Chapter 9, - Akira and Shizuka (1/2)

Chapter 9, Akira and s.h.i.+zuka

The next morning, while having his breakfast, Akira asked Alpha about their schedule for the day. He thought that he would do telepathic communication training again. But to his surprise, Alpha told him to renew his equipment and do training outside. It was not that he hated to stay in a comfortable inn like this, rather, it was more like he felt it was wasteful to spend all his money this way.

Once Akira finished his breakfast, he immediately prepared himself and moved out from the inn. He still had some time left before the check out time, but he thought that it was another luxury that he did not need now.

A lot of Hunters made Kugamayama City as their base of operation since there were a lot of ruins around it. As such, there were a lot of shops aimed for Hunters in the lower district.

Among all of these shops, there was a general shop called Cartridge Freak. It sold all kinds of things like guns, ammo etc for new and veteran Hunters. The shop was not bad for it to go down anytime soon, but at the same time it was not prosperous enough to open a second shop. It was common to find such a shop in the lower district.

s.h.i.+zuka was the manager and the only person running the whole Cartridge Freak. Thanks to the hard work from the management and a good collection of weapons, there were many new Hunters who bought their first equipment there and continued to be its patron. Then some of these Hunters would stop coming to the shop not too long after, there were 2 main reasons for it. First of all, some of them continued raising their rank as a Hunter until the weapons from Cartridge Freak could no longer satisfy them, thus they would become a regular for other bigger shop looking for better weapons. As for the second reason, some of them went to the wasteland and lost their lives there. If you ask which one was more dominant, the latter case was more dominant.

s.h.i.+zuka is a beautiful girl. There were a lot of people becoming a regular of that shop for wooing her. In her line of business, it was common for her to hear things like the guy who flirted with her the other day to be found dead the next day. Since it was something unavoidable to her as long as she was doing that business, she would just forget it and continue working. But she had decided to never date a Hunter.

Just like always, that day she was sitting alone in the counter watching the outside while waiting for customers, and then someone that she never saw before came in.

It was just a boy. Although he looked like a Hunter, he was wearing a dress mostly worn by people from the slums and he did not look that strong. Judging from his outer appearance, s.h.i.+zuka was not sure if she should serve him as a precious customer or not.

The boy looked around him as if he found himself in an unknown place. Looking at that, s.h.i.+zuka just observed him carefully. Only after she decided that the boy was not there to steal anything from her shop that she lowered her guard and gave a friendly look.

That boy was Akira. After he entered the shop, he was only looking at the exhibited weapons. Only after he was sure that a small kid from the slum like him would not be kicked out, did he start to look for other weapons more seriously.

There were all kinds of weapons lined up inside the shop. There was also a catalog spec placed just beside the racks that contained the weapons. But for Akira, forget common knowledge, he could not even read and write. The only thing that he could understand was just numbers written on the catalog, thus he could not understand what the catalogs were explaining at all.

“…What is the difference between this one and this one? Is it only their prices?”

Both guns looked the same for beginners. But for Akira, after seriously comparing both guns, he could only tell that they had a small difference in price. It was visible that Akira was really anxious as he hung his head low. After all, he was about to buy a gun that he would use to bet his life in the future with the money that he got from risking his very own life. If he ended up buying a bad gun, not only would it make his work as a Hunter more difficult, it would also make him regret it to no end.

Alpha then calmed Akira down while smiling gently.

“They have a lot of differences, I don’t mind explaining it to you in detail, but let’s do that later. Don’t worry, even if you don’t really understand, I’ll properly pick a good gun for you. So leave this to me.”

“Okay, I’m counting on you then.”

Thanks to the telepathic communication, Akira did not like a r.e.t.a.r.d talking to himself, but his eyes still inadvertently moved toward Alpha.

s.h.i.+zuka realized that strange behavior as she tilted her head.

[…He’s looking to a direction where no one is there. Or is it someone there? An optical camouflage? But it should be deactivated once you entered the shop… Is it just my imagination? I wonder if it’s just him s.h.i.+fting his eyes when thinking.]

The shop had a contract with a security company, thus all kinds of security devices were installed inside the shop. The device for nullifying optical camouflage was one of the devices installed there. Just to be safe, s.h.i.+zuka checked the log for that device, but the log showed no reaction at all. And so s.h.i.+zuka stopped worrying about it.

As Akira approached the counter, s.h.i.+zuka changed to a friendly smile and welcomed Akira.

“Welcome, this is your first time here, right? Welcome to the Cartridge Freak. I’m the Manager s.h.i.+zuka, how can I help you?”

“Can I please get a maintenance kit, AAH a.s.sault rifle and some bullets. And also, I want to sell a few things.”

Then Akira put 2 guns on the counter, those were the guns that he took from Hayya and his friend.

s.h.i.+zuka checked the condition of those 2 guns, after that, she asked Akira for a confirmation.

“One of the guns is an AAH a.s.sault rifle though? Are you sure you want to buy a new one? It is indeed in a bad shape, but rather than selling it and buying a new one, you can still fix it with a maintenance kit. Moreover, this AAH a.s.sault rifle is of higher quality, are you sure you want to sell it?”

Just shutting up and continuing with the business as usual would give s.h.i.+zuka more profit, but she asked for a confirmation out of her kind nature.

Alpha then explained to Akira.

“It’s okay. Sell it and buy a new one. After all, rather than quality and power, it’s more important to get a gun that you’ll have no problem using. As for the AAH a.s.sault rifle, I’ll train you to use it from now on. So it’s better to buy a brand new one compared to a gun that someone has used before.”

“It’s okay, please proceed with the selling.”

“Alright then, in that case… Deducting from the guns that you sold, the total will be 100,000 Aurum.”

After he finished the payment, Akira looked at the remaining money inside his envelope while looking rather conflicted. His hands were shaking when he was handing over the money, and now his balance was already down to 60,000 Aurum. 200,000 Aurum was a small amount of money, he made a bitter laugh as he now understood the meaning of Alpha’s words.

s.h.i.+zuka put all the stuff that Akira bought on the counter, she then made a smile which was a mix of a seller smile and a smile of confidence on her own goods.

“These are the goods that you requested. If you want, I can give you explanations too. There are unexpectedly many people out there who are using these weapons with half-baked knowledge, you know. It’s not like you’ll lose anything by hearing my explanation, and not to mention that I have nothing to do right now, so I can give you a detailed explanation if you want.”

Even if that was just a formality toward a customer, Akira was taken aback by that kindness that was shown to him. And then Akira told himself an excuse by saying that it might be helpful and decided to take that offer.

“Well, uhh, yes please.”

“Alright then, AAH a.s.sault rifle is the favorite rifle for the Hunters. Among all the guns circulating in the eastern district, it’s the oldest gun…”

s.h.i.+zuka smiled happily as she started her explanation. Whether it was because she was so bored or because it was a subject that she was an expert with, she continued giving her explanation skilfully.

The AAH a.s.sault rifle was a famous rifle that had more than 100 years of history. It was regarded as a masterpiece of its time when it was released. It was used as a basic model. It is being improved continuously till now and it was a gun that is circulating widely in the eastern district. It had a lot of functions like automatic mode and semi-automatic mode. Moreover, it had good accuracy for long range shooting too. Continuous improvement for 100 years was able to erase almost all design flaws. It was a cheap gun for fighting a monster. It had good reliability, durability, maintainability, and it rarely had any failure. As such, many people liked this type of weapon.

Many companies expanded the model individually from each other and many people who like that gun made so many modifications so that the gun did not look like its original form at all. All of these guns were called collectively as AAH a.s.sault rifle.

Even for Hunters who brought tanks, weapons, or all kinds of personal weapons to fight monsters, they always had at least one AAH a.s.sault rifle with them as some kind of good luck charm. That is just how much the Hunters loved the AAH a.s.sault gun.

s.h.i.+zuka was really satisfied when she finished her explanation. Although it was something that most Hunters already knew, Akira listened very closely to that explanation. Thus, s.h.i.+zuka felt that it was worth the time explaining it to Akira, she then happily continued their conversation.

“Do you need anything else? How about recovery potion, you can never bring too much of it. I recommend you to always have surplus potions. It’s okay too if you want to bring more ammo and equipment instead, but you better plan to get back here sooner if you do that. There are many people who could not get back home just because injuries that they thought to be only light wounds. Fast and adequate healing is very important.”

This made Akira think for a bit. If it was about the healing potion, he still had some medicine that he had found in the ruin. He then guessed how much such medicine would cost judging from its effectivity and decided that it was not something that he could buy with the amount of money that he had at that moment. But then he started thinking of things that he might need and could buy here.

“In that case then, do you have clothes for a Hunter?”

“Do you need armor? Or augmented clothes? I’m sorry. Equipment like that usually need a body measurement of each Hunter, that’s why we don’t sell readymades. But you can order one here if you want.”

When it comes to clothes for Hunters, it usually means armor for battle. It includes armor with particular functions like slash-resistant, pressure-resistant or bulletproof armor. As for the augmented clothes, these were clothes that augment their user’s physical strength by artificial muscles. Since s.h.i.+zuka looked like she was feeling sorry, Akira was fl.u.s.tered a bit as he immediately shook his head.

“Ah, that’s not what I meant, uhh, I mean clothes that look st.u.r.dy and easy to move with. And also I would take a rucksack too if you have one…”

“Oh, that’s what you meant, huh… I do have some but it’s not for children size, I think it will be alright after I modify it a bit, wait for a sec, okay?”

s.h.i.+zuka went inside the shop and returned with the goods that Akira asked, clothes and a rucksack. It was just a coat with armor pieces spread in some places, although it had no worth as an armor, he only had nothing but that to use at the moment. While the rucksack was an old dusty rucksack that you cannot put out as an item to sell.

s.h.i.+zuka included the payment for the cloth and the rucksack in the payment from before. So in short, Akira got them for free. Akira was rather surprised by that.

“Are you really sure?”

“Yep, I don’t mind. It’s just some kind of extra service. If you like them, then please frequent this shop and buy a lot of things.”

“I understand, thank you very much for everything.”

Since s.h.i.+zuka was smiling gently at him, Akira smiled back and bowed.

s.h.i.+zuka kept waving her hand at Akira as he was leaving the shop. But once she could not see Akira’s figure anymore, her expression turned worried.

“A kid Hunter, huh. I wonder how long he will survive.”

Working as a Hunter was really dangerous, you could be killed anytime, even more so when you are a kid. And not to mention that Akira did not seem like he had any experience in using anti-monster guns. s.h.i.+zuka could see that through her experience.

“Seriously though, I really hope he can be a regular to my shop.”

The cloth and the rucksack that she gave were some kinds of send-off gift for Akira.

(Athena13: send-off gift you give to people that will be buried)

***

Akira went straight to the wasteland to prepare himself for training right after he left s.h.i.+zuka’s shop. He changed to the dress that he bought, took out his brand new AAH a.s.sault rifle and loaded it with the ammo that he bought together with the gun.

Guns made to fight monsters were heavier than Akira thought and it got heavier with the ammo loaded inside it. It reminded him of what was in store for him as a Hunter, i.e. fighting monsters. And so, he strongly squeezed the gun that he would be trusting his life to with a serious face.

Looking at that, Alpha’s face turned serious, she then asked a question to Akira ignoring what he was feeling at that moment.

“Akira, was that girl from before your type?”

“Girl from before?”

“The manager of that gun shop. Her name is s.h.i.+zuka, isn’t it? You were fl.u.s.tered and all over the place, you know?”

“I was fl.u.s.tered…? I was only buying weapon like usual, was I not? Of course, I was happy that she gave the dress and the rucksack for free, but that was all, you know?”

“No, something is different, I know it.”

“Even if you told me so, I can’t really say for sure. Leaving that aside, I’ve finished my preparations here.”