Chapter 33 (1/2)

Index

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

Akira immediately shifted to a room with a bath after he returned from Shizuka’s shop. This room was pretty wide compared to his previous room. He put down his stuff in this room and said to Alpha with a serious tone.

“Alpha, I want to make sure of one thing, we’re resting today, right? No, we’re going to take a rest today, I’ll take no complaints.”

Alpha smiled and replied.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take a rest for today.”

“Alright then, I guess I’ll go and take a bath.”

Akira looked happy as he was heading to the bath, but Alpha suddenly stopped him.

“If you want to take a good long bath, you better finish all of your leftover business for the day.”

“Business? Is there still anything I should do?”

“You placed your bike at Sheryl’s place yesterday, remember? Since you didn’t say how long you are going to leave your bike with her, she might misunderstand and think that you’ll take the bike back soon. So I think it’s a good idea if you go there and explain it to her. Not to mention that you still have 500,000 Aurum debt to pay. If you postpone paying that debt, the peaceful situation that we’re having at the moment might crumble. So I think it’s better for you to pay that debt soon.”

Akira, who already decided on taking a bath, hesitated.

“…Can’t it wait for some more time?”

“I won’t force you, but it might cause some problems if you keep postponing it, you know?”

Alpha said it lightly while smiling as if it was nothing to worry about. But Akira got worried instead and decided to do them immediately.

Akira was dragging his feet as he was walking through the slum city. It was because he had filled his bag with more medicine than usual, plus he was carrying 2 AAH assault rifles and 1 CWH anti-material rifle.

The augmented suit, of course, helped him in carrying all of those equipment, but carrying that much stuff made it harder for him to control the augmented suit. Although it would be easy to do that with Alpha’s support, he was training to walk without her support at all. Because of that, Akira was having a hard time walking.

“Walking is hard enough already. Maybe I should’ve left the CWH anti-material rifle behind.”

“No, you shouldn’t. You’ll fight more battles in the future where you’ll need to use that rifle, so you should get used to it from now on. You don’t want to fight those mechanical monsters with AAH rifle again, right?”

Akira remembered all the hardship that he had faced the other day and smiled bitterly.

“You’re right. Well, I went and bought it anyway. So I guess I’ll work hard until I can at least use it proficiently.”

He then continued walking slowly through the slum. An inexperienced Hunter who was having a hard time handling his new equipment, it was a common sight among the Hunters. But even so, most of the people in the slum city would step aside and make a way for Akira. After all, for commoners, picking a fight against someone who is equipped with an augmented suit and carrying a big anti-monster rifle on his back was the same as doing suicide.

In order to avoid getting people’s attention, Akira walked through the slum city’s back alley. But he did not realize that the people around him were actually avoiding him.

When Akira arrived at Sheryl’s place, she looked very delighted and invited him to her private room. She then casually closed the door. As they were the only ones inside her room, she nonchalantly hugged Akira from the front the moment he put his stuff down.

Akira who somehow expected this just let out a sigh and said.

“Can you just get off me for now?”

“It’s fine, isn’t it? Yesterday you left as soon as you arrived, so it’s from yesterday’s portion too.”

“I don’t understand what portion you are talking about, but I’m here because I have something to tell you. So put this off for later, will you?”

“I understand, but I can continue after that, right?”

Sheryl then got off from Akira and stared at him, she looked contented as she got Akira’s promise.

As Akira realized that he might have to keep dealing with this behaviour of Sheryl from now on, he started to look at her as a troublesome girl.

After resetting the mood, Akira took a seat across the table from Sheryl. He reached out for 500,000 Aurum from inside his rucksack before casually placing it on the table.

“This is the rest of the payment for Shijima. So take this money and give it to him.”

Sheryl looked surprised. For her and the other children, it was a huge amount of money. She was worried whether he had to do dangerous stuff in order to get this money, so she could not help but ask Akira.

“Uhmmm, are you alright? They haven’t asked us to pay the rest yet, so I thought there’ll be no problem delaying the payment for later.”

“I got quite a lot of money from yesterday’s work. Compared to the total reward, this is just a small amount, so there’s no need to worry.”

Akira felt a bit strange when he said that so casually.

According to Alpha, even 12,000,000 Aurum was just a spare change. Thus 500,000 Aurum was, even more, a spare change to that. So, Akira felt that the money in front of him right now was not a big amount.

Akira realized that the boy inside him who was shaken at the sight of 12,000,000 Aurum had disappeared completely. But whether it was a sign of growth or a sign that his sense of money had dulled, or whether it was a good or a bad thing, Akira did not know for sure.

Sheryl smiled while still looking surprised.

“I understand, I’ll give it to Shijima.”

“And also, about the bike, since the inn that I’m staying has no parking spot, I can’t bring my bike over there. So like, for the time being, is it okay for me to leave the bike here?”

“You can leave it here anytime you want. We’ll keep it safe for you no matter how long it is. Not to mention that if it makes you come to this place more often, it’ll help with the security of this place too.”

“Is that so? Well, thanks.”

Sheryl looked very happy from the outside, but inside, she was thinking a lot of things. The last time she met Akira in his room, it was a small and cheap room, and now, Akira even called 500,000 Aurum a small amount. But even so, he was staying in an inn where he could not bring his bike with him. Sheryl tried to deeply analyze Akira’s words.

“That’s all I have to tell you today. Do you have anything you need to report to me?”

The moment Akira said that Sheryl just shelved all of her questions for now.

“I have nothing to report for now. Will that be all?”

Sheryl made an alluring smile to Akira, Akira who saw that was taken aback and did not know how to react. As he was still at loss on what to do, Sheryl already changed her seat beside Akira as she snuggled to him and circled her arms around him. She looked like she was having the time of her life as she said.

“…That’s quite a hard cloth.”

“It’s an augmented suit after all. So it’s normal that it’s harder than a usual cloth.”

“I see… Won’t you take it off?”

“No thanks.”

“It’s fine, isn’t it? It’s not like you’ll lose anything anyway.”

“No, I will, if I take the augmented suit off, my physical ability will decrease.”

“But at this rate, we will have to stay like this longer, you know?”

“Hah? Why?”

“Because this cloth will reduce my satisfaction.”

Akira frowned looking annoyed and a bit troubled, on the other hand, Sheryl locked her gaze at him while smiling brightly. There was an unusual awkward mood between them as both of them were staring at each other’s eyes. But then Akira broke his gaze first.

Akira let out a big sigh and took off the upper part of his augmented suit. Sheryl looked happier than before as she was still clinging on him. Her face was filled with all kinds of expression like bliss, peace, happiness, pleasure… It made a mess on her beautiful face. She even let out a strange sound from time to time.

Sheryl felt like something within her was getting satisfied.

Akira thought that it was not like he was losing anything, or more like, he actually just did not care, not to mention that it seemed Sheryl would let him go if he just let her be for a while. Thus he just shut up and let her clung on him. But then he noticed that Alpha was smiling teasingly at him, so his face immediately frowned a bit.

“…What?”

“It’s nothing. I don’t know why though, but it seems that she really likes you. As I thought, you’re interested in this kind of thing too, aren’t you?”

“Why does it even come to that…?”

Akira then let out a sigh.

“Sheryl. You should stop soon. I’m still tired from yesterday so I’m planning to relax and take a good long bath for today, you know?”

“If it’s a bath, we also have one here, you know? Do you want to try the bath here?”

“Eh? You have a bath here?”

“Yes, it’s quite a wide bath so I think you can really enjoy taking a dip.”

“Although this building looks abandoned, it even has a bath, huh? But even if you have the facility, how about the bill for the hot water? Are you sure they haven’t stopped the hot water?”

“From what I heard, in order to prevent the residents of the slum city from causing a riot because of water shortage, and their own concerns that the slum city might become a source of disease and spread to the lower district, the city management decided to keep supplying the slum with water. You didn’t know about this?”

“I too know about this since I used to clean my body with water even when I was living in the back alley of the slum city. But I didn’t know that they also provided the slum city with hot water though, ahhh, so that’s why you can make hot coffee, huh?”

(p4553r: Can’t they just boil water to make hot coffee?)

The data of the landowners in the slum city was never clear. Thus there was no clear address where the city should send their bills for the water usage. But even so, the manager of the city kept supplying the slum with water to avoid any dissent, not to mention that they could also estimate the number of the residents in the slum city and their jobs from the water usage.

But then, depending on the situation, the city could stop or limit the water supply anytime. The free water supply was adjusted with reputation and profit in mind to prevent the slum from growing any bigger than it should or even to cull the population in the slum city.

“Since there are not that many buildings in the slum that have a bath facility, this base is pretty famous, you know. Sibea and his friends took this building by force and made it their base before we inherited the place from them. If it was not because of your support, we would have been kicked out from this building by now. That’s why, since it’s thanks to you, you can use the bath here anytime you want. I’ll tell the children to prepare the bath if you want to get in, so, how about it?”

“Nope, I’ll go back to my room and take a bath there.”

“I’ll also help you wash your body, you know?”

“…I did rent that room because of the bath, so I’ll be taking a bath there. Not to mention that I want to relax in my own room too.”

“Is that so? That’s such a shame.”

To be honest, Sheryl was really planning to get into the bath together with Akira. But she noticed a small shift in his behaviour which triggered her wariness, thus she stopped pressuring him. Akira refused her offer simply because he could not trust her completely. After all, he could not get into the bath in his augmented suit or while carrying his rifles. Even right now, the reason why he could take off the upper part of his augmented suit was only because he was sure that he could handle if a fight suddenly broke out here. Sheryl understood this, that was why she backed off.

[…He still can’t fully trust me, huh?]

Although Sheryl understood that it was only to be expected, she was still a bit frustrated as she tightened her arms around Akira.

Suddenly someone knocked on the door of her room. Sheryl looked annoyed and answered the knock.

“What?”

Erio flinched when he heard Sheryl’s annoyance in her voice. He then answered Sheryl’s question while still looking scared.

“Boss. Shijima has come here with his men. He said that he wants to meet you.”

“…I see, I’ll go and meet him.”

Sheryl thought that she had to properly do her job as the Boss in order to win Akira’s trust. So she reluctantly separated from Akira.