Chapter 25 - Head Equipment, Intuition and Occult (2/2)

“I understand. For now, since I don’t have any money left to buy a helmet, I’ll just a.s.sume myself to be one of those people who don’t prefer a helmet.”

s.h.i.+zuka smiled and said.

“That might be better than staying undecided. You can anyway buy an optional set later, just tell me when you change your mind.”

“Yes.”

s.h.i.+zuka then changed the subject.

“Remember that just because you got yourself an augmented suit, doesn’t mean that you can do anything dangerous, okay? Contact me if anything bad happens. Just come to me if you find anything faulty, but remember, it’ll take at least one month to get it fixed. Ah, and also, be sure to turn off the suit or put it under daily life mode until you exit the shop else you might damage something unknowingly.”

Akira then turned OFF the augmented suit, thus its weight suddenly returned. He thought it would be impossible to go back to the inn under this condition, thus he turned it back ON and set it to daily life mode. The weight of the suit reduced considerably. Although there’s a slight weight, it would not impede his movements.

Akira and s.h.i.+zuka then went back to the shop and they started conversing professionally like a customer and a shopkeeper.

“I tried my best in picking an augmented suit that would satisfy you. I’m sure you’ll come up with a lot of things once you actually use it, but I hope you’re satisfied with it for now. If you find anything that you want to complain about, there’s no need to hold back. I’ll help you if it’s something within my boundaries.”

“I think it’ll be alright, but I’ll come again for consultation if anything crops up.”

s.h.i.+zuka smiled as it seemed that Akira was satisfied. She then added.

“There’s one thing that I forgot to tell you. Don’t forget that you’ll need to buy energy packs and other things for your augmented suit beside the usual medicine, so keep that in mind. It’ll be meaningless if you only buy a new energy pack once you run out of energy. Since you already bought one, you need to maintain it so you can use it anytime.”

“Yes, I’ll be careful. Thank you very much for everything.”

As Akira politely bowed, s.h.i.+zuka smiled and offered Akira some of her goods while making a joke.

“Don’t mention it. And now that you have an augmented suit, you should be able to wield guns that you couldn’t before, right? I’ll be looking forward to when you order more guns.”

“I want to meet your expectations, but I’ll have to earn enough money before that. So please wait patiently.”

Akira casually replied back with a smile. He then bowed his head and went back home.

s.h.i.+zuka saw Akira off as she mumbled.

“But that aside. He bought an AAH rifle not too long ago and he already bought an augmented suit now, huh. That’s really fast. Not to mention that he was lucky enough to get rescued by Elena and Sara when he was in a pinch. He might become a great Hunter in the future… Just maybe though.”

s.h.i.+zuka looked worried for a bit before recovering immediately.

The faster a person is running on the road to success, the more focused he would be, the narrower his vision, and finally, the bigger the damage he would suffer when he meets bad luck.

s.h.i.+zuka immediately changed the things in her mind before she unconsciously said what she thought and jinxed it.

Akira who already returned to his room smiled seeing the augmented suit that was hung on the hanger rack.

“Now that I already have my augmented suit, I can start looking for relics again.”

There was a need for him to pay the rest of 500,000 Aurum to s.h.i.+jima and he almost ran out of money too. He only had enough money to stay in this bath-less room for a few more days.

Akira wanted to earn more money and move to a room with a bath as soon as possible, but Alpha just rejected that idea.

“We won’t go to the ruins anytime soon, you know?”

“Eh? But you said that I can go to the wasteland again once I get my augmented suit, right?”

“Of course you can go to the wasteland, but not to the ruins. It’s dangerous and I’ve decided to keep you safe, you know. I’ll do my best to find a solution against your bad luck.”

From the way Alpha said it, it felt like she was exaggerating his situation. Akira winced a bit as he wondered if his bad luck was not something that he could fight back unless he had an equal amount of resolve.

“I-I see. If you say so, it can’t be helped then. So, what should I do from now on? We’re about to run out of money to even stay in this cheap room, you know?”

“It’s alright. We’ll take requests from the Hunter Office to earn money for the time being. Your aim, for now, is to complete requests from the Hunter Office and get your Hunter rank up until you can borrow a vehicle for exploring the wasteland.”

“Vehicle, huh? Hmmm, is there any reason why I should prioritize that?”

“It’s tiring to run away from a group of monsters with your legs, isn’t it?”

Although Akira was convinced by that reasoning, he was making a conflicted face as he realized that the way Alpha worded it out was as if he was ought to encounter another group of monsters in the future.

“Exploring the ruins for collecting relics will come after that. And I’ll be the one choosing the requests too.”

“…Well, if you said so, then I’ll leave everything to you.”

“Just go and take rest for today. I’ll finish the augmented suit’s setting while you sleep. You’ll have augmented suit training for the whole day tomorrow. I’ll have you get used to it so that you’ll at least be able to fight while using it. Then we’ll start taking requests from the day after tomorrow.”

“Augmented suit setting? But s.h.i.+zuka already did that, right?”

Alpha smiled invincibly to Akira who looked a little bit sour.

“She only configured the most basic part. I’m going to configure the setting tailored for you to maximize my support capabilities. I only need you to connect your information terminal and I’ll do the rest myself, so don’t worry.”

Akira took his information terminal and used the cable from the augmented suit maintenance kit to connect his information terminal with his augmented suit. Once it was connected, the information terminal showed an array of symbols, numbers, images and characters that he did not recognise, but he remembered that something similar had happened when Alpha configured his information terminal too. Thus he did not worry about it and went to take a rest.

As Alpha was busy configuring Akira’s augmented suit through the information terminal, Akira was using the note and the stationeries to study by himself. But he then remembered what s.h.i.+zuka said.

“Hey Alpha, s.h.i.+zuka-san said that there are people whose intuition worsened when they used a helmet. Is that true?”

“Yep, that’s true.”

Akira was a bit surprised since Alpha said it as if it was a fact and it was idiotic to doubt that in the first place.

“You put that out pretty clearly, huh. Even s.h.i.+zuka-san said it herself that it was occult belief, you know.”

“It’s a misjudgement and misinterpretation due to the inability to get the needed accurate information and knowledge. It’s because a mix of inability to empirically translate individual sensation or inability to communicate with such a thing or so many other factors. It’s exactly because it can’t be a.n.a.lyzed with the current technology that it’s called an occult thing.”

Akira looked utterly confused.

“…Can you please explain it in words that are easier for me to understand?”

“Of course. Let’s imagine, you are seeing a low-resolution picture of Kuzusuhara ruin. Although it’s blurry, you can still recognize it. But there’s a difference between the picture and the real scene even if the people who see the picture don’t realize it. Since it is a blurry image you won’t be able to make out all the details in it. It’s the same reasoning with a full-face helmet equipped with a wide-angle display or a high quality binocular. There’s always some information that gets lost. And if some of the information that is lost contains warning for an incoming danger, then you won’t be able to notice it. And this is not limited only to information coming from vision. The same reasoning can also be used for any information received through any part of your head.”

Akira looked puzzled and there were a lot of questions inside his mind.

“Feeling someone behind you and really finding someone there when you look back. There are people who have such a level of intuition. But those people have such intuition, not because of their sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell. They, of course, can’t see what is behind them, nor hear, nor smell, nor touch. These people might not be able to directly see the person behind them, but they might have an organ that somehow makes them able to feel the gaze. They might be someone who got such an organ by using technology from the old world or they might be descendants of such people. There’s also the possibility that they got their hands on a relic that allows them to do that and they’ve been using it without realizing as if they suddenly got a superpower. So using a helmet might impede that organ or relic.”

Akira looked confused, he seemed like he could not understand everything that Alpha just said.

“Although you’re talking with me through telepathy, this is something that only happens between me and you. Like I said before, this is possible because of some peculiarities in your brain. But this is not only limited to our case. There are cases where other people could communicate and send information through telepathy with another person or thing too. As an example, some twins can communicate between them through telepathy or like when you somehow notice that there’s danger nearby from the people around you. You might not be able to communicate directly with the people around you, but some information is unconsciously transferred. This kind of information transfer might be blocked by a helmet.”

Akira was barely able to follow through all the new information that was flooding his brain.

“Basically, people who have good intuition are those who for some reason are able to unconsciously receive information and make decisions based on that information. For the Hunters who regularly risk their lives in their job, they’ve always been polis.h.i.+ng and relying on their intuition, so having it dulled is like making them fight monsters with their eyes blinded. The more they rely on their intuition, the easier they’ll get killed without it.”

Alpha then stopped her explanation temporarily.

“Did you understand anything?”

Akira was still confused, but he somehow blurted out an answer.

“…So in short, if I put something weird on my head, the things that are hard to notice normally will become impossible for me to notice. And there’s even a chance that it’ll block our telepathy ability, right?”

Alpha looked surprised for a moment hearing his answer, but she immediately smiled happily.

“Even though you didn’t understand everything, I think it’s good enough that you were able to understand this much. That’s why, no matter how good the equipment is, you’re not allowed to use it if it impedes my support.”

“But how will I know if it’ll impede your support?”

“I’ll know it right away and I’ll warn you, so don’t worry.”

“I see, I understand.”

Akira was relieved since he knew that Alpha would warn him when he might try to equip anything strange that would hamper Alpha’s support unknowingly.

“Now then, was that good enough? Or should I explain it to you again with a lower difficulty bar?”

“Nope, that was good enough. You can just tell me the rest of the details while teaching.”

“Is that so? Just ask me anytime when you want to hear the rest.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Akira rejected that offer since he had a feeling that she would continue with a long and difficult explanation if he said yes. But he did not know that Alpha had already guessed his answer.

Alpha smiled as she was watching Akira closely when he tried to evade that subject. By seeing how Akira reacted, how his expression changed and how his mood changed. She was able to infer Akira’s tendency, personality, things that he liked, things that he hated, things that shocked him etc, basically, the root of his personality. She had always been observing Akira for this very reason.

<script>