demon Lord, but no matter how powerful they were, they had only made themselves a target for the humans. The giant dragon still hanging around Fire Castle Town Flared was a good example of that.

In the end, people like Teleria and Mamilis were forced to blend in.

They had to be careful not to be judged evil according to the Light-Dark Duality.

It was a cliché in fairy tales for the nonhuman to be forced to leave once their identity was revealed, but that was indeed how it worked for them. Once a demon was discovered despite their Mimic Option disguise, they had to make themselves scarce lest they be hunted down by the humans.

She felt bad for those who were not humanoid enough to blend in, so whenever she had heard that human hunters were narrowing in on them, she had made an effort to head there and give them a chance to escape. On the other hand, that was all she had been able to do. Demons like Teleria were always on the run and they had to live a life on a knife-edge to ensure their identity was never revealed. …All because they had been born the way they were.

She was no longer young enough to curse how she had been born.

These cruelties were the first thing one had to face after being born as a demon. They were pursued by the humans using the very magic that had supposedly been originally created by the Demon Lord and, if they did not overcome that cruelty, they would lose their life before even getting to start living.

(Someday.)

Teleria glanced over at the holsters and sorcery guns mixed in with her clothing on the floor.

Those were a product of human wisdom.

She should have been able to produce the supernatural with just her own body, but she would be killed on the hunting ground in no time without using something like that. It felt like a symbol of the heavy shackles binding her.

(Someday, we will create a world where I can relax out in the sun like this.)

Every time Mermaid Teleria saw her true form in the mirror, that absurd fantasy came to mind. She had no concrete vision of how she could change the current age in that way.

“Well, obviously the answer isn’t going to come to me that easily.”

She spoke half in self-deprecation and then looked away from her reflection in the mirror. She reached around to her back and started to unhook the pure bra that she still wore.

But that was when ''he'' showed up.

The bathroom door burst open without warning.

And a boy rolled in while wriggling along the floor.

“Wait, what!? I, but, huh!? The door was locked!”

Her mind went blank. She did not understand. He had burst into the bathroom and seen her Mermaid lower body, but why!? And Mermaid or not, having her bare lower body seen was a problem for her maiden heart!! All the information whirled dizzyingly through her head and her mind’s processing power overflowed well past its limits.

The door did not matter.

She should have escaped to a more elevated location.

Once Ayato Criminaltrophy rolled in, he did not stop at the floor and rolled right into the tub. Teleria happened to be seated on the edge of the tub like a Mermaid on the rocks in a painting, so he happened to stick his face right into the fish part soaking inside the tub while his arms wrapped around her bare hips. Was this the result when a god rolled the dice? How in the world had he ended up in this pose by coincidence!?

And while her dulled thoughts fell further and further behind, Ayato finally replied in a dazed voice. This was odd. His eyes did not grow focused even as the bathwater soaked him.

“Ugh, the lock? You reverse the right eye and the left eye and then…what was it???”

“Ah!? Don’t tell me the lock is broken so turning it doesn’t actually do anything!”

This was an underground and rundown inn, so would the management really bother fixing anything that was broken? The owner looked like he had killed three people and she could not imagine him rushing out to fix a problem a guest brought to him.

But still…

“I’m not sure what that one part meant, but I really want to die right about now! First, we fight that battle, then we get framed for some crimes, then I have to walk all over the city while carrying that Dark Elf, and now I have to deal with your Self-Maintenance too!?”

Teleria was not quite sure what that work entailed. Like with the placebo effect or seemingly superhuman feats of strength during emergencies, people were not always aware of their own body’s “weight”. And if that baseline value was off in their head, they could not move their body the way they wanted. So by lowering the level of his consciousness and learning the “true weight” of his body, he had an easier time moving his body precisely as he pictured it in his head. She was not sure if that was a Sorcery Hacker thing or something unique to Ayato. She only knew the damage it caused to her!!

He really should not have been moving around at all during this, and yet…

“Ahh.”

“(Okay, I’m just barely safe!! Well, my maiden heart certainly isn’t since he burst in while I was in the bath, but if he doesn’t remember any of it clearly, he shouldn’t learn I’m a Mermaid!!)”

It was his memories that created the vanity and fear that confused his view of his body’s “weight”. That was why he lowered the level of his consciousness. It may have been similar to how you would not fear fire if you lacked the memories of being burned by it.

She did not now how his mental activity was linked to his physical activity, but it seemed strange to roll along the floor like some kind of booby trap during his Self-Maintenance.

She could only make guesses based on what she had seen in the past, but he did not seem to remember much of what happened during this work because that was how he had defined the state. He was technically not asleep and would still be forming memories, but he had decided that these memories would leave as little of an impression on him as “what he had for dinner three days ago”, so he would not remember any of it once he raised his consciousness level and opened his eyes. She just had to hope it happened that way this time too!!

“Oh, I get it.”

“H-huh? That comment sounded kind of disappointed, but what are you talking about?”

“Nereid, huh?”

The blonde girl’s shoulders jumped in surprise in her pure bra (Defense: 2) and her fish lower body (Defense? None of that here!!).

(Eh? What? Eh? Why did he just bring up my middle name that comes from an ancient language!? Is he connecting that to the water species that leads back to the one female member of the Four Great Demons, or am I overthinking this!?)

“…”

“And now he isn’t saying anything!? Oh, but I’m too scared to ask him what he meant!!”

Teleria’s eyes were spinning in her head, but Ayato seemed entirely carefree. He went limp with his arms around the Mermaid’s slender waist and his cheek resting on the fish part. Moving had been the abnormality, so he must have actually fallen into his mental experiment now.

It almost looked like she was intimately letting him rest in her lap.

Or like the demon was being accepted by the human.

“…Honestly.”

For a while after that, Teleria Nereid Aquamarine gently narrowed her eyes. She started wondering for the first time why she had not come up with a fake name when she first met the boy.

After stroking her hand through his hair for a while, she sensed someone’s eyes on her and looked up.

The bathroom door was sitting wide open and a half a face with a long ear was sticking out from the side. The expressionless Dark Elf was spying on her.

“I’d tell you to get a room, but I guess you already did, ''Coaches''. Although I am partially jealous, to be honest.”

“…!!!???”