Editing Sorcery Hacker:Volume2 Phase02 (section)

===Part 7===

Boom boom boom boom! Clang clang clang clang!!

The machinery was probably meant to dig wells. A triangular pyramid was formed from three pillars and a heavy blade was repeatedly dropped from the peak to dig into the sand. Excavation machinery like that could be found anywhere on Laguntreat since it was known for its many springs.

“Bingo. Here they come.”

The effect was even greater than expected.

But it was not people who showed up. Several of those giant hermit crab Dextral Mk. IIs rushed over and knocked down the hacked excavation equipment.

“Looks like they really are sensitive when it comes to the underground,” said Mamilis while watching from behind cover.

“Indeed it does, Miss Mamilis. And as expected, they do not seem to be using those forbidden plasma fireballs while their owner has control of them. That must have been unique to the Sorcery Hacker.”

However, the Dextral Mk. IIs could move freely through the sand. They dug into the fine sand and buried themselves while Ayato’s group watched. This was no real surprise since the enemy never could have planted their roots across the entire island if their plan would fail the instant anything at all went awry or their soldiers were spotted. They would have made a critical mistake earlier than this in that case.

Henrietta must have finally been feeling the effects of wearing armor in the tropical heat because she had started fanning some of her softer parts to maintain the bare minimum of comfort as a girl.

“We can’t pursue them if they do that, dangerous individual.”

“Are you sure about that?”

They repeated similar experiments a few times, changing location each time.

This did tell them one thing.

“The island’s underground is more complicated than I thought,” summarized the skinny boy. “There’s the secret hidden below the entire island, there’s the passageways for the Dextral Mk. IIs to move through, and there’s the water veins descending from the mountain to provide a source for the springs. They appear to be complexly intertwined on multiple levels.”

“But you don’t know exactly where each of them are, do you?”

“I do, though.”

Henrietta’s eyes widened at Ayato’s response.

He winked and raised a finger.

“There is a way of mapping the underground by sending out a vibration and detecting the amplitude that returns to you. It’s generally used to check for veins of water and ores or to check for a solid foundation on which to build a house.”

That much was common knowledge in the Academy Towers.

“But to get back on topic, those three complexly-intertwined subterranean worlds can’t accidentally dig a hole in between each other. If the first and second worlds were linked, the Dextral Mk. IIs meant to keep the secret hidden would in fact guide outsiders to that secret. And a connection to the third world would flood the other two.”

“What is your point, dangerous individual?”

“I believe I already mentioned what method would cause them the most trouble.”

Blonde braid Henrietta blinked for a moment, but then she paled.

“You mean…” muttered the straitlaced Striker.

“Miss Henrietta, use your monstrous strength to attack the ground at the point I give you. That will be where I suspect all three routes line up vertically. If the impact causes a crack, it will flood their secret base. Panicked people will in turn flood from their secret door, wherever it is hidden. There will be so many of them it will be unavoidably conspicuous.”

“I am not creating a catastrophe like that!!”

As a rational and sensible person, Henrietta was apparently opposed to acting like a cruel child pouring a watering can over an anthill.

However.

“Then I will have Miss Teleria use her water magic to directly rupture the water vein. Or I could have Miss Mamilis use her fire magic to attack a weak point in the ground. I am counting on you two.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Leave it to me, Coach. Keep the jobs coming.”

“Hgee! Wait, you two! Don’t just do what he says!! C-can I not stop this on my own? W-wait, okay! I’ll do it!! So please let those two preserve their innocence!!”

A large empty cartridge was ejected and lost its golden color before hitting the sand.

With a muffled sound, the river flowing nearby grew the color of sand. The large bubbles rising to the surface meant a ton of water was pouring into a vast space directly below.

“Now to continue watching.”

“What you’re doing here is no better than that Demon Lord.”

They walked all over the island. Sending out some unmanned weapons and calling it a day was apparently not enough this time. When they looked out from the forest to the beach, they saw a door fly open on a small hut that looked something like a fisherman’s hut but had no apparent purpose there. People rushed out, but in far too great a number to have actually fit in that small structure. The puppy-like Mermaid must have been taking a break from working at the cottages because she was lying on a sheet laid out on the white sand, but she jumped up in surprise when this crowd rushed out.

Ayato spoke as casually as if he were writing an X on a map.

“And we’ve found the secret underground entrance. I just hope the ice coffin is down there.”

“Ah, ahhh…”

Henrietta (who was directly responsible) had her mouth hanging open and Dark Elf Mamilis used her hands to hide her ears.

“But, Coach, there’s a ton of people here. Won’t they see us if we go in through there?”

“Miss Teleria, select a nonlethal attack magic. They ran full-speed up the stairs from deep, deep underground without pacing themselves, so they will be exhausted and they will be feeling relief at having escaped to safety. …Even that Florence from yesterday could defeat them now. I am counting on you – fire.”

“Y-you monster!”

Henrietta’s shouted insult was of no consequence. The blonde girl used the support of her dot sight and laser to fire pressurized water that mercilessly knocked out the people collapsed on the beach gasping for breath. She then used a mass of water to push back at the group still trying to escape to the surface. Her guns produced blue muzzle flashes and several empty cartridges fell while fading like a withering flower. The job was especially simple when they ran across someone climbing the stairs within the small hut. With so many people packed into such a limited space, they had no way of avoiding Teleria’s magic.

“All done.”

“Wh-why did I even bother doing the dirty work earlier?”

“(But, um, if I didn’t do this, Ayato would have started suggesting all sorts of nasty alternatives.)”

After seeing the men and women collapsed everywhere, Dark Elf Mamilis decided not to attach her Mimic Option earrings. But not because they were all unconscious.

“Look, Coach. They have Mimic Options.” The brown girl pointed at the people(?) one by one. “This one is a Lorelei, this one is a Sea Bishop, and I think she’s a Scylla. They’re all demons with a part of their body hidden.”

“Hey, dangerous individual. Isn’t this underground area connected to the Oceavita Water Therapy Institute?”

“Then that receptionist might be a demon too. She’s cleverly hidden it, though.” Black-haired Ayato sighed. “Listen, Miss Henrietta. Demons are no different from us humans. Oppressing them for no reason is of course out of the question, but weirdly glorifying them is also wrong.”

There were cases, like with Elves and Pixies, where human advocates had spread impossibly idealistic ideas about their beauty, such as that they only consumed flower nectar and thus never needed to use the bathroom. When the actual Elves and Pixies could not live up to those ideals, humans would sometimes feel tricked and even attack them. That could lead to humans wielding weapons and persecuting them as a group, all while insisting they themselves were the victims. The behavior was not that far off from jumping in front of a car to extort the driver for insurance money.

“It might sound weird because of the word we humans have chosen to describe them, but there are good demons and there are bad demons. We still do not know which category these belong to.”

“Yet you still had someone shoot them. That puts you squarely in the ‘bad’ category, dangerous individual.”

“Oh? Are you trying to claim good people never hurt others? Miss Henrietta, remind me of your occupation which leads you to keep a large sorcery gun on the edge of the tub while stretching your legs in the bath???”

“Why in the world do you know I do that?”

“Hm, maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that. Miss Teleria, how I wish you would let your defenses down as much as her.”

The stairs leading underground had grown silent. Mamilis and Henrietta were aiming their guns at the collapsed demons to ensure it was safe while Ayato stepped over an unconscious demon to slowly descend further.

“Miss Mamilis, make sure to pace yourself. You already saw what happened to them after they ran full-speed up the stairs.”

“Coach, why did you only caution me? Because I’m a rookie?”

“Because you are cute. Obviously.”

His joke earned him an expressionless glare and a full-auto shotgun aimed his way. Now was apparently not the time.

“How troubling. Could it be that time of the month?”

“Do you want ''all three of us'' to shoot you, Coach?”

The stairs were entirely made of cold white marble.

The stairs continued on and on, turning back at landing after landing. The air also grew chillier. Enough so to forget this was a tropical island.

And finally…

“Wow.”

Mamilis spoke up in pure surprise.

They found an enormous limestone cavern. It was 4 or 5 stories deep to the bottom and too far across to see its full scope. The very bottom formed an underground lake and there was no land in evidence. After descending from a large hole in the ceiling, Ayato’s group found themselves standing on something like construction scaffolding made from palm wood columns and boards.

But that was not the main attraction.

“Hold on,” said Ayato. “What did we just find?”

“It certainly doesn’t appear to be that ice coffin the Sorcery Hacker stole, Coach.”

It was a ship.

A massive warship.

“It’s never anything but trouble with you, dangerous individual.”

It seemed too big to be a boat. It had to be at least 950 esoule<ref>Approximately 1140 meters.</ref> long. Also, it was equipped with a ton of gray cannons forged from mana-conducting silver with a special chloride treatment to protect against the sea breeze.

Overall, it appeared to be a hybrid between a high-speed sailing ship and a steamship. In addition to a row of large sails, it had a waterwheel-like paddlewheel propulsion device on either side.

Scarily enough, despite the great size of the ship, its surface looked cramped. That showed just how many cannons it had onboard. The three-barrel main cannons were loaded on the bow and stern, but it also had side decks built up in a stepped fashion and they were lined with machineguns and antiaircraft guns that aimed upwards like fishing rods.

With the bridge, the smokestacks/masts, and the countless guns of various sizes, it looked something like a pincushion. It resembled a menacing mountain when compared to a flat cargo ship and there seemed barely enough room to stand on the deck.

“What in the world?”

Henrietta looked puzzled as she viewed the warship from the scaffolding above. Her blonde ponytail braid swayed as she tilted her head.

“Is this the secret the Oceavita Water Therapy Institute was trying to hide? But how is this at all related to decursing and sorcery medicine?”

“Are they planning to hurt people to drive up business, Coach?”

“Ugh, that adorable grandma’s girl has started to think like Ayato does,” lamented Teleria. “What a sad day.”

“…”

Ayato tapped his sword’s hilt in thought.

And then he spoke.

“It must not be complete yet.”

“How can you tell?”

“If it could float, they could have boarded the ship when water started flowing into the cave. But whether those were workers or ship’s crew, they did not do that. Yet a ship of that size should have been able to hold all of them.”

Plus, they were underground here. Even if they built their ship in secret, they could not sail it away without lifting it up to the ocean. If it could float, the easiest method would be to raise the water level below it like some special canals did. That must not have been functioning yet.

The unseen Sorcery Hacker must have used this and the rest of the island’s secrets to steal that ice coffin. It felt like they had a new hint, but they had not caught up yet. They would never reach the Sorcery Hacker making use of this unless they figured out what was going on here.

“Oh, look, Coach. There are bags attached to the side of the ship like floats.”

“But, dangerous individual, does that mean the ship’s basic structure is still incomplete? Even though the armor and weaponry appear to have already been attached?”

“It’s possible everything is built, but the ship ended up tilting because it’s poorly balanced. I remember my grandma saying that could be really tricky with her models.”

Which was more difficult: building something up from scratch, or taking a completed product and removing parts to fix it? The engineers and craftsmen may have been working at a truly unsolvable puzzle here. They might think it would be faster to destroy the whole thing and try again from the ground up, but they could not bring themselves to throw out what they had already done. Hence the dilemma.

“Everyone here was a demon hiding their distinctive traits with a Mimic Option.”

“Wh-what about it?” nervously asked fluffy blonde Teleria while fidgeting her legs in their black tights.

Ayato was too lost in thought to notice, though.

“This resort is a rare location where humans and mermaids – and demons as a whole – can coexist and the decursing and medical therapies using the springs provide a stable income. There is no friction with other kingdoms and there is no rampant poverty and hunger on the island. I can’t think of any pressing reason for them to start a war. In fact, a superweapon would only hurt their image with the tourists they rely on.”

Ayato was not speaking to anyone in particular. He was simply thinking aloud.

Then he scratched at his chin.

“No, wait.”

“Coach?”

“Miss Teleria, you were always a good student. Do you remember in our Academy Towers classes when we learned about a theory that the Four Lords hold positions at the four ends of the world?”

“Wh-what!? Th-th-the Four Lords!?”

“?”

Ayato gave a curious look to the girl in the same blue blazer uniform as him.

“But where are the ‘four ends of the world’ located? I doubt this small island just barely away from the Static Continent qualifies. The world is a truly large place. The ocean railroad leads to another continent even further out, after all.”

“Hm? What does that matter, dangerous individual? Remember the Fire Lord…Blasthogg, was it? He left his post to attack our sky city.”

“Yes, but there must be people who don’t like that.”

Black-haired Ayato casually climbed over the scaffolding’s railing and hopped down to the next level.

Blonde Teleria followed in a rushed but nervous way.

“W-wait.”

“Miss Teleria – and the others too – you can take it slow if you like.”

“If we let you go ahead of us, you’re bound to peek up our skirts.”

“!?”

Henrietta quickly held down her tight skirt. Meanwhile, Ayato climbed down the scaffolding level by level until he arrived on the warship’s deck.

It really was cramped with all the weaponry installed there.

Plans for the entire ship and for each piece of equipment and rigging were scattered about and looked trampled on.

(Ainber Mincis, Leonardo Halleys, Bryan Nongar…hm? Those sound familiar.)

He focused on the names visible on the plans while picking up one for the main cannons. He formed an L-shape with the thumb and forefingers of his hands to create a rectangular frame he used to look all around the ship.

Henrietta shouted down from the scaffolding above while blushing and holding her legs close together.

“D-dangerous individual! What do you think you’re looking at!?”

“Worry not, Miss Henrietta. I have serious work to do. I may have caught a glimpse of a black garment that was surprisingly risqué for such a straitlaced individual, but that is what we call force majeure.”

“So you did look!!”

“Can we focus on what matters, Miss Lacy Thong? Hm, so these 0.5 esoule<ref>Approximately 60 centimeters.</ref> cannons have three barrels each and there are three sets in the front and two in the back.”

The cannon barrels were as wide around as a beer barrel.

Thin Ayato could have climbed right on into one of them.

The units were not the most intuitive in the world, but for comparison, Teleria’s handguns were only 0.75 sub-esoule<ref>Approximately 9 millimeters.</ref>. Also, it was wrong to assume that twice the diameter meant twice the power.

Henrietta grew pale when she heard that.

“Y-you must be kidding, dangerous individual! The sky city’s fortress artillery only went up to 0.25 esoule<ref>Approximately 30 centimeters.</ref>. That’s way too much for a ship’s gun! A high-angle volley from those could bring an entire city to its knees!!”

“That is all I needed to know. Miss Teleria must have been the type to nap through class because she is not much help in this field. I hate to ask it of you, Miss Henrietta, but can you assist me with the calculations?”

“How? I know nothing about specialized sorcery research.”

“Stop thinking about magic for the time being; this is about war. So a question: if you used these 0.5 esoule<ref>Approximately 60 centimeters.</ref> ship’s guns to fire masses of lead and explosives, could they pierce a 450 esoule<ref>Approximately 540 meters.</ref> mass of muscle and bone?”

“Four hundred and fifty…wait just a second.”

“These main cannons are meant to kill Water Lord Fleurelisia from the sea while she rests atop that mountain.”