Chapter 82 - Being A Good Hunter (2/2)

“Even though he’s like that, I worked with him for a long time. Not to mention, I have my trauma with monsters… So like, I feel bad leaving his corpse for the monsters…”

Akira thought that if it pained Colbert that much, then he could just dig a hole and bury the corpse. He found it weird since there was no need to bring it back to the city, thus he popped out a rude question for Colbert.

“What are you planning to do with his corpse after bringing it back to the city? Are you planning to look for his family and give the body to them?”

“No, I will hand it over to the Hunter Office. If he had left his contact address when he registered his name, the Hunter Office would at least try to contact his family, that is if he did submit his family information too. The Hunter Office will take care of the corpse after that. By the way, in order to reduce the number of Hunters who have gone missing, the Hunter Office also recommends bringing Hunter’s corpse to them, you know?”

That was one of the efforts to keep the Hunters under control and make them stay ethical. It would also help the City Management if they could tell which Hunters went missing and which Hunters were dead. Of course, they would a.s.sume the Hunters who went missing were already dead, but it was not like they could actually treat those Hunters as deceased. Those Hunters would need to stay missing for a while and there was a lot of administration stuff that needed to be approved before they were declared dead. But by bringing evidence that they were dead such as their corpses, the City Management and the Hunter Office could bypa.s.s the administration stuff and cut short the waiting time.

Colbert smiled bitterly as he continued.

“Well, it’s only recommended and not compulsory. But the Hunter Office does suggest us to do that. If it’s about profit, by doing something right like that, the Hunter Office will have a better impression on us. Not to mention that law-abiding companies also include the personality of the Hunters when they’re looking to hire Hunters. By taking Guyver’s corpse back, we would not get treated like those Hunters who tried to attack the other Hunters on the same team, or at least it would lessen the chance for that. It’s basically about karma.”

After listening to Colbert’s explanation, Dale nodded. After all, it was something that concerned him too. Colbert then turned to Akira and Sheryl.

“I can understand your opinion. So like, well, it’s not like I’m doing this to make it up for you, but I’ll give mine and Guyver’s share of relics to you. They’ll fetch you quite a lot of money if you sell them.”

Sheryl interjected. It was because although it would be just ‘quite a lot of money’ for Colbert, it would be a huge amount of money for Sheryl and her gang.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I too messed up, after all. I caused everyone trouble when we were back in the mansion. Even after we said that we would help escort you in exchange for a ride back home, one of my companions attacked you, and now, I’m asking permission to go bring that person’s corpse with us. It would be nothing strange if you’re angry and decide to leave us here. So like, it would be great if you accept our share of relics so that it can at least reduce your anger.”

After he said that, Colbert glanced at Dale. Dale hesitated but he then gave up and said.

“…Alright, I know I’m also at fault here. I’ll also give my share.”

Sheryl asked them again to confirm.

“Are you really sure about this?”

“Yeah, I don’t want people to just leave my corpse for the monsters when I’m dead after all.”

Dale smiled bitterly when he said that.

Sheryl looked at Akira to ask for his opinion. So Akira said to her.

“I guess it’s fine. You should take their offer while you have the chance.”

If Akira does not mind, then Sheryl had no problem with it either. She lightly bowed and took their offer.

“I understand, if that’s the case, I’ll thankfully accept your offer.”

“Thanks and sorry. Alright then, let me get this done fast. Just wait here for a few minutes.”

Colbert then went to retrieve Guyver’s corpse alone.

After he finished retrieving Guyver’s corpse, they quickly continued their way back to Kugamayama city, leaving Sebla’s corpse together with the corpse of the monster that Dale and Colbert killed.

Although a lot of things happened, Akira was able to return back to the city safely. But of course, each of them had different opinions whether they could say that they really did return back safely.

Akira stopped his vehicle near the city, it was somewhere around the border between the wasteland and the slum city. Dale and Colbert said their goodbyes before they went their separate way. Colbert carried Guyver’s dead body to the city while Dale went straight to the lower district.

Sheryl and her gang members went back to their base first without loading off the relics. She then told everyone who was left in the base to help carry all the relics in the cart to their base.

Akira was sitting on the driver seat while waiting for Sheryl’s gang to finish unloading all the relics in the cart.

“Say, Akira.”

“Hm?”

Akira turned to Alpha who was sitting beside him on the driver a.s.sistant’s seat. Alpha was still in her swimsuit. Although she still looked weird in the middle of the wasteland, Akira who was starting to get used to that did not react any differently now, at least not until Alpha changed into another dress.

Alpha asked Akira something that sounded trivial, but to her, it was an important question.

“It’s about when you saved Sheryl. Why did you drop your rifle?”

When Akira was in the underground city, he did not drop his rifle even when Reina was taken hostage. Alpha would accept Akira’s excuse even if he simply said that Reina and Sheryl were 2 different cases. But for the sake of her goal, it was imperative to keep Akira alive.

If there was someone that Akira would sacrifice his own life for, Alpha would have to think of a way to handle that person.

Akira proudly answered.

“I had a feeling that I would be able to evade his shots without trouble. No, that’s not right, it was because I wanted to confirm it. Although I did that when I fought with Guyver too, the time with Sebla was the first time I was able to reproduce the feeling I had when I compress my time perception. I guess the reason why I couldn’t do that in my training with you was because deep down, I knew my life was not in danger. But now that I was able to do it, I feel like I should be able to do it better next time.”

“You didn’t think what would happen if you failed?”

“I bet you would move my body by controlling my augmented suit, right? You did that when Guyver shot me from behind, remember…? Uh, was it a situation where you couldn’t do that?”

Akira’s expression stiffened, if that was the case, then his life was really in danger there. Alpha looked at Akira who was frowning and said.

“There was no trouble about that. It’s as you said, at that time, I was about to move your augmented suit to evade that shot, but you suddenly moved on your own. Putting that aside, I think that’s the reason why you could evade Sebla’s shot. But that is not the reason why you dropped your rifle.”

Akira seemed uncomfortable as he said.

“I was able to kill him without any loss, right?”

But Akira suddenly seemed to realize something as he added.

“Well, it was because I was sure I would be able to kill him even if I dropped my rifle. That’s why I did that. I thought that I could pick the option where I had a better chance of safely saving Sheryl. The situation was different compared with Reina in the underground city. If I wasn’t sure that I would be able to do that, I wouldn’t have dropped my rifle.”

Akira had no plans to get himself killed, Alpha knew that very well. As her worry was resolved by his answer, she smiled at Akira and said.

“It’s all good if that was not a suicidal move. I think I don’t need to remind you about this, but it would be bad for me if you die. The reason why I’m helping you is because it’s an upfront payment for taking my request. So basically you have a debt to me. I have no plans of letting you go from that debt unless you finish my request, you know.”

“I know, I know. Although we had a lot of trouble this time, I think I’m growing stronger and stronger. I should have a better chance in finis.h.i.+ng your request. I hope you’re satisfied with this for now.”

Alpha and Akira were talking to each other while throwing jokes from time to time.

As Akira was having a silly talk with Alpha, Sheryl’s gang was transporting the relics from the back cart to their base.

Since some of the relics were pretty big, Sheryl’s gang was gathering quite a lot of attention. But there was no worry of getting attacked since people who saw them knew that they were transporting relics from a Hunter’s cart.

Trying to rob them of those relics meant picking a fight against that Hunter. Because of that, Sheryl’s gang was able to safely transport the relics even when they went through a territory in the slum city that was owned by a different gang.

Akira remembered his fight against Guyver and said to Alpha.

“But still, I’m glad that was a stun grenade. If it was a hand grenade, it would have been really bad. Well, the stun grenade itself was pretty dangerous though.”

“Either it was because he didn’t have a hand grenade, or it was because he thought that he might be in the blast range too. We’re saved because of that though, and we were lucky that it was right after the rain stopped.”

“Does it have anything to do with the rain?”

“To be more precise, it has something to do with the colourless mist effect of the rain. The colourless mist effect reduced the intensity of the light and the sound, so the effect from stun grenade must have been considerably weakened. Although, that’s also the reason why it’s hard to detect a monster in the middle of a thick colourless mist. If I have to give you an example, the DVTS minigun didn’t make much sound when you used it, right? If there was no colourless mist, it would have made a very loud sound, you know.”

“I see, hm? But I used that minigun before the rain started, right? And it wasn’t that loud then?”

“Colourless mist is ever-present in the eastern district although the thickness level is different in each region.”

“Is that so? Ah, that’s the reason why the monsters can’t detect us, right?”

“Yep, that’s correct.”

Akira was spending time by learning about what Hunters knew directly from Alpha.

Not too long after that, Sheryl informed Akira that they had finished transporting the relics. Akira was about to turn the vehicle on and head back home when he suddenly realized something.

“Now that I remember, Colbert said all of those excuses and we ended up carrying Guyver’s corpse back to the city while we just left Sebla’s corpse in the wasteland. But when we separated, Colbert was not heading to the direction where the Hunter Office was, I wonder why is that?”

“It’s not like you know him personally and neither is he a Hunter, so it’s normal to leave Sebla’s corpse behind like that. Moreover, when you said Hunter Office, you meant that big Hunter Office branch, right? There are other smaller Hunter Office branches in the city, you know.”

“Is that so? Well, I guess you’re right.”

Since it was not something that interested him, Akira accepted her explanation and stopped thinking about it.

After Colbert separated from Akira and Dale, he headed to the city alone. He then waited for someone to arrive.

In about 30 minutes after Colbert contacted someone, a vehicle stopped close to him. It was a small vehicle designed to be used inside the city.

A man stepped out from that vehicle. Colbert pointed at the body bag that was lying close to him. That man then opened the zipper on the body bag and confirmed that it was indeed Guyver’s corpse. He smiled and turned to Colbert.

“It’s Guyver. Thanks for the hard work.”

“Now that I’ve done my job, tell them to transfer my reward.”

“I know. Just wait for a sec here.”

That man then operated his information terminal and contacted someone. Suddenly, Colbert begrudgingly said to that man.

“This is the last time I’m taking this kind of job, okay?”

“Please don’t say that. Unlike this dead guy, we think that you’re a good Hunter and we trust you. It’s not easy for us to get a Hunter like you, you know. We’ll give you a reward suitable for the job, okay?”

“It wasn’t worth the risk this time. You’re lucky that I’m not asking for an extra reward for this job.”

“You are not satisfied with the reward? In that case, you should discuss it with the boss. We’re just goons, so we can do nothing about it… Oh, it seems that the reward is already transferred, can you check it?”

That man saw a message in his information terminal and conveyed the contents to Colbert. Colbert took out his own information terminal, checked his bank account, and confirmed the payment.

The man then took the body bag and stuffed it in his vehicle’s trunk.

“I know it’s not easy working as a Hunter, but it’s not easy to work as a collector either. We have to go collect the dead body of people in debt like this, you see.”

That man was a debt collector sent by the company that lent its money to Guyver. Although Guyver did not know about it, Colbert was actually his observer. It was Colbert’s job to watch over him and secure his body if he died. It was to make sure that he would not escape so that they could throw him to labour work in case he could not pay back his debt and to quickly collect his body as soon as possible when he got killed.

There were many private a.s.sets that could not be seized if the Hunter was still in ‘missing’ status, such as the Hunter Office bank account. The fastest way to seize those a.s.sets was by bringing the owner of the a.s.sets to transfer those a.s.sets, regardless of whether the owner was alive or not. In order to make sure that it was not the collector company that killed the person and brought the corpse to the Hunter Office to seize his or her a.s.sets, it was important to have someone else as a witness to testify that the person was actually killed in his line of work. The paper works could be done faster if the witness was someone trustworthy with a good track record.

With Guyver’s corpse in their hands, it was easy to guess that the collection agency would seize all of Guyver’s a.s.sets, including the money that he saved to escape from that very debt.

Colbert laughed uncomfortably and said.

“I know how hard it is to work as a collector. The guy who came to collect my debt ended up in the grave after all.”

“Oof, scary. It seems that you’re in a very bad mood today. Well, I’ll listen to your story on our way, hop in.”

That man and Colbert then hopped into the vehicle and they went to the city.

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