Chapter 6 - The Ghost of The Old World (1/2)

Chapter 6, The Ghost of The Old World

Once again, Akira came back to the Kuzusuhara City ruins. He faithfully followed Alpha’s every instruction as he moved deeper into the ruins. This time, they tried to not take the same route as yesterday. Even though he got shot not too long ago, he had to do a lot of physical work like climbing the ruins just like last time. But strangely enough, he did not find any difficulties at all.

Alpha gave Akira a smile as she was satisfied with how Akira was behaving and moving around.

“Look at you, it seems that your body is already fine.”

“Yeah, I don’t really understand why, but I’m really in a good condition today. Although I only rested for a day, I’m somehow feeling better than before I was shot. To be honest, this is rather scary.”

Strangely enough, Akira’s condition was abnormally superb. There was not even a single trace of tiredness on his face and his mind was sharper than usual. He could feel the power that was flowing inside his body right till his fingertips.

Akira came to realize his own physical condition and found it unnatural, even a bit creepy. Alpha spoke to him as if there was nothing weird about this.

“That maybe the effect of the medicine that you took yesterday.”

“Medicine? I’m indeed surprised that my wound healed that fast, but does it have anything to do with me feeling better than before I got shot?”

“I told you to take quite a lot of medicine just to be safe. It seems that it didn’t just heal your bullet wound, but it even healed your other wounds too.”

“But I shouldn’t have any other wounds, except the bullet wound though…”

In contrast to Akira who was getting more and more confused, Alpha’s smiling face did not change at all.

“Since we were free yesterday, I had asked you a lot of things about your daily life, remember? This is just a hypothesis made based on that information. I think the hard life that you’ve been through till now, has put your body under huge stress. So, your body was under a condition where it had non-lethal wounds.”

“Well, I agree that my life in the back alley is indeed a harsh one, but aren’t you exaggerating? After all, I could move around just fine, you know…”

“The living condition that you think as normal, is actually very bad. For example, if you keep living under such malnutritioned condition for a long time, then it will greatly deteriorate your body. After all, it’s as if you’re acc.u.mulating countless non-lethal micro wounds on the cellular level. The extra medicines that I told you to take yesterday as a caution, has healed those micro wounds that were acc.u.mulated in your body. I bet that’s why you’re feeling strangely healthier than before.”

“…So in short, does that mean that I was actually dying till now?”

As Akira showed a mix of conflicted and surprised expression to Alpha, she just returned Akira’s look with a smile.

“Well, that is true. Aren’t you glad that you’re saved now?”

Akira’s face frowned a bit, he realized just how harsh his life had been in back alley. But concluding all the hards.h.i.+ps that he went through with just “I’m glad” did not sit well with him.

Even though they kept moving deeper into the ruins, they did not run into any monster. Alpha’s instructions were normal and Akira did not even feel like he was traversing a place filled with monsters. Following Alpha’s orders made him feel safe and helped him to be more relaxed. As such, although he was walking in the middle of a dangerous ruin, he was able to put his mind on something else other than being wary of his surroundings.

He was rather disturbed by the amount of leeway that he had, so he started a conversation, although they were in the middle of ruin exploration.

“Alpha, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, just ask away.”

“Why are you using that appearance?”

Alpha was using a pure white dress with a lot of frills with both sleeves and its lower body filled with a lot of s.h.i.+ny ornaments.

“Oh my, doesn’t it look good on me? Or do you want me to change to something else? Is this dress is not to your taste?”

Then Alpha playfully spun around while giving a beautiful teasing smile. Her dress fluttered around and her long glossy hair made a full circle. Then in place of her bare back, a boldly exposed chest appeared in front of Akira.

Akira was asking about Alpha’s dress that did not fit the current condition no matter how you see it. But he was fazed by what Alpha did now and forgot about the question that he asked. Instead, he just normally answered Alpha.

“…Well, I do think it looks good on you. But still, if you want to talk about my taste, I actually like the dress that you were wearing when we first met.”

First of all, it was a unique dress from the old world that you can’t get to see every day, not to mention that their meeting left a strong impression on Akira. Thus, he came to like that dress. Alpha just giggled merrily as she knew well about that.

“The dress that I wore when we met for the first time, huh… So, in short, the birthday suit!!”

Right at the next moment, Alpha’s dress vanished. Then once again Akira got to see the beautiful body that was hidden under the glittering dress just a few moments ago. Akira was fl.u.s.tered and said.

“That’s not what I meant!! I meant the dress after that!! Don’t ever erase your dress like that!! Turn it back on now!! Why do you always show me your naked body like that??!!”

Alpha returned her dress and giggled a bit.

“To think that you’re not interested in this body, which was the result of a highly complex calculation inorder to make men’s imagination run wild. Akira, you’re really a small kid, are you in that age where you prefer to eat food than a girl?”

Akira became obstinate and said in a strong tone.

“Yeah I am, there’s no doubt that I’m just a small kid. If I don’t make enough money to buy food, then I’ll die. So yeah, I prefer food than a girl …So then, what is with that dress?!!”

There was a proper reason as to why Alpha was naked when she first met him. As such, he thought that there might also be a proper reason as to why Alpha was using an improper dress in the middle of the ruin. But it was not like he was desperate to know the answer. So if Alpha wouldn’t go along with him, then he’ll just drop the subject.

But then Alpha suddenly stopped teasing Akira. Although she was still smiling, she started to talk in a more serious manner.

“Do you still remember what I told you at that time? Didn’t I say that I needed a dress that would increase the chance of people noticing me and could elicit a reaction from them? Even now, I’m actively sending signals to your brain so that you can perceive me. But there’s something that interests me in that signal transferring process, you see.”

“Is there any problem there?”

“Actually, the management system of the Kuzusuhara City is still active and I’m hijacking that system to broadcast my image within a wide area. That’s why my image can also be seen through the equipment used by the management system of Kuzusuhara City. That’s also the reason as to why the mechanical monsters could see me the other day. So because of that, people with similar equipment will also be able to see me.”

Akira’s face stiffened as he understood what Alpha was trying to say.

“…So, in short, there’s someone who can see you right now, is it? Or that someone with such equipment is around here, right?”

Alpha’s smile vanished as Akira said that.

“Yeah. Don’t look back no matter what. That person is tailing you. He’s keeping his distance from you and he’s observing you, even right now at this very moment.”

Akira’s face turned grim. Alpha’s explanation was simple enough to make him understand the dire situation that he was in.

A bit further away from Akira, there were 2 hunters watching Akira’s every movement. A man by the name Kahimo was watching Akira with his binoculars. While another man by the name Hayya was watching Akira through his artificial eyes that were stuck on his half cyborg head. With such long range sight, both of them were tailing Akira from a distance. They were very confident that an amateur like Akira wouldn’t be able to notice them. By looking at the equipment that they were using and how they seemed so familiar in using them, it was clear that both of them were not new Hunters who would only scourge the outskirts of the Kuzusuhara City ruin.

Kahimo had a rather puzzled look on his face as he was looking at Akira through his binoculars.

“That boy, he’s going quite deep into the ruin. Venturing deep with that amount of equipment is the same as suicide. What in the world is that boy thinking?”

Hayya just shrugged Kahimo’s question with a laugh.

“He’s not even thinking, he’s just a stupid boy. Isn’t that exactly why he isn’t limited by common sense and found those relics? The outskirt area of this place has nothing valuable left, that is the common sense of normal Hunters. I say that it’s faster if we just attack him and make him cough out information about the place where he found those relics.”

Kahimo answered back with an annoyed tone.

“Oii!! Weren’t you the one who stopped me from doing that?!! You stopped me by saying that it would be bad if we kill him by accident before he can tell us anything.”

Hayya just laughed at that rather tense exchange and tried to cool down the situation.

“Don’t say that. I never thought a small boy like him would be able to go that deep into the ruin, you see. Even you too thought that boy found those relics inside a building somewhere in the outskirts, right?”

“Well, that’s true. No one in their right mind would ever think that a boy from the slums would be able to go this deep all by himself, you know. This place itself is quite dangerous, and if we go deeper than this, it would be dangerous even for us.”

“You can say that again, so don’t be angry.”

It was not like both of them were following Akira because they were interested in making friends with him. Instead it was because they heard that a boy with measly equipment from the slum came to the Exchange Centre with an expensive relic. They were interested to find the place from where Akira found his relics.

It was common knowledge among the hunters that the outskirts of Kuzusuhara City ruin had nothing valuable left. But it was also not like the outskirts were completely devoid of anything valuable. There was still a good chance that you could find a lot of relics buried deep under the ruins.

There were numerous reports in the past where people found the entrance to certain places that should have been impossibly hard to find. As an example, recently there were reports saying something like a blocked access into a warehouse was somehow opened by chance from the monsters’ attack. But of course, it was not worth the risk to intentionally look for such a thing. Thus such encounters were really rare.

But when it did happen, a lot of Hunters would once again flood the abandoned ruin. If the first one who found the site could not bring all the relics in one go, then of course the leftover relics would be up for compet.i.tion. So for that goal, there are people who keep their ears up for such a rumour to appear; Kahimo and Hayya were among those people.

There was a rumor going around saying that a small kid from the slums brought an expensive relic to the Exchange Centre and got himself involved in a shootout against other kids for the money that he received. Kahimo heard about this rumour, checked it and confirmed it. This also led them to believe that there existed a place which was accessible to a small kid from the slum and was filled with expensive relics. They believed that this place was located in the outskirts of Kuzusuhara City ruin. After all, there was no other place around the Kugamayama City other than that site where a small kid could explore safely.

They thought that if there were a lot of such relics lying around in the place found out by the kid, then that kid would definitely return to that place to explore again. So, they decided to standby near the ruins looking for a kid, who met the description in the rumour, in order to get details about the place from him. And so they finally found Akira.

Kahimo was actually planning to capture Akira and make him cough the location of the place. But Hayya stopped him by saying that it would be bad if it turned into a fight and they accidentally killed him. Thus they changed their plan to follow Akira, who would hopefully bring them to the relics’ location. But now they started to doubt their plan.

“Hayya, as I thought, we should just force him to cough up the location. After all, he’s just a small boy with poor equipment. We should just be careful not to kill him by accident. You also want to do this the fast way, don’t you?”

Hayya did not reply at all. So Kahimo became visibly annoyed.

“Hey, what’s wrong??”

Hayya finally opened his mouth and muttered.

“…The boy… He should be alone, right?”

“Yeah, he should be alone, it doesn’t seem like he has a friend hiding around here.”

Kahimo was puzzled, he picked up his beloved binocular and looked at Akira one more time.

The binocular he was using was a pretty powerful binocular, it can see well from a very long range. It also had the night vision function so he could see clearly during the night as if it was during the day. Moreover, it can detect invisible light or see through simple optical camouflage. Then to top it off, it has the function to highlight monsters and people.

Other than this high-tech binocular, there were a lot of other equipment that uses network access, thus allowing them to retrieve the augmented reality information broadcasted from the ruins. But that function wasn’t available for this binocular. After all, there was a time when the mechanical monsters used that function for their advantage instead. At that time, they could not see enemies that were visible with naked eyes and almost got killed. Because of that experience, they set the binocular only for local function.

“He’s all alone. I don’t see any monsters, it’s only him.”

Hayya’s face twisted a bit and replied back in a fas.h.i.+on as if it was something that was hard to say.

“Well, Uhh. Let me say this first, I’m not under the influence of any drug, I’m not drunk, and I’m not trying to tease you or something…”

“Okay okay, then what? You’re being weird, you know?”

“…I can see a girl beside that boy.”

“A girl?”

Kahimo decided to recheck and looked back at Akira once again while making a puzzled face.

“Nope, nothing. It’s only him, him alone. I don’t see any girl, you know.”

“…I get it, you can’t see her, right? But I can see her clearly. A beautiful girl is guiding that boy.”

“If that is so, then tell me how she looks like, down to all the details.”

“…She’s wearing a white frilly dress that looks super expensive.”

“A frilly dress?? Have you gone nuts?? Where do you think we are? We are in the middle of the G.o.d-d.a.m.n ruins, you know!!”

“It’s true!! I’m not lying!! And I’m not drunk either!! It’s definitely not an illusion!! I know better not to drink any alcohol or take any drugs before going to the ruins, you know!!”

Looking at how he reacted, Kahimo knew that Hayya was not lying. But it was also true that he could not see the girl. He made a puzzled look as he was confused by what was going on, but then he realized something.

“Hayya. both of your eyes’ parts are connected to the network, right?”

“Yeah, it’s equipped with high quality parts and of course I paid a huge sum of money for that. Although it has a network connection function that I’m so proud of, it can easily break in the middle of the ruin. It’s a high tech eye with a lot of functions, but its only downside is that it sometimes receives broadcasted transmission all on its own.”