Chapter 91 - Bounty Hunting Invitation (1/2)

Akira was patrolling through the wasteland around the city. It was because he had taken the patrol request from the Hunter Office. Just because there was a bounty monster roaming around the city, Akira could not afford to keep himself locked inside the city forever. Thus, he decided to go out while avoiding the areas where the bounty monster was spotted.

Akira was sniping at a monster from a moving vehicle, it was for his training so he had no support from Alpha. Of course, it was really difficult to accurately aim at his target from the constantly shaking vehicle. The hit rate was simply miserable. He kept on shooting while following Alpha’s instruction.

“Alpha, is there any news about the bounty monsters? Did someone get at least one of them?”

“No, all the 4 bounty monsters are alive and kicking. There’s almost no new information about them too. The latest one I could find only contained a more detailed description of the area where they were spotted and mentioned their increased bounty.”

Akira sounded annoyed as he said.

“I don’t care who it is, I hope someone would take them out soon. It’s not like they’re hiding deep inside a ruin somewhere, right? They’re just roaming in the open s.p.a.ce! Those Hunters with tanks should be able to make a short work of them, right?”

“Well, most Hunters with tanks only work further to the east, after all. If they send some of those Hunters here and the Hunters in this city take out those bounty monsters before the other Hunters arrive, it would be a huge waste of time and money. That’s why those Hunters with tanks are reluctant to bring their tanks all the way here. Of course, it’ll be a different story if no one is able to take the bounty monsters out after a while or if the bounty prize increases.”

Akira lowered his aim. He spotted other Hunters coming from the same direction as the monster that he was aiming at. It would be a pain in the a.s.s if he missed his shot and accidentally hit those Hunters. Even aiming at their direction was enough to cause a needless misunderstanding.

“…Again, huh? Aren’t there too many of them around this place?”

Akira had been encountering a lot of Hunters lately.

“I’m sure it’s because they have the same idea as you, trying to avoid going to the areas where the bounty monsters were spotted. Just like you, they have nothing to do if they only stay inside the city, and taking the patrol request will at least get them some money. Meanwhile, from the City Management perspective, this request would make sure that the bounty monsters are not going to approach the city. That is why the City Management issued a lot of the patrol requests lately.”

“I guess I’ll increase my patrol radius, huh. It’ll be a pain to deal with if I get into a fight with another Hunter after all.”

“You’re right, let’s do that.”

Since the other Hunters had already moved away from the monster, Akira took another aim at the same monster as before and pulled the trigger. This time, he had Alpha’s support in order to quickly take out that monster. The bullet went right through that monster’s head and instantly killed it.

Akira could feel the big gap between when he had Alpha’s support and when he did not. He then smiled bitterly and mumbled.

“I wonder how long it’ll take for me to do this with my own skill.”

“It depends on how hard you train, so let’s patiently keep training.”

Akira was driving his vehicle while Alpha was trying to cheer him up. After moving somewhere further from the city, he continued his shooting training.

The day started to get dark, Akira thought that it should be the time for him to finish his patrol request and head back to the city. On his way back, he encountered a lot of Hunters heading the opposite direction, they must be the Hunters who took the night patrol request.

The night patrol request had a higher reward than the patrol request for the day. Thus, a lot of Hunters preferred it. But looking at the number of Hunters who had taken that request, it seemed like they had run out of the day patrol request and had no other choice but to take the night patrol request. But if that was true, it also showed that most of the Hunters decided not to go out to the wasteland at all.

“Akira, there’s a call for you.”

“Who is it from?”

“s.h.i.+karabe from Drankam.”

Akira tilted his head. It was because he did not remember anyone who he was usually in contact with having that name. Alpha noticed that and continued to explain.

“It’s that other Hunter with whom you worked together in the underground city exploration with Elena and Sara, remember? He said something about the other Hunters who were in their team before you came in, something like having a fight against the other Hunters from Drankam.”

After listening to Alpha’s explanation, Akira finally remembered him. It was that male Hunter who was more or less as skilled as Elena and Sara. He was in the same team with Elena and Sara to explore the frontline during the Kuzusuhara ruin underground city’s temporary base aid request. He was a pretty strong Hunter.

“That guy, huh? I wonder what it is about?”

Akira took out his information terminal and picked up the call from s.h.i.+karabe.

“It’s Akira, what is it?”

“s.h.i.+karabe here. There’s something I want to talk about, do you have some time? Where are you right now?”

“I’m in the wasteland, near the city, on my way back home. So, what is it you want to talk about?”

“Well, it’s related to our work as a Hunter. I’ve talked about it with Elena and Sara too, it’s not anything strange. You can at least listen to the offer first before deciding anything. I’ll send you our location, if you are interested, come here. Later then.”

s.h.i.+karabe only left Akira with those words before cutting the call off.

Akira thought for a bit, he then operated his information terminal to send a message to Elena asking if it was okay to call her right now. It did not take long before a call from Elena came in.

“It’s Akira. Elena-san, do you have some time?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“It’s nothing big, just something that I want to ask Elena-san and Sara-san.”

“If it’s going to be a long talk, how about we meet somewhere? I don’t mind if you come over, Sara is here too.”

“No, it’s just a short question. It should be fine to talk it through the phone.”

Akira then explained about his short exchange with s.h.i.+karabe to Elena. After listening to his story, Elena made a guess and said to Akira.

“Hmmm. I think he’s recruiting Hunters to join him in hunting the bounty monsters. It seems that Drankam is focusing its effort on hunting those monsters right now. Multiple Hunter teams from that gang are out chasing for the bounty prize, you know. We also got the same offer from Drankam too. They asked us to join one of their Hunter teams. The reward was pretty big, so we accepted it.”

“I see. So that’s the story, huh… But it’s not something that they would offer to a Hunter like me, right?”

“We were together during that Kuzusuhara ruin underground city exploration, remember? I guess he thinks that you should be a good addition to his team. Personally speaking, I also think that you’ll do just fine. I believe that Sara thinks so too. Well, you saved Sara back then in Yonozuka Station ruin. If I may say something about it, I don’t want to hear someone who has enough skill to save us call himself ‘a Hunter like me’, you know.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

Akira apologized in panic, Elena laughed bitterly and said.

“…Akira, I think you underestimate yourself too much. Being humble is a good thing, but some people might react negatively to it. So you need to be more careful.”

Akira thought that he evaluated himself pretty accurately. He believed that most of his performance was thanks to Alpha’s support. Although that might be really the case, the other people thought that his performance was all from his own strength.

Akira’s real ability was hidden behind Alpha’s support, thus Akira himself did not completely grasp his own real ability. That was the main reason why he evaluated himself lowly.

Elena then continued.

“Going back to our main subject, I think there’s nothing hidden behind that offer from s.h.i.+karabe. Although, I’m a little bit bothered by the fact that Drankam would even pay other non-member Hunters for the bounty request, well, I bet that they really want to get their names out by defeating the bounty monster. After all, when you take out even one of the bounty monsters, the Hunter Office will announce that achievement in public. But it’ll only include the name of the team and team leader, the names of the non-member Hunters in that team will not be mentioned in the announcement.”

This meant Elena’s and Sara’s name would not be mentioned too. Akira found that weird since having their names out would bring them a lot of benefits.

“Elena-san, are you okay with that?”

“I don’t really mind. After all, it’s not like I’m working as a Hunter to become popular. And of course, because of that, I asked for extra rewards as an exchange.”

Akira giggled as he imagined that Elena must be smiling smugly right now.

“Putting that aside, I’ll at least hear his offer. Thank you very much.”

“If you’re going to take that request from Drankam, I’ll be counting on you if we get a.s.signed to the same team.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Akira then ended the call.

Alpha was staring at Akira.

“What?”

“It’s nothing. If you’re planning to go to where s.h.i.+karabe is, let’s go there after you get back home first. The location sent by s.h.i.+karabe is the coordinate for a pub in the lower district. There might be no parking s.p.a.ce for your vehicle.”

“You’re right… I guess I’ll at least let him know that I’ll go there later.”

Akira then used his information terminal to send a short message to s.h.i.+karabe.

Alpha thought that Akira should be thinking of taking that offer from s.h.i.+karabe. The reason why she made that guess was because Elena and Sara had taken that request. If Elena and Sara had refused, Akira might not even be willing to listen to s.h.i.+karabe’s offer.

It was rather unclear whether Akira realized that or not. But if she asked, Akira might realize it. Considering that it might affect her plans in the future, Alpha decided not to ask him.

Elena was sitting on a chair as she stretched her body. She was sitting in a very comfortable position, so comfortable that she might as well fall asleep on that chair. Though, it was an expensive chair that prevented her from getting tired even after sitting on it for a long time. It was her favourite chair that she splurged her money for.

She was in a very comfy getup. She was only in her undies and an information terminal that was attached to her head. It might be the side effect from working as a Hunter, who was regularly in the dangerous wasteland. So, she really put down her guard and relaxed when she was in her own house, where she was safe, it would not be an exaggeration to even say that she dressed rather slovenly when she was in her home.

Sara suddenly came in with some food. She was only wearing a s.h.i.+rt above her undies, just like Elena, she was in a very relaxed getup. It might be because she was always using a tight bodysuit when she was out doing her Hunter work, so Sara tended to use a very baggy getup that gave her a sense of freedom when she was at home. Both Sara and Elena would only change into something more respectable if there was someone visiting.

They were talking with each other while enjoying the meal.

“It sounded like you were talking with someone, is it something about tomorrow’s request?”

“Nope. That was from Akira. It seems Drankam also offered that bounty hunting request to Akira. But he hasn’t decided to take it or not, his offer came from s.h.i.+karabe.”

“So Akira has become a Hunter that even Drankam would request, huh. Well, it’s not that strange considering his ability… Wait? If it was an offer from Drankam, wouldn’t he have to talk with the person responsible for negotiation in Drankam first? So why would s.h.i.+karabe directly make that offer to Akira?”

When Sara pointed out, Elena also questioned that fact.

“Now that you mention it, you have a point there. Not to mention, when s.h.i.+karabe also made that offer to us, it seemed that he did not know we had already made a contract with Drankam… Is it because of some kind of misinformation inside the gang? He might be in a hurry since he doesn’t want other Hunters to make a deal with Akira before him.”

But that was all, it was just a small question, and after that exchange, Sara and Elena stopped from thinking any further about that subject.

There were a lot of pubs in the lower district. Since a lot of Hunters came there to drink booze after returning from the wasteland, those pubs were relatively dangerous places filled with rowdy Hunters. Not to mention, those Hunters would get drunk in those pubs while still carrying the rifles that they usually carried to the wasteland. Some of them would even drink until they were only left with their last shred of rationality.

Around those pubs, there were brothels where prost.i.tutes would sell their services to those Hunters. Of course, those girls had people behind them who protected them in case something happened. It was simply an area that the people who could not handle a fight would never approach.

s.h.i.+karabe was inside one of the pubs in that area.

s.h.i.+karabe was sitting on a table further inside that pub, he was accompanied by other Hunters that looked more or less as successful as him. There were beers on top of the tables, but s.h.i.+karabe had not touched his yet.

The ones drinking those beers were his Hunter friends. One of them had a device installed inside his body to breakdown alcohol. Even if he was dead drunk, it would only take about 10 seconds for him to return back to normal. Some of them had drugs to help break down alcohol too. Thus, it should not cause any trouble during the negotiation for their tomorrow’s plan.

s.h.i.+karabe opened his information terminal and confirmed Akira’s ma.s.sage. He then said to his friends.

“Akira will come here soon. I’ll handle the negotiation, don’t say anything unnecessary.”

“I know, I know. So then, is this Akira guy going to be useful?”

“He, at least, won’t be an extra burden to us. So how about the guys that you brought with you?”

After s.h.i.+karabe asked that question, his friends took turns describing the Hunters whom they had in mind.

“I have 2 Hunters with debt and their observer. They’re pretty skilled. I’ve also talked about them with their creditors. They told me that they don’t care if those Hunters get killed in the wasteland, but if that happens, they asked me to bring back their dead bodies. I’ve also asked others, but I’m not sure if any of them would come.”

“As for me, I have 2 Hunters who wanted to come in order to make a connection with Drankam. One of them is pretty good while the other one is more or less as skilled as us. I’m also waiting for a call from the proxy corporation in case if other Hunters wanted to join in too.”

After listening to their explanation, s.h.i.+karabe asked them.

“If they’re really as good as us, rather than coming to us, they should be able to negotiate directly with Drankam, right? So what’s the catch here?”

“I don’t know the details. But I heard they got into a fight with someone and so they are looking for protection or something. I guess that’s the reason why they can’t go through the normal way. If you want to know the details, you’ll have to ask them directly later.”