Chapter 67 (1/2)

Index

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

Akira placed all his focus on Alpha’s movements, he did not let even the slightest shift go unnoticed. But even so, he could not evade a single attack.

It was because Alpha’s multi-layered dress hid her blades, making it extremely difficult to judge the timing of her attack. Moreover, Akira could not follow her movements with his eyes at all.

Akira was trying his best to focus on Alpha’s movements, but it was not even close compared to the level of focus he had when he was facing a deathly situation. Alpha noticed every single time he lowered his guard and used that opening to accurately slip in an attack.

Then just like she said, every time Akira received an attack, one piece of cloth was removed from her dress. Thus, one by one, pieces of cloth kept falling off from Alpha’s heavily decorated dress. As fewer and fewer clothes and decorations were left on her dress, her skin started getting exposed bit by bit. Starting with her 4 limbs, to her back, then eventually up to the cleavage of her chest and bum. But as Alpha kept dancing, the exposed part of her skin was only barely able to peek out from time to time as the leftover pieces of clothes on her dress hid them from view.

The more part of her body got exposed, the more seducing her dance became. Alpha was smiling bewitchingly and sending a flirtatious gaze at Akira. She had lost most pieces of clothes that were hiding her body, thus it should have been easier to see her movements now. But her dance was still as deadly as it was charming.

Akira was sliced and diced so many times by Alpha’s swords. Although he was familiar with her attacks, he still could not evade the incoming blades. Akira was getting tired after keeping his focus for an extended length of time. Because of that, his focus was getting worse with each passing second.

Eventually, Akira was too tired to even react to Alpha’s attacks. Alpha noticed that and decided to end the training.

“Let’s end it here today.”

Akira did not try to hide his tiredness as he let out a big sigh. He then looked at Alpha one more time and sighed again.

Alpha was almost n.a.k.e.d. The only pieces of clothes left were those that hid particular parts of her body and some decorative pieces that were barely able to hide the rest of her body. All the layers of clothes that Alpha started with had turned into such a s.e.xy dress. Alpha’s beautiful figure that was almost on full view showed just how pathetic Akira was during the training.

Alpha tried to cheer Akira up since he was obviously disheartened.

“It’s not something that you can learn in one night. Today’s training was not fruitless. Let’s keep on training patiently.”

“…I guess you’re right.”

It was not like Akira had completely recovered, he was just putting a brave front. If he was given enough time, Akira would get back on his feet by himself.

“Let’s take a short break before continuing with studying in your room. Or do you want to just take a rest for the remainder of the day?”

“No, let’s study. I’m on a break from Hunter work, so I at least want to keep improving myself during my break.”

“Alright then, I wonder what should I teach you today…”

Akira returned to his room and started taking lessons after he had enough rest.

“Let’s work on your math today. As a Hunter, you should at least be able to properly calculate your reward.”

“…Before that, how long are you planning to stay like that?”

Alpha was still wearing what was left of her dress from the previous training. It was not least bit suitable for teaching. She just smiled teasingly as she said.

“Since you hadn’t told me to change it, I thought that you liked it. That’s why I’m keeping it like this.”

“Alright alright. Next time, I’ll tell you to change your clothes right away after the training.”

“You don’t have to hold yourself back, you know.”

“Just return back to your usual dress, will you?”

Alpha’s dress then changed to the suit that she usually wore when she was teaching Akira. Although it was far less exposing than her previous dress, it had a big opening on her chest and her skirt was very short with a decorated slit on it. It was s.e.xy in its own style.

Akira’s reaction to this s.e.xy suit was only ‘well, whatever’. Humans really could get used to anything.

Akira then spent the day studying in such a weird situation, but for him, it was nothing out of ordinary.

It had been 5 days since Akira rented the house. He did the same training every day to compress his time perception. But the result of his training did not change much compared to the first day of his training.

Every single time, the training would continue till Alpha’s multi-layered dress was almost completely gone and it would end when Akira’s reaction was considerably dulled because of the tiredness. Even after 5 days, Akira still could not evade even a single attack. Although his reaction speed increased without using the time compression, that was not the main aim of this training.

Akira was taking a break after the training. He looked pretty depressed as he felt how pathetic he was for not showing any improvement all this time.

Since Alpha told him that he could compress his time perception, he believed that he should be able to do it. But even so, he still could not achieve it. He didn’t even show a sign that he could do it anytime soon.

As Akira was fraught with frustration, Alpha suddenly said something weird to him.

“Akira, a strange request just arrived for you.”

“A strange request?”

“Yep, a strange request, you should check it yourself.”

Alpha pointed her finger at Akira’s information terminal. The monitor on his information terminal quickly went through a series of screens as Alpha was operating it. It eventually stopped when it was on the page showing Akira’s information on the website that could only be accessed by Hunters. Akira reached for his information terminal and checked the notification, it was true that there was a request designated for him.

The requester was Shiori. She was one of the Hunters who he had met in Kuzusuhara ruin’s underground city. He once fought her when the relic thief, Yajima, took Reina hostage. The request was simply titled ‘for consultation’.

When Akira checked the description of the request, it only said that she wanted to meet and talk with him, and mentioned the location and time of the meeting. As for the reward, it said that Shiori would pay for the meal.

“…What the heck is this?”

Akira found it really strange and rechecked the request, but he had not misread anything.

“No idea. Maybe it’s just a request to meet and talk about the real request. We won’t know unless you go and ask Shiori yourself.”

“As far as I can see, it says nothing other than she’s inviting me for a talk while having a meal and she’ll be paying for the meal.”

“That is true.”

“What exactly does she want to talk about with me?”

“Even if you ask me, I have no guesses at all.”

Both Akira and Alpha had no idea what Shiori’s intention was for inviting Akira for a meal.

“So then, what do you plan to do? Are you going to take the request and meet her? Judging from where she’s planning to meet you, I don’t think there’ll be any danger though.”

The meeting place mentioned in Shiori’s request was the restaurant inside the biggest Hunter Office in Kugamayama city. Anyone who caused trouble in that place would be picking a fight against the Hunter Office at the same time. Since Shiori asked Akira to meet her there, he can rest assured that she would not try to pick a fight against him.

“It’s okay if you want to just decline the request. You can also ignore it if you want. It’s up to you, Akira.”

Alpha finished giving all of her suggestions to Akira. Although it might be a good chance for a breather if Akira went to meet Shiori, there was no particular reason for Alpha to recommend it either. It was really up to Akira. As long as his actions would not interfere with her objective, Alpha would try to respect Akira’s will.

Akira reread the request many times, he did not know whether to accept it or not.

After taking some time to think, Akira eventually decided to accept it. It was because he was curious why Shiori wanted to meet him. If he could confirm that safely through this request, then there should be no problem accepting it. Akira thought so as he decided to accept the request.

On top of that, the meeting place was in a high-class restaurant, so if Shiori would pay for the meal, then it would mean Akira would be able to eat expensive foods without having to pay for it at all. That was also why he decided to accept that request. But since getting free food was fixed as one of the factors in his decision, he tried his best to ignore it when he was considering what to do.

Akira sent a confirmation to Shiori that he accepted the request, he then finished his preparation and went to the appointed restaurant.

The Kugamayama city branch Hunter Office was located inside a huge building that was integrated with the city wall which separated the middle district and the lower district. Inside that building, there were many stores directed at Hunters. Most of the stores were frequented by high-level Hunters who had houses in the middle district. Among them, there were even stores that only accepted high ranked Hunters. Basically, it was not a place that a low-level Hunter like Akira could visit.

The restaurant that Shiori specified had no Hunter Rank restriction. But there was no mistaking that it catered to high ranked Hunters.

Akira hesitated for a bit when he saw that it was a high-class restaurant. Alpha, who saw that, said to him.

“Giving up?”

“…Nah, I’ll go. It’s not like I’m going into an old-world ruin anyway. There’s no need to be afraid.”

Although Akira said so, he directed it more towards himself as he stepped forward to that restaurant.

The interior of the restaurant looked luxurious, unlike most restaurants in the lower district. If he tried to enter this restaurant right after coming back from the wasteland with his dusty clothes or leftover blood from the monsters, he bet that he would be sent away immediately. While it would be alright if he did the same in one of the taverns or restaurants in the lower district. Akira thought so as he got nervous.

Although in reality, he could just clean off the dust on his body and change into new clothes inside the restaurant itself. It was not rare for a high-class restaurant to have showers installed inside their restrooms and provide a clean suit for rental for its customers. Even the restaurant staff would be willing to laundry the dirty clothes if asked.

The restaurant staff quickly noticed Akira, who just entered the store, and greeted him.

“Thank you for coming to our restaurant, do you have a reservation today?”

As the staff brightly greeted him, Akira answered back in a fl.u.s.ter.

“Eh? Ah? Uhmm, someone by the name of Shiori should be already inside… So…”

“May I ask your name?”

“It’s Akira.”

“Very well. Akira-sama, please leave your weapons with us.”

Akira hesitated, but he eventually decided to hand over his rifles to that restaurant staff. That staff politely received Akira’s rifles and put them on a table near him.

“Thank you very much for your cooperation. Please let me guide you to your table.”

Akira followed behind that staff as he walked through the restaurant. The high-class feeling inside that restaurant felt so much different from all the other restaurants that he had visited in the past. Even the soft sensation he felt on his feet every time he took a step on the carpeted floor showed that it was on a whole different world compared to where Akira was living.

Akira looked around while walking through the restaurant. He could see all kinds of people inside that restaurant, all of them were enjoying their expensive meals. While some of the people there such as the cyborgs looked out of place eating in such a luxurious restaurant, all kinds of expensive-looking foods were served in front of those people.

Akira could not help but ask Alpha a naive question.

“Alpha, how do those people eat their food?”

“Looking from their appearance, they must have at least enough organs to process the food that they eat. Or maybe they mistook the capabilities of their cyborg body, thinking that their cyborg body will be able to digest food. Or maybe they’re just sending the taste data to someone else remotely. Or maybe they are only here to enjoy the beautiful food although they can’t eat them. There are many possibilities, you know.”

“I see. But I don’t think any of them are here just to enjoy the beauty though. Having something that looks delicious in front of you even though you can’t eat them sounds more like torture to me.”

“There are all kinds of people out there, you see. There are things that you can’t understand unless you’re the one doing it.”