Chapter 112 (1/2)

Index

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

In the middle of the night, when the morning was still hours away. Alpha was trying to wake up Akira who was sleeping on the bed of his house.

“Akira, wake up.”

Alpha’s voice was transferred directly into Akira’s head. Although her voice was gentle, it was pretty loud. After all, it was not like she could wake Akira up by shaking him.

Akira was still groggy as he scanned his surroundings. It did not take long for him to notice that it was still in the middle of the night. Although he went to sleep earlier than usual last night, it was still way too early for him to naturally wake up, he still had not gotten enough sleep. Looking at Alpha, he understood that he was not in immediate danger. He then sounded slightly irritated as he asked Alpha.

“…What now? It’s still night, you know? What’s wrong?”

“There’s a text message from Elena. I don’t mind if you want to ignore it for now since it’s still in the middle of the night and I don’t mind ignoring the other messages coming after this too, but don’t blame me since I’ve properly woken you up, okay? “

Akira tilted his head, confused. He thought that Alpha must have checked the message first before deciding that it was better to wake him up. Or at least, she must have thought that he might get angry if she waited until morning before telling him about that message.

Akira yawned while reaching for his information terminal that he left not too far from him. He was still sleepy as he operated his information terminal.

In short, the subject of Elena’s message was a request. There was a big battle going on in Mihazono ruin, so the Hunter Office was issuing requests to assist, support, and to save the Hunters who were on the battlefield. It seemed that Elena and Sara accepted a good deal for that request through the mediator company that they were registered under. The message was basically an invitation for Akira if he wanted to join in that request too.

The body of the message said that Akira was allowed to either move alone or move together with Elena and Sara. Of course, he was free to refuse if he had some other things to do. So if he was interested, he could give them a call.

Akira read that message a few times. He thought about a lot of things as his expression turned stern.

“Alpha, do you think Elena-san and Sara-san are going to Seranthal building?”

“I don’t know. After all, it seems that the situation in the Mihazono ruin has greatly changed. But, I do think that there’s a good chance this huge battle is taking place near the Seranthal building. You still remember that short notice from the Hunter Office yesterday, right? So I’m sure some of the Hunters headed to the Seranthal building. Then that request might be to help those Hunters who couldn’t retreat from the battlefield.”

Akira remembered what happened back then. Indeed, it was true that when he was stuck inside the Seranthal building, he could not make a call outside.

“Can they contact the outside after they went inside that building?”

“They might be able to do that now. Either that or that request was issued beforehand to help them retreat in case they don’t return back after some time. Basically, it’s one of those time-based emergency requests. And of course, it might also have nothing to do about that at all.”

Akira did not say anything as he stepped off from his bed and started making preparations to head out.

Alpha at least asked for a confirmation.

“So, you’re taking that invitation from Elena and Sara, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Although we had to go through all of those things yesterday?”

“…This and that are two different matters.”

Alpha sighed exaggeratedly, but Akira just ignored that as he continued with his preparation.

Akira’s reaction was within Alpha’s range of expectations. It was proof that she had a better understanding of his behavioural pattern. She was happy that all of the information that she had collected to control and manipulate Akira combined together with her computing power was able to give an accurate prediction of his action.

But her prediction also gave one more notable result. Even if she tried to stop him, there was a good chance that Akira would still decide to meet up with Elena and Sara. And even if she refused to give her support, there was still a good chance that he would still go.

Back then, Akira saved Elena and Sara in Kuzusuhara ruin, then not too long after that, Elena and Sara saved Akira when he was attacked by a swarm of monsters when he was together with Katsuragi.

From Alpha’s opinion, that made them even. But for some reason, from Akira’s perspective, he was still carrying 2 debts to Sara and Elena. If Alpha could precisely understand the reason why he decided so, she would be able to more easily manipulate Akira. But for now, she had not even the slightest guess. As long as Akira was still thinking that he had not returned that debt yet, Elena and Sara would still sit on the top of his priority list.

Alpha kept staring at Akira, in the back of her head, she was thinking that she had to do something about it.

Akira put on his augmented suit as he asked Alpha to operate his information terminal.

“Alpha, call Elena-san for me.”

“Sure… It’s not getting connected. She’s outside the reachable area.”

“But her message reached me, right?”

“There’s no guarantee that the message reached you the moment it was sent, you know. It might have been delayed due to the route that it took or the load on the device. It might be also be coming from how calls are treated differently compared to text messages.”

“It can’t be helped then, at least send a message to them that I’m accepting their request. It should be possible to at least do that, right?”

Akira thought of his message and sent it to Alpha through telepathy. After all, it was faster than saying it out loud.

“Got it, it’s already sent. I’ll also frequently check if I can get a connection with their information terminal too.”

“I’m counting on you.”

After Akira put on his augmented suit, he grabbed his information terminal and his rifles before heading to his vehicle. He then checked the medicines and ammo reserve left on his vehicle before grabbing extra medicine or ammo that he needed. Since he did not know what he would be facing, Akira decided to bring a lot of extra ammo.

After checking everything, Akira sat on the driver seat and was about to turn on the vehicle, but he suddenly stopped.

Alpha who was sitting on the driver assistant’s seat looked at Akira with a questioning expression.

“What’s wrong? Did you change your mind?”

“No, I just thought of something right before heading out.”

Akira then pulled out his information terminal and operated it. Alpha who knew well what he was doing looked slightly surprised. Akira was making a call, it took 10 seconds before the person that he was calling picked up the call.

The sound of the person that he was calling could be heard from Akira’s information terminal.

“It’s Carol here. I never thought that you would call me this soon. Well, it’s true I’m happy that you did, but it’s rather rude calling me this early unless it’s not about my side job, you know? So like, it’s okay to take it that it’s about that, right?”

Carol began with a sweet voice as if she was tempting Akira.

But Akira casually answered.

“Sorry, but it’s about your main job.”

Carol then mischievously replied back.

“Oh my, is that so? In that case then, is it okay if I close the call here?”

“Well, I can understand that. Sorry for calling you this early. Later then.”

Akira then ended the call, Alpha who was next to him just smiled amusedly.

Akira then put aside his information terminal and turned on his vehicle. Right when Akira just drove out from the garage, a call from Carol reached his information terminal.

Alpha smiled as she pointed at Akira’s information terminal and said.

“I’ll do the driving.”

“You sure? I’ll leave it to you then.”

Akira trusted the driving to Alpha as he let go of the wheel and picked up his information terminal to answer the call.

“It’s Akira.”

Carol sounded a bit annoyed.

“…There’s no need to suddenly cut your call like that, you know. Can’t you at least try being kinder?”

“I’m in a hurry here. So I don’t have the time to negotiate at all. So basically it’s about your main job, I take it that you’re willing to listen then, right?”

“Of course. Since you just ended the call like that, I can’t help but get curious. So, what is it?”

“Carol, you have knowledge about Mihazono ruin including the Seranthal building, right? I want to buy some information from you. If you’re willing to sell some, just tell me the price. If you’re okay with a bank transfer, I’ll immediately transfer the payment to your bank account. But if you prefer cash, I don’t have any with me and I don’t have the time to get some right now, so I’ll be paying you later.”

“There’s no need to worry about that. So, what kind of information are you looking for exactly? Your description just now is way too vague.”

“It seems that there’s an ongoing big battle in Mihazono ruin and there’s a good chance that the Seranthal building is in the centre of that battle. I need any information that might help me fight battles, search around that area, and save people who might be stuck there which includes escape routes or any other things that might also help me survive that place. I know that it’s still rather vague but I can’t make it more detailed than this. Although I’m heading to Mihazono ruin right now, it’s not like I have any particular destination at the moment after all.”

After listening to everything that Akira just said, which did not make much sense, Carol thought for a bit and said.

“Well, even if you tell me so, I have no plans to get into trouble with you. After all, we need to decide a lot of things too, like how am I going to send that information to you, or how accurate it is, or how are we going to decide on the price of the information, right? I can sell you the map of Mihazono ruin that I have right now, but it might not be in a format that you can open, I’ve also added some notes to that map, and some part of it is even encrypted. In the first place, I never make a copy of any important information like the one that I taught you yesterday except inside my brain.”

Akira was convinced by what Carol said to him. As in matter of fact, now that he thought about it, it was completely understandable. The reason why he did not think about putting that in his explanation was because Alpha and Shizuka always interpreted his vague questions or requests so he did not have to explain everything.

Alpha always stayed beside Akira and understood what he was trying to say, while Shizuka always came up with a good rifle that was close to what he was looking for although he only gave Shizuka a vague description. Akira thought that he might have gotten too used to it, as he reflected on that and felt thankful to Alpha and Shizuka.

Akira had no time to slowly talk about it with Carol, thus he immediately gave up on that idea and said.

“…You’re right. Just forget what I said, sorry to have called you so early. Later then.”

When Akira was about to close the call, Carol suddenly interjected.

“Wait for a sec, are you really going to just end the call? Just wait for a bit.”

“What?”

“Let me get this straight, you’re going to Mihazono ruin again, which means you might have to go to a dangerous place. As a matter of fact, there’s a good chance that you’ll have to go to the Seranthal building again, that’s why you’re looking for any information about Mihazono ruin that would help you survive that place, right?”

“Yes.”

Carol sounded slightly amused as she made a suggestion.

“In that case then, how about hiring me? Let’s say, how about 10,000,000 Aurum? If you end up having to use information that is worth more than that, we can talk about the price later. So, what do you think? I think it’s a pretty good offer.”

Akira was a little bit surprised by that unexpected offer from Carol. But he immediately questioned back without showing any confusion nor hesitation.

“I’m driving my vehicle through the Kugamayama city lower district right now, can we meet up in a few minutes?”

“Sure, I’m also in the lower district right now. As for the preparation… Can you give me 40 minutes?”

“I’m not going to be your bodyguard this time. I’m not expecting you to help in fights either, but I’ll still have you at least protect yourself. So don’t expect me to cover you like yesterday.”

“That’s fine. Although, I would be really happy if you would protect me. But if something like that happened again, you can just subtract from my reward money. Are you okay with that?”

Akira immediately replied.

“I understand, I’ll hire you then. Send me where to meet up and make sure that I can reach that place with my vehicle. If you don’t have any ride to go to Mihazono ruin, I’ll give you a ride.”

“I’ll take that offer then. I’ll immediately send you where to pick me up after this, later then.”

Carol’s voice sounded extremely inviting before she closed the call.

Alpha then asked Akira.

“Are you sure it’s okay to do that before asking for Elena and Sara’s permission?”

“I’m hiring Carol myself, so I’m sure that it’ll be okay. But well, if Elena-san and Sara-san are angry because of that, I’ll just keep my distance away from them while making sure that I can immediately meet up with them when they ask me to.”

Alpha was wondering if that was even the problem, but she decided not to pursue that question. After all, if this hurts Akira’s relationship with Sara and Elena, then it was a rather good turn of event for her.

“I see, well, it doesn’t really matter. By the way, Carol has sent you the meet-up place. I’ll take the wheel until we reach that place.”

Akira then headed to their meeting place.