Sorcery Hacker:Volume3 Phase01

Status: Incomplete

2/4 parts completed

   

Phase 01: Academy Towers – Magic School

Part 1

“Gwohhhh!? Wait, dangerous individual!? Is this more of that mysterious mental training!?”

“Coach☆”

The sun had risen, signaling the arrival of morning.

Fluffy blonde-haired Teleria shook the frying pan on the stove while hearing Mamilis and Henrietta’s voices through the thin wall. She was back after so long and the stove’s heat was as inadequate as she remembered. She piled plates full of tropical-style stir-fried vegetables with an accent of lemon while noting that the dark elf almost sounded like she was enjoying herself. Even though she must have been pulled into the blanket with Ayato while he rolled around during his “self-maintenance”.

Instead of placing the used frying pan in the dishpan, she reused it by adding some shrimp sauce and pasta. It was wrong to assume every kind of pasta should be cooked al dente. With a thick, seafood sauce, the noodles would be overpowered if they were too delicate. That was why she pressed them against the bottom of the frying pan to fry them. The occasional crunchy parts which provided a small surprise were the secret to making the tropical-style really stand out.

She added the pasta to everyone’s plates, but she still had one last job for the frying pan before placing it in the dishpan full of water. She was going to get all the use out of it she could.

She was in newlywed wife mode with a lacey apron over her blue blazer uniform and she grabbed the frying pan and spatula before moving to the other room. She banged the two metal objects together.

“That’s enough, Ayato. Breakfast is ready, so you need to wake up. Yes, I mean actually wake up.”

“Gwuh?”

“I-if you are done with that frying pan, hand it here, Teleria! I will split open this dangerous individual’s head with it!!”

Striker Henrietta blushed and shouted at the attacking human-sized amoeba (Ayato had his arms around her hips, his nose rubbing against her navel, and the top of his head pushing up her breasts), but Teleria didn’t want a funeral to ruin the breakfast she had put so much effort into making. Perhaps the eaters couldn’t understand how much work went into preparing the food.

At any rate.

Ayato rubbed his eyes with one hand, placed his other hand against the wall, and unsteadily walked toward the food he could smell. The thin wall made disconcerting sounds when he leaned his weight against it. Instead of pure mana-conducting silver, this was an inferior product made by mixing in scrap metal. There was a simple fireplace that burned bluish-white solid fuel, but the early morning chill still managed to sneak in through the thin walls.

Now, you are probably wondering something at this point.

Where are they right now?

“Wow,” childishly exclaimed Dark Elf Mamilis, her long ears twitching.

The fluffy blonde-haired girl kind of wished that was in response to seeing her breakfast.

The silver-haired girl had her fingertips on the windowsill and her eyes directed outside.

“That’s incredible. It’s called the Academy Towers, right? It’s so much more impressive now that the sun is out.”

A bell rang in the distance.

It was still too early for classes, so that would be the bell for morning training. Instead of a single giant bell in a belltower, a simple melody played from all the Media Summoners installed around.

“I don’t see what’s so impressive about this place compared to the sky city built atop a 100 thousand esoule area of floating land. Is this an example of ‘the grass is always greener’ phenomenon?”

Sleepy Ayato was more interested in Teleria’s cooking.

Behind the black-haired boy with bedhead, the dark elf was glued to the glass to view the distinctive scene outside. That angle was in fact one use for the photos in the pamphlets and website for prospective students.

A ring of mountains formed a natural fortress.

Several stone towers rose high into the sky at the center. Each tower was the finest school on the continent for a specific field of study and there were walkways connecting the towers at various levels. Viewed from above, it might have looked like a strange constellation.

The towers were different heights, but the tallest one was more than 1000 esoule. The place was the ultimate toy for the world’s geniuses, a research facility for the Static Continent’s greatest sorcery technology, and a collection of all the most unmanageable eccentrics.

Ayato and Teleria had once gone here.

It was a collection of schools for sorcery guns, mist mana networks, and every field of magic.

“I’m surprised,” said Striker Henrietta after sitting at the table and saying a prayer. “With all those big towers, I thought for sure they would include student dorms or at least some kind of residential area on the higher floors.”

“The towers are no more than schools, so they don’t include dorms. Although admittedly, there are plenty of students and teachers who abandon a comfortable lifestyle to spend all their time in the labs and special classrooms.”

“Yeah, I used to see a fair number of people sleeping curled up under a desk. When the deadline for sorcery projects was approaching or just before the demonstration of everyone’s original sorcery devices, there would be so many people in the towers I would see people sleeping near the entrances of the bathrooms.”

Henrietta appeared to regret her observation after receiving an explanation from the two in blazer uniforms. It didn’t take a mind reader to know whether she considered the students here to be geniuses or eccentrics.

Mamilis turned around and sat at the table.

“That’s why all these boxes litter the ground below the towers, right?”

“They are known as mobile homes, Miss Mamilis. Learning things already?”

Mobile homes were marginally better than an RV. And since this was a stationary “village”, they were all hooked up to gas, water, and the sorcery network.

“Let’s review the basics,” began Ayato while poking at his citrusy stir-fried vegetables with a silver fork. “There are signs of criminal activity within the Academy Towers. I investigated it myself, so there is little room for doubt. I do not know what is hidden here, but if nothing is done about it, we will see more incidents like the one at Laguntreat. So instead of running around putting out each new fire, I have decided to infiltrate the Academy Towers and cut it off at the source.”

This was of course directly related to his own past.

Unlike Henrietta, he was not currently fighting for any kind of public good. He had chosen the path of a Sorcery Hacker who broke the rules to reach the truth, so he couldn’t paint such a pretty picture of himself.

But while he wanted to continue researching his personal past, he also wanted to avoid causing any more major incidents that harmed other people through the attempts to obstruct him and cover up the secrets.

Enough with cutting off the branches and leaves.

It was time to take an axe to the trunk.

But not even that was enough. If there were deep roots to this disaster, he would have to dig up the dirt and sever those too.

“I’m sure a Sorcery Hacker like you is going to sneak around and steal some information through illicit means, so do I just get to sit this one out?”

Henrietta gave him a displeased look while twirling up the seafood pasta on her fork. She must have liked the pasta because she ate far more of it than the vegetables. Teleria made a mental note to not split the pasta and vegetables into two different dishes like that next time.

Ayato shrugged.

“Sky City Celedileka was one thing, but the revolver guy and Jennifer at Laguntreat appeared to be targeting us in particular. Dealing with this as soon as possible is our best course of action. Miss Henrietta, I would greatly appreciate it if you would assist me in preventing the next tragedy before it begins.”

“What about me, Coach?”

“I have plenty for you to do as well, Miss Mamilis.”

When he rubbed her head, the tall and slender dark elf held her head high and wiggled her long ears like a proud child, but Henrietta did not look pleased. She looked like a grandmother seeing her naïve granddaughter falling in with a bad crowd.

Teleria asked a question while using a handkerchief to wipe the tropically-flavored shrimp sauce from Mamilis’s mouth.

“But, Ayato. Where are you going to check? The Academy Towers are a big place. There are more than 10 towers in all.”

Ayato had an immediate answer to that.

“The Gem Science Gemboard Processing Tower.”

“…”

Mamilis held her fork in her mouth and gave Ayato and Teleria a puzzled look. The carefree way she kicked her legs below the table showed she did not understand the meaning behind this short silence.

The Sorcery Hacker smiled.

“It sounds like you have already informed them, so I will just come out and say it: that is the last place I ever wielded that revolver. That is also where I dismantled it and threw all the parts into a blast furnace. But now it seems that devil revolver holds a central position to something much bigger. I don’t know if someone repaired it or if there are spares, but that is where I will find information related to it. Not only was it the scene of that incident, but it is also where sorcery guns are produced and processed. It can’t hurt to sneak in there and perform some detailed research.”

“Makes sense.”

The silver-haired girl expressed her understanding, but she was more focused on the breakfast in front of her. Her long ears twitched happily as she began dumping the stir-fried vegetables on top of the seafood pasta for a custom dish all her own. They had very different flavors, but they went together well when she added plenty of cheese powder. It worked so well that Teleria’s eyes widened when she made a small test serving of it on a small plate for herself.

The dark elf girl may not have remembered the details of the incident.

But Striker Henrietta was a different matter. She had belonged to a law enforcement team that specialized in criminal investigations in the sky city. Any information remotely crime-related would never escape her memory.

She had been given crucial information regarding Ayato and Teleria’s past during a girl’s talk session back in a sky city inn.

“(Teleria.)”

“(Yes, he means that.)”

They did not speak out loud.

They communicated with only eye contact and lip movements.

“(That is also the school tower where I was taken hostage and Ayato shot my brother with that devil revolver.)”

That was the crux of the matter.

The Sorcery Hacker had come here in order to reclaim the past he had abandoned himself.

Part 2

After finishing breakfast, doing their hair, and brushing their teeth with a toothbrush cloth wrapped around a finger, Ayato’s group left the mobile home.

“Coach, wait a moment.”

Mamilis hurriedly stopped him while she brushed up her beautiful silver hair and put earrings on her long ears. That neatly hid her most distinctive trait as a dark elf. The earrings were a type of sorcery tool known as a Mimic Option.

Once outside, the mountain chill helped focus their mind.

It was breakfast time and a bit cold, but there were a surprising number of people out and about.

In fact…

“Coach, what are they doing? They’re having a cookout!!”

“Yeah, the mobile home’s makeshift stove is pretty weak.”

These students had an impressive setup, but only because a bob cut girl from the Cooking Club and a muscular macho from the Mountain Climbing Club were taking command of all the outdoor grills.

Ayato glanced over at them.

“Also, they say it’s easier to clean up afterwards if you do the smelly meat cooking outside.”

“They say? Ayato, it is long since time you learned how to cook yourself!”

“She has a point, dangerous individual. Then again, maybe that is asking too much of someone with no beneficial talents.”

“Oh? But, Miss Henrietta, you never cook either and your specialty is violence.”

The criminal’s teasing nearly got him an axe bayonet to the head, so Teleria and Mamilis had to hold the agent of justice back.

“Coach, can we have a cookout too!?” asked Mamilis from that pile of three different types of soft skin.

“Miss Teleria is in charge of the cooking, so you would need to convince her. But word of warning: upset her and you will be stuck with a single rock-hard piece of bread for dinner.”

One look at Ayato and Teleria was enough to know Academy Towers students all wore blue blazer uniforms.

Not everyone was wearing those, of course. The students tending to charcoal fires outside included girls in gym clothes like athletic bloomers and bike shorts. Mamilis seemed puzzled by the Cheer Squad girls who were practicing in their red midriff-baring miniskirt costumes. None of these outfits were ever seen outside the Academy Towers. For Dark Elf Mamilis, they all made her feel like she was visiting a foreign continent.

Mamilis herself was carrying a full-auto shotgun on her back and Henrietta wore her bolt-action carbine with axe bayonet at her hip. They made no attempt to hide them in a musical instrument case or anything like that, yet no one panicked. That was partially because sorcery guns could be used as the trigger for household magic, but that wasn’t the only reason.

This was the Academy Towers.

A lot of people here carried around experimental sorcery guns either to research a prototype or to perform verification tests. Those rough, large, and bizarre silhouettes did not stand out here. At the same time, crystal darts, divination sticks, and other experimental Linkage Plugs and Monitors were common too.

That was just the kind of place it was.

The students in blazers and gym clothes viewed military sorcery guns and hacking tools as no more than an academic subject.

For that reason, it was Mamilis and Henrietta’s clothing that stood out the most. Even though their clothing would have been perfectly normal in the average castle town or city square.

The armored young woman fidgeted uncomfortably.

“I don’t know how you filthy Sorcery Hackers do things, but should we really be so conspicuous? I thought you snuck around to steal data.”

“Don’t worry. Most everyone wears uniforms, but not everyone everyone. There are plenty of students who don’t wear one.”

“Really?”

“Yes, like the sad people who walk around in the nude.”

“Hand me a uniform! Hurry!! I am a proud Striker from a noble family!! I cannot afford to be viewed in the same category as an international pervert!!”

She shook Ayato by the collar, but he did not have a girl’s uniform to give her. He was sometimes a little tempted during Teleria’s baths, but he was a pervert with enough restraint to not cross that line.

Meanwhile, a voice called out to him from far across the schoolyard.

“Huh? Is that Ayato I see?”

“Hey, Ayato!!”

The sudden and loud voices made Mamilis jump, shrink down, and bring her hands up to her ears. Her pointy dark elf ears were hidden by the Mimic Option, but the action was reflexive.

But Ayato did not run or hide. In fact, he waved back.

“Yes, everyone’s favorite ace has returned.”

“You’re not supposed to say that yourself. You’ve been skipping class this whole time, but they haven’t counted it against your attendance or grades, have they? Damn, I wish I had that kind of goodwill built up, Hex.”

The approaching boys mussed up Ayato’s black hair or put their arms around his shoulders. It was a lot more cheerful than some dark greeting criminals would use to exchange coded secrets.

Ayato let them do it.

“So has the dining hall menu changed any?”

“After as long as you’ve been gone? Of course it has, dumbass. Oh, I bet that means you don’t know they have a smoothie machine now.”

“And keep an eye out for the new waitress. They’ve hired a real person, not just some ghost or a doll someone designed.”

After some quick catching up, the boys left.

Henrietta looked puzzled.

“Y-you were noticed. I thought we were supposed to be sneaking in.”

“I am technically a student here, remember?”

Ayato used a hand to roughly fix his mussed-up hair.

And he had some bitterness in his voice.

“Also, I used to be known as the strongest Forward. Like that one boy said, I still have a lot of goodwill built up here.”

Basically, the hard part had been reaching the school where his reputation as an ace meant something. The Academy Towers would not protect him if he was captured as a wanted criminal outside their grounds.

On his official record, he was the ultimate Forward who had never made a single mistake.

He was the hero who had rescued a girl from her hostage and reclaimed the school tower.

Not how I would describe needlessly killing someone, thought Ayato with a self-deprecating smile.

“But do not let your guard down. That goodwill does not apply to everyone. For example, the Student Council that rules over the Academy Towers. The students at the bottom might support me, but one word from those at the top and they all turn on me. Their adoration of me does not make them allies.”

“You call it adoration yourself?”

“It is an accurate description. Again, do not let your guard down. Do not forget that we are sneaking in under unnatural circumstances.”

Henrietta wasn’t sure what to think about this. It was difficult for her to accept that a wanted criminal could be adored as an ace and a popular guy.

After a group of Track Team boys jogged past them while shouting in unison, the four of them entered the closest school tower. The doormat on the floor rippled more finely than a washing sponge and automatically removed the dirt from their feet. Straitlaced Henrietta wasn’t used to that feeling on the bottom of her feet because she yelped and then quickly cleared her throat while blushing.

Ayato’s group had entered the closest of the many towers.

Mamilis tilted her head and stared at the sign on the wall.

“This is the, um, mana tower?”

“The Mana Science Data Network Construction Tower.”

Ayato’s clarification only made Mamilis look more confused.

“Oh, it’s warm in here,” said Henrietta when she crossed the threshold. She placed a hand on her hip and gave a confused look around. “But this isn’t from a fireplace. The heat seems to be rising from the floor.”

“The school towers have fairly largescale heating systems. I thought the sky city used hot steam too, but was floor heating uncommon there?”

Outside, they had been walking on plain ground without even a stone pavement, but things changed as soon as they stepped inside. The hallway was made of gentle curves and was pristinely clean. Mamilis peeked inside one of the doors lining the wall and saw chairs and desks lined up in perfect order.

The room was shaped like a slice of Baumkuchen and the few students already gathered there gave Mamilis a curious look back. Since she had her long ears hidden by her earring-style Mimic Option, she gave a nervous wave.

“What is this place? It isn’t like a training workshop. Is it a monastery?”

“In the sense that knowledge is gathered here, it is similar. But you could spend a lifetime here without learning appropriate behavior or finding your faith. Quite the opposite really,” explained Ayato with a bitter smile.

The stone tower was a giant cylinder, so the hallway gently curved along the outside wall. The classrooms were on the inner edge, so they had no windows. That was a small detail, but it prevented outsiders from peeking inside and thus added to the school’s focus on secrecy.

“I see.” Mamilis nodded. “So what do you do at a school?”

“Let’s see. Everyone gathers in the classrooms to read books and copy down what the teacher writes on the blackboard.”

“?”

“You also practice making calculations and work up a sweat in gym.”

“Um? Why?”

The concept seemed to elude Mamilis.

Pulling the trigger of a sorcery gun was sufficient to use magic, so the Static Continent lacked any compulsory education to learn how magic works. School was something only weirdos bothered with because it required paying a lot of money and it ate up a lot of time. The knowledge and skills needed to survive were generally either learned from those around you or self-taught by Media Summoner. The head of a knight family like Henrietta would have a tutor to teach them or they would spend their own money (although a noble’s money originally came from the people’s tax money anyway) to open a private school that anyone could join. Schools were not necessary for people to live their lives since the ubiquity of Media Summoners meant anyone could access the knowledge needed to teach themselves, but towns and villages in remote areas cut off from the sorcery network would still gather their people to teach them how to read and write and do simple arithmetic. But that created a vicious cycle where the children could not learn anything the adults did not know. It all made for a good excuse to extend the reach of the network.

Ayato raised two fingers.

“Miss Mamilis, if you study here, you could learn to build flying ships or sorcery vehicles that travel along the ocean floor.”

“Eh!?”

“There are plenty of rare animals out there you would never see in an ordinary life. Bird cries are a language, so if you analyze the wavelengths accurately enough, you could speak with them. Oh, right. And did you know you can contact the fish in the water using a cry that travels through the water? Study a whole bunch and learn how their systems work and befriending them could become a reality.”

“That’s incredible, Coach. I want to study too!!”

The dark elf had a new light in her eyes as she pushed out ahead. At times like this, eloquent Ayato was more convincing than earnest Teleria. Henrietta, meanwhile, crossed her arms and glared at him like she was watching someone trying to abduct a small child with a lollipop.

“I want to see your classroom, Coach.”

“It’s nothing special. My attendance record shouldn’t be an issue, but they might have removed my desk from the room after such a long absence.”

Then they heard some cheerful barking.

Mamilis looked over in surprise to see an animal walking down the hallway. It looked like a large, fluffy dog, but something wasn’t right. Specifically, it was a sorcery device made by taking a four-legged mana-conducting silver body and dressing it up like a stuffed animal.

The tall dark elf tilted her head like a puzzled child.

“What is that? Is it for security?”

“No, it’s just a pet robot. It might be a prototype testing its autonomous movement. Although it technically borrows some subconscious space in the brains of the people in charge of it.”

“A pet?”

“Instead of patrolling an area or following a scent, it’s only designed to look and behave a lot like a dog.”

“Why would you want to make an ordinary dog out of metal?”

That appeared to be a concept beyond the comprehension of a forest-dwelling dark elf, but she still crouched down and spread her arms to welcome the artificial dog. The way it placed its front paws on her shoulders and licked at her face with its big tongue was just like a real dog. Henrietta knew it was fake, but she still enjoyed how vigorously it wagged its tail.

Ayato whispered to the Striker so Mamilis couldn’t hear.

“Miss Henrietta, drag it away from her when you see a chance.”

“Why? She seems to be enjoying it.”

“Think back to what you have seen dogs do while walking in the park on a day off. If this dog perfectly recreates the behavior of a real one based on several people’s subconscious understanding, then it will eventually start trying to mate with her leg.”

“Move!! Move!! Hurry!! Don’t just stand there!! Get away from it!!”

Henrietta blushed bright and immediately separated girl from dog. She had once said she didn’t know how to spend her days off, so she may have had a bitter memory of a terrible experience while spending a day off in the park.

“Pant, pant!! C-curse these eccentrics. They’re rotten through and through.”

“You won’t get any argument out of me, but a well-known knight like you might want to watch what she says. Graduates of the Academy Towers often get invited to Selected Kingdoms city-states as court scientists or alchemists.”

“Bff!?” spat Henrietta.

Mamilis tilted her head, unaware what she had just been saved from.

“Oh? So this place trains hardheaded government workers?”

“Let’s just say that’s one of the more acceptable futures for the graduates. Some sell their services to criminal organizations and others find they love studying so much they never leave the Academy Towers. Everyone has their own path, so there are even some who can’t find anything to do after graduating and end up stealing fruit from street stalls.”

Since the Academy Towers researched all forms of sorcery, it contained a lot more sorcery devices than the average city. Washing the hallway’s windows was a job for table-sized scarabs crawling along the outside of the towers and stove-sized boxes fluttered around with butterfly wings in place of ribbons. The latter were delivery butterflies carrying around plastic containers made from processed liquid mana.

But it was not limited to physical objects.

The people here could do just about anything related to sorcery. In addition to the solid sorcery devices, there were incorporeal ghost maids floating around.

“Now, then.”

This early, the only people in the classrooms were the students with morning club practice and the ones who just liked to arrive early to study. A well-mannered bob cut girl was also replacing the water in the hallway flower pots. She must have been with the Beautification Committee. There might be pet robots walking around, but not everything here was left to sorcery devices.

Ayato raised a finger.

“Miss Mamilis and Miss Henrietta. Each tower is dedicated to a different field and thus has a very different look, but there is one rule in common between them all. It would be useful for you to know, so listen carefully.”

He pointed at the border between two classrooms.

They were generally evenly spaces, but there were a few exceptions where the gap between classrooms was larger. The stairs and elevators were located there.

“In the Academy Towers, the security level generally increases as you climb the towers. It starts at I and ends with C, B, A, and finally S at the very top. Each letter covers a span of 10 floors and anyone with authorization to that grade can move freely within those 10 floors. That means the letter corresponds to the security level for classified data as well. The best stuff will naturally be at the top.”

“So it uses letters. But, Coach, how do they check what your grade is? Do they break a wooden panel in two and give you half?”

“No handprint or tally necessary. Simply hold your sorcery gun’s front sight up to the reader at the gate.”

“But Coach…”

Mamilis was hesitant to continue.

Ayato wasn’t aware how much of his story had gotten to the other two through Teleria. The Sorcery Hacker who had abandoned his devil revolver shrugged and tapped the grip of his Linkage Plug sword.

“I moved my registration to this.”

That was against the rules, but he didn’t need to tell them that part.

This was not the only school tower.

A look out the window showed several more towers sticking up at random and even more walkways bridging the gaps between them.

“The teachers and sorcery research students here tend to soothe their pride by telling you they are such-and-such grade in the so-and-so tower. The higher up the ladder you are, the more you can brag.”

“Freaking eccentrics.”

“You are exactly correct, Miss Henrietta. But it is also true that the higher levels contain cutting-edge sorcery technology packed full of national secrets related to agriculture, medicine, metalworking, psychology, and even the military. Simply put, there are plenty of people who would be willing to kill to steal the information here.”

Henrietta glanced toward the stairs. They looked ordinary enough, but only because they led up to another floor in the same 10-floor block.

There had to be something more involved at the border between blocks.

Ayato smiled.

“The border floors like Floor 10 or Floor 20 are basically combat zones. You could call them security colosseums. All the Towers’ bizarre tech is gathered to build ridiculously deadly sorcery devices that defend the next block.”

“Such as?”

“They love nothing more than the biggest guns available, so even though we’re talking about an indoor battle, the weaponry could slice right through a mana-conducting silver chloride warship. And since the entire colosseum is airtight, they don’t hesitate to dump in gas and bacteria.”

“…”

“And let’s not forget the giant autonomous walking potted plant where someone modified a sticky tropical plant so it’s pollen, nectar, and even vines will make your entire party unbearably horny. Oh, or the six-legged pervert propaganda truck that uses hypnotizing soundwaves to rewrite what people consider ordinary behavior.”

“Enough. I can tell every last one of you is a dangerous pervert, so not a word more!!”

The beautiful knight was exactly the kind of person to charge straight in and fall victim to such traps, so she blushed and shouted for him to stop.

It was clear now what would happen to anyone who tried to break through the gate and access a higher block without permission. They would be destroyed physically and mentally by any means necessary.

“And as a simple fact, the theft of classified information simply does not happen. The place is locked down so tight no industrial spy has ever made it inside. We, on the other hand, are a Sorcery Hacker and his amusing accomplices. The higher you go, the higher your data searching privileges. The higher levels can view anything from the lower levels, but the lower levels have no way of knowing what is going on above them. It’s the same principle found in the sky city’s prison. If we want to search everything, it only makes sense to make our way to the very top.”

“Wait! You are the only Sorcery Hacker! I am only-”

“Coach, how exactly do we get up there?”

Henrietta tried to defend her reputation, but Mamilis pushed her aside and asked her own question.

The dark elf tilted her head like a small child.

“For that matter, what’s your grade?”

That was the obvious question. Ayato and Teleria were Academy Towers students. Traveling to the very top would be a lot easier if they had a free pass there.

Ayato shrugged.

“Grade E, which doesn’t even get me to Floor 50. But I am registered with this tower, the Mana Science Data Network Construction Tower. That isn’t even the tower we need. Climbing this tower does us nothing to reach the gem tower you can see out the window there. Unless we could get a gem student to vouch for us anyway.”

“We can’t get there from here?” Henrietta sounded exasperated. “Then why not go there to begin with?”

“Because then we would be forever stuck at Grade I on the very bottom,” shrugged Ayato.

“What about Teleria?” asked Mamilis.

“Grade B in the mana tower. That means I can freely travel up to Floor 70 block,” answered Teleria, waving one of her highly modified handguns to show off the front sight.

Mamilis’s eyes widened.

“I didn’t expect Teleria to be higher.”

“Because she’s a true genius. She just makes it all look so easy you don’t realize how insane it really is. Plus, she’s the pleasant kind of genius who doesn’t brag, follows the rules, and doesn’t cause trouble, so the teachers love her. She’s the ideal student really.”

Mamilis’s honest response had been a touch rude, but Ayato’s follow up had the fluffy blonde girl fidgeting. Anyone could tell how embarrassed she was.

But Henrietta, the warrior in asphalt-colored miniskirt armor, had no interest in these intellectuals bragging about their academic achievements.

She looked up at the ceiling and got back on topic.

“So this isn’t going to be easy either way, is it? I don’t know what floor the very top is, but how are we going to reach it?”

“And this isn’t even the right tower, is it? Hey, Coach, aren’t we supposed to be in the gem tower next door?”

Mamilis tilted her head and Henrietta nodded.

“There do appear to be walkways connecting the towers. But this is a school of eccentrics like you, so there must be tons of people who can use Linkage Plugs and Monitors. Surely whoever is in charge has countermeasures in place.”

“There’s a way around that,” Ayato assured her. “Plus, nothing motivates a Sorcery Hacker like supposedly unbreachable defenses.”

Option 02: The Combined Royal Family’s Secret

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