Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume1 Phase1 (section)

===Part 6===

All light and sound were blown away.

A direct hit from that war-level attack would sink even a military airship. No matter how hard the mana-conducting silver scorpions tried to defend their protection target, they would be melted along with the girl.

The buildings in the way and the sorcery shields were useless.

That attack had enough firepower to blast right through the entire sky city.

“Wha-?”

But the attack did not play out as planned.

It was Sorcery Hacker Funny Snatch who cried out at the cruel world around him.

“Ch-chew. Why? How could an attack like that not kill anyone!?”

“Ah, ahh?”

Teleria had nearly fallen over in shock, but Ayato had grabbed her in his arms at some point. And while Ayato should have been the #1 target, he made no attempt to run or hide.

He smiled and spoke.

“Diiid yooou forgeeeet? I borrowed one of the scorpions to destroy the bell tower, but they all returned to normal once the bell tower had been destroyed. ''Except for the one I had already hacked independently.''”

“Ah.”

“Primitive bullets can break through paper with ease, but when they make contact, their trajectory is bent ever so slightly. So if you combine hundreds of pieces of paper, you can actually stop a lead bullet. Of course, I wasn’t expecting anything like that here.”

In other words.

“I gave the rooftop scorpion a simple command: knock over all the tall objects standing up from the rooftops, be they chimneys, bell towers, or whatever else. The crimson dragon’s breath would punch through those diagonally-toppled obstacles, but that bent its trajectory just a little. And small margins of error can add up to something significant if there are enough of them. So, so, so.”

“''Chew. Are you saying you intentionally diverted the course of the dragon breath''!?”

“Well, you people were using the airship cannons and that giant beast as cover for your human trafficking operation. You couldn’t afford to get hit yourself, so I knew you must have carefully studied its behavior patterns. That’s why I figured your last-ditch attempt would come down to that. That said, it wasn’t easy both diverting it out of the way ''and'' making sure it didn’t hit any of the other homes around here. Feel free to praise me for that one.”

Teleria knew it could not have been that easy.

For one thing, simply diverting the path of that high-power breath was superhuman enough. She could not even find the words to describe worrying about the unknown number of other people in the vicinity on top of that.

But he had done it.

Whether he was up against a giant criminal organization or the users of a corrupt government system, he would directly challenge anything that rubbed him the wrong way. That was how he had made his way through life bringing not-insignificant levels of chaos to various parts of the world but also protecting the occasional smile along the way. Yes, he was like a calamity given human form.

He was a Sorcery Hacker.

He was Ayato Criminaltrophy.

Funny Snatch’s mistake had been thinking he could hold back a calamity by brute force.

“Any risk I bring on myself is also placed on my partner who I care about more than the fate of the world, so did you really think I would make my move with anything less than a flawless plan?”

It was the way he said things like that with a straight face that caused the blonde girl’s body temperature to skyrocket without end in his arms.

“Now, then. How many balloon bungalows did you have to send past the dragon’s nose? If you had just the one piece of insurance, then do you have anything at all left to protect yourself?”

Funny Snatch belatedly looked around in shock.

“A Sorcery Hacker is in no position to talk about justice, so I’ll let them take over.”

Unsurprisingly, a double-digit number of mana-conducting silver scorpions surrounded the man.

The ill-mannered but idealistic boy snapped his fingers.

“Enjoy the justice they were designed to provide, you perverted criminal.”