Index

Translator: Athena13

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

Akira headed to Shizukas shop to receive his new equipments.

When he entered the shop, Shizuka waved at him.

Welcome, Akira. Over here.

Shizuka smiled at him and then guided him to the backroom of the shop. The backroom was used as a warehouse for the stuff that she sold, thus it was filled with guns and ammo.

Akira noticed something and asked Shizuka.

By the way, is it okay to leave the counter unguarded?

Its fine. Its not like there are that many people who want to buy guns anyway, so it will not be much of an issue even if I leave the counter. Even when the city was attacked by a swarm of monsters not too long ago, there were more people coming in than usual but it was not that many to even form a line in front of the counter.

I meant it more like someone might steal something

The rifles in the display are inside anti-thieving showcases, I have also installed security cameras, and have insurance with a private security company. So itll be fine.

Even if someone was able to break the secured counter, take Shizukas money from it, and escape from the security, shell be paid with the same amount of money that she lost. Thus it was highly unlikely that Shizuka would suffer much damage that Akira thought she would.

Not to mention, the private security company that was working together with the insurance company, which Shizuka was contracted with, would catch that person dead or alive. If that person was caught alive, he would be fined with all kinds of charges and would be forced to exchange his life, his body, basically just everything that he had to pay the fine. Depending on the severity of the fine, he might get his property seized, or forced into a labour work, or used as a guinea pig for developing new medicines or technologies.

Seeing how Akira still seemed to be worried, Shizuka smiled at him and said.

If youre still worried that Im leaving the counter for your sake, just think of it as me giving some efforts to get a regular customer. It should bother you less that way, right?

Although Akira had spent 80,000,000 Aurum in Shizukas shop, it did not seem that she had thought of him as a regular customer.

Either because it showed on his face or just simply because her intuition was very sharp, she noticed what Akira was thinking and so she continued.

Im really thankful that youre contributing to the revenue of this shop. But to be honest, I hope that you would buy goods that I sell in my shop. I dont get much profit from that augmented suit that I ordered from another shop, you see.

Although Shizuka was only joking, Akira fl.u.s.teredly replied.

Ahh, well, Ill do that from next time

Fufufu, Ill be waiting then.

Shizuka smiled invincibly, after which, she pointed at the entrance shutter of the warehouse.

Now then, your new equipment set is over there.

When Akira peeked in, he was a bit surprised as he happily said.

Although I know the contents of my new equipment set from reading the doc.u.ment Shizuka-san gave me, is it really okay to get this included too?

Shizuka smiled in triumph as she said.

Of course, its still under the budget limit, you know.

In front of Akira was a large-sized vehicle which was also included in his list of new equipment.

Akira and Shizuka walked to that vehicle. Akira looked closely at it, wide-eyed. Although it looked not much different from the truck that he once rented from a rental shop and was just a common vehicle, it was still way better than a rental vehicle.

Well then, lets check if you have got everything that you ordered.

Shizuka then pulled out a doc.u.mented list of the items and handed a copy to Akira. They then checked the items with that doc.u.ment.

So you get 1 4WD vehicle specially designed for traversing the wasteland, its Teros 97 made by Tatsumori Heavy Industry. Although its rather old, its fully equipped for exploring the wasteland. Ive also exchanged the control unit with a new one.

Akira scanned the vehicle, it was an open type vehicle without a roof designed so that Hunters could shoot their portable heavy weapons from the seat. Since it was a vehicle designed to be used in the wasteland, it could be said that it was made to fight against monsters. Thus, its body was even equipped with force field plating.

The force field plating was a type of armour plating that would activate a force field when hit by an impact to disperse the force of that impact. But after it activated a force field, the plating tile would peel and fall off. That was the reason why the wasteland was filled with used plating tiles.

Then, 1 CWH anti-material rifle. 1 DVTS mini-gun. Both of them are installed into the vehicle so you can use them even without an augmented suit. Although you can demount them and use them just like a normal gun, you need to be careful since the DVTS mini-gun consumes a lot of ammo. Ive also added some modification parts so its compatible with piercing ammo. Although its loaded with that type of ammo right now, you can also use normal ammo for it, so theres no need to worry about that part.

Akira then looked at the rear part of the vehicle. Behind the back seat, there was a removable tray equipped with a gun station. Akiras CWH anti-material rifle and DVTS mini-gun was installed there. Although they lacked firepower compared to the preinstalled big guns in tanks, for the current Akira, they were already pretty powerful. If he was going to meet another swarm of monsters next time, he could at least put up a fight.

Then there are also 2 information terminals for Hunters. Since they are strongly built, they should not break easily even if you use them rather crudely. Anything can happen in the wasteland, its better to have a sturdy information terminal just to be safe so that you can use it for sending SOS request during an emergency.

Akira peeked at the driver seat, there were 2 durable-looking information terminals.

Then 2 electric knives. Well, if you find yourself having to fight monsters using those knives, it means that youre already in a pretty bad situation, but its at least better than nothing. Each knife can only be used for causing a single shock, if youre lucky, it can shut down a mechanical monster with its shock.

There were 2 knives beside the information terminal on the driver seat, they might be some kind of bonus items from buying the information terminal. Of course, for most Hunters, it would be suicide to challenge monsters in a close-range battle. Moreover, since most of the people knew that mechanical monsters were weak against electric shock, Akira thought that monsters must have at least adapted to that by now, and that must have been the reason why Shizuka added if youre lucky when she said.

Then lastly, the ERPS information-gathering device integrated augmented suit. Its name is PWD Silence. Its inside that case over there together with all of its equipment set. The equipment set includes an aiming device that can be connected with the augmented suit, so be sure to install it later.

Akira grabbed the handle of the case which was placed on the seat and pulled it out from the vehicle. But it was way heavier than he anticipated, it took everything he had to drag it out from the vehicle even after he used both of his hands.

Seeing this, Shizuka extended her hand from behind Akira and easily picked up the case that he was struggling to drag out. Akira, who saw that, gasped in amazement.

Shizuka smiled and said.

Its not me, its my augmented suit, okay?

Shizuka was using a simple augmented suit under her clothes. Akira remembered the time when she had mentioned it to him.

Although Akiras reaction was not that big, it seemed to have offended Shizuka.

Eh, ah, yes, I know.

Akira tried to gloss it over as he fl.u.s.teredly replied back.

Shizuka took out the augmented suit from that case and helped Akira put it on.

Unlike his previous augmented suit, Akiras new augmented suit did not have the skeletal-like frame. But instead, it had thin hard rubber linings on top of its artificial fibres that looked like capillary vessels. There were some holes that looked like a connection port on that hard rubber lining.

Akira looked curiously at those holes, Shizuka then explained to him.

You can use those ports to connect the augmented suit with small-sized information-gathering devices. I did explain that its an information-gathering device integrated augmented suit, remember? So, it has a small-sized information-gathering device installed in it. After all, it was designed to be used in tandem with information-gathering devices.

I guess this kind of thing is really expensive, right?

Of course a better augmented suit cost more money. But, this PWD Silence is rather special, I got it at a pretty cheap price. Compared to the other augmented suits that you can buy with the same amount of money, this augmented suit is basically one level better.

Rather special, huh?

Akira knew that Shizuka would not recommend any defective products to him, but it still bothered him when she said that it was rather special.

Well, itll be fine. Its not like its a used product with a shady background. Its a new product and not one of those products that got called back in the past for some kind of defect in its design. Its just that its very unpopular for some reason. On its day of release, a particular Hunter made a very bad remark about this product, and since that person was rather famous, the bad review quickly spread in the market. In the end, it became a failure product that didnt sell at all. Later it was known that there was no defect in its design or functionality when another model with the exact same specs and design but with the different name was released and was selling well.

After hearing Shizukas explanation, Akira somehow felt a sense of affinity. Both him and that augmented suit had bad luck. Thus, it might be the perfect augmented suit for those who tried to fight back and rise up from that situation.

When Akira turned the augmented suit on, it tightened up and fit perfectly with his body shape, he did not feel any discomfort at all. Even after moving his body around, he still did not feel anything uncomfortable. If he could move this fluidly even before the fine-tuning, there should be no problem with the augmented suit just like Shizuka told him.

Akira then closed the augmented suits case and put it back in his vehicle. Thanks to his enhanced physical strength due to the augmented suit, he was able to do that easily.

Shizuka smiled at Akira as she said.

And with this, weve confirmed that you received all your new equipment set. Are you happy with them?

Yes, thank you very much.

Im glad to hear that, I hope that youll keep coming to my shop.

Shizuka took a step closer to Akira and gave him a hug.

I know that youll return back to doing your Hunter job, so please be careful out there, okay?

Yes.

After Shizuka let him go, Akira got into his vehicle. Shizuka lightly waved at him as she saw him off, Akira lightly bowed back to her and turned the vehicle, he then drove back home.

When Shizuka could no longer see Akira, she sighed and smiled bitterly.

This is bad; I am getting too attached. And here I thought I was more disciplined than this. Im getting too emotionally invested in Akira that Im now willing to go beyond my self-set boundaries. If it were not because Akira was also making a good contribution to my shop, this would have been really really bad.

Shizuka thought that at this rate, she would even become willing to face some monetary loss just to get Akira better equipment. She reminded herself to be more rational and to calm down before she returned back to the counter.

***

It had been 3 days since Akira got his new equipment set, and today, he was driving his new vehicle through the wasteland.

The control unit installed inside his vehicle was already under Alphas control. Thanks to that, she was able to drive the vehicle. But this time, she allowed Akira to take full control to get him used to drive his vehicle.

He had already gotten himself familiar with his new equipment, he had tried using his augmented suit to move around and took some test shots with his new guns. This was the first day he was going to do a real job after getting his new equipment.

He was heading to an area in the Kuzusuhara ruin that he only visited for a short time once before he took that request to the underground city. It was the area where the pointer was pointing to the underground when he was looking for old-world facilities using the information that he had gotten from the Lion Steel Corporations information terminal.

Although there were a lot of rubbles above the ground, there was no building standing out in that area. But just like the underground city of Kuzusuhara ruin, there might be a facility buried underground.

If he could find a load of old-world relics in an unexplored ruin, it would bring him a lot of money. This was the same exact reason that pushed a lot of Hunters to go out to the wasteland and continue exploring. Some of them got lucky and became rich overnight before retiring as a Hunter. This kind of success stories pushed more Hunters to go out to the wasteland hoping to find the same luck, but unfortunately, most of them got swallowed and vanished in the wasteland instead.

Akira was driving his truck following a guide shown on his vehicles control units monitor. The monitor even showed the estimated time of arrival.

He then asked Alpha who was sitting next to the driver seat.

But still, I never thought that I would get a vehicle this quickly, you know. With this, even if I find an unexplored ruin, the other Hunters should not be able to find out about it, right? If I remember it right, had it been a rental vehicle, other Hunters would be able to backtrace the log and find the unexplored ruin too, correct?

Yep, its also the same case for subjugation requests. By the way, since youre not in a subjugation request this time, be careful with your ammo expense. After all, you wont be able to get back the money that you spend on your ammo this time, that is, as long as you dont bring back the dead bodies of the monsters that you defeated and sell them.

So its better if I bring them back to the city, huh? The Exchange Center in the Hunter Office should accept monster corpses too, right?

Lets not do that now. Its something that you only do after getting enough information about where to sell them, how much theyll sell, and which parts of those monsters are profitable. Then youll have to think about the transportation and the escort too to make sure that youll still end up with profits. Youll also need to learn how to kill those monsters without damaging the value of their organs. Im sure you already know this, do you think someone would buy the carcass of a monster that you turned into minced meat with the DVTS mini-gun?

Nope.

See? Moreover, its better to keep your load to a minimum since itll affect the speed of your vehicle. So itll only be a useless extra weight if you bring them back just out of a whim.

Roger that.

When Akira was still living in the slum alley, he did think that it would at least get him some money if he brought back monster corpses to sell in the city. But it seemed that in reality, it would not bring him money if he just randomly killed monsters.

But that aside

Akira glanced at Alpha who was sitting next to him.

Alpha was wearing a snow-white dress. The multiple layers of that snow-white dress looked luxurious and glossy, it gave off a holy and clean aura. Her hands were enveloped in white gloves that extended up to her wrist, thus hiding her long beautiful slim fingers from plain view. Her trouser also extended all the way to the floor, hiding her legs. It was as if her dress was designed to hide everything under her neck.

Normally, such a dress would get stuck here and there inside the vehicle and it would have been really hard to stay sitting on a running vehicle while dressed like that. But since Alpha was nothing more than an image, she was able to sit comfortably next to Akira.

Can you do something about that dress?

Oh my, you dont like it? I guess you dont like this kind of dress, huh?

Thats not the problem here. It just doesnt fit this place, so its like, it feels really weird. Its not something that normal people would wear when they go to the wasteland, right?

I did tell you that Im doing this intentionally, remember? This is so that I can easily find out if there are other people who can see me. Thats why Im wearing this kind of dress to incite their reaction.

Ahhh, youre right, you did explain that to me before.

Yep, so, I hope that youll get used to this kind of dress.

Even if you tell me so Ah, in that case, can you change to that maid uniform? I think its at least better than what youre wearing now.

Maid uniform, huh I might be overthinking this, but I dont think its rare to find people dressed in maid uniforms in the middle of the wasteland. Thats why Im not wearing that anymore.

I dont think thats true though.

You still remember that you met a person wearing a maid uniform in the lower district, right? She might be a Hunter, and even if shes not, she must be some kind of soldier.

Ahhh, youre right about that.

When he remembered what happened back then, he was mildly annoyed. But he decided to just push that aside for the time being in order to keep his calm. It sure was embarrassing to withdraw from a fight when he was the one who challenged them in the first place, so he could not help but feel annoyed. But again, he knew well getting his calm disrupted because of that would not bring him anything good here.

Akira knew Alpha was talking about Kanae, who was wearing a maid uniform when he met her. During that extremely dangerous situation, even though she knew what was going on, she was smiling as if she was enjoying it. Akira even noticed that she hoped for the situation to end up in a fight. There was no mistaking it, Kanae loved fighting, she was someone who had confidence in her fighting capability. According to their conversations, there was a good chance that she was in the same occupation as Shiori. So, he assumed that she must be at least as strong as Shiori.

So what Im saying here is that it might not be that strange for people, who have the same occupation as Shiori and that person, to use a maid uniform. Thus, people might only ignore it thinking that its not strange to see Hunters with maid uniform when they see me in such a dress.

Alpha was basically saying that it was nothing strange to find Hunters in maid uniforms. Akira frowned when he heard that statement that was out of common sense.

W-well, I dont exactly think thats true though.

Im just saying that theres a good chance that would be the case. For example, lets say that a Hunter found a warehouse ruin that was owned by an old-world fashion designer. Then, that Hunter discovered a huge amount of maid uniform inside that warehouse and sold them in the city. Even if they were not designed for fighting, some of the clothes made using old-world technologies are even stronger than the armours made using the current technology, you see. Since the supply is high because of selling all of those uniforms in one go, theyll be sold at a cheap price. In this case, those Hunters, who are not bothered by the design, might buy them as protective suits regardless of their gender. If something like that were to happen, it wont be strange to find Hunters wearing maid uniforms in the wasteland, you know?

Regardless of gender? Even the guys too?

Even the guys too would want to stay alive after all. But well, I guess guys would change their clothes once they are in the wasteland rather than using the maid uniform when they are in the city.

Akira imagined such a scene.

A brawny guy, who was working as a Hunter, searching for relics in the old-world ruin wearing an expensive maid uniform. That man then met another guy, who was also in a maid uniform. They looked at each other, understood what was going on, and walked away without saying anything as they decided to forget what they just saw. With the same thing happening again and again, eventually, those guys in maid uniform formed a group and searched for relics together while ignoring each others appearance, then in the end

Akira cut his imagination there.

Dont destroy my common sense, will you?

Common sense is something that changes with time.

As Akira was driving through the wasteland, they continued talking about strange subjects.

Since he was avoiding monsters, Akira was only able to arrive at his destination later than he originally estimated. He parked his vehicle under the shadow of a building in that area and put on a camouflage sheet over it. Although Akira could spot it easily, it would be hard for people, who did not know the exact place, to spot it even if they were actively looking for it.

This should be okay, right?

Akira mumbled as he looked at his vehicle. Since he got that vehicle purely out of luck, he wanted to avoid getting it destroyed by the monsters or stolen by someone else.

I think so. It would be counter-effective if you get yourself too worried about it. So just shake that feeling off of you.

Stealing another Hunters vehicle in the wasteland was actually far more difficult than Akira imagined. It was because all Hunters would make sure to keep their vehicles safe.

Vehicles with an automatic combat module installed in its control unit could automatically shoot anyone who tried to steal it. Thus, normally, stealing other Hunters vehicles was not worth the risk. But even so, there were cases where parked vehicles got stolen. So in the end, it was all a matter of luck.

Unfortunately enough, Akira was a boy with bad luck. He had no other choice but to hope that all of his precautions could counterbalance his bad luck.

Akira scanned the area around him. He moved around forming a circle with his vehicle in the centre and gradually moved further and further away from that centre. Akira was searching for an entrance to the underground buried among all the rubbles and wreckages in the area. Of course, he could not search it using his n.a.k.e.d eyes. Thus he was relying solely on his information-gathering device.

By the way, how good is my new information-gathering device? Is it way better than my previous one?

Generally speaking, its more or less as good as your previous information-gathering device.

Is that so? Shizuka-san did say that its one level better than other information-gathering devices in the same price range though?

I believe she meant it when its used in tandem with the augmented suit. Moreover, theres also the fact that the information-gathering device you got from Elena-san was actually a good information-gathering device. Elena-san sold it at a low price since it was only collecting dust in her place, but normally, with your earnings at that time, it was not something that you could buy, you know.

Ahhh, I see

Akira became more grateful for Elena and promised himself to return that favour one day.

It had been an hour since Akira started searching. Since he was checking carefully under the rubbles while avoiding the monsters, his search progressed slowly. But even so, he wanted to avoid having to recheck the area just because he missed something during his search. Thus, he continued to carefully check the area.

His search was doing well as he did not encounter any monsters. He was able to see a pointer in his enhanced view based on the information that he got from the old-world corporation, Lion Steel. That pointer was pointing at the secret facility that he was looking for. But it was pointing near the centre of the area that he had already searched and the radius of his search area, which was already pretty big, was growing even bigger and bigger.

I just cant find anything. Could the entrance be located somewhere else?

That might be the case. However, normally huge underground facilities have multiple entrances. But then again, although I dont want to think about it, theres also a chance that the info we downloaded from that information terminal was actually inaccurate. So, what do you want to do? Want to try looking in other places?

Nah, Ill keep looking here. I havent met any monsters and the search itself is not that tiring, so Ill continue searching around this area.

Okay.

Akira continued his search in that area.

If we assume that theres a huge scale underground ruin in this place just like that underground city and that it has a lot of entrances, then what might be the reason as to why you cant pinpoint the location of those entrances?

Lets see, I guess its because the ruin of what was once a tall building is now buried deep under the ground. Then after a long time, dirt and sands kept piling up on top of it and ended up burying that building deeper and deeper under the ground.

In that case, will it still be impossible to find the entrance using heavy machinery?

The entrance is usually located on the first floor or the bas.e.m.e.nt. If it still somehow retains its original shape even after being buried for so long, it would be possible to enter the building from there.

So its not like its impossible, huh.

Akira continued his search while chatting with Alpha. But even so, he was still cautiously checking every nook and cranny. He had even started searching around the area away from where he parked his vehicle.

As he was starting to think about parking his vehicle closer since he was getting further and further away from it, Alpha suddenly said to him.

Wait, stop there.

Is it monsters?

Akira hid behind a wreckage and readied his gun. He quickly put up his guard, ready to fight.

No, it seems that I finally found some hints.

Alpha then pointed her finger at certain wreckage not too far from Akira. At the same time, she used the data gathered from Akiras information-gathering device and processed it before showing it in his enhanced vision. Thanks to that, he was able to see a staircase under the wreckage that Alpha was pointing at.

Finally found it!! Or so I want to say, but its rather far away from where the pointer originally is. Well, its fine if its because the facility is really that big, but theres also a chance that its from an entirely different building.

Akira realized that he had got too excited, that was why he intentionally said that to remind not to get ahead of himself.

Theres no other way but to go down there and check it yourself. Lets remove the wreckages blocking the way in, it should be an easy job using your new augmented suit.

Alright then, lets do this!

Akira excitedly started removing the wreckages and the rubbles.

He followed Alphas instruction as he sequentially removed the wreckages. Thanks to his augmented suit, Akira was able to easily remove the huge wreckages, which would otherwise have been impossible to even make them budge if he only relied on his raw strength alone.

Alpha even indicated where to put the wreckages that Akira had removed. She carefully calculated the placing so that other people would not be able to easily find that staircase through the rubbles surrounding it. Also, if Akira parked his vehicle near that staircase it would also create a blind spot.

Akiras new augmented suit showed its full usefulness. It only took him about 30 minutes to remove all the wreckage blocking the way to the stairs.

Akira then returned to his vehicle and parked it under the shadow of a wreckage near the stair. He then removed the CWH anti-material rifle from the gun station and brought it with him. At first, he was unsure whether to bring the DVTS mini-gun too or not, but in the end, he decided to just leave it on his vehicle since he thought that it would only slow him down if he brought more guns than needed. Also, using the DVTS mini-gun would quickly burn through his reserve ammo.

Although his new augmented suit increased his max load, it did not mean that he could just bring more reserve ammo with him to use DVTS mini-gun. It was important to keep his load to a minimum during his ruin exploration.

Akira stood in front of the stair that was leading deep into the underground and took a peek inside. Since the sunlight could not reach the area past few steps, it seemed that there was only endless darkness expanding in front of him.

The thought of getting a pile of old-world relics from an unexplored ruin and turning them into a huge amount of money had already completely gone from Akiras mind. What laid in front of him was the mouth of a dangerous monster that had swallowed many Hunters who went in chasing their desire and dreams. The only Hunters who were able to get a huge amount of money were those who were able to return back alive from that place.

As Akira became more and more nervous, Alpha suddenly said something with a serious face that delivered the final blow.

Akira, Ill tell you this before going down, so make sure to remember it. When youre underground, try to keep me within your view. When you cant see me or hear me, basically when you can no longer recognize me, turn back as soon as possible, okay? When you cant recognize me, it means that youll lose all of my support too, so be careful when that happens.

Akira panicked as he quickly glanced at Alphas direction.

All? Not just a portion of it?

Yes, of course. Its not like we know for sure if its going to happen. Its just that theres a chance for something like that to happen when you go inside some ruins and that chance shoots up when you go to the underground ruins. When that happens, you just need to retrace your steps back to the point where you can see me again.

But, it was alright when we were in the Kuzusuhara underground city, right?

Well, Kuzusuhara ruin is basically like my garden. So the effect was not that bad. But even so, it still affected my detection ability, remember?

Akira clearly felt his legs freeze. He was only able to survive until now thanks to Alphas support. Thus, he understood that he himself was scared of losing that support. It was fully understandable why he was hesitating to move forward.

If youre scared, theres no need to push yourself too hard, you know? Its something that might endanger your life, after all, we can just forget about the underground exploration and continue our search above the ground.

Well, since youre not stopping me, it means that its not that dangerous. So its basically something that I should be able to handle myself, right?

Thats true, but

Ill go then, resolve is my responsibility, after all.

Akira pulled himself together and somehow squeezed a fake valiant smile. He kept that smile on his face, hoping to make it real. Things that he could overcome with his own power should be overcome with his own effort. That one point did not change even after he met Alpha.

He knew that he had done something like this many times before in the slum city. This time, he just needed to do the same thing in a more blessed environment. Akira pulled himself together and made his resolve.

Alpha smiled back at Akira.

Very well, lets go.

Akira made his decision and started walking down the stairs. But he quickly returned back.

Alpha found that weird and asked him.

Whats wrong?

On the second thought, Ill bring that too. Ill quickly go back if I run out of ammo.

Akira went back to his vehicle and took off his DVTS mini-gun to bring it together with him. Seeing how he went down the stairs with confidence just to quickly return back, Alpha giggled.

Akira looked annoyed as he mumbled.

What?

Its nothing. Being careful is a good trait too.

Alpha was still smiling when she said that.

Silavin: OMG. Akira and Suit-kun resonating bad luck Ahahaha. I wonder if that would mean his bad luck got stacked even more?

Dress on muscular men. Not bad. I can imagine it.

Finally, Akira is going to have to be more independent now! Cant wait to see how he deals with his own bad luck.

Index