Chapter 29 (1/2)

Index

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

Akira who was taking a nap in the truck suddenly heard Alpha’s voice inside his head.

“Akira, it’s time. Wake up.”

Since Akira was the only one who could hear her voice, she was free to wake him up by blasting him with a loud voice. Akira immediately opened his eyes and looked up. He saw Kibayashi, a staff from the Hunter Office, standing in front of him.

Kibayashi was the truck driver and he was responsible for maintaining the truck. His job also included taking care of the Hunters who were in his truck’s tray. He smiled when he saw Akira wake up right before he started cleaning the tray, it was as if Akira woke up on an alarm clock.

“Right when I was about to throw you out if you don’t wake up, huh. It seems that you’re using a pretty good alarm.”

“Yeah, I’m using the best one out there.”

Akira just smiled lightly while Alpha looked a bit offended.

“Wait for a second, I’m not an alarm clock.”

“Sorry.”

“Good grief…”

Kibayashi then shouted to all the Hunters in the tray.

“It’s time!! We’re going now!! Anyone making ruckus will be kicked out!! You understand?!!”

As Akira looked around at the other Hunters who were in the same truck, he saw Katsuya and his friends too. Judging from Kibayashi’s words, Akira thought that another problem had occurred when he was sleeping, thus he looked away from Katsuya as to avoid getting involved with him.

Not too long after that, the truck started moving, and that marked Akira’s third patrol job for the day.

Although the patrol went well without any trouble, for the Hunters who were aiming for rewards, it was a bad run. After all, they did not encounter any monsters at all.

The truck that was outfitted for the patrol job was equipped with a wide range detection device. The main aim for the patrol was only to cull the number of monsters around the city, thus it would only take a route with a low possibility to encounter a monster. So it was completely normal not to encounter any monsters at all from time to time.

Everyone in the tray had already relaxed and started making silly talks. And thanks to the wide range detection device, they could relax without fearing any surprise attacks. As for those Hunters who were already used to doing the patrol, they had completely put their guards down.

Akira was looking out to the wasteland with a stern face.

“Nothing, huh?”

“You’re right.”

Alpha looked indifferently when she replied back. She didn’t even look at Akira and spoke in an apathetic way. After hearing Alpha’s reply, Akira understood that she was not in a good mood.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that it would bother you this much.”

As Akira frankly apologized, Alpha quickly changed her behaviour. But there was still a trace of indifference on her face.

“…Don’t worry, it’s nothing. It’s good that you’re acting all friendly with me, but you did call me an alarm clock back then. So just be more careful next time, okay?”

Although Akira was curious as to why Alpha was in such a bad mood, he was afraid to worsen it further by asking her any unnecessary questions, thus he just stayed silent.

The awkward mood between them continued, but Alpha just smiled at him and said.

“If you really want to fix my mood, it’s a good idea for you to say something nice to cheer me up.”

After saying that, she made a teasing pose in front of Akira and smiled provokingly.

Akira thought for a bit. He then fixed his pose and made a serious face.

“It’s all thanks to you that I’m alive until this point. Thank you very much for guiding me through the ruins while avoiding any encounter with monsters, thank you for helping me search for relics, thank you for helping me fight monsters. You even helped me to get this augmented suit and to improve my accuracy. Thank you very much for everything, I’ll be counting on you as always.”

“You’re welcome. I’m happy to help you. I’ll be counting on you too.”

Alpha became happy when Akira was honestly being grateful to her. But there was still some awkwardness floating in the silence right after that as she was smiling faintly and awkwardly.

“…I’m happy with what you said, but there’s something else, you see.”

Although Akira did expect that it would be pointless to say his thanks this late. But he saw something strange in Alpha’s behaviour.

“Something else? Is there anything strange?”

“Yep, for example, is there anything you want to say about my appearance?”

Alpha changed back to her swimsuit when Akira was sleeping. It was an aggressive swimsuit with a high level of exposure showing her beautiful skin and limbs, and at the same time, it was very alluring and captivating.

Akira took another good look at Alpha. He then decided to word out his candid opinion that he thought to be meaningless even if he said it.

“As I thought, it looks really weird. If you can, please return back to your normal dress.”

Alpha let out a sigh and changed her dress. She erased the swimsuit, became n.a.k.e.d for a blink and put on a fully armed battle suit. It had fasteners running from around her neck, down to her chest and to the back of her hip. But the fastener was not zipped all the way and it showed her alluring bare skin.

Although it was not that exposing, it was clearly an alluring appearance to the opposite s.e.x. After Alpha changed her appearance, Akira voiced out his opinion again about her outfit.

“This one is better than before, but… this does not help at all since you’re already floating around, so you still look weird to me.”

In order to make him look less suspicious to the other people, Akira was looking out to the wasteland which also doubled as him looking out for monsters too. And Alpha was floating as if she was standing on an invisible platform.

Alpha just smiled bitterly.

“That’s not what I meant, I was expecting some compliment about my appearance, like if it’s beautiful, or it looks great on me, or simply whether I look dashing in it.”

“Ohh, I see.”

Akira looked surprised when he said that, but he then immediately turned back to his normal self.

“I think you’re very beautiful and all the dresses that you usually wear are wonderful and charming. It is just that your last dress was very inappropriate for the current situation, but it was still very charming and wonderful to me.”

“Really? But your reaction was pretty weak, you know.”

“Even if you tell me so. Well, although it’s weird for me to say this. Maybe I somehow already got used to it, or something like that?”

Alpha’s appearance was basically a CG produced through an advanced and complicated graphic calculation. Because of that, Alpha could freely change her expression and body proportion. Alpha took advantage of this freedom to create an extremely beautiful and alluring appearance that was rare to be found naturally.

Akira remembered the first time he saw Alpha, it was so shocking and captivating as if his soul was sucked out from his body. But it was no longer the case now and he thought that it was because he already got used to her beauty.

Alpha was almost always beside him 24/7, and there were a lot of occasions where she would pose her n.a.k.e.d body or wear a dress that was close to n.a.k.e.d in front of him. She even went into the bath together with him. That was why Akira thought that he should have gotten used to it.

Alpha at least accepted Akira’s explanation for now.

“…Got used to, huh? I guess I’ll need to think about it.”

“You’re not thinking of anything bad, right?”

“Nope, not at all.”

Akira looked at Alpha with suspicion, but Alpha just smiled it off.

***

When Akira was sleeping, Katsuya noticed him as he boarded the tray.

“That’s him…”

Yumina looked around and checked people that she knew.

“There are also other Hunters who we met in our last patrol job. But it seems that man who picked a fight with you is not here, that’s good.”

Although Airi was also one of the people who caused trouble in the last patrol, she intervened as if she was telling Yumina to just forget about that subject.

“Katsuya, don’t make any trouble this time.”

“I know… That guy is sleeping though, is that really okay?”

“Just leave him be. Try not to get involved with other Hunters who’re not members of Drankam. They’ll just throw him away if he’s still sleeping when the time comes. So just take your seat.”

Katsuya just obediently boarded the tray and took a seat. He was only talking with his friends while waiting for the truck to move, but he unconsciously made a stern face and was staring at Akira. Remembering what happened during his previous patrol, he just could not come to like Akira.

And when the time came, Akira was still sleeping. Katsuya was actually looking forward to seeing Akira getting kicked out from the truck. He even grinned in an ill will when Kibayashi stood in front of the still-sleeping Akira.

But Akira just woke up right before Kibayashi kicked him out and Kibayashi just chuckled when that happened, thus Katsuya’s mood got even worse.

Their patrol finally started. Katsuya was thinking of taking a closer look at Akira this time, but they did not meet any monster at all during this patrol, thus he did not get his chance. So his mood worsened even more.

As everyone in the truck started to relax, Katsuya let out a sigh, he could not focus on today’s training because he was in such a bad mood. He could not see any monsters from his binocular and the detector did not pick any monsters at all, so he had lost all of his motivation. Katsuya then asked Shikarabe while making an annoyed face.

“Say, there’s no monsters though, do we still have to do this training?”

Shikarabe answered while trying to suppress his annoyance.

“Whether there are any monsters or not, it’ll still be training for detecting monsters. You should already know that in a thick colourless mist, you would not be able to detect monsters using binocular or other information gathering devices. So you have to spot monsters by using your eyes. You guys should have been taught where to watch, points to be careful about and how frequently you should change the person keeping watch and so on.”

“But will this training be useful without any monsters around?”

“…I won’t force you. At the moment, this is just voluntary training since our original plan was changed after Elena and Sara got that sudden request. So you’re free to do what you want.”

Although it was also one of his duties to train Katsuya and his friends, he had no wish to force them to do training. After all, it was outside his main duty. Shikarabe did not even care if Katsuya just skipped his training and got into trouble later. That’s what Shikarabe thought as he clicked his tongue.

After that, Katsuya decided to just keep doing his monster detection training for the meantime, but he eventually started talking with the other Hunters. Looking at that, Shikarabe just let out a sigh and thought that it would be a waste of energy to think about him, so he just ignored Katsuya.

The truck kept running on its patrol route in the middle of the wasteland although they did not encounter any monster. But it suddenly stopped, the Hunters in the truck immediately picked up their guns and put up their guard. Kibayashi then got on the tray and shouted.

“I just got a call, the patrol job is finished here and now. We’ve taken care of all the administrative processes for you. And now, I’ll tell you about the current situation. According to the information that I got, a large group of monsters is heading to the Kugamayama city from the Kuzusuhara ruins. The defense squad is already preparing themselves to intercept that group of monsters.”

Hearing this announcement, restlessness spread among the Hunters in the truck in an instant.

“The city has issued an emergency request and is asking for help from this truck. All the Hunters around the ruins had been called to gather up and be sent later, the content of the emergency request is for us to help those Hunters.”

Kibayashi looked at the shocked expression of the Hunters and did not know what to do, thus he shouted to urge them.

“Decide now!! If the majority of the Hunters decides to accept this request, we’ll be heading to the nearest battleground, but if the majority of the Hunters want to return back home, we’ll immediately go back to the city! The rest can just walk to the city or to the nearest Hunter group on their own! Decide in 5 minutes!!”

After Kibayashi finished his explanation, most of the Hunters immediately decided to go back home. After all, the truck was only fit for the low-risk patrol job and most of the Hunters in the truck did not have the ability nor the equipment to take this emergency request. Even if there were some Hunters who wanted to accept the emergency request, it was only a handful of them. None of them was foolish enough to take the emergency request when it meant that they would be left behind. While some of them were thinking of taking the request after returning back to the city and arming themselves with proper equipment.

The Hunters looked at each other and quickly confirmed each other’s decisions. Just to be safe, Alpha also asked Akira.

“Akira, we’ll return back to the city first, okay?”

“Of course, no one would want to face a group of monsters out of their own volition.”

Akira’s face turned grim, he remembered the time when he was attacked by a group of monsters, got saved by Elena and Sara, and was barely able to survive the fight.