Rebuild World (WN)

s she actually planning to bring me somewhere and kill me or something?”

Something like that was common even in the dangerous areas outside the city and since they were in the middle of ruin, it would be an easy thing to just throw the corpse somewhere.
If that was the case, then Akira would need to carefully watch his back when he left that place.

“Ahhh, so that’s what you meant.”

Alpha was relieved now that she understood why Akira asked that question.
Akira was still as distorted and paranoid as usual to the point that he was suspecting an unknown girl, who was inviting him, was actually planning to kill him.

Alpha’s face turned to her usually calm face.

“I’ll put this out first, I do that by watching the slight change in people’s faces, so it’s not like I can really read their minds.
It’s true that she seems to be scheming something.
She said that she’s offering herself to you for free because she wants to get you addicted to her and leech off your money though.”

Akira took a look at Carol again.
Carol was a young girl with a good body and beautiful face, then to top it off, she was smiling with confidence to seduce him.
Looking from his point of view, it was understandable to find former Hunters who got addicted to her and spent all of their money on her.

“Whatever it is, it won’t be much trouble as long as I don’t take her offer.”

“That’s true.”

Akira once again refused Carol’s offer.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to refuse.”

Carol looked obviously surprised.
It was rare for someone to refuse her offer after she went that far.

“Geez, you’re no fun.
Or is it that you actually hate something like this? Although you’re not a.d.u.l.t yet, you’re not that young to be so innocent, right?”

“I’m at an age where I still prefer food over women.
Moreover, a lot of things happened to me in the ruins and I’ve been living a rather cowardly life until now.
That’s why I have no plans to let go of my rifles or to take off my augmented suit here.”

Carol immediately gave up seducing Akira, she understood that there were Hunters out there who got hurt so badly in the ruins that it made them paranoid to the point they would never let go of their rifles.
It was extremely dangerous to force those Hunters to let go of their rifles.

“Is that so? That’s just too bad.
We Hunters can die anytime and since you’re my type, I just thought to give you a good time, that’s all.”

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Carol was being honest when she said that, but the things that she could not say out loud were kept inside her heart as she smiled bitterly at Akira.
She then pulled back the fastener on her bodysuit all the way up while looking at Akira, it did not seem that he showed any regret at all.

[…If it’s a boy of his age, it should be easy to bait him using his desire but… Is it that he’s actually younger than he looks?]

Carol looked at Akira with curiosity.
But she could not see that someone with a more voluptuous body and in a s.e.xier suit was standing next to that Akira.

It was rather vague whether Akira refused because of the anti-honeytrap training from Alpha, or it was because of his originally distorted personality.

Akira then decided to leave Carol and head to his original objective, the 57th floor.

“I need to get back exploring the building, later then.”

“Is that so? I’ll be staying around here for the time being, so if you change your mind, just look for me.
I’ll be waiting for you.”

Carol just said that and lightly waved at Akira.

After Akira left Carol, he went back to searching a staircase on the 25th floor.
Now that he remembered it, he should have asked Carol if she knew where he could find the staircase on the 25th floor, but he decided not to turn back to look for her.
After all, it would be a hassle if she misunderstood and thought that he had changed his mind.

It did not take long before Akira found a stair, but it only went up until the 30th floor.
The door to the 31st floor was shut close.

Akira sighed.

“Again, huh? What a pain in the neck.”

“It can’t be helped.
Let’s look for another stair.”

Akira then started exploring the 30th floor.
He did not spot any monsters at all.
Carol might have said the truth when she told Akira that there was no monster inside that building.
Akira lowered his guard as he was exploring that floor.

Alpha suddenly told Akira with a stern face.

“Akira, move over there and stop.”

Alpha was pointing at a location not too far from him.
He glanced at Alpha’s expression and moved forward carefully to the location that she was pointing at.

“Alpha, is it more enemies? According to Carol, there shouldn’t be any monsters inside…”

“It’s not monsters, but don’t lower your guard.”

Akira followed Alpha’s instruction, he kept his guard up as he moved carefully.
He did not feel any abnormality, he did not see anything strange, and there was nothing detected in his information-gathering device.
But he did not lower his guard, he thought that there must be something that caused Alpha to tell him to be careful.

Alpha’s face turned serious.
Akira understood that it meant he was in a dangerous situation.

“…As I thought, the accuracy of your information-gathering device is bad, and it keeps falling down even right now.
Is this from the colourless mist?”

Akira frowned the moment he heard something from Alpha that he could not just let slip.

“Alpha, is it the colourless mist?”

“The accuracy of your information-gathering device has been falling for a while now.
I thought that it’s to be expected to have some disruptions due to the building’s structure or the relics inside this building, that’s why I’ve been ignoring it.
But it’s already falling so bad that such an explanation won’t work anymore.
If it’s really just because of where you’re standing, there should be some change after you move to a different place, but that didn’t work.
That’s why it must be because of something else and I guess that’s because of the colourless mist.
The colourless mist must have suddenly gotten thicker, that’s the only guess that I can come up with.”

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Although Akira still looked stern, he asked a question to Alpha as if he was trying to calm himself down.

“Something like that is completely expected to happen inside an old-world ruin.
Moreover, it’s not like it’s fatal, right?”

“At the moment, yes.
But it’ll be really bad if the accuracy keeps on falling like this.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it, let’s just move on carefully.”

Akira calmly replied with that.

Alpha, who once saw how Akira got so fl.u.s.tered when he knew that the colourless mist around him was suddenly getting thick, just smiled and said to him.

“Oh my, you’re pretty calm, aren’t you? I thought that it might cause you to panic if I delay it for too long, that’s why I decided to tell you sooner than usual, but it seems that it was not needed, huh?”

“It’s not like the situation will get better if I panic here, you know.
I just need to move carefully so I won’t get killed.
Thank you for telling me sooner than usual, thanks to that, I can handle the situation much calmer.”

“I see, that’s good to hear.
You’ve really grown stronger, I’m really happy to see that.”

“…Right, thanks.”

For some reason, Alpha sounded like she was actually teasing Akira, so he just replied back casually to her.
But in reality, Alpha knew that he forced himself to reply casually to hide his embarrassment.

—*—*—*—

When Akira was on the 10th floor, there were other Hunters gathered near the Seranthal building.

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Akira’s battle with autonomous weapons was a rather big fight.
Because of that, most of the Hunters in the Mihazono ruin noticed that fight.

When Hunters defeated the powerful monsters guarding the Seranthal building, there were basically 2 types of Hunters who entered that building.

The first type was those Hunters who worked together to defeat the powerful autonomous weapons, they would send some Hunters from their team into the Seranthal building after their battle.
While that small group of Hunters was gathering relics inside the building, the rest of the Hunters would stand guard on the building’s entrance to prevent any other Hunters from entering.

It was in order to avoid having to fight against other Hunters over the relics as well as to prevent other Hunters from leeching off their hard work of defeating the guardian monsters.
After all, there were many Hunters who were thinking of taking some relics out from the Seranthal building without helping to defeat the powerful monsters guarding that place.

Ammo expense, medical expense, wage cost, it basically took a lot of money to defeat those powerful autonomous weapons.
So in order to end up with a profit after the battle, they could not afford to let other Hunters leeching off relics from them.

Those Hunters who could defeat the powerful autonomous weapons were basically strong Hunters, so if they guarded the entrance to the Seranthal building, the other Hunters could not get in.
And when they left that building, the powerful monsters would be back guarding that building again in no time.

While the second type of Hunters who would get into that building showed themselves when there was a small opening left by those Hunters who were guarding the building.
At the exact moment when the small group of Hunters that was previously sent to scavenge the building returned back to the entrance, these second type of Hunters would focus their firepower to open a hole in the security net to let their own group of Hunters slip through.
It was the preferred way of sending Hunters into that building for those groups which were confident in their concentrated firepower.

Whichever it was, it was difficult to send Hunters into the building except for the original group who defeated the powerful monsters guarding it.
But if someone successfully did that, they would be able to get back rewards worth of all that hard work.

There were also Hunters who tried to negotiate with the Hunters guarding the entrance.
There were also Hunters who used the smallest opening that they could find to charge head-on.
While on the other hand, there were also Hunters who sneaked around to carry the wreckages of the autonomous weapons in secret.

Although it was rare, there were Hunters who exhausted their resources to defeat the powerful autonomous weapons and headed back home right after that.
The reason was unclear, it might be just out of a whim, or they might be just venting their stress on those monsters, or it might be just those Hunters testing the new weapons developed by some corporations.

But all of those reasons were of no importance to the other Hunters.
The most important thing was that the other Hunters would have a good chance to enter that Seranthal building after someone defeated the guardian monsters.
The other Hunters in Mihazono ruin hoped that would be the case when they noticed that big battle between Akira and the mechanical monsters.
That was why a lot of Hunters came to the Seranthal building to check.

One of the scout Hunters who was sent ahead checked the front entrance of the Seranthal building.
He then confirmed the wreckages of the autonomous weapons and checked if there were any other Hunters guarding that place.
After he finished, he contacted his other friends with a big smile.

“It’s me!! Tell the others too, quickly!! The monsters guarding the Seranthal building are dead! And there’s no Hunter guarding the entrance! We can get the relics from the building or carry the wreckage, either way, it’ll bring us a lot of money!! …Ah, and also! Come here, quickly!! Before the other Hunters come here first!! I saw some of the other Hunters scouting this place too!! Hurry up!”

Just like him, there were other Hunters calling their friends to hurry over.
That place was quickly filled with Hunters in no time.
Some of them were carrying the wreckages of the dead autonomous weapons that Akira defeated while some of them went inside the building hunting for relics.
In short, all the Hunters in that place were busy.

When some of those Hunters just went ahead to explore the building, there were some who just waited on the first floor for their other friends to arrive.
Seranthal, the holographic girl, kept giving warning to those Hunters.

“…Dear customer.
The building is closed at the moment, so we can’t allow anyone without the proper authorization to enter.
So please leave the building… Warning.
The facility is guarded by security allowed to kill in case of illegal intruders.
So please leave this place…”

For those Hunters who already knew about Seranthal building and that holographic girl, they just ignored that warning.

But there were Hunters who could not ignore her.
One of those Hunters was waiting on the first floor for his friends to arrive, but since his friends were taking too long, he started to get more and more irritated.
Although at first, he was ignoring Seranthal, the repeated warning from her drove that Hunter mad and he eventually blew.

“Good grief!! Just shut up!!”

“Warning, the building is…”

“Shut up!!!”

He then pointed his rifle at Seranthal.
Although he knew well there was no meaning in doing that to a hologram, he still pulled the trigger.
He was basically that irritated.

The bullet flew through that hologram and hit the wall behind her.
Fortunately enough, there was nobody there, so no one got hurt.

But releasing a shot in that place was a serious matter.
The other Hunters around him immediately pointed their rifles at him, he panicked and raised both of his hands.

“I-I’m sorry! She’s just so noisy that I couldn’t hold it back! That was all!! I’m sorry, okay!”

“…You’re a dead man the next time you do that.”

The other Hunters looked at him full of killing intent.
Of course, he wanted to avoid any needless conflict too.
It was a rare chance to be able to get into that building, so he had no plans to waste an opportunity to strike it rich without much struggle.
Thanks to that, he was barely able to get out alive from that situation.
If that shot had hit someone, he would have been dead by now.

“O-Okay, I understand.
I’m sorry.”

He just kept on apologizing.
The other Hunters around him then clicked their tongue and lowered their rifles.
He finally could let out a sigh of relief.

Because of that incident, no one was paying any attention to Seranthal’s warning.
Even when Seranthal changed her warning, no one there noticed it.

“Confirmed multiple intruders.
Confirmed the intruders trying to kill the employees and staff of the building.
Confirmed the destruction of the building.
Changing to protocol D.
Die you sc.u.m!”

After Seranthal said something that was unthinkable to be said to a customer, she quickly vanished.
Not too long after she vanished, some Hunters in that area noticed that Seranthal had gone.
But no one was bothered by that at all.

Silavin: Wow! Seriously? The author is really good at playing out a realistic situation.
But like… when can my boy Akira finally get a break?

New_chapters are published on lightnov‌elworld.c‍om

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