Chapter 119: Togami’s Resolve (1/2)

Elena and her team went to the city district of the Mihazono ruin again. Akira was driving his vehicle while looking at his surroundings, the area was cleaner than yesterday. Most of the wreckages from yesterday had been cleaned up, or at least, moved to the side of the road.

Akira found that a bit strange as he mumbled.

“The road is already cleaned, but who exactly did that?”

Carol answered his question.

“It might be the squad sent by the Hunter Office to secure the city district of the Mihazono ruin. I bet they cleaned the road for carrying supplies to the frontline.”

“Ahh, now that you mention it, they’re doing something like that, huh. If they finally completely secure the city district, I wonder if the SOS emergency request would stop coming.”

“It depends on how far they secure the city district. Although it’s only my guess, I think that squad would withdraw after they clean up some monsters in the inner area of the city district. I believe they’ll just clean up the monsters in the inner area that disrupt the Hunter Office from maintaining its branch and then they’ll just check to make sure that no monsters are wandering into the wasteland before withdrawing, I’m pretty sure they won’t do anything more than that.”

“Is it okay if I ask you why do you think so?”

“Let’s see. It’s just simply because Mihazono ruin is too big of a ruin for the Corporate Government to completely secure and control, not to mention the area around it. After all, it’s not an easy thing to keep their guard up all the time against the monsters that keep coming from unknown locations inside the ruin. But well, I’m sure it’s possible for the Corporate Government to do that if they get serious, but I don’t think the profit that they can get from doing so is worth the expense. Basically, they would have done that if it might bring them a lot of profit. As a matter of fact, they had done that in the past, the Corporate Government created Kugamayama city in order to secure Kuzusuhara ruin.”

Carol continued.

“And even if some monsters from the Mihazono ruin wander into the wasteland, they’re highly unlikely to cause any fatal troubles to the nearby cities, so I’m sure they just ignore it too. And even if they do, the cities would also dispatch their defense squad here. Whichever the case, I’m sure that the current squad will pull back after confirming the situation around the ruin.”

As far as Akira could remember, the monsters had attacked Kugamayama city 3 times, he had no idea if those attacks happened because someone made a miscalculation or something. Although the inner wall was not damaged at all, those attacks did some damage to the lower district, especially to the slum city, but that might as well because it was designed to be so.

Akira listened closely to Carol’s explanation.

Carol’s explanation was actually the result of her analyzing the huge amount of information that she had gathered. Akira did not have that information, he did not even have the ability to obtain them, while Carol had both.

Akira who noticed that felt a bit of admiration toward Carol, and Carol noticed that thanks to her sharp senses toward such things.

As Akira showed amazement and interest in a piece of information that any veteran Hunters would know. It showed just how he was lacking in the basic knowledge of being a Hunter, and judging from his impressive fighting ability, that was a really strange thing. It was one of the downsides from quickly attaining power due to relying on Alpha’s support.

Carol then thought.

[Akira is, strangely enough, clueless about the basic common knowledge for Hunters given that he’s so powerful. I’m honestly curious why that is, but let’s put that aside for later, as for now…]

Carol pretended to smile innocently at Akira.

“Akira, you’re that kind of Hunter who doesn’t do much research about being a Hunter, right? Like the popular ruins at the moment, or what kind of relics that you can sell for more money at the moment, or what kinds of equipment are famous right now, or what the other Hunters are doing, right?”

“…Well, that’s true.”

If he had to make an excuse, Akira could say that it had not even been that long since he learned how to write his own name. So forget basic common knowledge for Hunters, he was not in a situation where he could learn basic common knowledge for the people who live in the eastern district. Honestly speaking, Akira was interested in that kind of thing too, but since he spent most of his days training and studying, he had no time to gather such information.

“In that case then, I can help you learn about them. After all, it’s better if you know about those kinds of things to some degree.”

But Akira replied with a rather twisted answer.

“I’m already paying you 10,000,000 Aurum now. I have no plans to pay you more, you know.”

Carol smiled bitterly and said.

“I won’t ask you any money for sharing such kind of basic knowledge with you. I’m just thinking of casually telling you like for a subject in a casual talk.”

“…In that case then, it’ll be great if you can tell me about some.”

Although Akira hesitated for a bit, he decided to take that offer since he was indeed interested in it too.

“Got it. First of all, well, let’s see, since we’re in Mihazono ruin, let’s start with the basic knowledge about Mihazono ruin.”

Carol then started explaining about Mihazono ruin in a good mood.

Akira listened closely to Carol’s explanation. Carol thought that it was a good chance for her to gather approval points from Akira as she continued her explanation with a smile on her face.

Carol felt conflicted since Akira seemed to react to this far better compared to when she tried to seduce him with her beautiful body that she took pride in. But she decided to put that aside for now and continue to bring in subjects that might grab Akira’s interest.

Togami was sitting on the long bench inside Shikarabe’s APC. Inside that APC with a faint smell of blood and corpse, he was seriously working on his information terminal.

Togami was carrying powerful equipment. Although all of them were borrowed from Drankam, they could easily cost more than 100,000,000 Aurum if he had to buy them himself. Even among the equipment lent to the young Hunters of the Drankam, his rifle, augmented suit, information-gathering device, and even the ammo and the medicines that he was carrying were all high quality. Even Katsuya, who had the support of one of the high officers in Drankam, Mizuha, did not get that level of equipment.

Togami was recognized as one of the Hunters that successfully hunted a bounty monster with a small team headed by Shikarabe. Although some of the high officers inside Drankam knew the truth behind it, as long as Togami was recognized as such outside, they had to give proper rewards to him. As such, Togami was allowed to borrow powerful equipment.

If it was the past Togami, he would have been delighted knowing that Drankam finally recognized his skill, or he might even lash back complaining that it took too long for Drankam to finally notice his skill.

The past Togami believed that the people around him were underestimating him. The basis of that evaluation was the handful of Hunters among the young Hunters in the gang who were considered to be strong. As a matter of fact, he still thought so even now, that was why he was the rising star of the anti-Katsuya faction. That belief caused him to tend to overestimate himself, both for the better and for the worse.

But that confidence was crushed during the bounty monster hunt. So much to the point that he was suspicious if the high officers in Drankam allowed him to borrow powerful equipment just to spite him.

Since Togami finished that bounty monster hunt, he had been thinking if his pride up until now were nothing but empty. He had been thinking about it without being able to share it with anyone as he thought that all of his amazing achievements up until now as well as his pathetic performance during the battle against the Tank Tarantula were not because of his own skill.

After thinking about it for so long, he finally decided to wait for a chance to confirm his real skill. So, his next question was what kind of chance he could use to do so.

Even if he tried to work together with another young Hunter outside Drankam, he could not exactly use that to confirm his skill. It was because he could not take off his mind from Shikarabe’s words when Shikarabe told him that he was just a fool who misunderstood his real skill just because he had a high Hunter Rank.

After some time, Togami regained his composure and realized that Shikarabe’s words were actually referring to the people who got ahead of themselves, and not particularly referring to him. But even after he realized that, that was not enough to get his mind off it. It showed that he actually agreed with what Shikarabe said, albeit only to some degree.

After spending a lot of time thinking about it, Togami eventually came to a conclusion. If he could once again get in the same team with Shikarabe and perform as well as him, and produced results as good as him, it might help Togami reconfirm his own skill one more time.

Togami was originally scheduled to join the squad dispatched by Drankam to Mihazono ruin. But due to his request, he was suddenly transferred to Shikarabe’s team. After all, he was recognized in public as one of the 4 Hunters who defeated the Tank Tarantula, thus Drankam at least allowed him to do that much.

So, in order to once again reconfirm his own real skill, Togami made his resolve and joined Elena’s team. Togami then mumbled as if he was saying to himself.

“I’ll once again reconfirm my skill in this request, I don’t care if it turns out that I’m just a weakling who got ahead of myself. I just have to train even more. After all, I don’t want to stay as a weakling forever.”

Togami renewed his resolve there.

Togami then thought about the members of the team. It was Shikarabe, himself, Akira, Elena, Sara, and Carol, six people in total. After he thought about each person in the team, he then frowned.

[It’s a good thing that I got to meet Akira again, this is a good chance to look at his skill… But that Hunter with an augmented suit that basically invites men… Akira brought her to the team, right? What exactly is going on?]

Togami was surprised when he saw Akira was there too, but he was more surprised when he saw Carol next to Akira. Togami was moderately used to girls for someone of his age, but even for him, Carol’s augmented suit had a design that highlighted the beautiful figure wrapped under it. It was a rather provocative design for men around Togami’s age.

[Even that Katsuya, who everyone calls the leader of the harem squad won’t make the girls wear that kind of attire, right…? Does Akira have that kind of fetish or something?]

People used to say that great people had a particular fondness for pleasure, whether it was Katsuya or Akira, it was still unclear whether that was the case for great Hunters too. Togami groaned thinking that he saw a completely unexpected side of the person that shook his confidence.

Elena’s team moved deeper and deeper into Mihazono ruin city district. Right about the time Togami started making slanderous guesses about Akira behind his back, they encountered a group of people, it was the squad that the Hunter Office dispatched to secure Mihazono ruin city district.

Long sharp objects were installed on the side of the road, from there, a thin metallic wire-like object extended out. It was a simple force field armour wall. They were basically easy-to-carry pillars that had strong enough power to bounce back regular-sized warheads and cannons, it was common defensive equipment usually used for temporary bases built in the middle of the wasteland or inside a ruin.

There were heavily-armed people complete with tanks equipped with huge machine guns standing guard near that simple force field wall. They had enough power to make a quick work of a swarm of mechanical monsters.

Elena stopped her vehicle and negotiated with one of the soldiers guarding the wall. That person then told his men to temporarily lower the force field wall. With the narrow metallic object blocking the road removed, Elena could pass through the road again.

That person then warned Elena.

“Be careful out there. We just got attacked by a huge monster just now, and the smaller monsters also keep popping up from time to time. Since you took that SOS emergency request, I’m sure you’re a skilled Hunter, but if you think that this is the same Mihazono ruin as before, you’ll only get yourself killed.”

That person pointed in the direction where Elena and her team were heading when he said that. In the direction that he was pointing, there was a wreckage of a huge dead mechanical monster, empty warheads and missile pods could be seen scattered around that wreckage. It must have been a pretty powerful monster.

“Thanks, we’ll be careful.”

Elena said her thanks to that person as she restarted her vehicle and stepped on the gas. Shikarabe and Akira followed behind her. After Akira passed over the force field wall, it immediately erected back up.

Akira looked around his surroundings while driving his vehicle after passing through the force field wall. The area around him was filled with rubbles, wreckages, and dead monsters. The situation inside and outside the force field wall differed greatly.

Akira scanned his surroundings and said.

“There are obviously more monsters than yesterday. Is it because they’re pushed out from the inner wall so the area outside becomes more dangerous?”

Carol, who was sitting next to Akira answered that question while also scanning around her surroundings.

“Well, with all of these monsters dead, the outside area might have become relatively safe though?”

“Maybe. If the monsters get more reinforcement, the same number as the dead here, safety would be a pipe dream. After all, it would come as no surprise if the factories produce as many new monsters to replace all of these dead monsters, you know?”

“I did hear that the cleaning drones of the old-world ruin gather the remnants of the dead monsters when no one is looking and then they use the material gathered to create new monsters. But since these wreckages are still here, it means that they can’t use them for material to create new monsters, right? So, I don’t think it’s that easy for them to produce replacement monsters.”

“There might be a warehouse somewhere filled with mechanical monsters, right? In that case, there’s no need to retrieve the dead monsters just to create new monsters. Furthermore, Mihazono ruin has a factory district, right? It won’t be strange if there’s a warehouse filled with monsters over there.”

Carol always gave a more optimistic guess while Akira always gave a pessimistic guess. She found that really weird as she looked in Akira’s direction. Akira who noticed Carol’s gaze then asked.

“…What?”

“Akira, for someone who always takes the worst-case scenario in mind to the point that I can easily call you paranoid, it’s strange that you tend to act without proper planning. Not only did you come to Mihazono ruin without first contacting Elena and Sara where to meet up, back there when we were chased by monsters inside the Seranthal building, you decided to go alone without any plans too. If you’re really that careful, you should think before you act.”

After Carol pointed that out, Akira was lost for words.

The reason why Akira was being paranoid was simply because he knew that he had bad luck, or at least, he thought he had bad luck.

He got unlucky and got attacked by former Hunters that had fallen off grace, he got unlucky and got roped into facing a swarm of monsters, there was also a time when he had to fight powerful relic thieves. In the first place, if he had good luck, he would not be living in the slums of Kugamayama city.

In reality, Akira was actually not as unlucky as he thought he was. After all, if he was really that unlucky, he would not have met Alpha and received that sudden power boost in the first place, which was in itself a very lucky encounter.

Moreover, he would not have visited Shizuka’s shop where Shizuka was so nice to help him with a lot of things. He would not have met Elena and Sara in Kuzusuhara ruin, where both of them later saved him from a swarm of monsters. All of them were lucky events, so it was not like Akira always got nothing but unlucky events.

Strictly speaking, Akira simply had a twisted personality, or he might have put too much trust in Alpha’s words when she said that he had used all of his lifetime worth of luck by meeting her.

While on the other hand, Akira also was not as reckless as Carol thought he was. Or at least, Akira thought so of himself. Due to the complicated order of priority that he abided by, he thought that it must be simply because he looked reckless from Carol’s point of view.

But with that being said, Akira could not tell Carol the reason behind his order of priorities since it included information about Alpha as well as Elena and Sara. So instead, he tried to evade that subject.

“Well, it’s not that simple for me too. Moreover, it’s a good thing to be careful when exploring a ruin, right?”

It was easy for Carol to notice that Akira was trying to evade the subject, and she also noticed that there was something that he was not willing to share. But she thought that trying to poke for that information would only worsen her relationship with Akira, that was why she tried to follow along with his intention to just let it slide.

“That’s true. But, it’ll be bad if you get too careful and because of that you get to meet monsters when your concentration is significantly lowered, so it’s not good to be too careful. Well, that’s all I want to say.”

“Ahh, I see, got it then. Don’t worry.”

Akira agreed with what Carol said and nodded. He looked relieved, it might be because he was able to successfully evade the subject that he did not want to talk about.

Carol was staring at Akira’s face and thought.

[…Although he had that incident in Seranthal building just the other day, I wonder why he would even come to Mihazono ruin again to meet up with Elena and Sara. Is it simply because they are his friends? Or is it that Akira actually has some feeling for them? Or one of them is actually Akira’s lover or something? But if that’s the case… ]

Carol mumbled.

“…If it’s something that they keep secret, then there’s no need for me to hold back.”

“Did you say something?”