Sorcery Hacker:Volume2 Phase03

Phase 03: Predator Island

Part 1

With a great crash of parting water, the giant gray warship named the Predator Island emerged into the bright sunlight. It was not all that different from the beetle-shaped autonomous weapons or the self-driving sorcery taxis. It moved on its own, so Ayato’s group was actually helpless to stop it while the only ones onboard. Tugging on the rigging to affect the sails or grabbing at the wheel while shouting “hard to starboard” would accomplish nothing.

The Kraken and Cetus feared by human navies for their great size fled the region of sea to avoid being caught in this conflict.

Ayato’s group climbed up to the deck to see what was going on. They found themselves at the center of the port side.

“Hey, dangerous individual! Can’t we just jump overboard!?”

“Not so fast, Miss Henrietta.”

Ayato grabbed a metal screwdriver from the deck and tossed it from the side deck.

The instant it made contact with the water, bluish-white electricity surged out.

“Wha-?” Henrietta was speechless.

“That is excessive even for a ship still under construction. I bet they are intentionally letting lightning energy, a subset of the wind element, leak out to transform the ship into a cage,” explained Ayato.

What would happen if the salty seawater was exposed to lightning? As a combat professional, Henrietta would understand the implications. Her oxidized mana-conducting silver armor would not be enough to survive that. Not to mention that a military swimming style would only get you so far while so heavily equipped.

“This ship has not lost control; an unknown mastermind is controlling it. We should expect to find several layers of countermeasures against us.”

The wheel-like propulsion device spinning nearby was parting a large area of water below. A truly enormous waterwheel was needed to push such a heavy warship forward.

“We are at risk on the ship, but it also functions as a temporary safe zone. You can think of it like a cage dangling over a precipice.”

“…”

He could not see any small uninhabited islands around here. Teleria had said the lightning cloud cannons were also located on a few uninhabited islands and controlled from Laguntreat, but they must have been located in a different direction.

“Jump into the ocean and you will be electrocuted. While that might not kill you, the cannons or the entire ship ramming you will. Your thick armor should weaken the magic to some extent, but is that equipped with a highly-specialized anti-electricity system equivalent to a 4-star rating from the Static Continent’s Armament Distribution Common Standards Board? And do you think you can outswim the Predator Island while so heavily equipped? If not, I recommend coming up with another method, Miss Henrietta!”

Ayato looked up to see the rows of anti-aircraft guns and autocannons glaring at the sun and the right triangular sails catching the wind created by the spirit engine smokestacks spewing phosphorescent smoke.

“U-um, Ayato? Um.”

The fluffy blonde girl in black tights clearly wanted to say something, but she could not get it out.

This was a head-on clash between a colossal warship and one of the Four Lords. Whichever one emerged victorious, anyone caught in the crossfire would never survive. Not Ayato’s group on the ship and not the people on the nearby island. Ayato knew he had to stop this no matter what.

(Why wouldn’t Fleurelisia be able to attack?)

That was of course the first thought on his mind.

But the Sorcery Hacker rationally chose to adjust his priorities.

(No. I don’t know what size or shape it is and this ship is too big, so I would never find it right away. Besides, the villain freely gave us that information. I probably shouldn’t assume it’s even true.)

Speaking of the villain, the ship’s Media Summoners had fallen silent.

The largescale spirit engine apparently absorbed the manaflow from the atmosphere to force a connection, so that connection should not have been broken yet, but the communication records had been erased, including the hidden logs. Without a record of their address, he could not contact them.

Right now, it all came down to securing a processing space to resonate with.

The level he had used back on the island was nowhere near enough to take on a warship of this size. The scale of this problem was rapidly snowballing out of control.

(The only hints I have are the fragments of names remaining in the system: Iron Gain, Leonardo Halleys, Jane Dresser. I need to save all of these.)

“Coach, we can use the Media Summoners to inform the island of the danger, right? We need to get them to evacuate.”

“It’s no use. That would only trigger a needless panic and get people trampled. They’re doomed no matter what if a 0.5 esoule cannon is fired on the Four Lord at the summit. We’re not talking about blasting a crater in the island here; a few shots from those will erase the entire island from the map. They might be firing pure explosives instead of magic, but even fleeing underground won’t save you. It’s hard to believe this ship was really created for the island’s demons.”

Did the self-styled privileged class think the island’s population could recover as long as they survived? If so, then the demons were just as shitty as the humans.

“Dangerous individual, this is a product of sorcery, is it not? Can’t you hack the entire ship like you did with that Dextral Mk. II!?”

“What’s this, Miss Henrietta? I am glad to see the proud and pure knight has finally learned to rely on the filthy Sorcery Hacker. This is a memory I will truly cherish.”

“…”

“Do not offer me your head while letting it hang so sadly, Miss Henrietta! I do not know how to respond to that!!”

Just then, a powerful inertial force pushed at them from the right and they would have fallen without grabbing onto something for support. The ship was lined with so many cannons of varying sizes that the entire ship looked like a hedgehog and the decks were stepped to secure a line of fire for them all, making each individual deck not all that large. At the very least, they would not have to worry about finding nothing to grab onto and being tossed out into the electrified sea.

This seafaring cage was a temporary safe spot for them.

If they were thrown from the ship, the lightning energy leaking from the ship would kill them. Even after it stopped their heart, they would end up convulsing like a frog’s legs.

After sailing out to sea, the Predator Island was apparently making a wide turn to face Laguntreat again.

Its actual target would be Water Lord Fleurelisia on the island, but precise aim was meaningless when using enough firepower to kill her. If the shells hit, the entire mountain would be annihilated and the secondary shockwave would obliterate the village at the base.

(I’ll estimate it’s at Level 4000 to 5000. Hacking the entire warship before it can attack simply isn’t realistic.)

“What do we do, Coach?”

“We destroy as many of the cannons as we can. The fifteen 0.5 esoule main cannons in particular. If they remain operational, Laguntreat’s destruction is unavoidable!”

The slender Dark Elf looked alternately between her full-auto shotgun and the distant main cannons before giving Ayato a troubled look.

“Is that really possible?”

“Warship guns aren’t as scary as you would think. Miss Teleria. And Miss Henrietta too. I will show you how it is done, so come with me!!”

“Okay, fine! But only because it is an emergency!”

“…”

He received no response from the blonde girl who was his constant companion, so he gave her a puzzled look.

“Miss Teleria?”

“What are we supposed to do?” She looked on the verge of tears. “The ship is moving on its own and the Four Lord will strike back when attacked. Either Fleurelisia, the island’s lifeline dies, or the ship we’re on is sunk! There’s no other option!”

“Teleria, it’ll be okay.”

That response came from Mamilis rather than Ayato.

What had allowed her to respond sooner than him?

“Because Coach is fighting to make sure of it. So we will not have to choose between those two options.”

“…”

“Teleria, jumping into the sea won’t change anything, right? This isn’t a normal ship. Even if you revealed your ‘true form’, the electricity in the water would probably still zap you.”

Mamilis gave her a gentle hug and whispered in her trembling ear so Ayato and Henrietta could not hear.

“(And if you did that, I doubt anything could stop Fleurelisia, not even herself. So you need to avoid that no matter what. If you want to protect your mother, then find another exit with us.)”

“Uhh,” she groaned.

Nevertheless, she gave a nearly imperceptible nod while clinging to Mamilis’s chest. She grabbed the Dark Elf’s slender shoulders to slowly push her away and then wiped the fearful tears away with the back of her hand. She parted ways with those feelings and turned toward Ayato while drawing the twin handguns from their holsters.

The barrels had built-in suppressors, they were equipped with a dot sight and a laser sight below the barrel, and the magazine had been made extra long. She gripped those customized weapons tight.

“We need to stop this. Ayato, please tell us what we can do!”

“Will do.” Ayato peered into his partner’s eyes. They were still wavering for some reason or another, but she was considerably more stable than before. “The people of Laguntreat have set an odious plan in motion. We need to figure out what to do about that eventually, but we cannot let them slaughter everyone just because we have yet to find an answer. Do you agree with that?”

Teleria Nereid Aquamarine gave a solid nod in response.

Then they just had to do it.

“I will demonstrate on the closest main cannon. We have no time to spare, so ask any questions you have since you need to memorize exactly how to destroy those things with this one demonstration. This way.”

As a ship, the Predator Island shook a lot despite its great size. On the port side deck near the center of the gray warship, the four of them ran toward the bow.

“I should build up my level while I can. You three stay on this side deck!”

Ayato drew his Linkage Plug sword from his hip and climbed to the next level up. He stabbed the blade into the anti-aircraft guns and autocannons to hack them. He had to build his Level up as much as he could now. He stole as much obvious power as he could in this short time. The anti-aircraft gun turrets contained two guns each and the autocannon turrets contained three each.

Short Teleria shouted up from the lower side deck.

“Ayato, they’ll shoot you if you get that close!”

“He’s fine, Teleria. Those guns look like they have a pretty limited range of movement. They’re meant to aim up into the sky like a fishing rod, so I doubt they can fire horizontally.”

“You have a good eye, Miss Mamilis. Okay.”

The boy in the blue blazer hopped back down to the side deck and returned to leading the girls.

He could not hijack the entire warship, but he could change some of the smaller customizations.

“Hacking those is all well and good, but shouldn’t we be destroying them?”

“Those are primarily interception weapons, so they can wait until later. Our top priority is the main cannons that can blow away the entire island!”

Three sets of three massive cannons were arranged in a stepped formation on the bow. Running up from the center of the ship brought them right up to the highest set. They arrived behind them, on the opposite side of where they were aimed.

Just one of the cannons was the size of a small cabin.

Tall and slender Mamilis’s jaw dropped as she came to a stop and viewed the back side of that cannon.

“Wow.”

“It is tall, isn’t it? Probably the same as three or four story building.”

“That could prove a challenge for you, Miss Henrietta, since you can only fight close range. But Miss Teleria and Miss Mamilis can manage just fine. You only have to fire on them.”

“B-but a single shot in return would destroy us,” said Teleria.

“Do you remember what Miss Mamilis said earlier? The cannons have a limited range of movement. They probably only cover the 150 degrees in front of them since their purpose is to fire away from the ship. They wouldn’t want a design that allowed them to accidentally fire on their own bridge when pursuing an enemy that circled behind them, right?”

Dark Elf Mamilis fired a burst of bullets from her full-auto shotgun. Those disintegrating lead bullets produced red muzzle flashes and the mana piercing those created the standard explosive flames of Primary Blaze. Several small explosions slammed into the round back of the cannons. The set of three main cannons circled a bit to the side, but they could not actually aim at a target on the deck directly behind them.

However…

“Those things are tough! I don’t think this is going to work, Coach!!”

“You must not fire randomly at a large target. Their thick armor will deflect all your shots. But take a closer look, Miss Mamilis. Do you see the metal rails on the deck below this set of three?”

“I do.”

“There is no escaping the law of action-reaction. Especially not with 0.5 esoule cannons. Fire those without thinking and the recoil will tear the turret from the deck. There are a number of ways to eliminate the recoil of firing, but the Predator Island apparently uses the back guide method. That means explosives are detonated to send a weight out in the opposite direction of the cannon shot. It looks unnaturally patched on, so I’m guessing this was something extra they added after realizing the recoilless method of sending mist mana in the opposite direction of the shot was not enough to fully suppress the force. If we attack that to rattle the entire cannon, either the explosive warhead or the liquefied mana will detonate inside the cannon. Your rapid-fire weapon is perfect for that!!”

Mamilis fired some more with her long silver hair blowing in the sea breeze. She slowly walked along the side deck below the giant cannons and persistently attacked at the bottom of the three barrels lined up like a fork’s tines.

Once her attacks crossed a threshold, the turret at the base of the barrels swelled out like a balloon.

“Defense, Miss Teleria!!”

Suppressed gunshots rang out, blue muzzle flashes appeared, and a thick roof of ice covered Ayato’s group.

But even that was not perfect.

Just as black-haired Ayato ran over and grabbed at Mamilis’s skinny waist, the entire turret exploded like an erupting volcano and countless shards poured down like rain, slicing through the barrier of ice.

“Kyah!!”

“As you can see, you should keep your guard up throughout. This is a warship made by attaching chloride-treated mana conducting silver armor to a wooden ship to both strengthen it and prevent rusting. It holds up well against external attacks, but it should be resistant to internal fires. So be on the lookout out for fires and explosions lest you be caught in the flames yourself!”

Blowing up the one turret eliminated all three of its cannons. This just left the other two turrets on the bow and the two at the stern. This was looking very doable.

Except…

“Hey, dangerous individual.”

Henrietta was looking somewhere other than the turret with a gaping hole blown in it.

She was looking at a waterproof hatch that should have been perfectly ordinary on a warship.

However, it opened on its own and something silently swarmed out. They looked something like crocodiles with torsos made of clear glass, giant jaws on the front, a stomach and a thick tail on the back, and four short legs for walking. Except they looked somehow familiar. There were 10, 20, 30…no, even more than that. They flooded out like sewage regurgitated from the drain on an especially rainy day. Anything looked creepy with numbers like that. From head to tail, their artificial bodies measured at 1.5 esoule long, so Teleria felt a tremor down her spine as she aimed her twin handguns at them.

She also identified what these military sorcery devices really were.

“Th-the baby incubators!?”

The crocodile parts had been hidden before by curling up like an armadillo to provide the incubator’s base.

“Did they build their greatest treasure as a weapon to protect itself? Anyway, Miss Henrietta, you protect us since your close-quarters combat is no use against the cannons.”

“Why should I protect a dangerous individual?”

“Leave a filthy criminal like me to die if you like, but Miss Teleria and Miss Mamilis are defenseless! A striker like you carries a sorcery gun to protect those in need, so do not tell me cannot do it!!”

The blonde braid Striker groaned with a lopsided frown on her face, but she still pulled the bolt-action carbine from her hip. The two of them were like water and oil, but Ayato was figuring out how to make use of her.

Fortunately, the incubators were not yet in use.

Without babies in them, there was no need to hold back.

These crocodilian sorcery devices with transparent torsos were designed after amphibious predators, much like the Dextral Mk. IIs. Electricity flashed from their mana-conducting silver fangs and artificially-created acid dripped from between their glass scales, creating disconcerting smoke wherever they landed.

“Self-buff: Primary Ex Massive!!”

Just as Henrietta firing a single deep gunshot straight up, the onslaught of crocodiles rushed in. Instead of keeping a safe distance and picking off the enemy with magic, Henrietta strengthened her own body and wielded her axe-like bayonet to directly crush the enemy with physical force.

Ayato readied his Linkage Plug sword while Henrietta transformed herself into a heavy metal tornado.

“Miss Henrietta! I can only guess, but those crocs probably fight by burning holes in your armor using the acid capsules in their scales and then directly zap your exposed flesh to knock you out!! Do not rely too heavily on your armor!!”

“That just means I have to beat them down before they can move.”

“Now, Miss Teleria and Miss Mamilis, you need to attack the remaining main cannons! This enemy’s presence is proof that our attack is working. Stopping will only give them what they want!!”

Ayato stabbed his Linkage Plug sword into the gut joint of one of the incubators and found it surprisingly easy to take control. Each one had a low level, so he spread out his crystal tarot cards in the air, flicked them with his fingers, and moved the four creepily stubby legs.

(These are known as Crocodilia Mk. VII? Hm, other than pinning you down and biting you, they can…yeah, that’s what I wanted.)

“Hyah!?”

He heard a shriek.

Scattering the scales as anti-personnel mines just to try it out may have been a mistake. A few of the capsules of powerful acid hit the latches on the back of Striker Henrietta’s armor and the chest of her armor fell away.

She blushed, covered her chest with her left arm, and glared at him.

The tears he had not expected.

“I don’t know what made me think I could trust you to watch my back even for a second, but thanks for the reminder of just what kind of dangerous individual you are.”

“Wait, I am not the one you should be aiming that sorcery gun at!! Also, this taught us exactly how the Crocodilia Mk. VIIs’ projectiles work! Aren’t you glad it happened in this nonlethal fashion!?”

Meanwhile, Mamilis seemed worried about Ayato and Henrietta who were putting themselves in greater danger by moving closer to the dangerous waterside predators.

“(They melt through thick clothing and zap your bare skin to knock you out? Even those jaws are meant to pin you down, not to tear you to pieces. Those things were not designed to kill. I don’t know when we were set up here, but whoever did it was clearly focused on you, Teleria.)”

“…”

Teleria said nothing.

She dedicated herself to the job given to her, as if that would let her forget all about the fundamental problem here.

The pillars of ice created by Teleria’s twin handguns struck the back guide portion located below the distinctive gray cannons on the middle level of the bow and that safety feature was blown away.

But they must have taken too much time.

Before they were done, the turret on the bow’s lowest level rotated with obvious intent.

It was aimed at…

“Laguntreat!? Dangerous individual, they are preparing to attack!!”

“Miss Teleria, aim straight down! Blast the float on the side!!”

Ayato shouted instructions while using a hacked incubator to attack the other crocodilian sorcery devices that used electric jaws and acid capsule scales.

The blonde girl placed her navel on the side deck railing and leaned over dangerously far. She was aiming near the ocean surface. With a muffled gunshot, an ice spear popped a waterproof leather bag larger than the average bus and the entire giant ship tilted.

A moment later, their world was thrown into chaos.

Ayato had known it was coming, but he was still thrown to the side deck. A shockwave slammed into him and he gathered strength in his trembling fingertips to desperately keep a grip on his Linkage Plug sword lest it slide across the floor and fall into the sea.

“Wah!”

“Miss Teleria!!”

The blonde girl had already been leaning over the railing, so she was about to fall into the ocean. Ayato clenched his teeth and forced himself to rush over to her. In the nick of time, he got his arms around her hips and the long skirt Expansion Armor, so the two of them rolled along the side deck together.

As a direct combat expert, Henrietta clicked her tongue but managed to stay on her feet throughout. Her legs and hips were a lot stronger than the others. In fact, she had apparently used the shaking of the ship to take a step toward the enemy. A huge chunk of the dangerous Crocodilia Mk. VIIs were gone. Instead of destroying them, she had used the tilting of the enormous warship to send them tumbling over the railing. They now littered the once pristinely beautiful ocean. The giant waterwheels and the lightning energy leaking out into the sea must have been destroying those unmanned weapons.

She used her bayonet axe to split the glass tube crocs.

“What happened to the island? Hey, dangerous individual!?”

“It’s fine. Popping that float threw off its aim just before firing. But that method will not work again.”

“Coach, the Four Lords are directly connected to the magical elements, right? I thought our ordinary magical attacks were powerless to defeat them.”

“Come to think of it, Teleria mentioned that earlier.”

Henrietta was far from a magic expert, so she was confused by that point.

It was true the colorless mana flowing through the atmosphere was transformed into one of the four elements when one of the four peaks gave it color. So a human or demon manipulating that mana as magic could not defeat one of the Four Lords who gave it that color.

“This isn’t actually attacking with the magic. A magical explosion is triggered in the thick barrel to launch a giant shell filled with explosives and lead. It’s a ridiculously inefficient method, but since the direct hit is nonmagical, it can harm one of the Four Lords.”

“Hey, dangerous individual. How about we pop all of those floats? This ship can’t balance itself without them, right?”

“Go for it if you want, but do you have the stamina need to swim back to the island if you’re thrown out into the empty ocean in that heavy armor? And unless we deactivate the ship, it might continue filling the ocean with lightning as it sinks.”

The surviving main cannons were of greater importance.

Given how many incubators they had seen lined up within the ship, the crocs they had seen had to be a small fraction of the total available. The next wave of Crocodilia Mk. VIIs would arrive before long.

With Teleria supporting her, the long silver-haired Dark Elf held a hand to her head as if dealing with a headache and then she readied her full-auto shotgun. With the cacophony of her rapid-fire, an attack slammed into the recoil-restraining back guide, causing the bow’s last main cannon turret to swell out from within and explode. Knife-like shards sliced through the air.

The straitlaced Striker held a hand to her head to hold her hair down against the blast.

“Ugh, I hate how I’m getting used to all these explosions.”

“That finished the bow, but there’s still the two turrets to stern. The main cannon attack has already begun, so don’t let your guard down!”

The ship was 950 esoule long, so moving from one end to the other was an ordeal. They ran along the side deck as if heading back they way they had come.

One of the waterproof hatches opened nearby even though none of them had touched it.

“Dangerous individual!” shouted Henrietta when Ayato immediately kicked the door to hold it shut.

“We don’t need to deal with all of the Crocodilia Mk. VIIs! Don’t destroy the door, Miss Henrietta!!”

They may have been designed as guards for the ship because they showed no sign of breaking through the walls or hatches to attack. If the terrain or layout of the ship could be used to avoid a fight, there was no reason not to take advantage of it. He stabbed his Linkage Plug sword into the hatch’s handle and removed the grip. Hacking the door’s controls was bound to make a difference.

“There were five turrets in all and we’ve already destroyed three.” Teleria was talking more to herself than anyone else. “We’re past the halfway point. We just have to keep doing what we’re doing, so we’ll be fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

(I wouldn’t be so sure about that.)

The blue blazer boy did not say it aloud, but he remained highly cautious. At the very least, they could not just keep doing what they were doing. The situation had changed. Even if their interference had thrown off its aim, the Annihilator-class Predator Island’s main cannons had fired with the intent of crushing the island of Laguntreat.

It had provoked her.

He could not imagine Water Lord Fleurelisia letting that slide.

“Taking out the main cannons is all well and good, but how do you intend to actually end this, dangerous individual?”

“That is up to what the Four Lord does. If she does not attack, then we will need to consider providing a finishing blow to the spirit engine that serves as the core of the ship.”

Just as he said that, a great shadow was cast over them.

That was not a cumulonimbus cloud.

“But if she decides to attack, just focus on not getting caught in the crossfire!!”

That giant winged fish slithered along the land like a serpent.

Her 450 esoule form was attacking from the sky as if to break the extraordinary warship in two.

Something like a gargantuan ice spike jutted from the end of the giant fish’s nose.

Yes.

To directly pierce the ship.

Part 2

The 950 esoule warship tilted like a seesaw. The entire front half of it did. If Ayato’s group had still been there, they would have been crushed along with the stepped array of cannons.

With a deafening boom, the crocs trying to reach the side deck via a different route were thrown out into the air before falling down into the pure tropical ocean with only the intercontinental stone bridge intruding on nature.

From here, it was impossible to tell whether the ship had been pierced through or the ice spike had shattered.

“Kyah!!”

“Miss Henrietta, you take care of Miss Mamilis! I will handle Miss Teleria!!”

He grabbed the blonde girl’s hand in midair and let momentum carry him back-first into a right triangle sail to absorb the shock. But it was not over yet. They were now more than three stories up from the deck, which was a problem. The partner he held in his arms aimed her sorcery guns toward the ship’s large sail and fired several instances of ice magic. Instead of fully freezing, she left the masses in a sherbet-like state that caught them and reduced their speed as they dropped.

“Wow,” said tall and slender Mamilis from Henrietta’s arms.

The giant winged fish had failed to break the Predator Island in two with a single attack. The ice spike emerging from the tip of her nose had shattered. However, the bow was almost entirely nonfunctioning.

The steam must have detonated because Fleurelisia herself bounced up from the crushed deck and flew to port.

That was enough to create a massive wave that threatened to capsize the warship.

The Crocodilia Mk. VIIs were the least of their worries now. That was the Water Lord and she did not seem at all bothered by the lightning energy that would have fatally electrocuted a human in the blink of an eye.

A different atmosphere hung over the place.

“Kh!”

“Ayato, hold on tight!!”

Hadn’t the villain said they loaded on too much chloride-treated mana conducting silver weaponry and armor because they so feared the Water Lord? That was no exaggeration. Ayato would want that too if he were seriously planning to fight Fleurelisia.

The gray ship was still sliding to the side.

But not just due to the massive wave. This had more to do with the sails than the rudder. It was doing everything it could to get away from there.

Unfortunately, a ship’s width to the side was the most it could manage.

The ocean parted and that colossal form flew high into the sky once more.

If the Predator Island had not taken evasive action, it may have been pierced through from below and torn to pieces. The Water Lord’s belly only grazed against it, but the giant waterwheel on one side of the ship was torn away and thrown into the air while falling apart.

The wreckage of that military weapon was scattered across the pristine ocean.

Ayato honestly felt silly for having spent so much energy fighting those Crocodilia Mk. VII weapons made from the incubators.

Fleurelisia was not specifically focusing on any of the threats on the deck. She was simply rampaging around, which was enough for the army of sorcery devices to be thrown into the sea where they vanished into the depths.

“The scale of this fight is insane,” groaned Striker Henrietta with bolt-action carbine in hand.

Missing the ship as a whole while rising from the ocean did not actually hurt Fleurelisia any.

She simply rotated around in midair.

Would she attack next with an ultra-heavyweight body slam? It was all over once she crushed the surviving aft half of the ship. The stepped array of anti-aircraft guns and autocannons began a magical barrage resembling an eruption, but it was too late. Not to mention that ordinary magic could not seriously harm one of the Four Lords. It was not an issue of her dodging it or not; her thick muscles would forcibly contain the damage while she crushed the insolent warship before it could damage her.

The only injuries she would receive were from the ship’s wood and armor piercing her as it split apart beneath her. The ordinary cannons could not leave a scratch on her.

Only two sets of three main cannons remained at the stern.

They aimed as high into the sky as they could manage, but six felt terribly insufficient. Plus, each set had to attack as a group, so they only really provided two chances. That was less than a revolver. If their two opportunities were evaded, that was that.

A high-pitched cracking sound erupted from the sky.

Ice spears as long as Fleurelisia herself appeared in the air around her. She clearly intended to destroy that ship no matter which way it tried to flee.

So.

When that Four Lord was stopped, it was not by any kind of firepower.

It could not have been.

Her colossal body twisted as she descended.

Almost like she had spotted something on the aft end of the ship and did not want to crush it.

Her great mass crashed into the ocean nearby.

As did the giant spears she had prepared as insurance.

The ship violently shook and seawater was dumped down on Ayato’s group. They had been entirely helpless to intervene in that battle between two titans and they were honestly relieved to find that seawater had not been electrified. But by the time they finally regained their balance, they found Fleurelisia had inexplicably moved away from the gray Annihilator-class Predator Island.

The water parted in the far distance and that giant emerged on the surface. She created a circular rail of ice with a diameter of about 8500 esoule around the Predator Island and propelled herself along it using steam to move quickly around. All while picking up speed along that circular track. When a single tackle could sink the warship, that sight could only be described as a threat.

However…

“What?”

Just to be sure, Ayato stabbed his Linkage Plug into a crocodile still managing to cling to the deck, hacked it, and sent it inside a nearby hatch, but there did not appear to be any other Crocodilia Mk. VIIs left. His fingertips completed hat work on autopilot because his mind had gone entirely blank.

The main cannons roared.

They failed to hit the Water Lord, but the ice rail was stationary and thus easily destroyed. Meanwhile, Fleurelisia made a quick step to the side. She had apparently created more than just the one ice ring. She had prepared several so she could jump to an adjacent one if need be.

Since she had moved away from the island, the artillery shells produced towering pillars of water in the empty ocean. There was less chance of the shells hitting Laguntreat’s village now, but she still gained nothing from drawing this battle out. Even at her size, a direct hit from one of those 0.5 esoule cannons would do considerable damage. Those were legitimately deadly weapons even to one of the Four Lords and drawing out the battle would increase the risk of being hit.

The sets of three main cannons mercilessly fired.

The blast was powerful enough for the entire giant gray warship to slide to the side.

More than a blow to the eardrums, Ayato’s group felt it like a hand grabbing their spine and shaking them.

Meanwhile, Fleurelisia made a rapid trip around the warship, constantly rotating around it near the horizon while swinging around some kind of impossibly long straight line. She had used ultra-pressurized water to launch a band of finely shattered ice. It was like a chainsaw capable of slicing right through a fortress. With a pleasant popping sound, the 0.5 esoule shell most on a direct course for her was sliced in two. Massive pillars of water rose on either side of her.

That had required godlike skill, but the Four Lord should not have had to resort to that in the first place.

Ayato blinked in confusion while clinging to the side deck railing.

“Why did she move away? She was safest as close to the ship as she could get. The lightning energy leaking out into the ocean should only be a slight tickle at her size.”

If she had a goal in mind, she could use brute force to have her way.

Based on what Fire Lord Blasthogg and Demon Lord Nirvelphany had done at the sky city, that was the way lords handled things. Yet she was not doing that.

Maybe she was worried about torpedoes being scattered from the side deck like fish bait, but even that should not have been a concern. If she truly would take very little damage from anything other than the main cannons, her safest bet would have been to smash through the ship’s hull as soon as possible.

What was the downside for her there?

Or was this a product of frustration and compromise?

Ayato recalled how the unseen villain had claimed the ship contained something Fleurelisia could never destroy.

“…”

Meanwhile, right next to the boy, Teleria had grown very pale while holding a hand to her large chest. She looked like she very much wanted to say something but could not bring herself to do so.

Henrietta pushed the dazed girl aside to make a realistic suggestion to Ayato.

“Dangerous individual, I know all of this came as a surprise, but will standing and staring fix anything!?”

“You’re right. We need to destroy those aft main cannons before this develops into a colossal brawl!”

He squeezed his Linkage Plug sword again and made up his mind on that one point. Fleurelisia was a threat, but that did not mean they could let this warship run amok.

The Water Lord began to make her next move in the distance.

She hopped upwards while circling around the Predator Island.

She was changing direction.

After building up her momentum, she was diving back into the ocean.

And Ayato seriously doubted it would end there.

She had to be moving swiftly through that water to target the Predator Island while unseen.

“Ah, look, Coach!”

With a sharp sound, three enormous ice sculptures rose up from the ocean. They rose up much like the ski jumps seen on the north end of the continent. Then a thick pillar of water erupted explosively upwards.

But not because Fleurelisia had jumped out.

“That was a feint!?”

Henrietta’s eyes widened.

The ice jumps and the blast of water vapor had both been bluffs. This Four Lord was not some simple beast. She was intelligent and had constructed the optimal strategy for this situation. While the Annihilator-class Predator Island fell for it and fired into the empty air, a massive shadow swam silently through the water.

The warship’s shellfire was finally catching up.

Those shells were absurdly large for Ayato, but they had to be mere specks for that Four Lord. The smallest cannons were still large enough for him to stick his arm down the barrel, but she did not seem at all concerned about that barrage. The only real threat was the two sets of three main cannons, but since those were all on the rear of the ship, they could not turn toward her if she was near enough to the bow.

It was too late for them now.

Fleurelisia must have known she was in a safe zone because she burst up above the water. The water resistance must have been a nuisance even for a ruler of water. She skipped across the surface a few times like a flat rock on a river and then she made a powerful leap straight up.

She curled up in the sky like a crescent moon and Ayato’s group could hear all of her muscles straining.

Shockingly, she was going for a kick with plenty of strength built up.

A dolphin kick like that would probably obliterate everything on the deck.

Her position suggested she was aiming for the opposite side of the ship from Ayato’s group.

Was she going for the side she had already crushed and damaged with her great size?

“Eek!?”

There was no stopping her from the Predator Island, so Teleria quickly grabbed the side deck railing again with both hands.

Just then, the giant cannons briefly fell silent and the two turrets began to rotate with obvious intent behind the action.

But not toward Fleurelisia as she began to deliver a roundhouse kick with her extra-large fish tail.

No, they were turning toward the island.

Toward Laguntreat, where a single blast would crush everyone in the village.

“What!?”

Teleria frantically aimed her twin handguns that way, but she was too far away and the angle was off. She could not blast the barrel with magic to destroy it from within.

Fleurelisia had moved out to sea before fighting instead of remaining on the island.

Did the villain controlling the Predator Island conclude she was not willing to let the islanders come to harm over this?

The giant form in the sky bent at an even more unnatural angle. She had forcibly used her massive wings.

The bottom level of the stern was hit by a great roar that sounded like space itself rupturing.

She would have unleashed a powerful dolphin kick attack, but she instead struck the empty air with her colossal fish tail to unnaturally change direction in midair and cross over the entire warship.

She used the bottom of her belly to crush one of the main cannon turrets on the stepped layout of the Predator Island’s stern. Flattening the turret must have been more important to her than power or efficiency because she was positioned perpendicular to the warship, forming a cross shape with it.

The back guide weakness no longer mattered.

She did this with pure brute force.

It was a lot like the mixed martial arts jumps seen in seedy shopping districts back on the Static Continent.

With the sound of bending metal, the thick turret was flattened like a paper box underfoot. However, that triggered a large explosion from within the main cannons. Fleurelisia seemed to have created a thick ice shield below her belly, but the point-blank blast tore through the shield and struck the Water Lord. A ton of shrapnel must have stabbed into her as well. She twisted around and roared in agony.

She could have easily avoided that pain if she had simply let the attack happen.

“The Four Lord – that monster – protected the island!?”

Striker Henrietta squeezed out a voice of utter shock.

But this was not over yet.

The surviving set of three main cannons on the stern’s middle level was aimed at the defenseless island. For no other reason than to draw out the Water Lord.

They fired with an explosive boom.

There was no time to set up an ice shield this time. Fleurelisia slammed her large wings against the deck protected by chloride-treated mana conducting silver armor to force herself back into the air. She leaped to the side to place herself in the path of the main cannons and protect something precious from those deadly shells.

A scream echoed out and it began to rain red.

“––––––––––!!”

Short Teleria clasped her hands to her mouth, but it was not enough. Desperately suppressing her voice did nothing to stop the tears. She staggered to the side in her black tights, so Mamilis had to grab her slender shoulders. Except she must not have been able to fully support her because both of them collapsed onto the side deck.

Water Lord Fleurelisia was unshaken.

Instead of fleeing into the ocean, she remained in the line of fire while surrounding one enormous wing with ice and prepared to slice through the remaining main cannons and the ship below with that makeshift guillotine.

The cannons fired again.

The shells did more than stop that icy blade. The entire raised wing was torn from her and launched into the air.

Part 3

That was no mere roar.

It was no mere scream.

It may have sounded that way to human ears, but in the vocal range of a Mermaid, there was more to it. Teleria Nereid Aquamarine clearly heard her aquatic mother’s voice as she lay slumped down on the deck.

The bloody rain covered everything around her.

Her own mother’s red blood poured down on her head.

It was too late. She could tell that much already. The wound was too large and the blood loss too great for a human-sized sorcery gun’s recovery magic to even make a dent in it.

“I am…fine, Teleria.”

Her mother’s voice was scratchy and oddly distorted but still as kind as ever.

“As long as I avoid a hit to my core…as long as I shift the point of impact elsewhere, I can survive this. So do not cry. Do that and your sweetheart will notice something is up.”

That could not be true.

In no world was she fine.

For one thing, what mother would tell her child she was not fine and ask for help?

“I have some trouble moving, so I had a hard time searching out what was happening behind the scenes on the island. I had hoped you would cause them enough trouble for them to make a mistake so I could strike. Ta ha ha. I never imagined you were enough of a tomboy to go rushing into the center of the danger yourself. Maybe this is what I get for trying to manipulate my own daughter like that…”

The explosive cannon blasts continued.

They were truly from right in front of her nose, at point-blank range, but even as she was intermittently shaken, Fleurelisia did not go in for the kill. She could have easily reached out and ended this, but she chose not to. She was further and further battered by the splinters and shards of the ship and by the massive artillery shells.

Would it be the warship’s main cannons or the Water Lord’s ice?

All of a sudden, Teleria noticed her constant companion was standing in front of her while she lay collapsed on the deck. He held his Linkage Plug sword at the ready to protect her.

“What a lovely boy,” whispered Fleurelisia in response to his misguided hostility even as she was hit by more cannon blasts. “Teleria, do not let him get away. Isn’t that the happiness you found for yourself? So wipe away those tears and keep a stiff upper lip. You still have time before he turns around, so hurry.”

Teleria shook her head.

She could not say anything out loud, but she shook her head as hard as she could.

If Fleurelisia had only wanted to survive, she could have let the islanders die. Especially since they had been trying to achieve a loathsome sort of stability by sacrificing her. Or she could have recalled her position in the world for a just a moment and attacked the ship, giving up on the girl who wore a Mimic Option to hide what she had inherited from her mother.

But she did neither.

“I cannot.” She spoke firmly. “A mother can never do that in front of her precious daughter.”

That was what pushed the girl beyond her limit.

“No.”

Her throat shook on its own despite her attempts to suppress her voice.

She was in tears and collapsed on the deck, but she just could not keep it up.

She could not continue with that silly act.

“No!! Don’t…don’t do this to me!!!!!”

Crying like a child throwing a tantrum, she pulled the trigger of her sorcery guns. Blue muzzle flashes shined and empty cartridges littered the deck. She knew this would accomplish nothing, but she still fired her recovery magic.

That was when it all fell apart.

Her world was shattered.

She found Ayato Criminaltrophy had turned her way with his drawn sword in hand. In that moment, the meaning of that protective sword changed.

He had seen her.

He had seen the truth.

No matter what they had been through together, he was a human and she was a demon.

“Miss Teleria.”

“Ahh.”

She was trembling too much to move.

Strength left her uncooperative fingers and her twin sorcery guns with long magazines fell to the deck.

She thought he might kill her here.

She vaguely thought that might be her punishment for lying to the partner she relied on and abandoning her family for self-preservation.

“I want to know one thing for certain, Miss Teleria. I want to hear it directly from you.”

“Ahh, I…I am Fleur-”

“Not that.”

But what he said made no sense.

What else could he be talking about?

“Right now, whatever connection you have to that Four Lord is irrelevant. If you do not want to tell me, I will not pry. What I want to know is nothing so trivial. I just want to hear your answer to the most important question here.”

“What – sob – what’s that?”

“The usual.” The black-haired boy pointed his empty hand’s thumb toward the giant dying form behind him. “If I save her, will it bring a smile to your face? As long as I know that, nothing else matters.”

Time truly seemed to stop for Teleria as tears and snot stained her face.

It did not matter if she was human or demon.

It did not even matter if they were talking about one of the Four Lords. He did not care what secrets she kept. His decision was based on just the one factor: would it or would it not stop her tears and bring back her smile.

Could she rely on him?

Would he not brush off her hand?

“(Don’t worry.)”

Mamilis whispered in her ear while gently supporting her from behind.

She did not provide some lovely ideal or comfort.

She stated only cold, hard facts.

“(Coach rescued a Dark Elf like me in the sky city. He knew I was a demon and didn’t care. So he won’t reject your plea for help. No matter what.)”

She hung her head.

She bit her lip.

“…Yes.”

And she looked up again. She was still collapsed on the deck and she did not bother wiping away her tears, but she raised her voice with real power behind it this time.

“Yes…please save her, Ayato. Save that Four Lord! Save Fleurelisia!!!!!”

Part 4

The very next moment, it was like an azure flash of light exploded from the ship.

Part 5

Ayato Criminaltrophy seemed to spin his body in the blue blazer like a whirlwind and he leaped up the stepped rows of anti-aircraft guns and autocannons in the blink of an eye. Climbing was not the right word for it. He planted his fingers and shoes on the wall with slightly raised friction thanks to the sea breeze and he detected the saltier spots to choose a route that let him maintain his momentum as he leaped on up. Once he arrived at the main cannon turret up top, he stabbed his Linkage Plug sword into the gap of the swivel joint and released the blade. Then he jumped atop the gray turret to arrive at the base of one of the barrels. There, he shoved his sword into the joint providing vertical movement.

He was not hacking it.

He had not reached a high enough level to hijack control of the entire turret.

He was simply wedging the blades into the joints to block the turret’s movement.

“That won’t last, Sorcery Hacker!!”

Henrietta’s close-quarters combat skill did not allow her to follow after him and she had to shout up at him from below, but it did not really matter if those replaceable blades were broken. They only had to last for a count of ten.

Ayato ran along the thick turret with his eyes on the muzzle.

It had a diameter of 0.5 esoule.

Yes.

Which meant a skinny boy could crawl directly inside it!!

“Ohhhh!!”

He threw his Linkage Plug sword in first and dove inside the main cannon as if stepping on it. The inside was hot from the friction, but it was still bearable since the cannon did not actually use powder or other explosives to fire. The warship was sturdy against external attack, but it was easily destructible from within. Its vulnerability to Sorcery Hacking worked similarly.

He had been right to build up his level somewhat with the anti-aircraft guns and autocannons.

He forcibly jabbed the blade in, hacked the lock, and forced open the metal door to tumble out inside the turret.

There were indeed no humans or demons directly operating it.

He found a small room containing plenty of spare explosives, an auto-loading device, and the system that operated along with the back guide. More than 200 small military sorcery devices were gathered here. Their combined level was too great to hack the turret as a single device from the outside, but each individual part’s level was fairly low when he could choose them individually like this.

His sword audibly stabbed into more and more of them to hack them each in turn.

After forcing open the escape hatch that was designed to never open from the outside, he flicked one of the floating crystal tarot cards with a finger to trigger the finishing blow.

That girl had tearfully begged him to save the Water Lord.

“What right do you have to make someone cry?”

His own safety was of secondary importance.

He spoke with his back to the machine.

“You hunk of junk!!!???”

It exploded not 10 seconds later.

Part 6

Even Fleurelisia had heard the legend of the Forward in the distant Academy Towers who had mercilessly shot a certain boy to death.

The victim had been Teleria’s stepbrother, which also made him Fleurelisia’s stepson.

She had always had a habit of taking in anything she saw and refusing to throw any of it out. That was why she had stayed on Laguntreat for so long. But that did not mean she felt no attachment for the many things she had gathered.

She had wanted to see what kind of person that Forward was.

If he had done it because of the boy’s relationship to Fleurelisia, she had considered tearing him away from Teleria and giving him a watery grave.

But.

“I called him a lovely boy and I meant it.”

The turret was blown away.

A life was saved.

That boy lived in a world above the division between human and demon. If he could overcome that with so little hesitation, she knew he would never have pulled the trigger for fame or fortune or due to bias or discrimination.

He must have had a much deeper reason.

Something even deeper than the sea.

“You dodged a bullet there, Teleria. If he had visited the island without you, I might have claimed him for myself.”

Option 03: From a Warning about Taboo Magic (Since Withdrawn)

Magic belongs to the four basic elements of fire, water, wind, and earth, but it can be further divided based on its application and derivations. The most obvious example of this are the spells with Ex in the middle. For example, the Primary Ex fire element spells are a specialized category of buffing spells. The most well known of those is Primary Ex Massive, a muscle buffing spell.

Taboo magic is also marked with a middle name added to the standard Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary pattern.

Taboo magic is commonly thought of as magic banned from use because it is too destructive, but that is actually a groundless misunderstanding. The power and range of magic is defined by the sorcery gun or other device being used, so that is not the deciding factor.

The actual definition is as follows: magic with an extremely uncertain elemental classification, creating an exceedingly high risk of the caster losing control even with the assistance of a sorcery gun.

In other words, it has very little to do with the power of the individual magic.

The most obvious example there would be Secondary Taboo Sleep. That magic rapidly freezes a living being and seals them in an ice coffin, but the water element alone cannot accomplish that. It actually uses a combination of water and wind to create a flash freezing effect that works much faster than ordinary freezing and prevents the body’s cells from even noticing they are being frozen.

Magic is no more than a technique that humans have developed to control the mystical by using the four elements created by the colors that the Four Lords provide the atmospheric manaflows. On the other hand, humans have no way of directly converting pure, uncolored mana into magic. An attempt to use magic outside those four classifications will end in failure, but that failed attempt to control the mystical in that way could mean losing control in a destructive fashion. Some even theorize that the craters seen pockmarking the moon’s surface when using a telescope are the scars left by some ancient accident of that nature.

Now, the cleverer among you will have some questions about all this.

What about the network of pure mist mana and the Media Summoners that use it? Or what about the Sorcery Hackers who abuse such things? Those of you living in a peaceful city devoid of deadly magic may actually be standing in the middle of the most dangerous minefield of all.

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