Chapter 156: Reconfirmation (1/2)

Akira returned back to his house first, hopped onto his vehicle and went to Shizuka’s shop. When he arrived, his mood had mostly returned back to normal. He went into the shop, exchanged some greetings with Shizuka, exited the shop, and then moved his vehicle next to the shop’s warehouse.

Shizuka opened the shutter and welcomed Akira.

“Once again, thank you very much for coming to my shop. Come, it’s this way.”

Shizuka guided Akira into the warehouse, they then stopped in front of a mechanical cupboard. Shizuka opened the double door on that cupboard and revealed Akira’s new augmented suit inside it. Akira could not help but to ‘oooh’ when he saw it, Shizuka smiled and said.

“It’s a TL-type, 2A model 2N Augmented suit, its seller is Neoptolemos. It’s originally not designed to work in tandem with an information-gathering device, but as you requested, I also ordered the optional accompanying information-gathering device.”

It was a thin body suit-type augmented suit, its basic colour was black. It also had a headgear-like device which doubled as a display device, while it had some protrusions on its neck, back and torso. Besides that augmented suit, there was a coat which was also made with the same metallic fabric that made the augmented suit. The coat’s size was relatively bigger than the augmented suit, it might be made with the consideration that its user would be carrying rifles and magazines under that coat.

“Its size readjustment function is also equipped with a simple automatic self-maintenance feature. Do you want to try it now?”

“Yes, please.”

Akira took off his augmented suit and his clothes down to his underwear, and just like last time, Shizuka scanned his body to take his measurements. When she did that, the augmented suit’s size automatically recalibrated according to his measurements as it started looking more and more like a human body. Akira watched on with curiosity.

“It’s automatically recalibrating itself, huh. That’s really convenient.”

“But there’s a limit on how much it can recalibrate itself though. With this, it can readjust its size with body’s changes, so I think it’s perfect for you.”

“Is that so?”

Akira seemed to be a bit confused, Shizuka smiled amusedly at him and explained.

“So, you haven’t noticed it yet, huh? Your body has changed a lot since the last time I took your measurement. You’ve grown taller and your muscle composition is getting better. I wonder if it’s because you’re in a growth spurt.”

“Well, I’ve been earning well, so I’ve started eating more without caring much about the taste. That might be the reason.”

Akira said that casually, but Shizuka understood well the hardship that he had gone through so that he could say so. Akira had casually spoken about all kinds of stuff that he had gone through in the middle of their usual daily conversations, which included all the dangers when he almost got killed. Not to mention, the stories that she heard from Elena and Sara too. From there, Shizuka could understand what he had gone through in such a short time.

Akira spoke nonchalantly and indifferently although all of those hardships he had gone through could be interpreted as a curse if he could not face them. Indeed, as long as he could face them, the fact that he could do that could be interpreted as a blessing. It was all a matter of getting used to it or not. The way Akira said it, spoke of just how far he had gone through all kinds of hardship again and again. If Shizuka had to make a guess, that must be because even before Akira had started being a Hunter, he was so used to hopelessness and the feeling of resignation to the point that he got used to facing hardship without him realizing it. As a matter of fact, her intuition was telling her that her guess was correct.

But at the same time, Shizuka also did not think that Akira should stop being a Hunter. Position-wise, feeling-wise, economy-wise, she could not take over that burden from Akira. That was why, in place of that, she could only smile gently at Akira and remind him.

“…They say that a Hunter’s main asset is his or her body. So make sure to take good care of your body, okay?”

“…? Okay.”

Akira was a bit weirded out by that strange sudden change of attitude from Shizuka, but he just frowned and nodded without knowing the reason behind it.

Akira then put on his new augmented suit with Shizuka’s help and put on the coat which also doubled as protective armour. After that, Akira was rather surprised.

“It’s lighter than I thought.”

Akira thought that the augmented suit would weigh him down like a lead armour before it was turned on, just like his previous augmented suit. But he was glad to find out that it was not true. As in matter of fact, it felt even lighter to move in compared to normal clothing. Since the suit readjusted its form to fit perfectly with his body, the weight of the augmented suit was evenly distributed on his body.

Shizuka, who saw a surprised Akira, found it amusing. She then smiled and said.

“It’s an expensive augmented suit after all. It’s made of a light and strong but expensive material, it might be so that you still can remove it yourself even after it runs out of energy. Although I was the one who offered you that augmented suit, it’s still hard to believe that you spent 350 million Aurum for an augmented suit.”

This also meant that Akira had used most of his 400 million Aurum budget to buy goods from her shop. Of course, Shizuka took a part of that as her service fee, but it was nowhere near the profit that the shop which originally sold that augmented suit could get. Shizuka wished that Akira would spend that much money for buying stuff in her shop one day, she could not help but smile bitterly when she thought so.

Akira saw that bitter smile and panicked.

“Ahhh, I’m really sorry. I was really at a loss on what to buy, and after thinking about what is the best thing to buy to increase my overall fighting power, I concluded that an augmented suit is the best choice… S-so please wait until the next time I get a lot of money.”

Getting a better augmented suit was the most effective method to increase the effectiveness of Alpha’s support. After all, Akira did not want to get his bone broken every time he fought. So he decided to prioritize on increasing the basic strength of his body instead of his firepower and ended up investing most of his budget on an augmented suit.

Seeing Akira, Shizuka just smiled and said.

“Don’t worry about it. Like I said, a Hunter’s main asset is their body. Since it’s a rather expensive augmented suit, it is to be expected, it’s a high-quality augmented suit. It should be able to greatly reduce the burden on your body from the kickback from using powerful guns. Moreover, from my point of view, I think you’re someone who would do reckless things without realizing it. So if you spend your money on firepower, you’ll get more and more used to fighting more powerful monsters and I feel like you’ll be doing more reckless things at that point. That augmented suit is designed to put more focus on reducing the burden and protecting its user, it should be able to reduce the number of occasions when you have to act recklessly. I’m sure it’ll reduce your medicine consumption too.”

Shizuka said so with a smug smile, seeing that, Akira flusteredly smiled back. To be honest, it was not like he did reckless stuff because he wanted to, but he could not think of any good excuses to give to Shizuka either.

Akira put his old augmented suit in a box and left it inside the warehouse to be sent for repair. As for how much it would cost, Shizuka said to him that no one could tell until he sent that augmented suit for repair first.

Akira was thinking of keeping his old augmented suit as a spare if the repair did not cost that much. But if buying a new one was cheaper, he was planning to give it away to Sheryl. Even if he only repaired the outlook, it should be enough to give off an extra intimidating look. On the other hand, it could also be completely turned into an information-gathering device too. So, it should still have some uses.

As Akira was moving the metallic mechanical cupboard into his vehicle, Shizuka was gathering rifle modification parts into a cart. Akira decided to buy some modification parts with the rest of the budget that was left after paying for his new augmented suit. He might be able to buy new rifles, but since there was a limit on how many rifles he could carry, it would mean that he had to stop carrying one or more of his current rifles. So instead, he decided to buy modification parts to upgrade the rifles he already had.

Akira was deep in thought looking at the modification parts lined up in front of him. Not too far from him, Shizuka was still lining the rest of the modification parts that she brought there, she then warned Akira.

“Don’t worry, you can take your time deciding. You can even try them too, but remember that if you open any sealed goods, you’ll have to pay for them. Although the parts that are not sealed are second-hand goods, they should be working just fine since I’ve checked them myself beforehand. And be careful, Some parts are designed to be used on rifles with certain built-in functions, so they might need some extra parts if you want to install them.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“I’ll return back to the shop. If you need anything, just call me. Well then, take your time.”

Shizuka then returned to the shop, Akira started to analyze the modification parts scattered in front of him.

“Well, which one should I pick? Most of them are pretty pricey, I feel like I’ll go over the budget if I don’t choose carefully”

“Let’s upgrade your AAH and A2D assault rifles with the assumption that you would use them without an augmented suit. And if you still have some money left, let’s use it to buy parts to upgrade your augmented suit. I already have a plan on what kind of upgrade to do, the rest depends on your preference and how much you want to spend.”

“There are just too many types of parts, you know. Though, it’s better than having too few options.”

“This is also a training, so you can take your time.”

Akira was humming while looking seriously at the various parts in front of him, next to him, Alpha was smiling just like usual.

—*—*—*—

In her office, Mizuha was at loss on what to do. The reason why she was so troubled was because of Katsuya’s request, he asked Mizuha to provide protection for Alna.

At first, she heard that Katsuya was simply trying to save a girl who was falsely accused of pickpocketing. Up to that point, Katsuya was only being nice and everything, and it was fine. But now she came to know that the Hunter, whom that girl stole from, was looking for her and trying to kill her, then there was also a fight against an unknown organization that was also looking for that girl to the point that some people got killed. Now that it had come to this, it was no longer that simple anymore.

Mizuha then asked an acquaintance of hers to gather more information just to be safe. And from there, she knew that Alna was indeed a pickpocket, the Hunter that was looking for her was someone who even participated in hunting a bounty monster, and it was true that a certain organization was trying to capture her.

Normally, Mizuha would have refused to give that kind of protection to someone of Alna’s status. There was no need to even think about it. But since it was a request from Katsuya, it could not be helped. She could not afford to sour her relationship with the person that was allowing her to maintain her influence and power.

At the moment, Mizuha hid Alna in one of the camping cars parked in one of the parking lots owned by Drankam that were scattered in various places in the wasteland. It was at least able to satisfy Katsuya for now and bought her some time. With Alna staying inside one of Drankam’s facilities, outsiders would not be able to freely come after her, but at the same time, she could also not afford to let Alna, who was an outsider, stay in Drankam facilities for too long. She might be able to do something about it if Katsuya accomplished something that would give her more influence. So, she decided to stall for time hoping that something like that would happen.

To be honest, Mizuha did not really care about Alna, as a matter of fact, she was a bother. As someone from the inner wall, there was nothing she could gain except scorn if she associated with a pickpocket from the slum. Whether she sent Alna to work as a Hunter or as a helper in the office, depending on how people looked at it, it might seem like she was providing Katsuya’s lover with a shelter using Drankam’s money. If the news got out, the critiques from both inside and outside the gang would be severe. And if the opposing faction got their hands on this information, they would definitely use it as ammunition. Now that she thought about it, it was nothing but a hassle.

Mizuha seemed extremely annoyed as she said to herself as if giving an excuse.

“…I guess there’s no other way out, huh?”

She took her information terminal and made a call. Her call immediately connected and a woman’s voice came out from her information terminal.

“Oh, it has been quite a while. If I’m not mistaken, last time you said to me that you have nothing to do with a bad girl like me. So I’m really happy that you called first.”

In contrast to the happy voice, Mizuha sounded pretty annoyed.

“Let’s stop with the silly talk, is this line secure?”

Since Mizuha asked if they were talking through a secure line, there was no mistaking it that she was planning to make a request that she could not afford to get out in public. The other person that Mizuha called understood that well as she casually replied.

“Yep, it’s no problem from this side.”

“In that case, I have something I want to ask you. Since I even came to ask for your help, I hope you can understand the gravity of the matter while listening to my explanation.”

“Of course. So, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to spread information that she’s already dead? Or should I prepare for a fake corpse too? Honestly speaking, it’s much easier if spreading the information that she has gone missing is enough, but in that case, they might still try to look for her. So that would be a no, right?”

Mizuha was surprised, but she did not say anything. The reply that she got there was exactly what she was about to ask. She was able to somehow maintain her calm as she said.

“…I haven’t said anything yet.”

“You want to keep your hands clean while you want to remove that Alna girl who is clinging on that Katsuya boy as naturally as possible as not to anger him and not to cause any trouble to the gang, right? Honestly speaking, that’s not something you would normally ask from an information broker like me. But well, it’s not like we’re strangers anyway, so I can give you some help and introduce you to some people I know.”

Mizuha was so surprised that the subject that she was about to bring up was indeed that. She then somehow barely regained her calm and tried to probe how much her talking opponent knew about what she was going to ask with a stern expression.

“As expected of you, how much do you already know?”

“That’s a secret. Having an honest informant is good and all, but the question is whether that informant’s skill can balance his or her honesty… Although, in this case, it might be the opposite though.”

Hearing her opponent talking in a good mood there, it really reminded Mizuha that the person she was talking to was just the worst. That woman was basically working by manipulating information in order to manipulate people for her own benefit. Those who she manipulated only realized that after the matter had finished, and that was if they were lucky. Those who did not get lucky enough died before they could realize that they were being used.

Mizuha frowned while staring at her information terminal. She was the one who made that call. But even so, she questioned whether she did that because out of her own will or because she was already being manipulated.

Since Mizuha did not say anything, the other person continued.

“So then, what should I do? Should I stop here? I don’t really mind if that’s what you want. No matter what reason you have, doing bad things will always leave you with a guilty feeling.”

“I haven’t said anything yet.”

“Hmm, you’re right, I’m just speaking on my own, right? Just send the reward through the usual bank account, I’ll decide how far I should go depending on how much money you transfer to me. Later then.”

The call ended. Mizuha just sat there with a stern face, thinking for about 5 minutes. She then finished the administration needed to transfer money to a certain bank account.

—*—*—*—

Akira was still trying the modifications for his rifles. No matter which parts he chose, all of them increased the power of his rifles. If he had the leeway, he wanted to modify his rifles to the point they did not resemble their original forms at all. But of course, that was impossible with his limited budget.

“…Maybe I should add another 10 million Aurum?”

If he wanted to, he could add more money into his budget. That leeway started to make him seriously consider increasing his budget. Since it seemed that Akira would really do that at this rate if he was left alone, Alpha warned him.

“I won’t stop you, but don’t keep repeating yourself. The better equipment that you get, the bigger its maintenance cost would be. Or at least, your augmented suit’s energy consumption has already increased with that new augmented suit. Not to mention, we still don’t know how much the cost for fixing your old augmented suit is. It’s important to make sure that you have enough reserves to rise up again in case if something were to happen and you lose all of your equipments.”

“I-I know. And also, it would be okay as long as I try not to get in a situation where I might lose all of my equipment, right?”