Chapter 90 - Katsuya and That Special Girl (1/2)

Katsuya talked about a lot of things with Sheryl.

To be more precise, there was an obvious inclination in the subject of their conversation. They mostly talked about things related to Katsuya, like his story when he went to an old-world ruin or when he went on a monster extermination request, or about the gang that he belonged to–Drankam.

Katsuya thought that Sheryl was someone from the inner wall from the dress she was wearing. It was not rare for people from the inner wall to go out with some paid escorts. There were a lot of those escorts gathered in the big building sticking to the wall where the huge Hunter Office was located. The area around that building was considerably safer although it was still considered as a part of the lower district. Thus, it was pretty safe for people from the inner wall to walk around that area.

At first, Katsuya thought that the violence-filled daily life of a Hunter would be a boring story for someone like Sheryl. But since it seemed that Sheryl was listening closely to his story, he continued to keep telling stories about his life as a Hunter.

Katsuya felt very comfortable talking with Sheryl. Not only was she a beautiful girl that would listen closely to his rather boastful story, but she would even occasionally praise him right when he was expecting it. And when he told an unpleasant story or complained, Sheryl would look concerned and sympathize with his story as well as praising his will to get over that problem. Katsuya was drowned in the mood as he kept talking with her.

But Sheryl thought something was strange with Katsuya’s story.

Katsuya was quite a handsome boy, it could be said that his face was above average. If he was working a job where he had to serve customers, it would definitely attract a lot of girls. If his story was correct, he was a skilled young Hunter and one of the best Hunters in Drankam. Since he worked himself so hard to be able to help his other fellow gang members, it could be inferred that he kept his friends dear. In short, he was a good looking young Hunter with skill and good personality. Sheryl’s impression, opinion and intuition evaluated Katsuya highly.

And the other side of Sheryl, the part of her that coldly and rationally evaluated her opponent and continuously thought of ways to use that information to get the upper hand during a negotiation, also evaluated Katsuya highly. But compared to her intuition, it was relatively low.

To be more precise, her intuition actually over-evaluated Katsuya. Thus there was an obvious gap between that and her logical and calm evaluation of him. That was the cause of Sheryl’s weird feeling.

Although she did feel that there was something strange in her own evaluation of Katsuya, she did not let it show in her face as she kept her smile while talking to him. While she was keeping that up, it encouraged her further to evaluate him even more highly.

Sheryl unconsciously thought that there was no mistaking it, Katsuya was indeed a skilled young Hunter. Making a connection with that kind of Hunter would be beneficial for her gang. Before she even realized it, she started imagining inviting him for a meal and walking hand-in-hand through the lower district in order to deepen their connection.

In her imagination, she pictured herself walking happily linking arms with Katsuya like a lover. That scene felt so heart-warming.

Then she pictured Akira coming from the opposite direction. Their eyes met, but Akira did not change his expression at all as he simply turned back and cut his ties with her.

When Sheryl returned back to reality, her face had already turned stiff. Her body was frozen out of fear, but she quickly recovered as she reminded herself that it was only her imagination and not reality. But it was not like her nervousness and s.h.i.+vers immediately stopped. Sheryl tried to calm herself by taking short breaths since her heart was beating really fast.

Katsuya, who noticed Sheryl’s expression, worriedly asked her.

“…A-are you okay?”

Sheryl looked at Katsuya again, all of her baseless good evaluation of him had completely vanished. Her feeling was telling her that the young Hunter in front of her was simply a promising young Hunter, it was the same evaluation that her rational side was telling her.

She took a deep breath to calm herself. Once she calmed down, she then tried to dodge the subject.

“…I’m alright. I’m sorry to make you worry.”

“What’s wrong? Ah, did I say something that bothers you?”

“No, it’s just that as I was listening to your story, it somehow reminded me of a traumatic memory when I got attacked by monsters in the wasteland… I’m sorry that I made you worry.”

Katsuya worriedly asked her.

“Were you alright? Did you get injured?”

“I was fine. The Hunter escorting me saved me so I was able to survive the attack without any wound. As I thought, a skilled Hunter like Katsuya-san is really reliable.”

Sheryl smiled while observing Katsuya. He seemed a bit bashful as he smiled. It seemed that she was able to completely dodge the subject.

“Escort Hunter, huh. If you ever need an escort again, you can come to me any-“

“Katsuya! To think that you would leave us to hit on another girl like this!”

Yumina appeared from behind Katsuya, she was smiling but her smile was obviously projecting out anger.

When Yumina scolded him, Katsuya remembered that he was there to accompany Airi and Yumina. And at the same time, he also realized that he had forgotten Yumina and Airi as he was talking with Sheryl.

Katsuya fl.u.s.teredly stood up from his seat and tried to calm Yumina while holding her with both his hands.

“Yumina! Airi!! It’s not like what you think!! It’s a misunderstanding!!”

Yumina cornered Katsuya further while still smiling.

“A misunderstanding? I see, a misunderstanding, huh. Then I’m sure you’ll give me a good explanation later, right?”

Katsuya looked at Airi, who was beside Yumina, asking for her help. But Airi only looked back at him with no emotion.

Sheryl could quickly understand that Airi and Yumina were Katsuya’s acquaintances from their exchange.

She then stood up from her seat and lightly bowed to Yumina and Airi.

“I’m really sorry. I was so interested in Katsuya-san’s story that I insisted him to keep going. Did I hold him back from some kind of promise?”

Yumina and Airi were so focused on Katsuya that they did not place much attention on Sheryl before.

But Yumina was surprised when she looked at Sheryl.

[…What a beautiful girl. That dress is also really pretty. It seems really expensive. I wonder if only people like this would shop in this boutique. Are we actually in the wrong place?]

Yumina ended up staring at Sheryl. She then realized that the beautiful girl in front of her had apologized to her, she got fl.u.s.tered for some reason as she replied back.

“I-I see. Well, uh, no, it’s not like we had a promise or something. It’s just that he said he would only take a short rest before returning back. So I was just wondering what happened since he didn’t come back after quite some time…”

“We were just talking about Katsuya-san’s experience as a Hunter. To be honest, I didn’t feel like he tried to flirt with me… Or was it only my imagination and you were actually trying to flirt with me?”

Sheryl smiled mischievously as she directed that question to Katsuya.

Katsuya shook his head in panic.

“No, I didn’t mean it that way at all, you know?”

In truth, Katsuya did not mean to flirt at all. But even so, although he did not do it intentionally, there were many girls who approached him after he said something which invited such misunderstanding. So he could not be sure that he did not say anything that would have caused such misunderstanding and ended his sentence as a pseudo question.

After all, since he really enjoyed talking with Sheryl, he felt that he might have said something that he should not without realizing it. That was why he could not give a straight answer to that question.

Sheryl then smiled to Yumina.

“Are you Katsuya-san’s girlfriend?”

“G-girlfriend!? No, I-I’m not his girlfriend though…”

Yumina was embarra.s.sed and happy at the same time since Sheryl thought that she was Katsuya’s girlfriend. Her voice was getting feeble when she answered Sheryl’s question.

“Then, is the girl next to you Katsuya-san’s girlfriend?”

“…No.”

Airi’s long silence ended up with a no. Although she was still emotionless, her cheeks slightly turned red.

“I see. Since both Yumina-san and Airi-san’s names came up a lot in Katsuya-san’s story… I thought that one of you is his girlfriend… If I did something that bothers you, I apologize.”

Since Sheryl sounded apologetic, Yumina was only able to fl.u.s.teredly reply back.

“N-no, it’s fine. Please don’t worry about it.”

If Katsuya really did say something to Sheryl that caused such misunderstanding, Yumina was really happy to know that. That was also the case for Airi too. Yumina and Airi’s mood suddenly turned for the better with that single exchange.

Katsuya blushed a little as he wondered if he really said something like that to Sheryl. But looking at the smiling Sheryl and blus.h.i.+ng Airi and Yumina, it quickly slipped off his mind.

It was true that he did share a little about Airi and Yumina, but to be able to make a guess that they were his girlfriend only from what he said, it would require a lot of imagination.

Sheryl kept smiling while still looking at the three of them.

Celen suddenly came out and asked Sheryl for help with her dress adjustment.

“Excuse me to bother you, but can I ask for your help for a bit?”

“Of course, please excuse me.”

Sheryl lightly bowed to Katsuya, Airi and Yumina before she followed Celen.

The mood was a bit awkward between those that were left there, so they decided to return back to browsing clothing.

Yumina remembered about Sheryl while she was picking clothes. From her point of view, Sheryl’s dress looked very refined. She was looking for a similar dress in that shop, and right when she thought of that, Kashua was standing next to them while looking at them.

“Uhmmm, can I ask something? About the dress that the girl who was sitting over there was wearing…”

“Are you interested in that dress? That dress set is all from this shop. You can get the same set if you want to, so how about it?”

It was true that Katsuya reacted positively to that dress. So if she used the same dress, it might increase his evaluation of her. As she thought so, Yumina accepted Kashua’s offer.

“Yes, please.”

“…Me too.”

Airi who was listening to their conversation suddenly jumped in.

“Of course.”

Kashua smiled as she said that. Although that dress set was not an expensive set available in that shop, if she could sell 3 sets of that dress, it would fetch her quite a lot of profit. She gleefully proceeded to fetch the articles that Airi and Yumina asked.

Kashua quickly prepared the dress set and handed them over to Yumina and Airi. Yumina and Airi immediately tried them on, they then looked at their own reflection on a mirror before showing it to Katsuya. Katsuya looked at both of them and frowned.

“…It’s not bad at all, but…”

His reaction was bland, but that was not enough to sour Yumina and Airi’s mood. They both looked at their own reflections on the mirror, glanced at each other and mumbled.

“It’s true that it’s not bad…”

“…Not bad.”

To be honest, it was quite decent. In fact, they looked pretty good and all of them agreed about that. But Sheryl, who was wearing the exact same dress, looked way better; way more beautiful. They could not help but compare themselves with Sheryl.

Even Kashua could not say that they looked good in that dress even if it was only for lip service.

“If it didn’t satisfy you, how about changing the upper half into something else? I’ll bring something that might look good on both of you.”

“…Yes, please.”

“Me too.”

“Very well.”

Kashua smiled as she left and picked some dress for Airi and Yumina. Of course, she chose more and more expensive articles for her recommendation.

After they finished paying for their dress, Yumina, Airi and Katsuya sat on a table inside that shop to take a quick rest. In the end, they bought a completely different dress set than what Sheryl was wearing. All of it was packed in an expensive-looking box to make sure that they would not wrinkle.

Katsuya then threw a question to Yumina and Airi.

“So then, what’s your next plan? Are we going to another shop?”

“This is the last shop, we did use all our budget here.”

“Me too, it was expensive.”

In order to have Katsuya accompany them browsing through a lot of shops, Yumina and Airi were planning to be frugal with their budget. But they ended up spending all of it in that shop. But with that being said, they did not regret spending their money there. After all, as long as they got a positive reaction from Katsuya, they were all happy with that.

Katsuya looked tired as he said.

“I see. In that case, let’s go to a nearby restaurant and take a rest there while having a meal. There should be some good restaurant around this place.”

“Let’s do that, but let’s take a rest here for a bit more.”

“… Me too… I’m tired.”

Both Airi and Yumina were Hunters. Their job included strolling through the wasteland with heavy equipment and fighting monsters. To be honest, they were confident with their physical stamina, but that was not the case for their mental resilience. After buying dresses that were way more expensive than they usually bought, Airi and Yumina were mentally drained. After all, it would be a huge disaster if they were not careful and got their expensive dress torn.

Katsuya turned his attention to the direction where Sheryl went. Kashua, who was standing in the same direction, thought that Katsuya was calling for her.

“Do you need me?”

“Ah, no, I just thought that Sheryl went that way, so I was wondering what she was doing.”

“If it’s about that girl… We’re readjusting one of her dresses.”

Kashua was unsure as to how much information could be given to Katsuya, but she then decided to give him that short answer.

Yumina who was listening to them seemed interested in that subject as she joined in.

“Readjusting?”

“Yes, other than selling high-quality clothing, we can also refit them. If you have any dresses that need readjusting, please, by all means, come to us.”

“Well, I am interested, but isn’t that usually expensive?”

“Since it’s readjusting an already finished dress, I can only say that it depends on the dress. But our professional fitter will give nothing less than perfect, I can guarantee that you’ll find it satisfying.”

Kashua gave her best smile when she said that.