Chapter 144: Uninvited Visitors (1/2)

Sheryl stood in the middle of the main room where she was selling relics with a puzzled face. Akira had already positioned himself by hiding behind the white sheet hanging from the ceiling. They were ready for the customer and it did not take long for those customers to arrive there.

The problem was the report that Tiol, who brought the customers there, gave. Sheryl frowned and said to Tiol.

“8 people? Wasn’t it supposed to be only 4?”

Tiol flinched from Sheryl’s gaze alone, but he managed to give her an explanation.

“There were only 4 people when they visited the stand. But when I was guiding them here, they met up with another 4 people, they said that those people were their friends. They then seemed to get rather excited and the other 4 asked to come along too, it was hard to refuse them and they seem to carry quite a lot of money, so I ended up bringing them all the way to the back alley… If you want to send them home, please ask Akira to do so. All of them are armed so I’m sure they won’t listen to me.”

Sheryl made a grim face while thinking of her available choices. Tiol was bedazzled by Sheryl, the dress that Sheryl was wearing to welcome the customer was beautiful enough to bedazzle him.

There was not that many occasion where Sheryl put on that dress. So being able to see her in that form was one of the special perks that Tiol received from his duty.

But Tiol killed his desire to strike a conversation with Sheryl. The reason she was able to have that wonderful high-class dress as well as the reason she maintained her beautiful hair and skin was none other than his love rival, Akira.

[…To be honest, even if I can become Sheryl’s lover, I don’t think I can give her that level of luxury… After all, she got that dress from Akira, and even if she breaks up with him, I’m pretty sure the whole gang will be disbanded. Since she’s this beautiful, I’m sure there are a lot of people out there aiming for her too. I bet one day, a leader from a big gang would get his eyes on her and force her to be his lover or something. Once that happens, I bet I won’t get that many chances to meet her anymore.]

At the moment, Tiol had zero chance to win Sheryl’s heart. But that might not be the case in the future. If the gang grew bigger and bigger to the point that it was big enough to maintain itself without any support, then, the power relationship between Akira and Sheryl might get reversed.

Then, if something happened at that point, for example, let’s say Akira fell in love with another girl which caused his relationship with Sheryl to sour, they might break up and Tiol thought Sheryl might start getting interested in another man.

[…For now, I have no other choice but to help the gang to grow big enough so that we won’t need Akira’s help anymore. And if Akira’s relationship with Sheryl gets worse after that, then I should be able to get my chance. And if I help to develop the gang, Sheryl might start to like me… Although, I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks so.]

Tiol’s guess was correct, there were other people in the gang who thought like him. Most of them had no plans to get on Akira’s bad side just to get Sheryl, but at the same time, most of them also hoped that they would eventually get some chance.

As Tiol thought about a lot of things in his mind, Sheryl finally reached her conclusion.

“8 people is too many. Just let 4 of them in. Let the first 4 come in then once they’re done, let the last 4, who came along with them, come in after that. If they refuse to do so, then tell them that none of them is allowed to get in. If they still insist on coming in after that, Akira and I will tell them to go back ourselves.”

Even with her ability to serve multiple customers, 8 people were still too many for her and for Akira to keep his eyes on, and that’s doubly true when they were armed Hunters.

Lastly, Sheryl smiled worriedly at Tiol and said to him.

“Be careful, there’s no need to get reckless.”

“O-okay, I understand.”

Tiol blushed and smiled, he felt relieved. Sheryl’s mood was considerably worsened when he questioned her relationship with Akira the other day, but judging from that exchange just now, it seemed that it’s alright now. Tiol seemed a bit happy as he left that room.

Sheryl smiled coldly and whispered.

“…He’s so easy.”

Sheryl thought if Akira caught her with that expression, there was no doubt that Akira would come to hate her. So she quickly returned her usual warm smile to her face.

Not too long after that, 4 people entered the room. Sheryl smiled in relief, it seemed that it did not turn into a fight. She then started serving the customers with her usual friendly smile. It was possible to extract someone else’s personality and preference from their attire, equipment, gaze, and expression. Then, that information could be used to adapt on how to approach them.

Those 4 people were scanning the relics lining inside that room, all of them were so well armed that they could go out to the wasteland anytime. They were also carrying bags most of which were empty.

Sheryl felt something was wrong with those guys, but she decided to shelve that for now.

Those men were browsing the relics displayed in that room, but somehow, they did not seem that interested. One of them kept checking the exits and doors in that room, and another one seemed to be keeping his eyes on the sheets hanging from the ceiling.

Then Sheryl could feel from their expression a slight nervousness, it was like a calm before the storm. Something was going to happen, something really really bad. But she tried her best not to let that out in her face.

One of them walked to Sheryl with a big smile.

Sheryl had her usual graceful smile as she welcomed them.

“Welcome to our shop.”

The smile of the man who was walking toward Sheryl grew bigger, it was not because she was smiling at him, it was because his plan was going really well.

Alpha suddenly gave Akira an instruction.

“Akira, get ready for a fight.”

Although Akira was a bit surprised by that sudden order, he quickly swapped to battle state. At the same time, the man who was walking toward Sheryl slightly lowered his guard, Sheryl trusted her calculation and immediately started running toward Akira’s direction as fast as she could and dashed through the white sheets hanging from the ceiling.

That man was shocked and could not react for a while, but he immediately got a grip of himself, aimed his rifle with a grim face, and spread bullets haphazardly towards Sheryl’s direction without showing any hesitation.

Bullets pierced right through the first sheet, but lost most of its momentum and could not penetrate the second sheet. The accumulated momentum tore the sheet from the ceiling, it danced gracefully, pulled down by the gravity, bullets that had lost their momentum fell down and rolled over on the ground.

That man twitched and shouted.

“Anti-bullet sheet!? They’re not just simple interior sheets!?”

Originally, they were planning to take Sheryl hostage and take their time robbing the relics. But he was caught off guard and Sheryl was able to run away from him, which meant that Sheryl was able to quickly guess why they were here. So he immediately changed their plan from capturing Sheryl to killing her.

“Get the relics!! Tell the guys outside to meet up with us!!”

That guy shouted and gave an order to his men.

Akira caught Sheryl who dashed right to his direction with his right hand and hugged her close, he raised the CWH anti-material rifle on his left hand and pulled the trigger. There was no need to hit his target, his main aim was only to let them know that he was there. After that, he immediately brought Sheryl further into a door that was leading outside. It was an emergency exit prepared beforehand and the sheets were there to hide that emergency exit.

The man heard the gunshot coming from behind the sheet and turned in that direction in response. The anti-bullet sheet deflected the bullet from its original track and landed away from the man.

“As I thought, they have escorts hiding behind the sheets!!”

That man kicked a display covered by the anti-bullet sheet down and hid behind it to make sure that he would not get hit by the enemy’s bullets.

“The escort is behind the sheets!! Make sure to equip your defensive suits!!”

While he said that, that man pulled out a full-face helmet from his bag and put it on. They did not put that helmet at first so that Sheryl and his men lowered their guard, but now their situation had changed and they had to put them on.

Akira ran quickly while still carrying Sheryl, he was able to do that thanks to the augmented strength from his augmented suit. He made sure to run as fast as possible while not injuring Sheryl. Once he arrived in front of the door, he quickly opened it, pushed Sheryl out, and immediately shut the door.

Sheryl was dumbfounded when the door in front of her was closed with such force, she thought that Akira would run away together with her. Although she stood frozen for a few seconds, she immediately returned back to herself and started to move. The rest of the gang still did not know what just happened.

A gunshot echoed through the base, most of the gang members stopped what they were doing the moment they heard that gunshot. Sheryl shouted as hard as she could.

“It’s a shoot-out!!!”

With Akira protecting the gang, they thought that no one would dare to attack the base, but that day, their assumption was proven wrong.

At first, Akira evacuated Sheryl to a safe place, out from that room and away from the 4 men shooting from inside the room. With this, Sheryl’s safety was pretty much guaranteed, so he quickly moved to his next order of business, shooting back at those 4 men.

Akira lightly frowned.

“But still, I always thought that I’ll eventually open up a shop in the slum city big enough to warrant some robbers, but this is way faster than I thought.”

Alpha smiled and replied.

“You’re just unlucky.”

“I can’t agree more, as I thought, I already ran out of luck, huh?”

“But since they attacked when you’re here, I guess it means that Sheryl is really lucky. Thanks to that, she didn’t get killed this time.”

Akira smiled wryly.

“That might be true, Sheryl has good luck after all.”

“Yup, then let’s try to take advantage of that luck and clean up this mess as soon as possible.”

“You’re right, let’s do that.”

Akira had no idea if it was him being unlucky, or it was Sheryl being lucky, or maybe it was even both. In order to make sure that the people who attacked the base that day were unlucky, to push his bad luck to those people, Akira fired himself up to shoot back.

Alpha then asked Akira what he wanted to do with those people.

“So then, Akira, what’s your plan with them? The fastest solution would be to kill them. That way, there’s no need for you to hold back.”

Alpha was still smiling when she said such a heartless sentence. She did not show any hesitation in killing them, she had her usual smile while asking for Akira’s confirmation to end the life of those people.

Akira replied back with a calm expression.

“I don’t mind killing all of them, but if it’s possible, I want to paralyze them so I can ask them why they attacked us.”

“You do know that you’re being impossible, right?”