Chapter 205: Real Battle Assumption (2/2)

In order to collect information regarding the test, the area around that place was littered with small information-gathering devices. Tabata was looking at the data gathered from those devices and could not hide his surprise.

One of the technicians smiled bitterly and muttered.

“Well, this is pretty bad.”

“To be honest, it’s a good data set considering it’s from a test. But still, I don’t know if there’s any point in continuing to do this. Tabata-san, are we going to continue with this pattern set?”

The technicians witnessed a small portion of Akira’s power during the aiming device adjustment. Because of that, they more or less expected that this would happen, so their reaction to the result only ended with a bitter smile.

But that was not the case for Tabata. He was staring at the ongoing mock battle with a stern face.

“…Get the data learning constant to maximum.”

“Eh? If we do that, the system will lean toward adjusting itself on how to fight that particular Hunter. It will be unusable for general use, you know? We might be able to get a win if we do that… But still…”

“Just do it!”

“…Alright.”

The technician smiled wryly and did as he was told to. Tabata still had his eyes fixed on the monitor showing the progress of the mock battle. He could see that Erio and the other children were gunned down one by one at an unbelievable speed.

Erio was running with a stern face. The augmented suit setting was changed from prioritizing in keeping the user’s burden to a minimum into prioritizing to empower its user. Thanks to that, he was able to run faster and more agile than ever before, but the burden that it put on his body was not small.

At first, Erio was delighted when he found out that he was way stronger than ever before. Although the sudden increase in the burden was nowhere pleasant, the sensation as if he suddenly became superhuman thanks to his augmented suit’s strength still made him immensely happy and motivated.

When he thought that he might be able to win with his power-up, that exact thought was completely destroyed when he glanced at the display inside his helmet which showed the current situation.

The other children were shot down one by one. And when he was still trying to cope with the surprise, the number did not stop falling. Then, before he realized it, the number had reduced to one, he was the only one still alive.

Right at the next moment, Erio caught a glimpse of Akira moving between the rubble. But the moment he noticed, it was already too late, multiple bullets already landed on his body.

The magazine that Akira was using for his SSB rifles was set to be an extended magazine. The bullets that he shot from those rifles formed a wall of bullets that crashed into Erio. Even if Erio tried to evade that, he would not be able to get away from those bullets.

That was Akira’s first win after the learning setting of the system was changed.

Due to Tabata’s request, the break until the next mock battle was longer than usual. After all, he needed time to let the system digest the data.

During the break, Sheryl came to Akira and praised him with a smile. Yodogawa also did the same although with a slightly stiffer smile.

“Well well well, Although it was against the system that our company developed, as expected of Akira-sama.”

“Well, that’s more or less what would happen when I’m not trying to keep the expense low. Ah, right, I’ll send you the payment invoice after each battle, so you can stop the next mock battle anytime when you think it’s getting too expensive.”

Akira took out his information terminal and sent an invoice to Yodogawa, who frowned when he saw the number.

“So, you want to stop now?”

“Ah, please don’t worry. We can pay this much, no problem at all. But still, it seems that it didn’t pose much challenge to you. I’ll tell Tabata to take this more seriously, so please excuse me.”

Yodogawa lightly bowed and went back to the trailer.

The moment Yodogawa entered the trailer, his smile vanished as he yelled.

“Damn it!! What the heck is with this result!? Even if we lose, can we at least try not to be this pathetic?”

Yodogawa was about to continue, but he stopped mid-way and flinched back when Tabata looked at him. Tabata had a grim expression plastered on his face as he said with a deep voice.

“… I know. I admit it was my mistake looking down on him, but this won’t happen again next time.”

“I-I see, I’ll leave it to you then.”

The other technicians only smiled bitterly at Yodogawa’s reaction. Some of them then continued with the usual reporting.

“The system is done analyzing the data. We’re ready to start again.”

“Let’s start then.”

“Starting the countdown.”

The countdown for the second mock battle started, the seconds left before the second mock battle started was shown on the main monitor. Tabata was looking at that countdown with a stern face, Yodogawa did the same anxiously with furrowed brows, while the rest of the technician team was waiting for the countdown with wry smiles. All of them were waiting for the countdown to reach zero with their respective feelings shown on their faces.

And so, the second battle started.

Akira blazed through the training ground. His speed was abnormal but he was able to decelerate and make clean sharp turns. He was able to do all of these thanks to the power of his augmented suit.

Every time he stepped off the ground to control his direction and sped up, a small forcefield was expanded under his feet, turning his footing into a hard surface. Then, with the help of the power output of the augmented suit, he was able to keep his balance while boosting the propelling power from his steps. That was also what he did when he made turns, the forcefield armour prevented him from slipping when he made sharp turns. With this, he was able to get firm footing even if he was running on muddy terrain.

In reality, with a good enough augmented suit, he would be able to do that in the air as well. But his current augmented suit was not good enough to do it although he could do the same on the walls of a building.

Of course, this manoeuvre, burned through the energy pack really quickly and increased the burden on Akira’s body. So, in short, he would have to spend more money on his energy pack and medicine that he used to compensate for it. It was indeed, just as he said to Yodogawa, manoeuvres that need money.

But it was not for nought. Erio and the other children could not get a good aim at Akira who was moving too quickly from behind the rubble. Although when the coordination system preemptively aimed at where Akira would be according to its prediction, it was still not fast enough to catch him. As a matter of fact, they were on the receiving end of the bullets that Akira shot from his SSB rifles.

The surviving children grouped up and tried to use the rubble to form a defensive circle. Unfortunately for them, Akira quickly closed up on them and jumped right into the middle of the circle, and used the small opening created from the surprise to gun down the rest of the survivors.

The second mock battle also ended with Akira’s victory.

Even in the third, fourth and fifth battles, Akira won all of them. But with every mock battle, Erio and the other children were able to survive longer and longer. It showed that the learning system of the coordination system was working as intended. But even so, it was still not able to reach its main objective.

Yodogawa was hanging his head low inside the trailer.

“Tabata, if you’re thinking of continuing, I’m sorry, but I’m stopping you here. Not only is the expense not small, we even have to pay for the bonus for winning the mock battle too. If you have no idea how to fix this, I’m stopping you here.”

Tabata frowned and seemed to be wrecking his brain hard. He then seemed to have decided on something as he changed the setting of the coordination support from his terminal.

When another technician saw the new setting, he frowned and asked Tabata.

“Tabata-san. Isn’t that cheating?”

“…We have different equipment than the opponent in the first place. It won’t be strange to have at least this much if we consider this as a real fight. Moreover, the corresponding equipment is also planned to be sold as an optional item together with the main product. So there should be no problem. We’ll also adjust the support pattern to suit the new setting, so get on to it.”

“Alright.”

Seeing how Tabata was still working hard on his work, Yodogawa thought that it seemed there was still a chance to win. So he did not stop the sixth mock battle. But even so, it did not erase the worried look on his face.

Right when the next round started, Erio was confused at the instruction shown by the system through their helmets. He followed that instruction to change the firing setting into grenades, aimed his rifle at a seemingly random direction, and pulled the trigger. But nothing happened even after he waited for some time. As he looked around, he noticed that the other children also showed the same reaction.

While they were still questioning what exactly they did, the next instruction that seemed to be a more serious one came up. So they moved on to follow the instruction to surround Akira. They immediately noticed that the instruction was different compared to the ones they were receiving up until now.

Akira immediately noticed that Erio and the other children were moving differently. He frowned a bit and quickly dove behind a wall before stopping right in front of a small gap in order to confirm his guess. The moment he stopped, he could see bullets coming flying straight at him through that small gap.

Although they were nothing but virtual bullets, with the adjustment from Alpha, they looked like real bullets to Akira. He could even hear the sound of them flying and see the tracks that they left behind. Alpha did that in order to prevent him from getting too used to the setting used for the training. If he got too used to the bullet projection in that training, which had a lot of errors, it might cause him to make a mistake during a real battle when he had to be able to read the trajectories of the bullets with high precision.

Moreover, due to the low precision of the hit recognition and bullet trajectory calculations of the system, Erio and the other children appeared to be stronger than they really were. Considering the rate of fire, range of fire, size of the ammo, and the other specifications of the rifles, the rifles used by Erio and the other children were of high quality, expensive rifles.

Akira followed the trajectories of those cylindrical bullets as they flew through the air, with this, he confirmed his guess.

“As I thought, they know where I am.”

Alpha smiled and gave some extra explanation.

“During the beginning of the training, they were moving as if they had pre-installed a small number of information-gathering devices around the area beforehand. My guess is that they changed the setting so that they can gather more information from those devices. They had small information-gathering devices scattered around the area beforehand to gather information during the test.”

“…Isn’t that cheating if we assume that this is a real fight?”

“Since you’re not holding back your expenses, they are also not holding back on their expenses. If they use enough small information-gathering devices, it’s not impossible to imitate this situation. Although it’s not cheap, if that’s enough to kill you, I’m sure they believe that would be worth the expense. Spending more money to defeat a strong opponent, it’s completely normal, isn’t it?”

“That’s true. So basically they’re getting serious now after losing so many times, huh?”

“It seems that it’s going to be great training, aren’t you glad?”

“Can’t agree more to that.”

Alpha was smiling teasingly at Akira, who replied with a light smile and a short remark.