Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume2 Phase01 (section)

===Part 2===

The humidity was lower out toward the ocean, but it was still plenty hot. The sun shined down from overhead and the fine white sand reflected it up from below, so the cool waves were a relief.

“Hold on. Are these really the rental swimsuits?”

“Hurry it up, Henrietta.”

“But these are no more than long, broad strips of cloth. At least tell me how I am supposed to wear it!”

“You only need two of them. Twist one around at the center and wrap it around your chest so it functions as cups. Like this, see? Then you can pass the other one vertically and horizontally while wrapping it around you to cover your butt.”

“This requires far too much creativity!”

Their cottage sat out over the ocean.

Did the girls realize their vivid silhouettes showed through the white curtain partition thanks to the sunlight shining through the window behind them? A conversation that did a lot to fuel the imagination was playing out beyond that thin curtain, but one voice was missing.

“Miss Teleria, why are you sitting over in the corner? You should join them.”

“Please just ignore meeee.”

The blonde girl was curled up with her arms around her knees and she rubbed her big toes together through the black tights she still wore. Those tights were actually a Mimic Option and removing them would reveal her mermaid parts. Unfortunately, she could not think of a swimsuit she could wear while still wearing tights.

However, Ayato rubbed his skinny chin in thought.

“Why would a girl sadly sit on the sidelines watching the others swim? …Oh!? How thoughtless of me. Forget I asked anything.”

“(I really, really want to punch him, but that would only make him ask further questions!!)”

With the sound of a flapping cloth, the thin curtain partition was pushed aside.

“We’re ready, Coach.”

Tall and slender Mamilis wore something akin to a bikini. White silk strips of cloth as thick as her arm were wrapped around her, covering her chest and hips. She had gone to the effort of twisting them at the center of the chest and the sides of her hips for a nice fashionable touch. Still, she really only had strips of cloth wrapped around her, so the angle around her hips seemed a bit sharp.

“Is it coming loose anywhere or did I leave any gaps?”

“Not that I can see.”

“But maybe I was too cautious because it’s a little tight. Nh, yeah, it rides up when I move my legs.”

“Miss Mamilis, you always put me in the most philosophical mood. You clearly know what makes a good swimsuit, even if you are not consciously aware of it. Good, you even know to bend your finger like a hook to fix the butt.”

Meanwhile, Henrietta had a strip of cloth hooked over her neck and then pulled down to cover the three important points of her two breasts and her crotch. Overall, it formed something like a V-shape. With his eyes on her, she held her arms around herself and twisted her body while trying not to look his way.

“What do you want, dangerous individual?”

“Well, Miss Henrietta, I was simply noting that people are full of surprises. That is a truly wonderful design that displays your inner self flawlessly.”

“One word more and I’m punching you! I couldn’t wrap it around me as skillfully as she could, so I had no choice but to do it this way!!”

“Wa ha ha! Perhaps we should call you Miss Jigglyetta from now on!”

She had started to attack him (with so much of her bright skin showing), but his comment made her gasp and then shriek as she quickly covered her chest with her hands. Yes, that V-shaped swimsuit was a little too playful. Or rather, it was much like a suspension bridge in how it turned the slightest movement into a lot of shaking.

“But it would seem you need more training in the way of the swimsuit, Rare Navel-Exposure Henrietta, so a word of warning. Bending over to cover your body is all well and good, but with a swimsuit like that, you are only letting the cloth go slack, widening the gaps. Can’t complain about the view, though.”

“Enough. If it comes to it, I will grab a stone and use this cloth as a sling. If I am going to die of embarrassment, I’m taking you with me.”

He seemed to have awoken the berserker’s wrath. Viewing everything through the lens of battle may have been her way of avoiding the reality before her. She seemed to be as much of a workaholic as Ayato.

Since the cottage was situated over the ocean itself, they did not need to head out onto the beach and set up a parasol. Ayato had discovered it while casting a fishing rod out the window, but the ocean was only hip deep here. That meant they could jump right off from the terrace.

And so Mamilis tilted her expressionless head in her bikini.

“You aren’t going to swim, Teleria?”

“Um, I couldn’t find a swimsuit I liked.”

“Henrietta, you grab her arms and I’ll grab her legs.”

“Wait, what are you two planning!?”

“We don’t want you to feel left out, so let’s forget all about swimsuits. Okay, swing her side to side and…go!”

After being swung like a pendulum and chucked out the window, the girl’s scream was drowned out by a loud splash.

Brown Mamilis followed after her by running to the end of the terrace with her arms raised horizontally.

“Yay!”

“Hey, dangerous individual. Is it just me or is that girl getting weirder by the day!? You’re clearly a bad influence on her!!”

“Coach, shut her up by shoving her into the ocean.”

“Eek!?”

A gentleman like Ayato could never wield that sort of violence, so he instead grabbed the back of her V-shaped swimsuit and tugged upwards. With the sound of cloth digging into flesh, she turned her legs inward, shrieked, and jumped up, causing her to fall off the edge of the terrace.

“Bwah!? D-d-dangerous individual!!”

“What about you, Coach?”

“Miss Mamilis, that is an extremely attractive offer, but unfortunately, there were no men’s swimsuits. Plus, a wet guy would be a public nuisance instead of a blessing. I was thinking of engaging in the truly cultured pastime of attempting to remove your swimsuits with this fishing rod, so how does that sound?”

“It sounds like you want me to climb back up there and punch you!”

“Ha ha ha. You say that, Miss Teleria, but what is that floating right next to you? Your blazer, blouse, and black tights are wet but otherwise untouched, so how in the world did landing in the water cause just your bra to come off and float away in the waves? And I was under the impression you always went with the pure white option, so I thank you for this correction.”

Teleria screamed and covered her chest with her hands while she ducked down to bring the water up past her mouth. She began blowing bubbles and looking tearfully up at him. He felt a little bad for her, but that reaction had earned an unbelievably high score in his book.

Needless to say, Ayato was so reluctant to enter the water because there was no such thing as absolute safety. There was the unsettling incident involving that ice coffin, but there was also a chance of a robbery, a mass shooting, or a random attacker arriving by pure coincidence. If they all set their weapons aside, they would have no way of responding to an unexpected attack, but the girls had different plans.

“W-we need to work together. Splash him with water! Especially in the face. Don’t give him a chance to swing that fishing rod!!”

“Got it!”

“Hm, this sounds fun. Get ready, Coach.”

The three girls began splashing at the hip-deep seawater with their hands, but while (happily) accepting their coordinated attack from one step back from the edge, he noticed something.

(Yes, I hadn’t imagined it. Their skin color is showing through an awful lot. Especially where the seawater has soaked into it.)

It was especially noticeable with Mamilis’s brown skin. The wet white cloth was plastered to her smooth curves in a way that suggested it had little to no waterproofing. That may truly have been ordinary silk.

“Agh! By the way, Miss Mamilis, where did you get these swimsuits?”

“Using the rental service offered on the Media Summoner. It contacted some young woman called a…coordinator, I think it was? Anyway, she brought them to the front door.”

“She brought the swimsuits?”

“She said we could wear them to look prettier.”

Ayato gained an incredibly soft expression.

Pretti''er''. He could guess these were optional accessories meant to provide additional decoration, not swimsuits themselves. That meant they had zero protection against growing see-through when wet, but Ayato was a gentleman. There was no need to wound the sensitive maidens’ pride by pointing out their mistake.

“And letting them frolic in the water while mistaking that thin cloth for swimsuits will bring about much greater transparency-related happiness.”

“Hold it, dangerous individual! What did you just say!?”