Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume2 Phase02 (section)

===Part 6===

Oceavita Water Therapy Institute < Internal Local Network < Reception Desk Media Summoner

Sorcery Encryption Method < Sulfur Fire

Result < This network is safe

“The Dextral Mk. IIs? Why would they be attacking us!? Those are our devices for construction and security!”

“That is under investigation.”

“And you say a Sorcery Hacker was involved? Is it possible he set it all up himself? In the hopes that we would make a mistake?”

“Hard to say. It looks more like there are two or more groups at odds here, but either one could be after our information.”

“I will send people after them through the official channels.”

“I doubt that will accomplish much. The guards here are only meant to sit around on a peaceful island, so they’re useless. But don’t blame them because we were the ones that defanged them. That’s how we managed to plant our roots so deep here.”

“So should we head out to find them ourselves?”

“That is part of what we are discussing at the moment. If we make too much of a scene, it could reveal the island’s underground, which would ruin all our plans.”

“Indeed.”

“Instead of acting on our own, we need to bolster our mutual surveillance. The biggest threat here is internal paranoia, not an external enemy. I want to avoid having any of our own people making a critical mistake for no reason.”



“Hm, I see.”

The next day, Ayato snuck up as close to the half-destroyed marble building as he could get and adjusted the position of the crystal tarot cards floating around him. The vibration of the thin cards produced voices.

“''That receptionist'' sounds like far more than a simple receptionist to me.”

The water therapy institute’s network was air-gapped to preserve their patients’ privacy, but since that meant it had to reject all connections with the natural manaflows found almost everywhere, he only had to locate the isolation devices buried in the white sand around the building like the numbers on a clock face and stab his Linkage Plug sword into those to hack them.

Meanwhile, the grandma’s girl was fidgeting her butt below the white leather.

“Ohh, it is so much more reassuring to have underwear on.”

“How did you manage to find such a simple phrase capable of entirely ruining the mood Ayato was so smugly setting there!?”

Dark Elf Mamilis did not seem bothered by Teleria’s tremor of fear.

She instead got back on topic while munching on a toxically red fruit cooled in the spring water. It may have functioned like a water bottle.

“Coach, what made you suspicious of Oceavita?”

“Nothing really. I just have a bad habit of assuming there’s a dark underside to everything that looks pure and innocent.”

“…”

The brown cutie’s mouth formed a small triangle.

Ayato did not seem to care as he munched on a breakfast similar to a rice cracker. They had gathered up the small crayfish they caught and fried them in the plant oil they acquired by squeezing out the giant brooch-like seeds found in a tropical fruit.

“There doesn’t seem to be any other powerful force on Laguntreat, so if there’s a Sorcery Hacker on the island, Oceavita would have to be either the culprit or the victim. It wasn’t hard to figure out I’d find something by investigating them.”

The straitlaced Striker had accompanied him when he set this up, but when she heard that short exceprt from a day’s worth of recorded conversations, Henrietta gave the crystal tarot cards a look of disgust.

“I-I had never really given it much thought, but I need to focus more on sorcery security from now on.”

“An excellent idea. It’s never too late to take security seriously. I could teach you if you like.”

“Hm. Y-you would do that for me? Ah!! Wait, no, I can’t get help from a Sorcery Hacker!! Who knows what kind of backdoors you would have me install!!”

Their intention here was to gather enough information to figure out their next step, not to make an attack on the Oceavita Water Therapy Institute. With that goal complete, it was time to return to the tropical forest.

They had already learned something concerning.

“Coach, they said the Dextral Mk. IIs belonged to Oceavita, didn’t they?” said Mamilis.

“And they seem to be hiding something about the island’s underground,” added Henrietta. “Which may be related to why they need the Dextral Mk. IIs for ‘construction and security’.”

“Does that mean this goes beyond Oceavita?” asked Teleria. “Are they expanding throughout the entire island’s underground to do something?”

Ayato considered their opinions and connected them all together. Wine and cheese were about the only delightful things people stored underground. If this was true, some sinister plan was probably underway.

Ayato hid behind the trees while a human couple with large baskets on their backs walked by, presumably to gather some mountain plants.

“Those are some interesting ideas. Are you suggesting we would arrive at their secret if we began digging anywhere on the island? If so, we should be able to have some fun just by hacking a random construction device.”

(The Sorcery Hacker who stole the ice coffin must be abusing this island’s hidden system since they already used those Dextral Mk. IIs as a diversion. To dig deeper into this, we need to know how the entire system works first.)

Seeing Ayato lost in thought must have reminded Teleria of something from the past because she began to panic. She really was a wonderful girl who could pick up on his feelings without him needing to say anything. He would absolutely love to have her as his wife.

“Um, uh, we don’t know how deep it is. And even if it does cover the entire island’s underground, it might have just the one entrance.”

“I was never hoping to dig our way in.” The Sorcery Hacker in a blue blazer pointed toward their feet. “It does not matter if that method would reach their underground secret. If we start digging with some construction equipment, someone is sure to show up to stop it. Then we just have to follow them.”