Chapter 36 - The Rules of Engagement (2/2)

As Yumina looked at Katsuya’s serious face, she remembered him desperately training in the shooting range while making a pained expression. With the thoughts of all his dead friends, he continuously swore to himself to not let anyone die anymore. Watching that expression for hours was enough. She never wanted to see him in such pain again. So, she made her decision.

[If we can defeat that greedy crocodile and make Katsuya feel better about himself, it should stop him from doing that reckless training. And even if we can’t handle it, Elena-san and Sara-san will help us, this is going to be okay.]

The fact that Elena and Sara were there to watch over them if anything bad happened gave her confidence.

“If you say so, I don’t mind helping.”

Airi looked at Katsuya as she thought.

[Our equipment is better compared to before. And I don’t think Katsuya would make a suggestion that he knows to be impossible. If he thinks that it’s possible, then it should be possible for us. Not to mention that he had trained himself hard since then and I didn’t miss any of my training too. s.h.i.+karabe also recognized his talent. As long as we’re together, it should be possible to defeat a greedy crocodile.]

Her trust in Katsuya and her confidence in her own skill gave Airi the last push.

“I’ll take the first shot, after all, I’m the best here when it comes to shooting.”

Katsuya smiled and felt so happy from gaining all the trust of his companions.

“Thanks. Well then, let’s go.”

It was the moment when Katsuya was the most motivated in the whole day.

Elena and Sara quickly noticed that Katsuya and his friends were thinking of killing that greedy crocodile. Elena frowned a bit and Sara looked surprised when they noticed it.

“Sara, get yourself ready to help them. We’ll quickly kill that monster the moment it looks dangerous, but we won’t join the fight until then. Although I’ll also keep my aim on that monster, don’t a.s.sume that it’s safe just because I didn’t shoot. You can go ahead and shoot when you think that it has gotten out of hand.”

“Roger that. But still, we should’ve killed it back then, so this would not have happened.”

“We’re not here as their bodyguards, after all. Not to mention that I did tell them to make decisions as if we’re not around. Moreover, they might do that because they know that they have a good chance of winning. And if that’s true, then we shouldn’t get in their way.”

Although Elena said that, the grim look on her face revealed that Katsuya’s group only had a slim chance in winning the fight. Looking at that, Sara could not help but let out a faint smile.

“…Well, even if it was the wrong decision, having a hard fight can also serve as good training.”

Sara used her nanomachine enhanced body to swiftly move behind a wreckage not too far from their location. After making sure that Katsuya and his friends would not get into her shooting trajectory, Sara readied her CWH anti-material rifle.

In order not to get too much in the way of Katsuya and his friends, but to be able to quickly help them when the situation turned worse, Sara loaded highly explosive piercing ammo that could take that monster out in one shot into her rifle and took an aim on the monster. She just had to pull the trigger to kill that monster now. Sara then calmed her breathing and stayed there to watch how the situation would develop.

As for Elena, she kept checking her information gathering device as she readied her DSS sniper rifle. The rifle was connected to her information gathering device to increase its accuracy and it was modified to increase its firepower.

She loaded a bullet with high piercing power into her rifle. Although it had less destructive power compared to the bullet that Sara was using, the information gathering device connected to Elena’s rifle allowed her to accurately aim for the monster’s weak points. Thus she would be able to quickly take out the monster by shooting at its weak points like its brain.

Elena then sent the data to Sara to increase Sara’s accuracy too. With that, they were ready to take out the greedy crocodile anytime.

***

Airi was crouching on the ground and taking her aim on the greedy crocodile. The crocodile had not noticed Katsuya yet as it slowly dragged its body along the ground.

When Airi was confident enough with her aim, she pulled the trigger. And as she expected, the bullet hit the crocodile’s head.

But the bullet just bounced off its hard scale and only chipped a small amount of flesh off the crocodile’s head. For a monster with a high level of vitality like that crocodile, such a wound was just a scratch. It noticed Katsuya and his friends as it quickly turned its badly balanced body and charged toward them.

Airi kept shooting at that monster as it was running fast towards her. It quickly closed their distance. Yumina joined and started shooting at the crocodile’s head too. Katsuya also followed suit as he set his rifle on full auto and started spraying bullets at that monster.

Even when it was receiving a volley of bullets from 3 people head-on, there was no sign of the monster slowing down at all. It was showered with countless bullets but none could pierce through its big and strong scales. The bullets could only strip off a small amount of meat under its scale as they bounced off it. But even so, the crocodile kept charging with vigour. It charged straight toward Katsuya and his friends without showing any sign of evading or escaping.

They originally had the upper hand since it was a one-sided fight when the monster was far away. They could shoot at the crocodile but it had no means of fighting back from that distance. But as the crocodile got pretty close to them, Katsuya and his friends started to panic. Katsuya gritted his teeth and kept on shooting while Yumina and Airi desperately tried to help him defeat the monster. But the crocodile seemed unfazed.

Sara thought that it was getting dangerous and was about to pull the trigger of her rifle when suddenly one of Airi’s bullet hit an open wound in the head of the crocodile by pure coincidence. The bullet shattered and wreaked havoc inside the crocodile’s head and tore its flesh. But even so, it was not a fatal wound for the crocodile, but at least it was enough to make it stagger and slow down.

Noticing this, Katsuya and his friends grabbed the chance as they kept on shooting at that particular part of the crocodile. The crocodile finally stopped moving when half of its head was mutilated.

Katsuya and the other two did not notice that the crocodile had become immobile and they kept on shooting it. But eventually, they realized it and looked at each other with a smile of victory.

Katsuya then shouted in joy.

“We did it!! We killed it!! It’s our victory!! We were able to defeat it ourselves!!”

Yumina let out a sigh of relief and smiled happily.

“Although it was a close win, a win is still a win. I’m glad we were able to kill it.”

Then Airi smiled proudly and said.

“We were able to defeat it because of our skill. Now that we’ve defeated a greedy crocodile, I won’t let anyone call us amateur Hunters anymore.”

Katsuya, Airi and Yumina looked at each other and praised each other for their victory.

Sara returned back to Elena and found Elena looking at the greedy crocodile with a puzzled look.

“That was a bit dangerous, but they were able to defeat it on their own in the end. They’re pretty good… Elena, what’s wrong?”

“Sara, I feel like that greedy crocodile suddenly slowed down back there, what do you think just happened?”

“Isn’t that because one of their bullets. .h.i.t its weak point by pure chance? Since they shot that many bullets at it, it’s not strange if one of their bullets. .h.i.t its weak point.”

“So they were lucky, huh… Well, luck is a part of their ability too.”

“Oh my, Elena, is there anything that bothers you about their performance?”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s just that there’s something else that bothers me a little.”

Unlike Sara who was smiling like usual, there was a strange disturbing mood around Elena.

Katsuya and his friends returned back to Elena and Sara in a good mood.

“Good work. Well then, let’s take your result for today and bring them back home. We’ll be on the lookout for monsters on the way back, so you all can rest easy. But remember that normally you should not relax until you’re back in your base, okay?”

And so Elena and Sara headed back to Kugamayama city together with Katsuya, Airi and Yumina.

—*—*—*—

Katsuya and his friends were waiting inside a room in Drankam’s base for Elena and Sara to return. Elena and Sara were submitting their reports on their request to the Drankam’s officer who sent them that request. Elena and Sara would also provide their evaluation for today’s training in that report and they were told that Sara and Elena would tell them the evaluation after that. Thus Katsuya was very nervous as he was waiting in the room.

After some time, Elena, Sara and a Drankam officer entered the room. Elena and Sara sat across Katsuya and his friends while Arabe was leaning on the wall near them.

Elena then started talking.

“I’ll give you my evaluation of today’s training. First of all, you did well defeating that greedy crocodile on your own. To be honest, I thought that it would be a bit hard for you, so I was surprised when you actually did it. So I have to start my evaluation by mentioning that point.”

“Thank you very much!!”

Katsuya looked happy as he immediately replied back, Airi and Yumina also looked delighted.

Elena then continued while still looking at them.

“Other than defeating that greedy crocodile. Your ability to search for relics while monitoring your surroundings is mostly satisfactory. As for the evaluation from Drankam, they’ll evaluate your performance from our report, but we don’t know how that will come out, so let’s just put that aside for now. But for us, it doesn’t seem there’s any problem. Basically, I think you guys are full-fledged Hunters now.”

Katsuya, Airi, and Yumina’s expression loosened after Elena said that they did well as Hunters. Up until now, other Hunters used to handle them as if they were dead weight. Thus they were really happy as they felt that they had broken away from that view.

Elena then continued.

“Now then, I’ll move on to the overall performance evaluation. But before that, I want to ask you one thing, tell me again the aim of today’s ruin exploration.”

Katsuya and his friends were a bit taken back by that question. But Yumina then quickly answered back.

“Our aim was to gather relics. To be more precise, as training to gather relics. The aim was for us to be able to effectively gather relics. This is my understanding.”

“So it’s okay to a.s.sume that you did everything with that in mind, right?”

Yumina was confused when Elena said that. And so she added more explanation to her answer.

“…Well, of course, that’s if we ignore the fact that we already knew there were no more valuable relics left in Higaraka Residence Ruin and still decided to search the ruin despite that fact..”

“It’s okay to take that out of the equation here.”

“If that’s the case, then yes, that’s my answer.”

Elena then looked at Katsuya and Airi to confirm Yumina’s answer. Katsuya and Airi nodded at her.

“I agree with her.”

“Me too.”

“…I see. All of you have the same opinion, huh. It’s a good thing to have the same aim when you work together.”

Elena paused a bit. Arabe who already listened to Elena and Sara’s report beforehand just smiled bitterly. Katsuya was confused when he noticed Arabe’s bitter smile.

Elena then continued.

“This is just my evaluation though, so you need to judge it for yourself whether it’s indeed correct or not. After all, every person has different indicators for their evaluation. If your performance agrees with these indicators, then you’ll get a good evaluation, and vice versa. I just want to make sure that you know it. So, with that being said, for me, I can only say that your performance today was terrible.”

Katsuya, Airi and Yumina were really surprised by such an unexpected evaluation from Elena. Katsuya panicked and asked.

“B-but why?! We should’ve done well during the training, right?! We might be not really that good in your eyes, but I don’t think we’re that bad either! You also praised us when we defeated that greedy crocodile, right?”

“That’s the point, that’s where my evaluation comes from. You guys did an awesome job defeating that greedy crocodile. But was there any reason why you should have done that?”

“It was because we recognized that we could defeat it!! And we did defeat that greedy crocodile!”

Elena waited for a bit after Katsuya said that. After confirming that Katsuya finished giving his explanation, she then asked him.

“Is that all?”

“What do you mean…?”

“You killed it because it seemed an easy target for you. Is that all? Do you really need to kill all the monsters that your detection device picks? You even had to focus all of your firepowers on it to be able to defeat that monster. You could have evaded the fight if you had just left it alone, but you decided to fight it although it could have easily killed you if you’re not lucky. So, is that really all the reason you have for doing that?”

Katsuya could not give any answer. Elena then s.h.i.+fted her gaze from Katsuya to Airi. Airi paused for a bit before answering back.

“…Our original objective of gathering relics did not end up well. So we thought that we can improve our situation by defeating that monster, and I think we did well by defeating that monster.”

“I see. So then, what exactly did you get from defeating that greedy crocodile? Is it the reward money and points for your Hunter Rank? If you put that in scale with the danger, was it worth it? Or is it that you thought you should be able to defeat it easily but it turned out that it was more difficult than you thought? Or that you knew that it would not be easy and thought that the reward you might get from defeating it was worth the risk?”

Airi could not retort back after Elena said that.

Elena then s.h.i.+fted to Yumina, Yumina hesitated before speaking up.

“…We used to get despised just because we’re still children. So, I thought that no one would look down on us if we can defeat a greedy crocodile and it might make us more confident in ourselves too.”

To be more precise, it was actually for Katsuya. Yumina thought that it might help him, that was why she did not stop him. She did not want to see him getting depressed because of his own weakness again.

“I see. Well, I’m sure you have your own reasons. But even so, when you decided to do that, can you say for sure that you didn’t include us in your calculation and didn’t expect us to help you when the situation got really bad? And even if that’s true, are you sure that the people who look down on you would stop after hearing what you did back there?”

Yumina could not say yes to that as she shut her mouth and did not answer back at all.

Elena looked at the 3 children who could not say anything to her and continued.

“For me, it looks like you put yourself in needless danger. And I don’t think the reward from that action could justify the danger. That’s why my evaluation of your performance is as I said. As a Hunter, I wouldn’t want to work together with you and if I’m a.s.signed to watch over you, I wouldn’t want to do that unless we get a lot of money from it. That’s all from me. Sara, do you have anything you want to add?”

Katsuya and his friends looked at Sara with pleading eyes. But Sara just smiled bitterly and looked sorry at them. Sara basically agreed with what Elena said.

“Well, it’s as Elena said. This is about the basics. Hunters basically work by putting their lives at stake, so it’s important to make sure that whatever they might get, it should be worth risking their lives for. But of course, it’s different from person to person on what kind of reward would be worth risking their lives for. So it’s not easy to work together with the other Hunters who don’t agree on the same principles or guideline. And our principles are somehow different from the three of you. That’s why our evaluation of your performance is bad. I want you to at least understand that. It is true that you were able to defeat that greedy crocodile and I’m sure there are other Hunters who agree with your decision. If you can’t accept our evaluation, you can just laugh it off and ignore it, you are even free to think of us as just cowards.”

Sara’s words did not cheer them up at all.

After that, Sara and Elena exited the room. Then Arabe walked to Katsuya, Airi and Yumina.

“Well, although a lot of things happened there, we from Drankam think highly of you for defeating that greedy crocodile. And so, we judged that you don’t need a veteran Hunter to accompany and look over you like we usually do for young Hunters. After all, we don’t have the manpower to a.s.sign veteran Hunters to watch over Hunters who can defeat a greedy crocodile on their own. From now on, you can pick requests on your own as a full-fledged Hunter and you’re free to recruit other Hunters into your team. So I hope you will work hard as the role model for the young Hunters in this gang.”

“…I understand.”

Katsuya pushed himself to give his answer. Meanwhile, Arabe just smiled bitterly watching how the three of them were acting.

“Well, you can take a rest for the day. As a Hunter, you’ll be facing many more failures in the future. You won’t be able to continue for long in this line of work if you get depressed every time you fail. Later then.”

Arabe just left them with those words before exiting the room. Just as he was walking in the hallway, he remembered what s.h.i.+karabe said to him and clicked his tongue.

“It turned out exactly as what s.h.i.+karabe predicted, huh. It seems that it’s impossible to use them to recruit Elena and Sara now. I need to rethink my plan…”

Originally, he was planning to ask Elena and Sara to watch over Katsuya’s group. But Elena and Sara already knew about it.

Of course, Elena and Sara would not want to watch over other Hunters who did not know their own limits and always drove headfirst into dangers. After all, they would be roped into the dangers too. Arabe understood that and let out a big sigh while trying to think about his next move.

Even after Arabe left them in the room, Katsuya, Airi and Yumina stayed inside while hanging their head low for a while.

“…Dammit.”

Katsuya whispered that word under his breath that he himself could not hear. And he himself did not know the real reason why he swore.

Silavin: Honestly, they tried so hard but for the wrong reasons. Hopefully, they will grow. Though, I don’t think their decision was wholly their fault. The pampering nature of the Gang goes a little bit too strong in my opinion. Especially for a line of work that they are preparing children to risk their life for.

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