Chapter 28 - A Request From The Corporate Government(2/2)
Yumina looked amused as she kept teasing Katsuya.
“I think Sara-san won’t understand since she’s a girl.”
Airi also followed Yumina but with a flat expression.
“Curiosity killed the cat, it might be better if you give up.”
Unlike Yumina who was obviously teasing Katsuya, Airi just stated out a fact, hearing which, Katsuya panicked even more.
“T-that’s not it. It’s just that Sara-san was wearing a pendant although she usually doesn’t wear any, and that pendant was made of a bullet which is uncommon. The pendant’s top was sucked into her chest, so I couldn’t help but get curious when I noticed that, you know.”
Yumina and Airi let out a sigh at the same time.
“Now that you mention it, that was unusual for Sara-san to be wearing a pendant like that. It looks crude though, I wonder if someone gave her that as a present?”
“I don’t think Sara-san or Elena-san would buy something like that themselves, so it might as well be a present from someone.”
“That might be a present from her boyfriend.”
Katsuya was lightly shocked.
“B-boyfriend... B-but I heard that Sara-san and Elena-san only work in a team of two. So it’s hard to believe if she has a boyfriend...”
“Her boyfriend doesn’t have to be another Hunter, you know. Moreover, it’s not too unbelievable.”
“It might even be another Hunter who could not join her in Hunter requests since it’ll disrupt his relation with the other Hunters. If that’s the case, then it won’t be strange at all. Or they might have already started negotiation for transfer.”
Yumina and Airi were having their time of life teasing Katsuya who seemed to have a crush on Sara. Thus Katsuya’s torture kept on continuing.
Shikarabe ended his call in a bad mood. He was annoyed that the negotiation did not end up well. He pushed his displeasure aside and turned to Katsuya and the other kids to inform the result of the negotiation.
“You guys can go back home if you guys want, but if you want to take up more jobs, you’ll have to take the patrol work just like the one that you took this morning with me, so what do you want to do? Today’s work with Elena got cancelled anyway, so I think it’s fine if you guys just go home for today.”
Personally, Shikarabe wanted them to just go back home for today, but as someone who was taking care of them, he could not say that outright. As such, he could only send a stare saying that he hoped they would just disband.
[...Just go back home. You should be able to understand that I can’t order you to disband. You should also get the hint that something bad might be happening right now from the earlier conversation with Elena. I know that you don’t want to go to a patrol job with me either. Your next chance to go with Elena will come again sooner or later. There’s no need to work hard under me, so just go back home.]
Shikarabe’s silent prayer did not reach them as Katsuya turned to Yumina and Airi and asked them.
“What to do now? I did prepare my stuff to go for a job and not to mention that I want to raise my Hunter Rank as soon as possible too. After all, with our current Hunter Rank, we can’t take other requests on our own and we can’t go for exploring ruins either.”
Either way, they would still need Shikarabe’s permission. Katsuya wanted to break off from this situation as soon as possible. If he did, then there would be fewer people looking down on him.
“I don’t mind if you say so, how about you Airi?”
“No problem.”
As for Yumina and Airi, they only followed Katsuya most of the time. Their budding love for Katsuya in their heart pushed them to do so.
Shikarabe just looked at them with a cold gaze, showing his intense hatred towards Katsuya.
[...Going with majority rule again, huh? Don’t you know that those two won’t oppose if you make a suggestion? Are you doing this intentionally after knowing that fact?]
Originally, there were 5 kids under Shikarabe. Every time they wanted to decide on something, they would always go with majority rule and Katsuya always won, that was why the other two made a request to be transferred to another team. And so Shikarabe was left with Katsuya and these two girls.
Looking at how Katsuya was forcing his opinion using this majority rule, Shikarabe’s hatred towards Katsuya intensified.
Katsuya then turned to Shikarabe to tell him their decision.
“We’ll take another patrol request.”
“...Alright.”
Shikarabe then turned his back to Katsuya and took out his information terminal to contact Drankam and take care of the registration for the patrol job. As he was operating his information terminal, he let out a sigh looking annoyed.
“Dammit, if only I didn’t have to look over these brats, I would’ve been able to investigate that request from the Corporate Government by now. I know that we should invest in training the young Hunters, but we’re the ones working hard to pay for their equipment and sacrificing our time doing cheap work together with them for the sake of their training. I really hope the people in the management would pay more attention to this.”
Shikarabe understood that it was Drankam’s policy and not Katsuya’s fault, but he did not understand that it was normal for hatred to be created between the people who had to make sacrifices and the people who benefitted from other’s sacrifice.
***
Elena and Sara reached home and were preparing themselves for the request inside their vehicle. They checked their ammo reserves, the condition of the vehicle, the big information gathering device and the machine gun installed on their vehicle. They also installed more armour just to be safe and filled the energy tank. This was pretty excessive preparation for a simple patrol in the wasteland.
Normally, Elena would do the information gathering and driving, while Sara would peek out from the vehicle and shoot monsters down. So they were preparing themselves in the area that they were responsible for.
“Say, Elena, about this request though, what do you think about it?”
“I did a bit of investigation, but I couldn’t get anything of worth. But it seems that the same request was also sent to other Hunters near the ruins. Since Hunters like us got this request sent to us directly from the Corporate Government, I think it’s fully expected that there are other Hunters who got the same request as well. Maybe they’re trying to call all the Hunters back to the city.”
Sara looked puzzled.
“Doesn’t that mean that there would be another big-scale monster attack? Hmmm, but again, it’s weird that the Corporate Government would send out a request just because of that, huh? If that’s really the case, then the Defense Squad of the city should be enough to handle them. Not to mention that it would be a perfect chance to show their worth to the people who keep saying that the Defense Squad spends too much money. So I don’t think they would go out of their way to call the Hunters back to the city just to snatch the role from the Defense Squad.”
Elena looked conflicted as she agreed with Sara.
“That’s true. It’s because of that, I just can’t understand the reason behind this request. It would be great if it’s just a form of insurance, but that might not be the case. Let’s just prepare everything so that we can stay safe even if anything unexpected happens.”
Elena said that last part with a firm voice as if to psyche themselves up, but then she continued with a soft tone.
“But well, I bet it’ll be alright. After all, we’re doing very well lately. Thanks to that, we got quite a lot of money and we were able to upgrade our equipment. It is as if our time when we were on a slump were nonexistent in the first place. Although I said it as if it were nothing, we were really facing a hard time back then.”
Sara replied back in a small voice.
“It was really bad indeed... And what made us rise back up from that situation was Akira saving us. Not only did he save our lives, he even turned over our situation... I can’t thank him enough for everything that he did for us.”
Elena agreed with her as she smiled and nodded.
“Speaking about Akira, I met him today by coincidence. I was finally able to say my thanks to him and I feel much better now. But don’t worry, just like you, I also promised him about not asking anything unnecessary or telling anyone else about him.”
“You met Akira? Although I thought that I would meet him in Shizuka’s shop sooner or later, I didn’t see him lately at all. Where did you meet him?”
“It was in the gathering place where we met Katsuya. It seems that Akira was also taking the patrol request. He told me that he locked himself inside his room after placing his order for an augmented suit in Shizuka’s shop. That makes sense though, after all, it would be unfortunate if he went out to the wasteland before getting his augmented suit and got injured.”
historical
“So Akira started to get better Hunter equipment for himself, huh. We should work hard too.”
“Yeah, let’s give our best out there.”
Elena and Sara giggled as they continued with their preparation. Although they could not understand the reason behind this request from the Corporate Government, they were confident that they would be able to do it just fine.