Chapter 51 - The Ability of The Hunters (1/2)

The wreckages that Elena thought to be just crumbled walls were actually Yarata Scorpions. Since it was a hallway that they had pa.s.sed through once, she only made a quick scan of the area. If she had done that close enough, she would have noticed that they were monsters.

As Akira and the others saw through their camouflage, the scorpions jumped into action and charged toward Akira. There were so many scorpions in that place that they fully blocked the pa.s.sage through the hallway.

Sara, Elena and s.h.i.+karabe quickly picked up their rifles and started shooting at those scorpions. Although all of them were caught by surprise, there was almost no lag time before they started shooting. With the overwhelming firepower from Sara and s.h.i.+karabe, they were able to push back the scorpions without any trouble.

Countless bullets rained down on those scorpions. The biggest danger of a swarm came from its sheer number, but that number folded like it was nothing in front of the powerful bullets that rained upon them. It only took a few minutes for Elena’s team to completely annihilate the scorpions that filled the hallway. Without their camouflage, these scorpions were no match against their opponent’s firepower.

The whole team confirmed that it was over as they let out a long sigh. But Akira, who had not lowered his guard even after the battle was over, spoke in a serious tone.

“Elena-san, let’s head to defensive point 19 as soon as possible, or at least we should get close enough to contact them. In the worst-case scenario, we might have already been surrounded right now. I want to break off from their encirclement before they close in. We’ll depend on you to lead us while adjusting our pace.”

Elena quickly ordered the rest of the team.

“Alright then. Sara and s.h.i.+karabe take the lead. Akira, you watch our flank. a.s.sume any wreckages that weren’t there before as Yarata Scorpions. Let’s go.”

Sara smiled at Akira as she moved to the front.

“Akira, I’ll leave the flank to you.”

s.h.i.+karabe annoyedly moved forward too.

“Well, I guess this is at least better than wandering in the underground, huh.”

They then quickly started moving again.

On their way back, they met so many scorpions that made them wonder just where exactly those were coming from.

Elena picked a route that allowed them to reach the defensive point in the shortest time and with the least risk of getting ambushed. Thanks to that, they were able to rapidly close the distance to the defensive point 19.

Sara used her overwhelming firepower to devastate the scorpion swarm. The rifle that she was using had a size that reflected its superior firepower, the only reason Sara was able to handle and endure the kickback from that ma.s.sive heavy gun was because of her nanomachines augmented body. The scorpions were not even able to get close to her before they turned into minced meat.

As for s.h.i.+karabe, he accurately shot at the weak points of those scorpions. He used the minimum amount of ammo to produce the greatest result. The countless dead scorpion’s corpses that looked unscathed at a glance testified his amazing accuracy.

Sara scattered the big group of scorpions with her firepower while s.h.i.+karabe nitpicked the scorpions that were left alive after that. As he was running behind the team, Akira was amazed when he saw the scene of Sara and s.h.i.+karabe taking out all the scorpions ahead of them without even missing a beat.

“Amazing… unlike me yesterday, they are actually charging right into the Yarata Scorpions swarm. But even so, they keep pus.h.i.+ng forward without slowing down at all against such a number of scorpions.”

As Akira looked amazed at how Sara and s.h.i.+karabe were fighting in the front, Alpha said to him something that was obvious.

“It’s because they have better skills and equipment than you. So it’s nothing to be surprised about. You’ll be able to do that too, eventually.”

“With my own power?”

“Of course with your own power, you’ll have to do something like that in places where you can’t get any support from me, you know?”

Akira reconfirmed again as if he was doubting it.

“…Are you really sure that I too would be able to do that eventually?”

Alpha smiled confidently and said.

“Yep. Who do you think is training you? But well, of course, I won’t say that you would be able to do that next month or something like that.”

“I see… Alright then, I’ll be relying on your guidance.”

As Akira smiled and replied back, it seemed that his doubt was cleared completely.

If Alpha was to be honest, she actually did not think that Akira would be able to do that, but she decided to say otherwise.

Akira fully thought that Alpha’s reasoning weighted heavier than his own. He fully believed everything that she said. Although it did not sound that serious, but to Akira, Alpha’s words were almost absolute.

There were many people who ended up being unable to do anything because they thought that it was impossible for them, and it would be very hard to change such an opinion once it had settled in. Often times, they only considered their present conditions and abilities to arrive at such a conclusion. Since they could not even imagine themselves doing it, this further reinforced their belief that it was impossible to do and they would never attempt to do it.

But here, Akira’s subconscious was rewritten from impossible to possible. It changed the upper limit that he had set for himself, then one day, that possibility would turn into reality since Alpha had the means to do that.

Alpha smiled and said to Akira.

“Alright then, let’s focus on the monsters behind you and immediately take them out for now.”

Akira was still running as he looked behind him, his face quickly turned grim.

“There are so many already?!”

There was a swarm of Yarata Scorpion chasing after Elena’s team behind Akira. When they were breaking through the encirclement, more and more scorpions joined in from the other hallways as they slowly built up their number.

Akira stopped and readied his CWH anti-material rifle, he then quickly pulled the trigger as his rifle spat out CWH special ammo at the ever-increasing scorpions. The bullets tore through the scorpion swarm in a straight line. But that crack in the swarm formation was quickly filled by the scorpions behind it.

After Akira shot a few bullets into that swarm, he would quickly turn and run as fast as he could to catch up with Elena and the other Hunters before turning back at the swarm again. He was basically stuck in that loop.

“I feel like I’ve done the same thing yesterday too!!”

“In that case, you can just do what you did yesterday. Although, unlike yesterday, you have an escape route this time. But on the other hand, this hallway is a little wider than yesterday’s tunnel.”

“So which one is it!? Is it harder than yesterday!? Or is it easier!?”

“Which one do you think it is?”

“No idea!!”

“If you ask me, it’s actually not that much different from yesterday, so it’ll be alright.”

“That’s good news!!”

Akira got a little bit desperate and smiled while still shooting at the scorpions.

s.h.i.+karabe who was busy in the front got a bit curious about what was going on in the back and took a glance. As he saw how Akira was acting, he thought.

[This boy is smiling, it seems that he’s enjoying this. In that case, I guess there’s no need to worry about the flank, huh. It’s pretty impressive for a boy his age.]

In reality, Akira was not smiling because he was enjoying it. But looking at his movement that was enhanced with Alpha’s support and the number of dead scorpion corpses that he was producing, it made s.h.i.+karabe misunderstand that Akira was smiling because he was enjoying the fight.

[But still, if Akira is really this skilled, it’s weird that it doesn’t cause any rumour… Ah, there’s indeed a rumour about a skilled young Hunter circulating, but I guess it gets mixed with Katsuya since their age is not much different, huh. It’s hard to believe that there’s such a coincidence where two skilled young Hunters exist at the same time. So I guess it’s nothing strange that most of the people would think the boy from that rumour is Katsuya rather than him.]

After coming to that conclusion, s.h.i.+karabe completely stopped thinking about it. After all, he too was still in the midst of a battle.

It had been 30 minutes since they started running. The number of scorpions coming at them had greatly decreased. Then eventually, there were no longer any scorpions trying to attack them. They were finally able to break off from the scorpions’ encirclement.

They were already close enough to defensive point 19 to contact them, so Elena pulled out her terminal and tried to contact defensive point 19.

“This is exploration team 9. Defensive point 19, can you hear me?”

“This is defensive point 19, are you guys on your way back?”

“That’s correct. And also, we just fought against a huge amount of Yarata Scorpions. They might be a swarm coming from a big nest somewhere around this area and we might be bringing that swarm with us, so be ready if we do. I’ll fill you in on the details later after we return back. That’s all.”

“Roger that.”

After Elena ended her call, she sighed in relief. Seeing that, Akira lowered his guard and returned back to his usual mood.

Elena smiled and spoke to her team.

“It’s alright now. Let’s take it easy and walk back to the defensive point.”

The rest of her team agreed as they walked back to defensive point 19.

—*—*—*—

When they reached defensive point 19, they were ordered to stand-by. Elena was reporting the details of the exploration to a city staff while waiting to finish transferring the data that she gathered from the exploration. Elena, Sara and s.h.i.+karabe had fulfilled the least needed working hours for their s.h.i.+ft, as such, they planned to disband the team once Elena finished transferring the data. But until then, they were to be on stand-by; ready for action.

s.h.i.+karabe approached Akira and asked him the reason why he suddenly decided to do what he did back then. Elena and Sara were also curious, so they joined in and listened to Akira’s explanation.

Akira then explained to them about the time he was attacked by a swarm of Yarata Scorpions on the surface.

He said that he got encircled before he realized it and the things that he thought to be just wreckages turned out to be Yarata Scorpions. That was the reason why he was suspicious if the wreckages that were blocking their route were actually Yarata Scorpions that were camouflaging themselves. And he thought that if those wreckages were indeed Yarata Scorpions, then there was a good chance that they were already surrounded back there.

Although Akira omitted everything about Alpha, s.h.i.+karabe was somehow convinced by his explanation. He then asked Akira one more question to clear up his suspicion.

“…Well, although it sounded as if you came up with that excuse after going through it, the logic is all there. It’s true that your decision back then was the correct one. But still, what would you do if your guess was wrong? Or is it that you were 100% sure you were correct because of something?”

Akira did have something that guaranteed he was correct, and that something was Alpha. But of course, he could not say that to s.h.i.+karabe. So instead, Akira answered back in a fas.h.i.+on as if he was trying to gloss over that question.

“If I was wrong, then it would clear up one of my worries, that’s all.”

“But there’s no mistaking it that it would lower your evaluation, you know?”

“Yeah, I bet it will. I’m sorry to say this, but in that case, give your complaint to the HQ and tell them not to put me in the exploration team again.”

Akira said that as if it was nothing. But s.h.i.+karabe was surprised when he heard it.

Akira did not care about his evaluation, or at least, that was how it seemed to s.h.i.+karabe.

There were many Hunters who could not stand other Hunters looking down at their ability. There were also cases where something like that would affect the amount of reward that they would receive. Being looked down could be a fatal thing.

The young Hunters received favourable treatment in Drankam. Because of that, they often over-judged their abilities and most of those young Hunters could not stand when looked down upon by others.

The other young Hunters took examples from the young Hunters in Drankam and behaved like them. And so, Hunters who reacted like Akira were very rare and it caught s.h.i.+karabe by surprise.

s.h.i.+karabe’s suspicion was not fully cleared yet. He understood that Akira did that while fully knowing that he might be mistaken. But even so, from his point of view, Akira seemed to act as if he had known for sure.

s.h.i.+karabe asked Akira another question.

“…Is that all the reasons? Did you just really want to confirm your worry even though you knew that you might be mistaken? It seems like you’re still hiding something from me, you know.”

“Even if you say so, I can only say that I followed my intuition…”

There was no way Akira could tell s.h.i.+karabe that he knew everything from Alpha. So he could only come up with that random excuse. But surprisingly enough, that was able to clear up all of s.h.i.+karabe’s suspicions.

“…Intuition, huh? I guess there’s nothing more to say if that’s the case.”

There were many top-tier Hunters who had sharp intuition. Some of them could feel the position of the monsters that were too far to be visible, some them could feel other’s gaze from positions that were impossible to spot, some of them could feel when monsters were trying to ambush them in an area that looked completely safe. Some of them could just simply feel the monsters around them. Their ability to read and understand others’ moves was closer to a prediction rather than just a guess.

When others asked them the reason behind their decisions or how they knew all of that, they could only say that it was because of their intuition. There were many cases where Hunters with good intuition decided to follow their intuition which allowed them to miraculously survive a very dire situation. Thanks to that, a lot of first-rate Hunters had very good intuition.

s.h.i.+karabe was also one of those Hunters who often followed their intuition. So when Akira said that he was only following his intuition, s.h.i.+karabe could not question Akira’s answer at all.

Akira might be hiding something from him and had a different reason why he did that. But whatever it was, his decision was the correct one. So s.h.i.+karabe thought that there was no need to chase that subject any further.

After he decided to just drop that subject, s.h.i.+karabe changed the mood by coming up with a new topic.

“Well, that aside, when you’re working in a team, the result is not everything, it’s also important how you produce that result. But again, I guess I’m not in a position to say that, huh. Elena, I’m sorry but is it okay if I go ahead and leave first? I need to go back to the HQ and write a report for Drankam.”

“Sure. Thanks for the hard work.”

“Sorry about this, I’ll be leaving first.”

After saying that, s.h.i.+karabe turned and left the group.

s.h.i.+karabe packed his things and was about to leave the defensive point when s.h.i.+ori suddenly approached him.

“s.h.i.+karabe-sama, would it be okay if I ask you some questions right now?”

He looked around and saw Katsuya’s team not too far from there, watching him.