Chapter 38 - A Help Request for Temporary Base Construction (1/2)

Translator: Athena13

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

Akira was talking with Alpha about what happened back in the Higaraka Residence Ruin while doing maintenance for his guns inside his room.

“So, what exactly was that girl?”

“It seems to be some kind of holographic worker from a company. I think there’s some kind of device inside that bas.e.m.e.nt that connects it to the old world domain. But judging from the fact that you had to stand on a certain location to activate it and its limited connectivity, I believe that the device is unusable for the general public.”

Akira was puzzled.

“…Worker, huh? But they’re only holograms, right?”

“In this world, there are various types of work that would open up if you can see and accept their existence.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep, it is. If you want proof, you’re seeing one right now.”

Alpha then smiled and pointed at herself. Akira immediately understood her point and nodded.

“You’re right.”

Inside the secret room in the bas.e.m.e.nt of that mansion, he clearly saw a maid girl appear out of nowhere, though it was only an image. But Akira, who was lacking in knowledge about that subject completely ignored the fact, or more like, he did not notice that fact at all.

Alpha also did not tell everything to Akira. If he showed some sort of reaction to that maid girl, Alpha might start putting on a maid uniform from tomorrow, but that did not happen.

Alpha then continued.

“Akira, I’ll at least warn you about this, don’t tell anyone about the device inside that bas.e.m.e.nt which can connect to the old world. And don’t ever think of taking and selling it, okay?”

“Why? Isn’t that an important device? It might earn me a lot of money, you know?”

Alpha made a serious face as she strongly warned Akira.

“Don’t do that no matter what.”

Akira was surprised when his simple question was answered with a firm warning. But looking at Alpha’s expression, he understood that there was definitely a valid reason for it.

“Alright, I won’t tell anyone and I won’t try selling it. But can you at least tell me the reason why?”

“Anything that can help you access the old world domain is a highly valuable object. Because of that, they might ask you how and where you got it. And so there’s a chance they might discover that you’re someone who is connected to the old world domain from your answers to those questions. I thought that such a thing would be unlikely to happen if you don’t know that you are someone who is connected to the old world, and that is why I didn’t tell you up until now. But now that you know, you have to keep it a secret no matter what. If someone discovers it, you’ll die a painful death.”

After that, Alpha explained to Akira the dangers of being someone who was connected to the old world domain. In the worst-case scenario, people would keep him alive as a test subject for all kinds of experiments, and even if he died, people would carefully remove and dissect his brain. Akira’s face turned pale when he heard that.

“…To be honest, I would choose to not know it if I had the choice. Wait, no, I guess it’s better now that I know, right? Wait, screw that, it’s better if I don’t know!”

“It is actually pretty safe if you keep it a secret, you see. I’ll also give my support too. And not to mention that there are people who keep lying by saying that they are connected to the old world domain. So I think it’s going to be alright as long as you’re careful.”

“I don’t understand why people would lie about being one of them?”

“The connected people tend to be very effective in a.n.a.lyzing information. So there are people who want to market their name as a skilled hacker by lying so. Although, I think the real connected people would never do something like that.”

Akira let out a big long sigh as he hung his head. He looked depressed for about 10 seconds before he suddenly raised his face.

“Alright then! It’s because I’m connected to the old world that I was able to meet Alpha and survive up until now!! I’m a lucky boy!! That’s my take of the situation!!”

Akira said that out loud in order to convince himself. After that, he looked way more positive and enthusiastic than before. Although it looked a bit forced, he just pushed it out with pure determination.

Alpha smiled as she watched Akira.

“Akira, it’s a good thing that you got over the shock so fast, but your voice was too loud. It’s okay for now, but it’ll be bad if someone heard that, you know? So be more careful in future.”

Akira who just got back on his senses trembled as he asked Alpha.

“…T-that was really dangerous. B-but it was okay, r-right?”

“It’s alright. No one should have heard that and I don’t detect any eavesdropping tool. I’ve checked everything, so don’t worry.”

Akira let out a sigh of relief. Judging from it, Alpha knew that he understood the seriousness of his situation as she smiled in satisfaction.

“Now then. Let’s just stop talking about scary stuff here and talk about our today’s result.”

Alpha then started explaining about the result from today’s exploration.

The maid girl that Akira saw was from a hologram worker company that was advertising its service through the old world domain. It showed that even now some of the relics of the current era were still connected with the old world facilities. Any facilities that could be accessed through relics were of great importance to the people of the eastern district. After all, they would allow them to extract knowledge, technology and products of the old world from such a facility.

Anything that allowed access to the old world domain was regarded as an invaluable object in the eastern district. There was no mistaking that selling it to the Hunter Office or to the Corporate Government would earn you a huge amount of money.

Akira also understood its worth from hearing Alpha’s explanation. But he did not think that it would give him any kind of profit.

“…I understand that it was a great find, but I don’t see how that would earn us any profit though. After all, if I tell anyone about that place or that device, they might notice that I’m connected to the old world, and that would be really bad, right?”

“There are plenty of ways on how to safely use our findings. That device was connected to the Lion Steel Corp, although it was an old-world corporation that had ceased to exist, it still has facilities that are active even now. It seems that the Lion Steel Corp sold their service through information terminals installed at different places and I was able to extract the locations of these terminals and the branch offices owned by the corporation.”

Now that Akira could see clearly how it would benefit him, Akira looked less tense.

“…I see. So we’re going to look for relics in those places, right?”

“Yep, that’s it. Of course, these locations are in the old world ruins. If the other Hunters haven’t found them yet, you might be able to find a huge amount of relics there.”

“Nice!! Let’s go then!!”

“Stop there, at least wait until you have a vehicle specialized for exploring the wasteland. Since you will need to go to a faraway ruin, it would be dangerous to go on a bike, not to mention, it would be hard to bring back home all the relics that you might find with a bike.”

“So I still need to wait, huh. But well, it’s better now that I have a clear goal in mind. I guess I’ll work hard so that I can get a vehicle soon.”

If he could find an unexplored ruin, he would be able to find a pile of relics that no one had ever touched before. Akira was excited by that possibility as he was doing his gun maintenance in a good mood.

—*—*—*—

Akira was on a bus that was heading to the Kuzusuhara ruin. There were a lot of other Hunters inside the bus, some of them were amateur Hunters like him, while some of them were radiating the aura of a veteran Hunter. All of them were on the same request from the Hunter Office.

The Kugamayama city management decided to build a frontline base in order to effectively explore the deeper part of the Kuzusuhara ruin. They first planned to build a base near the outskirts of the Kuzusuhara ruin before constructing the communication line into the deeper part of the ruin.

As the construction of the base went underway, they would also use the heavy equipment to remove the wreckages that blocked the way to the deeper part of the ruin. Once the wreckages were removed, it would open a way to send in transport vehicles and tanks. Of course, the monsters roaming inside the deeper part of the ruin were powerful monsters, but if they could send in tanks and humanoid soldiers, it would help them fight against those monsters and carry relics that were difficult for the normal people.

Exploring a ruin would accelerate the development of a city and bring profit to that city. That was why they would do all of these preparations for exploring a ruin.

The request that Akira took was to help protect the construction of the said base. It basically consisted of protecting the workers and securing the area. After all, constructing a base was not Hunter’s job.

Akira was listening to the explanation given to the Hunters inside a temporary base. After that, the hunters would be a.s.signed to their jobs depending on their ability and interest.

The staff distributed rental terminals for the work and explained how to use them.

“We’ll give our instructions through this terminal. This terminal also contains a transmitter so you can check the other Hunter’s whereabouts if you open them from the terminal. So be careful not to mistake another Hunter as a monster and shoot each other. And also, although we’re in a ruin, refrain from searching for relics. I won’t tell you as far as to not take any relics that you accidentally find, but we’re not here to gather relics. We would be in trouble if you guys focus more on searching for relics, and don’t forget that we always track your location too. So make sure not to stand in the same location for a long period of time or do anything that might cause suspicion. Finally, there should be a number behind the terminal, we will call you based on that number, so be sure to check that too. That’s all. You may go to the ruins once you finish your preparation, you just need to follow the map’s navigation in the terminal.”

Akira then turned his terminal over and checked his number. Akira and Alpha immediately smiled bitterly the moment they saw the number.

“It seems that this number is really fond of me.”

“…You’re right.”

The number taped behind his terminal was 14.

As Akira followed the navigation from the terminal, he arrived at an opening surrounded by countless crumbling buildings. He then pulled out his terminal to answer a phone call from the Hunter Office staff.

“This is A2 division HQ. Number 14, can you hear me?”

“This is number 14, I can hear you.”

“Take control of the building in front of you. Explore and make a map of that building, don’t forget to take out any monsters that you find. The terminal has an auto-mapping function, so you just need to check all the rooms inside that building. There’s also a good chance that if you leave corpses of dead monsters, they might attract other monsters, I know it’s a pain in the a.s.s, but carry them all the way to the building entrance.”

“What if they’re too big or too heavy for me to carry?”

“In that case, let us know and we’ll send a special team to help you.”

“Roger that.”

Akira then ended the call and went inside the building in front of him, but Alpha suddenly stopped him.

“Wait, this is a good chance for exploration training, so let’s do that too.”

“But, won’t it make me slower?”

“That’s why you would have to do this carefully but not too slowly. If you don’t have that much level of skill, you won’t be able to survive in a colourless mist, you know? After all, my detection ability reduces inside the colourless mist. So you would have to rely on your own skills when that happens. We can use this chance to prepare for such a situation.”

Exploring without Alpha’s detection ability and support from an information-gathering device would be a nightmare for a beginner like Akira. Thus he could not help but frown at that possibility.

“…The colourless mist, huh? Alright, tell me how to do this.”

Akira made his resolve and entered the building.

Akira started exploring the ruin from the first floor. Some of the floors in that building were covered in dust while some of them were not. It was because of the Hunters who had searched the building and the monsters which roamed inside it. He noticed that some walls inside the building were already crumbled.

Akira proceeded carefully as he tried to walk without making any sounds. He explored the building by moving from one cover to another. He would stop from time to time to listen to his surroundings. He then readied his gun as he quickly slipped into a room. He was exploring the abandoned building as if he was stepping into a monster’s nest. While doing so, he regularly received warnings from Alpha, so he would quickly correct the way he moved every time Alpha warned him. Because of that, Akira moved slowly but was surely improving.

Akira finally finished exploring the first floor. And of course, it took him longer than usual.

“I know that it’s to be expected, but I did take a lot of time. I can see now why they told the Hunters not to go looking for relics.”

“It’s an important skill for a Hunter to be able to safely and quickly explore an area. And the only way to learn it is to train and improve your ability bit by bit. Especially when you’re facing a monster with camouflaging ability.”

“Camouflaging ability?”

“It’s an ability that would let monsters stay undetected. There are some monsters that have optical camouflage skin or armour. They can become one with their surroundings or stay undetected in the shadows.”

“…Those optical camouflaged monsters, how can I detect them?”

“There are actually a lot of methods to detect them, you can look for optical anomalies or a.n.a.lyze the surrounding sounds. An advanced information gathering device or someone who specialized in information a.n.a.lysis would be able to detect them without any problem. It would allow you to evade needless fighting or to get the first shot in case you want to kill them, so you can safely and quickly search for relics.”

“That sounds like Elena-san’s duty. I’m sure Elena-san is very skilled in it.”

“Yep, that’s true. But even the skilled Elena-san will have trouble inside the colourless mist. After all, the colourless mist would render the information gathering device useless.”

Akira remembered about the time when he saved Elena and Sara. At that time, the colourless mist did not affect him much thanks to Alpha’s support. While on the other hand, the guys who ambushed Elena and Sara could not detect Akira at all due to the colourless mist.

“The colourless mist is really dangerous. Is there any way to cope with it?”

“You can buy advanced information gathering devices that could still barely work inside a colourless mist. But I heard that it’s very expensive and it’s less powerful compared to a normal information gathering device at the same price. Other than that, you can instead rely on your exploration skill rather than relying on your information gathering device. So there you have it, that’s why you better work hard from now on, okay?”

“Roger that. Next is the second floor… By the way, how many floors are in this building?”

“8 floors.”

“…I still have a long way to go now.”

Akira mumbled as he proceeded to the second floor.

It took about 3 hours for Akira to finish exploring the whole building. After that, Akira went to the rooftop and took a break. But suddenly he heard cannons from faraway. It was coming from Hunters who were fighting some monsters. Akira did not find any monster in the building because of pure luck.

Suddenly his terminal rang again.

“This is A2 division HQ. Number 14, can you hear me? Tell me about your situation there.”

“This is number 14. I just finished taking control of the building.”

“Confirmed. Follow the navigation in your terminal and move to the next building. Now then, number 14, you took more time than we expected for taking control of that building. Did you meet a powerful monster or was there any other unexpected situation?”

“I didn’t meet any monster at all. It’s just that I searched all rooms carefully, I think that’s why I took more time than usual… How long is your approximate time by the way?”