Chapter 24 (1/2)

Index

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

After he had a talk with Shijima, Akira accompanied Sheryl back to her base. But their pace was very slow, even slower than when Akira was dragging Wataba’s corpse. The reason being Sheryl walking very slowly behind Akira, slow enough that she would get left behind if Akira was walking at his normal pace.

Every time she got left behind, Akira would call her and she would hurry up to his side. But it did not take long before she got left behind again. And every time that happened, she would run slower and slower to Akira’s side when he called her name. She eventually walked instead of running, then finally came to a halt. She just would not step forward.

Even for someone as ignorant as Akira, he knew that Sheryl was acting strange. So he walked to her to check on her. But when he reached her side, he was more confused than before, Sheryl was looking down and crying without making any sound.

While looking confused, Sheryl finally realized Akira was standing right beside her. She then slowly raised her head. Normally, Sheryl would say something as to not worsen Akira’s mood, but she did not say anything this time, raising her head was the only thing that she could do now.

Their eyes met each other’s, Akira was confused seeing Sheryl cry silently. After a brief moment of silence, Akira, who did not know what to do in this situation which was obviously outside his scope of communication ability, finally squeezed out some words.

“W-what’s wrong?”

When he asked that, Sheryl could not hold back and started crying loudly.

Akira remembered that the same thing happened back when he met Sheryl for the first time. He then turned to Alpha, seeking for help.

“It’s not my fault this time, right?”

Alpha smiled teasingly.

“Well, I wonder now. But at least, just like before, it’ll attract people around and might cause a problem.”

Akira’s face twitched as this was the last thing he wanted.

Akira thought that it would cause needless worries if he dragged the crying Sheryl back to her base, but it was not like he could just leave her alone too. Thus, just like the last time, he decided to take Sheryl to his room.

Akira had moved to an inn with a smaller room. In order to avoid attracting other’s attention, Akira somehow brought Sheryl to this room. But he still did not know what to do in this situation where a girl was sobbing in front of him.

Last time, he let her take a dip in the bathtub and she calmed down after that. But this time, he was living in a cheap room with no bathtub, so he did not have that option. He knew that the cheap shower would not be able to substitute a bathtub.

Akira fired up all his cylinders to think of a way to get out of this situation, he then finally came up with something. He slowly approached Sheryl and hugged her awkwardly. He remembered that last time when he was hugged by Shizuka, even though he panicked in the beginning, he calmed down eventually. So he tried to do the same to Sheryl. He decided to just stop and take a step back if Sheryl hated it.

Sheryl did not fight back nor did she say anything as he hugged her. After a while, she slowly hugged Akira back as her cries became louder.

Akira was so surprised as he frantically tried to move away, but Sheryl was clinging to him strongly, he could not break free. He finally gave up and let out a sigh. He just let Sheryl hug him. He too hugged her back lightly. It took some time before Sheryl stopped sobbing. After that, she went to sleep as if she emptied her battery crying.

“…What the heck was that?”

Akira mumbled and looked tired as he did not understand what just happened.

Sheryl had reached her limit.

The gang that she was in was destroyed and she could not join other gangs. After losing everything that protected and supported her life, she had no other choice but to temporarily live in the back alley of the slum city. It was emotionally taxing for her.

It was because of her emotional state that she could not think clearly, as such, despite the fact that Akira was someone that she attacked, she thought that there might be a sliver of hope that Akira did not remember her. Thus, she tried to talk to him hoping that it would be able to help her get out of her current situation.

But that sliver of hope was crushed. Before she could even say anything, Akira noticed her and threatened her, she was trembling and could not say anything from the fear of getting killed. It further crushed her already tired heart and her spirit was broken to pieces.

After that, something unexpected happened to her, Akira agreed to support her, but in exchange, she had to start a new gang in place of Sibea’s gang and she had to be the boss of that gang. But that did not mean that she finally got into a safe situation. Some people came to her base to threaten her, but she was somehow able to drive them off with a bluff. But that experience of passing those dangerous bridges, again and again, wrung her heart even more.

Not to mention that operating her own gang was not that easy, it was filled with problems and Akira would not visit the gang regularly. And when he did visit the gang, someone from her gang attacked him. The merchant that Akira introduced to her intimidated her and Akira threatened to kill her if she did anything stupid. Akira might be helping her, but it was not like he was her ally. Sheryl was made to understand that multiple times.

And finally, the latest incident. The negotiation where both sides were more than ready to have a shootout was enough to completely push Sheryl’s tired psyche to its limit. It was more than what she was able to handle.

Finally, she was left with no other choice but to think about what to do next right after she went through all of that, Thus her steps back to her base were very slow and heavy. She then realized that she had to face these kinds of situations repeatedly in the future. The moment she realized this, it gave the last prod to her heart that had reached its limit and it broke down completely.

Sheryl was crying unconsciously. She just kept crying without even realizing it herself. She just wanted to lean on someone and she did not care whoever it was. She cried seeking a place to lean on. She did not know for how long she was in that condition, but when she realized it, someone was already hugging her. She did not even know who it was. But one thing for sure, that warm embrace was saying that it was okay to lean on that person.

Thus Sheryl hugged that person back as strong as she could to make sure that person would not go away. Only after she depleted all of her energy, she felt relieved that the person she hugged did not cast her away as she fell asleep.

Akira was sitting on the floor, operating his information terminal. Sheryl was still hugging him. Since it looked like she would not let him go anytime soon, he was doing something else while waiting for her to wake up.

Thus Akira decided to surf the net in the meantime. It was also a form of training for gathering information using the information terminal.

The internet of the eastern district was filled with a huge amount of information. It was so huge that it would be almost impossible for someone with no ability to search to find what he or she was looking for. Of course, there were some searching sites too, but even using that, it was pretty hard to find something for Akira who had lived all his life in the back alley of the slum city.

Normally, any important or highly valuable information was not free. There was a need to buy them directly from people or organizations who were working as information brokers. There were countless paid service sites on the net that provided information tailored for Hunters. They provided information like the locations of the ruins that still had expensive relics, guides to fight powerful monsters and many others.

Then finally, there were countless sites that provided all kinds of information for free due to certain reasons. It was an important skill for a Hunter who wanted to survive and rise to success in the eastern district to be able to extract important and worthwhile information that could be relied on from these sites.

But Akira’s current searching skill was not even enough to get him accurate searching results for the next day’s weather or a restaurant near him. He might be able to find them instantly if he asked Alpha, but now he was trying his best for the sake of his training. He had a lot of experiences where he got baited to chase some unimportant information that got into his eyes or some other things that led him to waste time on the net.

As Akira spent his free time learning trivial knowledge, Sheryl finally woke up.

Sheryl was still in a daze as she was staring at Akira from a close range while still hugging him.

“Can you let me go now that you’ve woken up?”

Akira thought that Sheryl should have calmed down by now as he said that and tried to break off from Sheryl’s hug. But when he did that, Sheryl desperately clung on him and looked like she would almost start crying again.

Sheryl then begged to Akira who looked troubled.

“…Please help me.”

Sheryl looked so weak and her eyes started to get teary as she asked Akira for help because she had no other place to turn to.

“…I beg you, please help me.”

As Akira stayed silent because he did not know what to do, Sheryl took it as a no, so she begged him again as she started to cry.

The short nap gave Sheryl who was in an unstable emotional state enough energy to cry again.

Although Akira was used to seeing irritation, mockery and hostility, he was not used to having someone looking at him with teary eyes while begging him for something. Due to that, Akira could not handle the pressure from those eyes as he reflexively answered Sheryl.

“S-sure, I’ll help you.”

Sheryl froze for a bit before smiling as she felt relieved. She seemed so happy as she closed her eyes. She loosened her hand that was gripping Akira’s hand so hard until that time as if she would die if she had let it go. Sheryl then leaned back to Akira and clung on him as she fell asleep with a happy face.

“What the heck…”

Akira let out a sigh while looking puzzled.

Akira then picked Sheryl up and laid her on the bed before starting the routine maintenance of his gun. As he was doing maintenance of his AAH assault rifle like usual, he once again realised that it was his lifeline, thus he took great care in performing the maintenance.

Since the AAH assault rifle was durable and sturdy, it could handle violent treatment and could last long in a bad environment, it was pretty popular for a gun. It was fully justified when they said that it was a gun beloved by Hunters for the last 100 years.

Akira was also indebted to his gun in so many instances in the past. It was thanks to this gun that he was able to stay alive up until this point. Although he was just a complete beginner not too long ago, Akira was able to proficiently do gun maintenance on an AAH rifle.

“Rather than buying other guns, it might be a good idea to buy one more of this rifle as a spare.”

“That’s right. I can also carry 2 guns with both of my hands.”

Akira then imagined himself marching with 2 guns in his hands.

“…That sounds cool!”

Alpha was able to receive the glorified image of Akira holding 2 AAH guns that Akira unconsciously sent through telepathy.

“If you bring 2 guns like that, most of your shots will miss and it might even rip your arms off due to the kickback.”

Akira realized that Alpha read the image in his mind as he embarrassedly answered back.

“S-so it’s a no, huh?”

“Well, you don’t have the strength to handle 2 guns, after all. So if you handle an AAH rifle with a single-arm, it would not serve any other purpose other than shooting a warning shot. Once you get an augmented suit, you’ll be able to handle the kickback from the guns even in a bad posture. So if you want to carry 2 guns simultaneously, you should at least wait until you get your augmented suit.”

“Hearing that makes me impatient to wait for the augmented suit… But until we get that, it’s not like there’ll be more incidents, right?”

“Can you stop triggering flags like that?”

“…Okay.”

Akira returned back to his usual mood and continued doing the maintenance. In the middle of doing that, he glanced at Sheryl.

“Alpha, so what was that exactly?”

Alpha lightly shook her head.

“I don’t really understand either. I’m sure that she’s too tired, but when she wakes up, it might be a good idea not to ask her too much.”

Alpha did not explain Sheryl’s psychological condition to Akira since she thought that it might be better this way.

“Akira, how about you take a rest for today too? I think this problem is solved for now, but another problem might come up again tomorrow, so you better take a good rest.”

“You’re right. I’ll go straight to sleep once I’m done with this.”

After finishing the maintenance. Just like usual, Akira took a short shower to suppress his feeling of wanting to take a bath before going to bed. Since his guest had already taken the bed, he just pushed her to the side before settling himself beside her. Although it looked as if Akira crept into Sheryl’s bed, it was he who paid for the room. Moreover, Sheryl clung on him for quite some time. So he was sure that Sheryl would not mind sharing a bed with him as he slowly fell asleep.

On the next day, Sheryl woke up before Akira. She was still dazed when she looked around, but when she noticed Akira was sleeping beside her, she drowsily hugged him and went to sleep again.

But Akira immediately woke up when Sheryl suddenly hugged him. He then tried to wake Sheryl who fell asleep again.

“Don’t go back to sleep, wake up and let me go.”

After saying that, Akira was afraid that something like yesterday would happen again.

But Sheryl obediently let him go. She still looked drowsy as she let out a big yawn and lightly rubbed her eyes. Akira smiled as he saw that.

“Good morning.”

“…M-morning.”

Akira looked a bit puzzled since Sheryl was acting so differently compared to the previous day. She looked relaxed, there was no trace of her from yesterday. As she was smiling brightly, she looked way more beautiful than usual, which was also scary at the same time.

After that, they ate breakfast together. And just like usual, it was only warmed up frozen food. So in short, it was not very delicious and tasted bland. But they were having breakfast in a different mood than usual.

Akira was overwhelmed by how much Sheryl changed as he kept eating his breakfast. As for Sheryl, she looked like she was in a good mood. In contrast to the breakfast that they were having, their moods were so much different.

Sheryl then stopped in the middle of the breakfast and bowed to Akira.

“Akira, I’m really sorry to have troubled you yesterday.”

“Eh? Ah, it’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

After blurting that out without thinking, Akira remembered what happened the previous day. Although it was Sheryl who started the problem, it was mostly him who blew up the trouble. Although he did not feel guilty about it, he still understood it.

Thus Akira was worried if it was Sheryl’s way of saying that she hated him in a roundabout way. But she was actually being honest when she said that she was thankful. And since Akira was a bit bothered by the bad thing that happened yesterday because of him, he answered back in such a way as he was trying not to offend her.

“Well, a lot of things happened yesterday, but if anything comes up again, you can just tell me.”

If Sheryl thought that she had unnecessarily involved him in regarding yesterday’s incident, it would at least be shown in her behaviour. So, by saying this he tried to ease her thoughts, but Sheryl answered back with something that Akira did not expect.

“In that case, can I hug you again?”

As Sheryl replied back with a happy smile. Akira was a bit taken aback as he asked Sheryl.

“…But why?”

“I feel safe when I do that. Like, you know, I can feel very relaxed.”

“No.”

“It’s not like it’ll cause you any trouble, right? And it’s not like you’ll lose anything too.”