Sorcery Hacker:Volume1 Phase2

Status: Incomplete

6/17 parts completed

   

Phase 02: Wind Castle Town Silphine

Part 1

A look at the clock told them it was nighttime.

Starlight shined on Sky City Celedileka around the clock, but it still looked very different once the sun set.

Mana light orbs transformed mist mana into fire magic inside a vacuum crystal container, and mana light tubes coated the inside of a cylindrical crystal tube with phosphorescent moss spores and then sent mist mana through. The combination of the two conquered the night and made it look like the night sky had descended to the city.

Ayato looked overhead.

“They’re drowning out the starry sky again. The people here must really hate that red aurora.”

“Well, they did decide to call it the Demon Lord’s Bite.”

“Nirvelphany. You’re supposed to attach the start of the name to the end to create a loop, right?”

All cities erected statues of famous people with a connection to the city, but the statues here included famous members of the Forturiana Church, which may have been a result of how much they loathed Demon Lord Nirvelphany. That church had apparently had effective control of the city long before the Temple Moving Ceremony that would soon be officially held.

Ayato and Teleria were surrounded by appetizing smells and the lively noises of partying, but they could not enjoy any of it. They could no longer use the Fire Castle Town Flared inn they had reserved a room at. The flying killer bees had taken photos of their faces, so that room would have been broken into it and their luggage retrieved by Government Security or the knights.

“Ahh, ahh. If they have all our luggage…ahh!?”

Teleria Nereid Aquamarine must have remembered some kind of issue regarding that because she curled up and held her head in the dark.

“We were only renting the place, so we can find somewhere else to spend the night.”

“That’s not the issue! Our luggage! Do you have any idea how many changes of clothes I had in here?”

“You can just buy more clothes.”

“Oh, no! And my underwear was in there too, so who knows who is inspecting that right this very moment!! This is a crisis for my maiden heart!!!!!”

(That’s what this is about? Well, I seriously doubt an outsider could figure out how to break through that lock I set up. Still, this is pretty funny, so I’ll let her keep thinking that.)

…As you could tell from their petty argument, they had escaped any immediate threat to their lives. They were no longer being chased by those killer bees and scorpions made from mana-conducting silver.

They had Sorcery Hacking to thank for that.

Defeating those devices in a direct fight would have been quite difficult, but if they used the chaos of taking control of one and sending it against the others, they could create enough of an opening to escape.

He had also taken the human trafficking data extracted from the Linkage Plug bowgun and inputted it into a crashed killer bee. When Sky City Celedileka’s government retrieved and repaired it, they would receive the data. Then they would pay the buyers a visit with sorcery guns at the ready and rescue the girls who had disappeared. However…

“Are you kidding me!? Are they trying to steal our thunder!?”

“We’re talking about a Sorcery Hacker, remember? He probably thinks he’s some kind of noble outlaw displaying some twisted form of justice.”

“I’m willing to work through the night for this. Summon the knights and begin the human wave attack!!”

…Even someone as (according to him) cool as Ayato had to cover his face with his hands when he viewed the crystal tarot cards that moved on their own. He was leaning back against a dangerous advertisement poster saying a Curse Master’s services were available for hire.

“Every last one of them is an overzealous meathead. I work so hard to help them out and they still insist on igniting that flame in their heart.”

The mist mana known as Intangible Mist would generally pass through anything not related to magic and it was invisible since it even passed through light. A variety of information services were provided by the spider web of long, thin strings of mist mana spread around the city by all the relay devices installed much like the sprayers built around shelves of grapes or morning glory or like the sprinklers at the golf courses the nobles so enjoyed. That was convenient, but since it was made up of lines between two fixed points, the information could only be accessed from the devices at the starting and ending point. The technology was in a transitionary period where it was wireless but had the same restrictions as a wired technology.

There were exceptions like Ayato’s crystal tarot cards that exchanged information by picking up the spray that left those carefully controlled mist manaflows. Of course, making contact like that was illegal. The connection was also too weak for proper Sorcery Hacking, but when you knew how it worked, actually going to the fixed devices felt like way too much effort.

Mist mana could not be seen since it even passed through light.

That was why Ayato used the estimated the location of the manaflow between a food stall’s register and a relay device that resembled a pool or beach’s outdoor shower made from metal pipes. He calculated out the line it would take and stabbed his Linkage Cable sword into the road at a point in the middle. Since he could not hack a device this way, he could not increase his Level, but it did allow him to steal data.

And all this sneaking around was not happening in Fire Castle Town Flared where all the previous excitement had occurred. They had quickly moved to the lower levels of Wind Castle Town Silphine before they could be surrounded. The entire sky city would of course be on alert, but the intensity would be lower here.

He was not a legendary hero or a savior knight.

He was no more than a dirty and illegal Sorcery Hacker.

But some unknown person had picked a fight with him while advancing some kind of plan that would affect the city around him and the many people who lived there.

That left him with just one option.

He would reveal that enemy’s identity and destroy everything they were trying to do.

He was not interested in the line between good and evil. A fight between evil and evil was fine with him. But once he decided someone was his enemy, he would show no mercy or restraint. Whether they worked alone or as a group, he would utterly crush them.

“Wh-what do we do now?”

“We need to think carefully.”

After that short answer, Ayato realized that was not enough to put his partner girl at ease.

“So let’s see. The primary problem is that the mystery sniper used the human traffickers to abduct Jorbe Alphoverin, the urban design manager for Sky City Celedileka. He will almost certainly be tortured until he reveals all of his secrets. Simply put, the villain will know all of this city’s vulnerabilities. And I doubt this ends there. They have some big job in mind.”

“H-hyehh…”

“The next biggest issue is how that villain has forced us to take the blame for them silencing the human traffickers. If they do end up doing something big here, they might shove the blame for that onto us too. I will own up to the crimes I have committed, but I’m not going to sit here and take the blame for someone else’s crimes.”

He breathed in and out.

Ayato Criminaltrophy explained his style of Sorcery Hacking.

“So we need to strike before that happens. I don’t know who it is, but let’s show them just who they’ve picked a fight with. That is our plan here. Do you understand now, Miss Teleria?”

“I-I can tell this isn’t going to have a peaceful resolution.”

“Good enough.”

In other words, they were both on the run and preparing for a fight. And in either case, the laxer security outside the fire town worked in their favor.

The flow of people was necessary to keep tourists happy and to keep the various industries running. If they set up strict checkpoints everywhere and stalled that flow, it would be a lot like Sky City Celedileka strangling itself.

And the loss of money was not just an issue for individuals. It affected cities and states as well.

But aside from that…

“So about that Dark Elf girl…um, who was she? I think they mentioned her name.”

“Mam…Mami…um, Mamilis? Yes, that was it. Mamilis Coster! She is from some craftsman family, right?”

“How is she doing?”

“Um, I did pull the trigger and shoot her with recovery magic, so she should be fine. Specifically, I used Secondary Ex Aid and Secondary Ex Icing. The manaflow circulating in her body has stabilized, so it would be best to let her sleep somewhere quiet for now.”

It was said the human body was 60% water. (Although they had not wrung a human out like a rag, so how exactly had they proven that figure?) Just like the Intangible Mist circulating through every part of the city as a web-like piece of city infrastructure, mana also circulated efficiently through living creatures.

That was Teleria Nereid Aquamarine’s specialty.

“About that. Her house was reduced to rubble and our inn is off limits to us.”

“Eh? Oh, come to think of it, what about her family!?”

“They’re probably fine. If she didn’t live alone, she would have been worried about her family first and foremost when those human traffickers pulled her from the wreckage. Her family is almost certainly doing just fine in some other part of this city.”

Ayato laid out all that speculation before continuing.

“We could always leave her with the knights, but given how badly they want results, they might ignore how it looks and interrogate her through the night. It would probably be best to keep her with us until the heat dies down.”

“Uheh. Won’t that add kidnapping to our list of crimes?”

“Leave her behind and it will be abandoning something-or-other instead. Which would you prefer?”

“…”

“Real incidents aren’t like some great war between the Hero and the Demon Lord. We aren’t some warriors with the official protection of the state; we do illegal jobs for money. If we don’t clean up after ourselves, it will only add more crimes to the list.”

Teleria massaged her temples with her fingers and fell silent. She had probably stopped trying to think about it. Of course, there were some problems without a simple answer.

That meant they had one urgent task.

“Let’s find somewhere to spend the night. That said, we’re wanted criminals, so they’re sure to be distributing posters bearing our image. We can’t use a normal inn.”

“Are you familiar with any underground inns that will accept wanted criminals? This is our first time in this city.”

“Searching the traveler blogs isn’t the only way. You can look for certain signs.”

Ayato said that and then breathed a heavy sigh.

Fortunately, they had plenty of money thanks to receiving their payment from their client woman, that purple butterfly who had a way of mysteriously appearing and disappearing. A classy resort would be one thing, but they could easily afford an underground inn.

Ayato glanced over at a Moneylender walking through the city night with several bodyguards in black and at a seedy-looking Flower Seller girl as he walked past.

“Not all of the runaways searching for a shady hideout have much funding on hand, so there will always be a pawnshop near those sketchy inns. And those pawnshops will specialize in buying stolen goods. If we look for signs like that, we’re sure to find one in a city as large as this.”

“Uhehh. Are you sure it will work that well?”

“Well, we could look for a brothel instead of a pawnshop, but I really shouldn’t tell that to a lovely teenage girl, should I?”

“You just did! I can’t believe you!!!!!”

Part 2

Back in Fire Castle Town Flared, the knights who maintained order in the city were walking through the night. They wore dark gray armor that was a combination of monster tendon and leather to increase various athletic abilities plus protectors of oxidized mana-conducting silver that were tempered to make it harder even if that reduced versatility. The area around their vitals was packed with soundproofing material since the range of magic was determined by the range of its gunshot noise. The armor was then colored to match the environmentally-destructive material known as asphalt that had been banned from use during the initial experiments at the Academy Towers, which had been erected by the combined royal families of the Selected Kingdoms that ruled an entire continent. That coloration was meant to symbolize their ability to slay the natural threat of demons along with the very scenery around them. Even without the large sorcery guns at their hips or backs, their very presence symbolized enough military might to overwhelm the ordinary people.

One person among them, Henrietta Split Destrius, stepped into an empty inn room. Her colleagues stopped searching the room to exchange a greeting with her.

She alone was different from the others. She had the same asphalt color, but her protector-based armor was not the latest version available. She intentionally wore an older model. That was less practical, but the design was popular with the people. Her head was exposed since she did not wear a helmet, her curved breastplate showed off her feminine bodylines, and she wore a short tight skirt around her hips. It may have been a modification of a ponytail, but her beautiful blonde hair was braided down to her hips. Combined with the armor she had chosen, she had the perfected beauty of a sculpture decorating a royal palace.

Below the moonlit starry sky, a young male colleague approached and spoke to her.

“Thank you for working so late, Striker Destrius.”

“Same to you, Soldier Shadelose.”

Their fixation on specific titles may have been a sign of the emphasis on social status and honor in their lives.

Sky City Celedileka currently had 160 heads of families given the title of knight, but since that was not enough for law enforcement or military action, Celedileka Government Security hired a set number of ordinary guards to bolster their numbers. Those guards could be promoted to knight if they performed well enough, so there was a path to that status beyond family inheritance.

Those adherents of chivalry stepped into the inn and arrived at the room in question.

“We have searched the room, but we did not find anything. The room was rented out using the suspect’s name, but a messenger was apparently used to check in and deliver the luggage. There is no sign that they ever touched the Media Summoner over there.”

The young man pointed his thumb toward the wall once they stepped in.

The clear sphere there remained silent. That sorcery tool was filled with a special liquid and thin metal leaf. By contacting the mist mana lines running through the city like a spider web, the metal leaf in the liquid would reflect the mana to produce light and the leaf itself would vibrate to produce sound. The combination of the two would produce the desired video or music. It functioned like existing televisions and radios and it could also perform simple data searches. Simply put, it was the bane of newspaper companies. There were also thin models meant for use as outdoor signs and boxy aquarium-like models, but the spherical ones were most popular. The cables and tubes connected to the sphere made it look like some kind of odd lab equipment, but rumors had it the size of your Media Summoner was a sign of your family’s wealth.

“The suspects are supposed to be a teenage boy and girl, so there is no way they wouldn’t have touched that even once if they were staying here.”

“I see.”

They had already checked the records, but Henrietta still reached out a hand to start up the crystal container and confirmed that there was nothing in the usage history. As she watched a religious ad (“Gain a healthy life through coexistence with magic – The Forturiana Church”), the young man said more.

“That is unfortunate. If we could have retrieved even a single hair, we could have used some kind of curse. Even if it didn’t affect them, we might have been able to detect their location through the path it took or where it was deflected. Have you heard the rumors of the Curse Master living on the lower levels of Silphine? She’s apparently some gloomy girl wearing nothing but a cape, but they say her power is the real deal.”

“Soldier Shadelose.”

“My apologies. That was a very unchivalrous thing to say, wasn’t it?”

“The Temple Moving Ceremony will take the form of a trial given to the Forturiana Church by the king. So I have heard there are Priests from other sects watching in secret and plotting to trip them up just before they become the official state church. So be careful about what you say.”

“Again, my apologies. How were things at the house collapse site?”

“Exactly as the initial reports said. Not a trace of them remained. The Zootoxin Mk. IIIs and the trained tracker dogs will likely find nothing. This fire town makes these things difficult.”

“Do you think they have already moved to a different town?”

“With the increased alert level, I doubt they would be stupid enough to try to board one of the flights leading out of the sky city. That means their most likely plan will be to cross the increased security lines of the fire town to move elsewhere and wait for the heat to die down before boarding one of those flights out of the city.”

“From here, that would mean wind or earth.”

“If we had found a dogeared guidebook or pamphlet, we would have had more to go on in our search, but I suppose it won’t be that easy.”

Henrietta lightly swung her long blonde braid as she looked to one corner of the room where some tightly locked travel bags sat. Four or five knights in armor colored like forbidden asphalt were crouched around them, but it was obvious at a glance they had yet to successfully unlock any of them.

“If it is absolutely necessary, we could always break the bags open.”

“No, those are important pieces of evidence, so treat them with care. Not everything is permissible in the name of law enforcement. When wielding our authority, we must never forget we are only borrowing it from the king.”

That beautiful Striker, who chose to wear the older style of armor that was more popular with the people, must not have expected much from anything other than the travel bags. As soon as she realized that too would turn up nothing, she turned around and left the room. She gave a light wave to the harmless lodgers who were opening the doors to their rooms to see what was going on, and Soldier Shadelose unnecessarily followed after her.

“Do you have an idea where the suspects have gone? Already?”

“There are no absolute right answers when tracking someone because the answer is affected by so many factors, such as their personality, their mood, their current funds on hand, and whether or not they have any help. Even the weather can change the answer, so your best bet is to try to put yourself in their shoes in the circumstances at hand.”

“I-I see.”

“This is an unchivalrous thought experiment, Soldier Shadelose, but if you were on the run from the law, where would you want to go to feel safe?”

“U-um, do you promise not to laugh at me for being a coward? In my case, I would probably head deep in the mountains far removed from human society or maybe a remote island nowhere near any major cities.”

“That would be an option, of course, but did you see the suspects’ travel bags? They have very urban tastes. Also, there was a focus on design without any real waterproofing. They are not the outdoorsy type, so they would likely find it safest to blend into the crowds of the city.”

“I see…”

Shadelose said that almost on reflex, but the look on his face said he did not actually see. He must have had trouble deciding whether that was a logical analysis or an example of “searcher’s instincts” that were borderline groundless assumptions.

After descending the stairs to the small reception lobby, Henrietta’s showy, old-style armor drew people’s eye and put them at ease in a way the armor covered in ugly, dark-gray protectors did not. The inn’s owner was worried about having the inn searched so suddenly, but their face lit up just like the other lodgers such as a Maid Trainee and a Bard.

She lightly clapped her hands to gather everyone’s attention and then spoke in a clear voice.

“Attention, everyone! If you recognize the boy on this poster, please contact us. The reward for arresting him is no higher than the reward for simply providing information, and he is an extremely dangerous individual who belongs to the evil side of the Light-Dark Duality, so please do not consider doing this yourself. Please allow us knights to keep the peace here in Fire Castle Town Flared and Sky City Celedileka as a whole!”

The people excitedly gathered around.

People handing out fliers on the street corner were despised, but things were different when she did it. Shadelose quickly pulled out the wanted posters and they were snatched away so quickly you would think they were blank checks.

“Nhh.”

Henrietta left the inn first since her role was complete and stretched her arms up over her head.

Finally, a frazzled-looking Shadelose stepped out.

“H-handing out wanted posters isn’t going to help at this point. I mean, the suspects never even set foot in this inn, right?”

“That is not what matters. We must ensure the people see the knights as a reliable presence, Soldier Shadelose. Have you heard of Liquid Flora, which is commonly known as the Holy Spring City?”

“Yes, that crime-ridden city-state that rapidly transformed into a slum recently.”

“There were a number of reasons for that, but the largest factor was how their management force was so talkative it became known that the criminal organizations would immediately learn of anyone who reported a crime to the authorities. If we are to keep the peace in this city, we need the people’s cooperation above all else. We must create an environment where everyone knows they can rest easy as long as the knights are on the case. Thus, it does not hurt to make unnecessary demonstrations of our work.”

Henrietta let out a slow breath and lightly traced her fingers across the large sorcery gun at her hip.

“In every age, the people are the greatest warning system. I will narrow my search to Wind Castle Town Silphine. How about you make similar performances and increase the entire area’s alert level to get the people on our side and rob the suspects of their freedom of movement?”

Just then, someone interrupted them.

They must have been tourists to be awake and out of the home at this hour, but a small boy and girl who appeared to be siblings waved her way.

“Miss Knight!” said the brother.

“No, she’s working,” warned the sister.

Henrietta made a point of choosing the older style but more popular armor that set her apart from the others, so she gave a gentle smile and waved back at the children before muttering something under her breath.

“There are no real knights anymore.”

Part 3

They had found their lodging for the night.

“Phew.”

Teleria, the blonde girl whose chest had grown quite a lot while her height had not, breathed a soft sigh.

There were not many rooms that fit their needs, so when they finally found the kind of underground inn they wanted, they were stuck with just the one room despite being a mixture of a young boy and two young girls. Plus, the room had just the one single bed. What had that inn’s owner, an old man who looked like he had killed at least three people before, thought as he handed them the key? If they all tried to use the bed, it would be more than just cramped; the slightest movement would probably send someone else tumbling off.

In the narrow, rundown hallway to their room, they had passed by a Bunny Girl practically overflowing with sex appeal and a Bounty Hunter who looked more criminal than any of his targets could possibly be. It pained Teleria to be in the same category as people like that.

Also, this inn was one of the ones next to a brothel rather than a pawnshop.

Everything felt so shady despite being so near the spherical theatre that floated in the air as Wind Castle Town Silphine’s primary landmark. That theatre felt like a perfect match for the moonlit starry sky above. On the other hand, this area of town seemed to be fine with anyone as long as they paid.

But her partner had had this to say with a completely straight face:

“Yes, well, I happen to like brothels more than pawnshops.”

That unbelievable response had earned him a slap, but they had no other choice at the moment. They had escaped the stricter security of Fire Castle Town Flared, but their wanted posters had to be all over the city. Defenselessly wandering the city at night would be a bad idea. Even buying a simple meal of bread made with cheap, third-rate wheat and fish of an unfamiliar species had been a risky endeavor.

Teleria jumped and looked back when she heard a deafening “thud!” and she found Ayato collapsed on the floor. It had happened the instant he had very thoroughly confirmed the room was safe. Today must have been full of far too many surprises even for that Sorcery Hacker.

“Ayato, please don’t fall asleep on the floor! You only just ate, so it’s bad for your health!!”

“Ugh, gweh…”

He must have been under a lot of tension while running around those dangerous areas with no direct weapons and working his mind and body so hard. Still face-down, he moved like an inchworm and pointed in a certain direction. The still-unconscious Dark Elf was sleeping on the one small bed. Even in his exhausted state, he apparently still had the bare minimum of a ladies first mentality.

The blonde girl just about tried to shake him awake, but then something occurred to her.

(Wait, if I let him sleep like this, then I know he won’t try to peep on me in the bath.)

She had never caught him doing that before, but he was a Sorcery Hacker who specialized in clandestine operations. Just because she had never caught him doing it did not mean he did not have some way of doing it that she could not detect. The difference between a spy and a stalker and the difference between a sniper and a peeping tom were paper thin.

Either way, there was a young boy and two young girls in this one small room. There was no privacy for a maiden like her, but fortunately, even this cheap inn had a bathroom for each room. That meant she could secure some alone time. Ayato and Mamilis were not at fault here, but she did not think it was wrong of her to want some space to herself.

(In all seriousness, though, how are the sleeping arrangements going to work tonight?)

She looked down at Ayato on the floor.

At times like this, he generally let Teleria have the bed while he slept on the couch, but now there were three of them in the one room. Plus, this was a cheap inn with almost no furniture. It only seemed to matter that it had walls to keep people from seeing inside. That was not enough. There was not even a couch, so where was she supposed to sleep?

Plus, the space was far too small for a young boy and two young girls. Unlike the balloon bungalow, there were not even any walls and doors to divide things up. If this was a lab rat cage with the sexes improperly separated, there would have been a lot of reproduction going on.

What was she supposed to do?

Seriously, what was she supposed to do?

(Well, it makes sense to let Mamilis have the bed since she’s injured, but that doesn’t tell me what to do. I can’t just wait and see what happens. I have to actively secure the best possible option for myself!)

For one thing, Ayato was a Sorcery Hacker whose sleep schedule was way out of whack. And he had a bad habit of losing himself in his Self-Maintenance work when he had any spare time, which would only cause trouble for everyone else nearby. The worst part was how he saw it as mental work entirely cut off from the outside world. But his mind and his body were much more connected than he thought!! When he was lying there in a daze was the most dangerous time. She had trouble telling whether he was asleep or at work. After what had happened in the balloon bungalow, she knew she could not let her guard down tonight. Whether it was a bed, a sofa, a table, or a desk, she had to find a surface up off the floor to sleep on.

However, her thoughts came to a stop when she started coming up with a concrete plan.

“Uh…”

That was when she heard a groan from the bed.

Part 4

Mamilis felt almost no fear at waking up in an unfamiliar place.

But perhaps she simply did not have time to feel it.

The truth was, she was still stuck in a dead end. She was still alive and free, but she no longer had a house to live in. She had lived on her own a little bit away from her family, which meant no one else would have been buried alive there, but losing her place of residence was a painful blow.

Anyone who lost their home due to a stray shot would be generously supported by the government.

Except it was less clear if that would still apply for a Dark Elf. If the investigation drew attention to her, they might even end up hunting her down. Her sorcery device craftsman of a grandmother had been maintaining a precarious balance so far, but it felt like this incident had entirely overturned the scales.

For the same reason, relying on her family in Fire Castle Town Flared would be dangerous. Then the stones thrown at her could end up falling on her family’s roof instead.

Her options here were limited.

(I need to think up a way to live on my own.)

She should have done so from the beginning, but she had never been able to come up with anything and ended up relying on her grandmother and the rest of the family. She had stayed in this sky city and continued to indulge in their kindness.

And then these Forwards had shown up to supply violence for monetary reward.

But they had saved her despite seeing her long ears. They were not the kind of people who threw stones at someone just for being a demon.

That felt like a message from heaven to her.

(I don’t care if I’m just an assistant at first. I need to observe them from up close and learn how they do things so I can gain the skills needed to get by on my own in the world. This has to be my one and only chance! I won’t get another opportunity to live a life without causing anyone any trouble…especially my family!!)

She had thought a life like that only existed in fairy tales. From the moment she was born, she had assumed she was bound by her species, bound by her birthplace, and unable to ever break free of those bonds.

But she had just seen people who calmly accomplished things no one would ever have expected.

They had so much to teach her about life, so they were like a coach to her.

(I’m taking advantage of this.)

The long silver-haired girl had no power of her own.

Not even the power to stay true to the things she swore to herself.

But that was why she had to do this.

She had to accept that she lacked that strength now and then consider what she had to do in the future.

(I will follow after them!! I will follow after my coaches no matter what!! No longer will I be helpless and held back by my ears! My life begins now!!)

“Nghh. If that’s what you want.”

“…”

But the Dark Elf’s resolve was cut off by an unexpected voice. Ayato was looking up at her from the floor of this rundown inn that did not even have a sofa.

“By the way, Miss Mamilis, can you sew? Our Miss Teleria is hopeless when it comes to needlework, so it would be extremely helpful if you could fill that gap.”

“Eh? Eh? Y-you’ll make such an important decision based on nothing but that?”

“Eh heh heh. Man, this is a pretty nice angle. I was a little disappointed to see you were wearing pants, but that skintight leather certainly has its charm.”

“P-please take this seriously.”

When Mamilis desperately resisted Ayato’s attempt to change the subject, Teleria breathed an exasperated sigh while leaning against the wall (from enough of a distance to be ready for a low angle attack).

“The more serious the people around him are, the more he feels a need to ruin that mood, so be careful. Now take this seriously, Ayato.”

“Open that bag over there.”

He pointed toward a corner of the room while still lying on the floor. It was a cheap leather sack filled with the items the boy and girl had cautiously purchased in the market while the Dark Elf girl was unconscious.

When Mamilis got out of the bed and checked inside it as told, she found a shotgun mixed in with the more ordinary items. It was a full-auto model with a drum magazine attached. It was of course a sorcery gun.

It was the blonde girl and not the Dark Elf who spat out the contents of her mouth.

“Bfhhh! Wh-what is that dangerous thing doing in there!?”

“Hm? The guy at the street stall was shouting that it was perfect for beginners, so I went ahead and bought it.”

“Th-that had to have happened before we came to this inn, right? We were risking our lives to buy even some simple food and you were making a detour for this!? I only took my eyes off you for a moment!!”

“Ha ha ha. To be honest, getting paid can make me generous. I am never going to use a sorcery gun again, but wielding an obvious weapon can function as a threat even if you don’t shoot it.”

“…Ayato.”

“Yes, trauma is a hell of a thing, isn’t it?”

Teleria’s face clouded over a bit, but Ayato’s expression was entirely unreadable.

“But he wasn’t wrong about this being good for beginners. It’s definitely a good gun if I’m not the one using it, plus it fits the current age. The structure of the individual magics might not be the best, but you just have to keep pulling the trigger to produce a dense barrage that will push back the enemy with pure numbers.”

Sorcery guns came in a variety of types, but shotguns had the special effect of self-replicating a specific type of magic and scattering it over a fan-shaped arc.

If that scattershot was repeated with full-auto, the magic barrage would quickly fill the entire space in front of the wielder.

The flaws were how quickly it wore out, the short range required for a decisive blow, and the inability for precision firing if the enemy took a hostage. That meant it left a lot to be desired when acting solo, but support from Teleria’s dual handguns could make up for those flaws.

“To be blunt, if you cover yourself with oxidized mana-conducting silver and carry one of these, you can force back most any below-average target just by charging straight at them. Although you’re never going to get any better if that’s all you do. If you pay attention to your remaining ammo and where you place your feet, you shouldn’t screw up too badly. If you want to be a Forward, then I recommend this as a starting point.”

“I-I see…”

Dark Elf Mamilis held the full-auto shotgun-style sorcery gun between her arms with a look that said she was unsure if he was serious or joking. She must have felt bad not using the bed after he let her have it, so she moved back there and sat on it. It was a very lower middle class thing for someone with her appearance.

“Forget about combat for a second. You’ve used sorcery guns in your everyday life before, right? Is there an element you excel at?”

“Um, fire?”

She responded as a question, but perhaps that was because she lived in Flared. Or maybe it was the influence of her grandmother who worked with mana-conducting silver at high temperatures.

“Then focus on making fire-related bullets. If you’re serious about this, I can eventually teach you the basics of shooting, loading the magazine, and dismantling the gun for maintenance.”

But that was where Ayato’s voice dropped in tone while his position on the floor gave him quite a view of Mamilis while she sat on the bed.

“There is one thing you need to learn first and foremost: the sorcery guns held by a Forward are not the same as the triggers used to light the kitchen stove. No matter how you try to pretty it up, you have chosen to wield a tool of killing to live your life. Whether or not you actually kill with it, you still sought out a power that was designed to kill.”

“…”

“But that doesn’t have to scare you. The knights patrolling the streets don’t carry guns at their hips in order to kill the ordinary people out there. The point is to use them as a threat to stop criminals without killing them. Do not look away because it scares you. You have to stare this one in the face. You must first understand just how frightening a thing they are and then you can figure out your own way of not straying from the path you want to take. If you do that, you’ll be fine and you will be able to wield the sorcery gun like an extension of yourself. Although I doubt I will ever be able to do that again.”

That was all he said.

“Agh, no, I can’t stand it. I need to go take a bath to refresh myself.”

“Coach, um, surely there’s more…”

“Don’t say you want to join me in the bath. You’ll make me blush.”

Ayato walked to the bathroom and there was nothing more the brown girl could do.

For a while, Dark Elf Mamilis’s eyes wandered uncertainly through the room.

Finally, she hesitantly asked the blonde girl a question.

“Um…how much of that did he actually mean?”

“If you really can’t tell, then your first task is to sort through all that information until you can.”

She got the feeling he meant every word of it.

Part 5

Teleria entered the bathroom once Ayato left it.

They had a lot of problems to deal with. The crimes that mysterious sniper had framed them for was the biggest one, but surviving this night in this cramped room was a smaller crisis for this blonde girl.

“Phew.”

At least she could take a bath. She never knew whether that would be an option from one day to the next, so she wanted to use any chance she had to get herself nice and clean.

Plus, her special circumstances meant she needed a completely private space if she was to take a bath.

She stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom which contained a bathtub embedded in the floor. She reached for her blue blazer and then the blouse with a popped-off button. Then she switched off the floating function of her princess dress Expansion Armor. After that came her leather holsters and wine-red miniskirt. Once she had unfastened those, she was down to her underwear and black tights.

“Now, then.”

She reached to the sides of her hips, slipped her thumbs below the tights, and paused for a moment. She intentionally tried not to think of this as anything special, but that actually caused her to move more stiffly, like a clockwork doll.

“I thought I was used to this,” she muttered below her breath as she pulled the black tights down all at once.

There was an immediate change.

The two slender legs entirely disappeared and the back half of a giant fish appeared instead.

This was known as a Mimic Option.

As soon as its effects were gone, her Mermaid body could no longer stand upright and she slumped to the floor.

The temperature was not hot enough to call a real bath, but the tub full of water still called to her.

(Hyah, I get really bloated after a full day of hiding it. I need a massage.)

This, she had not revealed to Ayato. That was why she always needed to find some alone time even on a long journey together.

Instead of entering the small tub, she sat on the edge and soaked just the fish part in the water while she thought. Having water made all the difference. As she gently massaged her lower body with her slender fingers, she felt like the day’s weariness was leaving her.

She did not know how the device worked, but that sorcery item allowed her to be accepted in human society without issue. Lamias, Echidnas, Harpies, Sirens, and any other species relatively similar to humans could wear a Mimic Option tailored to their needs in order to blend into human society.

It was this kind of magic effect that had hidden Dark Elf Mamilis Coster’s long ears. With just the ears, she did not have to disguise very much of herself, so those earrings she wore were probably tiny Mimic Options.

The leader of the various species who humans called “demons” had been known as the Demon Lord, but there were no accurate records remaining of how long ago it had been since they had officially disappeared. There were plenty of rumors – such as a human hero defeating them and sealing them in a small shrine, or the Demon Lord blowing themselves up in a failed sorcery experiment in the search of even greater power – but there was no concrete evidence for any of it.

Only the fact of the Demon Lord’s disappearance remained and that continued to bind Teleria and the other “demons”.

The demons had not been eradicated when their leader was lost, but they had been vulnerable without someone to lead them. Some had attempted to become a charismatic leader to replace the Demon Lord, but no matter how powerful they were, they had only made themselves a target for the humans. The giant dragon still hanging around Fire Castle Town Flared was a good example of that.

In the end, people like Teleria and Mamilis were forced to blend in.

They had to be careful not to be judged evil according to the Light-Dark Duality.

It was a cliché in fairy tales for the nonhuman to be forced to leave once their identity was revealed, but that was indeed how it worked for them. Once a demon was discovered despite their Mimic Option disguise, they had to make themselves scarce lest they be hunted down by the humans.

She felt bad for those who were not humanoid enough to blend in, so whenever she had heard that human hunters were narrowing in on them, she had made an effort to head there and give them a chance to escape. On the other hand, that was all she had been able to do. Demons like Teleria were always on the run and they had to live a life on a knife-edge to ensure their identity was never revealed. …All because they had been born the way they were.

She was no longer young enough to curse how she had been born.

These cruelties were the first thing one had to face after being born as a demon. They were pursued by the humans using the very magic that had supposedly been originally created by the Demon Lord and, if they did not overcome that cruelty, they would lose their life before even getting to start living.

(Someday.)

Teleria glanced over at the holsters and sorcery guns mixed in with her clothing on the floor.

Those were a product of human wisdom.

She should have been able to produce the supernatural with just her own body, but she would be killed on the hunting ground in no time without using something like that. It felt like a symbol of the heavy shackles binding her.

(Someday, we will create a world where I can relax out in the sun like this.)

Every time Mermaid Teleria saw her true form in the mirror, that absurd fantasy came to mind. She had no concrete vision of how she could change the current age in that way.

“Well, obviously the answer isn’t going to come to me that easily.”

She spoke half in self-deprecation and then looked away from her reflection in the mirror. She reached around to her back and started to unhook the pure bra that she still wore.

But that was when he showed up.

The bathroom door burst open without warning.

And a boy rolled in while wriggling along the floor.

“Wait, what!? I, but, huh!? The door was locked!”

Her mind went blank. She did not understand. He had burst into the bathroom and seen her Mermaid lower body, but why!? And Mermaid or not, having her bare lower body seen was a problem for her maiden heart!! All the information whirled dizzyingly through her head and her mind’s processing power overflowed well past its limits.

The door did not matter.

She should have escaped to a more elevated location.

Once Ayato Criminaltrophy rolled in, he did not stop at the floor and rolled right into the tub. Teleria happened to be seated on the edge of the tub like a Mermaid on the rocks in a painting, so he happened to stick his face right into the fish part soaking inside the tub while his arms wrapped around her bare hips. Was this the result when a god rolled the dice? How in the world had he ended up in this pose by coincidence!?

And while her dulled thoughts fell further and further behind, Ayato finally replied in a dazed voice. This was odd. His eyes did not grow focused even as the bathwater soaked him.

“Ugh, the lock? You reverse the right eye and the left eye and then…what was it???”

“Ah!? Don’t tell me the lock is broken so turning it doesn’t actually do anything!”

This was an underground and rundown inn, so would the management really bother fixing anything that was broken? The owner looked like he had killed three people and she could not imagine him rushing out to fix a problem a guest brought to him.

But still…

“I’m not sure what that one part meant, but I really want to die right about now! First, we fight that battle, then we get framed for some crimes, then I have to walk all over the city while carrying that Dark Elf, and now I have to deal with your Self-Maintenance too!?”

Teleria was not quite sure what that work entailed. Like with the placebo effect or seemingly superhuman feats of strength during emergencies, people were not always aware of their own body’s “weight”. And if that baseline value was off in their head, they could not move their body the way they wanted. So by lowering the level of his consciousness and learning the “true weight” of his body, he had an easier time moving his body precisely as he pictured it in his head. She was not sure if that was a Sorcery Hacker thing or something unique to Ayato. She only knew the damage it caused to her!!

He really should not have been moving around at all during this, and yet…

“Ahh.”

“(Okay, I’m just barely safe!! Well, my maiden heart certainly isn’t since he burst in while I was in the bath, but if he doesn’t remember any of it clearly, he shouldn’t learn I’m a Mermaid!!)”

It was his memories that created the vanity and fear that confused his view of his body’s “weight”. That was why he lowered the level of his consciousness. It may have been similar to how you would not fear fire if you lacked the memories of being burned by it.

She did not now how his mental activity was linked to his physical activity, but it seemed strange to roll along the floor like some kind of booby trap during his Self-Maintenance.

She could only make guesses based on what she had seen in the past, but he did not seem to remember much of what happened during this work because that was how he had defined the state. He was technically not asleep and would still be forming memories, but he had decided that these memories would leave as little of an impression on him as “what he had for dinner three days ago”, so he would not remember any of it once he raised his consciousness level and opened his eyes. She just had to hope it happened that way this time too!!

“Oh, I get it.”

“H-huh? That comment sounded kind of disappointed, but what are you talking about?”

“Nereid, huh?”

The blonde girl’s shoulders jumped in surprise in her pure bra (Defense: 2) and her fish lower body (Defense? None of that here!!).

(Eh? What? Eh? Why did he just bring up my middle name that comes from an ancient language!? Is he connecting that to the water species that leads back to the one female member of the Four Great Demons, or am I overthinking this!?)

“…”

“And now he isn’t saying anything!? Oh, but I’m too scared to ask him what he meant!!”

Teleria’s eyes were spinning in her head, but Ayato seemed entirely carefree. He went limp with his arms around the Mermaid’s slender waist and his cheek resting on the fish part. Moving had been the abnormality, so he must have actually fallen into his mental experiment now.

It almost looked like she was intimately letting him rest in her lap.

Or like the demon was being accepted by the human.

“…Honestly.”

For a while after that, Teleria Nereid Aquamarine gently narrowed her eyes. She started wondering for the first time why she had not come up with a fake name when she first met the boy.

After stroking her hand through his hair for a while, she sensed someone’s eyes on her and looked up.

The bathroom door was sitting wide open and a half a face with a long ear was sticking out from the side. The expressionless Dark Elf was spying on her.

“I’d tell you to get a room, but I guess you already did, Coaches. Although I am partially jealous, to be honest.”

“…!!!???”

Part 6

The following morning, the day’s newspaper popped out of the remote printer with a ding like it was a piece of toast. The frontpage story was about the public execution of an old man named Thomas, but if they had carefully scoured the entire paper, they would likely have found an article about themselves. Although it would have been smaller than the Forturiana Church advertisement telling people to consider the Light-Dark Duality whenever they were filled with doubt.

The cheap inn really only provided people with a box to stay in, so it of course did not provide breakfast.

“Ugh.”

Ayato cracked all his joints as he got up from the filthy floor. Forcing himself into Self-Maintenance the night before may have been a mistake. The results were never satisfactory when he did that. His body felt unnaturally heavy and a vague image of holding a giant fish in his arms was dancing around his head.

“A fish???”

But he knew trying to remember would not turn up anything, so he did not bother. More importantly, he realized how hungry he was as his body woke up.

“Morning, Miss Teleria.”

“Good morning to you too, sleepy head. Here, let me fix that bedhead.”

“Nhh.”

At times like this, he let his partner girl take over.

“So what is the plan for today?” she asked.

“First up, how about fish for breakfast? I’m really craving fish this morning for whatever reason. I’ve got this unstoppable desire for fish and I can’t figure out why.”

“Bfhhhhhh!!!???”

“?”

“Cough, cough! Ahem! W-well, fish is good!! Yes, it’s much healthier than other meats and the saltier things you usually eat!!”

“Why am I envisioning an hourglass? No, I’m associating a waist and navel with fish for some reason, but fish don’t have navels. What is wrong with me today???”

“You should probably just forget all about that!! Forcing yourself to do that sketchy Self-Maintenance work last night is probably causing all sorts of malfunctions in your mind!!”

Ayato was not the morning shower type, so he simply walked to the sink to fix his bleary eyes. He chose to trust Teleria’s taste when it came to his hair.

They had not eaten anything since last night, but Dark Elf Mamilis Coster was already at the sink brushing her teeth with the rough toothbrush band wrapped around her index finger. Since they were not out in public, her distinctive long ears were left exposed.

However, she was apparently not doing this because she was the type who liked that sticky feeling in her mouth first thing in the morning.

“Grandma told me to take care of my teeth. And since Elves do have long lives, life probably would be pretty hard if I lost my teeth in the first 100 or 200 years.”

“The faded leather vest and tight pants with slits in the sides gives you a pretty strong punk look, but you’re actually quite a grandma’s girl, aren’t you?”

“These are the only clothes I have to wear right now, Coach.”

“Hm? Coach?”

“Remember last night? You promised to teach me the basics of being a Forward, so you’re my coach.”

“I’m not really feeling it. I probably should have just told you to observe me and figure it out, but I guess I’ll do what I can.”

When she noticed where drowsy Ayato’s (rude) gaze was directed, she sighed and put her hands on the hips next to the thick leather belt Expansion Armor that floated around her like an astronomical orbit.

“This? I just want it to make my waist look skinnier than it really is.”

“???”

Optical illusion or not, Mamilis was tall and slender enough that she almost looked too skinny.

“Things can be trickier when you don’t have the usual curves,” she explained. “An hourglass figure would be so much simpler, wouldn’t it?”

“Hmm.” Ayato’s brain had still not quite engaged as he stared at Mamilis’s navel. “But your skinny body is pretty hot in its own way.”

“Bfh! You could just keep those thoughts to yourself…kyah!?”

Growing flustered proved a mistake.

She lost control of the Expansion Armor around her hips, so the leather belt loop came apart and then wrapped around Ayato as well. Then it reconnected and squeezed them both together.

“Miss Mamilis.”

“Agh! Wait, wait! I’ll calm down, I just need to calm down. Then I can slowly remove it.”

“Hm, you actually do have a fair amount of…how should I put it? Of happiness.”

“Mgyuh!? Coach, are you trying to get us permanently squished together or something!?”

That did not sound like all that bad an idea to Ayato, but the Dark Elf shut her eyes and desperately worked to cool herself down. Thanks to that, they did not end up with two mutilated corpses in the bathroom that morning.

“(I see. So this is Ayato Criminaltrophy. It’s true he doesn’t seem to have any discriminatory feelings, but I feel like he’s a little too indiscriminate in other ways.)”

“?”

The Dark Elf glared at him with the finger wrapped in the toothbrush band inside her mouth while she stepped aside to let him wash his face with cold water. He already had an androgynous face, so he did not need to shave. His chin remained smooth all on its own.

“Once we eat some fish, let’s pursue the case. We need to track down that sniper scum who framed us for those murders and then fled.”

“Why fish?”

“It’s like I’m really horny for fish this morning. Venison or pigeon isn’t going to cut it. Only fish will satisfy me.”

“TMI, Coach. At least it’s a healthy meal, I suppose.”

They decided to keep the room in the cheap inn, but they headed out into the early morning of Wind Castle Town Silphine. Mamilis hid her long ears with the Mimic Options shaped like jeweled earrings.

Sky City Celedileka’s four castle towns surrounding central Light Castle Brightio were each uniquely constructed to match their element of fire, water, wind, or earth. In Silphine’s case, that meant lots of high-rise buildings made of stone and glass. A height of 2000 esoule was standard and the larger ones were as tall as 3000 esoule, so it felt like a small mountain range. The fact that the buildings were taller than the light castle in the center was apparently a topic of some debate.

The walkways connecting the ultra-high-rise structures gave the whole thing an uneven jungle gym appearance. Yet in some places, the height difference was less than 100 esoule.

The ordinary six-legged sorcery taxis were not enough to get around there. Even winged designs like a bee or dragonfly were inefficient.

That was why Wind Castle Town Silphine had constructed a bold form of transportation infrastructure.

“Wah, wah, wah!! Wait, my skirt, my skirt!”

“Not to worry, Miss Teleria. I can see up it just fine.”

“This isn’t supposed to be a special show for you! Your low angle view is the problem!!”

“I have already burned the image into my eyes. Besides, your defenses are perfect with that disappointing pair of black tights with 0% transparency. Now, let’s get going.”

“It’s not about whether you can actually see anything! My maiden heart can’t stand looking like a broken umbrella on a stormy day!!”

Ayato and Mamilis ignored the complaints and instead grabbed the blonde girl’s arms and dove out of the 149th floor window. Even that rundown underground inn had existed in some vertical space taken from the 149th and 150th floors. There was something seriously wrong with the interior maintenance and inspections in this town.

As soon as they leaped out into the empty air, an updraft caught them. The invisible wind was artificially colored by the bright flower petals floating in it. Artificial air currents were sent every which way and people, objects, and vehicles could be seen complexly intersecting through all that. …There was some gold and silver mixed in, so some Thieves who thought themselves chivalrous may have been throwing their loot from the rooftops to spread it among the masses. That would have been deadly from an ordinary tower.

The sun and the stars shined in the sky above.

Airships and balloons would ride the largescale manaflows in the upper atmosphere to travel across the continent, so that must have been the inspiration for all this. This town had converted it into the wind element instead of mana itself, but since people simply pulled the trigger to use magic and did not really understand how it worked, that form was easier for them to imagine. As far as they could see at the moment, no one was losing control in the wind and crashing despite not using any specialized machinery. This was a universal enough image to be found in children’s books everywhere.

The stores and restaurants seemed to have a clear division between inside and outside, perhaps because of the artificial winds. In addition to using the emergency stairs to enter the individual levels of the ultra-high-rise structures, there were a lot of shops using RVs modeled after six-legged rhinoceros beetles or dragonflies floating in midair or shops simply set up on the walkway roofs and building walls. Those seemed to be selling impractical accessories. In addition to Expansion Armor like Teleria and Mamilis wore, they also sold a lot of decorations made from monster wings and scales. They probably flapped or glowed when instructions were sent to them with a sorcery gun. They were really just costume tools. For how much the people here loathed the Demon Lord, they really seemed to like demon-themed accessories.

“…”

For a Dark Elf who had to live hiding her long ears, it must not have been fun to see those things sold for nothing more than idle amusement. That may have been part of the reason why her grandmother had chosen the Fire Castle Town. Blonde Teleria, meanwhile, was too busy blushing and feeling dizzy to focus on her surroundings.

“Nooo!! This is too much for my maiden heart!! Why am I the only one in a skirt!?”

“Miss Teleria, try to right yourself before lamenting. You should probably focus on the embarrassed comments only once you are no longer flipped 180 degrees upside down.”

“Gyahhh!!”

Ayato and Mamilis ascended while dragging the panicking girl with them. They were right next to the giant round indoor theatre that was the wind town’s greatest landmark. It was probably using the updrafts of the city infrastructure to stay afloat, but it was still stunning to see a 400 esoule mass of stone and glass floating in defiance of gravity like that. …Of course, Sky City Celedileka as a whole was floating in the atmosphere’s manaflows.

The theatre was commonly known as the Continent Egg and Mamilis made a comment as they safely moved away from it.

“If you don’t want your skirt spreading out like that, you could always have Coach hold you around the hips.”

“Oh,” said Ayato.

“No, that is not the answer!” protested Teleria. “Where do you think you’re sticking your face!?”

Ball-shaped devices large enough to require both hands to hold were floating all throughout the air while regularly switching between a red or a green light. Those were the traffic lights for the wind town. Instead of telling people and vehicles when to stop, they forcibly changed the direction of the wind to carefully weave the air currents together such that no one collided with each other. That allowed a lot of traffic with no real congestion.

“That place there should work.”

“Hm? What???”

“Breakfast.”

They visited an open café on the wall of a high-rise building’s 155th floor. Just like the other shops around here, it was located at an end point of an air current, so you could enjoy a relaxing morning as long as you were not too worried about your hair.

He had avoided choosing one of the busier places since they did not have time to stand in line, but this did not seem like a bad place. A Sky Pirate girl in an eyepatch and miniskirt and a Fortuneteller with a thin veil covering her face appeared to be enjoying their breakfasts despite showing some concern about their skirts. This may have been a hidden treasure of a restaurant, or it may have been nothing special.

“But should I get white-flesh fish or red-flesh fish? What does the image in my mind tell me? When I peer deep inside myself, what kind of fish is it I want to devour?”

“Ahh, are you still doing the fish thing? A-and I don’t know how your Self-Maintenance works, but I feel like the type of desire here is heading in a more dangerous direction because you don’t know how to classify that memory.”

“(Hm, so she prefers having coach’s more standard bestial desires directed her way.)”

“Cough, cough! Just a quick warning, Miss Brown Skin! You really shouldn’t jump to strange conclusions about these things!!”

“Also, be careful when you pay the tip. If you don’t make sure the waiter has it in their grasp, the coin will be swallowed up by the whirling air currents and blown away.”

Ayato ended up choosing a white-flesh fish with cooked vegetables and pasta that he was recommended. The light-colored and nearly transparent sauce with a seafood base was apparently the selling point and it had a light flavor that was perfect for the morning. The culture here knew how to enjoy its seafood flavoring.

“Wait, why were they recommending fish here and not in the Water Castle Town?”

“For that matter, the entire place is a sky city.”

A crystal ball about the size of a fist sat at the center of the table. It was a portable Media Summoner that combined the functions of a television, a radio, and a data search. Teleria reached for the snowdome-like device to perform a search just as Ayato had the same idea, so his hand ended up on top of hers.

“Hyah!”

“Oops.”

The Dark Elf simply watched, wondering if this would take a bittersweet turn, but…

“Hm, interesting. Miss Teleria, I knew you had plenty of happiness contained in your bust, waist, and hip measurements, but it would seem the happiness is contained in every last part of your body.”

“A normal person would have let go by now!”

“I see. So this is my coach, Ayato Criminaltrophy.”

The Dark Elf muttered a comment like some kind of ancient sage while the brightly blushing blonde girl finally managed to brush off Ayato’s hand and distracted herself by touching the crystal container, operating the small metal leaf floating in the liquid, and performing a search with the Media Summoner.

“Ahem! Um, it seems there are some species of literal flying fish. This says they are raised by having them fly against artificial air currents to toughen them up.”

“I live in this city and I’ve never heard of that. I guess the fire and wind towns are more different than I thought.”

They got in a light argument over whether to have coffee or tea after their meal, but they did get some bread crumbs to soak up the rest of the sauce at the bottom of the pasta plate.

“That was actually really good. Could you figure out the recipe?”

“More or less. But I bet I could recreate it with cheaper ingredients.”

“You two? The lady at the register has a smile frozen on her face, so how about you wait until we leave the restaurant to discuss that?”

Now that their stomachs were filled, they could start on the actual investigation.

They caught a random updraft to reach the top of the high-rise building. The rooftops were at different heights and they functioned as rest parks known as Perches where all air currents were kept out. There were of course a lot of the mobile shops made from RVs there. For some reason, Blonde Teleria grew pale and held her mouth when she saw all the accessories made from monster wings and scales.

The area Ayato and Teleria had shopped the night before had been a rooftop on a lower level. Ayato glanced over at a Songstress who was gathering attention with her song in what may have doubled as both voice practice and conquering her stage fright.

“Let’s start by sharing our information.”

They wanted to learn the truth of what happened in Fire Castle Town Flared. They had managed to resolve the human trafficking incident without killing anyone, but then some unknown third party had intervened and now Ayato and Teleria were seen as vigilantes who had gone too far and killed the villains.

There was one other primary issue.

“That was probably meant to silence the human traffickers who knew about the abduction of Jorbe Alphoverin, the urban design manager for the sky city. Although it is a mystery what the criminal hopes to accomplish by learning how the system works.”

“I can’t imagine it’s anything good,” said Mamilis. “Not to mention that they’ve already chosen to kill people.”

“Ahh. But how are we supposed to investigate this?” asked Teleria. “We don’t know their name or what they look like.”

If that was enough information for them to successfully find the person from among the densely-packed population of the Selected Kingdoms’ largest sky city, then they might as well find a new job as fortunetellers.

But Ayato remained calm.

“We do have a hint.”

“Hweh?”

“The sorcery gun they used. With power like that, it must be an anti-dragon rifle longer than we are tall. And standard customizations aren’t enough to explain it. If a normal human used that, the recoil from converting the mist mana into magic would tear their body apart. That means this is not an ordinary product. If we search out where they acquired it, we should be able to reach the sniper as well.”

“Hmm.” The Dark Elf placed a hand on her chin. “That sounds reasonable, but doesn’t that make it less likely it will work? Whoever they think did it, the knights are sure to investigate the origin of the weapon used. Would the person behind this really be careless enough to leave such an obvious line of investigation open? If so, framing you two would be meaningless.”

“Actually, how would they investigate the weapon’s origin?”

Ayato reached into his blue blazer’s breast pocket like someone reaching for the newspaper that was remotely printed on the same reusable paper every day and he pulled out the ultra-thin crystal tarot cards of his Linkage Monitor.

The mist mana that exchanged all sorts of information ran throughout the city in thin, web-like lines, but it passed through all people and non-magical things and it was also invisible. That was why he predicted where a manaflow was based on the location of the relay devices shaped like outdoor showers made from metal pipes or from the streetlights that automatically changed their brightness between day and night. Then he stabbed his Linkage Plug sword into the ground in between to place the blade in the path of the mist manaflow and hack into it. He was spying on knight communications over the manaflow.

Portable wireless devices like Ayato’s crystal tarot cards were really just Sorcery Hacker toys that picked up on mist mana spray, so they were little different from the tools of a niche hobby and had no standards. A public agency in a well-maintained city would generally used a wired connection by clipping their device to the fixed connection points dotting the city like the stars in the sky.

“I have completed a list of sorcery gun shops. We are ready for the second human wave attack. What are our instructions?”

“Some unlicensed sellers work from street stalls, so be careful. There are loopholes everywhere.”

“I will finish this by lunchtime. That mobile trattoria has apparently received some top-rate wheat for the first time in forever, so I already know I’m getting some fried pasta today. Now, to work!!”

Ayato sighed as he gave up on listening in and cut the connection. He glanced over at a Chef in search of the best ingredients and a Dragon Knight whose skills were more like acrobatics than combat. The two of them were getting into a scuffle in a pet shop that looked more like a circus tent.

“Looks like they actually plan on searching every last shop that sells sorcery guns. The human race will be fossilized and dug up by the lifeforms of a future age before they find the criminal like that.”

“Eh? Eh?” Teleria was confused. “But the sniper was using a sorcery gun, right?”

“You don’t have to buy the completed product all at once. What about the metalworkers? If someone is skilled enough to cut down a mana-conducting silver pipe, carve the magic circle rifling inside, and process it to allow the mist mana explosion to pass through, they might be able to follow some plans and create their own special sorcery gun from the ground up.”

Of course, metalworkers came in all sorts of different types, so narrowing down a suspect from there would be difficult. But Ayato and Teleria happened to know someone with a connection to a specialist in that field.

Yes.

Hadn’t the scorpion-like Zootoxin Mk. IIIs from Flared been designed and manufactured by Mamilis Coster’s grandmother?

“Yes, grandma probably could make a sorcery gun, but I’m pretty sure she only accepts jobs from Government Security.”

Hearing that alone might make her sound like a government flunky, but that “grandma” worked in the large weapon development business. It would be unusual for anyone other than Government Security or the knights to buy from her.

“I wonder if stubborn craftsmen like that ever create some kind of guild that ordinary people aren’t aware of,” said Teleria. “Then the general guild contact point could deal with the first-time customers asking for flashy accessories, the taxes, the location costs, and all the other annoyances while the craftsmen can focus on development and manufacturing.”

“They do. The one my family belongs to is called the Silver Anvil.”

“Huh? But in that case…”

“Yes. Any sketchy jobs that sound awfully illegal will never reach the craftsmen in the guild. Any jobs that would hurt their reputation will be detected by the general contact point and rejected. Without that bare minimum of protection, there would be no point in joining the guild.” Ayato raised a finger. “On the other hand, a self-taught craftsman who is little better than a complete amateur could never produce a special sorcery gun that would requires professional skill. That leaves only one answer: someone who was once part of a guild but made some kind of mistake that got them kicked out and has to take illegal jobs to get by. It’s similar to how back-alley doctors get started. They maintain their skills, but their filter against sketchy jobs entirely vanishes.”

“Hmm,” groaned the Dark Elf while toying with her disguised ears. “Grandma doesn’t like talking behind her colleagues’ backs, so I only have the slightest of rumors to go on.”

“That’s good enough.”

“Once she did tell me not to end up like Alonso Bercouli. It kind of slipped out though, so it might not be much to go on.”

“Bingo. Let’s start our search there.”

“Eh? But, Coach, you have no guarantee this will lead to anything.”

“And that’s fine. Even if Alonso isn’t who we want, he should have exchanged contact information with other underground craftsmen. Wherever they were exiled to, people can’t survive on their own. Whether he did this job or not, we can at least find another hint there. This is like a game of concentration with one card already flipped over, so we might as well start with the name we know.”

They had an advantage over the government or the knights because they would not get in trouble for investigating someone based on the flimsiest of evidence. Forwards generally did not worry about their methods. They would still get paid as long as they achieved the desired result in the end. Of course, that was why a lot of people thought they were as criminal as the criminals they pursued. And since Sorcery Hacker hackers were proper(?) criminals as well, Ayato was not about to argue the point there.

“Now, we have some food in our stomachs, so let’s go stir up some trouble.”

Option 03: Academic Thesis on the Ecosystem

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