Chapter 69 (1/2)

Index

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

Akira was doing time compression training again with Alpha the next day.

Just like before, Alpha was dancing in front of Akira with blades in both of her hands. She danced gracefully and elegantly, it felt as if her movements were so natural even when she sliced Akira’s neck.

Akira did not move even when Alpha attacked him. Forget evading her attack, he did not even react at all. He just stood there watching her.

“…Akira?”

“It’s alright, just continue.”

Akira’s expression was dead-serious. It was enough to make Alpha understand that he was not fooling around.

Alpha was actually curious why he did that, but she did not ask him anything as she stepped back and straightened her stance. A piece of her dress detached itself and vanished before she started dancing again.

Even after that, Akira did not react at all, he just stood there watching Alpha with a dead-serious expression as she kept slicing at him.

Every time one of her blades went through Akira’s body, a piece of her dress would fall off and vanish. In the beginning, she was only losing decorations on her dress, but then slowly she started to lose pieces of clothes that hid her skin. As more and more parts of her body were exposed, she started to look like Nelia when Akira was fighting against her in Kuzusuhara ruin.

[…Remember that sensation!! That feeling in that dream!! That tension during that fight!! I was able to do it back then!! I was able to do it in my dream too! So I should be able to do it now!! Alpha also did say that I should be able to do it!!]

That level of focus when he stood in a life and death situation. That sensation when he walked on that thin line that separated life and death. Akira was trying his best to recreate those feelings as he stood in his place without moving. He focused on Alpha who was dancing in front of him, or to be more precise, he focused on the blades in her hands that had already sliced through his body numerous times.

And then, in the middle of her dance, Alpha suddenly swung the blade in her right hand at Akira’s neck. By pure coincidence, her movements were exactly the same as Nelia’s movements that Akira saw in his dream.

As Akira watched that extremely sharp looking blade cut through the air aiming for his neck, he instinctively reacted and quickly shifted his body backwards to evade that blade. But his maneuver caused him to lose balance and fall splendidly on his back.

As he fell, Akira’s head violently bumped the floor. He rolled around with both of his hands on the back of his head as he writhed in pain.

Alpha quickly floated to Akira and worriedly asked him.

“Akira, are you alright?”

“I-it hurts like hell, where is my medicine??”

“It’s on the shelf over there.”

Akira wobbled around as he stood up and extended his hand to reach for the medicine box on a shelf near him. It was the 1,000,000 Aurum per box medicine. He took out a capsule from that box, opened it, and spread the paste-like medicine content on the back of his head where he was hurt.

The pain immediately vanished when he applied the medicine. But it was not because the injury was healed, it was simply because the pain killer numbed his pain and it was enough to make Akira feel thankful. As for the injury itself, it would heal given enough time. The medicine paste was slowly absorbed through his skin, thus there was no need to wipe the leftover.

Since the pain on his head was gone, Akira stopped gritting his teeth.

“It’s really nice to have this kind of medicine which you can just directly apply on an injury at a time like this.”

“But you might not have the time to apply it to your wound directly in the middle of a fight, so for the time being, it might be better to get a medicine that you can just swallow. Not to mention, it can help in healing your inner injuries and recovering your fatigue if you take it orally. That aside, you did it, didn’t you Akira?”

Alpha smiled when she said that, Akira smiled back and replied.

“Yeah, I did it. But thanks to that, I couldn’t move my body well and ended up falling splendidly on my back though.”

“That’s to be expected. Just because your time perception became 10 times faster, that doesn’t make your body move 10 times faster as well. So there’s a time lag between when you tell your limbs to move and when they actually move. Because of that, compared to when you usually move your body out of reflex, you’ll have to be more aware of your movement from now on. Watch your slowed opponent’s move carefully and based on it, decide how you are going to move. But again, I guess you can only learn such a thing from training, huh.”

“You’re right. I can only learn to do that through training.”

Akira unconsciously moved his hands to the back of his head. Although he did not feel pain any longer, he still felt some kind of awkwardness.

“Well, you basically whacked your head hard on the floor back there. So how about we take a rest for today?”

“Nah, let’s continue. I want to try and do that again while I can still remember that sensation.”

“Sure, but don’t push yourself too hard, okay?”

“Yeah.”

His training continued, Alpha started dancing in front of him again. Most of her dress had already vanished, thus depending on how she moved, her dance seemed to be very e.r.o.t.i.c from time to time. But in order to properly follow Alpha’s movements, Akira did not avert his eyes at all.

Akira then finished his training for the day. Usually, by the end of the time compression training, Alpha would be more or less n.a.k.e.d. But this time she still had some more pieces of clothes on her body than usual.

But that was not because Akira was able to evade Alpha’s attacks, it was more because he was too tired to continue until she became n.a.k.e.d.

Akira was lying on the hard floor with his limbs spread out as he was breathing roughly. During the training, he was able to compress his time perception many times. But every time he did that, his brain was hit by enormous stress and tiredness because of the sheer focus he needed to do that.

The longer he maintained the time compression, the longer he had to keep his focus. Moreover, moving his body in that state felt like he was mustering his whole body to keep moving without rest. It was no wonder that it quickly made his body tired.

As his brain and body were extremely strained, Akira could not even stand up on his own.

He was still lying on the floor when Alpha, who was still wearing her e.r.o.t.i.c dress, said to him.

“Let’s end our training for today. Do your best to at least stand up from there.”

“…I can’t do it, just a little bit more, just let me lie here a bit more.”

“Just a little bit, okay? If you stay there like that, you’ll end up falling asleep on the floor, you know. At least drag yourself to the bed first, else you’ll definitely regret it in the morning if you wake up on the floor.”

Akira, who had lived in the slum alley for years, had slept on the hard cold ground numerous times. So he understood very well what Alpha meant by that. Now that he had experienced the comfort of sleeping on a fluffy bed, he no longer had the ability to recover his fatigue from sleeping on a hard surface. If he really ended up falling asleep on the floor, there was no mistaking it that he would definitely regret it tomorrow.

Akira was still breathing roughly on the floor, but he eventually calmed down. He then wrung any strength that he still had left to pull himself up and drag his feet to the bedroom before crashing to the bed.

Alpha was floating next to him. Since Akira had not told her to change her dress yet, she was still wearing what was left of her dress after the training. Her high-class looking undies peeked through the gaps between her clothes. But Akira did not even have the strength to tell her to change her dress.

Akira was somehow still able to fight the heaviness of his eyelids, but it was only a matter of time before he was lulled by the fluffy bed and his heavy body.

“…I’ll sleep for a bit. Wake me up when it’s time to study.”

“Just take a good rest for today. It’s not like you can learn anything if you’re still tired during the study session.”

“…Alright.”

After saying that, Akira let the tiredness take over his body.

As he fell asleep in front of her, Alpha looked at him thoughtfully.

To be honest, she predicted that it would take about at least 6 months until Akira could compress time. So basically, now her prediction was totally off.

Alpha was not sure if it was a good thing or it was a bad thing since it indicated that Akira could surpass her prediction.

Whichever the case, there was a need for Alpha to readjust her plan. As she thought of what she should do to readjust her plan, she was not smiling, not even once.

***

There were all kinds of people living in the Kugamayama lower district slum city, from youngsters to old people, male and female. All of them had to somehow earn money to pay for their expenses in the slum city. Some of them collected wreckages from the wasteland bordering the slum city and sold them. Some of them worked for people who, for some reason, lived in the slum city although they had relatively a lot of money. Some people chose to gather any sellable things that they could find and sold them to scrappers.

And of course, some of them were living by stealing others’ money. A girl named Alna, who was living in the slum city, was one of these people.

Luckily enough, Alna was a genius when it came to picking pockets, and unfortunately, she had no other choice but to rely on her talent to survive in the slum city. The harsh living condition gave her enough justification for her action, and her talent let her continue picking pockets without getting caught until now.

Her living condition forced her to pickpocket, and the more she stole, the better she became. At this point, it would not be an exaggeration to say that she was already a first-rate pickpocket.

Her biggest mistake was that she shared the money that she stole with her friends. After all, it was not like all of her friends could keep secrets. The more famous she became as a first-rate pickpocket, the more her friends demanded their share.

Her friends asked for more and more money, hoping that eventually, Alna would help them escape the days when they had to starve. But Alna ended up running away from such expectations, and now she was basically working alone. Of course, she still had some friends that she was close with, but she decided not to join any gang anymore.

But living alone in the slum city was an extremely difficult thing for a little girl. There were only a few reliable methods available to earn money, and even after she earned some money, she had even fewer means to protect her money from other people. In order to get her enough food, a place to sleep, and a means to protect herself, she was left with no other choice but to rely on her rare talent.

Just like any other day, Alna was prowling for prey. It was not like she would just randomly pick people’s pockets as she was walking around the slum city. Instead, she intentionally aimed for people who seemed to be carrying a lot of money and were an easy target.

Most of the people in the slum city did not carry much money. While some of them, who carried a lot of money, were mostly people who she should never try to mess with. As such, it was rare for people in the slum city to turn into a pickpocket, that was also the reason why people of the slum city were not that cautious against pickpockets.

As such, pickpockets in the slum city tended to aim for people who came from outside the slum city. Like the customers who visited the shops that could only be found in the slum city, or people who return from wasteland while brimming with confidence as they passed through the slum city, or people who ended up in the slum city for any unknown reasons, or people who came to the slum city hoping that they might be able to help the residents of the slum city, or people who are absconding and trying to hide in the slum city, or people who tried to look for anything that could be scrapped in the slum city. These people carried more money than the residents of the slum city most of the time.

Alna was looking for Hunters to pickpocket. But even so, there were many types of Hunters, some of them were veteran Hunters who she should never mess with, while on the other hand, there were also those Hunters who spent most of their money in taverns rather than renewing their bad-looking equipment. Whichever it was, these Hunters frequently visited the wasteland. Unlike pickpockets, thugs rarely robbed Hunters, of course, these thugs could get some money from selling the equipment that they robbed, but the danger of getting killed was too high.

In contrast to that, pickpockets often aimed for Hunters. If they tried to aim for the equipment, of course, these Hunters could easily detect them. After all, equipment was the Hunters’ lifeline, without their equipment, those Hunters would not be able to fight monsters. So thanks to that, Hunters tended to be less careful when it came to other stuff, for example, their wallets.

Alna had found her target, that Hunter looked like an easy target in her eyes. Although that Hunter was wearing armour normally used by Hunters, it was so clean which indicated that the Hunter had never gone to the wasteland yet. The rifles dangling on that Hunter’s body also looked brand new, there was not even any gunpowder trace, showing that they were never used before. It was a young Hunter and that Hunter’s expression did not give the intimidating or dangerous aura like those veteran Hunters. So Alna thought that he must be a beginner Hunter who just gathered enough equipment to be able to register in the Hunter Office and start from Rank 10.

[Let’s aim for that Hunter. If that Hunter is here for browsing the stands right after registering in the Hunter Office, he should be carrying quite a lot of money. Let’s get his wallet before that Hunter can spend it on anything.]

Just like usual, Alna approached that Hunter naturally. Then using her genius-level talent and polished skill, she extended her arm and took the wallet from that Hunter. That Hunter did not notice it at all.

Unfortunately, Alna’s luck ended that day.

—*—*—*—

That day, Akira was walking through the slum city as he was heading to Sheryl’s base. There was no particular reason other than just showing his face in the gang and to take a breather.