Chapter 87 - People Who Lost Their Dreams (1/2)

Akira was sitting on the driver seat, talking with Alpha to kill time, while waiting for Revin to finish his discussion with his men.

Now that Akira had calmed down after he got out of that ruin, he started to feel a tinge of regret.

“…But still, it’s such a waste and it’s really unfortunate. There should still be relics in that ruin. If only we were able to search the ruin more and carry all of those relics before the ruin somehow activated, I wonder just how much money that would have fetched me.”

Alpha smiled and cheered him.

“It’s an unexplored ruin after all. Things like this are normal. We still have some leftover data from the Lion Steel Corp, so we can just place our hope at our next location.”

“You’re right… Haah….”

Although that day he was able to return with some profits, he was not able to return with a lot of riches from an unexplored ruin as he had wished. Akira himself thought that there should be still a lot of relics left in that ruin, so it would be hard for him to simply forget about that ruin.

Revin and his men were sitting not too far from Akira, they were discussing how to pay for Akira’s medicines. One of them looked pretty depressed as he asked Revin.

“…So, what exactly are we going to do now?”

Revin’s expression was not much different from that man.

“Isn’t that exactly why we’re sitting here discussing? Tell me if you have any good ideas.”

“Even if you ask me, it’s 2,000,000 Aurum, you know? Can we really afford to pay that kind of money? Or more like, you’re the one who bought it, so why should we pay for it too?”

Revin looked displeased as he said.

“Are you seriously going to blame me for it? Would it have been better for you if we had kept climbing the stairs with that speed and got killed by the monsters?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what did you mean by that remark?”

Revin and his men started to make a ruckus, but the moment Akira glanced at them, they quickly calmed down. Another guy from Revin’s team then said.

“For real though, what are we going to do now…”

They were all in trouble since they had no idea how to pay Akira.

Revin and his men were talking about the medicine that they bought from Akira which cost them 2,000,000 Aurum. Akira asked them to tell him who would pay and when and where he would receive the payment.

Revin and his men were 5 members in total, so dividing it equally, it would be 400,000 Aurum per person. It was not a huge amount. But if they paid that money, they would not be able to buy ammo for their next expedition. After all, they still had to pay for their food, accommodation, and ammo. They simply did not have enough money to spare.

Another guy then hopelessly said.

“…I guess we have no other choice but to sell our relics.”

Another guy quickly refuted his suggestion.

“Don’t you remember that we paid them with our relics?”

“We only gave them the relics that we found inside that room. I’m sure all of you are hiding other relics that you found elsewhere, right? If we pooled them together, we might be able to get at least 2,000,000 Aurum.”

They then looked at each other, they all understood what that guy was talking about. Revin sighed and took out all the relics that he was hiding, the other guys who saw that also gave up their relics.

One among them reluctantly took out the relics that he was hiding. Revin twitched as he saw that because that man only offered clothes.

Revin immediately called that man.

“You there, you took out nothing but clothes though.”

“But I found only these clothes in the ruin.”

“Do you really think they’ll believe you? They’ll definitely doubt it, you know. Just take them back, we can sell it later and divide the money among us.”

That guy then retrieved those clothes. Revin looked at all the relics lined up in front of him and made a long ‘hmmmm’.

“…To be honest, I’m not even sure we can get enough money with just these relics. But well, I guess at least we can use this to negotiate.”

He then went to Akira.

After Akira listened to what Revin had to say, he asked about something that bothered him.

“Even the relics you found in the room that looked like in good shape were only worth about 3,000,000 Aurum, right? So like, are you sure the rest of the relics would be able to fetch you 2,000,000 Aurum?”

“Well, I think it’s at least possible. Let’s just head back to the city for now, after all, I can’t really ask merchants or appraisers the worth of the relics if we stay here, right?”

There were certain areas in the city where the public order was really bad to the point that it would not be strange for Hunters, who returned from the wasteland, to get robbed. But even so, those areas were still safer compared to the lawless wasteland.

Once they were inside the city, even if Revin and his men had no money to pay Akira, Akira won’t be able to just shoot them where they stood. In contrast to that, something like that would likely happen outside the city or in the wasteland. That was why Revin wanted to reach the city as soon as possible.

Akira did not notice that at all. The only reason why he was staying outside the city was so that it would be easy to chase Revin and his men if they tried to run away.

Akira thought for a bit before saying.

“You only need someone to appraise those relics here, right?”

Akira pulled out his information terminal and contacted Katsuragi. The call got connected soon after he pressed the call b.u.t.ton.

“Akira, huh? It’s rare for you to call me like this, is it something profitable?”

“It depends on your ability as a merchant.”

“I see, it’s money talk then. So, what do you have?”

“I just returned back from the old-world ruin with relics, can you come here and check them?”

“Sure, but since you called me, you do have the relics worth calling me there, right?”

“I got those relics from an unexplored ruin, they are from the underground ruin. They do look pretty expensive though. And also, if you come here to pick them up, I’ll at least tell you where I found them.”

“I see, send me your location… Alright then, I’m coming there now, just wait for a bit.”

Katsuragi then ended the call. After that, Akira turned to Revin.

“Just wait for a bit.”

“O-okay.”

Revin frowned, he looked rather pale. He was not expecting for Akira to know a merchant whom he could call over all the way to where they were.

It did not take that long before Katsuragi’s trailer arrived there, it was one of the benefits of having a portable shop.

Akira lined the relics in front of Katsuragi. After Katsuragi finished checking all of those relics, he then made an offer to Akira.

“Let’s see, how about 8,000,000 Aurum?”

“Got it, we have a deal.”

“Nice! I’ll transfer the money right away… So then, how about those relics? You’re not going to sell them?”

Katsuragi glanced over at the relic pile on the backseat of Akira’s vehicle.

“Those are the relic types that you won’t buy. You did teach me that, remember?”

“Well, that’s true, but I can at least take a look at them. It’s just me trying to build a good relations.h.i.+p with you. Even for the clothes, if you have enough of them, I can even make a connection especially to sell those types of relics, you know? Well, even if I say that, it’ll take quite a lot of time to build a new route like that. But since I’ve been dealing with a lot of wholesalers lately, it’ll at least still turn in some money.”

“Thanks for the offer but it’s fine. I found another route to sell those types of relics, you see. So I’m thinking of bringing relics that you won’t buy to that person.”

“…I see. Okay.”

Although Katsuragi was smiling on the surface, he was cursing deep inside. When he gave the explanation about how to sell relics to Akira before, he intentionally evaluated some of the relics with a lower price, and those types of relics were clothes and small accessories. He was actually thinking of intentionally not buying them first, and then buying them for cheap later as to make Akira feel indebted to him.

Akira’s fighting ability was indeed amazing but he had no knowledge on how to sell the relics that he gathered. Or at least that was what Katsuragi thought. That was why he mixed some false information when he explained how to sell relics to Akira. He wanted to paint an impression so that Akira thought it was hard to sell a particular type of relics, and later make Akira feel indebted to him by offering to buy those relics at a cheap price from Akira.

But it seemed that Akira had taken care of that part himself. So Katsuragi’s evaluation of Akira slowly changed because of that.

Katsuragi did regret the fact that he could not earn more profit, but it was not like he could keep himself occupied by that. So he just changed the subject and talked about his goods.

“Now that you got more money and I’m already here too, how about you buy something from me?”

But Akira pointed at Revin and his men and said.

“Before that, can you check their relics too?”

“Are they your friends? Did you go hunting relics with them?”

“No, but I found them inside the ruin that I was exploring.”

“Well, it seems that I can put my hopes up for their relics then.”

Katsuragi smiled and went towards Revin. While Katsuragi was checking Revin’s relics, Akira went to Katsuragi’s trailer to spend his time browsing weapons and other stuff.

After Katsuragi finished checking the relics, he looked disappointed and said.

“Well, I guess the total worth is only about 500,000 Aurum.”

“500,000 Aurum?! Are you trying to scam us or something?!”

Revin panicked when he heard Katsuragi’s statement.

When Akira said that Revin and his men went to the same ruin as him, Katsuragi thought that he could put his hopes up on their relics. But compared to Akira, their equipment looked way cheaper and the relics that they brought were a huge disappointment for him. Some of the relics they brought were dirty or even badly damaged, and it was rather obvious that they were not some kind of high ranking Hunter. These were the reasons why Katsuragi was only willing to pay that amount of money for those relics.

Katsuragi looked like he was in a bad mood, he did not even bother to show a fake smile as he said to Revin.

“That’s the amount of money I’m willing to pay. Even if you bring them to the Hunter Office, I think you’ll get even less money. If you don’t agree with that amount, then just don’t sell them to me, I won’t force you to sell them to me either. Well, later then.”

After Katsuragi said that, he turned and was about to go back to Akira, but Revin suddenly stopped him.

“Please wait!! Are you going to tell him that too!? Can you please not do that?”

That amount of money was not even enough to pay half the price of Akira’s medicine. Revin was terrified of how Akira would react to that, so he desperately tried to stop Katsuragi.

Katsuragi noticed that something was going on there and looked a bit surprised.

But his expression suddenly changed to a smile as he kindly asked Revin.

“What’s going on here? You can at least tell me, you know. I’ve been doing business with that Akira for quite some time now, so I might be able to help you out.”

Katsuragi smelled a chance to make a lot of money, so he did not even try to hide his smile.

After listening to Revin’s explanation, he sympathized with them and said.

“That sounds rough. I do business with Hunters, so I can understand how rough it is. Well, I’m glad that he saved you. Now then, since having you guys work hard and gather a lot of relics also helps my business, I can at least lend you some help, you know.”

Revin’s face looked both grateful and a little suspicious.

“I-is that so? So what exactly are you offering?”

“Of course, I can offer to smooth things out between you guys and him. But still, it’s not easy dealing with Akira, you know. Negotiating with him is not an easy task at all. I do want you to at least remember that. You might also know that Akira is a strong Hunter. His fighting skill is nothing to scoff at and he’s also quite a violent boy. He’s actually protecting a certain gang in the slum city and I heard that he doesn’t hesitate when it comes to killing other people. From the rumour that I heard, there was a time when a certain gang in the slum city that was hostile to the gang that he’s protecting went to negotiate with him, but they got c.o.c.ky during the negotiation and Akira killed that guy with no hesitation at all. He then dragged the corpse to the base of the gang that sent that guy.”