Chapter 73 - How To Sell Relics (1/2)

Translator: Athena13

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

Akira followed the stairs underground. It did not take that many steps before he was enveloped with total darkness where he could not see anything at all.

He then turned on the flashlight on his rifle and continued going deeper. The light from the flashlight could not even reach the base of the stair which extended deeper into the darkness.

At that time, Alpha suddenly said to Akira.

“Akira, turn off the flashlight.”

Akira hesitated, but he eventually turned off the flashlight just like he was told. Darkness immediately enveloped him the moment he lost the only source of light. In that situation where he could not even see his own body, he was able to see Alpha’s image clearly.

In the midst of the total darkness, Alpha, who was giving off a silvery glow, suddenly raised her right hand. The moment she did that, everything around Akira suddenly became clear as colours returned to his vision. Akira could even see the cracks and the stains on the wall around him.

Although there was no light at all, Akira was able to see everything as clear as day. He was amazed, it was true that he did not need any light source in this situation.

“Whoah…”

“It’s thanks to the level of accuracy of the data a.n.a.lyser in your new information-gathering device. But because of that, you can’t see too far through the darkness. If you’re bothered by it, you can turn on your flashlight. The light from your flashlight will be able to help me gather information through the rifle’s aiming device, then I can show the result from a.n.a.lyzing that data into your view to let you see what is in front of you more clearly.”

Akira then turned his flashlight back on and peeked forward. He could now see a floor by the end of the stair.

“So your support even goes as far as shooting in the dark too, huh. That’s really amazing.”

“But of course, it’s my support after all.”

Alpha smiled proudly. Her support was really rea.s.suring, but Akira kept on moving forward into a place where he might lose that support.

Akira thought of that possibility, he then made his resolve and swung his legs forward.

Akira felt like he had gone down for about 4 floors before he reached a long hallway. There were lamps installed on the ceiling of the hallway, but of course, they were not on. If it was not because of Alpha’s support, he wouldn’t have been able to see them at all. Akira readied his gun as he continued walking deeper into the long hallway.

The hallway itself was pretty clean. Although the floor was covered in dust and dirt, there were no crumbled parts nor wreckage scattered through the hallway, there was also no white bones leftover from dead people or corpses of either mechanical or biological monsters.

If the floor was not covered in dirt and dust, it would indicate that the old-world cleaning drones in that place were still active. But the dust-covered floor refuted such a possibility. And since Akira did not see any footprints, it might be really an unexplored ruin.

Now, if the facility itself had already been deactivated, then the security drone would also be inactive and Akira would be able to safely search the building. And since there were no footprints on the floor, it also showed that no monster had gone through that hallway. All the signs were indicating that it was a safe building.

“It’s going really well. Now then, if I can find a lot of old-world relics left in this place, then this will be perfect.”

“It seems that this place is just a normal hallway. It will really be a huge jackpot if it leads to a warehouse or a shop. But there’s also a chance this is just a common hallway, if that’s the case, I hope you can at least find some lockers.”

As Akira continued walking through the hallway, he noticed something that looked like a shop next to him.

The shop itself was embedded into the wall of that hallway. Akira realized that it was a shop since the wall was made of gla.s.s that allowed him to see what was inside. It seemed like the entire section of the wall was built as the display window of that shop. He came closer to the display window and peeked inside. The interior of that shop looked pretty extravagant with luxurious and expensive looking relics lined up inside that shop. To Akira, all of them looked like they would sell for a lot of money.

Akira could not hide his amazement as he turned to Alpha.

“W-we did it!! Alpha!! Those are relics!! This place has so many old-world relics!! Let’s take them back, let’s take all of them back home!!”

“Akira, calm down.”

“Entrance, where’s the entrance? I don’t see any though.”

Akira excitedly looked for an entrance, but he could not find anything that resembled it. The gla.s.s of the display window looked not that durable, he thought that he might be able to break it using his augmented suit.

Looking at Akira, who seemed like he was going to break the gla.s.s to get inside, Alpha hesitated as she said to him.

“Calm down. Unfortunately, you can’t take any of those relics at the moment.”

“…Eh?”

Akira seemed utterly shocked as he looked at Alpha.

“I’ll explain it to you, so just calm down for now.”

Alpha then modified Akira’s vision, the moment she did that, all the expensive looking relics that were in front of his eyes immediately vanished. Akira dropped his jaw.

“…Huh?”

“I prioritized the topological data to remove any holographic images from your vision.”

Akira noticed an object that was projecting the image of the relics that he just saw a moment ago. He then dug through his knowledge and worded out the name of the object that came up in his mind.

“Holographic poster?”

“It was made using the technology of the old-world, I’m sure it’s some kind of advertis.e.m.e.nt from when this place was still active.”

Akira finally understood what was going on, the shop in front of his eyes was non-existent. It was only a super-advanced poster that produced a highly realistic image.

Akira was somehow able to prevent himself from just dropping on his knees.

“Can I at least bring this poster back?”

“It’s embedded into the wall, so that’ll be impossible too.”

“…I guess I got ahead of myself, huh.”

Akira let out a big sigh. He then continued going deeper while calming himself down.

In contrast with his expression, his steps still felt heavy when he left that poster. As time pa.s.sed by, he eventually got back to his usual self. At that point, he had already reached the end of that long hallway and entered a big open-hall. That big open-hall was connected with another hallway, there were also several automatic ticket gates and shops present.

When Akira looked at those shops, he turned to Alpha as if he wanted to ask her something.

“It’s alright, those are real this time.”

“Nice!!”

Akira smiled and walked to one of those shops. Without any power source, the automatic door in front of the shop could not move, so he used the power of his augmented suit to pry it open before entering that shop.

The interior of the shop was not that big, but inside it, there were all kinds of goods and some leftover broken goods lined up. Some of them were so old that they even turned into a bundle of dust, some of them looked so unnaturally brand new. The latter were known as the old-world relics, they were expensive goods manufactured through an advanced technology that could not be replicated using current technology.

Akira pulled out a rucksack, different from the one that he was using to carry his equipment. He then started stuffing any objects that still retained its original shape into his empty rucksack.

Among them, there were weird looking small electronic devices, knife-like sharp objects, some stationeries, notes that strangely enough still retained its original colour, some pieces of clothing that looked like underclothes, strange discoloured boxes filled with still consumable medicines, liquid containers filled with some kind of cleaner, handkerchiefs, cooking utensils, something that looked like calculators, fas.h.i.+onable clothing, small accessories, and even toys. Akira did not discriminate as he stuffed everything inside his rucksack.

As he was looking at the pile of mismatch relics in his rucksack, he asked Alpha.

“…Say Alpha, what kind of shop was this exactly?”

“Maybe just a general shop.”

“They sold cooking utensils and clothing in a general shop? And even this strange electronic device too? I don’t really understand the old-world culture. Was this kind of shop normal in the old-world?”

“Different technological era have different cultures. So you shouldn’t use your common sense.”

“I guess that’s true, huh. Well, as long as these relics sell for a lot of money, I don’t really care much about it.”

Even in the current era, the lifestyle and the culture inside the wall and outside the wall were greatly different. So Akira decided not to let himself get bothered by the mismatched collection of relics that he found inside that shop.

It did not take long for him to fill his rucksack to full capacity. Akira smiled, he should be able to make quite a lot of money with this.

“Now that I already got the relics, I’m thinking of ending the exploration here for today. What do you think, Alpha? Should I continue exploring this area for a bit more instead?”

“If you think so, it’s okay to go back home now. It’s important to be able to decide where to stop before anything bad happens.”

“Alright then, let’s head back home. I didn’t get to meet any monsters too, so I guess I really hit the jackpot today.”

“You can’t relax yet, you know? You should not drop your guard as long as you haven’t returned back alive. And it’s too soon to decide if you have hit the jackpot or not before you have exchanged all the collected relics into money.”

“I know, let’s go back home.”

Akira went back through the hallway that he just pa.s.sed through in a good spirit. As Alpha was watching him walking back in such a good mood, she thought that things were going too smoothly.

That day, Akira was able to find an unexplored ruin, get himself a lot of relics without encountering any monsters, and now he was going back to Kugamayama city to sell the relics that he gathered.

Akira had bad luck to the point that it was almost guaranteed that he would at least get roped into something troublesome no matter what he did. But now that everything was going well, Alpha was rather worried about the backlash. Although it was not like she had any evidence to support her claim, she still could not help but think so.

Unlike what Alpha expected, Akira was able to return back to Kugamayama city safely with all of his relics. Although he did meet some Hunters driving in the opposite direction on his way back, nothing bad happened. Akira put some distance between them just to be safe and continued driving in the opposite direction, those Hunters eventually disappeared behind Akira without anything major happening.

Once he got back to the city, Akira kept on driving his vehicle all the way back to his home. It was because it was already late, too late for him to look for Katsuragi to sell his relics. So he decided to just take a good rest for the remainder of the day and sell his relics the next day.

Akira took a warm bath to recover his fatigue from all the hard work he did that day. Since he got quite a lot of relics, he was in a rather good mood.

“I wonder how much I’ll get from those relics. Some of them are still in very good shape, so they should be able to get me quite a lot of money. Right, Alpha?”

Akira was asking for a confirmation from Alpha who was taking a bath together with him.

The image of Alpha’s superbly beautiful body swayed together with the steam and the vibration on the water surface. It was a totally unnecessary visual effect produced using her advanced computational ability. But for those people who got more excited when it was barely visible, this might even be the correct way to use her advanced computational ability.

But her charming and beautiful body was barely given any attention by Akira, who was in such a good mood after returning back with a lot of relics. He kept on wasting his chance of seeing such a rare beauty that day too.

Alpha knew that Akira was expecting to get a lot of money from selling those relics. Thus she refuted his thinking in order to calm him down.

“You should not expect too much. This is not the same compared to when you were gathering relics in Kuzusuhara ruin with my instructions. But I won’t say that they won’t sell either.”

“…Is that so?”

“The value of those relics will depend on Katsuragi’s preference and the types of relics that are in demand at the moment. If you get your hopes too high, you might only get disappointed in the end, you know?”

“Hmmm. Well, I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”

His expectation of the amount of money that he might get from selling those relics stopped swelling after hearing Alpha’s explanation, it also helped him calm down.

On the next day, Akira went to Katsuragi to sell his relics. After checking all the relics, Katsuragi then told Akira how much he would buy Akira’s relics for.

“2,200,000 Aurum.”

Akira looked conflicted. It was not a small amount of money for sure, but it was not the amount he had expected.