Chapter 99 (1/2)

Index

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

The Hunter Office sent some staffs to where Akira was. It was because Akira had reported to the Hunter Office that he found a monster that looked like the bounty monster, which should have been defeated, still roaming in the wasteland. That was enough of a reason for the Hunter Office to at least check it.

The staff that the Hunter Office sent was Kibayashi. The moment he heard that a strange report reached the Hunter Office and it was from Akira, he quickly jumped in.

After Kibayashi reached Akira, he listened to Akira’s explanation and more or less understood what had happened. He then laughed hard. He tried to suppress his laughter before he said to Akira.

“So you killed it? This snake? All by yourself? After it ate you? Y-You, b-blasted your way out from its inside…”

Kibayashi could not hold back his laughter, it seemed that he found what he just said himself really funny.

The adrenalin that was coursing through Akira’s body during that fight had already calmed down. What was left after that fight was only the tiredness and worry for all the ammo expense that he had incurred in that battle. Not to mention that he had lost his vehicle too.

Akira looked annoyed as he replied.

“…Yeah, you have a problem with that?”

It seemed that somehow Akira’s reaction amused Kibayashi even more. Kibayashi could not stop laughing for a while, he eventually stopped and amusedly said to Akira.

“It’s all good that you’re as reckless as ever. You’re just so interesting.”

“Is that so? Well, thanks.”

Akira pointed his finger at the overgrown snake.

“So then, what’s the result after you checked it? Is that thing a bounty monster or just a normal monster?”

“Well, unfortunately, that thing is not a bounty monster. We have no idea if it’s just a mutated monster of the same species or maybe one of the children of the bounty monster, but the conclusion is the same, it’s not the bounty monster. I know that you worked super hard to kill it and I’m sorry to say this, but the Hunter Office would not categorize a monster that you can defeat alone as a bounty monster. But well, we’ll at least pay you some reward money for killing it though. Ah, right, you didn’t take the bounty hunting request, huh. But don’t worry, we’ll treat you as if you had taken the bounty request, I can at least do that much for you.”

“Well, thanks.”

From the other’s point of view, it was a monster that could be killed by a Rank 21 Hunter if that Hunter tried hard enough. Akira could understand that fact, but it still annoyed him.

Kibayashi looked at the annoyed Akira, he then smiled and said to Akira.

“You looked pretty displeased. But well, I guess that’s to be expected huh? Since you worked so hard to kill a monster that looked like a bounty monster but still you wouldn’t get that much money out from it.”

“Yeah, I used quite a lot of my ammo in that fight, you know. I’m getting a huge loss out of this. Not to mention that my vehicle is totally wrecked. I just bought that vehicle recently.”

“In that case, we can reimburse some of your money. If you sell that pseudo overgrown snake’s dead body to me, I’ll negotiate with the Hunter Office to at least reimburse your ammo expense.”

“Then how about my vehicle!?”

Akira suddenly reacted to that promise, but Kibayashi shook his head.

“I’m sorry, but no matter how you slice it, there’s no way we can reimburse your vehicle.”

“…I see. Well, it already helps me a lot if you would pay me my ammo expense though… So then, can I go back home now? To be honest, I’m super tired right now.”

Akira looked super duper tired when he said that, but suddenly his face twitched.

“Ah, right!! I have no vehicle now!! Dammit!!”

Akira shouted loudly, Kibayashi then tried to calm him down.

“Calm down. I’ll at least give you a ride back to the city. You do look so tired after all. You can take a nap there, I’ll wake you up when we arrive.”

“…Is that so? Thanks… Haaah.”

“Don’t mention it, I can at least do that much for you.”

Even after he calmed down, Akira looked completely opposite of Kibayashi who seemed to be having fun there.

Kibayashi decided to head back to the city with Akira while the other Hunter Office staffs stayed behind to analyze the snake’s corpse.

Akira was sleeping like a log in the backseat of Kibayashi’s vehicle. Another Hunter Office staff member was sitting in the driver’s assistant seat next to Kibayashi. That particular staff suddenly asked Kibayashi a question.

“Are you sure it’s okay to make that promise to this boy? Looking at that dead corpse, he must have used quite a lot of ammo, you know. Although you did say that you’ll add some bonus, I don’t think you can reimburse his ammo expense just from the reward of monster hunting requests though?”

Kibayashi laughed merrily.

“It’s fine. I got to see an interesting battle record after all. So you don’t need to worry about it.”

“Haaah, I see.”

There was an air of superiority from the way Kibayashi laughed. The Hunter Office staff found that weird, but since he knew about Kibayashi’s bad reputation, he just decided to forget about it.

In reality, the overgrown snake that Katsuya’s team defeated and the overgrown snake that Akira defeated were one and the same. The overgrown snake was actually a snake inside a bigger body. The relatively smaller snake was the real body, it used everything that it ate to construct its outer body. It was analogous to a human inside a powered suit.

The one that Katsuya’s team defeated was that powered suit. While the real body detached from its outer body and escaped. And to cover its escape, it set the outer body to rampage around.

While the one that Akira defeated was the snake’s real body. Although to be more precise, it actually had an even smaller body inside it, but Akira killed it before it could detach and escape since he scattered all of those bullets from inside the snake’s body.

Kibayashi actually knew that the one who actually defeated the overgrown snake was Akira and not Katsuya’s team.

He also knew that Akira did not know about that. That was the reason why he was really amused by that situation.

Kibayashi had no plans to report that to the Hunter Office since he knew that it would be useless. The Hunter Office had already broadcasted the news that the overgrown snake had been killed. Retracting that statement and announcing that another Hunter actually defeated the bounty monster would definitely cause a dispute, it would be a huge problem since Drankam was also involved.

While on the other hand, it was true that Katsuya’s team defeated a powerful monster that might as well be considered as a bounty monster. So it was not worth the trouble making a correction to that announcement.

[Well, I’ll at least reimburse your ammo, that way, I’ll be able to enjoy your reckless act again.]

Kibayashi was already interested in Akira, and with what happened this time, he got even more interested. He smiled as he was looking forward to the next time he would be able to see Akira do another crazy thing.

After returning back to his home, Akira took a dip inside his bath. He looked much more dazed than usual as if most of his soul was sucked by the warm bath.

The moment he arrived back home, he quickly fell asleep and only woke up in the middle of the night. But even so, he was still extremely tired. He was stuck in a situation where he was awake and sleepy but could not fall asleep. Thus he dragged his body out of the bed and went to the bathroom in a semi-conscious state.

Akira looked so tired that it would not be strange if he suddenly fell asleep anytime. So, Alpha who was inside the bath with him, just like always, warned him.

“Akira, be careful not to fall asleep here. It might even be a good idea if you get out of the bath. You might drown if you fall asleep here, you know.”

“…It’s alright. I took so many… medicines back there.”

“That’s the medicine to heal wounds, right? Not the medicine that would help you breathe underwater. Moreover, when exactly did you take them?”

“…Back there… That time… Ahh, right, Alpha, you weren’t there.”

Akira was still completely in a daze when he said that. The effect from the medicines that he took when inside the snake had completely waned and he had completely forgotten that Alpha was not there when he took those medicines.

Alpha was smiling like usual, but she then carefully asked Akira a question.

“Ah, right, you promised me that you’ll tell all the details later, right? This might be a good time for that, what happened back there?”

“Well…”

Akira was about to say something, but he stopped. It was not like he did not want to explain it to Alpha, it was more because he did not have the communication ability to do that.

He gave up explaining what had happened with words, so instead, he sent the scene of what had happened straight to Alpha through telepathy. Akira chose that option since he could send visuals, line of thinking, and even feelings through telepathy.

But in the end, it was just a reconstruction of Akira’s memory. The accuracy of that information was very low since there was nothing but hazy pictures of the inner wall of the overgrown snake only illuminated by the flash muzzle from his DVTS minigun. Moreover, it was subjective information based on Akira’s point of view, not to mention, it did not contain the full information about his mental state at that time. It was a rather confusing scene, it was as if he was inside a dream-like state until the moment he broke out from inside the snake’s body. It contained no more information than that.

Although it did not explain everything, that was all that Alpha could extract from him. In conclusion, she could not get the information that she was actually looking for from him, and Akira himself actually had no idea what kind of information she wanted from him.

“That must have been rough.”

“Yeah, you can say that again.”

Akira’s expression relaxed as he said that.

“But well, I didn’t expect to be able to do that, I was sure I’m going to die there. But again, since I had the time to think that I was definitely going to die, I guess it showed that I didn’t instantly die after it ate me. So I might have actually not been in that much danger back then.”

Alpha sounded apologetic as she said to Akira.

“It would have been really helpful if I was able to give you support, I’m really sorry.”

But Akira replied casually as if it did not bother him at all.

“Things like that are bound to happen from time to time. I’m glad I trained myself to know what to do when I lose your support. It was really useful in that situation.”

Alpha thought that Akira must have acquired some level of confidence after getting out of that situation with his own power. That in itself was not a problem, it was good news for her since it meant that he was getting stronger. But if that confidence lessened his dependency on her, then there was a need to remove that. She should do something about it before he thinks that he could go on his own without her support.

She smiled.

“I’ll give you my utmost support whenever I can, so you can keep on relying on me.”

Akira smiled in return.

“Of course, I’ll be counting on you.”

“In that case, there’s one thing that I can help you with right this second. There’s a call from Shikarabe. I’ll connect you, so you can just talk normally from here.”

After she said that, Akira could suddenly hear Shikarabe’s voice. He was connected to his information terminal through Alpha.

“It’s Shikarabe. I need to talk to you about the reward, do you have time now?”

“Sure.”

“If you have the time, do you want to talk in-person? I’m in that pub from last time.”

“I’m inside my bath right now, so let’s talk over this call. Or is it something that might cause trouble between us so you’d rather talk about it in-person with me?”

“It depends on you. Well, I’ll put it straight for you. Our original contract is that you get your share of reward from the bounty prize, subtracted by the equipment expense, and then divided by the number of the heads. But well, the equipment expense is higher than we expected. So in the end, to be honest, your share of reward does not fit your contribution in that battle.”

Akira’s expression turned stern.

“Are you contacting me to warn me that my share of reward might be pretty small?”

“Whoah there, there’s no need to get angry here. I’m recognizing your contribution in that battle, you know? But with that being said, I have no plans to give you a bonus either. I want to avoid having to readjust everyone’s share after the request is done. Increasing or reducing the reward at this stage will only invite a dispute. It’s a matter of money after all, so I hope you can understand.”

Akira did not say anything. He got what Shikarabe was saying and he understood it well. But it was only enough to suppress his anger, not completely erasing it. Shikarabe also understood that fact from Akira’s silence.

“But just like I said before, I recognize your contribution in that fight. I myself am not happy to just close this matter by giving you a small amount of money. So about that, is it okay if we pay you with something else other than money?”

“Something other than money?”

“Yeah, for example, how about a vehicle?”

“A vehicle?!”

“There are other things that we can offer you too. Drankam invested a lot of money in this bounty hunt. Thanks to that, we got a lot of new equipment like guns or new augmented suits. The gang also lost a lot of equipment in this hunt, so we’re planning to buy their replacements in bulk. The gang is also planning to replace the lightly damaged vehicles which are still usable after a little bit of TLC. I can give you one of those slightly damaged vehicles as your reward. The doc.u.ment will say that you bought that vehicle on the same day we originally planned to pay your reward. We’ll also include some money to repair and make some adjustments on that vehicle. You might be able to get a better vehicle if you use the same amount of money to buy a new one. So in short, I might not be able to give you extra money, but I can use my connection to get you something else on top of your reward money. But well, if you prefer money, I won’t force you though….”

Akira suddenly sounded desperate as he said to Shikarabe.

“No, the vehicle is good!! I’ll take the vehicle!! Please make it a vehicle instead!!”

Shikarabe was a bit weirded out by that sudden change of character from Akira.