Sorcery Hacker >> Divulge The Magic Vulnerability Volume 1 Chapter 5

In homes across Sky City Celedileka, a small bell-like ding sounded as a remotely-printed newspaper popped out of boxy device like toast from a toaster.

There was no mention of the giant dragon still hanging around in Fire Castle Town Flared, or that Teleria and Mamilis's defense in Earth Castle Down Grouviv had failed, allowing Knight Dagregor to destroy the earth core.

It was like they were stubbornly rejecting any petty complaints before their big event.

The day's morning paper did have this on the front page:

"The Temple Moving Ceremony will be held today. The Forturiana Church's High Priest plans to denounce the name of Thomas Robergin as a great evil and present his head to the king as proof of their righteousness."

Some people would see that article and grimace, others would be delighted that they could visit Light Castle Brightio which was normally off limits, and yet others would leave the newspaper folded up and unread on their dining room table and then place a pot of stew on top of it. There was also a Bounty Hunter who checked through the list of wanted criminals to see how much the bounty had risen on targets they had intentionally let go for the time being, there was a Bunny Girl who circled the art museum exhibit information while licking her lips and planning out a honey trap, and there were many others as well.

Despite all the excitement, most people's interest would not last until the very end.

In fact, the advertis.e.m.e.nt saying "Any lambs suffering from magical recoil should visit their closest Forturiana Church!" would stick around longer in a corner of their mind.

Meanwhile…

"Ugh, shiver, shiver. The shower here is really cold."

"Is that because the earth core was destroyed?"

The wet-haired Dark Elf shivered, but the girl who was fine with lukewarm water or even ocean water did not bat an eye.

Ayato was lying on his side with his eyes shut within that cheap inn located in Earth Castle Town Grouviv, but he was not asleep. He was performing his Self-Maintenance work and he spoke up with a truly rotten voice.

"Wh-whoa! I can't, Miss Teleria! I can't possibly choose just one…"

"I have my doubts about how serious that work really is."

Mermaid Teleria Nereid Aquamarine already knew to stay safe at times like this and Dark Elf Mamilis Coster, who had her long ears poking out through her silver hair, had learned by now, so they were both sitting up on a table or windowsill with their legs pulled up. There was no temptation to go back to sleep with the bright morning sun shining down from the starry sky.

…So today's victim was the promising rookie: Striker Henrietta Split Destrius. She was s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the blanket rolling at her feet. It looked a lot like being swallowed by a bizarre carnivorous plant.

"Wah, wah, wah, wah!? Wait, what are you doing!? Stop that, you dangerous individual, get off of me! Ah, don't pull me into the blanket! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?"

Teleria and Mamilis sighed from their elevated safe spots as they glanced over at the poor miniskirt Striker being chewed on by the blanket monster.

"Rest in peace. May you feel no more pain."

"You can't even see her anymore."

That was all they said before turning their interest to the television weather forecast displayed on the snowdome-like Media Summoner on the wall. In other words, they barely cared when it could not affect them. …And since Sky City Celedileka floated up above the clouds, it was a never-ending mystery whether the weather forecast had any meaning there.

Meanwhile, the straitlaced Striker had been rendered fairly useless, but her presence with them had definitely relaxed the knights' pursuit even though she was not here on an official investigation. The knights seemed to think she had some kind of plan that required leaving them free while under her supervision.

Finally, the blanket spoke.

"Hm? When did my crystal tarot cards get so soft???"

"Those are not even close to the same size and shape!!!!!!"

Even if she wore the old-style for the appearance, armor was still armor. The blushing straitlaced woman threw a punch with her thick gauntlet and it produced a loud and dull sound.

Ayato Criminaltrophy spoke with eyes too swollen to fully open.

"Good morning, everyone. …I hate to make a request so quickly, but could you provide some recovery magic for my face, Miss Teleria? What in the world happened during my self-discovery work?"

"I hope this has been a lesson for you, idiot," bluntly replied Teleria.

Dark Elf Mamilis tilted her head at that.

"(Huh? That doesn't seem to come from jealousy.)"

"I am not completely indiscriminate."

The blonde girl sounded calm enough, but she was actually revealing far too much.

"(I see. So she isn't fine with just anything. She wants him to go for a direct attack instead of an absentminded one.)"

"Bfff!? You were looking for a way to twist my words, weren't you!?"

While the two girls started grappling a little, Ayato got his mind up and running and pulled the morning paper from the boxy device on the table.

He skimmed through the frontpage article and muttered quietly.

"So everything is going as scheduled."

"You mean Thomas Robergin's public execution?"

That meant Nirvelphany had failed to rescue him and would target the Temple Moving Ceremony as her last chance.

"Honestly, I will admit this is terrible if he really is only being accused because they are mad about not being able to directly attack the Demon Lord, but all of you are taking things too far. You are known as a dangerous individual because you think people will accept any form of violence as long as you have a just goal."

Henrietta was a single-minded berserker when it came to combat, but she could be more sensible at times like this.

While the two girls were pressing their hands together in a compet.i.tion of strength that seemed like it could take a lily-ish turn at any moment, Teleria looked back toward him.

"So what exactly are we going to do?"

"Whether Nirvelphany is good or bad, she has to pay for what she's done. If she hadn't framed us for her crimes, then I'd be wishing her the best of luck. Or at least this wouldn't have gotten so complicated."

"Do not act like you are innocent yourself, dangerous individual."

"I can accept crimes people carry for themselves, but that's not what happened here."

Since he had no intention of being arrested no matter what she said, that statement sounded absurd to Striker Henrietta, but that was a separate issue.

"Okay, let's put together a schedule a.s.suming the event goes as planned. The public execution is supposed to be held during the morning, right?"

"Curse you… Letting a Sorcery Hacker go free is bad enough, but now you are planning to sneak into the royal palace with weapons? I suppose I need to play this one by ear."

They wanted to intercept Nirvelphany at the Temple Moving Ceremony, so their biggest fear had been the cancellation of the event due to some kind of trouble. Then Nirvelphany would lose her chance to make an appearance. On the other hand, once the state event began, they could continue their plan according to schedule.

Ayato glanced over at the newspaper's weather forecast.

He knew it was highly unlikely, but he could not ignore the possible of a blizzard powerful enough to break through the Guardian Umbrella atmospheric shield.

"That said, we need to focus more on the big picture than the minute risks."

He spread a few large papers out on the table. These were not newspapers. They were a schedule for the state event, a map of the castle layout, security information, and a blueprint for the execution device. In some situations, simply carrying these doc.u.ments would be enough to warrant suspicion of plotting a rebellion or a.s.sa.s.sination.

The first to speak was Henrietta who knew the most about the city. She was the one who had gathered most of the data and doc.u.ments concerning the public execution.

"To be clear, dangerous individuals, Sky City Celedileka uses a mechanical guillotine for its executions. These are the designs here. The criminal kneels down, has their hands and head held in place by this thick frame, and a lever is pulled to drop the thick blade that was lifted by a chain-winding device. The execution itself is designed to be quick and painless."

"But that wouldn't make for much of an event in which they want to emotionally slay a great evil. They called the crowds into the public square here, so they need to take their time to satisfy all those people."

"I suppose you would call that the Forturianan way of doing things."

"They are the sect with all but official protection from the royal family, Coach."

Dark Elf Mamilis made it sound like this was none of her concern.

Since she was not human, she may have taken a cold view of that human-made religion that would only protect other humans and excluded her.

Henrietta nodded.

"Even if the Temple Moving Ceremony is necessary, they cannot be seen as forcing death upon an innocent man. That means the Forturiana Church needs to label Thomas Robergin as a great villain and ensure no one protests that labeling."

"Hm. And how will they do that?"

"I should have known a social outcast would be ignorant of how state events work. That religion forbids unnecessary killing, but there are a few exceptions. After placing the criminal in the guillotine where everyone can see him, the High Priest will likely spend a long time on a performance in which he reads off a long list of crimes to denounce his name. It all comes down to the Light-Dark Duality, so it is important that they make him seem evil and eliminate all pity or sympathy from people's minds. That will take much, much more time than actually decapitating him."

"It is true meat tastes better if you remove the blood before cooking it."

Henrietta's expression twisted a bit at Ayato's comparison, but that really was his only thought on the matter.

The Striker in the asphalt-colored armor cleared her throat before continuing.

"Ahem. Anyway, that means the time limit until his execution is a fluid thing. It is scheduled for some time during the morning, but a schedule is no more than a schedule. If the High Priest gets carried away with his speech, it could be delayed until midday."

The b.l.o.o.d.y public execution would be the climax of the Temple Moving Ceremony.

False justice like this was meaningless.

The catharsis of punishing the evil was one of the people's favorite forms of entertainment, whether it came in the form of direct execution or socially destroying them through criticism in the newspapers and such. As long as they could find an excuse to call the other person evil and themselves justified, humans could grow as cruel as could be. That High Priest may have been working hard to provide the most exciting show to grasp the people's hearts.

The Dark Elf's long ears twitched as she gave a blunt comment.

"Humans are crazy."

"I agree with you there, but we're going to use that to our advantage here." Ayato sounded as fed up with it as her. "Forturiana has another special rule: if an execution fails due to happenstance, the criminal is freed as sign of respect for that benevolent coincidence. For example, if a storm blows in just before they are burned at the stake, or if the noose's rope breaks and they fall to safety."

"I imagine dangerous individuals like you are already aware, but this guillotine is mechanical." Henrietta crossed her arms and nodded. "If the gears slip out of place or the chain gets tangled and the blade cannot be wound up or dropped, the execution could be called off."

Teleria tilted her head.

"So will Nirvelphany try to make that happen to save the old man?"

"That would be pretty exciting."

Mamilis, the grandma's girl, gave a dangerous comment that made one question whose side she was on.

Ayato tapped his finger on the guillotine blueprint.

"There are a few ways to cause a failed execution. For example, you could replace one of the gears with a smaller one so they do not fit together, or you could pour acidic fruit juice into the bearings to rust the metal. Normally, Nirvelphany would definitely try to get at the guillotine."

"But she won't have a chance to do that once the Temple Moving Ceremony begins, right? It will be set up on top of an elevated platform and surrounded by a crowd in all directions."

If that reddish-brown Minotaur was to be believed, they were talking about the real Demon Lord here, but not much time had pa.s.sed since she was released from her seal and had her Hero's wound was forgiven. She would not have been able to spend many long years bathing in the moonlight to recharge the power that had leaked from her body. She would not have regained her "breadth of possibilities" to that extent. Since she was relying on a human-made sorcery gun, they had to a.s.sume she was attempting this with human-level specs.

…Of course, that also meant she could shake things up this much even in her weakened state.

"As someone who has dedicated her life to chivalry, I do not like discussing trickery, but that just means she will try to approach the execution device before it is brought to the public square, right?"

Henrietta did not sound all that convinced of what she was saying.

Ayato knew why.

"This isn't just about the Temple Moving Ceremony. A public execution where people are allowed to attack a fellow human being is the ultimate show for those cruel people craving entertainment. If it fails due to some mistake, those entertainment-starved people could explode with anger and start a riot. In the past, there was an executioner who failed to light the fire below the giant pot meant to cook the victim alive. The angry crowd swarmed him and lynched him."

"That is correct, dangerous individual. This is a crucial event for the executioner and they are risking their life here. If they succeed, they earn thunderous applause, but if they fail, they could be the one killed." Henrietta shook her head. "Think of it like a magic show where they will be sawing themselves in half or escaping a deadly trap. Because their life is on the line, the executioner will carefully check over the equipment time and again. Even if Nirvelphany sabotaged it in some way, there is no guarantee it would go unnoticed until the execution. And if it is noticed, she has no way of saving that old man."

Ayato tapped his finger on one of the papers lined up on the table.

He thought for a moment before speaking.

"The guillotine itself is made from standard manconducting silver, correct?"

"Yes."

"But, Miss Henrietta, the armor protectors you are wearing are made from dark gray oxidized manconducting silver, correct?"

"Eh?"

The Striker looked confused, so Ayato wagged his raised finger.

"Metal processing is the product of heating and cooling. Military armor is oxidized to preserve its strength at the cost of flexibility because they don't want the materials changing due to intense temperature changes. The joints with the monster leather and tendons are actually fairly fragile."

"Huh? But, Ayato, those scorpion and hornet sorcery devices were made from normal manconducting silver, weren't they?"

"Only because they were designed for use in Fire Castle Town Flared. The entire place is constantly blazing hot, so they don't have to worry about temperature differences."

"Um, is she going to freeze the device with the coolant that salesmen use when selling fruit juice or ice cream?" asked Mamilis. "After all, she can't approach the device when it's still backstage and the executioner might notice the change even if she did."

"The executioner will check it over multiple times, but there is one flaw there. Once the show begins, they can't check the device in front of the people no matter how suspicions something seems." Ayato licked his lips. "And if you only need to get a specific liquid on it, you might not actually have to directly approach it. This is a sky city protected by the thick Guardian Umbrella, but there is still a chance of an unexpected blizzard breaking through that shield."

"Hm? Coach, why are you changing the subject? What does the weather or a blizzard have to do with this?"

Mamilis's eyes widened, but Ayato shook his head.

"I'm not changing the subject at all."

In other words…

"She just has to freeze the device while disguising it as a rare blizzard. And since she can't afford for it to fail, I doubt this will be set on a timer or remote controlled. Whatever her main plan is, she will be hiding nearby in order to begin Plan B if things don't work out. Things will be set up for her to personally sneak in and apply the coolant to cause a guillotine malfunction."

Yes.

After the criminal was placed in the guillotine, the High Priest would give a long speech as part of the performance.

That could be just what the Demon Lord needed to freeze the gears of the machine.

The morning sun in the starry sky shined down on Earth Castle Town Grouviv, which was best known for having nothing special. It came as a surprise to the people who questioned that premise, but people who had grown exhausted from sightseeing would gather here and provide plenty of sightseeing income.

The blonde girl and the others were staying in a three-story inn where the first floor contained a simple restaurant. Ayato had already gone down, but Teleria and the others had further business to take care of.

Yes, they were girls!!

"Sigh…this mirror is too small."

In fact, the entire bathroom was too small, but Teleria, Mamilis, and Henrietta were all crammed into a s.p.a.ce that contained a sink and bathtub yet was too small to fit even a single horse. The water from the tap was cold thanks to the earth core's destruction, but that was not the real problem. The three of them were pressing their soft cheeks against each other to fight for s.p.a.ce in front of the small mirror while they did their hair and washed their faces. The silver-haired Dark Elf had a slight upper hand here, but that may have been because her distinctive long ears stuck out around her in a threatening manner.

"Hey, Teleria?"

"What is it, Mamilis?"

"Who are you prettying yourself up for? Coach sees you as soon as you wake up."

"Bff!?"

She did not actually want him to see her then, but due to various circ.u.mstances, they generally could only afford the one room. Since they had started traveling together, he had seen her not just immediately after waking up but also after staying up all night while wandering through a cave or a forest. But she wanted to avoid the nightmarish jinx of becoming the sort of older woman who gave up on keeping up her looks. Even if it was meaningless and wasted effort, she wanted to continue her pursuit of constant cuteness!!

Teleria's soul was shaken so bad she was left motionless, so Henrietta took that opportunity to lean out in front of the mirror. She toyed with her bangs while giving a complicated look toward Mamilis who was relaxing her shoulders to create some s.p.a.ce…and who had been saved by a Sorcery Hacker instead of a Striker.

"By the way."

"Ugh, why do we keep adding more girls to our party like that's just the way these things work?"

"??? You seem to be familiar with that dangerous individual, so you might know. Last night, this bull man told me some things that may or may not have been true."

"Oh, that was probably all true. The two b.u.t.terfly Effector swords and Micha Angelos seem real enough and even Ayato says he can't find a way to fool her authorization. She seems to be one of the finest humanoid sorcery devices not just on the continent but in the entire world, but she says her energy efficiency is so bad ma.s.s production would suck the world dry."

"Bff!? S-so he really was a prince!?"

The Striker leaned back in shock, so the Dark Elf moved in front of the mirror instead.

"So what did that bull say?"

"R-right. He claimed that dangerous individual did not start out as a Sorcery Hacker and used to use a sorcery gun. Um, he used a revolver and he was known as the Hexa…something or other."

The other two had pushed her out of the way, so Teleria viewed the backs of their heads as she sighed.

Then she slowly moved her lips.

"I really shouldn't mention this if he didn't, but given the situation, maybe I should. It would be cruel to send you up against someone like Nirvelphany without answering your questions. Think of this as no more than a way of strengthening our teamwork, okay?"

"So what was that Hexwhatever thing about?"

"Hexajinx. Ayato was originally a skilled Forward who specialized in using a magnum-style revolver. He had nothing to do with Sorcery Hacking back then. He earned that name from a legend saying no one had ever seen him reload because he would complete any job in no more than six shots. He had to have been the best sorcery gunner in the Academy Towers we attended. He would not simply go in guns blazing, but he was not a powerless phantom thief type either. He would avoid as much unnecessary fighting as he could, attack the target with as much power as he could manage from point-blank range, and vanish from the scene once it was abuzz with energy. People were impressed he could do what he did without pa.s.sing through walls or turning invisible."

An outsider like Henrietta knew of the Academy Towers as a hive of extreme geniuses and of eccentrics who could not be allowed out in public. They were always working up strange theories like that colorless mana was split into the four elements by aligning with the higher beings scattered in the four directions. Whatever their personality, standing at the peak of any specialty there had to be quite an accomplishment.

That was why an honest question occurred to her.

"…? If he was that skilled, why did he choose the path of a dangerous individual?"

"He failed his very last job," whispered the blonde mermaid. Since she could explain this, she must have broken it down in her mind and finished verbalizing it. "He was to eliminate the criminal who had taken a hostage and holed up in the Gem Science Gemboard Processing Tower. As always, he settled everything in no more than six shots, but it turned out the hostage had convinced the criminal to surrender just beforehand. In other words, he shot the criminal when there was no need for it."

"That counted as taking out his target and solving everything just fine, so he remains a top ranker without a single blemish on his record. But what he did hit him a lot harder. It did not matter that no one criticized him for it. That is why he swore to never again use a sorcery gun and started down the path of a Sorcery Hacker using the hidden aspects of what he had been taught."

It was unfortunate, but accidents and miscommunications were a problem everyone had to face in combat. But that boy had been unable to write it off as a probabilistic eventuality.

And what was it he had said?

I'm not about to deny what I've done. Not that I'm going to sit around and let you arrest me for it either.

"On the outside, it might look like he got a fresh start, but I'm sure he is still pursuing the truth of what happened then and what went wrong in the chain of command. In fact, that is the entire reason he chose to become a Sorcery Hacker. What went wrong to let that happen? Or was it done intentionally and maliciously? He wants to reach a place much deeper than he could as a top ranker who works within the rules."

He made sure he was aware of his body's baseline weight so he could move exactly as he pictured it in his head. Even that was fueled by the need he felt to redo everything from the beginning before heading back into battle. Just as Teleria could not become a Sorcery Hacker, the muscles and thought processes needed for using a Linkage Plug were entirely different from those needed for using a sorcery gun. Instead of exchanging magic blasts from head on, he had to hide his true intent, focus on indirect attacks, and challenge an armed opponent while unarmed. Although all of this was only Teleria's guesses from the position of someone who was not a Sorcery Hacker. Only he would know how much effort had gone into throwing out his specialty and relearning everything from the ground up.

"Then you are a.s.sisting that dangerous individual?"

"He never came to me asking for help. I decided to follow him myself."

"Hm? You said Coach's official record remains perfect, but you also seem to know an awful lot about what actually happened."

The Dark Elf tilted her head in front of the mirror, so Teleria laughed.

She had a faint smile, but it was a complicated one that would be difficult to describe using only positive emotions.

"That is easily explained. I was the hostage in that school tower and my stepbrother was the criminal holing up there. So I saw it all happen."

The other two fell silent at that.

Only Teleria continued with a faint, faint smile.

"No one is perfect. Not even a former top ranker."

"But that is why I am more worried about Ayato ruining his life than I am about the truth of the incident that took my stepbrother's life. Ayato and Nirvelphany are very similar in the sense that they have grown obsessed with a single mistake. They are willing to throw out their own life and use up every last bit of strength if it means making up for that mistake. And no matter how it happened, that incident already ended. It's wrong to create a new incident or tragedy over it. So…so my purpose in this journey is to watch over him and make sure he does not do that."

The girls finished their preparations.

Once Dark Elf Mamilis used her Mimic Option earrings to hide her long ears, the three of them left their room in the inn and walked down to the first floor restaurant.

The boy raised a hand in greeting from the table he had gotten for them.

"Hi, Miss Teleria. It looks like our last meal is going to be a fried egg on toast. The options are limited due to the earth core's destruction. That said, it seems the legends were true: anything looks fancy if you put an egg on top."

The girl responded with a smile.

"Don't joke about things like that. Do you want me to hit you?"

Once they finished eating, it was time to get going.

"You eat more than I expected, Miss Henrietta. How many pieces of toast was that?"

"A Striker needs energy to protect the people in combat."

"But the knights are supposed to be the fancy upper cla.s.s."

"Don't act so disappointed! This is necessary!!"

It was a bright morning with the sun shining from the starry sky. The beautiful Striker's red face may have been a sign of her surprise upon seeing how little the girls had eaten.

Ayato and the others left the inn in Earth Castle Town Grouviv and made their way to central Light Castle Brightio.

They were not yet at the site of the Temple Moving Ceremony, but there was already a clown standing on the side of the road handing out fliers. All the stores along the road were open bright and early and calling out to potential customers in a way they normally never would.

"If you want some drinks and sandwiches, now's the time! There are no normal shops in the central area!!"

"How about some opera gla.s.ses? Don't a.s.sume you can get a front-row spot!!"

"Thomas Robergin! His name is Thomas Robergin! Now, will he blink or not after the guillotine lops his head off? Come see us if you'd like to place a bet!!"

A Maid Trainee girl was rushing all over the place, so she must have been willing to help out with anything asked of her, even if it was related to a grisly execution. People were gathering around a Fortuneteller woman with a veil over her mouth, so her real job may have been to predict gambling results.

"Uheh," said pale-faced Teleria. "Th-they really are turning this into a show. Urp, how are you supposed to sell juicy tomato and cheese sandwiches for a guillotining?"

"On the surface continent, they prefer to read a newspaper article about it after the criminal is strapped to a lightning chair in a closed room, don't they? The only real difference seems to be whether you enjoy it live or not."

"Um, Henrietta? I really don't think this is about enjoyment…gulp."

But the truth of the matter was that even righteous Samurais and Ninjas were chatting while grabbing a bite to eat. A Martial Artist in an exotic dress with bold slits was walking around, perhaps hoping for some trouble during the confusion of the event. It was all so peaceful that they imagined Nirvelphany would have little trouble maintaining her anger.

Dark Elf Mamilis spoke up while hiding her long ears to look human.

"I've heard the king plays no role in the executions."

"My grandma said he keeps his distance from any b.l.o.o.d.y killings outside of war, so he lets the Forturiana Church handle all the death sentences."

Whatever the pros and cons, they had no choice but to take advantage of the aurorlike Free Audience Restriction barrier being down to allow the general public into the central area.

"Okay."

Ayato glanced around the street, which was more lively than normal this early, drew the Linkage Plug sword from his hip, and started stabbing blades into streetlights, sprinklers, and other sorcery devices. He was of course preparing to resonate with their processing s.p.a.ce by interfering with their manaflow circulation. The earth core had been destroyed, but unlike the boldly unique water and wind towns, the earth town used its normalcy as a selling point. It contained a lot of street stalls that brought their equipment in with them, so the people there would not have too much trouble in their everyday lives.

"This is really easy with so much stuff around. I'm already at Level 20."

"(I will not forget. I will not. I will never forget this barbaric criminality. Yes, unlike those girls, I have not let him emotionally manipulate me into accepting his actions.)"

"Miss Henrietta, do not forget that I can hack your precious sorcery armor at Level 20. Try anything funny and I will hijack that and make you do a wonderfully lewd dance out here in public."

Ayato lowered his voice and drove the point home while a new blade was supplied from the ones compressed in the hilt.

The celebratory mood that brought all these street stalls felt inappropriate, but it did give them a lot to work with. They bought some cheap paper bags and musical instrument cases and stored their weapons in there.

Central Light Castle Brightio had opened its gates from the fire, water, wind, and earth sides, so they simply made their way to the large castle gate facing the Earth Castle Town. For today alone, there was no sign of the Free Audience Restriction that had beaten down st.u.r.dy Henrietta. The gate acted as a bottleneck, so the crowd grew denser there and some children selling fruit from baskets wandered through everyone waiting there.

Ayato's group blended into the crowd and other people were soon pushing in from behind. They were quickly stuck where they were.

"Um, is everyone packed in here because the gate is too narrow?" asked Teleria.

"Can't you see how ridiculously big it is?" replied Ayato. "Even if it's open to the public, the king lives in that castle. The bottleneck is probably so they can check people's belongings and have them pa.s.s through a sorcery detection gate. That way no one can bring in sorcery guns."

They all exchanged a glance at that.

Ayato's group naturally needed as many sorcery guns as they could manage if they were to fight Nirvelphany and her extraordinary firepower. They could not even start to fight if they had their weapons confiscated here.

"H-hwe-hwehhhhhhh!? Wh-wh-wh-what do we do, what do we do!?"

Teleria looked all around in a panic. She might have wanted to leave the line of people and get a fresh start on this, but this was more like a current of people than a line and the entire crowd was slowly headed in just the one direction. A thick wall of people had already formed behind them, so there was no escape now.

"(Eeeeek. My sorcery guns and floating skirt are one thing, but what about the Mimic Option for my legs? If they notice that, my fish parts will be revealed in front of all these people. Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, no, no, no!!!)"

"Miss Teleria?"

"It's nothing! I'm fine! Everything is fine and dandy!!"

Teleria was pouring with sweat, her eyes were wandering around, and she was acting about as suspicious as could be. The deep voice of what seemed to be a knight called out from ahead and the push of the crowd grew stronger.

"Next!! Walk through the gate slowly!!"

"We will not be upset even if it buzzes, so do not stop! We will only take temporary custody of your sorcery gun!!"

That oppressive voice brought a cloud to Mamilis who was hiding her long ears. The Dark Elf seemed caught between her love of her grandma and her fear of this sorcery device.

"I don't like this. How much can that gate see, Coach?"

"At the very least, it can't see the color of your underwear, so there's nothing to worry about."

Meanwhile, Henrietta spoke up while tilting her head at how Teleria was nearly foaming at the mouth.

"Hey, what are you panicking about? …H-hey! Stop that! Don't use my name here, girl! Stop clinging to me and giving me those puppy dog eyes! Hey, I said stop it! Hey!!"

Teleria was short and gave people upturned looks as a matter of course, so her looks could be quite powerful at times like this. It was neat how many different nuances you could find in the word "hey". And as Ayato glanced over at them…

"Your name, hm? Does that master key work in the king's castle? If not, we need to go with something more guaranteed to work."

"You stop too, dangerous individual. That is also a problem. I don't know what exactly you plan to do, but I cannot sit idly by while a Sorcery Hacker commits crimes. I am supposed to be upholding the rule of law!!"

"Ha ha ha. Stop trying to hide how you really feel, you straitlaced young woman. You're only making this more complicated. Anyway, Miss Henrietta, a certain someone was handing out wanted posters with our faces on them, so they aren't going to attack as soon as they see us at the inspection point, are they?"

"Do not brush off my complaints and I am not hiding how I really feel. Also, that should not be a problem." Henrietta put her hands on her hips with her ponytail-style blonde braid. "This is the Forturiana Church's crucial Temple Moving Ceremony, which means a public execution. That means they have to slay a great evil or their religious balance will crumble. There will be some level of amnesty at work, so even if they realize you are a dangerous individual at the gate, if you insist you are here to see the holy ceremony, they might just overlook it. There is precedent from past national ceremonies and I can speak up to help your case."

"Th-that sounds like how they stopped a war for the finals of a sports tournament on the continent. And are you really sure this will be okay!? Searching our possessions is fine, but aren't those detectors bad news!?"

"Don't be silly. This is much easier when they are not using their own eyes." Ayato breathed an exasperated sigh. "Have you forgotten that I am a Sorcery Hacker?"

"I do not like that smug look on your face, dangerous individual!!"

What he had to do was simple.

The castle gate itself was more than 30 esoule[1] wide, but small, boxy metal gates were lined up in front of that. Needless to say, those were sorcery detectors that reacted to the mist mana flowing through sorcery devices. Ayato's group had hidden their sorcery guns and trigger-equipped sword by wrapping it in their coat or stuffing it in a long bag, but those would be detected by these smaller gates.

However…

"Oh, excuse me."

As Ayato approached one gate, he hid his drawn sword behind his back and pressed his back against the gate's metal frame as if clearing the way.

He of course stabbed the tip of the blade in as he did so.

He needed Level 10. The same level as those scorpion-shaped Zootoxin Mk. III sorcery devices seemed like a lot for a simple gate, but it was not a problem since he had already built up to over 20.

The boy smiled and made a suggestion while using his own body to hide the evidence of his Sorcery Hacking.

"Ladies first. Go ahead, miss."

"Eh? Huh? What?"

"Get going, Miss t.i.ts."

Teleria was still nervous, so silver-haired Mamilis had to push on her back with both hands. The supposedly functioning gate had been hacked by Ayato's blade, so its buzzer did not go off. They walked right through.

"(Oh, no. I've finally done it. I've stooped to the level of that dangerous individual!!)"

"Hurry."

After seeing sullen-faced Henrietta pa.s.s through the gate after those two, Ayato stepped away from the detector and walked through himself. With so many people, the knights must not have had time to check every single person's appearance. They did not even notice their colleague Henrietta.

"Huh? Did that blonde girl and brown girl just walk right through with Expansion Armor around their hips???"

"Those're probably fakes held up with fishing line. I mean, the gate didn't react."

The knights in charge of the inspection tilted their heads, but they were too reliant on the results of the digital sorcery to trust their own senses and let Ayato's group go through without saying anything to them. It was weird to think this was all it took to get inside the place usually protected by the Free Audience Restriction.

"Wh-why did you call me Miss t.i.ts!?"

"Would you prefer I used your real name in front of the knights?"

Ayato looked around while listening to the conversation between tearful Miss t.i.ts and the calm Dark Elf.

The overall silhouette was created from several towers and castle walls while the center contained the courtyard and halls of the castle proper. This area almost seemed made out of various branching staircases and it contained the important government agencies and the cathedral that functioned as the Forturiana Church's headquarters.

There were a few open areas shaped like plates in the middle of all the stairs and those seemed to function as public squares. They were about 360 esoule[2] across. Everyone was headed in the same direction. The "plate" in that direction would be the stage for the public execution they were calling a Temple Moving Ceremony.

"Uwehh. It's such a big s.p.a.ce, but it's crammed full. How many tens of thousands of people are in there, I wonder," said Teleria.

"And that probably isn't even a tenth of the total number of people visiting the central castle right now," added Henrietta. "I want to believe that not all of them are here to see that b.l.o.o.d.y show. Surely most of them are here to see the castle and have no interest in the public execution."

"Coach, are those newspaper reporters' cameras flashing over there?" asked Mamilis. "It seems too soon for that."

There were Bards and such working as reporters, presumably to make ends meet, but that aside, Ayato silently looked upwards as he continued listening to the others speak.

Several towers rose up and had countless loopholes in their sides. Thick wires ran between the towers and cable cars shaped like upside-down spiders slowly moved along them.

Nirvelphany wanted to ensure the guillotine execution failed so she could save the old man named Thomas Robergin. Sabotaging the clockwork execution device would be the best way of doing that, but the executioner would check over it time and again before the big moment since their life was on the line too. Sabotaging it while backstage was useless if the executioner noticed something was wrong.

That was why Nirvelphany was guaranteed to do something while the execution device was in front of the crowd. Once the event began, the executioner could no longer inspect it.

That said, the stage was surrounded by so many people, so no one could approach from the front, back, left, or right without being noticed.

Which meant…

(From above.)

Ayato looked up at the many towers and renewed his resolve.

(She must be hiding somewhere that overlooks this public square. She must hope to stop the gears with coolant while disguising it as a blizzard!)

This was a dimly-lit s.p.a.ce.

Choosing a location that required artificial lighting may have been a mistake.

"Phew."

Someone slowly let out a breath to drive the sticky rusty sensation from her vision.

The woman had glossy red hair, floating Expansion Armor resembling horns, wings, and a thick tail, and red leather clothing that bound her body. Nirvelphany, who had been feared as the Zodiac Bright Eater in the distant past, slowly exhaled while deep, deep underground.

There was no injury.

It had already been forgiven by that kind old man, so there was nothing to worry about.

She could not seem to contact the unlicensed craftsman who had made the anti-dragon rifle for her. She could no longer have him perform maintenance on her gun or construct the giant bullets that hardened the surface of the mist mana into a solid film…so now the handmade side of it was rearing its ugly head. It was designed differently from the ma.s.s-produced commercial models, so it's special - or overly complicated - design meant the maintenance took a lot more time than it should have.

She could not afford to dull her mind during that work, so she had put off taking her painkillers. Plus, the very fact that medicine made by humans even worked on her was proof that her Demon Lord body had lost its poison resistance.

"This body really is a pain in the a.s.s."

An oozing, pus-like heat and dull pain crawled around below her skin. While she fought that unpleasant sensation pa.s.sing through her right shoulder and spine, she pushed in a manconducting silver spring and attached a few exterior parts. That kind old man had given her forgiveness, but she still felt a lot of pain when the gun's recoil hit her where that diagonal wound had been.

The other day had been the first time in her ancient life she had relied on painkillers, but it had honestly been the worst feeling. The pain had not actually gone away. She had only been distracting herself from one form of harm with another. That said, she wanted to remove even the smallest bit of background noise before this crucial battle, so she would have to rely on it.

Once the anti-dragon rifle had regained its original shape, she placed it inside a long and narrow fishing rod case and glanced over at the remote-printed newspaper spread out on the dusty floor:

"The Temple Moving Ceremony will be held today. The Forturiana Church's High Priest plans to denounce the name of Thomas Robergin as a great evil and present his head to the king as proof of their righteousness."

She grabbed the paper in both hands, balled it up, and tossed it aside.

Good and evil could both eat s.h.i.t as far as she was concerned.

After swallowing some painkiller pills from a brown bottle, she walked through a fairly large s.p.a.ce. A rusty smell surrounded her. Metal ducts crawled along the ceiling like serpents and rusty steel beams supported the weight of the bedrock, but the terrain did not wholly explain the smell.

Something unnatural sat in the center of this s.p.a.ce.

It was a white refrigerator, one of the most stereotypical of sorcery tools. It was a small model with just one door and it only came up to Nirvelphany's skirt-wearing hips. Also, a sticky, dark red liquid was leaking out from the bottom of the door like drool from a misbehaving child's mouth.

"Hm, hm, hm… Was that long enough?"

That general-use coolant was used by ice cream salesmen and in the radiators for sorcery vehicles, but she had needed to make sure it suited her needs first. It had to freeze the guillotine of course, but that would be useless if it also killed the old man bound to the device. Human bodies were fragile and the situation would not allow for even a single failure. So theoretical calculations were not enough; she needed real testing to determine the borderline values.

After placing the bottle of painkillers atop the short refrigerator, she opened the door so casually you would think she was looking for some water to help her swallow the pills. But there were no gla.s.s bottles or veggies inside. It only contained a large hunk of meat half-buried in frost.

"Hee hee, hee hee hee hee hee hee hee."

That was not laughter.

It was no more than the cold-induced convulsions of his diaphragm moving his lungs. The mysterious poultices around his neck were frozen solid. The bald and bearded man's limbs were folded up and trembling while his eyes rolled in his head to look at Nirvelphany. Not a single part of his body was uninjured. He knew staying in that small s.p.a.ce would mean his death, but his mind was no longer functioning enough to think about shoving her aside to get out.

This was Dagregor Bull Gerlos.

He was a white hat hacker who had been given the t.i.tle of Knight.

He was a ma.s.s of ugly muscles grown with drugs, so they were no use at all in combat. He could not protect anyone, so he was a knight in name only. He was a clever but unsightly human who had taken advantage of the collusion between the Celedileka royal family and the Forturiana Church.

"I gave it a lot of thought."

A few words slipped from between Nirvelphany's lips.

If not for this man's actions, that tremor would not have run through central Light Castle Brightio. If the earth core had survived, she could have freed that old man from his cell.

"I racked my brains trying to figure out what I could do to forgive you. Would tearing out your teeth be enough? What about crushing your eyeb.a.l.l.s? Or severing all four of your limbs? Maybe pulling out your internal organs? How about flaying your entire body? I really did agonize over this question."

"I…I…I am…eek…a Knight…"

"But I'm sorry. I couldn't find an answer."

She sighed.

Then she reached on top of the fridge and grabbed something other than the painkiller bottle.

"I just can't think up anything that would let me forgive you. And you know what that means, don't you?"

"Eek!"

Before he could say anything, she held the bottle of strong liquor upside down and swung it down like a club. The gla.s.s shattered as soon as it crashed into his half-frozen bald head. More than the pain, it was the dramatic change in temperature that made the white hat hacker knight scream.

"Abwah!! Abgwaahgah!? Gweh, gheh, gbwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?"

"The alcohol stings, doesn't it? That drink includes an anti-freezing agent, so it remains a liquid even below the freezing point. That makes for some interesting possibilities. If I close this door, your fate is sealed. Or can a Sorcery Hacker make a comeback from here?"

Dagregor trembled so hard it looked like he was trying to separate his flesh from his bones and foam built up at the corners of his mouth, but he still managed to form words.

"Please…"

"Yes?"

"Please give me time to think about it. I just need a smoke to calm my nerves…"

She laughed, crouched down, and pulled out a poison made by the humans. She tossed it inside the refrigerator and watched as he grabbed it like some great rea.s.sure and held it in his mouth. Then his trembling hand grabbed a lighter that did not use mana. It instead used simple flint and silk floss soaked with oil.

He lit it.

Just as Dagregor shut his frozen eyelids in satisfaction, the alcohol vapors in that closed s.p.a.ce erupted into flames.

He gave a belated scream, but Nirvelphany's reaction to that human torch was to raise her high-heeled foot despite her tight skirt and kick him back to shove him fully inside the refrigerator. She had the look of someone shoving a stack of paper into an incinerator. She had said she could find no way to forgive him, so she did not feel even a ripple of emotion while watching his fate.

Not even the old man's kind words entered the back of her mind.

"Now, then."

She decided that was enough "fun", so she shut the door with her long leg and left the refrigerator as it spewed dark smoke. She carried the fishing rod case containing her anti-dragon rifle and its spare magazines over her shoulder, grabbed the painkiller bottle, and checked over all her tools while putting them away in her pockets or cleavage.

"That just leaves…the Linkage Plug war pick and the three crystal dice for the Linkage Monitors."

The painkillers were not quite as effective as before. She was growing accustomed to them. She dragged her body along through the weariness, pain, and sticky illusion and she walked to the exit of that vast but oppressive s.p.a.ce.

That exit was only the entrance to another s.p.a.ce.

Once the artificial lights were gone and she was surrounded by darkness, the sticky feeling completely left her.

She faced forward.

(The fire, wind, and earth cores have been destroyed, so the largescale supply of mist mana to central Light Castle Brightio has been disrupted. …That means there are no giant fan blades or artificial winds in the underground pipeline. It should just be an empty tunnel.)

Her anti-dragon rifle was extraordinarily powerful, but she could not get into the central area with it even when that area was open to the public. Her plans would go up in smoke if she was caught at an inspection point or sorcery detection gate.

So she had never planned on using the main entrances.

(The Free Audience Restriction barrier is down for the day. I could get in pretty much anywhere, but I might as well use the route that piece of s.h.i.t opened up.)

This was a giant circular tunnel of never-ending darkness measuring 20 esoule[3] wide. It was located directly below Earth Castle Town Grouviv.

That subterranean tunnel was pa.s.sable for the moment, so the ancient Demon Lord used it to return to the battlefield.

So she could rescue a descendant of the Hero whose role had ended.

"Wait for me, old man."

They knew where the Temple Moving Ceremony, aka the cruel public execution, would be held, but there was more than just one tall tower overlooking it. Several spires rose toward the sunny and starry sky. There was no way to guess which one it would be.

"We'll have to check all of them. …There's a total of 3 suspicious locations. Miss Henrietta and I can work on our own while Miss Teleria supports Miss Mamilis since she is still a rookie."

"Dangerous individual, wouldn't my skill be more suited for looking after a rookie?"

"But unfortunately, Miss Mamilis is armed with a full-auto shotgun. If you rush out ahead for the close-quarters combat you excel at, you will only get a back full of magic bullets."

"Fair enough," said Henrietta with both hands raised in resignation and with a stiff smile on her face. "I will do as you say for now, but only until this Demon Lord business is settled."

"Miss Teleria, you take care too."

"Yes, yes."

"What about me, Coach?"

"You too of course, Miss Mamilis."

Getting into Light Castle Brightio had required a lot of preparation, but things were much easier now that they were past those sorcery detection gates. Ayato clapped his hands as a signal and they all moved in different directions.

"Mama, those people have sorcery guns."

"My, my. Maybe they are street performers. But don't worry. No one could get a real one through those gates."

Those carefree comments from their surroundings were thanks to the props used by Songstresses and Dancers for the flashy performances they put on in an attempt to gather the attention of the royals and n.o.bles. There was also a Witch handing out fliers for a startup that said "How would you like to use magic without needing a sorcery gun?" Big events like this were an opportunity for everyone. After separating from the others, Ayato stabbed his blade into some fireworks devices hidden where they would go unnoticed. Hacking them required Level 3, but he had already gone above 20 with the preparations he made outside.

(This would almost look heartwarming if it didn't mean they were bringing those small children to see a public execution.)

The Sorcery Hacker boy shook his head in exasperation as he arrived at the base of a tower. He used the tip of his blade to break the lock on the thick wooden door, which opened the door faster than using the real key, and slipped inside. A spiral staircase ran up the outer wall and the ceiling was much lower than he had expected. A castle's towers could have any number of uses, but given the mixed smells of dried meats and disintegrating lead bullets, this appeared to be a storeroom for military provisions and supplies. The weapons and food were stored at the bottom and the top was made up of nap rooms and guard posts.

Of course, the spiral staircase was the only path up. If knights were always posted here, covertly climbing the tower would be very difficult indeed, but…

(Yeah, there won't be anyone here. A peaceful kingdom like this won't be using the military facilities that are only needed during wartime.)

Unless it was a temporary fort on the front line, these places were the first to become unmanned storerooms despite the supposed purpose of a castle. To be safe, he kept an eye out for anyone maintaining the weapons or hanging around when they were supposed to be out on patrol, but he did not run into anyone there.

Once at the top, he poked his head out of the skylight on the conic roof.

He held his hair down as a solid blast of wind hit him and he viewed the outside world once more.

This was the tallest of the three towers. The site of the Temple Moving Ceremony was about 200 esoule[4] straight down. Moving from tower to tower must have been too much work because they had strung up thick wires headed diagonally down to the towers across the way and eight-legged cable cars waited there like upside-down spiders.

Since he had not found anyone on the way, Nirvelphany must not have been hiding in this tower.

The skylight on the top of a different tower opened upwards.

Henrietta poked her head out with her blonde hair in a ponytail braid and with her dark gray protector armor. She cheerfully waved a hand his way. He could not hear what she was saying, but it did not look like anything serious had happened. She must not have found anything either.

(Which means…)

The relaxed atmosphere tensed up due to the answer he found through the process of elimination. Ayato and Henrietta both turned toward the remaining tower.

Its skylight also opened and Dark Elf Mamilis climbed out onto the pointed roof. She then turned around, reached back into the skylight, and pulled Teleria up.

Just then, a thick beam of light tore through not just the skylight but the roof of the tower.

"Whoa!?"

The roof shook below Ayato's feet despite him being on the other side of the plaza. He belatedly pulled the crystal tarot cards from his blue blazer's breast pocket, scattered them in the air, and lit the fireworks he had hacked.

White smoke and explosive sounds filled the air, but he had no idea how well he had hidden this from the crowd. Ayato's group did not want the ignorant knights to figure out what was going on, but their opponent apparently did not care.

A new figure slipped out of the wreckage.

She wore a red leather vest and longish tight skirt. That true ancient Demon Lord had disguised herself as a devil using floating Expansion Armor resembling horns, wings, and a tail. Her unsteadily sharp heels did not seem to bother her. The enormous anti-dragon rifle resting on her shoulder was aimed at Teleria and Mamilis who were about to fall from the tower's roof.

Anger burned in his mind with enough intensity to redden his vision.

He had no idea if she could hear him, but he raised his voice all the same.

"Nirvelphanyyyy!!!!!!"

Several metal locks clicked shut as an old man's arms and head were bound to the guillotine while he was forced to crawl like a dog. It was a cruel and humiliating position that seemed to deny the value of the life he had lived.

But no one spoke up against it. No one even frowned silently.

He was surrounded on all sides by enemies. Some were stuffing their faces with the boiled potatoes they had bought at a food stall, some were laughing with friends, and some were viewing it with knowing looks in an attempt to look smart.

Negative expectation swirled around him as the people waited impatiently for his head to fall.

The large masked Executioner on the stage whispered in a m.u.f.fled voice.

"The preparations are complete."

"Very good."

Forturiana's High Priest was named Belbath Ruin Cranky.

His luxurious robes and staff decorated with pure gold were a far cry from religious asceticism. He had clearly been living quite well under the royal family's protection. Far more money had gone into his clothing than the knights' armor.

An insect the size of a slipper crawled from his back and up to his shoulder. That false insect made from gems and platinum was a Bell Ringing prototype. A craftsman's skilled fingers had intricately inlaid that bell cricket with jewels, so it had none of the creepiness of a living creature. It only had the cold shine of a mechanical object.

That fancy bell cricket took all the mana absorbed from the four castle towns and converted it into defensive power, so it alone was equivalent to a small fortress of Level 799. A sorcery gun's range was based on the distance the sound of its gunshot traveled, so by vibrating those thin wings fast enough to compress the air and create a protective barrier of sound, snipers and all other attackers were no longer a threat.

In the trenches of war where you would never find a luxurious High Priest, fine mesh netting was apparently set up to protect against magical grenades, but he must have reached a similar level with nothing but this air barrier.

To him, this performance was necessary for Forturiana and for Sky City Celedileka. There was no real difference between preaching to the believers with the cathedral's stained gla.s.s behind him, visiting hospitals according to a schedule calculated out to maximize advertising efficiency, or leading an execution like this.

It was time for a new stage in his life. It was time for the Temple Moving Ceremony.

"Ladies and gentlemen."

The tone of his voice was not affected by the impending death. He already knew the best way for his words to reach people's hearts, so there was no need to switch modes.

"Is this a day of sadness? Is it a day for anger? Is it a day wrapped in frustration? Is it a day filled with fear? …No, today is a joyous day. For our Sky City Celedileka is gaining one more way to destroy a great evil."

He could not say so out loud, but what he said here did not really matter.

As long as his words created a solemn atmosphere and used up a fair amount of time, anything was fine.

They had taken the proper steps, so righteousness was on their side. If anyone did protest, he had a powerful shield of counterarguments he could use.

Not that anyone was going to criticize them.

The people only wanted an excuse to enjoy this cruel show guilt free.

"The death of a brutal criminal will bring greater stability to the world. The one and only public service they can provide is to prove through their death that the laws of heaven are alive and well. So let us witness that benevolent coincidences can indeed happen. Let us witness that those blessed by the element of light are rewarded and those led astray by the element of darkness are punished. Let us witness that we live in a wonderful world where no one's efforts are denied! This Temple Moving Ceremony is a necessary act that shall provide us with eternal light, establish a solid foundation of peace, and promise all of you even greater happiness and prosperity!!"

So the High Priest himself did not notice the hidden meaning in the script he was reading off. He only felt like he was reading an endless loop of meaningless terminology.

But when the crowd erupted into applause, he could tell something in his words must have appealed to them.

This was all it took for someone to die.

And the right atmosphere was all it took to draw out an emotional response.

Ayato did not have a projectile weapon like a sorcery gun. Henrietta in the other tower also specialized in close-quarters combat. To support Teleria and Mamilis, they would have to cross the plaza and reach the third tower.

There was no time to spare.

He stripped off his blue blazer, wrapped it around the thick cable car wire, and hung down from it. He took a running start and jumped out into empty air.

Fortunately, this tower was the tallest, so the wire connected to Teleria and Mamilis's tower was angled down.

He was too far away to make out what was said, but he could hear the beautiful Demon Lord saying something with her lips twisted in a smile.

Then she aimed her anti-dragon rifle away from the girls and toward him.

He accessed every firework he could and launched them between himself and Nirvelphany with enough intensity to possibly catch himself in the blast. White smoke and loud booms stole away his and her senses.

With an even greater roar, his skin felt a ma.s.sive heat source pa.s.s by right next to him as he slid down. But the sweat on his back was icy. With an attack that powerful, it would have vaporized half his body if it so much as grazed him.

Nevertheless, he could not turn back now.

He overcame that deadly journey, pa.s.sed above the plaza full of people, and arrived at the tower where the two girls waited.

Once his feet landed, he let go of one side of his dirty blazer and swung it around to put it on. And once he readied his Linkage Plug sword again, a heavy metallic sound rang from the top of the tower.

The thick barrel of Nirvelphany's giant anti-dragon rifle crossed and collided with Ayato's trigger-equipped sword. But she had the greater reach. It was like a sword versus a spear. If she pulled the trigger, his upper body would be vaporized, but he could not yet reach her skin with his sword. Not to mention that it was a tool for Sorcery Hacking, so it was not meant to be used that way.

"Quite the show you're putting on here! Only a 'coincidental failure' will be considered a benevolent coincidence, so should the backstage magician really be standing out in the open like this!?"

"None of your business, troublemaker. If you want to enjoy the magic show, you don't climb onto the stage and try to figure out the trick! You sit down with the audience!!"

She did not hesitate to move her trigger finger.

The only reason he was not annihilated then and there was Teleria aiming her two suppressor-equipped handguns at his feet while she lay on the tower rooftop.

"I won't let that happen…no matter what!!"

She must have had used Secondary Cold. The roof below his feet instantly froze, his shoes lost their grip, and he tumbled backwards, allowing the destructive beam to pa.s.s by directly above him.

The torrent of light continued on to stab into another tower partway up. It was the one he had come from. That one attack broke it apart and it fell toward the crowded plaza along with the loosened wires and upside-down spider cable car.

(Dammit, Nirvelphany, this is insane! If there's bloodshed in the middle of the ceremony, they'll call off the public execution. And then you'll lose any chance to sabotage the guillotine and save that old man!!)

"Did you forget?" That calamity condensed into human form gave a thin smile. "This is the king's castle. Their defenses will never be so weak."

That was when time stopped.

No, it was just that the rubble was pinned in midair instead of pouring down onto the plaza. A blob of something like dark mud had done it. His sorcery knowledge told him what this distinctive stench was. That extremely sticky dark gray liquid was…

(Asphalt!? Did they use Quaternary Road!?)

Something large pa.s.sed by overhead.

Several bat-like wings had been combined to create a broad isosceles triangle silhouette that was curved in places. Those artificial wings were about 30 esoule[5] wide as they circled calmly through the sky.

"Those are apparently called Armored Dragons. With the Free Audience Restriction down, they apparently wanted to beef up security with a more traditional fighting force."

His eyes met someone else's. Knights were hanging upside down from the underside of the thing like bats. Instead of using air currents, it was probably gravity that was being manipulated there.

Their magic had pinned the collapsing tower in place.

"And of course, they will have more than one barrier. I'm sure they will see me as an enemy, but what about you? We live in a cruel enough world for an enemy of an enemy to not be considered a friend, don't we?"

The deafening sound of wings pursued him.

The "bats" hanging from the underside dropped down one after another.

They were smaller than the Armored Dragon overhead, but the people in the distinctive dark gray protector armor of the knights were wearing personal flight devices as they approached his level. Some used rotating wing crafts with large propellers on the top and back of the exposed c.o.c.kpits. Some wore large triangular winged gliders on their backs. Either way, the aerial knights used countless gears and gemboards carrying mist mana to shatter the chains of gravity and attack both sides of the fight atop the tower.

The first wave alone was more than twenty strong.

"Ah ha ha!!"

Nirvelphany laughed while resting her anti-dragon rifle on her shoulder and making a seemingly suicidal move. Of all things, she jumped out onto the floating archipelago of rubble forcibly pinned in the air by the hardened asphalt. Despite her high heels, she moved as lightly as if she were skipping.

Her intent was clear.

(Is she putting some distance between us to take us all out with that ridiculous sniper rifle!?)

Ayato had no other choice.

Moving directly to Nirvelphany's floating island would have been too dangerous and he had no projectiles, so he called to the two girls on the same tower.

"Miss Teleria, Miss Mamilis! Drive the knights away from here!!"

"Kh!! Okay, I guess!!"

"Understood, Coach."

They aimed their two water element handguns and one fire element full-auto shotgun at the flight devices attempting to surround them from all directions. With gunshots and muzzle flashes resembling red and blue fireworks, the true sorcery battle finally began.

Teleria first fired at their feet to create several thick ice walls as cover. Meanwhile, Mamilis's barrage of explosive flames shot down the knights soaring through the sky.

Since the knights had used the forbidden asphalt, they probably specialized in the earth element. Ayato could think of some magic from the Quaternary line that would be useful here, but that was when a sorcery gun gave a roar from one of the rotating wing crafts using its two propellers to fly. A black liquid was scattered overhead.

It happened just as the Dark Elf hiding her long ears with jeweled earrings had sent out fire magic in a fan shape.

The danger signal in his mind pa.s.sed the limit.

"Wait, Miss Mamilis!! That's rock water!!"

Mamilis lived in a modern sorcery society where the mana spread thinly throughout the atmosphere was condensed into an energy source, so that word may not have meant much to her.

That was a toxic liquid hidden below the ground.

No living creature could drink it, but it burned with incredible intensity if it came in contact with fire. A heretical scientist theorized that sinister toxic sludge had once been the corpses of animals.

It was also known as petroleum.

As soon as Mamilis's Primary Blaze fire magic touched it, the falling ceiling of black liquid blossomed red. The sunny starry sky was filled with flames.

"Kyaaah!?"

"Get down!!"

Mamilis screamed and Teleria's dual handguns gave a roar. She had been in the middle of creating shelter out of thick ice walls, so she added more ice on top of that to quickly construct a dome-shaped shelter for them.

Then the falling ceiling reached them.

The sound that erupted all around them was much like animal meat being stir fried in a metal pot coated in oil. That was the sound of the flames and ice struggling for supremacy, but even if it had been triggered by mana, the flames themselves were only an oil fire with no willpower residing in it. Teleria's handguns used properly formed magic, so if she focused on extinguishing the sea of flames, she would not have difficulty doing so.

However, focusing on one task meant neglecting all the others.

(Dammit.)

While they dealt with this, Nirvelphany was enjoying a midair stroll on the other side of the thick ice barrier. She jumped between pieces of tower rubble pinned in place by the torrent of asphalt and twirled around to look back.

And while aiming her ridiculously-powerful anti-dragon rifle, of course.

"Dammit!!!!!!! Keep your heads down, Miss Teleria, Miss Mamilis!!"

Forturiana's High Priest was giving his lengthy sermon in the plaza down on the ground.

This was the Temple Moving Ceremony.

To prevent worldly thoughts from intruding on the holy ceremony, the entire area's silence was preserved by the slipper-sized bell cricket sitting on his shoulder. That might not sound like much, but in a world where the range of a gunshot's noise was directly linked to the magic's range, that Bell Ringing prototype made from platinum and gems - meaning it was covered in gemboards - was the core of a barrier far more valuable than the nets used in the trenches.

Thomas Robergin, the old man with his arms and head bound in the mechanical guillotine, thought to himself while listening to the richly-adorned High Priest's words.

…Had he been wrong?

Had he been wrong to find that small shrine made of old stone? Had he been wrong to touch its door? Had he been wrong to contact that which slumbered within? Had he been wrong to remove everything binding her?

He thought about it.

He thought about it, but he still forced out his voice.

"I wasn't…"

It did not matter how he looked at it.

It did not matter how many times he came across the exact same situation again.

"I wasn't wrong."

Demon Lord Nirvelphany.

There was no special connection between them. Some connection with a distant ancestor was irrelevant. It really had been pure coincidence. It had been random chance. And that was all it had taken to place this great burden on his shoulders.

But even if it had been random chance.

No, because it had been.

He had known he had to act when he happened across that scene. He believed the "great power" you needed to protect a peaceful and healthy life was to create a society where anyone who encountered that situation would reach out a helping hand without even considering whether they had some special right or qualification.

He did not know what had happened in the distant past.

He did not care what his own position was in relation to that.

He could make that important decision without gathering all sorts of information using a Media Summoner or the mist mana strung out like a spider web. He did not know what that girl had done in the past. Perhaps she really had committed atrocities. But if her punishment and imprisonment would never end, if the humans had entirely forgotten about her, and no one involved still carried their hatred, then was there any reason to keep her imprisoned as a formality? None of it made sense.

If she did still have crimes to pay for, then the gears of atonement had to be properly in place before that could begin. If the gears had fallen into disrepair during the intervening time and the humans covering the surface had entirely forgotten their direct hatred of Nirvelphany, then she had nothing to atone for to the humans who lived in the present era. What could she do about those past crimes other than depart on a journey around the world to bow before the graves of the people she had troubled in the past?

Atonement was not an excuse to a.s.sault a complete stranger.

Wasn't it meant to be a ritual through which the guilty party could get a fresh start on life?

If there was such a thing as benevolent coincidence, then that had to be the blessing it had provided. That would give real meaning to this old man running across the sealed Demon Lord.

So Thomas Robergin would not lose his way.

He would never regret his actions.

"I wasn't wrong!!"

And during a slight pause in the performative speech, the High Priest approached that old man who was actually slightly younger than him.

He moved his face close to the man bound to the mechanical guillotine and whispered too quietly for anyone else to hear.

"(I have the right to decide what is right and wrong. Because we stole that right from you people who call yourselves Heroes. Once this ceremony is complete, we will have the official protection of the state and can do whatever we want. Not long now until we can kill anyone we like.)"

Nirvelphany did not hesitate to pull the trigger and her right shoulder was sharply struck by the intense recoil produced by providing an element to the originally directionless mana. Deafening noise and blinding light filled the world. That ultrlong-range rifle could hit a fleeing target at 2000 esoule[6] or a stationary target at 10,000 esoule[7]. If she could find a stable position and let it roar, no one standing on the same stage could escape it.

However…

"I see."

She grinned upon seeing it pierce the empty s.p.a.ce three grids to left of where she aimed, which was about 4 esoule[8] to the side.

The long barrel had been pushed slightly to the side.

She saw gorgeous armor made from old-fashioned dark gray protectors and a tight miniskirt which had been chosen because their design was popular with the people rather than for any benefit in combat. She saw a beautiful face and long blonde hair braided in something like a ponytail. She saw a Striker wielding a bolt-action carbine with an axe-like bayonet.

Most likely, a normal person could not have used that footing pinned in midair.

To skip from piece to piece required the superhuman physical ability to accurately jump between those variously-sized footholds with no concern for the 150 esoule[9] height and the blowing wind.

But the Demon Lord with the slit skirt was not the only one who met those conditions.

"I am Striker Henrietta Split Destrius. I protect the peace and public order of Sky City Celedileka with the trust and authority granted me by the king. Even if my personal and family pride have been trampled by the flow of time, I will always come running when the king or the people are endangered."

That beautiful armored woman pressed her axe against the anti-dragon rifle's barrel while speaking from extreme close range.

"Buff again. Primary Ex Ma.s.sive."

She ignored the scope as a gunshot burst out.

Nirvelphany saw Henrietta explosively swell out. No, the braided Striker's movements had so far left the norm that it merely looked that way. They were engaging in close-quarters combat on this small and unstable footing. Their sorcery guns were large, heavyweight items, but Henrietta's bolt-action carbine was a close-quarters weapon designed for this sort of thing, while Nirvelphany's anti-dragon rifle was an ultrlong-range weapon designed for sniping.

Their battle was like two tornados clashing head on, but compatibility was still an issue. Nirvelphany had made a point of keeping her distance to avoid a direct fight with Ayato's group, so she was not about to welcome some close-quarters combat with a specialist like Henrietta.

In truth, the Demon Lord abandoned the possibility of striking Henrietta's jaw with her weapon's thick stock.

She instead spun the gun around to aim the enormous muzzle at her opponent and pulled the trigger.

Of course, Henrietta excelled at fighting at this close range. No matter how destructive the weapon, it could not hit her if she deflected the barrel to the side. As if to show how pointless and wasteful this was, a giant empty cartridge was ejected while its purple light faded like a withering flower.

But Nirvelphany fired again.

She fired and fired and fired and fired.

"I see. You dangerous individuals do know how to think in crafty ways!!"

By the time Henrietta realized what her opponent was up to, the close-range light, noise, and shockwave had robbed her of her senses and pummeled her body. Even if a direct hit was not possible, the secondary effects of the gunshot and muzzle flash were enough to beat down a human. Her breadth of possibility may have been weak so soon after awakening, but the anti-dragon rifle named Critical Disaster was an unruly enough weapon for the Demon Lord Nirvelphany to seek out painkillers.

Once the Striker's movements were dulled, the anti-dragon rifle's stock rose up along a crescent moon arc to land a clean hit on her slender jaw. With a dull sound, she hopped up even more intensely than from an uppercut.

"Gah!?"

They were on the small rubble pinned in the air by asphalt.

While it was something like a floating island, it was also much like the stepping stones decorating a pond.

It went without saying what happened once your feet left the ground.

"It is time you learned what it feels like to be a flightless bird, human."

The Demon Lord twisted her lips into a crescent moon sneer.

However, her sadism was not fulfilled. The fall never came. Thick and invisible panels shot out like a horizontal extension of the small footholds and caught Henrietta's back. Those panels were a floor of ice. Needless to say, they came from the twin handguns of the Mermaid on the tower rooftop 30 esoule[10] away.

"Tch. A descendant of Nereid of Water, one of the four lords? I see your bloodline continues to be a jack of all trades."

Nirvelphany attempted to fire a finishing blow at Henrietta while the Striker lay collapsed on the ice, but her thoughts were cut off by a loud grinding sound. Henrietta had vanished from the ice. Since the surface of the ice had been torn through, she must have used that slight opening to rotate around, hop up, and escape.

"Buff yet again! Primary Ex Ma.s.sive!!"

Nirvelphany heard that voice from directly behind her.

She went for a counter blow. She adjusted her grip on the giant anti-dragon rifle and spun around like a tornado to slam the thick stock into her opponent's cheekbone.

But she saw something out of the corner of her eye.

It looked like the soles of two shoes pressed together. And she had forgotten something: Sorcery Hackers could hack any machine that operated using the power of mist mana. There was no distinction between public and private there. And the knights she herself had invited to stir things up had been soaring through the sky using various flight devices, hadn't they?

Simply put, two hacking blades had pierced the armor and device of a knight using a rotating wing craft.

Ayato was using both hands to dangle down from the bottom of that flight device with a propeller on the top and back of the exposed c.o.c.kpit, and the bottoms of his feet slammed full speed into Nirvelphany's face.

You may have forgotten, but the armor used by the knights was a collection of protectors made from oxidized manconducting silver and large monster tendons and leather, so it was designed to provide magical defense and increase physical abilities. Since it ran on sorcery, it could be hacked and hijacked with a sufficiently high level.

Specifically, the rotating wing craft was Level 7 and the knight's armor was Level 14.

Ayato had reached above 20, so they were the perfect target for him.

This might not have worked on someone as skilled in martial arts as Henrietta, but things changed when someone was stuck in an open-air c.o.c.kpit and reliant on their flight device. He only had to stab his blade into the armor of the person seated in that c.o.c.kpit.

Ayato did not have the physical ability needed to hop around on the footholds pinned in midair like stepping stones, but once he had the power to fly, he could shatter Nirvelphany's dominance. He had the ability to hit her with a surprise attack.

"Owwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"

With a roar to shake off his own fear, he dropkicked the ancient Demon Lord in the face. He had finally landed a clean hit…or so he thought, but he may have taken more damage from the force of the blow. His hands slipped from the bottom of the rotating wing craft and he was thrown out into empty air.

"Not again, you bad idea factory!!"

He received an absolutely wonderful compliment from his lovely partner and then an ice platform spread out in midair thanks to the shots from two handguns. Just like when she had saved Henrietta, the makeshift footing caught Ayato.

Meanwhile, Demon Lord Nirvelphany was leaning back from the force of a human's full body weight to her face, but she did not fall. With her spine still lithely bent, she held her giant anti-dragon rifle at the hip and aimed for the ice foothold below Ayato rather than the boy himself.

But she had forgotten something.

Why had she forgotten about Ayato before? Hadn't she been faced with the more direct threat of Henrietta Split Destrius directly behind her?

A collapsible stock dropped straight down like a guillotine.

She had just barely avoided falling by bending back, but when this blunt weapon dropped on her face, she was finally slammed back-first into their narrow footing.

"Ohhh!!"

But the roaring Demon Lord still used one hand to aim Critical Disaster skyward while lying on her back. The weapon was longer than the average person was tall and she stuck it right in front of Henrietta's face and fired despite the imagined sensation of the old wound on her shoulder splitting open and blood and pus bursting out.

The beautiful Striker's only response to the fearsome beam was to swing her head to the side.

"I have seen that already."

Before the Demon Lord could get up, Henrietta stepped on the wrist of the right hand holding the anti-dragon rifle and raised her bolt-action rifle with axe-like bayonet in preparation to swing it down.

"Enough of this."

Nirvelphany was smiling.

Ayato moved next to Henrietta after getting up using his short sword like a staff.

"Is it over?"

"Hmph. So even a dangerous individual feels a desire to settle things himself? But only those of us given authority by the king are permitted to use this kind of firepower in the sky city."

"Is it really over!? This was really the extent of her obsession!?"

Henrietta thought this was checkmate, so she looked puzzled.

Just then, they all heard a deep rumbling from the heavens.

The ancient Demon Lord spoke from the narrow foothold.

"I was waiting atop that tower because I had a plan for faking a blizzard. However, that would not deceive the foolish ma.s.ses unless I did something about that shield first. It could still be interpreted as abnormal weather, but it would seem unnatural."

"You can't mean that." Henrietta was dumbfounded. "You couldn't! You couldn't possibly!! Maybe you are the ancient Demon Lord, but you would need some kind of largescale sorcery temple to break through the shield protecting the entire sky city!!"

"Sorcery…temple? Quite the oxymoron there. And I do not need any fancy preparations. I am the Demon Lord at the top, so I am even more powerful than that dragon attacking the fire castle town. I possessed everything from the beginning."

They heard a quiet clattering as something danced in the collapsed Demon Lord's hand. They were small dice made of crystal. Dice had originally been fortunetelling tools just like tarot cards and three of them were moving on their own here.

They were a Linkage Monitor.

It was obvious what this meant.

"Sorcery…Hacking?"

"Oh? Had you not heard that drugged-up Dagregor Bull Gerlos had gone missing? Isn't he a colleague of that young lady there? He told me everything I wanted to know. Including how his special technique works."

"But what did you hack!?"

"I am Nirvelphany. I was feared in ancient times as the Zodiac Bright Eater. …But why was that?"

She grinned and gave the answer.

"I have regained access to the true source of my power waiting up in satellite orbit: a sorcery cannon ma.s.sive enough to obscure the heavens."

There was movement overhead.

Something was wrong with the sunny and starry sky.

No, the red aurora rushed in from all directions while its brightness grew.

That light was known as the Demon Lord's Bite.

They were just a step away from the heavens. Celedileka had transformed the scenery so the blue planet was directly below and the twinkling stars were directly above. Yet that starry sky was now being devoured by an unbelievably ma.s.sive silhouette.

As Ayato looked up, that red something burst and an enormous object emerged.

The scale made it hard to tell, but that ridiculous collection of firepower had to be more than ten times the size of the sky city.

"My attack doesn't have to reach it. It can even be deflected by the Guardian Umbrella atmospheric shield. But by firing up into the heavens, I directed its attention this way."

The Demon Lord sneered.

She had chosen brute force from the very beginning. She was simply going to blast through the Guardian Umbrella protecting the city and allow the ma.s.sive cold wave of their extreme alt.i.tude to freeze the entire sky city.

"And by hacking the antenna embedded in my own body, I have regained the connection that was severed by that eternal seal. I will admit it was pure luck that it had not shorted out. I am…no, the safety for the entire Demon Lord system including the sorcery cannon is equivalent to Level 9999. In other words, this contains enough power that such a powerful restraint was necessary."

"It has been abandoned in orbit for the entire time my physical body was sealed. And it has been storing up power for a single attack all the while. Now, can this human fortress really defend against that?"

She had never expected an answer.

A fearsome red beam of heat immediately dropped from the heavens.

That facility had not originally been designed to attack the surface.

Since magic's effective range was equal to the noise of the gunshot, a method of propagating magic through the silent vacuum of s.p.a.ce could possibly extend their reach beyond the planet. It was meant to determine what happened if a vacuum was filled with a mixture of ga.s.ses to create an artificial atmosphere that would act in place of water or air.

But there had been an unexpected side effect.

That side effect was something like a distortion in the entire universe where so many stars could be seen. That great cry of the world itself never should have reached anyone, but it was concentrated and propagated to a single point where it manifested as a fearsome attack.

"Sorcery Cannon Zodiac Bright Eater - Hit."

The red hot explosion spread out over a ma.s.sive area while scorching even the upper atmosphere.

The invisible Guardian Umbrella atmospheric barrier was broken through, the air particles were pushed out of the way, and a sinister red aurora was scattered everywhere just before red light flew every which way like the frame of an umbrella.

Ayato could not even hear the scream of the woman right next to him.

It was unfortunate that the Free Audience Restriction had been brought down for the state event.

The atmospheric barrier managed to negate the blast, but that must not have mattered to the Demon Lord.

It was like an invisible blow.

As soon as the Guardian Umbrella shattered, a shockwave crushed the entire city like a giant hand or falling ceiling.

Ayato and the others had nowhere to run. Everyone there was struck and pa.s.sed out.

That included the knights flying around with their flight devices.

It also included the Sorcery Hacker and Striker looking down at the ancient Demon Lord.

The Dark Elf had been aiming her gun at the tower from a short distance away, but she too lost consciousness, which exposed the long ears she had been hiding.

Even the blonde girl who was always working with the boy pa.s.sed out.

…The only exception was Nirvelphany who had clenched her teeth and braced for impact while lying on that suspended footing with her sorcery gun in her arms.

"Phew."

Everything was colored white.

The air rapidly cooled and a blizzard covered the entire area.

The sigh leaving the beautiful Demon Lord's bewitching lips was heavy. It was like she had been hit with a powerful body blow. Her vision was poor within the pure white wall of the blizzard. She could vaguely see some bluish-white will-o'-the-wisps through the thick white, so those were probably the corona discharges that were a side effect of the orbital sorcery cannon.

She could not see the sky through the thick white, but she could sense the connection had been severed. No maintenance had been performed for so long and she had pushed the output past its limits. The orbital sorcery cannon would be breaking apart and burning up in the atmosphere as if fell past the sky city. That was the source of her power as the Demon Lord from before the humans had "invented" guns, but she had destroyed it for this one chance.

She felt something odd inside her body. The biological antenna's wiring had been damaged by the diagonal slash to her torso, so the connection may have finally burned out.

That was fine with her. She had no reason to regret her actions here.

As long as she could save that old man and repay him for what he had done.

She was more interested in the scene directly below than the phenomenon on a mythological scale occurring in the heavens above. Past the blizzard that looked like thick cotton candy, that old man would be strapped to the execution device in front of a crowd.

All the preparations were in place.

With a temperature of 20 Embers below freezing[11], an evenly spread blizzard would have taken the old man's life before it froze the guillotine device. That was why she needed to deliver the finishing blow herself. If she scattered just a bit of artificial coolant from directly above, dull human senses would never notice the difference. She would use a pinpoint attack to freeze only the manconducting silver. That would be enough to force the government to declare the public execution a failure due to a benevolent coincidence, as much as they would hate to do so. The Demon Lord was not human, so her attack would be treated as a natural disaster.

Nirvelphany stuck her fingers into the slit of the long tight skirt of her red leather outfit.

She pulled out a small leather bag with insulation on the inside.

"Now, this has taken far too long, but it is time for the finishing touch."

There were shouts and screams.

The crowd did not start trampling each other, but ironically, that may have been due to the extreme blizzard covering everything. With that thick white wall obscuring their vision, they could not accurately perceive the threat. And the cold sapped their strength, leaving them too weak to run around wildly.

In the plaza for the Temple Moving Ceremony, an old man was looking all around with a giant ma.s.s of platinum and gems on his shoulder. That was the Bell Ringing prototype, a Level 799 bell cricket that operated by absorbing the mana of the four castle towns to run the gemboards that were so numerous they even had to be placed on the exterior.

He was Forturiana High Priest Belbath Ruin Cranky.

The plaza around him was 20 Embers below freezing[12]. He could not see anything clearly past a mere 2 esoule[13]. He had a bad feeling about this. Based on past records, a blizzard or magnetic storm powerful enough to break through the Guardian Umbrella atmospheric shield would probably mean a failed execution. He had his reasons for needing this public execution to succeed. And this was nothing as simple as the lack of the promised entertainment triggering a riot that tore him to pieces.

"Where did she go? The knights must have noticed what was going on up there, but have they still not captured her!?"

The masked Executioner spoke to the High Priest in a m.u.f.fled voice.

"Your Holiness, please end your speech soon. Let's get that guy's head off before anything else can happen. We can't allow the ceremony to fail, right?"

"No one is even listening anymore."

"Then end that long sermon already. If no one is listening, what does it matter?"

"If that senile old man's head is removed, then Nirvelphany really will vanish!! We can't throw out the bait meant to lure her out, you utter buffoon!!"

Ayato shook his woozy head and worked hard to keep himself breathing.

He saw white. The blizzard blotted out even the light of the sun.

The girls were all collapsed. The knights ruling the sky with their flight devices may have crashed after the shockwave and blizzard hit them. Only the devil in red leather was standing tall and preparing something with her back turned to him. She was no longer even looking at her enemy. She unilaterally declared the battle over and instead focused on the person she had to rescue.

She wanted to save the old man who had saved her.

That was the Demon Lord's one and only goal here.

She wanted to repay the person who had healed her wound and provided forgiveness. This was not the performative charity that slimy n.o.bles and business owners would do in front of the silver salt cameras. She was not like those people who disinfected their hand with alcohol the instant the handshakes were complete and no one was watching. Nirvelphany wanted to repay a selfless act with a selfless act of her own. That was all.

That was fine. She could do that if she wanted.

But Ayato clenched his teeth while collapsed behind her. She had taken several lives to accomplish that. And she had shoved the blame for those crimes on him. Before she could talk about the righteousness of her actions, he would make sure she paid for that.

His trembling fingertips once more touched the Linkage Plug sword used for Sorcery Hacking.

He grabbed it.

And he stood up!!!!!!

"Nirrvelllphanyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!"

"Wh!?"

Before the Demon Lord could turn around and ready her anti-dragon rifle, Ayato ran forward with all his might, wrapped his arms around her slender waist, and tackled her hard. The two of them slid too far and plunged straight off of the narrow footing.

Teleria remained unconscious after the hit from the shockwave caused by the clash between the orbital weapon and the atmospheric shield, so he could not hope for any more ice footholds from that blonde girl.

They were thrown out into empty air.

And they fell together.

"Kh, ohhhhh!?"

Nirvelphany gave a roar while he clung to her and her back seemed to burst open. Instead of the artificial Expansion Armor, a real demon wing spread wide. It was the left wing. It was like a giant cape, yet it clearly moved like a living thing. But she could not keep her balance with just the one wing. Her body sc.r.a.ped along the wall of the closest tower as she tried to slow herself down however she could.

She could not allow this to end here.

She was so close. If the coolant inside her leather bag was added to the blizzard, she could freeze just the guillotine to prevent it from moving and save that old man before he was killed!!

"Why must you interfere, human!? This is my only chance! There really is no other opportunity!! The schedule does not give me time to bathe in the moonlight and expand my breadth of possibility! If you wish to take my head, then you can have it afterwards, but only after I rescue that old man!! Why won't you wait!?"

"To h.e.l.l with that. Don't act like righteousness belongs to you and you alone."

"What is wrong with my actions here? Someone is about be beheaded for nothing more than freeing me!! I am not interested in revealing that old priest's lies, but it is those cowardly fools in power who created this situation!! That old man is no great evil and this Temple Moving Ceremony is not holy! What is wrong with trying to save my savior from an undeserved public execution!?"

"Enough false equivalencies, Demon Lord!! Saving that man and using that anti-dragon rifle to shoot unconscious criminals are not the same thing!! You can't excuse any and all actions by saying you did it out of a desire to save an innocent old man! There's no special rule that that lets you escape consequences for your crimes by claiming it was for a good cause!! Listen, Nirvelphany, you know what happens if you do that and you stick to that path to the very end!?"

Ayato desperately clung to her skinny waist and shouted at the top of his lungs.

He made a definite statement here.

"You'll make it so people died because of what that old man did!! You'll justify their phony excuse for the public execution!! That old man will have to carry the weight of the murders you committed!!!!!!"

Her breath caught.

Nirvelphany's breath caught in her throat.

"You can't do that."

That boy was also a criminal who carried his own crime.

And as someone who had continued forward instead of letting it stop him, he spoke to this newcomer on that path.

"If you really want to save that old man, then you can't do that!! You don't have to sit there and let yourself be arrested by the people who invent their own definitions of good and evil and manipulate the majority into oppressing the minority, but you can't look away from the truth of the crimes you chose to commit!! So I'll say it. I'm a Sorcery Hacker, but I'll shamelessly ignore my own crimes to say this here: You can't deny the truth of what you yourself did every step of the way!!!!!!"

That may have been the difference between Ayato and Nirvelphany.

They had both once been the strongest in a certain field, but their paths had never crossed. The boy had turned his back on his perfect record and stooped to the thankless work of a Sorcery Hacker in order to never look away from the truth of what he had done.

"So carry it, Nirvelphany. Those were the results of the actions you proudly chose to do! So don't shove the blame onto others! Carry it on your own shoulders as you move ever forward, Demon Lord!!"

"You…"

"And as luck would have it, there's a perfect stage for that right below here."

He further moved the arms wrapped around her waist. He more or less climbed up her to put himself at her eye level and grabbed her slender shoulders instead.

The Sorcery Hacker made no attempt to escape as he shouted directly at her.

"Go reclaim the crimes you shoved onto that innocent old man's shoulders, Nirvelphany!!!!!!"

A moment later, he pulled his head as far back as he could and then swung it down like a blunt weapon to crack their foreheads together.

And everything came together.

Ayato really did nearly pa.s.s out as he clung to Nirvelphany's waist and she soared like a glider to fall toward the depths below.

The Temple Moving Ceremony's plaza was there. They fell right onto the stage where the public execution was to be held.

Ayato and Nirvelphany arrived on the stage to join the old man bound to the mechanical guillotine, the High Priest drowning in his wicked drive for popularity, and the Executioner.

"Say it, Nirvelphany."

It was covered by the thick blizzard, but this cruel stage was still surrounded by a large crowd. Worse, the old man she had been so desperate to save was right there. The message Ayato was demanding of her may have been too cruel in those circ.u.mstances.

"Throwing stones at an innocent old man is wrong. If people have complaints, they should bring them to you, right? Then say it!! What did you do in this city!? Don't shove the blame onto that old man!! Reclaim it for yourself!!!!!!"

Her mouth flapped wordlessly as she crouched down and she did not move for a bit.

She may have been more afraid of that one old man than she was of the crowd numbering in the tens of thousands or the silver salt cameras of the newspaper companies that would record this moment for eternity.

But she understood the truth.

Even she had to understand that she could not leave things as they were.

"I…"

The Demon Lord remained crouching as her lips trembled.

"I was trying to save the man who saved me."

The clear liquid dripping down her cheeks was not the clear specks of the blizzard melting on her face.

"So I hired a human trafficking group to abduct Urban Design Manager Jorbe Alphoverin. When the human traffickers screwed up, I was afraid they would give me away, so I silenced them. I destroyed the cores of the fire and wind castle towns to break through the Free Audience Restriction barrier supported by the cores' ma.s.sive energy. And I took revenge on White Hat Hacker Dagregor Bull Gerlos who interfered when I should have been one step away from saving him."

She still could not stand up.

"It was me. I did it all."

In fact, she seemed to be breaking down crying.

"This old man had nothing to do with any of it. Those are my crimes. I did it all myself. So please…I beg of you!! Please stop blaming him!! Please, I will atone for what I did! Blaming anyone else for this would be unjust!! So pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!!!!!!"

Her shout echoed out.

It was selfish, it did not get through to the crowd that had no idea what she was talking about, and it did nothing to reduce the severity of what she had done. But how much had it eaten away at her, how much of her pride and dignity had she needed to throw out, and how much of the energy she had stored up did she need to use up to get out that desperate cry?

Ayato understood.

Even if no one else in the world did, a fellow criminal like him understood.

The thick whiteness cleared up.

Sky City Celedileka's Guardian Umbrella atmospheric shield must have rebooted in safe mode. The thick blizzard was cut off and the sun and the stars were visible overhead once more. Everyone was watching the small, curled-up Demon Lord: the crowds surrounding them in all directions, the Armored Dragon made of bat wings that had fallen surprisingly close by, the old man bound to the mechanical guillotine, the masked Executioner, and the Forturiana High Priest.

And someone spoke.

"Feh heh."

It was the High Priest.

Once it was his time to shine once more, he lightly clapped his hands twice to gather everyone's attention.

"No matter how much malicious obstruction the element of darkness throws at us, the benevolent coincidences of the gathered element of light will never be shaken!! Heaven itself has mandated this Temple Moving Ceremony in order to protect everyone in Celedileka, so nothing can stop it. The execution of Thomas Robergin will be swiftly completed! The death of those who would bring chaos to the world shall preserve the world's beauty!!"

"Kh."

Nirvelphany's shoulders trembled while she was curled up with her forehead frozen to the floor.

It had not reached them.

The cries of a criminal had not reached those who held a unilateral monopoly on righteousness.

"Everything is in place. See here what happens to the villains who would disturb the peace with their selfish actions!! We will punish this great evil and prove our power to serve the king! Eternal glory to the Forturiana Church!!"

The old man's speech reached an emotional climax.

And once he was done, he placed a hand on Ayato's shoulder and whispered to the boy.

"(Well done. You are the MVP who prevented Demon Lord Nirvelphany's escape…no, her return. All of the suspicion placed on you will of course be removed. This was nearly a disaster for the both of us, but now we can take our time and celebrate here in this city. I will use all of my authority to ensure it.)"

His voice was sticky.

It was the kind of voice that inspired an instant dislike of the person producing it.

"(The world needs no Hero or Demon Lord. It only needs the Light of Forturiana. Any who would intrude on that can be sent back to the darkness from whence they came using this execution stage that I can use at my discretion. You are a clever boy. I am glad you could work out what was really going on here as a fellow human.)"

Ayato Criminaltrophy grinned.

And his next action was an extremely simple one.

He stabbed his Sorcery Hacking sword into the machine's rail as if to stop the guillotine blade.

"Wh?"

The initial m.u.f.fled syllable of confusion came from the masked Executioner. He pulled the lever, but the guillotine did not fall. Nirvelphany's interference had ended in failure, so why? He clearly could not figure it out.

But the changes did not stop there.

"Gwah!?"

The thick metal lever sprang in the opposite direction he had expected and smashed into his jaw.

"Your Holiness, I know your aesthetic senses are hopelessly lacking, but don't interrupt a once-in-lifetime confession. Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Finally, the machine moved on its own to release the innocent old man's arms and head. He had no idea what was going on as he stretched his arms while still down in a crawling position. Even Nirvelphany's eyes widened in surprise.

Ayato was Sorcery Hacking in front of a crowd. The guillotine was sure to be scanned and retaken before long. So once the old man was free, he released the resonance that decided its provisional level. In other words, he needed to preserve the rest of his resonance.

This was not over and he was looking ahead to something more.

"Listen, Nirvelphany. I had just the one issue with you: shoving the blame for your crimes onto me. I couldn't let you do that, so I pursued you to make sure you paid for it. …And now you've dealt with all those excess hurdles. So a question: If not for that pain-in-the-a.s.s detour, whose side do you think I would have taken?"

"You mean…?"

She might be the true Demon Lord, but after her power gradually leaked from her wound while she was sealed, she could not draw on even 1% of her original strength. It must have been terrifying to challenge this sky city full of humans with no one at all to rely on. If her ident.i.ty was revealed, she would have been attacked by all those people and been helpless to stop them from doing what they would with her. Simply imagining it had to have made her bristle with fear. But she had still gathered strength in her trembling legs and faced ever forward to save the man who had saved her. That courage was praiseworthy.

What reason did he have not to take her side?

What reason did he have to join those throwing stones at her after she had shown him all that?

"So there's just one thing we've wanted to say from the beginning."

He grinned and spoke as a Sorcery Hacker who had abandoned a top-ranked position that had only let him obey the morality as spelled out in the job request.

"If you had time for all that nonsense, you should have explained what happened and asked for some help. If you had, we would've had this done ages ago!!!!!!"

The Demon Lord had gone on a rampage to repay a debt. The Hero who had forgiven her was also here.

But this was not their story.

This was the story of Ayato Criminaltrophy, a Sorcery Hacker who stood on an axis different from good and evil.

On paper, he is enrolled in the Academy Towers that belong to the Selected Kingdoms Combined Royal Family.

He has a history as a Forward. He was known for using a large revolver-style sorcery gun, giving him the name Hexajinx, and that name still holds some effect.

More current reports have him working as a Sorcery Hacker.

He knows his acts are criminal.

It is unknown why he does what he does or where his funding comes from, but there have been multiple reports of his presence during coups or other major incidents in the city-states making up the Selected Kingdoms. There has been no sign of him engaging in robbery or looting during those incidents, so we can guess at some kind of stable source of funding. He appears to act based on an agreement made with some third party, but even when his actions seem to be following a single scenario, he will sometimes overturn everything and take the opposite stance partway through.

It is unknown if he is frequently breaking with the wishes of his funding source, or if he has been given an extremely high level of freedom in his actions.

He is nothing but a threat for those who rule the regional territories he arrives in, but be careful because he has a tendency of behaving like a gentleman thief and his history as a whole suggests that works to his advantage.

According to people who know him well, he apparently tends to place a lot of weight on the truth as he sees it from his point of view. We can guess he has an excellent sense of balance there that allows him to not blindly accept government propaganda while also not rushing toward the conspiracy theories that are so often fueled by victim complexes.

Whenever he is sighted, history tends to be set in motion. As if the stagnant waters are being stirred up.

It is unknown if someone is doing it intentionally or if it goes beyond even that.

(Thoughts)

The above is the independently researched report put together by the Academy Towers Student Council Executive Committee, but it was decided to leave it stored in a Student Council safe instead of submitting it to the teachers.

He is not the type to be shaken by having his ident.i.ty revealed or having official wanted posters distributed. If this report would only drive him to change his name and even his appearance using sorcery plastic surgery, then he will be easier to track if we leave him be.

Approximately 36 meters. Approximately 432 meters. Approximately 24 meters. Approximately 240 meters. Approximately 36 meters. Approximately 2400 meters. Approximately 12 kilometers. Approximately 4.8 meters. Approximately 180 meters. Approximately 36 meters. Approximately -22 degrees Celsius. Approximately -22 degrees Celsius. Approximately 2.4 meters.