hat I’m not strong enough yet. Well, I have no other choice but to work hard as a Hunter and there’s no easy solution to that, I at least know that much.”

To be more precise, Akira was relying too much on the easy and effective solution called Alpha’s support. As long as Akira knew that, the rest was for him to work hard.

Carol smiled confidently and said.

“In that case, I did invite you to work together with me back then in the Mihazono ruin, right? If you work with me, I’m sure you can get a better look at my fighting skill and negotiation skill, so, what do you think? If you work with me, I think I can teach you many things, you know. I think it’s faster than gathering the experience by yourself, yes?”

Unlike last time, Akira did not reply instantly this time, but in the end, he gave the same answer as last time.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to refuse.”

Carol was a bit surprised by that, she sounded so disappointed as she said.

“Oh my, I thought I’ve done well trying to get you to recognize my skill, but I guess it wasn’t good enough, huh?”

Akira hesitated as he replied.

“No, that’s not the problem here. Like I said back then, I don’t plan much and can be pretty random, I don’t think I have the suitable personality to work together with someone else...”

“I’m the one who’s asking you to work with me, you know. So I at least will adapt to your schedule. And if we can’t work well together even after that, we can just stop working together. So, is it still a no?”

“Even if you say so, it’s still a no, sorry.”

Akira thought that he made the mood bad there, but unexpectedly, Carol smiled and said.

“I see. Well, it can’t be helped then. It’s true that working together with the other Hunter whom you can’t really work together with often ends up with trouble. Not to mention, you might come to hate me too, so I’ll stop bugging you about that. But if you ever want to work together with me even if it’s only for a short time, I’m open anytime, okay? I know that you sometimes go to the ruin with Elena and Sara, right? You can invite me too the next time you do that and I’ll be more than happy to come along.”

Akira thought for a bit before replying.

“You’re right, well, I’ll call you again if the chance comes up.”

Carol smiled happily.

“I see, I’ll be looking forward to it then.”

“Yeah.”

Akira smiled back and gave that short reply.

Akira and Carol were talking about a lot of things even after they finished their meals and had ordered refills for their after-meal coffee multiple times. When Akira realized that he had spent way more time than he originally planned, he said his goodbye to Carol and left the restaurant.

After Akira left, Carol was still inside the restaurant for some time. She was smiling wryly and mumbled.

“Hmmm. Akira’s reaction there was not bad, but I wasn’t able to make any appointment when to meet next either. I guess I relied too much on my seduction skill lately that my speechcraft skill has gotten dull.”

Carol was not always using her body to seduce her customer, she sometimes used other skills too. One of them was to get friendly with her customer which included bringing subjects about some common interests, talking about each other’s worries, asking about each other’s opinions, listening closely to what her talking partner was asking and giving an answer that the other was expecting, and eventually getting so close to the point that the other person became reliant on her. Seducing was just one of the methods that she could use to reach that goal.

Carol sometimes also used that to lead her partner to a better state. She encouraged them to be more positive about their lives, to be more confident, to cheer them up, to get them to enjoy their lives more and support them. It could be said that those were the services that they got from paying the money they earned from risking their lives to Carol.

At the same time, all of those encouragements sometimes caused them to get ahead of themselves and made them challenge dangerous old-world ruins that were out of their league, but Carol was okay about that. There were many different ways for people to use their lives. So Carol had no wish to stop them from doing so. Although, she might try to stop them if she knew that it would be counter-effective.

“Seeing how he reacted, I don’t think Akira would accept my invitation if I invite him to go to the wasteland randomly, and it’s unlikely for him to invite me. What should I do...?”

Carol was thinking about what she could do next to seduce Akira, that was when a call reached her information terminal. Carol checked the caller and accepted the call.

“Viola, I’m outside right now. If it’s something sensitive, call me again later.”

“Don’t worry, it’s just that I have a small question for you, it’s nothing serious.”

Carol could feel that Viola was planning something bad behind her uppity voice.