With the destruction of the two reigning gangs, a large chunk of slum city was immediately thrown into a vacuum of power. Bosses of medium-sized to small-sized gangs gathered together to discuss that very matter right now. Their main focus was what to do with the territory left by the two destroyed gangs.
Of course, they could not afford to use military power to fight for that territory. But in order to keep their right over that territory, they could not afford to just back out either. Thanks to that, they could not come to a consensus even after a long and difficult discussion.
But if they kept this up without coming to any kind of conclusion anytime soon, the City Management might decide to just burn down that territory. After all, there was already a rumour spreading around saying that the mansion itself was occupied by monsters. With the time going against them, the members of that discussion could not afford to keep dilly-dallying, and the sense of pressure caused them to slowly compromise, although, it was still not enough for them to come to a consensus yet.
“Geez, let’s just decide on something. Just split that territory equally to the gangs neighbouring it, isn’t that good enough?”
“Heck no! If we go with that method, you’ll get a huge chunk of that territory. Even my gang had also lent those two gangs a lot of money and we can’t retrieve them back now. I won’t accept it unless we get enough territory to compensate for that amount.”
“Breaking that territory into pieces will only cause more trouble later.”
“Even the bases and the buildings are pretty valuable for us. Hunters might have no interest in them, but we can use them to earn more money. I’m sure you guys want them too. If we keep bickering like this, the City Management will burn them sooner or later, you know?”
“If you take the base, the area around the base will automatically become yours too. So how are you going to split that? I bet you’re planning to take that base for yourself, right? Like hell I will just let you do that!”
The bosses of each gang were debating and bickering for the sake of their own profit, loss, pride, greed, and standings. If any of them backed down, it would cause them more trouble later down the line. But if any of them forced through their own desires in this situation, it would be the same as picking a fight against the rest of the other gangs. The discussion went back and forth without making any meaningful progress.
Then one of the bosses from a medium-sized gang, who didn’t want this to go on forever, made a suggestion.
“If we only divide the territory among the gangs which participated in that battle, that would be the remnants of Ezont Family and Haurias, and that newcomer. But with no one from the Haurias nor Ezont Family here, that means everything will go to that newcomer. If we go with that method, I want to at least listen to the newcomer’s opinion first.”
Everyone in that room turned to the newcomer, and that newcomer was Sheryl.
Sheryl had come to that place with Viola and Carol. Viola and Carol stood behind Sheryl’s seat as if they were officers under Sheryl’s gang.
As the bosses from the other gangs directed their gazes at Sheryl as if they were trying to send a telepathic message to her, Sheryl just smiled and said.
“In that case, would it be okay if I take everything?”
No one expected Sheryl to say something as preposterous as that, half of the people there looked at her with widened eyes as they froze in place. The silence slowly shifted into whispers, and then whispers into chatters. While they were mumbling about those unexpected words from Sheryl, one of them shouted.
“Everything?! Are you kidding me?!”
Sheryl did not wince back at all, she only looked back at that guy with her usual smile and replied.
“I see, in that case, how much of that territory may I take?”
“W-well, even if you ask me…”
If that guy said a concrete number there, the other bosses would definitely turn at him. As he was unable to say anything, another guy interjected.
“Even if you take everything, there’s no way you can manage the whole territory all by yourself anyway. Use common sense here, will you?”
“You’re indeed right. Shijima-san, I’ll leave the territory that I get to you, so will you please manage them for us? If yes, then I’ll only take the territory that Shijima-san can manage, is that good enough for everyone? Shijima-san, we can talk about the details like how are we going to split the profit and the cost for maintaining that territory later.”
Although Shijima was already surprised when Sheryl suddenly brought up his name, he was even more shocked by her suggestion. With everyone’s attention focused on him, Shijima felt slightly overwhelmed, but of course, he did not show any of that on the outside.
One of the bosses there calculated how big the area that Shijima’s gang could manage with their current power, and his face turned grim as he realized that there was a good chance another gang would try to wrestle that territory from Shijima later if they did that.
“Wait a sec. Why did you suddenly say that? Or more like, why Shijima? If you need someone else to manage that territory, you can pick any other gang, right? Did you guys make some kind of agreement beforehand or something?”
“Not exactly. But during the discussion with Akira from the other day, we promised him to get along with Shijima-san’s gang and he hasn’t told me to abandon that agreement either.”
The moment Sheryl brought up Akira’s name, all the gang bosses there showed various reactions– fear, alert, interest, doubt, mockery–all of them had different reactions to Akira’s name.
One of them who looked down at Akira raised his voice and questioned Akira’s real strength while wording it out as if he was asking for others’ agreement.
“Akira, huh? He’s that Hunter supporting your gang, right? I’ve heard about him too. In the first place, I don’t know how much the rumour that I heard about him is true. Don’t take me wrongly though, I’m not saying that he’s weak or anything. But I bet those rumours have something to do with that girl behind you.”
Everyone looked at Viola. Although only some of them were obviously suspecting Viola, everyone could agree that the chance of her involvement was not zero.
Viola had her usual provocative smile as she pulled out her information terminal and operated it. Immediately afterwards, a notification reached the information terminal of the other people in that place. Since it was obvious that it was from Viola, everyone checked their information terminal and noticed that it was a video file.
The moment they played that video, everyone was dumbstruck. It was a video of Akira fighting a black powered suit. Murmurs started to ripple as they expressed their impression of that video.
“Damn, what the heck is wrong with this boy…”
“This guy fought a powered suit with nothing more than his body, huh? Wait, no, he’s using an augmented suit, but still…”
“Wait for a sec here, he’s winning? Are you kidding me…?”
The video was like a collage of multiple short shots, but it was enough as proof that Akira was a real maniac.
One of the bosses there could not hide his shock as he asked Viola.
“Can you prove that this video is not fake? For all that we know, you might have faked this video.”
Viola smiled at him as if to mock him and challenge him.
“If you can’t trust me, you can try to investigate it yourself. Although it’s a confidential video, it’s not a huge secret. So you should be able to get the same video with a little effort, you know?”
The guy who asked that question was convinced that it was not a fake video from that exchange. Or at least, he understood that the City Management even trusted that video too. Although he was not that convinced compared to the other people present, it was enough to shut him up.
Another guy then turned to Sheryl again, he still was not able to fully recover from the shock as he said to her.
“…Leaving that Hunter aside, I still think it’s too much for you to ask everything, no?”
Sheryl could not fully hold back her smile.
“True, but I have no reason to refuse that proposition either. Not to mention, I have some debts that I have to pay Akira too. So if I can take the whole territory, I’m planning to turn some of them into money. After I formally receive that territory, I’m thinking of selling some of them to the other gangs. After all, I did something similar with Shijima-san before.”
“Debt, huh. How much is it exactly?”
“About 4 billion Aurum.”
Murmur rippled through the room again.
“…4 Billion? Is this some kind of joke?”
“I can assure you that it’s not. The one who calculated that debt is Viola.”
After Sheryl said that, everyone sent a hostile gaze to Viola. Viola only smiled back at everyone in response to that. Judging from that reaction, everyone had the same thought, Viola must have done something dirty to get Sheryl into that debt.
One of the guys there had a really troubled look, he was surprised by the difference between the information that he had gathered beforehand and the information that he received just now. But even so, he still tried his hardest to think of a way to make this occasion into a profitable one for his gang.
Akira was strong enough to fight a powered suit and was invested enough in Sheryl that he would go to rescue her himself. Then to top it off, he was crazy enough to raid one of the biggest gang’s base just to kill a pickpocket. This opportunity was basically a good chance for Akira to get back the 4 billion Aurum that he had lent to Sheryl. So considering how much animosity they would earn from Akira if they tried to contest for that territory and preventing Sheryl from paying back her debt, it might be not a wise thing to be greedy, at least not for now.
After he made up his mind, he decided to change his method of trying to get his hands on that territory.
“I’m fine with it if you want to let the other gangs take care of that territory, but it doesn’t have to be Shijima, right? Though you said you want to get along well with Shijima’s gang, to be honest, I don’t think you can get much profit from that, am I wrong?”
“Well, that’s true.”
“Thought so!”
That guy smiled and glanced at the bosses from the other gangs that his gang was going along relatively well with. All of them immediately gave their approval when he did that. Thus an alliance was formed in order to take a part of that territory management right from Shijima’s gang.
“…In that case-”
When that guy was about to continue, Sheryl interrupted him while making a troubled face.
“But again, other than Shijima-san, I know no one else who has negotiated with Akira, forced him to compromise, and even made him pay up some money.”
Everyone present immediately turned to Shijima. Shijima was barely able to maintain his calm. With him unable to say anything back, he noticed that some of them were obviously misunderstanding him there, so he just looked away to evade that subject. But Sheryl continued.
“Ah, but I don’t mind if any of you want to discuss it with Shijima-san to manage that territory with him. That way we’ll be able to manage a wider area after all. So I would be more than happy if any of you want to do that.”
Everyone exchanged looks with each other. Though a few more people were swayed, it was not enough to conclude their discussion.
“…Let’s take a short break here.”
“…Good idea.”
Since no one objected, they took a short break from the discussion as they started leaving the meeting room. But of course, no one was actually taking a break, they only left the room since they wanted to discuss something that they could not discuss there.
Shijima was the first one to leave the room. He understood very well that it would be bad if the other gangs swamped him. He believed that he should take some distance from the other gangs for now and contact Viola, who he bet had her hands on this behind the scene.
Sheryl, Viola and Carol were the only ones left inside that room. Sheryl let out a long sigh, she looked rather tired. Viola was talking with Shijima through her information terminal not too far from Sheryl. Carol, who was also standing close to Sheryl, looked at her and smiled amusedly.
“Carol-san, is there anything wrong?”
“Hm? It’s nothing. I just thought that if Viola had a little sister, she would look just like you.”
“…Please stop with the jokes.”
Carol could not hold back her giggle seeing how Sheryl obviously hated that idea.
After that, the meeting continued pretty smoothly in one direction. Although there was a bit of disagreement, they finally agreed on a consensus, and Sheryl’s gang was able to gain a lot of profits from that conclusion.
—*—*—*—
Akira was riding his bike through a major road inside Kuzusuhara ruin. This road was built by Kugamayama city and it went all the way to the forward base deep inside the ruin. Even now, the road was guarded by those who were also properly maintaining it. After all, it was an important road for the sake of exploring the ruin.
After the long negotiation with Kibayashi that lasted until the sunset, the rank-up request that Akira accepted from him was to take Hunter jobs around that road. To be more precise, it included hunting monsters and relics, patrolling and gathering information, as well as accepting SOS requests. Basically, it was a rather lax request where Akira was basically free to do whatever he wanted.
But of course, there were also some requirements that Akira had to do. Any relics that he gathered during that request should be sold to the relic exchange office in the forward base, he had to hand over all the information that he gathered, he should not ignore the SOS request he received, and he had to prioritize cleaning up any monster swarm that he found near the road. In exchange for paying his ammo and his other expenses, Akira accepted those conditions.
“Well, it’s great that I’m basically free from doing anything I want as long as I stay near this highway, they’ll also pay for my ammo too. But seeing from their perspective, it means that even considering the fact this request is made to boost my rank, this request is actually so dangerous to the point that they agreed on such a condition.”
Alpha lightly added.
“This road basically cross past the patrol route of that big monster that attacked you the other day. So judging from that fact, this place is actually pretty dangerous, you know.”
“Is that so? Wait, that means that they had to fight that monster when they secured this road, huh? That’s pretty amazing, I wonder how they managed to defeat that monster?”
“I bet they dispatched a lot of tanks and powered suits along this road to fight that monster. If they can maintain the route between the front-line and the back-line, it’s not that difficult for the city defence squad to defeat a monster of that level. That’s exactly why the City Management poured their money in order to maintain this road. Look, they’re still working on this road even now.”
Alpha pointed at the side of the road. When Akira looked in that direction, he could see some people working on rebuilding the abandoned buildings around the road into protection walls. There were also some people barricading the small side roads to prevent monsters from using them.
“Although I’m sure that there’s no need to say this, they must have cost a lot of money. Though I’m sure that they only do that because they expect to get enough profit from this road… I heard that Kugamayama city was built in order to explore the Kuzusuhara ruin, but I see now, there is no wonder why they decided to build a whole city for something like that.”
Old-world relics were extremely valuable goods in the eastern district. Akira himself tasted a glimpse of how much money these relics could bring him and he could not help but feel slightly amazed by it.
There were multiple checkpoints guarded by powerful guards along that road and the distance between one checkpoint to another was fixed. These checkpoints were equipped with powerful defences and powerful portable walls in order to stop the invading monsters in case those monsters broke through the first line of defence.
In one of those checkpoints, Akira was showing the terminal on his arm to one of the guards. That terminal was lent to him from the forward base and it was of the same type as the one that he had got during the request in Kuzusuhara underground city forward base. He was told to use that information terminal during this request too and it also doubled as a pass to go through the checkpoints. Normally, Hunters would have to pay when they wanted to use that road and a terminal was also there to collect the payment. But during this request, Akira was exempted from that fee.
The guard connected his terminal to Akira’s terminal, he then slightly raised his eyebrows and looked at Akira.
“Ohhh, so you’re Akira, huh?”
“Yes, I’m Akira, what of it?”
The guard frowned and checked up on Akira, he then smiled.
“Nah, everything is good. You can pass, good luck out there.”
Akira just ignored that guy and passed through the checkpoints. But a little later he remembered something and seemed a bit bothered by it.
“Alpha, what do you think was that?”
“No idea. Let’s just forget about it and keep going. It’s not that important that you would go back just to check it, right?”
“Well, that’s true, but still…”
“I bet it’s just that they’ve heard about you or something. It might be just that they have seen that video from Kibayashi or heard about your involvement in that incident.”
Alpha smiled just like usual, but in contrast to that, Akira frowned and said.
“Wasn’t that supposed to be confidential?”
“Those guys are from the City Management, so it won’t be strange if they know, no?”
“…Give me a break. I don’t want people throwing requests at me using that battle as a basis.”
“You’re not obligated to accept them even if they do. But if something like that were to happen again, you can just fight enough to fulfil your contract and run away.”
“You’re right, I’ll do that.”
Akira then shook that thought off of his mind and focused on the road in front of him.
One of that guard’s friends came to the guard when he saw him taking an unusually long time to check Akira’s identity through the checkpoint.
“Is there something wrong about that boy?”
“Nah, it’s nothing. It’s just that he was the Hunter we talked about when we were out drinking yesterday.”
“Is that kind of Hunter really so rare?”
“Rather than at him, I’m more interested in the guy who’s interested in him. It’s that Kibayashi, you know.”
“Ahh, I see now. I feel bad for him since he’s still young…”
That guard nodded. His mixed feeling toward Kibayashi and the Hunter that Kibayashi was interested in was fully shown on his face.
Kibayashi’s love for reckless Hunters was well-known, but strangely enough, it was a highly effective method to identify young Hunters with rare talents. Most of the great Hunters tend to be blinded by the glory as they went out chasing for that glory only to be swallowed by the wasteland. But a small number of those Hunters were able to get a hold of that glory and return back alive.
Even if his bad habit sometimes caused trouble with triple-digit rank Hunters, with his connections to all the Hunters working in the front line, Kibayashi was treated as an important person. Thanks to that, the City Management and the Hunter Office had their eyes on him. That was exactly the reason why Akira was able to get such benefits like all his ammo expenses paid by the City Management.
“So then, is he the lucky one? Or the poor one?”
“No idea. He’s still alive and kicking for now, so I guess he’s the lucky one. But with that being said, it won’t be strange if he turns into the unlucky one anytime. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to be in his situation if I were him.”
“Couldn’t agree more to that. I don’t want to die too, after all.”
They then laughed and returned back to their guard duty.
Not too long after Akira went down that road, he noticed that the scene around him had been completely changed as if he had passed some kind of boundary. Rubbles were scattered around him, he could see powered suits patrolling the area, and not too far in front of him, there were City Management staff working on a huge wall. Although that area was already secured by the City Management, it was not an area where normal workers could work in. There were even corpses of dead monsters left in the area too.
Akira stopped his bike and thought about where to go from there.
“Now then, what to do from here?”
Alpha made a suggestion to Akira.
“If you want to take part in a huge fight, you can continue along the road and join up with the other Hunters in the front line.”
“No thanks!”
“In that case, if you want to do relatively safer work of gathering relics, you can go to one of those buildings around the area. Some of them might have been already secured beforehand which means any expensive-looking relics might have been carried out from them. But if you look more carefully, you might still be able to find some valuable relics left.”
“Hmm, I don’t feel like doing that either. I have no plans to do anything reckless, but I don’t feel like searching a place that doesn’t seem to have any valuable relics left either… I guess I’ll just drive around while checking if there’s any place that seems to still have some expensive relics left inside.”
“Just to make sure, you’ll do your best during this request without my support, right?”
“Yeah, if I keep defeating monsters effectively without using many bullets thanks to your support, I feel like people will start to get weird expectations of me again. So for the time being, I’ll try doing this request on my own to check my own real strength and to make people understand that I was able to defeat that black powered suit because of luck instead of skill. I’ll rely on your support only when it’s really needed.”
Alpha smiled and lightly poked at Akira.
“In that case, this will be the perfect chance to check the result of all your training up until now. I’ll be staying beside you to see how far you can go without my support.”
Akira lightly smiled back at her.
“Roger that, I’ll give my best shot.”
“If I don’t see much improvement, I’ll increase the difficulty of your training, okay?”
“If you make it any harder, my limbs would fall off, you know?”
“It’s a good thing that you bought that 5 million Aurum medicine, isn’t it?”
In contrast to Alpha who was smiling amusedly, Akira seemed a bit concerned as he paced his bike. He then turned into one of the side roads and went through alleys between buildings to search the ruin.
While at the same time, Yatsubayashi was sitting in his private room while making a troubled face.
“This is not good at all…”
The big display in front of him was showing the signal from the tracker implanted inside Tiol. It also showed other information along with Tiol’s position. At the moment, Tiol’s signal was coming from Kuzusuhara ruin.
“The bomb inside him should have exploded after a fixed amount of time. Did he dismantle that too? Or did he completely devour it…?”
Yatsubayashi actually did not really care that much about Tiol’s life. He thought he could just retrieve Tiol’s corpse after he died somewhere, that was why he was not that pressured to take care of Tiol right now. But now it was starting to get worrying.
Tiol’s signal was showing that he was staying somewhere next to the main road made by the City Management that went through the ruin. In case the guards captured Tiol and did a close investigation on him, it might link back to Yatsubayashi.
“Yep, this is not good at all. Maybe I should do something to retrieve Tiol back. But still…”
Yatsubayashi then thought about some of the negatives that might happen if he took the initiative to retrieve Tiol. Although leaving Tiol alone might cause him a lot of trouble, considering how much benefit he could get if he was able to retrieve Tiol back, he honestly did not want to let Tiol roam around freely.
“What should I do…”
Yatsubayashi could not make any concrete decision. After a long thought, he decided to make a compromise.
