Rebuild World

en you apply an information filter for the sake of your safety.
Like that one, you know, remember when you met a maid girl that I couldn’t see in Higaraka residence ruin? In the worst-case scenario, that could have killed you, you know.
It was because I’m putting a filter in your connection that you were safe.
That’s why it’s not something for you to worry about.”

 

“Well, that does sound like it’s no problem at all, but then why did Tsubaki say that?”

 

“I bet it’s a matter of individual opinion.
You do know that I can control your body by controlling your augmented suit, right? Like how some people hate that, there might be people who don’t want their bandwidth to be used for just one connection.
It’s the same for the connection filter too.
I think she was talking about that.”

 

“Hmmm, is that all?”

 

Though Akira understood from Alpha’s explanation, he did not feel like that was enough of a reason for Alpha to interject as she did back then.
When he said that, Alpha smiled faintly at him and said.

 

“This might be just a guess from me, so it’s not like I want to say anything bad about her.
But if I may add something, she might want you to open some bandwidth that she can use to connect with you.”

 

“Why?”

 

“If she can connect with you, she’ll be able to talk through telepathy with you too.
That way, she would be able to make a deal with you without telling me.
The reason why I interjected is simply to avoid that.
To put it simply, it was so that you won’t cheat on me.”

 

Alpha said so and smiled mischievously at Akira, who winced back when he saw her expression.

 

“C-cheat, huh…”

 

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Alpha came closer to Akira’s face and smiled amusedly.

 

“I trust that you would say no even if she offers you 10 billion Chrome and performs other services for you to just forget the request from this girl whom you can’t even touch.
But it still doesn’t feel right to me, even more so when you do that in secret.”

 

Alpha came so close to Akira that if she had a body, he would be able to feel her body heat from that distance.
So Akira inadvertently pulled his face back, he then smiled bitterly and said.

 

“Don’t worry.
I’ll still prioritize your request.
After all, I already owe you a lot until now.
I have no plans to just ignore that.”

 

“Is that so? Thank you, I’m really happy to hear that.”

 

Alpha smiled as if she was really happy, she then returned back to her usual posture.

 

Akira tried to calm himself down as he shifted his eyes forward.
He then thought.

 

[Does this mean that Alpha still hasn’t fully trusted me yet? Well, I did ignore her warning and went to raid a big gang’s base, I even almost got myself killed fighting in a battle that I could have avoided.
So I guess that’s to be expected, huh? I guess I have no other choice but to properly do my Hunter job, get better equipment, give my best in my training, and regain some of her trust.]

 

Akira said so as he made his resolve and decided to stop worrying about it for now.

 

He was actually being tricked there.
Although Alpha did not lie, she also did not tell everything to him.

 

As Akira kept his connection bandwidth solely for Alpha, it was slowly turned to suit Alpha’s connection.
Although at the moment most of Akira’s bandwidth was still general-purpose bandwidth, it was only a matter of time before all of them were modified for Alpha’s special use.
Alpha did not say anything about that to Akira.

 

In the first place, Akira was the one who gave Alpha permission to modify his bandwidth.
Of course, he did not know that himself when he did that.

 

It took a lot of power to change a contract that had been signed and Akira did not have such power at the moment.
No one could tell for sure whether he would ever get the power to do so before he could accomplish Alpha’s request, or even if that kind of power existed in this world in the first place.

 

—*—*—*—

 

Once they left the area maintained by Tsubaki, the scene returned back to an abandoned city with rubbles and half-destroyed buildings scattered everywhere.
Akira lightly sighed and felt slightly relieved when he saw that.

 

“It might be weird to say but I feel much calmer in this place, although, technically speaking, it’s still in the inner part of the ruin.”

 

“Well, the inner part of the ruin actually extended over a wide area after all, and it’s not like there’s any clear indicator that separates the inner and the outskirt of the ruin.
But if we say that the area further in than the forward base is an area where monsters which normal Hunters can’t handle roam around, I guess it’s safe to say that this is already the inner part of the ruin.
Though I’m sure it would change when the forward base finishes building a road to go further into the ruin though.”

 

Akira then hummed.

 

“And they’re already in the middle of building that road, right? If I’m not mistaken, Elena-san and Sara-san are working on a request related to that… If things are going smoothly, that road will eventually go all the way to an area like the one with the Tsubakihara building, right? Won’t that be dangerous?”

 

Akira thought that if the road extended that far, those powerful big drones with camouflaging devices might backtrack that road all the way to the forward base, and that would be disastrous.
In the worst-case scenario, forget the forward base, those monsters might even come all the way to Kugamayama city.

 

“I’m sure the City Management has also thought about it too.
I’m sure they’ll do something like dispatching the city defence squad or calling back those Hunters who are originally working in much more dangerous places… I’m sure you’ll get called for that too sooner or later.”

 

“And I’ll say no to it.
This time I won’t be taking any request from the City Management ever again.”

 

Akira looked extremely displeased, Alpha who saw that only smiled at him mischievously.
Akira had no plans to be sent to the hospital again after all.

 

Alpha’s expression then changed to a serious one, at the same time, she augmented Akira’s views.

 

“Akira, we have company.”

 

“Roger that.
Well, in the first place, I didn’t expect to get back home without encountering any monsters after all.”

 

Akira casually said so as he switched his mind to battle state.
He let go one of his hands from the handle and reached for his CWH anti-material rifle.
That was when Akira’s relaxed face turned stern.

 

Akira could see multiple signals from the monsters chasing him from behind in his augmented vision.
At first, when Alpha warned him, it was only one signal, but it immediately went to 4, then to 8, and now it was already 20.

 

“…Aren’t there too many of them?”

 

“They’re a swarm of weapon dogs.
But I don’t know if it’s a huge swarm or if it’s an amalgamation of multiple swarms.”

 

Akira remembered his past experience the moment he heard the word weapon dog.
They were monsters that he could not fight against back then when he went into Kuzusuhara ruin with nothing but a pistol.
Even the one that he was barely able to defeat was the one that was faulty.

 

But he was no longer the same from back then.
He had more firepower now, a better augmented suit, and more support from Alpha.
The current him should be able to take care of that swarm just fine.
He thought that it was a good chance to confirm how much he had grown since then as he looked at the first weapon dog.
But he frowned when he saw that weapon dog.

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“…Isn’t that weapon dog bigger than usual?”

 

“They originate from the area near the inner part of the ruin, after all.
They’re basically different to their smaller siblings that you can find roaming around the outskirt of the ruin.”

 

Akira thought that those weapon dogs would only be equipped with some big guns that normally won’t be used to fight people.
But the weapon dogs in front of him had cannons, mortars, rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, and big bodies powerful enough to support all of those guns.

 

“Akira, we’ll be running away as fast as we can.
I’ll take full control of the bike, so you just try to shoot their heads.
And also, make sure to hold on, it might get a little rocky.”

 

“Roger that!”

 

Akira aimed his rifle behind, at the same time, the bike’s arms also started to move too.
The A4WM automatic grenade launcher and DVTS minigun fixed on the ends of those arms were properly aimed at the incoming weapon dogs.
Akira focused his aim on one of the weapon dogs and pulled the trigger.

 

The CWH anti-material rifle had enough power to even destroy a tank, while the grenades from the A4WM automatic grenade launcher had enough destructive power to destroy the rubbles, as for the DVTS minigun, it could turn normal monsters into minced meat in no time.
Those 3 guns started shooting at the same time.

 

Sounds of explosions mixed in between the weapon dogs’ howls.
The cannons that could destroy a tank, the missiles that could destroy buildings, and heavy machine guns that could easily pierce a thick metal, all of those rifles on their backs started shooting at Akira.

 

The lonely wasteland was swallowed with sounds of explosions and fire in a snap.

 

Akira’s bike blazed through the ruin, Alpha used her advanced computation skill to predict where those rain of warheads and incoming bullets would land and nimbly controlled the bike to slip through the openings between them.

 

The explosions from Akira’s A4WM automatic grenade launcher were slowing the monsters down while his DVTS minigun was shooting down the incoming missiles.

 

The missiles that got shot veered from their original aims and hit the buildings, destroying them.
Alpha nimbly manoeuvred left and right through the falling rubbles.
When the road forward was blocked, she ran the bike on the walls of the building to get past those rubbles.

 

The weapon dogs ignored the rubbles blocking their way forward as they used their powerful body to break through those rubbles.
Akira did try to make some turns and used buildings to get away from the incoming bullets, but it did not seem like he was able to get away from the weapon dogs that were chasing him with a speed unsuitable for their sizes.

 

Akira was aiming from a situation that was far from ideal.
His aim swayed left and right following the bike’s movement.
Not to mention, sometimes it ran on the side of a building’s wall too.
In that chaotic situation, he only gathered his focus to its utmost level when he was about to take a shot, as he compressed his time perception to its limit, he carefully aimed his rifle inside a world that was almost completely frozen in time before pulling the trigger.

 

Although the special bullet’s firepower was reduced the further the distance it travelled, it was able to deal a deadly injury to the head of the weapon dog that it hit since those weapon dogs were weaker than a tank.
The weapon dogs that had lost their command centres went limp and just dropped dead on the ground.

 

Akira let out a long breath before he moved to his next target.
But he was taken aback by what he saw, the weapon dogs that he had shot down slowly started to move again.
They slowly stood back on their feet and aimed their weapons at him.

 

“Alpha! Those monsters are still alive even after I shoot their heads!?”

 

“Akira, calm down.
It’s just because something else outside that swarm is controlling them remotely.
It still doesn’t change their weak point, which is their heads.”

 

“So that kind of enemy is here too, huh!?”

 

“If you only destroy their control device and leave their bodies mostly undamaged, they can still be used for fighting if something else takes control of their bodies.
It might be some kind of system to make sure that they can still fight even after losing their control device.
Akira, reload!”

 

The bike’s arm extended its DVTS minigun next to Akira.
The arm did not have an automatic reloading system.
Although it was using an extended magazine, it did not take much time for it to run out of ammo when used for continuous shooting.

 

Akira hurriedly reloaded a new magazine, once he did that, the DVTS minigun returned its aim at the incoming swarm and started shooting again.
It did not take that long before his A4WM automatic grenade launcher also needed a reload.
Akira kept alternating between reloading new magazines and shooting the swarm.

 

Alpha’s shooting was more focused to suppress the enemies, while the killing shots were executed by Akira with his CWH anti-material rifle.
The special ammo for the CWH anti-material rifle was not cheap, every time Akira loaded a new magazine and threw away the empty magazine, he felt like he was throwing away a bundle of money.
So he could not help but complain there.

 

“There are so many of them and they’re too strong, what’s going on here? We didn’t encounter any of them on our way here, right? So why are there suddenly so many of them on our way back? And here I thought my bad luck was finally gone when we didn’t meet any monsters on our way in and were able to collect all of these relics without much trouble.”

 

“It must be because you’re carrying relics now.
They must have reacted when their sensor detected someone carrying a lot of stolen goods with him.”

 

Akira did not stop shooting as he replied.

 

“Stolen goods? But these are expired articles and we had the permission to collect them, right? Though I can understand the system looking at Hunters as robbers, that’s not the case this time, right?”

 

“That might be true for the mechanical monsters under the management system of the city, but that might not be the case for the monsters roaming the wasteland, you know? I’m sure that there are a lot of other faults in their programs too.
But with that being said, it’s indeed suspicious to see someone carrying this much luggage through the ruin.”

 

“So that’s why they started shooting at me, huh? What a huge pain in the neck!”

 

“If you understand it now, it would be great if you can stop complaining and focus more on the fight.”

 

“You’re right.
I feel better now to know that it’s not because of my bad luck.”

 

Akira smiled bitterly and said so as he returned back to shooting the incoming weapon dogs.