Chapter 93 - The Rising Star of The Anti-Katsuya Faction (1/2)

s.h.i.+karabe and his friends spent the whole night preparing themselves and finally went out to the meeting ground. s.h.i.+karabe’s APC was parked in the meeting ground with a few other vehicles parked around it.

Akira parked his vehicle near the other vehicles, he then stepped down from his vehicle and walked toward s.h.i.+karabe and his friends who were discussing their plan for that day near the APC.

s.h.i.+karabe quickly noticed Akira.

“Akira, you’re here, huh. How are you today?”

“All good.”

“I see, we’ll start as soon as its time. Make sure that you finish all your preparation by then. Once you’re done with your preparation, just stand by and you’re free to do anything while waiting. I’m going to be busy for a while, if you have any question, just go and ask Yaman.o.be.”

s.h.i.+karabe then pointed his finger toward the APC. The back door of that APC opened up and Akira could see the other Hunters who would go with him today, the other people who were waiting in their respective vehicles around that APC also looked like Hunters.

Akira then followed s.h.i.+karabe’s order and went to the APC to do up his preparation. He then took some stuff inside that APC and carried them back to his own vehicle.

The stuff that he had taken consisted of a lot of things. A walkie-talkie and a communication code, rocket launchers designed to fight huge monsters, a configuration chart of the jamming smoke that s.h.i.+karabe had prepared, and extra data to adjust information-gathering devices. It also included the info about the bounty monsters that s.h.i.+karabe had gathered and CWH special ammo. Although Akira also brought with himself extra CWH special ammo, it was always good to get more ammo reserve, thus he thankfully accepted it.

Akira then used the close-range data transfer to download the new data. Since his information-gathering device was connected to Alpha, she was able to use the new data too. As a matter of fact, Alpha quickly a.n.a.lyzed the new data and had set the information-gathering device to minimize the effect from the jamming smoke.

Akira finished his preparation and waited for the time to pa.s.s. But if he just sat there and waited, he might start feeling sleepy again. Thus he followed Alpha’s suggestion to do light exercise outside his vehicle to keep himself awake.

Alpha spread out and rotated her 4 limbs one after the other. She then turned around to bend her hip, then stretched her hands and stood skilfully on one leg. That posture further boosted her already charming figure. Although Akira had been used to it, the fact that he barely reacted to that scene showed that he was very insensitive about that kind of thing.

Akira was doing light exercises while still in his augmented suit, so when he did not stretch enough, Alpha would control his augmented suit to forcefully stretch his body.

“Alpha, that hurts!”

“Your body is stiff, it’s important to stretch your body to reduce injury and increase your performance. I guess it’s a good idea to keep doing your augmented suit training and regularly readjusting it.”

“P-please be gentle. O-ouch!”

“Don’t worry, you still have some medicines.”

Alpha smiled when she said that.

“That’s not a level where you can say that I don’t need to worry!!”

Akira kept complaining while doing his stretching, but he did not tell Alpha to stop.

Alpha spread her legs and bent forward to show how it is done. She spread her legs in a straight line and bent so much that her chest touched the ground, she looked completely alright in that position. While on the other hand, Akira gritted his teeth in pain while trying to imitate her, but he was barely able to do that.

That was when s.h.i.+karabe appeared.

“What are you doing?”

“You can tell, right? A light stretching.”

s.h.i.+karabe was actually asking Akira why he was doing light stretching right now, but s.h.i.+karabe then remembered something else and asked Akira.

“…I see. By the way, just out of curiosity, is that augmented suit a sync-type or a read-type?”

“Uhhh…”

Akira did not understand what s.h.i.+karabe was talking about, so Alpha answered that for him.

“Akira, it’s a read-type.”

“It’s a read-type.”

Hearing Akira’s answer, s.h.i.+karabe frowned a little and said.

“I see, I’m sure you’ll be fine, but be careful.”

Akira looked confused and asked s.h.i.+karabe.

“Be careful? From what?”

“There are Hunters out there who don’t do their research before using their augmented suits, you see. They think that anyone can use an augmented suit by just putting it on. So, in the past, I knew someone who bought a cheap augmented suit from the black market. He immediately used it without readjusting the augmented suit first, so he was still using an augmented suit based on other people’s data. Since he did not find anything wrong until then, after reaching the ruins he began stretching his body to check his augmented suit’s performance while killing time. Ah, by the way, his augmented suit was a read-type augmented suit, so it was still working based on the previous user’s data. So when he stretched his body, the augmented suit extended based on the previous user’s data and ended up tearing his ligaments.”

Akira frowned, looking a bit scared. s.h.i.+karabe then continued.

“A sync-type will not go further than what the current user can do, so something like that would not happen for a sync-type augmented suit. While the read-type augmented suit reads straight from the neuro-signals of the user, so it sometimes moves faster than the user intends. Since cyborg body has a different neural-signals than a normal body, incidents like that are not rare, you know.”

“…Don’t they have safety functions too?”

“I heard that the previous user had turned it off. There are a lot of Hunters who do something like that. After all, there are cases where they have to move so fast to the point that it’ll tear their limbs and break their bones in order to survive. So the safety function is actually a problem when they face such a situation.”

“What happened to that person after that?”

“He took a lot of medicines and somehow was able to return back alive. But since then, he was traumatized and he never used augmented suit ever again, instead, he’ll only use physical strengthening modification and normal armour.”

Akira turned to Alpha, who just smiled as usual. He told himself that Alpha had mentioned about medicines just before teasing him.

He then decided to change the subject to banish that thought from his mind. He stood up and asked s.h.i.+karabe.

“…So then, why are you here? Are we going soon?”

Now that Akira mentioned it, s.h.i.+karabe remembered why he came there.

“Ah, that’s right. We’ll move out soon, but not yet. I just have something I need to ask you, can you give this guy a ride?”

A young Hunter was standing behind s.h.i.+karabe. He was more or less as old as Akira. He then introduced himself to Akira.

“I’m Togami, nice to meet you.”

“Akira… s.h.i.+karabe, I just want to make sure of one thing here. Do you need me to help him and watch over him or something?”

“Nope, you can just fight the way you want. That’s our deal. Togami will also fight the way he wants. There’s no need to try too hard working together with him.”

“If he’s too much of a deadweight, I might throw him off from my vehicle, alright?”

“I won’t stop you. But if it’s possible, throw him into my vehicle when you do that.”

To be honest, Akira wanted to refuse s.h.i.+karabe’s request. But it was not like he was really against it. Because of that, he tried to make a lot of excuses to s.h.i.+karabe, but in the end, he ended up accepting it. So then, although he looked rather displeased, it was not like Togami was against it either.

Akira gave up and let Togami into his vehicle.

“…Alright, if you’re okay with that, I’ll let him get on to my vehicle.”

“Sorry about that, we’ll be going soon. Don’t be late, okay?”

After that, s.h.i.+karabe left Togami’s equipment there and went back to his APC.

Akira and the other Hunters started moving to hunt for the bounty monsters. They headed to the dark wasteland with s.h.i.+karabe’s APC leading on the front.

Togami was sitting on the driver a.s.sistant seat on Akira’s vehicle. His equipment was crammedtogether with Akira’s stuff in the back seat.

Togami still looked as displeased as he was before he climbed onto Akira’s vehicle. It seemed that he was offended by that exchange between Akira and s.h.i.+karabe.

He arrogantly asked Akira.

“Hey, what did you mean back then?”

Akira still locked his gaze forward as he casually replied.

“What did I mean by that? It’s as you heard. Do you really need me to explain it?”

After hearing Akira’s answer, Togami looked even more displeased than before.

“Are you kidding me? You said that as if I’m just a deadweight. What is your Hunter Rank by the way?”

“21.”

Hearing that, Togami sneered arrogantly and said with full of confidence.

“21? And you dare to talk like that about me? I’m 27, you know!”

Akira glanced at Togami, but he quickly returned back looking forward again.

That reaction angered Togami even more.

“Oii!! Are you listening to me!?”

Now that it had turned into something too much of a pain to deal with, Akira just ignored him.

Alpha, who was sitting in the mid-air beside Akira, pointed at Togami and asked.

“Are you sure it’s okay to just ignore him?”

“If he starts bothering me more than that, let’s just throw him to s.h.i.+karabe’s vehicle.”

He casually answered Alpha’s question with that. Since s.h.i.+karabe had already given Akira his permission, Akira really planned to do that.

Togami kept complaining to Akira even after that, but Akira just ignored him. It did not take long before he clicked his tongue, sat down, looked at the opposite direction from Akira, and shut up.

s.h.i.+karabe, Yaman.o.be and Varga were in the foremost APC. The APC could fit 10 people, they used the leftover s.p.a.ce for their ammo and other stuff. But even so, it actually still had enough s.p.a.ce for Togami.

Yaman.o.be was the one taking the wheel. The navigation control unit was showing the area where the bounty monsters might be. The scouting groups from Drankam were actively broadcasting information that was received to that APC. Yaman.o.be picked a route where they could avoid any needless fighting.

Yaman.o.be then asked s.h.i.+karabe.

“Say, why did you take that boy?”

“Which one are you talking about?”

“Togami, I know just how strong Akira is from yesterday’s incident. I have no problem bringing him with us… But that Togami, it’s not like I’m going to say that he’s useless, but at the same time, is there any need to bring him along? Not to mention that he’s also one of those young Hunters, so why did you bring him here?”

s.h.i.+karabe looked obviously displeased as he said.

“Even for me, it’s not like I brought him here because I wanted to. It’s more like he was forced onto me. When we were discussing about the budget, they told me to bring him along if I want to get more budget.”

“…Forced to, huh? Are you sure it’s okay to really take him along with us?”

“Although they told me to bring him along, it’s not like we have to make sure that he returns back alive. It doesn’t matter if he dies. It would be a huge pain in the neck to have him here together with us, that’s why I have Akira take him.”

s.h.i.+karabe laughed, Yaman.o.be just smiled bitterly and said.

“Seeing what happened yesterday, I have a feeling that Akira would really throw him off his vehicle.”

Varga looked honestly confused as he asked s.h.i.+karabe.

“I get why we have to take him with us, but why is he hunting for bounty monsters with us in the first place? He can just join the other young Hunters, right? So why us?”

s.h.i.+karabe looked irritated. That expression was directed to the people in Drankam’s management. That look was enough to answer Varga’s question.

“It’s because Togami is a part of the anti-Katsuya faction.”

s.h.i.+karabe had a close connection with Arabe, one of the officers in Drankam. He heard a lot of things about the inner Drankam management from Arabe. s.h.i.+karabe then explained that to Yaman.o.be and Varga.

The young Hunters in Drankam were mainly divided into two factions. Katsuya faction and anti-Katsuya faction. Or basically, Katsuya faction and not-Katsuya faction.

Katsuya faction had the support from the officers who supported the young Hunters prioritization plan. These officers were well-organized way up to the upper echelons, thus most of the suggestions that they made in Drankam were approved. Thanks to the influence held by those officers and the track record left by the Katsuya faction, they rolled out a huge amount of capital for this bounty monsters hunting.