Chapter 66 - Important Day, Checkpoint Day (2/2)

The real estate agency Kibayas.h.i.+ introduced to him was located in the outskirts of the lower district. Although there were a lot of open plots in the district, only a very small number of them were safe. There was a big difference in the values between the plots on the upper and middle districts that were located behind the wall, and the lower district that was located outside the wall. This difference in values came from the difference in their safety and security.

The closer the property was to the wasteland, the cheaper it would be. And the closer it was to the wall, the more expensive it would be. Although there were exceptions, these exceptions were sold at a higher price since they were located in regions that were maintained by private security companies. So in short, the extra price was for the safety provided.

The agency staff gave Akira a tour through a certain house. As Akira looked around the inside of that house, he felt that it was big enough for him to live alone. It had a big bath, a lot of rooms, and a huge garage. It was also fully-furnished, so there was no need to buy new furniture. It fulfilled most of Akira’s expectations.

The staff then explained to Akira.

“It’s a building designed for a Hunter. Normally, we would only recommend this house for a Hunter above Rank 30. It’s pretty well made that it can withstand explosives and gunshots. The city security gave permission to install heavy weaponry on this house for self-defense too, but if it causes problems with other people who live around the area, then we’re not liable for that and you would have to solve that problem yourself. Although it is mentioned under the contract that this area is guarded by a private security company, don’t put your hopes too high. In case you’re attacked by robbers, expect to handle it yourself. As for cleaning up rubbles and dead bodies, you can contact us and we’ll take care of them for you. While for the rent, considering the position of the person who introduced you to us, we’ll charge you 500,000 Aurum per month. It already includes the water bill, energy bill, security bill and insurance. You can always ask us anytime in case you need more security guards. Do you have any questions?”

Normally, this house would not be introduced to a small Hunter like Akira. It was all thanks to Kibayas.h.i.+’s influence as city staff. Thus, Akira thought that this kind of opportunity might never come again if he let it go here.

Akira enquired the staff.

“When can I rent this house?”

“You can use it immediately after you pay the rent. If you pay it here and now, you can immediately use it right afterwards.”

“I understand, I’ll take this house then.”

Akira then gave the staff his Hunter ID. The staff received the Hunter ID, scanned it with his terminal, and operated his terminal to finalize the contract. He then deeply bowed to Akira.

“I’ve confirmed that we’ve received the payment. Thank you very much for using our service. This is the key for that house. Please do inform us if you lose it. The future rent payment will be automatically withdrawn from your bank account. If you’re late in paying the rent even by a second, the rental contract will be immediately nullified and all the properties inside the house will be confiscated by the company who owns the building. So please be careful. You can do anything you want with all the furniture that is already inside. You can throw them away or sell them if you don’t need them.”

“Wait, those furniture… were they…”

“Yes. They were owned by the previous renter.”

Akira glanced back at the furniture inside the house. Those furniture were left behind by the previous person who lived there. He realized that if he too died, then his furniture would also be pa.s.sed on for the subsequent renters in the same way.

“Well then, please let me excuse myself. If you need anything, feel free to give us a call. Once again, thank you very much for using our service.”

The staff bowed deeply at Akira once more before leaving.

Akira then locked the door, went to his new room, and put down his luggage and equipment.

He then sat on a chair near him. He looked deeply moved as he took a big breath and let out a long sigh.

“…A home… My home…”

“You’re only renting it though.”

“Even if I’m just renting it, it’s still my home. After living all these years in the slum city alley, I finally get a place that I can call my home.”

Akira looked around the room. He became a Hunter hoping to improve his life condition and a lot had happened since he went to the wasteland for the first time. He just sat there reminiscing those days.

The past Akira, the Akira before he met Alpha, would have never imagined that he would be able to live in such a place. But right now, right here, it was his reality.

Akira stood up and turned to Alpha, he made a serious face as he bowed his head.

“It’s all thanks to you, Alpha. Thank you. And also, I’ll keep counting on you.”

Alpha was smiling just like usual.

“You’re welcome, and I’ll be counting on you too.”

For Akira, today was an important day, it was the day he stopped living in inns. But for Alpha, it was not that big of a deal, it was nothing more than a day where Akira reached one of the checkpoints. These differences between them were shown in their respective expressions.

After that, Akira went to and fro to the lower district to buy food, indoor clothes, and other daily necessities. He also adjusted his new information terminal so that Alpha could access it. He then checked all the rooms inside his new house one more time. He spent the whole day to prepare himself for his new lifestyle. By nightfall, Akira had finished all the preparations that he needed for his new life inside his new house.

Akira dipped himself inside the warm bath to recover from all the hard work that he did during the day. Just like he wished, the bath inside his house was pretty big. It was large enough for him to fully extend his arms and legs as he enjoyed the warm water. Alpha was also there together with him, although she was only an image.

When he was enjoying his bath, Akira did not even pay any attention to Alpha who was naked right beside him. After all, it was a normal sight for him every time he took a bath. It was also because she was calmly enjoying the bath just like usual. If she was teasing him there, he would not be able to ignore her.

“Akira, it’s about our plan for the future. Starting from tomorrow until the day your new equipment arrives, you’ll spend your time studying and training, okay?”

“I understand… But what kind of training are we going to do?”

Akira was puzzled, after all, it was not like he could do shooting training or CQC training inside his house. He might be able to do CQC training inside the empty garage, but his movements would be restricted in such a small place. But Alpha’s answer had nothing to do with both of those training.

“You’ll train on how to compress your time perception both intentionally and out of pure reflex.”

Akira sounded puzzled as he said.

“…I’m sorry, I don’t really understand what you just said. So, what exactly am I going to do?

“Well, you’ll understand that tomorrow.”

“Alright.”

Akira did not have any idea on what kind of training he would be doing, but since Alpha said that he would understand once the training started, he stopped worrying any further. It showed just how far he trusted Alpha.

Alpha was satisfied with his answer.

On the next day, Akira started his training inside the garage. Alpha initiated the training with an explanation on what to do.

“The training that you’ll be doing starting from today will be to freely compress time perception by yourself. Simply put, you’ll accelerate your cognitive mind to compress your time perception. When you do that, things around you will look like they’re moving in slow motion. You’ll train on how to do it intentionally. While on the other hand, we’ll also condition your body to automatically do that when you’re in a certain situation. Once you achieve it, we’ll train to increase the level of compression. For starters, let’s aim to extend 1 second into 10 seconds, then into 100 seconds, and so on. We’ll also train so you can maintain it for an extended time with a minimum level of burden to your brain. If you can do this, I’m sure you’ll grow strong really quickly.”

Alpha gave a very straight forward and plain explanation. But Akira did not get the same impression after hearing her explanation. For him, it sounded like an impossible and crazy idea, it was as if Alpha was telling him to fly.

“Even if you give me that explanation… Can I really do something like that? To be honest, I’m not even sure I can do it, you know?”

But her reply quickly cleared up Akira’s doubt. She smiled and said.

“You can. Or more like, you’ve done it unconsciously before. You just need to work it out so you can do the same intentionally.”

Akira was surprised by what he heard.

“…I’ve done something like that?”

“That’s right. If you need a more precise example, you still remember your fight against Nelia, right? That’s a good example. I’m pretty sure Nelia was using an accelerator when she fought you. It increased the speed of her movements and slowed down her time perception, thus allowing her to fight at a very high speed. In order to adjust her cyborg body to fight in such a high speed, I bet she put in extra modifications inside her brain too.”

Akira remembered his fight with Nelia. At that time, although he was moving his body desperately, he was barely able to follow the movement of his augmented suit that was controlled by Alpha.

“So, does it have anything to do with my training?”

“Yes. At that time, you were somehow able to follow and react to Nelia’s movements. You were also barely able to follow the movements of your augmented suit when I was controlling it. Although you weren’t aware of it since you were so desperate at that time, there’s no way you could do something like that unless you were compressing your time perception, you know? The danger of death made you so focused that you were unconsciously compressing your time perception in order to survive that situation.”

Akira was dumbfounded as he heard Alpha’s explanation. He was only vaguely aware of it during that fight and now Alpha, who he trusted, also confirmed it. Thus Akira thought that it must be true.

Leaving the truth aside, Akira believed her explanation. Now that he believed it, it became the truth for him. It turned his belief from being impossible to possible.

“Let’s start by trying to fool your brain into thinking that your life is in danger. With this, you should be able to grasp how to compress time unconsciously. Once you’re done with it, you’ll next learn how to do the same in any situation.”

“…I understand the gist of it, but what exactly should I do?”

“You’ll understand once we start the training. So let’s get into it right away.”

After saying that, Alpha changed her appearance from her usual dress into some kind of exotic costume for dancers which had a lot of decorations on it. The only exposed part of her body was her head, she was wearing a long skirt that extended to the floor and her arms were covered by long sleeves.

Alpha was holding blades in both of her hands. Those blades were thin and looked extremely sharp. She then thrust the blade in her right hand toward Akira. Although Akira understood well that the blade in front of his eyes was not a real thing and only an image, it looked sharp enough that Akira could not help but take a step back.

“I’ll be dancing in front of you and you’ll need to keep your eyes on me. I’ll launch some attacks in the middle of it and you just need to evade them, you get that?”

“O-okay.”

“Since it’s training to compress your time perception, you’re not allowed to keep your distance to avoid my attacks. You’re also not allowed to take a step back when I approach you as long as I don’t try to attack you.”

“Alright.”

“Very well, let’s begin.”

After both of them opened up some distance between them, Alpha saluted Akira, closed her eyes and started dancing while making a dignified expression with her beautiful face.

The multi-layered dress flailed in the air as she danced, she looked completely mesmerizing. The many decorations on her dress swayed along, complimenting her every move. The blades, which were as smooth as a mirror, gave a clear reflection of the garage as they slashed the air.

Watching her dance, Akira felt like he was taking part in some kind of ritual. It was obvious that Akira was slowly hypnotized by that dance. It made him immediately forget that he was in the garage and both Alpha’s dress and dance were completely out of place.

When Akira got back to his senses, Alpha had already finished her slash. Alpha, who was dancing next to him, had slashed at his neck with the blade in her right hand. He could not react to that at all. If that blade was real, he would have been dead by now.

Alpha smiled mischievously at Akira, who was still dumbfounded.

“You should properly keep your eyes open for any attacks, okay?”

“…I understand.”

Akira pulled himself together. It would be all for naught if he did not feel any sense of danger even when there was someone flinging a sword right at him. He could not just stand there mesmerized, he should properly keep his focus and watch Alpha’s movements closely. He gathered all his focus and directed all his attention towards Alpha.

Alpha reset the distance between them. Akira kept his eyes on her so that he would not miss even the slightest move from Alpha, but then he suddenly realized something and looked puzzled.

A layer of cloth tore off from Alpha’s dress. That piece of cloth fluttered and vanished before it could touch the floor. Akira understood that it was nothing more than an image, thus it was not like that piece of cloth would just peel off from Alpha’s dress on its own. So in short, Alpha did that intentionally.

“…Alpha, why did you let that piece of cloth off?”

“I’m just reducing the difficulty, this multi-layered dress is hiding my movements which in turn hides my attack. If you can get a better view of my limbs, you should be able to see my attacks more easily, right?”

“Well, that’s true, but isn’t it like we’re doing this training so that I can quickly recognize my enemy’s movement, compress my time perception, and evade incoming attacks?”

“It’s fine. It doesn’t seem like you can even react to my attacks at this rate, after all. Or more like, you don’t feel any danger at all, do you? As long as you don’t recognize the danger, you won’t be able to notice that you’re being attacked, and it won’t be able to trigger you to compress your time perception.”

“…Well, that’s true.”

“I’ll take off one layer of my dress every time my attack hits you, okay?”

“…Hah?!”

“If you want to see me naked, you can just go ahead and take it easy, you know?”

After Alpha said that while smiling bewitchingly, she started dancing again in front of fl.u.s.tered Akira.

Akira stiffened his face to not let out his inner feeling as he was keeping his eyes on Alpha, who was dancing beautifully in front of him.

<script>