Sorcery Hacker:Volume3 Phase02

Phase 02: Leading Group – Student Council

Part 1

The door to the shower room in the back opened.

The Student Council Office was off limits to almost everyone

“Phew. I don’t see why you didn’t end it right there.”

A sexy girl with only a bathrobe covering skin flushed from the bath threw herself onto a long sofa. She was a princess with her red hair worn in ringlets. As in, a literal princess. Student Council Vice President Surace Bran Zorca Totalinus was 4th in line to the throne of the Combined Royal Family. She had no intention of donning her heavily modified school uniform until the heat had faded from her skin. But even that was being modest for her. As a royal, she should have been wearing a dress at all times.

“Do you have a job for me? Where do I need to make a bloodbath?”

The girl curled up on the floor like a cat sprang to her feet and spoke in an unnaturally bright voice. She was technically the Secretary, but she wasn’t wearing her blue blazer uniform. The somehow animalistic girl instead wore a short-sleeved gym shirt and athletic bloomers. Her real job was assassin, so she preferred clothing that didn’t restrict her movement and was cheap enough to just dispose of when she got her victim’s blood on it. The Student Council made sure to eliminate anyone who had made themselves too much of a nuisance for the Academy Towers. Sibell Wildcat was the one who silently completed those jobs.

“…”

The large silent boy would have been even more unsuitable for that kind of job. The quiet thunk of heavy metal came from the equipment on his hands. Gark Bryan was Treasurer, but he was also known as the strongest Bouncer under the nickname of Grapple Shields.

Even if Ayato picked up the devil revolver once more and reclaimed the title of Hexajinx, he would only be the strongest Forward and could not defeat this boy when it came to defense.

The Student Council were the greatest brains of the school but also its greatest fighting force.

One had the great firepower and armor needed for a direct battle, one had deceptive assassination techniques, and one had great political power and forbidden magical techniques.

But they had one more trump card on top of all that.

“Are you listening, President?”

When Princess Surace called to him, the brown-haired glasses boy seated in a leather chair only smiled thinly.

He was Umihiko Darkavenue, the ultimate Sorcery Hacker in the Academy Towers.

With him, they were a perfect fighting force.

The President did not even glance in the bathrobe princess’s direction.

A quiet bell rang before he could.

A remotely-printed newspaper popped up from the top of a boxy metal device that resembled a toaster.

But it wasn’t just that one bell.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

On the Static Continent, the evening editions were often completed as early as the afternoon. Thanks to that, an orchestra of bells produced a deluge of sound from all the sorcery devices lined up along the wall. Every single newspaper on the continent, from the biggest continent-wide ones to the smallest regional ones, were produced for the Student Council President.

Vice President Surace gave him an exasperated look.

“Are you still reading paper newspapers?”

“This research is crucial.”

“You’re an ultra elite Sorcery Hacker.”

“The invisible mana network can be used to stimulate the great cloud of data out there and that can be used to greatly distort the information people receive. But if you want to track how exactly those distortions are playing out, it is best to rely on old-fashioned media. Look at this. It says a plesiosaur was sighted in the ocean late last night. Heh heh heh. All I wanted to do was cover up a witness account of one of our work ships dragging up something I would rather remains a secret, but the next thing you know, the ship’s crane has become a dinosaur’s neck.”

The President happily cut the article out with a pair of scissors and filed it away with similar articles, so the princess could only shrug.

There was no need to actually visit every corner of the world to control it.

Any and all facts could be altered from this one small room. The Academy Towers contained all of the data and technology that was distributed across the Static Continent. He only needed to let a drop fall from on high and watch the world below to see what kind of rain was released by the thick clouds he stimulated. Were the crops in the field growing, or had the river flooded?

The bathrobe Vice President pouted her lips like a small child.

“You don’t need to do all this pain-in-the-rear checking and double-checking when it’s happening here at school. Just kill him already.”

“It is a matter of timing. The gem science school tower contains a lot of gem and metal processing facilities. I could have killed Ayato fighting him there, but breaking through a single wall could have destroyed one of the blast furnaces used for our experiments. You wouldn’t want me to die along with him, would you?”

“Liar.” Surace giggled and rejected his claim. “You just don’t want it to end before you get to show off all the tricks you have ready for him. That’s a bad habit of yours. You could have killed all four intruders there, but then all that effort would be for nothing. So you just torment them until you have used everything to your satisfaction. And your target doesn’t even feel like they survived. It’s like capturing a bug, tearing off one of its legs, releasing it, and then recapturing it to repeat the process.”

“…”

Umihiko did not confirm or deny that accusation.

But he was smiling behind his glasses.

“You see, Ayato, we have someone helping us. The seeds were sown the first night you arrived. And they will blossom within your party before long.”

He raised a slim finger with a perfectly trimmed nail.

He smiled with the cruel joy of watching his prey pausing right in front of the pitfall because a jack-in-the-box had gone off and frightened them.

“You have a traitor in your midst.”

Part 2

“…”

“Now, now, Miss Henrietta. How long are you going to sulk like a child? I thought lasagna was your favorite. You need to eat it before it gets cold. Yes, you can reheat it in the microwave, but it just doesn’t feel the same then, does it? Like reusing a sweaty sleeping bag.”

“………………………………………………………………………………………………”

The lasagna was not just an offering to a ghost. Henrietta had been thrown out of the window of Floor 51 at the bottom of the Grade D zone without any warning, but Ayato had caught up with her and collected her. The Sorcery Hacker had swung his Linkage Plug sword in midair and hacked a weather balloon. The balloon had been about 2 esoule in diameter. All kinds of sorcery-related items were created and experimented with in the extraterritorial Academy Towers, so handmade sorcery devices like that could be found just about anywhere. However, he had ended up speaking with President Umihiko Darkavenue for longer than expected, so he had been forced to collect the girls lower to the ground than planned.

They were now enjoying a pleasant lunch at the dining hall in the Grade G zone of the mana tower.

“I know that was the Student Council President who leads that mysterious organization, but I do not like how we turned tail and fled the instant we saw his face. I get the feeling you think I, Henrietta Split Destrius, am not strong enough to face him.”

“I assure you his strength is the real deal. His name is already going down in history for his proof of the Demon Lord Power Fluctuation Hypothesis that had been stumping academics for decades, but academia adores him for several other theses as well. We have him to thank for sorcery gun safety improving more than usually seen in two generations and he played a role in spreading the sorcery network across the entire Static Continent. His development of maid automatons for aristocrats has also earned him some friends in high places.”

“So you’re saying he’s a scrawny egghead.”

It was unusual for Henrietta to be so scathing based on a first impression. She may have been in a very bad mood indeed.

However…

“Miss Henrietta, are you familiar with the Defense of Makisdorr fought to stop a largescale invasion from another continent?”

“Of course. I have heard we would have been in a dangerous position if not for the enemy’s mechanical trouble. What about it?”

“That mechanical trouble was no accident. He sent a strategic sorcery antenna into the center of the enemy forces from ultra-long range and then sorcery hacked their machines to end the battle. He is confirmed to have ended at least three wars, but he is suspected to have ended more than ten times that. Instead of sending in any of our own people, he hacks the enemy’s military sorcery devices for a zero-cost victory. You could even say he embodies a new form of war. A soldier cannot defeat an army, right?”

“…”

“So there is no shame in having run from him,” Ayato went on trying to soothe her, but the knight refused to look his way. She puffed out her soft-looking cheeks to express her displeasure.

Ayato was also just a soldier.

He doubted he could defeat the President if he attempted to directly compete in the field of sorcery hacking.

And Sorcery Hackers did not directly compete anyway.

“So this is a school dining hall.”

Meanwhile, Mamilis was looking around with great interest.

The bell had initially frightened the dark elf, but she had since come to realize that it didn’t just indicate an increase in tension. It instead indicated the switch between class periods and break periods.

It was currently the liveliest part of the school day: lunchtime.

Long tables and mass-produced chairs filled a space as large as three ordinary classrooms. The dark elf’s curiosity was even directed at the plastic trays made by heating mist mana while it was packed inside special containers. But then she tilted her head.

“Coach, what is this ‘microwave’ thing?”

“It is a convenient sorcery device that lets you heat your food by sticking it inside and pressing a button. Whether you want beef stew or acqua pazza, it can be ready to eat in only four multi-times. It works even late at night or on a weekend when the restaurant is closed.”

“I-incredible. That kind of convenience is hyper cool!! Do they have a tiny kitchen packed inside this small box!?”

“Ayato…” said Teleria, holding a finger to her temple and telling Ayato to correct Mamilis. The look on her face said “cooking is not that simple” better than words ever could.

The master of the kitchen rapped her hand on the top of the boxy microwave and explained to Mamilis.

“This can be used for vacuum-packed foods, so I will admit it is useful for cooking a large quantity of food very quickly and with uniform quality. But you need to be making a lot of food to warrant that.”

“Fascinating,” said Henrietta.

Teleria shrugged.

“I am less interested in its microwave function than its steam oven function that takes the fat out of meat. But what I really want is the dishwasher! A cook can’t find a better ally than a device that washes all your dishes with hot steam!! Sigh, if only they could invent one small enough to take on trips.”

The dining hall was packed full of hungry students from the Rhythmic Gymnastics Team, the Archery Team, and more. There were a lot of dining halls, but this one in the mana tower’s Grade G zone was especially popular with the hungriest students because of the Bonus Chance system. There was a chess board at the counter and the lunch lady had lined up the pieces on a whim. If you could get checkmate in a single move, you were given a bonus item for free. The catch was you only had until the count of five to think about your move.

Thanks to that, this dining hall was even more popular than the convenient but expensive butterfly delivery service. The growing sorcery research students apparently valued the chance to eat more over slothful convenience.

It was just like an academic institute to allow a game just because it supposedly made the students smarter.

(Keeping something as basic as the mana tower’s dining hall on the 25th floor really symbolizes how messed up this place is. The students in Grades I and H can’t even get in here.)

It may have been a Sorcery Hacker trait to take a cynical viewpoint and search out all the flaws in a system.

Whether you viewed a crowd as a lot of witnesses or as something to hide within would greatly change what decisions you made. Ayato took the latter view. He was a Sorcery Hacker who hid within a city and made use of everything around him. He was not an outdoorsy hero who ran through the wastelands wielding a sword.

Of course, the entire school was the Student Council’s territory, but the great size of that territory meant the elites of the Council were not enough to patrol and inspect every single facility right away. After all, the gem tower alone had 101 floors. The few members of the council could not check all of the rooms there. So Ayato’s group would not be so easily found after moving to the mana tower.

With so many people moving around, the room’s heater wasn’t even necessary.

A bearded Newspaper Club boy and a short Mystery Club girl were whispering to each other.

“Why do you think the strongest Forward is back at school? I can’t imagine he has anything left to learn.”

“He’s the hero who left on an expedition in the name of field training, so why would he need to sneak around? Hmm, I smell a mystery!!”

That girl probably smelled mysteries everywhere she looked, but it was concerning how right she was in this case.

It sounded like his old nickname still held a lot of sway in this tower.

“W-wowww… Isn’t that the legendary Hexajinx!? D-do they sell autograph paper at the school store? Would he get mad if I asked him for his autograph!?”

A girl in the crowd wore her blonde hair in a braid with her eyes sparkling behind her glasses. The title of ace seemed silly given his appearance, but this was actually a lot like a mild curse for Ayato.

Teleria looked troubled.

“Everyone’s noticing you here. Are you sure this is safe?”

“We would be in trouble if Umihiko could mobilize all of the Public Morals Officers and Student Guidance teachers,” freely admitted Ayato.

He never expected 100% safety on a mission. He just made sure he had enough room left to adlib if he was caught and surrounded. A tight plan worked out to the second like a train schedule might look smart and clever, but it would actually fall apart as soon as you ran into any trouble at all. So as long as he could keep the girls with him safe in the end, he didn’t worry about the intermediary steps.

Ayato reached his fork over to steal a bite of Henrietta’s lasagna and she swatted his hand away.

“But the Council is busy causing trouble and covering up the evidence of their misdeeds.”

The Academy Towers were cut off from the outside world to prevent the confusion of having their advanced technology leak out. It would be a major scandal if the Student Council was intentionally letting dangerous magic or tech leak for their own benefit.

High Priest Belbath and Jennifer’s cases were as suspect as could be, but Ayato didn’t currently have any proof.

“That means they can’t invite just anyone to join them. They will attempt this with only their trusted companions who have shared in their crimes.”

It had been possible the Council would post wanted posters around the school that accused Ayato’s group of a made-up crime, but that hadn’t happened.

Gathering attention on them would only make this more difficult. The Council preferred to kill them in some deserted corner of the school.

It was easy to see the Council was sweating.

If they really didn’t know anything, they would have submitted the ordinary paperwork without question or concern: Mana Science Student Ayato was seen circumventing security to enter the higher levels of the gem tower without permission. The lack of such a report meant the Council wanted to hide something from the adults.

It was like the well-known dark joke: Someone had their vehicle stolen, but they didn’t report it to the knights or the control squad. Why? Because they had stolen it in the first place.

“At the very least, we shouldn’t have trouble getting food for the time being. The Academy Towers has more dining halls and school stores than you can count on your fingers. We can slip past the Council’s notice if we only go during the busy mealtimes. Most of the students won’t be aware we are at odds with the Council. And even if they start focusing on the dining halls and stores, we can still order food delivered by those butterfly sorcery devices if we spoof our user data.”

“That gets us food, but what about the other necessities?” asked Mamilis.

But the girl was leaning forward excitedly. She may have thought they would be living outdoors again like when they had been forced to live on the run on that tropical island.

However, Ayato had to reject that idea.

“We don’t need to live outdoors this time. There are tens of thousands of mobile homes at the base of the towers. If we alter some registration data and move to a different vacant one every day, we can escape the Council’s search.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

As expected, the silver-haired girl childishly pouted her lips.

He had in fact gone ahead and rewritten some records after waiting a short time after their failed break in that morning. For now, there was no sign of anyone attacking the vacant mobile home he had given them as a test.

A criminal that stuffed a suitcase full of clothes and tried to flee across the border would be caught faster than any other. Their pursuers would first focus on the borders at the very edge of their territory. A cleverer fugitive with decent technology would focus on changing their appearance and identification before trying to gain any physical distance. That was a lot safer and would make their life easier.

Of course…

(This all assumes the President doesn’t use his sorcery hacking skills.)

Only a Sorcery Hacker could pursue a Sorcery Hacker.

Then it would be chase and be chased, attack and be attacked, trick and be tricked – on and on forever. In the sorcery information warfare using Linkage Plugs and Monitors, there was no absolute safe ground. Some positions would be better than others, but he still needed to keep several escape routes in mind because he could always make a bad mistake. Of course, he kept these concerns to himself because he was afraid the girls wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he told them the truth. Any kind of psychological or intellectual warfare would tear someone apart if they worried over it too much.

Even if there was no absolute safety, Ayato would not allow any possibility of losing any one of those girls. So he would force his methods to work. That was the least he owed them for trusting and assisting him.

Still, knowing all this would worry them.

So it was best not to let them know they were up against a Sorcery Hacker even more skilled than him.

“That was a pathetic attempt, Sorcery Hacker.”

A graceful voice interrupted his thoughts.

They all looked back to see Micha Angelos casually blending into the school life here. She did this by wearing a blue blazer and short wine-red skirt she had acquired from somewhere.

“Not only do you have trouble breaking in, but you alert the enemy to your presence? If you do not know how to advance now, then I see no reason to leave you at large. It would benefit the world if I were to arrest and imprison you in accordance with the standard laws.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Infiltrating the school much more cleverly than you.”

It was true he hadn’t heard any reports of an unidentified busty woman walking around in a uniform that clearly didn’t belong to her, so she probably was doing this more skillfully than his group.

He sighed.

“That’s a shame. I was hoping you were trembling in embarrassment after that bull bastard ordered you to dress up for him.”

“Oh, dear. Were you never taught that insulting my master is a crime deserving of death? Or were you hoping I would whip you?”

“Really? He seems like the kind of pervert who’d be into this. I bet his reaction would be pretty amusing if you walked up to him dressed like this. He pretends to be a gentleman, but he’s always staring at Miss Teleria’s butt and getting all hot and bothered about it. He claims the increased defenses of her black tights and Expansion Armor only turn him on more.”

“Ayato, I’m going to need some more detailed information on this.”

The fluffy blonde girl’s fluffy part was starting to defy gravity a little.

But Micha was also acting unusually. She had entirely frozen in place without speaking a word.

“…”

“Hey, Micha?”

“I-it is nothing.”

The busty blazer maid blinked twice, thrice and then seemed to reboot back to her usual behavior.

“I do not expect an underground Sorcery Hacker like you to make a direct attack like a knight would. Thus, you are not permitted to give up just because you cannot clear the wall ahead of you. You are the kind of coward who makes use of every person and thing around you in order to gain the upper hand. Plus, this is the Academy Towers. It is packed full of things you can use, so use them all to achieve your objective.”

“…Hmph.”

“Your job is to investigate the Student Council and eliminate any dangerous elements you discover. I will not demand you use your head to win this. We all know who would win between a dropout and the Student Council President in a battle of brains. So use your cunning, Sorcery Hacker. You excel in cheap tricks found outside your academic grades, do you not?”

He blinked and the young woman (failing to look natural) in a school uniform was now a purple butterfly. She fluttered on out the door.

Ayato clapped his hands to gather the girls’ attention.

It was indeed time to get a fresh start.

“Setting aside Micha’s personal opinion of me, it is true we need to think up a new method. The Council will be on the lookout for someone trying to climb the outer walls with the window-washing sorcery devices or curtains. We cannot attempt that one again. And based on the quick look around I took earlier, the routine for the gatekeepers monitoring the passage between floors has been altered. They will not overlook a single grain of sand anymore.”

“Forget that for a second.” Henrietta spoke in a dry voice that suggested she still wasn’t happy about being shoved out of a window about 50 floors up. “Will this mysterious organization you call the Student Council really keep all the evidence of their crimes hidden in the same place forever? They must know you are trying to reach their office.”

“Where would they move it to? The Academy Towers are surrounded by treacherous mountains and they can’t hide it in a crowded city if they did get past the mountains. Not to mention that removing those valuable items from their strictly-guarded office would be the perfect time to attack.”

“…”

“If such a simple possibility didn’t even occur to you, you need to be more careful with your mansion’s asset management in the future, mistress. What matters is the Council will be on guard now. And that caution will make them reluctant to unlock the secret door in front of the enemy. They will want to search us out and ensure their safety first. Everyone knows the top of the tower has the strictest security. So even if there is a risk, it would be even riskier to move their devastating secrets to a lower grade floor. And moving it outside of the school altogether is entirely out of the question.”

That was the main reason Ayato did not immediately leave the Academy Towers and rework his plan from square one. If he left and gave the Council some peace of mind, they might move their important evidence out of their office. Or even out of the school. Then the truth of that incident would be forever shrouded in darkness.

Instead, he would intentionally disturb the hornet’s nest.

A state of alert was not always a negative thing for a Sorcery Hacker.

“Um, then what are we going to do?” interrupted Teleria.

“Our current goal is to create a new shortcut allowing us to reach the top floors without the Council noticing,” replied Ayato. “We can’t reach their office without that.”

“But, Coach, if they know we want to reach that room, won’t they just place a guard in front of the door?”

That would of course be the best method.

Sorcery Hackers could cause any sorcery device to malfunction through the invisible mana network, but they were powerless against an actual person. So once someone knew a Sorcery Hacker was involved, they would likely switch to more analog methods to some extent.

So Ayato did not hesitate to answer the question.

“They will. Which is why completing this mission peacefully is no longer an option. No matter how cleverly we reach the top floor, we can’t avoid a battle with the Council now.”

Part 3

A distant voice was repeating a strange call of “One, two. Three, four.”

It apparently came from a swimming class engaged in warmup stretches. The girls’ excited voices could be heard all the way in here. The Academy Towers’ advanced technology allowed them to use a heated indoor pool since they were so far up in the mountains that you could see your breath during the mornings and nights.

“Ayato,” warned Teleria in the curving hallway.

“Don’t worry. I am not at all tempted by that. However, Miss Mamilis has been so curious about what a school life is like and it is my responsibility to accompany her to ensure she does not get lost while taking a look around.”

“Coach, stop using me as an excuse. I sense an ulterior motive here.”

The dark elf actually picked up on something for once and put a stop to it with her mouth forming a small triangle, so Ayato was not allowed to take a very eager detour here. Farewell, school swimsuits, bare skin, and the disinfectant smell of youth. Now he had to focus on the task at hand.

They needed some way of sneaking into the Student Council Office on Floor 101 where not even Grade S was allowed.

“Towers have always served one of two primary roles,” quietly began Ayato. “Watchtowers and prison towers.”

Their extreme height made movement difficult, so they could be made into tall mountain peaks that were difficult to attack or remote islands that were difficult to escape.

And…

“I want to start by reviewing what information we have. You could say I want to map out what we know,” he said as soon as they were outside again.

Striker Henrietta put her hands on her hips to view the towers rising high into the sky and explained her warrior’s logic.

“When you want to attack a castle located high in the mountains, the standard play is to cut off their supply line and starve them out.”

“Even though they can order online deliveries using flying sorcery devices? You can get an endless supply of food through the window without providing a single physical coin. Besides, we can’t see inside the Student Council Office until we sneak in ourselves, so we can’t just wait for them to give up.”

While they walked across the dirt schoolground, Ayato stabbed his Linkage Plug sword into an oblong object with a grip attached. The two-wheeled device would automatically draw out a white line as it moved.

“Personally, I see only two general options. Either we acquire a new means of travel that no one has even considered before, or we sneak through all the security colosseums built at every 10 floors.”

“Be more specific.”

“Either we cling to a flying sorcery device or we hide inside a sorcery device that travels through the halls.”

“Isn’t there a, you know, a safer option than that, dangerous individual!? The former would mean crashing and dying after the slightest mistake and the latter could get our hair or skin crushed in a giant gear or crank!”

That was why he had tried being vaguer before she demanded he be more specific. He really wished she would realize that instead of glaring at him so tearfully.

“Admittedly, there is a third option that sounds more up your alley, Miss Henrietta.”

“Quit beating around the bush and tell us.”

“We attack the base of the tower to send it toppling down. Then we snatch up what we need from the ground. I don’t know if it is a secret drawer or locker, but if it’s been locked to the Council’s standards, it should survive crashing to the ground.”

“And how many thousands of people would we be killing in the process?”

He was of course only kidding. Not even Henrietta with her asphalt-colored armor and magic boosting her muscles could bring down one of these towers.

The Academy Towers were designed to protect their technology from being stolen.

“Anyway, if we are going on an adventure, we need a map first. We can make our move after collecting enough accurate data.”

“What more do you need, dangerous individual? You should know more than enough about this place after living here for so long.”

“The Council controls all the official data, so they may have altered what is provided on the website. And the towers themselves might have some kind of trick art worked into their design so the apparent distances are not accurate. When you don’t have an answer, the best plan is to investigate everything until you find one. Think of it like a crossword puzzle. The strongest security is to not give even single letter as a hint. You can never work out the puzzle if you don’t have all the pieces.”

That said, they were currently on the run from the Student Council.

They could blend into the crowds during lunch or afterschool, but they would stand out if they walked around as a group during classes.

“So what kind of measurements are you hoping to take?” Henrietta sounded exasperated. “Are you going to run around with a long tape measure?”

“It would be both faster and safer to let a handy sorcery device take care of it. And a hacked device can’t be tortured into giving us away even if it is discovered and captured.”

A field army could measure the enemy’s range of movement based on their temporary camps and footprints, so taking measurements was a crucial step. Henrietta did not mention any of this, further proving she was a very urban knight.

“A line marker, a delivery flyer, and a garbage collector. Yes, that should be good for now.”

“You can cause trouble with just that, Coach?”

The innocent way Mamilis leaned forward at that prospect made straitlaced Henrietta hold a hand to her head like she had a headache. She wanted that pure girl to be more cautious when it came to the kind of “trouble” that Sorcery Hacker loved.

Ayato smiled and responded.

“I can use any sorcery device that can move inside or outside the towers and has lenses and sensors. They are designed to not run into people or the walls, so they will have some way of measuring their distance from things. And I can use that to measure out a diagram of the building.”

“Huh, that’s neat.”

That also meant this kind of sorcery device could peek up your skirt if it got close, but that didn’t seem to occur to the pants-wearing dark elf.

“We should have all the data we need in half a day and then I can have a Media Summoner calculate everything out and compile the data. That will give us a diagram of the Academy Towers. From there, we can sit around that accurate diorama and plot our enjoyable mischief together.”

“It will be night by then, won’t it?”

“This gives us time for you to visit anywhere you wanted to check out. Miss Henrietta, I highly recommend the heated indoor pool full of beautiful girls.”

“There’s that ulterior motive again!”

He nonchalantly attempted it a second time, but Mamilis scowled and firmly rejected that option. That was a disappointment, but where did the dark elf want to go?

“I want to wear that frilly red thing those Cheer Squad girls were wearing. Their outfit was really cute.”

“Ah ha ha. You have fallen for their trap, Miss Mamilis.”

“?”

“They look beautiful enough, but rumor has it they are actually trained in advanced intelligence gathering techniques. They ‘cheer on’ their team by stealing the opposing team’s strategies and signatures to ensure their own team wins. And the teams at these tournaments are all volunteers from the guilds or members of the control squad who hope to improve their strength.”

Henrietta seemed interested in seeing a warrior’s training ground.

But this was not just for fun.

“So that is where all the students here train their bodies and minds? Then viewing the environment and equipment they use to train can help us predict their basic tactics and idiosyncrasies before the battle even begins. It can even be worth it to simply check the length and weight of their wooden training swords and the scrapes those swords have left on the floor.”

However, what they found was very different from the rough circular training ground where a knight trained the soldiers who fought for her.

The Academy Towers instead offered a wide selection of high-tech training equipment in a clean and heated space behind a thick glass wall. The cutting-edge training gym could accurately monitor basic data like breathing and heartrate as well as more complex data like stance and center of gravity.

Henrietta looked like she was peeking inside a ship that had arrived from another planet.

“Wh-what is this place?”

“Um, those things the Fencing Team and Mixed Martial Arts Team are using are running machines. They only cover a limited space, but you can run forever on top of their moving conveyer belt.”

“But, um, this is not the way of the warrior! There are springs and gears… It looks to me like everything is being managed by cold numbers!”

“Well, yes?” said Teleria. “The effects are diminished if you don’t place the most efficient burden on your body, so you would end up wasting your efforts.”

Henrietta had thought of Teleria as relatively sensible, so the girl’s confusion left Henrietta’s mouth flapping wordlessly. She was legitimately shaken. She couldn’t believe no one was even talking about training their mind and ensuring they had the resolve needed to battle the enemy.

Mamilis pointed at some water dispensers lined up along the wall. Except the liquid contained in each of them was a different toxically bright color.

“Coach, I’m thirsty, so can I get a drink from there?”

“I wouldn’t if I were you. Those are all strength boosters made by mixing several types of alchemy and witchcraft. You are fine the way you are. I know dark elves live long lives, but it would sadden me if you traded that longer life to become a mass of muscles.”

“This place really is a den of eccentrics! I can’t believe this!!”

Henrietta boosted her muscles with her armor and magic, but this apparently crossed some line for her. She may not have liked that they took the easy route from the beginning and efficiently altered their body from the ground up instead of adding an extra boost on top of a body built up the old-fashioned way.

And while the girls excitedly tried out the various training equipment…

“Sneak, sneak.”

“You do know saying that out loud makes you less sneaky, right?”

“Eep!?”

When Ayato spoke toward the exit, something jumped out into view. It was a glasses girl with her blonde hair worn in a braid. For some reason, she had been out in the hall in the middle of class. Instead of the usual blazer uniform, she wore a wet school swimsuit, suggesting she had left class early.

“U-um, um. You are the legendary Forward I’ve heard so much about, aren’t you? Um, I really wanted your autograph, so I went around trying to find you.”

“Is that so?”

“But I’m sorry. I found a marker, but they weren’t selling autograph paper at the school store! So, uh, could you write your autograph somewhere else, Ayato!?”

He frowned as she shoved a thick permanent marker in his hand.

This was an unusual mission. Even more unusual than sneaking into a corrupt merchant’s mansion and searching out their secret ledger.

“You could have just brought a notebook.”

“Yes, but I was in swimming class.”

“So…what? Write it on your skin?”

“S-somewhere more permanent would be nice.”

He couldn’t cover her glasses with the marker and the black marker wouldn’t show up on her dark blue swimsuit. After some thought, he finally found a workable spot.

White cloth for a big nametag was attached to the chest of her swimsuit.

Since it was meant to be written on, it would be noticeable there and it wouldn’t wash off. She had never written her own name there, so it remained entirely blank.

“This looks like the only spot. Mind if I write it out real quick?”

“Go ahead.”

“Stay still. Pull her arms back, push out your chest, and hold that pose.”

“O-okay. Ahh, b-but I want it to last, so make sure to write it out nice and neat. Nh!”

He guessed she was younger than him, but her chest had grown quite well for her age, which made signing it a challenge.

Then Henrietta noticed the unpleasant aura surrounding the trembling glasses girl. The scene must have been reflected in the wall-sized mirror meant for dance lessons.

The heroic knight drew her axe-bayonet sorcery gun without bothering to ask any questions.

“So you have finally crossed the line into sex crimes, dangerous individual?”

“E-eep!?”

But the one who jumped in fright was the blonde braid glasses girl (in a school swimsuit).

Her shoulders tensed and she bowed a jiggly 90 degrees.

“W-was I supposed to take a number and wait in line!? Oh, of course I was. Why did I even think a newcomer like me could just walk up to him like this!?”

“Huh? Eh? What?”

Henrietta stared blankly and Teleria gave her a troubled look.

“Ayato’s reputation under his old identity has taken on a life of its own. The students who never knew the real him may have exaggerated the stories about him during his long absence. The underclassmen who have never even seen him have put on plays in the Central city and the Comics Club has released a Media Summoner comic that imagines him as something like a girl’s comic love interest.”

“Ah! Are you his rumored wife!?”

“Bffffffff!?”

Now the only person bothering to explain anything was freaking out.

And with the eye of the storm now blushing bright with her eyes swirling, there was no one left to stop things from escalating. The braid girl pointed straight at her rival.

“You might think you can keep him away from other girls, but this autograph is mine now. You can’t take it from me when that means stripping off my swimsuit!”

Mamilis childishly tilted her head.

“Coach, what is that?” she asked.

“Hm? The design is admittedly a little unusual, but I know you know what a swimsuit is. You showed off plenty of your beautiful skin back on that tropical island, Miss Mamilis.”

“Not that. The thing on her chest. Is it a nametag? But that makes it look like her name is Ayato Criminaltrophy.”

“Ah ha ha. Now it looks like she belongs to me. I – have – dibs☆”

When the glasses girl heard that, her face grew even redder.

And the red kept growing brighter.

Until…

“Eeeeeep☆”

“Ahh!? This dangerous individual’s suggestion was so horrifying she fainted!!”

Part 4

They couldn’t just leave the girl on the floor in her wet (in more ways than one now) swimsuit, so Ayato decided to carry her to the infirmary. Princess carrying her was more stable than carrying her on his back.

She was very soft no matter how he did it, though.

“Now this is a job I could get used to.”

“Ayato.”

There was no sexy school doctor looking for a way to pass the time in the infirmary.

However…

“What are you doing here, Micha Angelos?”

“You have already asked me that. Are you losing your touch, Sorcery Hacker?”

Inexplicably, the purple-haired beauty was seated on the stool meant for the school doctor. She wore a short-sleeved gym shirt and athletic bloomers with her long legs crossed. To make matters worse, she was also wearing thigh highs.

Her curves continued to keep her from making a very convincing student.

“What, are you passing yourself off as part of the Health Committee?”

“No, the Rescue Squad. There is a difference. It is apparently a collection of dimwits who think they can head out to the beach and mountains and enjoy a picnic if they claim they are working as lifeguards or a mountain rescue team.”

“I see.”

“Now, is this really a meaningful action?”

She breathed an exasperated sigh.

The next time Ayato blinked, she was gone. He only saw a purple butterfly silently fluttering out through the cracked-open door.

Mamilis puffed her cheeks out.

“We’re helping someone, so of course it’s meaningful. Maybe I should have shut the door to trap that mean butterfly in here.”

“If Micha wants to, she can easily obliterate an entire company of troops in a single volley, so I would recommend not threatening her. She lacks any adorable flaws like taking a long time to establish a lock or being open to attack while reloading her belt ammo or swapping out an overheated barrel. Anyway, we need to focus on this girl.”

He laid the girl on one of the beds in the back and shut the curtain divider.

The infirmary had both the usual steam-powered floor heating and a cylindrical stove that appeared to be someone’s personal possession. A wire mesh was placed atop the stove.

Ayato held a hand to his chin.

“There must be some rice cakes hidden around here. But where?”

“Ayato, isn’t it a bit early for snacks?”

It was time to get down to business.

Henrietta had once worked on the side of law enforcement (and she would be angry to hear anyone act like that was a thing of the past), so she got started while leaning back against metal shelves of medicines extracted from mandrakes and aloes using witchcraft.

It sounded silly, but she had to say something about the presence of so many witnesses and pursuers.

“Isn’t it a problem that so many people know your name, even if their image of you isn’t entirely accurate? I feel like someone could gather up all that witness information and narrow in on our location.”

“It’s all in how you do it. For my, well, fans who have only their imaginations to go on, they might not recognize the legendary Forward even if I walked right in front of them. Or I could point to an attractive guy with the looks of a stage actor and say he’s me.”

“Can you really do that, Ayato?”

“Rewriting your own identity is a standard form of sorcery hacking. Mostly because it’s funny.”

The glasses girl had only matched Ayato’s face to his name because Teleria had been using his real name in the dining hall. It hadn’t gotten through to her that they were in enemy territory.

So if he played his cards right, it would not be difficult to separate his face from his name.

He could even spread a rumor that he was dead or get everyone to believe some poor ignorant student was him infiltrating the school under a fake name after getting cosmetic surgery.

He chose not to because there was always a chance that ignorant student could be killed by accident during a surprise attack before the Student Council realized the information was fake.

Ayato himself had killed a friend on a job based on intentionally altered information. He knew how it felt, so he would never do that to someone else. Rewriting his own identity was amusing, but not so with rewriting someone else’s.

He smiled and raised a finger while making sure no one else around could hear.

“So we needn’t worry about that for a while longer. There is no need to suspect the students around us. In fact, they might even help us.”

“?”

“Do you remember what Micha Angelos said while making such an unconvincing student? A Sorcery Hacker’s job is to make use of every person and thing around to overwhelm the enemy. I am willing to consider everything as a possibility. A lot of students and teachers here have unusual skills and qualifications.”

Some time had passed since then, so it was already afterschool.

With the periodic bell no longer sounding, a lonely mood snuck up on them. The students were supposed to be free to do as they wished and the place was technically more full of activity than before, but the entire tower felt so much more dark and desolate. That may have been another unique feature of a school.

The braid glasses girl still hadn’t woken, so Ayato’s group left her with a flat-chested Health Committee girl who had shown up once her classes were over. Once they left the infirmary, they each had their own job to do. As a professional fighter, Henrietta was sent on ahead to scout things out and see if the Student Council had noticed the new mobile home Ayato had swapped the records for. Teleria and Mamilis worked together to recover the sorcery devices that had taken the measurements they needed. They couldn’t read the data inside without Ayato’s sword, but the devices had been rendered harmless by the Sorcery Hacker and the two girls were enough to collect them.

Meanwhile, Ayato took care of his own job.

“Hm, hm, hm, hm.”

He hummed to himself while he stabbed his Linkage Plug sword into a line marker and sprinkler on the schoolyard to build his Level up a bit more. That wasn’t really part of his plan. It was just a Sorcery Hacker habit, like a dog marking its territory while out on a walk.

The Academy Towers were not a monolith, so he had chosen to contact some students who lived in the shadows and did not get along with the elite Student Council at the very top.

It was now closer to evening than afternoon.

He arrived at a clubroom located in an unused classroom on the lower levels of the gem tower.

Ayato had cheated the system enough to swap his registration from his sorcery gun to his Linkage Plug, but why could he get in here when he was not authorized to use the gem tower? Because this was on Floor 1, the very bottom level that anyone could use. It didn’t even qualify as part of the Grade I zone.

He opened the door without knocking and spoke with cheer in his voice.

“Hello, you niche hobbyists of the Rocket Club. Your ace, Ayato Criminaltrophy, has returned.”

“I know who you are,” quietly replied a hunched over boy with a sidelong glance.

The room was dimly lit.

Model stars and pressurized space armor hung from the ceiling by thin wires and lots of oblong models littered the floor. Every bit of the walls was covered in metal shelves and sorcery calculators. A large metal can with the top removed sat in one corner with lots of rolled up diagrams inserted inside it like umbrellas. The beakers and flasks lying around suggested the boy may have even mixed his own fuel in the small room. Some snacks and chocolates lay abandoned on paper plates on the floor. The tags on the edges of the plates identified them as Space Food Experiments #25 and #26.

The place was a mess.

Some of the towers were as tall as 101 floors, but this junk room was at the very bottom of the bottom. But that had nothing to do with the skill of its occupant. The Rocket Club had been stripped of its official standing and forced onto the bottom floor because it had adamantly refused to make a deal with the Student Council to develop military ballistic missile technology in exchange for funding.

The boy’s skill was very real and he had been given an honorable demotion.

The perfect candidate for a rebellion.

The indoorsy blond boy didn’t even get up from his chair.

“Have you forgotten whose club’s equipment and texts you dug up and stole when you threw out your devil revolver and chose the path of the Sorcery Hacker?”

“It’s not like you were ever going to use them. And since you did once try to become a Sorcery Hacker, you should know I am working on something in secret right now. But how much have you unearthed?”

“That it isn’t just Teleria anymore. You have more girls now.”

Ayato shrugged.

Even if this boy had been Ayato’s starting point in sorcery hacking, that was the extent of his skills there. He hadn’t even noticed the more dangerous aspects of what was going on. Ayato had only wanted some basic equipment as quickly as possible and hadn’t wanted the boy to teach him anything. Because Ayato’s overall skill had been far higher to begin with.

However…

“That butterfly woman was pretty hot. Who’s she? A Central maid?”

The boy was uncannily skilled in one very limited field. It was unlikely even the Student Council had noticed Micha Angelos and Micha herself was unaware she had been detected. The short boy was the kind of genius who didn’t let it show. He was only interested in getting to know girls who would make up for his deficiencies. Even the rocket development was only something he hoped would make him popular. He was self-taught and his motivations were so abnormally focused that he couldn’t use his skills for anything else.

Ayato grinned.

“I’m picking a fight with the wealthy Student Council who rules over the sunlit world. For that I want to launch myself right to the Student Council Office at the top of the gem tower, skipping all the annoying security colosseums separating the grade zones and the gatekeepers set up on the walkways between towers. That should be an appealing idea for you. I want your Rocket Club’s help.”

“Not happening. It’s true I can’t stand the Council for setting aside dreams and ethics so they can focus exclusively on their own benefit, but that’s no reason to work with you. If you ask me, you’re not that different from them for going after even more girls when you already have Teleria all to yourself. Your life shines so bright it’s pissing me off.”

“Hey, hey. Let’s not say anything we’ll regret later. We’re pals, aren’t we?”

“?”

The room’s resident looked up in confusion as Ayato leaned in and whispered in his ear.

“(That large fridge by the wall is open to anyone, but very few people know how it actually works. This week’s passcode for its extra space is 5503.)”

“!?”

“(You at least had the sense to change your hiding spot since I left, but did you really think I wouldn’t find it? We live in an accepting society, so I’m sure everyone would accept your crossdressing as a simple hobby. But that opinion might change just a wee bit if they learned it only satisfied you when you dressed up in uniforms and underwear you stole from girls.)”

“Wh-wha- but- I- eh!?”

The boy wasn’t just confused how his hiding spot had been discovered. He was panicking over the very fact that Ayato knew about this particular “hobby” at all.

Ethics regarding advanced technology and your own rules regarding personal interests were two very different things.

“You should have noticed from the moment I walked in without knocking. How do you think I unlocked the door? I already have complete control of this entire room.” Ayato smiled and continued. It was a very pleasant demonic smile. “And the only reason I didn’t bring my less understanding companions like Miss Teleria and Miss Henrietta is because we’re friends. Or has my memory gotten fuzzy in my time away from school? Maybe I was mistaken about that, so I would like to confirm it with you. It is a simple thing. Just nod your head.”

“…”

“We are best buds, aren’t we? If so, we can avoid tragedy here.”

They exchanged a firm handshake.

Revealing illicitly-obtained Media Summoner videos was not the only method available to Sorcery Hackers. Some secrets were more useful to hold onto without releasing them.

The short boy with his Achilles heel firmly in Ayato’s grasp put on the biggest smile of his life.

“So what do I need to do for you to forgive me!?”

“If forgiveness is what you want, then gather up all the uniforms and underwear you have stolen and make a full confession at the Student Guidance office, but I am not interested in that. I will provide you with your instructions when the time comes. You want to get to know girls who will make up for your deficiencies? I will be turning a blind eye to your horrendous personality and simply borrowing your Rocket Club technology.”

“Go to hell, you asshole!!”

“Oh, and lend me that prototype impactor just lying on the floor there. Isn’t that a dangerous toy that can theoretically fly 25,000 esoule during a count of three when the speed of the satellite itself is included? You shouldn’t just leave that out in the open. Goodbye for now.”

Part 5

It was already evening by the time the two boys had reconfirmed their friendship and Ayato left the tower.

Night came early in the mountains. It would be fully dark out if he took much longer.

The cold hurt his ears.

Seeing his breath tempted him to buy a meat-filled steamed bun or a frankfurter from the butterfly delivery service, but it was nearly dinnertime. He decided to wait.

When he returned to the mobile home they were using for the night, Teleria was preparing dinner. Henrietta was maintaining her sorcery gun. Could she not just relax on the sofa without making sure she was also preparing for battle in some way?

Evening was turning to night.

However, the Academy Towers’ mountainous locale meant the sun set sooner than in a flat area. The mountains surrounding them hid the sun as it sank.

“Now, then.”

Ayato Criminaltrophy sighed. He detected a mouthwatering aroma coming from the kitchen of the boxy mobile home, but he had something he wanted to deal with before Teleria finished her cooking in her aproned newlywed wife mode.

He had been fortunate to get everything arranged with the Rocket Club in secret, but he wanted even more assurance. Smooth sailing wasn’t enough when dealing with that Student Council President.

So…

“Miss Henrietta.”

“What do you want, dangerous individual?”

He only called her name, but the straitlaced Striker responded with her voice pitched lower than when she spoke to anyone else. She placed her bolt-action carbine on the table, crossed her arms, and stared motionlessly at him. It was the same look she would give a suspected criminal.

He didn’t bother correcting her since that wasn’t entirely inaccurate, so he instead smiled and made a suggestion.

“Would you mind helping me with something?”

“Why me?”

“I could ask Miss Teleria or Miss Mamilis, but it will likely involve physical risk. You have been in your fair share of fights, so you seemed like the best candidate.”

His reasoning completely threw out the concept of ladies first, but Henrietta only snorted with her arms still crossed. It was a proud snort.

“So I was the first to come to mind when you were in trouble?”

“Precisely.”

“Very well. I won’t make my decision until I hear what it is you want, but I can at least give you some advice.”

When Mamilis snuck into the kitchen to bravely try and grab some food early and ended up arguing with Teleria, Ayato and Henrietta slipped out of the mobile home.

They walked across the twilit schoolyard and Ayato summed up what he needed.

“I need to reach the Student Council Office.”

“I am aware. That’s the entire reason we are searching around for a shortcut to the top floor of that tower.”

“That should be enough to reach the top floor, but that isn’t the end of it. How do we open the office’s locked door? That fortress was created by a Sorcery Hacker, so it is sure to have some defenses.”

“Mh.”

“Screw that up and we will be stuck in the hallway. And in the worst case, we could run into the Council and need to unlock it in the middle of a magical battle. Having to wait for a count of three in front of the door would be a failure, so I need to know as much as possible about the locking mechanism beforehand. Even the privileged Council is using Academy Towers facilities, so the designs and mechanisms will have been submitted to the school and stored somewhere that ordinary people could never find them.”

“Where exactly is that?”

“The Sorcery Library. Specifically in the closed stack archive in the very back.”

Henrietta’s spine straightened. A tremor may have run through her within her armor. A warrior’s tremor in anticipation of battle.

The Sorcery Hacker winked.

“That devilish place is piled high with physical sorcery grimoires and scrolls from a time before the proliferation of sorcery guns. They are valuable research documents, but they also bring great risk. Miss Henrietta, are you interested in real demons? Not the broader category people usually refer to, but the actual species known as demons or devils? Rumor has it that room undergoes spatial distortions depending on the phase of the moon and the weather conditions.”

“Real demons?”

“On the other hand, maybe it’s not worth worrying about. I mean, we have already met and spoken with Demon Lord Nirvelphany who reins at the very top of all demons – for both the broader and narrower definitions of the word.”

“…”

“This is risky enough I did not want to get Miss Teleria and Miss Mamilis involved.” He flicked the thick armor covering her chest. “The problem is the Sorcery Library is located near the center of the Academy Towers. Unlike before, you would stand out like a sore thumb dressed like this. We need to get in and out undetected, so as much as I hate asking this after already asking for your help, I would like for you to change before we start. You will need to wear an outfit more fitting of a wicked sorcery grimoire.”

“I see. You mean that blazer thing that Teleria wears? I don’t like losing the buffs of my armor, but what’s necessary is necessary.”

“Oh, no, no.” Ayato wagged his index finger. “We are interested in the closed stack archive where real demons lurk. That area is off limits even to ordinary students. I need to focus on unlocking it, so you can handle the viewing for me. Thus, you need to wear a specialized outfit more suitable for that old-fashioned sort of magic.”

“Fair enough. That pretty uniform would seem out of place in a demonic witch’s ceremony. I would expect something darker and gloomier.”

“Precisely. I will prepare the outfit for you. But listen, Miss Henrietta. We must not be detected, but we will not be sneaking from shadow to shadow. Viewing these grimoires is a fairly taboo thing even for the sorcery students here. They will subconsciously look the other way, so they should not notice who you are unless you do something extremely unusual.”

“Really?”

Their destination was on Floor 32 of the mana tower, meaning Ayato had access.

Schools felt very different at night. Henrietta had never experienced that before, so she would likely be taken aback by the unique darkness of a school at night.

Ayato Criminaltrophy was accustomed to the icy darkness, so he pointed his thumb back toward the slice of warmth found at the mobile home and prepared to challenge the pitch dark realm to which he belonged.

“I have just this one last job for you, Miss Henrietta. Let’s get this out of the way so we can wholeheartedly enjoy Miss Teleria’s delicious cooking.”

Night had already fallen. Preparations had taken more time than expected, but he had to accept that as a necessary delay.

The air around them felt stagnant.

The lights were kept dim to avoid harming the books. And these were mana lights that did not use fire.

The floor was covered in thin carpet. Reading desks were lined up with a forest of amber wooden bookcases further back. Floor 32 had no classrooms because the entire floor was taken up by the library, but this still felt too large. Maybe it was the dim lighting, but the forest of bookcases continued back far enough that the viewer imaged it continued until the horizon.

This was one of the few relatively lively places in the school’s otherwise dead night.

The tense atmosphere felt like an outward sign of the students’ fearful respect for the forbidden knowledge contained here.

But they also sought out this solemnly silent time so they could cram as much of that knowledge into their heads as they could. Needless to say, this breathless work was so they could qualify for an advanced occupation like alchemist or summoner.

Meanwhile…

“Dangerous individual,” groaned Henrietta Split Destrius.

A whispering stir surrounded her. Even an outsider like her could tell this was unusual for the silent Sorcery Library.

Every eye was focused on the straitlaced Striker.

The invisible pressure was too great for her, so she held her arms around herself and twisted her body, producing the creak of thick leather.

Yes.

Of black leather.

Sorcery Hacker Ayato Criminaltrophy chuckled.

“(This really does look perfect on you, Miss Henrietta. There is nothing quite like caped grim reaper bondage when engaged in a magical ceremony seeking knowledge beyond the bounds of good and evil.)”

“(You tricked me!! Everyone else here is wearing those blazer uniforms like all the other students!! I clearly don’t fit into this studious atmosphere!!!!!!)”

Henrietta finally started blushing and covering up with her hands while tears wet her eyes. The cape was tattered and did next to nothing to cover her up. In fact, trying to pull the holey fabric around herself resulted in something like the “bubble censor” used to make Media Summoner swimsuit photos look naked.

“(Like I said, you can handle the viewing for me.)”

“(You meant they would be viewing me!?)”

Unfortunately for her, she had changed outside the library, so her armor was back in an unused classroom’s locker.

The grim reaper-style leather bondage was something Ayato had borrowed from the Drama Club’s costume room. So unlike Umihiko’s Linkage Plug, the distinctive large scythe she held was quite flimsy. Unlike a dress, the shiny leather costume’s size could be adjusted with the belt holes, so her large measurements had not prevented her from wearing it.

But only just barely.

It was digging tightly into her flesh here and there.

She gave off an extra-strong eroticism that shattered the solemn atmosphere created by the diligent students working in the library at night. It was like placing a bottle of highly artificial air freshener in the middle of an untouched snowy field. She had shrunk down so much he almost felt bad.

“(Wh-wh-wh-why would you do this!?)”

“(Because Miss Teleria would actually cry and Miss Mamilis is so pure she would probably go through with it without ever questioning it. A joke like this only really works with someone as tough as you, Miss Henrietta.)”

“(A-a joke!? That’s what you said, isn’t it!? Is that really the only reason you did this, dangerous individual!?)”

“Oh. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.”

A blatantly flustered voice reached them from the side. They looked over to see a blonde braid girl (presumably from the Library Committee that managed the entire Sorcery Library) rushing over to Henrietta with her face blushing bright and her eyes spinning.

In fact, this was the glasses girl who was a big Ayato fan.

“Um, wait. What is going on here? Are you filming something!?”

“What are you suggesting we are filming!?” protested Henrietta.

“Fweeet!! I-I can’t permit you to use our school to make your, uh, product seem even more immoral. Please come with me before the librarian shows up. I really will get mad too if you don’t!!”

The straitlaced Striker was completely taken aback when the girl blew a warning whistle at her.

It was unusual for abnormally strong Henrietta to be dragged away by the arm like that. She was the type to always obey the rules, so it may have come as a shock that she had broken them without realizing it. She was powerless now and it had nothing to do with her lack of armor.

Meanwhile, Ayato had completely vanished.

Technically, he had climbed over the checkout counter, faced the door in the back, and used his Linkage Plug sword to unlock it.

Doing that had required keeping the librarian, Library Committee member, and all the students using the library focused on something other than the checkout counter. The counter was right next to the library’s entrance, so there was almost always someone looking there. And not even the most skilled Sorcery Hacker could fool people’s eyes.

He only needed to buy himself about 10 multi-times inside.

(Nothing gathers people’s attention faster than sex.)

Ayato smiled bitterly as he silently opened the door and slipped inside. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the musty smells of bare parchment and glue holding paper together. This place was so different from the lines of invisible mist mana or gemboards that could be used to create so many different sorcery phenomena.

He was inside the closed stack archive.

You normally had to ask a Library Committee member or the librarian for a document and have them retrieve it for you. This was an off-limits area that required a special library ID separate from the usual authorization needed in the already eccentric Academy Towers.

It was a small room compared to the entire library. Bookcases covered the walls of a space no larger than a classroom and a single thick wooden table sat in the center. Instead of a reading table, that was a work table for repairing damaged covers and loose pages. A few toolboxes and sewing machines could be seen below the table.

(Now, then.)

He wanted plans and specifications for the Student Council Office door and its lock. He could use as much as he could get, but he didn’t have high hopes. He was expecting to find bogus documents that only looked right at first glance.

However…

(Even false information can function as bait. The Council will note anyone investigating their room’s lock and add them to their enemy list. You don’t get their kind of power without being cautious.)

“Here we go.”

Ayato grinned when he saw a bookcase stuffed full of old, thick tomes. The books looked ordinary enough, but they had bookmark sensors in the gaps between their thick covers. Those would detect vibrations, tilting, and light, so if someone removed a book from that bookcase, set it on the able, and opened the cover, their face would be photographed and transmitted to the Student Council Office. The poor rebel would have no idea they had been duped by the decoy data and end up the only one with devastating information taken.

Sneaking into the closed stack archive without permission was a yellow card.

Grabbing a book containing information on the Student Council Office’s lock was a red card.

And what if they tried to hide that information instead of confessing to the Council?

That would be like a violent athlete refusing to obey the ref kicking them out of the game. The Council would never accept such a flagrant violation as a mere coincidence.

Instead of touching those, Ayato stabbed his Linkage Plug sword into the spine of a book and hacked it for himself.

That book had an unofficial line back to the Student Council Office.

However, there were several thick barriers in the way and he couldn’t peer through a sorcery lens to view the inside of that secret room. Nor did he think he could break through those barriers.

He only needed to know which barriers were being used.

“The Water of Sulfur and the Wind of Mercury. No, that combination is bait. The real one is the Earth of Salt hidden in the duplicated portion.”

If you knew where to look, data could be acquired almost anywhere. Ayato pulled his Linkage Plug sword back out. He didn’t want to leave any sign of his presence and have his enemy alter their defenses.

The great size and complexity could obscure it, but sorcery security using the four elements was a lot like a crossword puzzle. If you could fill in the empty spaces, then anyone could break through. That was why people would randomize the password as much as they could or increase the difficulty of the puzzle by using fingerprints or eye scans that other people could not access. But none of that was an absolute guarantee.

The Water of Sulfur and the Wind of Mercury were incorrect.

The Earth of Salt was correct.

With that much of a hint, he wouldn’t have much trouble solving the puzzle. No matter how complex it was, he just had to go trough the process of filling in the crossword. And two security systems made by the same person would have similarities. This would be enough for him to deal with the Student Council Office door.

This had to be right.

At the very least, his logic had to be sound.

However, Ayato felt one nagging doubt about his logic here.

(He is better than me. He is probably the Static Continent’s greatest Sorcery Hacker. Would he really follow the standard logic like that?)

He heard a heavy thud and looked back to see something on the work table that hadn’t been there before.

A giant revolver shined with a dull silver light.

“…”

He had no more business in the closed stack archive.

He sheathed his Linkage Plug sword and faced the door, leaving the large sorcery gun behind.

He left the closed stack archive and climbed back over the checkout counter. The library’s exit was right next to him now, but a heavy sensation struck his shoulder before he could slip out.

He turned to find Henrietta with her face beet red.

The Striker was trying (in vain) to cover up her body and she had tears in her eyes.

“You were about to just leave me here, weren’t you!? You were going to abandon me while I’m dressed like this!!”

“Ah ha ha. For future reference, how did you manage to convince that Library Committee girl that your sexy outfit wasn’t anything inappropriate? If she used that fact that you are both girls to drag you into another room and performed a very detailed body search, she should have discovered you lack a student ID and are thus a very dangerous individual indeed.”

“~ ~ ~!!!??? I-I’m not stupid! I knew not to tell her the truth. You were using me as bait to search that other room, weren’t you? So I slipped away when the girl had stepped out for a moment. But let me be very clear about one thing: the next time she catches me, I am telling her everything!!”

“What a shame. I was really hoping to leave the library ahead of you, retrieve your armor from that locker, and hide it elsewhere. Then I could have hidden nearby and enjoyed watching a very sexy grim reaper wander around the school at night.”

“Will you not rest until I’m in tears!!!???”

Part 6

They returned to find Teleria’s cooking was just reaching its climax.

Their timing had been impeccable.

It was already dark out and there were stars in the sky. The mountain nights were frigid, so Ayato let the warmth of the heated mobile home soak into his heart.

However…

“Ah!”

He heard a shout of surprise from the bathroom.

He looked over to see Mamilis running out with only a towel wrapped around her wet brown skin.

“C-C-C-Coach! Emergency, emergency!!”

“What’s this, Miss Mamilis? I wasn’t expecting a surprise like this until my birthday.”

“You aren’t getting any indecent surprises on your birthday either!!” Henrietta covered his eyes and then turned to the dark elf. “So what is this emergency!?”

The far too defenseless grandma’s girl shivered while holding her body. She was tall, so her brown legs were very noticeable sticking out from the bottom of the towel.

“Th-there’s no hot water when I turned the red faucet.”

“Oh, that. We’re only borrowing an empty place, so the maintenance probably isn’t up to date. I bet I can fix it if I mess with it a bit.”

“But I’m cold now.”

“Here, Miss Mamilis. This is called a washtub. The kitchen appears to have hot water, so you can fill it up there.”

Shortly thereafter, Teleria yelled “why aren’t you wearing any clothes!?” from the kitchen. Towel-clad Mamilis ended up placing the filled washtub in a corner of the kitchen, sitting down inside, and holding her knees between her arms. The warm water must have been nice because her long ears twitched happily. After soaking up the water, her towel clung to her skin.

“(Hm, I feel like the winning move for me is to claim I can’t fix the bath after all.)”

“I will be keeping my eye on you while you work on that, dangerous individual.”

He ended up working in the bath with a bayonet-equipped sorcery gun jammed against his back. He felt like a prisoner forced to defuse a landmine and suspected this violated some kind of war treaty.

“Miss Henrietta, what do you think Miss Mamilis washes first in the bath? Her hands and feet, her chest, or maybe her long ears?”

“Does imagining such things help you fix the bath in any way, shape, or form?”

Meanwhile, an argument broke out in the kitchen. While warming herself in the washbasin, Mamilis had noticed the night’s menu.

“But I said I wanted to do a cookout.”

“We can’t do that, Mamilis. We went to all this trouble to hide ourselves, so we can’t risk spending a long time outside with a fire lit, right? And a fire would stand out even more at night. Now it’s time to eat, so come to the table.”

“Hmph!”

The silver-haired grandma’s girl puffed out her cheeks in only a towel, but she still ate the white stew served to her at the table without too much complaint. However she felt about it, she could not fight the allure of food. In a way, that proved Teleria’s skill more than anything. The fluffy blonde cook removed her apron and started eating as well.

“Ayato, I gathered all of the sorcery devices you had taking measurements. You can extract their data in the next room.”

“I appreciate it.” The black-haired boy absentmindedly thanked her. “Now, Miss Mamilis. You might be interested to know the mobile home’s stove is simple enough that it can be removed and operated independently. That means we could place it in the center of the table and cook skewers on it. You could even place your own skewers on the makeshift grill yourself.”

“What!? Now you tell me, Coach!!”

“That would fill the room with smoke and leave a smell!” protested sensible Teleria, but the dark elf’s enthusiasm was more powerful. They were only borrowing this mobile home after falsifying the records and it was one of hundreds of thousands at the bottom of the towers. It might not be very nice, but since they planned to move hideouts fairly frequently, they didn’t have to worry much about cleaning up.

The brown girl hopped excitedly around so much that her wet towel nearly came loose, so Ayato made sure to give one word of warning.

“Just make sure to open a window for ventilation.”

“I will. I love you, Coach!!”

What a small price this was to pay for the towel girl’s love.

The fridge might not have the right meat and veggies for grilling, but they could always order more with the butterfly delivery service. The service used your location data, but the user information was easily altered for a Sorcery Hacker.

Autonomous sorcery devices actually borrowed a portion of their managers’ subconscious mind, but as long as those managers never noticed anything amiss, they would never consciously notice what Ayato’s group was doing.

Ayato put in an order and a sorcery device carrying a cooler larger than a birthday cake soon flew in through the small window.

“Heh heh. It is nice being able to order butterflies around with the tap of a finger. I would love to see haughty Micha Angelos’s face right about now.”

“Coach, do you like subservient maids?”

His joke received an honest response from the dark elf. The wicked Sorcery Hacker had to avert his gaze from the extreme grandma’s girl.

“Is that why you like Teleria so much?”

“I am not a hired maid! Geez, I show you a moment’s kindness and you all start shoving the housework onto me.”

“But if we do help, you complain that we didn’t move the kitchen equipment back to its best position or that we didn’t completely dry the dishes. The kitchen is your territory.”

Ayato listened to Mamilis and Teleria’s argument while he poured his white stew into a large mug. He sipped on that while moving to the sorcery devices in the next room. Teleria’s cooking was as tasty as ever. It was an engineer’s habit to find a way to convert any food into something you could consume while working.

He stabbed his Linkage Plug sword into each device and flicked the Crystal Tarot floating in the air.

There was a lot of data and the measurement results were all incomprehensible strings of numbers, but a completely different image would form if he threw it all in a single box and reorganized it.

He transferred the data to the room’s spherical Media Summoner and it displayed an accurate miniature model of the Academy Towers.

Henrietta sat up straight and made sure not to make too much noise when her utensils hit the bottom of the dish, so she could not stand the rude way Ayato left the table and wandered from room to room with mug in hand.

“Are those the measurement results?” she asked.

“Yes, and I have noticed a few discrepancies with the officially released data. There are reversals and slippery areas that would make you fall if you tried to climb the exterior walls based on the official data.”

However, comparing the two maps was not enough to fully identify the Student Council’s secret base. They would not be as easily outdone as that (stolen) uniform fetishist.

“Have you found a route to the top of the gem tower?”

After Teleria chopped up the meat, corn, paprika, and king trumpet mushrooms brought by the butterfly delivery service, she heated the vegetables in the microwave. Meat and vegetables cooked differently, so grilling them both on the same skewer would end up with either the meat burnt or the veggies underdone. That was why you needed to partially cook or boil them beforehand. She was as thoughtful a wife as ever. Ayato wanted to marry her as soon as possible.

Mamilis licked her lips, selected the choicest items, and placed them on her skewer. All while humming.

“You can take care of all that complicated stuff, Coach. There, my big meat special is ready for cooking!”

“I am glad you trust me, but do not leave everything with me. That road leads to dependance. This is part of your training as a Forward, Miss Mamilis, so brainstorm with me. And I know meat is delicious, but make sure to include at least three vegetables on each skewer. Think of it as a tax to Teleria for letting you do this.”

“Then I’ll go with the squash. Oh, and some carrot!”

Teleria smiled as the dark elf excitedly customized her skewer. The initial choice of white stew had probably been a way of getting her to eat her vegetables without complaint.

“I have contacted the Rocket Club. Their help expands our options considerably. Because it gives us a large rocket capable of escaping gravity.”

“Like a ballistic missile?”

Mamilis simply looked confused by the word “rocket”, but Henrietta immediately converted it into another term. She was a Striker who defended the sky city after all. That may have been one of the possible attack methods they had discussed.

In order to prepare her stomach before moving from the white stew to the skewers, Henrietta reached her fork toward a warm vegetable salad she had prepared without dressing.

“Do the Academy Towers ever stop being dangerous? But in that case, why even bother learning the structure of the towers? We can just fly on up to the roof. That might be past the Grade S zone, but we only need to descend one floor from the roof to reach the Student Council Office. I would be more worried about how we leave then how we reach our destination.”

“But would it actually work out quite so well? We can’t just build a big launchpad on the surface when there isn’t a cultural festival going on. The Council would notice before we finished.”

“Are you saying it would go unnoticed during whatever a cultural festival is?”

“It is one of the continent’s most bizarre festivals where pretty much anything goes. If a rocket is going to surprise you, you aren’t ready for the Academy Towers.” Ayato tapped the clear orb with his finger. “Also, the real problem is the walkways.”

“Why?”

“Miss Henrietta, these looked unusual to you from a city defense perspective, didn’t they? They connect the towers at inconsistent heights, creating something like a ridiculous ghost leg lottery. Even though following a set rule, like every tower is connected by a horizontal walkway at Floor 25, would make it easier for security to monitor the flow of people. If the walkways were all at even 10-floor intervals, their security could even be handled by the security colosseums, cutting back on costs.”

“Yes, that would create a vertical version of several main roads with intersecting side roads. The more uniform the urban layout, the easier it is to patrol and set up checkpoints. Are you saying the Academy Towers have a logical reason to not do that?”

“It is very intentional. That and the inconsistent height of the towers disturb the unseen air currents covering the entire area,” explained Ayato. “The winds can be hard to predict around any tall structure such as a lighthouse or a belltower, but these have the walkways artificially added on. Launch an aircraft vertically without accounting for that and it will veer off course or lose control altogether. You could think of it as an invisible labyrinth set up outside the towers. Board a rocket without solving that and we will likely either crash into a tower or the mountains.”

“Hm. So searching out a rocket or another means of flight would be a waste of effort. And I was thinking we could search out one of the miniature wyverns that escaped into the mountains and try taming it for our use. Are you saying we need even more information to solve this wind labyrinth if we want to take an aerial shortcut to the top of the tower? Since there are flying sorcery devices carrying those delivery boxes, there must be some way through.”

“…”

Ayato held a hand to his slender chin instead of answering.

He only spoke again after a few moments of thought.

“This is much like a crossword puzzle. We do not need all the answers at once. We can start with what we do know. First, climbing the exterior walls is not possible. There are traps not shown on the official diagram and a person or a sorcery device could be lying in wait to send us plummeting to our doom. We know there are reversals and slippery areas to affect our grip, but there could be ways of removing ropes or ladders. Using tools would not be enough to solve that.”

Ayato raised one and then two fingers.

“I also do not recommend trying to fool the security system so we can use the stairs or elevator inside the tower. There are a total of 10 security colosseums at the boundaries between the grade zones on the way up. Each of those contains a large sorcery device gatekeeper, each of which would make a challenging foe. Our exhaustion and the risk of injury goes up each time, so we would be out of stamina by the time we reached the top and probability would eventually get the better of us. It isn’t even a matter of skill or strength. Assume that climbing the tower that way would be more difficult than winning ten rounds of rock-paper-scissors in a row. Without draws.”

“Munch, munch. So inside and outside are both out? Then aren’t we out of ways to get up there, Coach?”

“You yourself rejected the idea of using a flying machine, dangerous individual. Don’t tell me you hope to force your way through those problems with this rocket you have prepared for us. That sounds awfully risky to me.”

They were mercilessly shooting down every idea, but Ayato smiled.

Having someone else around to provide external stimuli really did help inspire him. The hint had been there in front of him all along.

He looked to the food on the table that Teleria had made and Mamilis and Henrietta were happily eating.

“By the way, Miss Henrietta. Didn’t you say before that the standard way to attack an elevated stronghold is to cut off their supply line and starve them out?”

“And you said it wasn’t possible.”

“But who is supporting this pleasant lifestyle and how? Things get nicer the higher you go, but I seriously doubt the privileged members of the Council are heading out every morning to draw water from the well and lugging it up to the top floor. Even the elevators only go up ten floors each. Do you think those sparkling elites pass through each of the security colosseums while carrying a backbreaking load?”

He had his plan mostly formulated now.

He let out a slow breath and organized his thoughts. He lined up several ideas in parallel, compared the cards in his hand, and tested to see where the correct answer was hidden.

He had a clear image now.

But he wanted 100% certainty since he was going to be involving Teleria and the others. Those girls weren’t joining him because of money or a contract – they were doing it out of trust. That was an invaluable treasure to a filthy Sorcery Hacker who could never rid himself of his suspicions no matter how many times he double checked something.

“I just need one more piece,” muttered the black-haired boy.

Part 7

“Ahh, ah ha ha, whoa, whoa, whoa, gwah, gwah, ohhhhhhhh!”

“Coach, what do we do? Something is wrong with Henrietta.”

“That is a massage chair. It must have been too powerful for Miss Straitlaced. I imagine she isn’t used to having her body touched at all. And I know you have your hands full with this new experience, Miss Striker, but could you maybe sound a little cuter when you scream?”

Even late at night, the mobile home’s lights were still on and its occupants were anything but restful.

Only Teleria was viewing it from the outside.

She had pretended to be bathing and snuck out through the bath window.

She breathed a heavy sigh colored white by the cold and turned her back on the warm light.

There were people out even at night.

More than she had expected. No matter how fierce the Student Guidance teachers’ threats, they could not completely stop the sensitive sorcery students from heading out at night. Was that Manga Club girl out for a late-night tryst? She looked plain, but Teleria knew the rumors that the crazy love stories she wrote were all autobiographical. Teleria was shocked to see a girl from the Rhythmic Gymnastics Team running around nude with her arms spread wide, but that wasn’t actually all that unusual at the Academy Towers. She was a promising new athlete, so she had to be under a lot of pressure. She seemed to be enjoying herself, so Teleria decided to leave her be.

The school towers were hotbeds for mysterious stories late at night, but the open schoolground was very different. The unnatural chaos was a lot like a park at night.

And Teleria was setting foot into that disordered world herself.

Without telling any of the others.

The fluffy blonde girl walked between rows of identical mobile homes. She briefly hid long enough for a noisy group to pass by at one point. All their special equipment told her they were the Paranormal Investigation Club.

She couldn’t let them see her out here.

She held her breath until they were gone and then resumed walking until she finally arrived in a dark area void of all artificial light. The place would be far from deserted during the day because it was an open plaza.

Someone was waiting for her there.

He smiled at her from the edge of the circular fountain.

“You’re late.”

“Sorry,” she reluctantly replied, bowing.

He was a boy in glasses. He was wearing the same blazer uniform, but he felt very different from Ayato.

He was Student Council President Umihiko Darkavenue.

Teleria had come here alone, knowing who would be waiting for her. Without even telling Ayato about it.

This meeting was their little secret.

Because they shared something Ayato did not.

He patted his hand on the edge of the fountain next to him.

“Please, sit with me.”

“No, thank you.”

He tilted his head.

“I said sit.”

His tone remained gentle, but his words were a piercing command.

She bit her lip, swallowed her words, and took a silent step forward. She sat next to the President like he demanded.

This may have been more of a ritual than anything. Or maybe it was a show of mercilessness akin to kicking your pet dog in the side for peeing on the floor. Either way, he was done establishing who was in charge.

“So what do you have to report?”

“…”

“I believe I already explained that I know your secret.”

“Kh.”

Teleria’s shoulders jumped.

The idea of the cornered rat biting the cat was only a fantasy. When a prey animal was truly cornered, it could only curl up and wait for the storm to pass.

Even if it knew the predator did not have a shred of goodness in his heart.

Teleria noticed a repugnant feeling like a large bug crawling on her skin. It came from her thigh. The glasses boy had placed his hand on the leg contained in her black tights.

Those tights were in fact a Mimic Option.

That sorcery tool was used for demons to hide their unique traits and live among humans.

He touched her there knowing full well she could not resist.

She felt paralyzed because there truly was nothing she could do. Even though she had two sorcery guns hidden between her wine-red skirt and her Expansion Armor.

The President seemed to be getting a tactile feel of the secret he held.

“It really shouldn’t surprise you. It was our Student Council pulling the strings behind that Laguntreat incident. We have every secret held by that island of mermaids and decursing. Not to mention that my skill as a Sorcery Hacker is much greater than Ayato’s.”

Her small hands shook as she squeezed her short skirt in her fists. She bit her lip to fight the anguish she felt, but it did nothing to change the reality before her.

He was using her secret against her, so she had no other option.

Throwing a fit and refusing to sink any further would only lead to further trouble. He had made sure there was no option available for her to escape this entirely unharmed.

She either had to give away her secret and lose it all or dirty her hands to keep her secret hidden.

She was harmed either way.

“And do not forget that any self-destructive desperation on your part would harm your friend as well.”

“Wait just a second. Um!”

She gasped looked up to see him smiling thinly at her.

“Was her name Mamilis? Did you really think that cheap junk could hide what she really is? This is the Academy Towers. That tech is several generations out of date, so it’s frankly insulting she’s even bothering to wear them. Maybe I should tear her ears off right along with those Mimic Options.”

“How could you do that to a dark elf’s ears!?”

Teleria grimaced as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

The President slowly repeated the information, still smiling.

“So she’s a dark elf, is she?”

“!!”

Screwing up her courage and standing up for what was right did nothing to change things here.

Sorcery Hackers searched out secrets and used them.

But revealing that information like the Newspaper Club was not the only way to make use of a secret.

Ironically, this was the exact same negotiating method Ayato had used earlier.

“So she’s hiding dark elf ears under there. I can think of hundreds of ways of using that information. Why not ask Ayato how much a Sorcery Hacker can do to a person with just three pieces of personal information? If you asked, I’m sure he would happily explain it for you at length.”

“Kh!!”

“This is what happens when an amateur tries to negotiate with a Sorcery Hacker. The more you try to use your head, the further you sink into the quicksand. You did this yourself. Now, do you want to place a chain around that ignorant dark elf’s neck? That route may in fact be easier for you since you have no escape yourself.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!!”

Everything was tangled together.

Each individual problem was difficult enough on its own, but they all hit her at once, tangling up like a bird’s nest.

“So tell me. What route is Ayato planning to use?”

“…”

“Mermaids are a very popular species for being a detested demon.” He grinned and whispered in her ear. “You know what happens when a demon is exposed, don’t you? Everyone likes to pretend they wouldn’t hurt a fly, but they would all laugh as they stripped off all your clothes and chained you to a bed. Once they turned you into a lab rat, they would test some truly powerful drugs on you. I doubt this pretty hair of yours would last very long.”

“But…but.”

“And what about that dark elf? They too are a popular species. Oh, and that regional knight is sure to lose her title for accepting this secret of yours and still accompanying you.”

“She doesn’t-”

“Maybe she isn’t aware of your secret, but good luck convincing the public of that. And she must know about the dark elf’s ears, yet she hasn’t told anyone about it. That alone is enough to condemn her.”

He made his points very clear.

“You see, Teleria, not everyone can live the life Ayato does. They can’t throw out their old life and accept the title of criminal just to gain freedom.”

The complaint died in her throat.

She was facing so many problems at once that they looked like an insurmountable cliff face.

“Not even Ayato can save you. You can go crying to him now, but it is much too late for that. The truth will spread far faster than he can suppress it. And once it does, not even he can change that. The public are a cruel and endlessly irresponsible bunch. They never doubt for a moment that their actions are justified. Make an enemy of the student body and you will be torn apart. Both you personally and the rest of your group.”

Simply possessing information was not enough.

Knowing how to use that information to manipulate people was a skill. Push too hard and they would grow desperate and become unpredictable. Loosen your grip too much and they would try to fight back. In that sense, this glasses boy was an expert. He kept the perfect distance to seed their imagination and gradually strangle them while they agonized over it. And he would wring out everything he could until they were too weak to move.

He made them think it was too late while also letting them think maybe there was a chance.

He had the skill needed to build that contradictory set of scales in his target’s mind.

The target would not want to eliminate the possibility of the miraculous escape they had conjured up in their head, so they would obey “for now”. While they tried very hard to ignore the fact that they were already walking through an endless labyrinth with no exit.

He could order her to do anything right now, but this scum did not forcibly take her lips or assault her on the spot because he did not want to push her to the point of desperation. He had to keep the glimmer of hope alive in her mind as she gradually sank further and further under his control. Of course, once she was used to obeying him and too exhausted to fight it any more, that restraint wouldn’t be necessary any longer.

The President knew from personal experience that people became indifferent to everything once they had been truly reduced to an empty shell.

It made everything so easy it was almost disappointing.

The girl trembling next to him now would be worn down to that point soon enough. This was like a factory conveyer belt he had already sent so many people down in the past. He would gradually chip away at her personal pride and ethics as a teenage girl until they were entirely gone. It was only a question of sooner or later.

“What route is Ayato planning to use?”

“…”

If Teleria’s secret got out, she would lose everything. Mamilis had revealed she was a dark elf to her close friends, but that would not work with most people. Once it was known she had been deceiving human society, a switch would flip inside the heartless masses and they would turn their malice in her direction.

“What route is he planning?”

“…”

Henrietta would be caught up in a scandal for knowing Mamilis’s identity. And Ayato was officially known as a sorcery criminal, no matter what the reality was. If they were captured, they would be thrown into prison based on the usual process.

“What route?”

“…”

So there was nothing she could do.

She had no choice.

The blonde girl hung her head and squeezed her eyes shut with clear drops spilling from them. She didn’t have it in her to even wipe the tears away. Doing so wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t make this boy disappear or erase the disgusting feeling of his hand rubbing her thigh.

No one would come to save her.

Teleria Nereid Aquamarine had been robbed of her will. She felt like she was being dragged around by a chain around her neck, so she bit her lip and trembled, unable to even draw her twin sorcery guns.

The strength of her jaw lessened.

And her trembling lips moved.

“He is using…a rocket.”

The mental hurdle inside her dropped another notch.

She had submitted to this boy.

Part 8

The morning practice bell heralded the morning.

“Mgh?”

“Good morning, coach. Open your eyes please. Your face does not belong there.”

A pair of voices came from the extra-large lump under the blanket. He must have done it again during his mental training he called “self-maintenance”. Mamilis, the grandma’s girl with the long twitching ears, could seem childish, but she was also a slender beauty who would let him get away with far too much. If Ayato wasn’t careful, she would spoil him. But he could at least avoid tragedy by straightening this out and getting out of bed before the arrival of Henrietta, who truly believed that external beatings could whip people into shape.

But why was Mamilis so eager to get going that morning?

“Coach, I want to do that hot yoga thing!!”

“What are you talking about now?”

“I saw it on a local Media Summoner ad. It said doing hot yoga every morning would make you healthy! And I want to be healthy.”

“Hm, could we use the bathroom as a sauna?”

A hot yoga ad seemed like the wrong thing for an extremely long-lived dark elf, so had the personality profile algorithm failed because all four of them had been using the same Media Summoner?

Ayato’s head felt heavy after ending his self-maintenance early, so he held that head in a hand as he slipped out of bed and walked through the mobile home.

“Okay, Miss Mamilis. This here is a yoga mat you can lie on safely and this Media Summoner will project examples onto the wall for you. Slowly match the poses displayed here and match your breathing to the timing it gives you. And for fun, let’s use Miss Teleria’s physical data.”

“What!? Why am I completely naked!?”

The blonde girl poked her head in after hearing her name and immediately bristled and screamed.

As for why she was naked, Ayato had used his crystal tarot cards to secretly save the measurement data taken for the formfitting aerosuit she had worn when initially infiltrating the Academy Towers.

“Phew. (At least that’s the data modified to give me legs. He must still not know about my fish tail.)”

“A sigh of relief, Miss Teleria? You mean you secretly wanted to be seen like this? I-if you had only told me, I could have given you what you wanted and then some.”

“Bfff!? O-of course not! I don’t need you developing brand new levels of perversion!!”

“Oh. Good morning, everyone. You certainly have a lot of energy first thing in the morning? What happened?”

The Striker sleepily showed up late (she may have felt more relaxed here than when living with her knight ranking family), but she still realized before the other that this had to be based on the aerosuit data and that he would thus have similar data on Mamilis and Henrietta too. Thus, Ayato was forced to spend his morning running away from a cute girl armed with a bolt-action carbine. Unfortunately, she was highly disciplined and knew how to don her armor in the blink of an eye.

“Prepare to die!! Today is the day I finally punish you for your many crimes!!”

“That flying sweat and heated breaths. Ha ha ha. Yes, no matter how far technology advances, nothing can compare to the real-life jiggling.”

Heading outside would bring it down to a pure test of leg strength, which meant Ayato was no match for Henrietta with her boost magic and armor buffs, but there were exceptions. He used obstacles to keep Henrietta from taking a direct path for too long, jumped between the roofs of the containers, and hacked nearby sorcery devices to interfere with her high speed movement. He could produce a smokescreen from water heaters and create slippery patches with sprinklers.

Henrietta’s greatest weakness was how each of her boosted actions consumed more energy than for the average person. Henrietta was not the only one to analyze her opponent’s abilities during their long time together – Ayato had done the same.

Q. You use strength boosting magic to quintuple your physical strength and try to lift a barbel you normally couldn’t lift. If you succeed, how much more stamina will you use up than normal?

Any child who had been taught multiplication could find the answer to that one.

This ability had been sufficient for short-term battles kicking down doors and quickly subduing a criminal’s hideout in the sky city with its urban infrastructure. The idea was for law enforcement to make a unliteral attack and end it before any stray shots could hit a hostage or the local residents, so if the battle lasted long enough for the criminals to make any kind of counterattack, the job qualified as a failure.

But not all battles had the same win conditions.

In some battles, the best tactic was to stall for time without letting the battle end.

“D-dammit. Pant, gasp! Why can’t I – gasp – reach this dangerous individual!?”

“We’re both giving ourselves a bit of help with magic. And I enjoy that sexy heavy breathing. Wa ha ha! Miss Henrietta, another weakness of yours is your failure to consider your skirt when your focus lapses. Red lace, though? A bold choice that would appall your classy family.”

“Th-this makes no sense. Pant, pant. These boosts do push me to my limits, but I shouldn’t run out of stamina this quickly.”

“(Okay, maybe I made some adjustments to your armor’s hidden parameters. It’s basically dead weight right now, but just think – that makes it perfect for dieting.)”

“Wait, what was that you just whispered!? Explain yourself, dangerous individual!!”

“Ah ha ha. You have nothing to worry about, Miss Henrietta. Your lusciously smooth skin wouldn’t dry up no matter how severe a diet you attempted.”

“You’re dead meat! Gah, cough, cough!! Argh!!”

Henrietta was so worn out by the end that he had to lend her his shoulder on the way back to the trailer. The close contact and soft weight from a girl warmed to the point she gave off a sweet scent made it a delightful time for Ayato.

Once their morning jog was complete, it was breakfast time.

Teleria’s skill was always impressive.

Today’s breakfast was a noodle dish that felt more like a salad. She had added plenty of cooked vegetables to some pasta lightly seasoned with a sauce made from seafood, salt, and pepper. She appeared to have learned her lesson from Mamilis’s custom breakfast yesterday. She knew they had to get moving immediately after eating, so she created a single dish that gave them all the nourishment they needed.

“Thanks as always, Miss Teleria.”

“…”

“Miss Teleria?”

“Oh, um. it’s just so unusual for you to actually thank me. Ah ha ha.”

What an awful thing to say. He was constantly singing that short but incredibly well-endowed blonde girl’s praises, calling her a goddess of flowers and such, but apparently she didn’t take any of that seriously.

Mamilis was becoming as much of a fan of Teleria’s cooking as Ayato was. She hummed happily as she took her seat.

“The journey never gets old with Teleria around. I look forward to every new day.”

“You are approaching one of the world’s great truths, Miss Mamilis. If I were forced to travel without Miss Teleria, ace of the Cooking Club, I would collapse from either malnutrition or excess sodium before even engaging any sorcery criminals in battle.”

“…”

Teleria looked like she wanted to say something but chose not to.

Henrietta silently observed the girl while politely twirling up some pasta with her fork and spoon.

Mamilis gave a puzzled tilt of her head.

“So when are we starting?”

“Immediately,” responded Ayato. “Everything will speed up once we pass the Grade S zone on the top floor of the gem tower. Our goal is the Student Council Office, but I don’t see how we can avoid a battle. Some of them might be out with their official duties, but the Student Council has four members including the President. I expect at least one of them to be left in the room as a guard. Everyone, inspect your sorcery guns. You can never do that too often.”

“Are you sure about this? Last time you jumped out the window the instant you saw the enemy.”

“I cannot predict who would win a 4-on-4 battle and we would definitely lose someone even if we did win. Listen, I refuse to lose even one of you. So if we are to fight, it will be under circumstances I know we can win. That is today. Losses would be unavoidable with 4-on-4, but those elites are nothing to fear if we can surround them 4-on-1.”

“Dammit. That’s so unchivalrous.”

“But you can’t deny it is the safest option, can you? Don’t worry. The Student Council is a busy group. One sad downside to holding official power is how your duties tie your hands no matter how pressing the circumstances behind the scenes. If they slack off on their duties, the other students with nothing better to do will get suspicious. The entire Council will not be waiting for us in their office fully armed.”

The boy took a bite of Teleria’s pasta and guaranteed everyone’s safety.

“Unless, of course, they somehow learned of our plan in advance.”

After they finished breakfast and completed the rest of their preparations, Ayato’s group left the trailer. Mamilis’s long ears were already hidden by her Mimic Option. Was the bob cut girl gathering trash at this early hour on the Beautification Committee? No, she was actually the daughter of an obscenely wealthy family who had wanted to experience a commoner lifestyle, so she had accepted a number of odd jobs alongside her studies.

Ayato’s destination was the gem tower. He walked to a club room on the first floor, at the bottom of the Grade I zone.

As usual, he threw the door open without knocking.

“Good morning, Rocket Club! Are you ready!? The time has come to enact righteous vengeance on the loathsome Student Council!!”

“Eek!?”

A hunched-over boy recoiled like a vampire from sunlight.

The short, blond boy’s hands were trembling to an unnatural degree.

“(Wh-bh-why are you leading an army of girls in here!? I upheld my end of the bargain!!)”

“Oh, I didn’t reveal your misdeeds and bring them here to beat you up. Why would I grant you that sort of reward when it could be mine? These are my intrepid companions who will accompany me to the top, so you need not worry about your odd lifestyle choices.”

“…”

Teleria looked like she wanted to say something, but kept a silent frown instead.

“Come with me.” The expert of this field wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “Everything’s ready.”

The pervert appeared to be leading them outside.

“But this is going to be conspicuous. I mean, this is a real rocket, even if it is only a prototype. Once we start this, there is no hiding it. And since this will be a direct challenge to the grade system managed by the Student Council, you won’t be able to swap out the records to keep it all a secret like you usually do.”

“Might the students and teachers not give up on their classes and join the chaos? They don’t dare say it, but quite a few of them dislike the arrogant Student Council’s way of doing things. They might not be willing to start anything on their own, but if someone else starts the fire for them, they might be willing to provide some irresponsible support."

"Are you really willing to risk your life on a 'might’? Did you think you could become the big school hero? Like you said, they’re all irresponsible. They’ll enjoy it as a show. Those who support your cause will cheer for you, but they won’t risk their own hides to protect you. Even the thief who sneaks into the mansions of crooked businessmen and returns all the ill-gotten wealth to the poor always ends up unmasked and publicly executed. You never hear about the people he saved rescuing him from his cell while he awaits execution. It isn’t even that they’re ungrateful. They only see it all as events playing out, so they don’t see anything they should be grateful for.”

That was the worldview of the Rocket Club that had been sent to the bottom level after repeatedly fighting against the Student Council and refusing to develop a missile for them.

Ayato shrugged.

“I don’t expect anything like that from strangers. I am a Sorcery Hacker. I just need enough chaos to create an opening I can use. I am not forcing them to cooperate at their own risk – I am merely making use of whatever actions they choose for themselves."

"You sure didn’t have any qualms about dragging me into this mess.”

“Ha ha. You and I aren’t strangers. We’re the best of buds.”

The rocket looked like a flying fish made of mana-conducting silver. A sharp silhouette stood up like a sword raised vertically and a closable wing was equipped on either side. It was about 30 esoule tall, but only the pointy tip was made for people to ride inside. 90% of its volume was filled with a specialized escape velocity sorcery fuel made by compressing liquid mana and adding a powerful distilled acid as a reactant.

Now, why did he know all of this detailed information?

After stepping outside, Henrietta looked in shock to a point a short distance away.

She hadn’t noticed the large rocket before since it was hidden behind the tall school tower.

“Is this supposed to be a date spot? This forms the perfect landmark for meeting someone! It couldn’t be more conspicuous!! H-hey, are we really going to ride that thing? There’s already a crowd gathering!”

“Hm, that’s the Track Team, not the Public Morals Committee. Although I have heard rumors they’ve effectively morphed into an unofficial mercenary unit with a noticeably military-style education.”

Ayato calmly responded to the Striker’s worries.

It wasn’t much compared to the tower’s greater than 1000 esoule height, but the rocket was as tall as a small castle watchtower. The mana-conducting silver flying fish was slowly being fueled within the scaffolding of metal pipes and stairs surrounding it like a jungle gym. The Student Council had to have noticed it. There was no overlooking it unless they were hibernating in an underground den.

“How’s the fuel?” whispered Ayato.

“Stopped at 20% like you asked. Any more would be dangerous. The onlookers would get caught in the blast,” whispered back the hunched-over boy. “That rocket is a decoy. We’ll blow it up on the ground to look like a failed launch. I prepared some uniforms to make it look like you were inside when it exploded, but the closest thing to meat I could find were the toy arms and legs the School Pet Committee uses for training their wild beasts. Fortunately, a rocket explosion will be hot enough to fully destroy any body tissue. They’ll have a hard time checking for bodies, which will buy you time.”

“What if those overeager Track Team mercenaries approach the rocket and try to take a look inside?”

“X-FR49 – that’s the fuel – has an artificial smell so you can tell if it leaks out and vaporizes. We can disseminate some of the harmless odorant to keep everyone away before the explosion. Listen, no one must get hurt. I will not compromise on that no matter what you say.”

“Agreed.”

“A large orbital rocket has a complicated launch sequence. You cannot just light the fuse and wait for it to blast off. So leave that to the experts – that’s us. Once the decoy has exploded and the Student Council has breathed a sigh of relief, we’ll launch the real one.”

“Hmm? What real one?”

Dark Elf Mamilis childishly tilted her head.

The Rocket Club boy tended to act strangely, but apparently that doubled when he was directly speaking to a girl. His eyes wobbled side to side like a grandfather clock’s pendulum.

“W-w-w-we can’t let you ride on such a conspicuous rocket. Th-there’s another rocket you will use. And another launch pad.”

Unexpectedly, he led them to the Student Dorm that was really a collection of trailers. They entered a container-shaped residence only to find the floor and ground had been dug away, creating a deep pit. This flying fish rocket had its wings closed against its sides to fit inside. The container’s ceiling could be opened to launch from the underground silo.

The Rocket Club boy spread his arms.

“Welcome to our secret base.”

Henrietta looked disgusted from the bottom of her heart.

There was no such thing as safety standards here.

“This is the same rocket as the one in the report, isn’t it? How can you leave a mass of such high-energy fuel in a densely populated area? The Academy Towers’ eccentrics remain as insane as ever, I see.”

“Th-th-th-the others students are doing their own personal research out here. Just the other day, there was a big fuss when a pet definitely not found anywhere in nature escaped from its giant water tank. Y-you haven’t heard about the School Pet Committee? They were trying to create a summoned creature they could use as a weapon in place of sorcery devices, but they couldn’t control it properly.”

“U-um,” said a quiet voice.

No one noticed, so the girl worked to force open her throat as it tried to clamp shut.

“Excuse me!”

Everyone turned toward Teleria. Looking puzzled.

The blonde girl herself seemed surprised by how loudly she had shouted, but she hesitantly continued her question.

“Um, this is all very complicated, so I just want to make sure I have this right. So, um, we’re still using a rocket to reach the top floor past the gem tower’s Grade S zone?”

“T-T-T-Teleria!? N-n-n-n-no need to worry. But it would be more accurate to say – hee hee – that you’ll be flying to the roof and then going down the stairs to that top floor!”

The hunched-over boy seemed to view that girl differently because his voice cracked badly.

“…”

Ayato, meanwhile, was viewing the slumbering flying fish rocket.

He held a hand to his skinny chin in silent thought.

And finally…

“Best bud, do you have enough pressurized equipment for all of us?”

“?”

“Airtight space armor, I mean. Surely the Rocket Club should have some of those on hand.”

Part 9

Boooooom!!!

Orange flames blossomed on the surface far below.

The Student Council Vice President was a real princess. Surace was in the hallway outside the 75th floor’s members-only beauty salon – which she had demanded be built for her even though it had nothing at all to do with the school. By the window, she elegantly held a hand to the side of her red hair and focused on the earphone in that one ear.

The bizarre flying machine meant to leave the planet had exploded on the ground.

The launch had failed.

The sorcery rocket was full of technology, but it had zero defensive capabilities with more than 90% of its mass made up of a special fuel. The slightest shock would cause it to lose control and explode.

However…

“Kitten.”

“No, I still haven’t fired the bazooka resting on my shoulder.”

The response from Secretary Sibell came through loud and clear.

Which meant…

(Was it an accident? I suppose a handmade rocket from that disgraced club wouldn’t be the most well-made in the world.)

“Do not bother thinking it through. Coming up with possibilities is a waste of time.”

The President’s response was short and to the point.

In other words…

“We know a rocket is coming. We can trust that leaked information. So if Ayato isn’t coming on that rocket, he must be coming on a different one.”

Surace heard another explosion.

But this time, the light formed a streak of controlled energy. Water vapor billowed out like a cumulonimbus cloud and a sharp, swordlike silhouette shot up from the trailers of the Student Dorms. The flying fish’s wings spread wide.

“A second one!? Kitten!!”

“I can’t cover that angle. But the rocket will be overhead before I can reach another firing point.”

This would have caught them entirely by surprise without the advance warning.

Or they might have suspected the second rocket was another decoy and the criminals were attempting to reach the Student Council Office from the ground while the entire Student Council was busy. Or they might have suspected the plan was for Ayato’s group to be discovered badly injured at the initial explosion site so they could be taken to a higher floor than would ordinarily be allowed so they could receive emergency surgery.

But the Council didn’t have to doubt.

They weren’t surprised, they weren’t led astray, and this do-or-die plan was reduced to a mere farce.

There was nothing to fear when you knew the answer ahead of time.

“Gark,” said the President.

The ringlets Vice President saw something drop down past the window. There was nothing but empty air out there, but someone must have jumped from the roof without hesitation.

That someone was a large boy wearing a blue blazer.

The heavy metallic clang may have been the sound of the thick shields in his hands crashing together.

That was Student Council Treasurer Gark Bryan.

What he had done couldn’t have been simpler.

He was the highest ranked Bouncer, known as Grapple Shields.

He dived straight down toward the rocket launching skyward.

They collided.

The head-on collision was like a blow from above. A pure-white explosion erupted in the empty air.

“Kyah!”

All of the towers shook and cracks ran through the glass of the 75th floor window in front of Surace.

The Academy Towers gathered only the most talented people. They all had some kind of extraordinary ability, including a fat girl in the Mixed Martial Arts Club who had tried to go on a diet and ended up winning the championship belt without meaning to, or the ace of the Sharpshooting Club who was blind but could snipe with perfect accuracy.

And the Student Council reigned at the top of them all.

All four of them had to be capable of feats like this.

“You really are a monster,” commented Surace.

“Thanks for the assist, macho! I was just about to get a talking to,” said Sibell.

In a head-on collision between rocket and boy, the boy emerged victorious.

The large boy wielding twin shields tore through the expanding dust and flames, continuing straight down toward the ground. Rocket wreckage and scrap poured down around him.

This hadn’t been enough to shake the President’s confidence.

“Our wall was thicker.”

They had nothing to fear when they could prepare in advance.

Not even the greatest stage magician could fool the audience if the trick was explained before the show.

The glasses boy was a powerful Sorcery Hacker himself, so he had an intimate understanding of their weaknesses.

“Is a little thing like treachery enough to stop you, Ayato Criminaltrophy?”

Part 10

Mana-conducting silver wreckage poured down like rain. Globs of fire followed, moving like a sticky fluid.

Down further than the surface, a boy and some girls had felt the deep tremor shaking the ground. Henrietta looked up.

“Wait, dangerous individual. What was that?”

“The second rocket was shot down. As expected,” Ayato replied, voice muffled. “Two plans are not enough. When dealing with that Student Council President, it can’t hurt to assume he will strike back with three times the force you would expect.”

“…”

Teleria fell silent.

She took a look around at the dark space. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all covered in crude, dark oxidized mana-conducting silver.

A thick metal door sat before them.

Instead of a knob, the door had a large round handle in the center.

“Coach, what is this for?”

“The Academy Towers provides a more comfortable life than in any city or kingdom beyond its walls. Heated floors, dishwashers, special steam ovens that can also restore vacuum-packed premade foods. But what technology is behind all of these things?”

Ayato pointed up.

“Hot steam. Heat, pressure, turbines – whatever the towers might need, the steam provides. And that steam is created in a giant boiler and distributed to each floor of the towers. Cool it and it can even produce water. Simply put, it runs through the towers, out of sight. Using thick pipes running straight up from the bottommost floor to the topmost.”

This was the boiler in question.

The pipes filled with hot steam were of course a harsh environment. Both from the heat and the pressure. To oversimplify it, a raw chicken would boil in a count of three and be crushed down smaller than a die. Unlike the elevators which were interrupted every 10 floors, these pipes continued all the way to the top, but that was because no one could survive trying to ascend them.

So…

“Another change of clothes? The Academy Towers have the weirdest fashion sense, I swear.”

“These aren’t meant to be fashionable, Miss Henrietta. This special space armor is made to function outside the planet’s atmosphere. It can reflect the sun’s heat, withstand immense pressure differentials, and let us breathe within a fully enclosed space. We can survive within the steam pipes using these,” casually replied Ayato, stabbing his Linkage Plug sword into the safety valves and thermostat to earn a level of about 20.

He turned the handle, opened the door, and entered the boiler.

Ayato’s group entered an environment in which no ordinary lifeform could survive.

Henrietta looked up with wonder on her face.

There was a large hole in the ceiling. The four of them could move through it without bumping into each other and it continued on and on with no end in sight. However, they could not even reach the edge of the hole in the ceiling from where they were. There was no ladder.

“What now? Didn’t you say the area beyond the Grade S zone is the 101st floor? And the tower’s top floor is supposed to be more than 1000 esoule up. We can’t possibly climb that smooth tube in these bulky space armor things. Especially not without any rest spots along the way.”

“I don’t expect us to.”

The way she implied she could scale a 1000 esoule cliff if the conditions were right was just like strength-obsessed Henrietta.

Ayato’s tone remained light.

“Miss Henrietta, did you forget what I said? This pipe is used to send hot steam to each floor of the tower.”

“What about it?”

“Now, there are two ways that steam is used: for the heat and for its ability to push objects.”

Henrietta didn’t have time to yell at him.

Ayato stabbed in his Linkage Plug sword and placed something under his control.

With the door shut, the heat within the enclosed space rapidly rose. As did the pressure. If not for their special armor, they would have died before counting to three.

And to repeat, the door was shut.

The immense pressure rushed toward the only way out.

That meant toward the large hole in the ceiling. Their bodies slowly rose as if their weight and gravity no longer mattered. Once their feet left the metal floor, there was no stopping it.

“Waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!?”

The righteous Striker’s cry of regret was sucked into the hole.

A new path had opened.

Part 11

Two rockets exploded and then…nothing.

But at her post by the window, Vice President Surace felt an icy unease sneaking into her chest to replace the relief there.

The red ringlets princess held a slender hand to her right ear.

“Muscles.”

“I’ve reached the ground, but all I can find is mana-conducting silver wreckage and fuel. There are some pieces of scorched flesh, but no bodies we could hope to identify. Not even an identifiable part like some hair, a finger, or an eyeball.”

Gark’s awkward response made the real princess hold a hand to her forehead.

Their great leader’s bad habit had worked against them.

And if that was the case, it was time to change tack.

“Update the schedule. They must have had a third method. What, I couldn’t tell you. Muscles, get back up here on the double. Kitten, leave the bazooka and switch to hand-to-hand gear. Stop those thieves by any means necessary until our double shields can reach the top floor. You’re the only one up there near our office.”

“Gehh!? But I’m an assassin who lurks in the shadows! I can’t hold off a direct barrage!!”

“You get ready too, President. It’s too bad, but since the thieves weren’t on those rockets, your final trap isn’t going to work. The traitor betrayed us too. Give up on that demon. If we don’t teach her a lesson, she’ll get a big head about this.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure.”

The President chuckled.

Surace held a hand to her earphone and frowned. The Student Council did things by looking down on the masses and managing them all with supreme confidence. Even the violent princess knew that. But could he really enjoy himself after this humiliation?

The President continued, rejecting the entire new plan the Vice President had laid out.

“There’s no point in asking the impossible, so let’s focus on doing what we can. Sibell, you get away from our office at once. Avoid Ayato’s group as you do. You are quite correct that an assassin like you should assume things have gone terribly awry if you are facing your target head on.”

“Hooray! I love you, President!!”

“Gark, we need you, but don’t rush. Panicking and using the elevator is exactly what he wants. If he can trap you inside there, he removes the strongest Bouncer from the field without having to fight you.”

“…”

“And Surace. Join me immediately. We can put together a more detailed plan together. I don’t want to hold that conversation over mana radio, especially with a Sorcery Hacker on the loose. As full of bizarre devices as the Academy Towers are, transmissions between personal devices rather than stationary Media Summoners will still stand out.”

“But that leaves our office empty. Are you fine with the thieves ransacking the place!?”

“Ayato alone won’t be able to get through that lock,” he said with a derisive snort.

The true Sorcery Hacker, Umihiko Darkavenue, continued.

“And we don’t need to give up on my trap yet.”

“You’re really going through with it? If you like that obedient slave so much, why not just go ahead and sleep with her? Then you would get tired of her and throw her out soon enough.”

“My vision is not clouded here. This is a purely strategic decision.”

The princess had spat out her words and the President’s response seemed to carry a tone of contempt.

His interest was not in Teleria Nereid Aquamarine.

That poor demon was merely a tool used to corner his true target.

In other words…

“Ayato has indeed overcome this challenge somehow. I expect he will reach the top floor past Grade S. But can he really do so without taking any damage? Well, Ayato, can you?”

Part 12

“Bwah!! That’s it! I’m strangling you!! I know this was the only option, but I never should have trusted a dangerous individual like you!!”

“Ha ha ha! A nicely roasted girl is a wonderful thing. Miss Henrietta, you look so sexy with your skin flushed pink and decorated with beads of sweat. If you lewdly climb onto me and place your soft weight atop me while giving off so many pheromones, your warmth and sex appeal might just overpower me. Oh, and did you forget you are wearing a tight skirt? A very short one, I might add.”

“No, don’t hold me back, Mamilis! I’ll be doing the world a favor by killing him!!”

Ayato’s group lay sweatily on the floor after stripping off their space armor.

They were in a small room.

The steam pipe provided a shortcut to all 101 floors, covering every zone from I to S and even the top floor.

They were now at the very top of the gem tower. This was probably the steam management room.

The Student Council Office was on the same floor. The risk of encountering the elite members of the Council was much higher now, but they had effectively bypassed all of the Academy Towers’ security. They had to make use of this chance.

“The Guidance Teachers should be rounding up and confining the members of the Rocket Club by now. Since they helped us, we need to cause enough trouble for them too.”

“Coach, will they be alright?”

“They get called in for questioning twice a month-group anyway. They’re used to weaseling out of punishment, so they’ll be free again in no time.”

They held that discussion while walking carefully down the hallway.

However…

“…”

Teleria stood a step back from the others. She couldn’t bring herself to walk in step with the party.

A heavy feeling was gathering in her chest.

(Thank goodness.)

That was the natural feeling. The Student Council’s countermeasures had failed and the others were still smiling. Everyone was safe, so what more could she hope for?

However.

One thing didn’t make sense.

(Ayato.)

He had said they would be using a rocket. And he had indeed used two rockets, both capable of reaching space, as decoys. He had not told the girls his true plan. He may have noticed something at the last second and changed plans, but he couldn’t have switched over so smoothly unless he already had multiple plans in mind. An unplanned detour wouldn’t have succeeded. He had needed to lay out the separate path in advance for it to work.

So what had Ayato noticed?

What had made him give up on both rockets and use the steam pipe?

Or to put it another way…

(Does he not trust me?)

He did not give himself a sanctuary.

He questioned any information that came his way, whether it came from an enemy or an ally.

That was how Sorcery Hackers were supposed to do things.

And his nose had sniffed out the truth. Whatever her reasons, Teleria was in fact leaking their information. Without Ayato’s sharp senses and decisiveness, they might have all been killed in a fiery explosion.

She knew it was selfish.

She knew it was her own fault.

Nevertheless…

She felt a small crack had formed. And now that she was aware of it, she could feel the strange draft it let in.

Her betrayal had been prevented.

But a bud of malice had taken root in her heart.

And this time, the President had not given her an order she was powerless to resist.

Operation 03: Honeytraps for Beginners! (Sorcery Book Edition)

A honeytrap is used to lure in a specific target to achieve a goal. There are multiple methods of accomplishing this, but you must not let your preconceptions get the better of you. Offering money or sex is a second-rate method. For one, everyone has different types and degrees of desire, so there is no ‘one size fits all’ method there.

You don’t want luck to be the deciding factor between success and failure.

If you want to be sure of success, you need to first draw your target in.

No one is a perfect saint. Resentment, jealousy, longing, an inferiority complex, unorthodox sexual proclivities, doubts, phobias. Everyone’s mind is unique and everyone’s mind has its unique darkness lurking within.

You could call them stains. And like a stain, they might start out as no more than a small, barely noticeable thing.

But if you nurture them and let them grow, they can transform into a vast patch of quicksand that drags down their entire mind.

The first step in that direction is to make the target aware of their stain.

Once they see their stain, they will never be able to unsee it. It will be on their mind around the clock. They will constantly tell themselves it isn’t true and they aren’t like that. But the more they try to forget about it, the deeper it will lodge itself in their mind. They will be forced to accept a fact they desperately want to reject. Having them repeat it to themselves is much easier and more natural than you whispering a million words into their ear, right?

False assumptions are a product of one’s mind working against itself.

You can start your real work with the target after their mind has been shaken and derailed.

In their attempt to reject their stain, they will have driven it deep inside their mind. When someone else points it out once more, they will have confirmation from within and without, turning it into a solid, objective fact for them. It will become stained quicksand that makes them blush from shame when it is referenced. They will find it more embarrassing than being seen in the nude and they won’t want anyone else to know about it no matter what. As long as you know what that weakness is, you can easily control them, either by confronting them about it or providing comfort regarding it. This is a much surer thing than threatening them with a naked photo or video.

Even if that weakness is a fictional thing based on a memory they have invented for themselves.

Back to Phase 01

Return to Main Page

Forward to Phase 03