Chapter 155: The Ability to Persuade (1/2)

Kadol was lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood in the middle of the slum city, he was dying. His wound was fatal, there was no way to save his life. The other three who were Shijima’s men were already dead.

“…Why… I always… Got involved… With these… Strong brats…”

If he had not met Akira that day, he might have not been in this situation right now. He replayed the flashbacks of everything that happened that had led him to this ending. His expression was filled with grudge and frustration as he breathed his last breath.

Katsuya’s group had an overwhelming victory. None in his group was wounded. After the shooting stopped, the area was so silent that it was even felt strange. Everyone in the area had run away far enough that their scream and curses did not reach that place, either that or they also got killed during that shootout.

Both Katsuya and Yumina, who still had some reservations against killing other people, had a pained look on their faces. Alna was cowering on the ground and shaking in fear. While Airi’s expression was as flat as usual as she calmly scanned her surroundings.

“Katsuya, I can’t confirm what happened to the boy who shot those shots from the alley. Is it better if we go and check on him too?”

“N-no…”

“In that case, we should leave this place as soon as possible, we caused too much ruckus in this area.”

“Y-You’re right, let’s go.”

“We should hurry up, it might be a good idea to never come to this place again.”

Airi readied her rifle and made sure that the area was safe as if she was escorting an important person. When Katsuya and Yumina extended their hands towards Alna to help her get up, she suddenly jumped and hugged Katsuya.

“Alna, can you walk?”

Alna did not say anything back, she kept clinging on Katsuya and just nodded. Katsuya started to walk while Alna was still clinging on him. Yumina and Airi frowned, they looked slightly jealous when they saw that, but they kept watching their surroundings while having a conflicted expression plastered on their faces.

Tiol was swaying left and right as he walked through the alley. He was badly wounded and bleeding pretty badly. The blood dripping from his wound painted a red line on the ground. It was by pure luck that he did not get killed when Airi shot back at him. He was barely able to get out from that place alive thanks to the armour that he was using and the fact that he immediately ran away after he made that shot. And to top it off, Airi was only spreading bullets randomly without aiming exactly at him.

Tiol kept on walking through the alley with his fading consciousness, but it did not take long for him to hit his limit as he collapsed into the ground. He did not have the power to push himself back up. Both his consciousness and his life were fading away. In the middle of the terror that he felt from the approaching death due to the bleeding, he could see through his blurry vision someone walking toward him. He then heard a man’s voice.

“Hm? If I’m not mistaken, you’re from Sheryl’s gang, right?”

Tiol squeezed out his voice to beg for help.

“H-help me!”

Tiol knew that man was Yatsubayashi.

“Ahhh, If I’m not mistaken, you’re that boy, right? The one who took those attackers into Sheryl’s base? The guys that I treated were complaining about you. I don’t know what happened to you, but you’re not looking good at all there.”

“H-help!”

“I don’t mind fixing you, but just how much do you think that would take? Can you really pay for it? Or is it that Sheryl will pay for it?”

“H-He-“

“That doesn’t sound like a yes.”

Tiol was filled with hopelessness. Looking at that, Yatsubayashi lightly smiled and amusedly asked him a question.

“In this case, since you can’t pay for the treatment fee, it won’t be a treatment, but an experiment. I won’t force you to take it though?”

“I-I’ll t-take it.”

Tiol was barely able to squeeze out his answer and immediately fainted after that. Yatsubayashi did not panic at all, he lightly smiled and said.

“We have a deal then.”

Yatsubayashi took out a syringe from within his pocket and injected its content into Tiol’s neck. The syringe was filled with a glowing green liquid and that liquid was injected into Tiol’s body.

“Don’t worry. I can still save your life. We’re both lucky here, don’t you think so?”

Yatsubayashi was indeed lucky to find Tiol in that situation, but that might not exactly be the case for Tiol, or at least, it was still unclear if he was really lucky or not for meeting Yatsubayashi there.

***

Sheryl was giving Akira a short report from what he asked her to do. The reason why she was being nervous was because of the contents of the report. It was about Alna and it seemed to be immensely annoying Akira. And to top it off, it was a bad news.

Sheryl was not able to find Alna, and according to Viola’s report, a fight had happened over Alna that resulted in some dead bodies. Sheryl was giving her report in fear.

“…So then, we don’t know where that Alna went.”

“I see.”

Akira’s mood was a bit worse than usual. In reality, it was not because he was angry at Sheryl and her gang. But that was enough for Sheryl to think that Akira was disappointed since she was not able to give any good news.

“I’m really sorry for not being able to be of any help.”

“Don’t worry about that. Like I said before, that girl has a strong Hunter backing her. It’s dangerous, so you guys can stop looking for her. In the worst-case scenario, that Hunter might get his eyes on you guys after all. In the first place, I wasn’t expecting you to do anything about those Hunters.”

“…I understand.”

There was a fight over Alna, getting Sheryl and her gang involved in this matter might be dangerous. As Akira thought so, he said that in consideration for Sheryl’s gang.

But Sheryl interpreted Akira’s words as if he was saying that he did expect right from the start that Sheryl’s gang would not be able to be any of use.

“We’ll do our best to be useful to you next time.”

Akira smiled wryly.

“Next time, huh. Honestly speaking, I don’t want to get my wallet picked again though.”

Akira interpreted Sheryl’s words in a bad meaning and went on to admonish himself, Sheryl’s face went pale as she flusteredly said.

“I-I’m really sorry, that wasn’t what I meant…”

“Hm? Ahh, it’s just that I interpreted that in the wrong way. Sorry, I’ll be relying on you again if something comes up.”

“Y-Yes.”

Akira realized that his mood was worse than he had thought. He then took some deep breaths and told himself that it was his own mistake and that he should not cause more trouble than he should as he forced himself to calm down.

A notice suddenly reached Akira’s information terminal. When he checked its content, his mood immediately brightened.

“Sheryl, I have something to do, so I’ll take my leave for today. Just call me if anything comes up.”

“Okay… Uhmmm, is it okay to ask what is this something that you need to do?”

Sheryl tried to act casual when she asked that question, but since it was able to fix Akira’s mood in one go, her curiosity and insecurity were leaking out.

Akira did not notice Sheryl was looking at him as if she was clinging to him, he just lightly replied to her.

“My orders just arrived, so I’m just going to pick them up.”

He then took a short pause before he said apologetically.

“Ahh, by the way, I’m sorry, I might not be able to come here that often after this. I need to return back to my Hunter job after all.”

“…I see, that’s really unfortunate, but it can’t be helped. I would be really happy if you can come when you’re free.”

“Well, compared to before, I might come here more often though.”

Sheryl forced herself to smile while Akira just casually said so. The difference in their feeling toward each other was in full view there.

Sheryl accompanied Akira all the way to the base’s entrance before returning back to her private room. Now that she’s alone in her room, she looked slightly desperate and sad at the same time, but then she shook her head and said to herself.

“…No, letting myself get depressed won’t fix my situation. I need to calm down and think about my next plan. I don’t want Akira to abandon me after all, right?”

Sheryl was able to get a peek at Akira’s cliques not too long ago, and because of that, she lost her calm. Akira was acquainted with many girls, and most of those girls were beautiful. So Sheryl could not help but to get suspicious.

Carol’s attire and attitude were both tailored to seduce the opposite sex. And it seemed that Akira enjoyed talking to her. Then she also heard from Erio and the other children that Akira was visited by some high-class-looking girls in the middle of their training. The two maids and the girl who visited Akira seemed to be more than just acquaintances.

And the person that cheered Akira up in one go was probably also a girl. She remembered that Wataba said something right before Akira shot him dead and it was supposed to be about a girl who worked in a weapon shop.

Unfortunately enough, Akira’s interest in the opposite sex was extremely low, or at least that was what Sheryl had always thought. But thanks to that, she also thought that she could take her time to build up trust. But the girls that kept appearing next to Akira erased that thought.

Sheryl started to think that it might be simply because she did not have enough charm. Her men would be surprised if they heard that, but she started to doubt herself there.

Sheryl tried to keep her calm while thinking of what to do from here and on, unfortunately, she could not come up with any good idea. Right when she was stuck in her thought, someone suddenly knocked on the door. It somehow immensely irritated her as she shouted at the door.

“Didn’t I tell you to save it for later unless it’s something important?!”

Erio who was on the other side of the door flinched.

“Someone by the name of Colbert came, he said it’s something about that pickpocket, should I tell him to leave?”

Sheryl calmly took a deep breath. Although Akira told her that it was okay not to get involved any longer, it was not something that she could just ignore.

“…Take him to the guest room, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“O-Okay.”

Sheryl realized just how much she had lost her calm listening to Erio who stepped away quickly. She then brought her hand to her chest and took a few deep breaths to calm down.

Colbert and Sheryl were sitting facing each other in the guest room. Sheryl had Erio and Alicia behind her while some of her men were also standing by in the room.

Erio and the other children seemed nervous. It was not only because Sheryl seemed to be in a bad mood earlier, even Colbert also seemed to be in a bad mood too.

Sheryl looked suspiciously at Colbert and said.

“I heard that it’s about that pickpocket, so, why exactly did you come to this place?”

“Actually, the one who has some business with you is not me.”

“What do you mean by that…?”

Colbert took out his information terminal and put it in front of confused Sheryl. Viola’s voice then came out from that information terminal.

“It’s me, I’m sorry that I have to speak with you like this.”

Sheryl did not have a good impression of Viola, so she frowned when she heard Viola’s voice.

“…Shouldn’t you be able to give me a call or something?”

“That’s because I’m a rather paranoid person. It’s because of my job, you see. And it would be stupid to demand you to have a special secure line just for my sake. So then, it’s actually an important subject though, if there are people around you whom you don’t want to listen to this conversation, can you tell them to leave the room first?”

“It depends on what are we going to talk about.”

“It would be too late if I tell you now. I hope you can understand how much trouble this subject is from the fact that I’m speaking to you like this.”

Sheryl thought for a bit before she sent a glance to the other children in the room, signalling them to leave. Colbert who saw the other people leaving the place then said to Viola.

“Viola, I’ll leave too.”

“Oh? I’m okay with you listening though.”

“You didn’t say don’t leave either.”

Colbert stood up and was about to leave following the other people in the room, but before he left, he warned Sheryl.

“Be careful, that girl is one crafty witch. She can casually bring up something herself just to make her negotiation opponent refuse it, and that’s also true for the opposite case.”

“Oh my, that’s pretty cruel of you considering that you’re working for me.”

“I don’t want to be responsible for tricking Akira’s lover without even realizing it. I have nothing to do with this, okay?”

Colbert then left the room after he said that to both Viola and Sheryl.

Sheryl looked intensely at the information terminal and carefully said.

“So then, what is it?”

“To put it short, it’s about to reconcile with you. In order to do that, I have a good news for you.”

“For me?”

“Yup. I was originally planning to capture that pickpocket and bring her to Akira to make up for my mistake, you see. But unfortunately, it ended up in a failure. And since I can’t think of anything that I can offer to Akira, I thought that at least I can do something for his lover. It’s also my way of apologizing to Akira, so there’s no need to worry. I won’t do anything funny since it’ll only worsen Akira’s mood.”

That was enough of a reason for Sheryl to accept that explanation which also caused her to lower her guard.

“Very well, let’s hear it.”