Chapter 28 - A Request From The Corporate Government (1/2)

Translator: Athena13

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

Akira and the other Hunters returned back to the gathering place. It was busier than when they had left. The trucks that were used during the patrol were lined up and the Hunters were offboarding from their trucks.

As Akira stepped down from the truck’s tray, the nervousness and tensed up feeling inside him finally cleared. He then let out a sigh to expel all the tiredness within his psyche.

Alpha smiled and tried to cheer up the tired Akira.

“Good work out there. You got back safely without any trouble.”

“You’re right.”

“I’m really glad. But don’t forget that this is also thanks to my support, okay?”

“…Yeah.”

“To be honest, I thought I had to be more cautious of your bad luck when you got number 14, but it seems that there was nothing to worry about after all.”

When Akira heard that, he looked at Alpha in puzzlement.

“Seriously though, what meaning does this number 14 actually have?”

“It’s nothing to worry about.”

Alpha’s smile did not change as she said that. Although Akira was still suspicious, he was interrupted when one of the Hunter Office staff made an announcement.

“Show your Hunter ID and report in to wrap up your patrol request!! The rewards will be distributed at the counters in the Hunter Office! The payment distribution will start at 18:00 today!! Hunters who didn’t collect their payment within 48 hours since the start of distribution will lose their rewards!! I’ll say it again!! Show your Hunter ID and…”

The staff from the Hunter Office kept repeating this announcement to the Hunters who returned from their patrol. It was in order to avoid any kind of problems that might arise when they distribute the payment for these Hunters.

“Akira, let’s go and formally finish today’s request. It’ll be bad if you forget it. So let’s go now.”

“Alright, alright. Just give me a break and return back to your usual dress, will you?”

“Oh my, do you hate this swimsuit that much?”

Alpha then turned to Akira and made some poses to display her charm while making a displeased expression showing that she was offended by his remark. Akira had calmed down and loosened up after realizing that he was no longer in the wasteland, so he now felt that Alpha’s swimsuit was a bit too aggressive. So he replied back bluntly.

“Just turn back to how you usual dress already.”

“Haah, it can’t be helped then.”

Alpha then changed into something that was less revealing. Although it was still rather aggressive, Akira thought that it was at least fine for now. After all, if he complained too much about it, she might even turn her dress to something worse instead.

After that, Akira joined the line for the report wrap-up. When his turn came, he let the information terminal handled by the Hunter Office staff to read the data from his Hunter ID. The sound made by the terminal when it read the data from his Hunter ID indicated that his job was formally over.

Akira felt like he had accomplished something. Alpha then told him to open his information terminal, connect it to the Hunter Office and check the request history. With her help, Akira used his information terminal to connect to the Hunter Office and opened the page that showed individual data of Hunters. When he checked the history section, he could see that the request he just finished was listed there.

“By the way, what should I do to receive the reward?”

“It would be transferred to your account. The basic reward is 5000 Aurum. Although I don’t know about the data gathered by the Hunter Office’s information gathering devices, you did defeat only 1 monster back there. So don’t keep your hopes too high. When the payment distribution begins, your reward should be transferred to your account from the Hunter Office. As for your Hunter Rank, I can’t really say anything. After all, the rank promotion calculation is not revealed to the public.”

(Athena: All Hunter Offices are owned by Hunter a.s.sociation.)

The current Akira was more concerned about the money that he could get for paying his accommodation rather than his rank. Thus he frowned when he heard her explanation about his reward.

“…I still can’t change to a room with a bath with that amount of money.”

“You just finished your first request for this morning, you know. I think it’ll be okay if you sum up all the money that you’ll be making today.”

“I hope you’re correct.”

The patrol request was divided into 3 rounds during the morning and 4 rounds during the evening. Since the ammo expenditure depended on the number of monsters that they encountered during the patrol, it was divided in such a way that they would always have enough reserve ammo to return back as scheduled without any trouble.

Most of the Hunters who took this request were new young Hunters. And even after registering their name beforehand, some of them still did not turn up in the gathering place. There were a lot of possible reasons for the same. Some of them were just simply abandoning the request. Some of them took multiple requests, got attacked by monsters on their previous request and were too afraid to proceed. And of course, some of them were rendered unfit to fight or even got killed by monsters. These were common happenings among new Hunters.

But the Hunter Office did not differentiate between these reasons. After all, these kinds of things only happened because these Hunters were lacking in their resolve and skill.

The next request that Akira took would start at 11:00. Since he only used 3 bullets during his last patrol, he did not need to restock his ammo before proceeding to the next request. So he decided to have a small talk with Alpha while waiting. But suddenly, Elena who was pa.s.sing by that area by pure chance noticed Akira and smiled at him.

“Ah, as I thought, it is Akira. Long time no see, Akira.”

Akira politely bowed his head.

“Long time no see.”

“I thought that I would frequently see you in s.h.i.+zuka’s shop, but it seems that you haven’t been visiting her shop lately. Did anything happen?”

“Ah, it’s just that after I placed my order for an augmented suit, I temporarily stopped doing any Hunter requests and was spending most of my time inside my room. My augmented suit arrived not too long ago and I started taking up Hunter requests again today.”

“I see, I’m glad that it wasn’t because you were bedridden after getting injured from back then.”

Elena then looked at Akira’s augmented suit.

“Is that the augmented suit you were talking about…? Yep, it looks good on you. You look really cool in it.”

“Thank you for the compliment.”

Akira was a bit bashful when he said that. Looking at his reaction, Elena felt it rather cute. But right after that, her face turned serious.

[…When I look at him like this, he looks like just your normal everyday boy. But…]

Akira noticed that small change in Elena’s expression and looked at her in puzzlement. But then Elena politely bowed at Akira.

“I know that this might be way too late, but I want to say it properly. Thank you very much for saving me and Sara back then. I’m really thankful to you.”

Akira looked like he was at a loss for words but then Elena continued with her still serious face.

“Sara has already said this to me and I too promise you that I won’t ask anything unnecessary and I won’t reveal this to anyone.”

Akira looked conflicted for a second, but he immediately covered it up with a smile.

“…Ahh, right, please don’t tell anyone.”

As Elena saw Akira’s reaction, she felt a little disappointed.

[…As I thought, it’s not like he can trust us right away, huh. Well, it’s only to be expected though.]

Elena’s heart hurt a little when she realized that Akira still did not fully trust her, but at the same time, she understood his reason too.

She thought that Akira might be someone who could connect to the old world domain and that he knew it was dangerous if other people discovered that. Thus it was only to be expected that he did not trust her. After all, there were cases where getting killed was better than getting discovered. Elena understood that as well, that was why she tried to give her best sincere smile to Akira in order to make him feel more at ease.

“Even if I look like this, I’m a Hunter with quite some accomplishments under my belt, so I know well about the importance of trust. And not to mention that I don’t want s.h.i.+zuka and Sara to hate me, of course, I don’t want you to hate me too. So don’t worry.”

“Ah, it’s not like I can’t trust you or Sara-san. It’s just that… You know…”

“Is that so? Thank you for believing in us, I’m really happy that you do.”

Elena then smiled fondly at Akira. Akira was embarra.s.sed seeing her being so sincere to him, but then he started to blush and started to get fl.u.s.tered for a different reason.

Elena was happy and it was shown in her face. Judging by Akira’s reaction, it seemed that he was indeed not lying. But then she looked reluctant and said.

“To be honest, I still want to talk with you for some more time, but I have some other things to do for now. Let’s meet up again somewhere else like in s.h.i.+zuka’s shop and have a long conversation next time. Since you’re here, I bet you’re taking that patrol request, right? Because this is your first Hunter job after a while, be sure to not let your guard down and be careful out there, okay? See you around then.”

“Yes, I’ll be careful. Elena-san too, please be careful.”

Elena waved at Akira before she left the place. After Elena was gone from his views, Akira hung his head and let out a big sigh. Just like that time with Sara-san, Akira felt a strong and heavy emotion crawling inside his heart.

Alpha noticed that and immediately called out to him.

“Akira.”

Akira then remembered what Alpha said to him back then.

“I know, it’s alright.”

Akira had made his resolve and decided that next time he would save Elena and Sara for the sake of saving them and not as a pretence for killing other people. And he would get stronger both for Elena and Sara’s sake and for his own sake as well.

Looking at that, Alpha smiled at him and said.

“It’s all good as long as you get it. It’s about the time for the next request, so let’s move.”

“Okay.”

Akira raised his head and firmly stepped forward.

As the time for his next job came closer, Akira got a.s.signed to a truck just like before. While he was walking to his a.s.signed truck, Alpha who was beside him frowned a bit.

“…This number again, huh. I wonder if this number has some kind of connections with you or something.”

Akira got a.s.signed to the number 14 truck again. Looking at how Alpha frowned and said that as if it had some kind of meaning behind it, Akira also frowned.

“Seriously now, if you’re going to say something like that, you should just tell me the meaning behind that number.”

“It’s nothing much. It’s just that according to my experience, it was a rather unlucky number.”

“…Oh, I see, it’s indicating that I have bad luck, huh?”

“Yep, it is.”

Akira was convinced by her answer as she would not explain anything more than that.

As the next patrol was dispatched, Akira looked around to check the faces of other Hunters who were in the same truck as him. Although he saw some familiar faces, he did not see Hazawa or the Drankam Hunters who were with him in his last patrol.

This time, Akira was the only young Hunter in the truck. Although it did not become a ruckus like the last time, there were still some Hunters who looked at him as if he was a dead weight. But after he got to kill some monsters with his accurate shooting thanks to Alpha’s support, other Hunters stopped looking at him like that.

Due to his highly accurate shooting, some of them even thought that Akira was a cyborg. After all, it was not an impossible thing to execute such a highly accurate shot if he was a cyborg with a preinstalled accuracy support device and software. Moreover, it was not rare for a Hunter who just got a new body modification to be taking low-level requests until he or she got used to it.

The patrol continued without any problem. The strength of the monsters and the number of encounters they had were all manageable for a normal Hunter. And for those Hunters who expected to make quite a sum of reward money, this time’s patrol was a productive one.

Akira did kill a lot of monsters together with other Hunters, thus he could not help but smile and look forward to his reward money.

After they finished their patrol and were on their way back to the city, some of the Hunters who were expecting to get a good amount of reward were laughing and talking to each other on how were they planning to spend their money. Some of them were planning to go to the entertainment district in the city and some of them were planning to splurge their money buying things.

Akira was also in a good mood. Although he had no idea about how much rewards he would get, judging by how the other Hunters were acting, it seemed that he could get his hopes high up for this time’s reward.

“It seems that I might be able to stay in a room with a bath after all. I’ll take a good long bath today.”

Akira was very relaxed after he finished his second patrol. Alpha saw that and warned Akira with a smile.

“Remember that you also have a patrol job in the evening too, so don’t get too relaxed yet, okay? Let’s work hard so you can keep staying in a room with a bath from tomorrow.”

“I know. But it’ll be fine as long as it’s only at this level. Or is it that the next patrol will be harder than this one?”

“Although the difficulty of both requests is the same, it’s common to find that the real difficulty is different compared to what was mentioned in the request information. And this is more prominent in case of eradication requests such as the one we’re taking. But I bet you know this very well already, right? After all, you experienced it yourself where you got attacked by 2 groups of monsters on the same day.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I’ll be more careful.”

Akira smiled bitterly and readjusted his psyche which he let loose just a moment ago. He understood well about his unluckiness since there were cases where he had to face it in the past.

After he returned, he completed the job wrap-up and accepted the request for his next patrol. Akira then sat in the gathering place to eat his Hunter’s ration. His next truck was also number 14.

“I wonder if they a.s.sign Hunters to the same truck always.”

Akira looked conflicted since Alpha told him that number 14 was unlucky, but in contrast to that, Alpha seemed like she was no longer bothered by that.

“That seems to be the case. But it’s nothing to worry about. So then, we still have some time before the next patrol starts, what’s your plan for now?”

“If you ask me so… I still have quite a lot of reserve ammo so I don’t think there’s any need to refresh my reserve… And I’ve also finished my meal too… I have no idea what to do next.”

“In that case, how about heading to the truck and taking a nap? You might be feeling the rush after finis.h.i.+ng the last patrol, because of that there’s a chance you are not feeling the fatigue now. So just to be safe, it’s better if you take rest. Even a short nap will really make you feel better.”

“Is that so? Alright then, let’s do as you say.”

Akira then headed to the truck a.s.signed to him, there was no one in the truck. He boarded the tray, sat on one of the seats, put his rucksack down near his leg and prepared to take a nap.

Alpha smiled and said in a gentle voice.

“I’ll wake you up on time for the request, so don’t worry about that.”

“I’ll be counting on you, so I shall go ahead take a nap now.”

Akira gave a light nod and closed his eyes. He immediately fell asleep. It was as Alpha said, he was building up fatigue that he himself did not realize. He was lulled to sleep as soon as he relaxed his body.

For Akira who had been living in the back alley of the slum city for years, it was unthinkable to be able to sleep in such a condition. Normally, he would have thought that sleeping in the middle of an open place filled with armed people roaming around would be the same as a suicide. But the fact that he could sleep here was because of his trust in Alpha.

***

The gathering place for the patrol job was filled with Hunters and merchants. Sara and Elena were also among them. It seemed like they were waiting for someone, but they were also attracting glances from the people around them. The reason for that being the big opening in Sara’s suit near her chest.

Sara made a mistake when she replenished her nanomachine stock and completely filled her reservoir. Thus her suit could not fully cover her nanomachine reservoir, which is her chest, so she had no other choice but to let a big opening on her suit’s fastener.

In order to prevent the opening from getting any bigger, Sara used a st.u.r.dy looking fastener belt below her chest. But because of that, her attractive and alluring chest became even more prominent. Moreover, because she was not wearing her inner suit today, the gap in her suit revealed her bare skin valley of paradise.

Elena smiled bitterly.

“As I thought, it might be better if you put something on top or wear something under.”

Sara just smiled and rejected that suggestion.

“If I put a random thing on top of it, it might obstruct my movements. As for the inner suit, all of my inner suits are torn. None are suitable for me now. Moreover, I have no reserve inner suit as well, and the clothes made of fabric that can handle the body movement of an augmented human are expensive. Well, it can’t be helped, I’ll just have to endure this for now.”

“Your defensive suit also has a function to increase the performance of the nanomachine inside your body, so the inner suit should be compatible with that too, right? Undies made using the technology from the old world are st.u.r.dy, but we don’t have the leeway to buy them yet, huh. Well, it can’t be helped.”