Chapter 101 (1/2)

Chapter 101

Translator: Athena13

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

Akira found himself in a white world . Although it was hazy, he quickly noticed that it was a dream and he knew that he would forget what happened there once he woke up .

Not too far from him, there was Alpha, and just like last time, it did not seem that she had noticed him . But there was something different compared to last time .

Akira noticed that there were multiple Alphas present . To be more precise there were 2 Alpha, both of them did not seem to have noticed him .

Then, in that place, there was also another boy . Both Alphas did not seem to have noticed that boy either . Both Akira and that boy noticed each other, but since it was hazy, they could not tell who the other person was . But both of them thought of the same thing, the other person somehow looked familiar .

The Alpha near that boy spoke first .

“Just to be safe, we’ve agreed beforehand that we’ll operate as separate units to encourage different bias and that we’ll temporarily stop communicating with each other . So I’m sure you have a good reason as to why you broke our original agreement . ”

The Alpha closer to Akira replied .

“But of course . To be more precise, the load on your side interfered with my calculation ability, thanks to that, the subject under my care almost got killed . ”

“I see, according to the log, that’s precisely when the subject under my care took a very dangerous action . At that time, the subject under my care was trying to save a certain cyborg that he just met for the first time, and in order to do that, I had to use more calculation power . I believe that is the cause . ”

“I want to suggest that the resource divided between us be fixed . So that it would not suddenly change and something like that would not happen again in the future . ”

The other Alpha looked a bit surprised at what Akira’s Alpha just said .

“Is that really necessary? It’s true that it’ll reduce the chance of interfering with each other, but it’ll definitely reduce our calculation ability . Moreover, the subject under your care is still alive, right? So basically, although he went through some dangerous situation, it was still under your estimation, right? So, why do you still have anything to complain about?”

After the other Alpha asked that question, Akira’s Alpha just shook her head and said .

“According to my calculation, he should have been dead there . When my connection to the subject was cut, something must have happened and he got lucky so that he was able to survive . ”

“Unlike the subject under my care, I heard that the subject under your care is not that skilled . Luck, or anything that happens out of pure chance, you know well that those things can’t overturn our calculation, right?”

For some reason, Akira’s Alpha sounded a bit annoyed as she said .

“That evaluation is not correct . The subject under your care is rather gifted, so it’s not like the subject under my care is incompetent . I’ve been training him and he’s been putting effort too, he’ll eventually get himself strong enough . You should fix that a.s.sumption to correct your calculation . And also, the subject under your care is a skilled Hunter, right? In that case, you should just quickly increase his strength and take him to the commander’s office . Moreover, if he’s really that good, then there should be no problem lowering your support ability for a bit, right? And you should give the leftover unused resource to me . ”

The other Alpha shook her head .

“I can’t accept that suggestion . Although he’s skilled, he tends to get himself into difficult situations and it’s really hard to control him . It might be because of his special characteristic, he is always surrounded by a lot of people which makes it harder to encourage him to pick individualistic action . Not to mention, he has a very merciful nature; if I bring him there now, there’s a good chance that the same thing would happen as the 480th trial . It’s unfair to use the subject under your care who is already a lone-wolf with a twisted personality as a standard . I have a lot of things I need to deal with, you see . ”

Both of them were staring at each other without saying anything, that silence was created by their favouritism toward the subject under their respective care .

The other Alpha then said .

“I approve your suggestion about the resource distribution . Is there anything else you want to talk about then?”

“Nothing, by the way, the subject under your care is garnering a lot of attention though, are you okay with that?”

“It’s something for me to worry about, not you . The subject under my care is too gifted, although I try to make it as natural as possible, he just keeps piling achievements after achievements . And it might also be because of his nature, even if someone close to him gets killed, the other people around him would not blame him, thus pus.h.i.+ng him even further from being egocentric . Since more and more people are laying their eyes on him, I’m still in the middle of calculating whether to reduce the number of those people or do something to erase their effects on my subject . ”

“Is that so? Well, good luck, until next time . ”

“I’ll contact you again if something comes up . ”

They then finished their discussion there .

Akira’s consciousness started to blur, the world around him suddenly turned pitch black and he woke up from that dream .

After Akira woke up, Alpha quickly greeted him .

“Akira, good morning!”

Akira did not reply to Alpha, he just stared back at her . Alpha found that weird .

“What’s wrong?”

Akira did not remember anything from his dream . But he felt that something was bothering him for some reason .

“Nah, it’s nothing . I feel like I just had a strange dream . Inside that dream, I feel like you were there… Or maybe not…?”

Akira tilted his head when he said that, to which, Alpha teasingly smiled and said .

“Oh my, you think of me so much that you dream of me, huh? I’m happy to hear that . I don’t know what kind of dress I was wearing in your dream, but if you like it that much that you dreamt of it, you can just tell me and I’ll be happy to change into that dress, you know?”

Akira decided to drop that subject there before it turned into something more complicated .

“Nah, it must be just my imagination . That’s it then, this subject ends here . ”

“That’s just too bad, you don’t need to try to run away, you know? It’s normal for your desire to surface within a dream…”

“We’re heading to the wasteland starting from today . So stop with the stupid talk and let’s get ourselves ready to head out . ”

Akira forcefully changed the subject as he hopped off from his bed . He had completely forgotten about the feeling that something was bothering him .

Akira drove his new vehicle to the wasteland . It was a vehicle designed for traversing the wasteland . It was the bonus that Akira got from s.h.i.+karabe on top of the prize money for helping him hunt the bounty monster .

After he received that vehicle from s.h.i.+karabe, Akira went to the repair garage that s.h.i.+zuka recommended to give a full check and readjustment for that vehicle . And with a special control device installed on it, just like last time, Alpha could access the vehicle and control it .

When Akira asked s.h.i.+zuka for a repair garage that she would recommend, she was a bit surprised . She thought that Akira must have done something that damaged his newly bought vehicle to the point that he had to take it to a repair garage . She worried about Akira and decided to ask about the vehicle’s condition from the repair garage where Akira fixed his vehicle . She was much relieved when she heard from the repair garage that it was nothing but light damage and there was nothing to worry about with a little bit of TLC and readjustment . She did not realize that Akira’s previous vehicle was badly damaged and that he had already changed to a new vehicle .

Akira had recovered from his fatigue after fighting the bounty monster, he also had replenished his ammo, and with no bounty monster roaming the wasteland any longer, he returned back to searching for undiscovered ruin .

“Alpha, how far is the next place?”

“Still about an hour from here . ”

Akira was watching the navigator in his vehicle’s control device and mumbled .

“It’s still that far, huh . As I thought, we might have taken too much detour . ”

Akira’s destination was another place recorded in the Lion Steel corporation’s information terminal . Learning from the last time, he took a detour this time before heading to his destination . But because of that, he took more time to reach the location .

“You’re right about that . We should have taken a detour only after knowing for sure that the place we’re heading to has an unexplored ruin, or at least, after finding good evidence pointing the existence of an unexplored ruin there . After all, it would only be a waste of energy if the indicator that we’re chasing is pointing at an empty s.p.a.ce . ”

“That’s true, let’s do that next time . And I’m sure no one is tailing us after we took that much detour . ”

“I’ve also expanded my searching range compared to last time, so there’s nothing to worry . I’ve also rewritten the software of the control device, so I’m sure that there’s no pre-installed tracking program in it . ”

“You didn’t have to go that far, but well, it’s good to be careful . ”

Akira changed the direction of his vehicle to head straight to his destination . So now he should be able to cut the time by quite a lot . After that, he remembered something that was bothering him .

“By the way, Alpha, why does that dress have so many gaps and holes?”

Just like usual, Alpha was wearing a very revealing but charming and s.e.xy dress . She was wearing a bodysuit that was divided into pieces, each piece was connected to the other pieces by a small connector or a small piece of cloth . Moreover, there were also holes with unknown use on that bodysuit . Her skin was exposed in between those openings, her undies were even peeking through one of those gaps .

“This? This is a bodysuit designed so that you can freely replace its part to conform to your body shape . It’s made especially for those with a cyborg body that can freely exchange their body parts . ”

“Then what about that hole on your back?”

“This is to connect to external equipment . There are many extension parts such as external parts for a humanoid weapon, or propulsion device that can propel you to the sky, or maybe big portable cannons, or other types of heavy weapons . ”

Akira imagined all kinds of things from Alpha’s explanation . At first, he only imagined a humanoid weapon, but eventually, his imagination resulted in something that was an amalgamation of humans with different types of weapons, he then decided to stop there .

“That bodysuit and the talk just now, they’re about the old-world stuff, right? As I thought, the old-world is just really weird . It’s not something that you can easily try to imagine . ”

Alpha smiled at Akira and said .

“You should be able to imagine it from the old-world stuff that you can find around you, you know? You should be able to find something similar if you look in the old-world ruins . ”

Inside Akira’s mind, he imagined Alpha with a huge weapon on her back, so huge that it did not fit her size at all . He imagined a lot of different things connected to those holes to justify the existence of those holes .

Akira both felt surprised and exasperated at the same time .

“…I see, so those kinds of things were normal in the old-world, huh?”

“I think you can find them even in the current era too . Someone might find those kinds of stuff in the old-world ruin and use them . Then some companies would see that and try to produce an imitation of those devices, so it might be normal for those Hunters in the frontline of the eastern district to be using those kinds of devices, you know?”

There were a lot of things from the old-world that existed in the current era, many of which were things they could never imagine . So it would not be strange to find things that someone could actually imagine because the technology of the old-world would have allowed them to create those things .

“…I guess there are still a lot of things out there that I don’t know, huh?”

Although Akira mumbled those words, he also said to himself there must be a limit on how weird it could be .

Not too long after that, Akira reached his destination . At the first glance, it was only a huge gra.s.sland; the indicator, which was based on the information extracted from the Lion Steel corp, was pointing under that gra.s.sland .

Akira looked at that indicator with the help of his enhanced vision and mumbled .

“Another underground facility, huh? Compared to Yonozuka station ruin, this one is even deeper . Alright then, let’s return back here some other time . ”

Akira quickly gave up on searching the underground ruin . After all, if he found another unexplored ruin like Yonozuka station ruin, it might cause him another round of trouble . So he refused to make the same mistake for the second time .

Alpha, who understood what Akira was thinking, just smiled at him and said .

“I’m okay with that . Until you have the ability to get out of the underground ruin with your own power and no support from me, it might be a good idea to refrain from exploring underground ruins . We still have other places to check out too, so there’s no need to take an unnecessary risk . ”

“In that case, it’ll mean I won’t be going to explore any underground ruins for the time being . ”

“About that, there’s nothing we can do but to look forward to your growth . Now then, for the next place though, the nearest place from here is actually pointing at a ruin that is already explored . Do you want to check it out? Or do you want to go to the next place instead?”

Akira took some time thinking before he made a decision .

“Let’s go there . This is a good chance since I want to take a look at the other ruins too . After all, in terms of already discovered ruins, I’ve never gone to the other ruins except Kusuzuhara city ruin and Higaraka residence ruin . So then, what is the next ruin?”

“It’s Mihazono city ruin . ”

Akira quickly prepared himself to go to Mihazono city ruin, but he did not go straight from there to Mihazono ruin . Instead, he headed back to Kugamayama city first . This was until he could get some connection to the city . It was in order for him to take regular monster-hunting requests from the Hunter Office . After all, he could not access the Hunter Office website unless he got some connection signal from the Kugamayama city .