Chapter 230: Change in Akira(1/2)
Old-world cities were spread across the wide wasteland. Most of them were not dilapidated enough to be called ruins, so Hunters tend not to visit those places when they hunt for relics. Thanks to that, monsters could freely multiply in those places.
Usually, even if they were not close to the transport route, people still take the safer approach. They would keep their distance away from these places in order to avoid getting detected by the monsters there. In the first place, the infrastructure for the transport routes was made to avoid them. However, issues arise during the transport season. The ruckus that the large transport vehicles made would attract swarms of monsters from these Old-world cities.
Once they arrived at their destination, from the opened door of the trailer, Erio and the other children started throwing out devices to attract the monsters’ attention. They needed at least that many decoy devices to imitate the signals that those large transport vehicles would produce.
The decoy devices would produce noise and vibration as well as scents and fake signals to lure the monsters. Some of them were stuck in the ground while some floated above as they were spread throughout the area.
Not too long after, Elena’s radar detected uncountable monster signals. It was then followed by a large trail of dust and shaking that even the Hunters from afar could feel.
“Akira, here they come.”
“Alright. Elena-san. Get closer first and try to keep your distance from them. As for the rest, I’ll leave the smaller details to you.”
“Roger that!”
Elena pushed the gas and turned the vehicle toward the direction of the incoming monsters. Akira in the back seat had both of his hands armed with rifles as he measured the distance between them.
“Sara-san. I’ll focus on the smaller ones, so please focus on the bigger ones. But that’s only for the opening, as for the rest, you’re free to move at your own discretion.”
“Okay. Now then, since we both are the main firepower here, let’s do our best.”
“Of course.”
Sara smiled excitedly at Akira and he responded with the same smile. They then aimed their rifles toward the monsters and pulled the trigger. Explosions rang out from the raining warheads. This signalled the start of the battle as well as a slaughterfest of monsters, turned into minced meat.
It was Akira’s debut fight with his new equipment. This time. he was using a CA31R augmented suit made by Kiryou. Its official name was Cerberus. It had many extension ports over its jet black body due to the multi-purpose function of its design.
Although the headpiece of the augmented suit seems flimsy, it was actually equipped with forcefield armour, thus as a defensive piece of equipment, it was stronger than the usual full-face helmet. It was even further equipped with many other functions such as displays and other extensions as well. It could also be connected to particular types of gun so that both armor and weapon could work together when Akira took his aim. Meanwhile, there was display technology in place which could display information in 3D if needed.
It even allows Akira to float in the air. Though, he did not have it on at the moment. Instead, Akira had a balance-support device installed to help him move around even on soft ground. And if he wanted to, it could even help him move above water surfaces in exchange for exorbitant amounts of energy.
Even as a pure augmented suit whose main objective was to augment the physical power of its user, it performs extremely well. With the powerful full-body forcefield armour, he could even flip over a powered suit if he pushed the output of the augmented suit. To top it off, it was also equipped with a camouflage function.
The guns on both of his hands were LEO multi-rifle. They were basically stronger versions of the SSB multi-rifle. Akira made sure to put extended magazines and energy packs to his two large-sized rifles. The bullets he was using were designed to absorb energy from the surroundings and turn them into kinetic energy, as such, the more energy used to shoot, the stronger the shot got.
Akira aimed both of his LEO rifles at the swarming monsters. His vision was greatly enhanced with the help of information-gathering devices. It even added a bulls-eye indicator of where his LEO rifles were aimed.
He kept the trigger pulled down as he made a sweeping motion as if to sweep through the swarm. Although it looked like an indiscriminate shooting from the outside, the bullets were actually only released when the hit probability was above a certain threshold. With each shot guaranteed to a certain level of accuracy, they accurately ploughed through the incoming monsters. Moreover, any missed shot was quickly accounted for. The data was then used to readjust the aim for the next shot, thus slowly increasing or maintaining Akira’s accuracy.
Moreover, Akira actively checked the dead monsters. He would readjust the output power of the bullets using his headgear to get it barely strong enough to kill the monsters.
This way, his shots would guarantee a kill while making sure that he was not wasting any unnecessary energy. Coupled with the high accuracy shots, the bullets tore through the swarm like ravenous locusts, leaving only a field of dead monsters behind.
historical
Both his augmented suit and rifles were already well past what was considered normal for Hunters in Kugamayama city. Elena and Sara too had updated their arsenals compared to before.
Unlike Akira, who did not earn a single Aurum from the large-scale expedition, Elena and Sara were properly paid. They were paid as emergency reinforcement, the data that they gathered afterwards during the chaos, plus the reward for escorting Nelia back to the base. And of course, they did not go with Nelia afterwards to look for Akira for free. The combinations of all these rewards resulted in a good sum of money.
Furthermore, they managed to get a good discount through the deal that Akira made with TOSON and Kiryou. Considering that if Akira’s close friends were loyal customers of a certain company, then it would be easier to get Akira himself to buy from that particular company, plus by making a contract that their next set of equipment would be also from the same company, they managed to get discounts from those two companies although not as much as Akira. They then decided to splurge half of the money that they received from the expedition to upgrade their equipment. Thanks to that, they were able to get powerful augmented suits complete with so-called old-world design. Although the design was a bit too much, they decided to put up with it considering the quality of the equipment.
In contrast to that, Akira, who was carrying Nelia half the time, did not get paid at all for that. It was something that he did voluntarily when he was busy with Inabe’s request, it could even be said that he abandoned Inabe’s request to help out Nelia. Thus, it was not easy for Inabe and City Management’s side to reward him for that. But as a compromise, it seemed that Inabe helped Akira to procure equipment through his connections.
Akira’s firepower with his new equipment was no joke. The swarm was obliterated one by one. Although the common monsters around Kugamayama city would not even stand a chance against them, in front of Akira, they were nothing but small fries. Both the colossal beasts and the armour covered robots were indiscriminately devoured by the explosions and shredded to pieces.
Although they had the upper hand, Akira’s team still could not call it an easy fight. The decoys lured in a continuous flow of monsters leagues above those that they were used to fighting against around Kugamayama city. As expected, they could not face all of them on their own.
The monsters that Akira’s team missed fell to Erio’s team and Colbert’s team to deal with. Of course, these monsters were extremely powerful from their point of view. They were desperately trying their best to fight back.
The monsters, which took a detour from the annihilation circle with Akira’s team at the centre, were rained down with explosives by Erio’s team from the trailer.
“Don’t stop shooting!! And don’t mistake your target! Keep following the order of priority! Just because Akira-san’s team prioritizes taking out monsters with a long-range weapon, that doesn’t mean that we can take it easy!! Focus first on the monsters indicated in the coordination support system!!”
The coordination support system focused the firepower on the monsters with guns and cannons. Although shooting from a moving vehicle lowered their accuracy, they dealt with that by praying over the whole monsters instead of aiming for their individual cannons or rifles.
The trailer was protected by portable walls equipped with forcefield armour, the portable wall was made of plastic-like transparent material which did not impede vision. Erio’s team were shooting through the gap of these forcefield walls.
Some of the monsters that slipped through the barrage shot back at the trailer. The bullets hit the forcefield armour, their kinetic energy was converted to a blinding light that soaked the area. Although no one was injured, the forcefield provided no defence against the terror and the shock they felt.
“Replace the wall quickly!! They won’t be able to take another shot! Hurry up!”
They quickly went to grab another portable wall, placed them behind the hit wall and pushed them forward. The old portable wall slid over and fell off the trailer.
Seeing that, another boy bitterly smiled and shouted to hide his fear.
“We’re doing something crazy, aren’t we? This thing costs 1 million Aurum each, right!? And we’re just throwing them out like this, you know!!”
The other boy shouted back excitedly.
“I heard that these are from Kiryou and it was cheaper since we bought them in bulk! But if you say so, even the bullets that we’re using actually cost 1 or 2 million Aurum per shot if we buy them ourselves, you know!?”
“That’s wicked! It’s as if we’re throwing away money.”
“The bullets are cheaper since Akira-san has a special discount only for high ranking Hunters, or so I heard! Even that 5 million Aurum per shot anti-forcefield armour bullet only costs 500 Aurum for him!”
“The heck? That’s even crazier! I feel like we can get a lot of money if we hide just a single bullet and sell it ourselves later!”
“Pretty sure Akira-san would slaughter you if you do that! Do you seriously still want to do that?”
“Like hell if I would! That’s basically a death sentence you know!”
The reason they could just laugh it off was because both of them were just joking and had no wish to try that at all. It was not about being an honest person. Stealing anything would mean mocking Akira and Sheryl. One thing for sure, it would not end pretty. That was why none of them even thought of trying to do that.
“They said that we’ll get paid based on how many monsters that we kill, so let’s just focus on them and earn more! It’s not like we can get an opportunity like this every day! Let’s earn as much as we can while we still have the chance!!”
“You’re right!! Let’s go back home with more than we can swim in!!”
They were fighting the fear of the incoming swarm through their fighting spirit and greed. That was the only way they could let go of their anxiety.
“By the way, Colbert-san and the others don’t have this support system too, right?”
“Yep. The reason why Kiryou is sponsoring us is simply because it would leave a bad track record if we get killed here.”
“But still, they have killed more monsters than us, right? Although we have more people here and our equipment are not that different in term of quality.”
“Well, I bet it’s a matter of skill.. It’s true that we’re stronger than before but just look at Akira-san. There’s always a bigger fish.”
The Hunter world was not that naive, equipment would not be able to compensate for everything. But at least it would give them enough of a chance to fight back and survive. The children were reminded of the harsh world of Hunters, the gap between them and the other proper Hunters as they fought desperately.
As for Colbert’s team, they brought in equipment that would be enough to hunt bounty monsters. But it was difficult to use such powerful weapons at such close range.
But it still did not change the fact that they could be used to kill monsters. Seeing Colbert shooting the monsters with such excitement, Bosshu and Peppa could not help but smile happily. Although he was facing monsters that were clearly more ferocious than the one that almost killed him.
“Well well well, you’re doing pretty well for someone who just recovered from his trauma! There’s no need to be that desperate, right?”
Colbert replied to that light jab from Peppa with another light jab.
“That doesn’t sound convincing at all coming from someone with a lesser kill count than me. Ah, don’t worry, as I said, I will do something about it even if your skills get rusty, yeah?”
“Yeah yeah, just let the dog bark. Just watch, I’ll overtake your number in no time!!”
That was when Bosshu interjected.
“By the way, Colbert. Levin has quite a powerful rifle. At the moment, he has killed the most. If I’m not mistaken, he has a huge debt, right? So how did he get that weapon? I’m seriously getting interested in all your connections, you know..”
Colbert smiled bitterly.
“I don’t really recommend doing the same thing he did. He basically mishandled Viola. I don’t know all the details, but it seems like he has ended up 300 million Aurum in debt. That is in exchange for his equipment.”
Peppa who was listening closely could not help but to raise his eyebrows.
“300 million..”
“The lender is Kiryou. I heard that he’s doing a job for that company, you see. After all, there are many ways to collect debt from a Hunter who can’t pay it back with money. It’s 300 million we’re talking about here. Whatever fate awaits him if he can’t pay back, it won’t be pretty. Peppa, if you’re interested, I can still go ask Viola, you know?”
Colbert smiled provokingly. But as expected, Peppa would never dare take up that challenge.
“Uhh, no thanks.”
“Thought so. Well, although I said 300 million, I’m sure someone as strong as Akira would not have any trouble paying that back.”
Colbert glanced at the radar. Although monsters were flowing endlessly from the edge of the radar, half of them vanished the moment they entered Akira’s range of fire, creating a circle sterile of any monsters with Akira’s team in the centre.
“This is the power of Rank 50 and 40 Hunters, huh. They are no joke at all.”
Colbert could only swallow his pride, there was not even a shred of envy. He then returned his focus back to his own battlefield as he fought together with his team against the incoming swarm.
Elena continuously scanned for the location of the monsters while driving. Thanks to that, she was able to reposition the vehicle to advantageous locations while evading barrages from the enemies. Explosions shook the ground and threw the vehicle off-balance. The shaking was too intense even for the advanced balancer attached to a wasteland vehicle. Forget shooting back, normally, it would have been impossible to stand in that kind of situation.
But even so, Sara was accurately shooting back with long-range weapons using her large and heavy gun. The bullets pierced through rows of monsters as they sought their main target, leaving behind carcasses that were blasted to small pieces. It was a feat that would have been impossible without adequate skill and equipment.
Of course, it was not something that someone as strong as Sara alone could do, it was thanks to the perfect synchronized teamwork between her and Elena. Elena’s skilled driving always put Sara in an advantageous position while Sara always kept the route that Elena would take clean of any monsters. This made it easier for Elena to reposition the vehicle. They did not even need to exchange words, the experience that they had from working together for years allowed them to understand each other without saying anything, allowing them to work efficiently as if a single cohesive unit.
Elena and Sara understood that very well, that was why they were amazed that Akira could adapt to their teamwork with no problem at all. Sara smiled as she glanced at Akira and complimented.
“Akira, as I thought, you’ve really become strong.”
“Well, I splurged all my money for my new equipment, after all. It would be all in vain if I only stayed as strong as before.”
Akira’s augmented suit was equipped with extensions to keep his feet on the ground as well as to keep his balance. These two extensions were no doubt helping him tremendously in taking aim, even when the vehicle was shaking intensely. Not to mention, both his rifles and the ammo that he was using were stronger than before. All of these factors helped him annihilate the monsters in front of him. Naturally, it still required a skilled user to pull off what he did.
“It’s already amazing enough that you’ve mastered using your new equipment, you know. Since you’re that strong, it’s okay to say that you’re amazing yourself from time to time, you know?”
As Sara said that, she remembered the past Akira, who always looked down on his own strength. She thought she might have said something that she should not have. But against her expectation, Akira did not seem offended at all, he instead replied with a smile.
“Considering that I still want to get stronger, I would have to say that I still have a long way to go.”
Although Sara did not expect him to reply in such a manner, she thought that it was a good change and countered with her banter.
“Elena! Akira is saying that we lack ambition to get stronger!”
“Eh!? No no no! I didn’t mean that at all!?”
Seeing Akira flusteredly tried to deny it but Elena smiled mischievously and continued.
“He said that? Well, it can’t be helped then! I guess we should work harder to satisfy this Rank 50 Hunter! Sara! I’ll go faster!!”
“Roger that!”
Elena accelerated the vehicle even more. She started aiming to take down the monsters that she originally planned to leave to the other teams. Their position changed from holding back the incoming swarm to actively chasing after the swarm. She dialled up the machine gun that she was set to be on low, believing that they could just leave the small fries to Akira. Sara also responded accordingly by increasing her firing rate.
Akira glanced at Sara and Elena, who seemed to be having a good time there and smiled wryly. Nonetheless, he then also started firing more intensely as if not to lose to them. Although it seems like he was randomly sweeping around with the 2 LEO rifles in hand, he was actually trying to aim as accurately as possible. More than half of the bullets accurately hit their targets due to the aim adjustment function of his augmented suit and aiming device as well as Akira’s own compressed time perception.
“Akira. Although you are only doing it slightly, you’re basically maintaining your time compression at all times, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. For some reason, I don’t feel much burden from doing time compressions ever since that expedition. I wonder if I got used to it after I forced myself to use it for an extended period of time back then.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s one of the reasons.”
“One of the reasons? Are there other reasons as well? It’s not like you’re doing something with your support to lighten my burden without me knowing, right?”
“Yep, there are multiple reasons for that. Of course, your body is getting used to it after using it so many times both for real fights and in training, you might have figured out the ropes. But with that being said, it’s not okay to think that you can get even stronger by doing reckless things when you lose my support, okay?”
“I know. It’s not like I want to go into a fight without your support. Having you around is a huge help, you know?”
“Is that so? Thanks. But still, since you have me around, how about I change my outfit to something more extravagant, with more exposure that will make a more refreshing impression.”
“Thanks but no thanks!”
“Good grief, you won’t even pay attention to my beauty, huh? That part of you doesn’t change at all.”
Alpha then smiled at him, who even had the leeway to indulge her in silly banter even when he was in the middle of a battle.
In reality, the main reason why Akira’s time compression did not place much burden on him ever since the large-scale expedition laid elsewhere. It was the drug that Tsubaki gave him. Akira, who took that drug, was healed back under the old-world standard, which meant that it also fixed something in his brain.
The prolonged use of time compression would strain Akira’s brain, which eventually resulted in damages. The drug that he took healed that damage as well as assimilated into the damaged part and strengthened it so that it would be able to withstand more strain.
Moreover, the drug even healed Akira’s imperfection as someone who could connect to the old-world domain. Due to this, the security portion of Akira’s brain was rewritten and upgraded, but as a side-effect, it limited Alpha’s connection to Akira. Since the drug basically cut-off Alpha’s complete one-sided control on Akira’s bandwidth, it left a noticeable effect on Akira.
Even if the subject gave permission to use all of his connections, rules placed constraints that made it impossible to do that in one go. When Alpha met Akira for the first time, she used excuses such as, that he was too weak and such an act was necessary for the sake of preserving his life. Therefore, she was able to gain permission to establish a strong connection with Akira. She then used that as a way to wrestle more and more rights over time. This was the reason why she was able to monopolize Akira’s bandwidth.
But with the repaired security feature and how Akira was able to perform extremely well even without her support, Alpha no longer had those rights anymore. This was not a complete coincidence. Half of it was due to Tsubaki’s scheme. She originally planned to prepare Akira, such that she could connect to him if he had accepted her offer back then.
While the other half was simply Tsubaki harassing Alpha. With this, Alpha had to readjust her plan. She had to wait until she recovered her monopoly on Akira’s bandwidth before she could bring him to a certain ruin.
Alpha was especially worried that there would be more unexpected turn of events regarding Akira. After all, unexpected meant that she could not control it. So in order to regain her control over Akira, she was observing Akira closely.
After that, the fired-up Akira team made short work of the remaining swarm.
Once they finished pruning the monsters around the area, Erio’s team and Colbert’s team moved on to their other job. They scourged the ruin for relics.
Although there were still some valuable relics left in that ruin, most Hunters thought that it was not worth the trouble gathering them due to the powerful monsters living in the area. But after the pruning, the monster density in the area was greatly reduced though only for a short time. With more than half of the monsters in the area dead, they were free to gather relics left in the ruin. It was ingrained in the Hunter’s blood to monopolize such a sweet opportunity. Thanks to that, Erio’s team and Colbert’s team were in high spirits.
While the others were doing that, Akira, Elena, and Sara were taking a break in their vehicle. That was when Elena threw a question to Akira.
“Akira, you’re not going to look for relics?”
“I’m here to prune monsters, so I have no plan to hunt for relics. I’m also already spent too. Ah, it’s okay if Elena-san and Sara-san want to go hunting for relics, you know? I can watch the radar for enemies while you two go look for relics.”
“Hmmm, if you’re not going, then I won’t go too. We’re here as your hires today after all, so we have to respect your opinion.”
Akira looked a bit surprised and sent a questioning glance to Sara. Which, she responded with a light smile.
“If we’re talking about duties, our job here is to be your support. That’s why our job at the moment is to stay near you. I don’t think it’s a good thing to criticize someone when they’re taking their job seriously, you know?”
“I see, that’s true. Alright, in that case, I guess we’ll be taking a break here then.”
Seeing the happy Akira, Elena and Sara also smiled happily.
As they were wasting time talking to each other, the radar suddenly picked up some signals. When Elena checked it, she frowned.
“Judging from the signal, it’s a monster, although it’s alone, it seems to be a rather big one.”
“Is it here because of the decoy device?”
“Not sure. But I think it came pretty late if that is really the case.”
When they were discussing how to handle that monster, Alpha suddenly interjected.
“Akira, it would be a pain in the neck if it gets any closer. So let’s take it out while we have the chance using that thing on your back.”
“Is that so? Alright then.”
Akira then told Elena and Sara his plan and took some distance from the vehicle before expanding the fold-able large-sized gun that Akira was carrying on his back. As the cannon unfolded, it peeked out from Akira’s back, past his shoulder. Akira used both of his hands to hold the cannon and aligned his aim with his target.
After Akira fixed his aim with the support of Alpha, he then let Alpha take control of both his cannon and augmented suit. Its aiming device worked together with Akira’s information-gathering device, allowing Akira to zoom in on his target in his headgear’s display which showed the range, trajectory, and lock-on notices.
The target was an abnormally huge mechanical monster, it was about 10 metres tall and its body was enveloped with resilient-looking armour. Countless legs were fixed on the huge cannon that grew out from its body. Although it was classified as a multi-legged tank, its shape was closer to that of a mollusc. Its outer appearance was far from the tanks that the Hunters used as well as the security drones of the old-world ruins.
Seeing that monster slowly crawling towards him, Akira frowned and said.
“That thing.. it looks like a squid, or an octopus, no?”
“It’s true that its shape indeed imitates that kind of animal.”
“That kind of monster basically comes from old-world factories right? Just like those insect cannons, right? I wonder why they make monsters in that shape.”
“I have no idea. Someone might have sent in faulty designs in order to render them useless. If someone sends in a huge amount of unrelated data while the system is updating its blueprint, it might corrupt the blueprint. Once they accomplish their goal, operational systems might use its advanced self-repairing function to fix the blueprint based on data it compiled. Since everything is a variable at that point, it might cause this kind of design to be produced. Leaving its appearance aside, they’re still functional.”
“Wait, if their auto-repair is that advanced, then can’t they just delete the unrelated data? That’s the source of the problem after all.”
“Although it can fix the method, it doesn’t have the privilege to fix the goal. So a system with only that level of privilege would not be able to completely fix it no matter how advanced its auto-repair is. Or more like, it doesn’t even consider fixing that part.”
“I see, so basically, because it can’t change the basic shape, it instead forcibly add other parts with its old-->>