Rebuild World: Volume 4 [Complete]

  Part 1

  Part 2

  Part 3

  Part 4

  Part 5

  Part 6

  Part 7

  Part 8

  Part 9

  Part 10

  Part 11

  Part 12

  Part 13

  Part 14

  Chapter 103: The Old and New Worlds at War

  Akira had become a hunter to escape the back alleys of the slums, and thanks to Alpha’s support he’d improved drastically. He’d obtained powerful gear, discovered an uncharted ruin buried deep underground, and fought creatures so dangerous that the Hunter Office designated them as bounty monsters. He’d defied death more times than he could count and had come out all the stronger for it each time.

  As a result, Akira’s power already dwarfed that of the average hunter. But not for a second did Akira think he could’ve managed any of this on his own—Alpha had held his hand all the way through.

  Then, just recently, misfortune had struck—a gigantic monster had swallowed both Akira and his truck whole, severing his connection to Alpha. Trapped in the monster’s belly, with no one to rely on, he’d come within mere minutes of being digested. Yet in the midst of that hopeless situation, Akira had mocked his own rotten luck, carved out a path to survival with his own strength, and overcome all odds.

  Now, decked out in a brand-new set of gear and with Alpha by his side once more, Akira stood at a whole new level as a hunter, both physically and mentally. Yet even so, he was still a long way away from being able to complete the task Alpha had given him. In order to reach those heights, he would need to face even greater perils in the future.

  ◆

  After the tumult surrounding the bounty hunts had finally died down and Akira felt comfortable resuming his search, he headed out to the wasteland once more to look for undiscovered ruins, following his only lead—the locations of terminals belonging to Lion’s Tail, Inc.

  “Alpha, how far away’s the next one?”

  From here, about an hour.

  “Seriously? That long?” Akira sighed.

  Smiling, Alpha tried to cheer him up. Well, since we’ve finished checking most of the markers near the city by now, it stands to reason we’ll have to travel farther out from now on. But that means we’re more likely to hit pay dirt, so chin up, okay?

  They’d learned about the locations back in the Higaraka Residential District Ruins, and since this data had helped him find the Yonozuka Station Ruins, he didn’t doubt that it was authentic. However, while this was far better than fumbling around in the dark, they still weren’t guaranteed to find anything. In fact, nearly every marker they’d visited so far had turned out to be a dud. And because the wasteland was so vast, it took time to reach each location, only to be met with failure. Akira found himself sighing more and more as the days wore on. Perhaps having some monsters to fight on the way would have kept him from getting bored; but during the recent bounty hunts most monsters in the area had been wiped out, leaving Akira with nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs. He was so bored, in fact, that he fell to scrounging around for things to discuss with Alpha, even going so far as to bring up a topic he normally wouldn’t have.

  “So, what’s with today’s outfit?”

  While not as revealing this time, as always she’d chosen alluring, seductive apparel. Today she was wearing a tight body suit that emphasized her curves. Joint-like segments connected each of the suit’s limbs to the torso; everything was fastened together with what looked like belts or cords. For reasons he couldn’t guess, odd holes appeared all over the suit—one on her back, another showing her cleavage, and several smaller openings where the pieces connected, all of which exposed her bare skin. Overall, it was relatively tame compared to some of her other outfits—yet her shapely limbs were still plenty enticing, and he even caught a glimpse of a fabric (maybe underwear?) peeking out from her bare back, so the ensemble was still racy in several other respects.

  Oh, this? This is a body suit designed for those with artificial bodies. Alpha posed flirtatiously. What do you think?

  Taking care not to show any sort of reaction, Akira changed the subject, asking her the first question that came to mind. “What’s up with those jointed parts?”

  They allow the wearer to freely replace parts of their body with alternatives of varying shapes and sizes.

  “And the hole in the back? What’s that for?”

  Body augmentations. Like a third arm, or an external unit for support in combat, or a propulsion device for flight, or portable heavy weaponry too large for the user to carry normally. When it comes to the possibilities, the sky’s the limit.

  As he listened, Akira unintentionally started to picture such an augmented Alpha. He tried to imagine a practical reason for jointed parts that seemed to only serve to flaunt the hips and groin, or for the holes exposing her back and cleavage. In his mind’s eye, a metallic arm sprouted from Alpha’s back, to which he then gave a massive firearm. He also mentally replaced both her real arms, all the way up to the shoulders, with weapons far larger than her torso. Then, in order to support that added weight, he substituted her normal legs with a crude-looking cluster of appendages. Finally he added a propulsion device to her hips, and filled the small holes on the body suit with energy-supplying pipes that powered each part.

  “Nah, there’s no way,” Akira muttered suddenly, and erased the monstrosity from his mind. If anyone was going to go that far, they might as well don powered armor or ride a mech instead.

  But Alpha looked amused. Actually, I could see something similar to what you just imagined as a possibility.

  “Huh? Really?”

  Yes. Something similar, mind you. And with the technology of the Old World, it would in fact be a piece of cake to create exactly what you just imagined.

  Akira went silent for a bit. “Well, even if it was possible, no hunter would ever want to look like that abomination,” he finally said.

  Perhaps from an aesthetic standpoint, but farther east, on the Front Lines, hunters with similar appearances wouldn’t be out of the question.

  Among Old World combat gear, there were those with designs so provocative that modern outfits looked tame in comparison. However, Old World creations were so high performance that for many hunters modern ideas of decency took a back seat. While choosing to wear such gear might still require a degree of courage, the Old World specs were high enough to outweigh the wearer’s shame, and so even now many chose them regardless of how they looked.

  As a result, high-spec gear and racy clothing had become associated in the public eye, and were now practically synonymous with each other. These days, some hunters would even wear such clothes on purpose to suggest they were more capable than they actually were. With that in mind, wearing a risqué bodysuit and exchanging the limbs for powerful-looking weaponry could be quite a plausible choice for a hunter, Alpha explained.

  “I see. I never would’ve thought of that. The world really is vast, huh?” Akira marveled.

  Since escaping the slums, his perspective of the world had indeed widened—but unbeknownst to him, that perspective was largely skewed.

  ◆

  Arriving at his destination, Akira began looking around—but the site was another bust. Seeing the empty, overgrown field spread out before him, he sighed again. “Nothing here either.”

  The marker in Akira’s vision was pointing directly to the ground. It was supposed to denote the location of a Lion’s Tail data terminal, but all it indicated now was a pile of rubble overgrown with grass. Judging from the amount of debris in the area, some kind of building had probably once stood here, most likely in the midst of a bustling Old World city, and had indeed been home to a Lion’s Tail terminal.

  All of this seemed to confirm that the data he had was in fact accurate. But even such reassurance couldn’t quell his disappointment at his string of failures, and he found it ever more difficult to maintain his enthusiasm. Though he didn’t realize it, his sighs were becoming deeper with each unsuccessful search.

  Alpha noticed his agitation and suggested, Why don’t we call it a day on the unexplored ruins, and try searching for undiscovered parts of known sites instead? She explained that the Lion’s Tail data he had also indicated the existence of hidden areas in already-discovered ruins. Following its leads would be much more efficient than searching for such locations blindly, and even if they didn’t find an untouched section, they could still gather a few relics along the way.

  Akira thought this was a fine idea, but then hesitated. “Is that really going to be good enough? If the ruins have already been picked through, we aren’t going to find anything that valuable.” He knew that if he followed her suggestion, it could take longer for him to carry out the task she’d requested of him. Their whole goal in searching for unexplored ruins was to recover the untouched relics sleeping within—valuable treasures needed to purchase gear powerful enough for the job.

  True, but if we keep searching for ruins as we are, we run the risk of not finding anything at all. Besides...

  “Yes?”

  Even if persisting might eventually lead us to more valuable relics in the undiscovered ruins, you’re just going to get more and more depressed as long as we keep coming up empty-handed, Alpha said gently.

  Seeing her prioritize his feelings actually made him happy. True, he was getting a bit depressed already, so he accepted Alpha�

�s consideration and nodded, pleased. “All right, you’ve convinced me. Let’s change our focus.”

  Roger! Then Alpha grinned teasingly. Why, look at that, Akira—you’re suddenly in a much better mood!

  “Well, I have to admit, I was getting a bit tired of driving all around the wasteland for nothing. And it’s important to keep up one’s enthusiasm, right?”

  You said it!

  Of course, he couldn’t bring himself to say that the main reason his mood had improved was her thoughtfulness. Akira grinned, satisfied that he’d managed to come up with a good excuse.

  ◆

  With his new objective in mind, Akira got back in the truck and headed off. Since he wasn’t looking for undiscovered ruins now, there was no need to worry about his route potentially giving away such locations to others. So he accepted some standard extermination jobs while en route in order to earn a little money on the side.

  He took out his terminal, connected to the Hunter Office, and signed up for several jobs. Not long ago, Akira hadn’t even known how to perform a simple search—now he was able to do this much even without Alpha’s help.

  As he tapped away at his terminal, a thought crossed his mind. “Hey Alpha, why do these common extermination jobs even exist in the first place?”

  Why? Because the Hunter Office lists them, of course.

  “No, that’s not what I mean.” Akira clarified that he was simply asking what the benefit was in paying people to exterminate monsters. Patrolling the city outskirts made sense—the people inside the city walls and in the lower district were paying to keep the city safe. He also understood that some people wanted monster corpses—whether organic or inorganic, monsters could be dissected and their parts sold for serious money, some of which he suspected was paid to the hunters who killed them. But he couldn’t see the merit in paying someone to eradicate monsters this far out, so far from the city that it just wasn’t worth it to haul their corpses back.

  Alpha looked surprised, then pleased. So now things like this have you curious? You sure have grown, Akira. Perhaps this is also a result of my regimen for you?

  “Th-Thanks.” Akira gave an embarrassed grin, since Alpha was also subtly pointing out that up until now he’d been too dull to notice.

  Oh, don’t feel down—it was a compliment! she said. Now then, to answer your question: put simply, the Eastern League of Governing Corporations is investing in the good of the entire East. Keep in mind a lot of this is just speculation on my part, but seems reasonable. With that disclaimer, Alpha launched into a detailed explanation.

  Common extermination jobs didn’t have any specific conditions—there was no quota on how many monsters to kill, nor was there a set time limit. Even if a hunter who signed up for one of these jobs didn’t encounter a single monster, they would still be paid the minimum reward as long as they handed over a report detailing what happened on their route.

  When did the hunter take this job and in what location? How strong was the hunter, and what kind of monsters did they encounter, if any? Did they win or lose? Did they run away, or did the monster? Was it defeated, or was the hunter? Even this basic information could prove incredibly useful for the Hunter Office when aggregated from hunters all over the East. Once analyzed, the data could help determine the monster threat level in a given area, safe transport routes to and from the city, or the viability of an ELGC development proposal, among other things.

  But here the League faced something of a dilemma. On the one hand, hunters wouldn’t typically hand over such data for free, of course; but on the other, getting a single party to investigate the entire wasteland would be quite costly. So the ELGC decided to require reports from hunters in return for paying for extermination jobs. After all, many hunters were already taking these side jobs while working on larger ones to earn a little extra in the meantime. And of course, fewer monsters roaming the wasteland always meant the wasteland was safer to traverse, stabilizing the availability of goods.

  Considering these benefits, the ELGC could even afford to take a minor loss and raise the hunters’ payouts a little as an incentive. Reward amounts for common extermination jobs could be finalized even after completion of the job, so minor adjustments were certainly possible. And so, Alpha concluded, the payouts for low-level extermination jobs were a necessary expense that benefited the entire East.

  Akira listened with great interest. “Wow, the League really gave it a lot of thought.”

  Well, I generalized a bit. “The entire East” might be something of an exaggeration, but it’s certainly true that different regions of the East benefit in their own ways. For example, she added, if a horde of monsters suddenly appeared in a region where there never had been any previously, this could potentially indicate a nearby ruin (similar to the one Akira had discovered, the Yonozuka Station Ruins), and the ELGC could sell the data to the city in that region. Moreover, insurance firms that catered to transport companies would shell out good money for information on the likelihood of encountering a monster in a given area, since they factored this into their rates. And of course, just by selling the data alone to the cities and companies, the League stood to make a considerable profit besides.

  Akira nodded. “Makes sense. When a new ruin is discovered, the nearby cities profit big-time. They probably sell some of the relics found there, which gives them more funds to pay their hunters. Then those hunters go out and buy gear, which helps the local economy.” He’d been working on his education, not just developing his combat skills.

  You got it! Alpha looked satisfied at his growth. Seeing that Akira not only understood her explanation but also showed interest in it pleased her to no end.

  But like always, even as she’d delivered her explanation, she’d been constantly analyzing.

  Making sure the information he learned wasn’t going to backfire on her.

  Shielding Akira from harmful knowledge that might make him turn on her.

  Trying to make this possibility as remote as possible, any way she could.

  And so, once again, the knowledge that she gave him was skewed in order to preserve his trust in her.

  ◆

  They’d been driving through the wasteland for a while when their destination came into view—an Old World city that still retained much of its past appearance.

  “So that’s the Mihazono Town Ruins?” Akira marveled.

  Just at that moment, a large desert utility bus filled with hunters drove by.

  Looks like we’re all heading to the same place, Alpha commented.

  “If all those hunters are coming here, this place must have some seriously good loot.” Akira turned his gaze to the ruins with renewed anticipation. But then his expression clouded over.

  What’s wrong?

  “Well, hunters like us have been collecting relics from ruins for a really long time, right? For decades—no, centuries? How long, exactly?”

  It’s impossible to know exactly, and different regions started at different times, but two hundred years ago at the least.

  “Okay, then with all those hunters searching over the years, how are there still any relics left? Shouldn’t all the ruins be cleaned out by now?”

  A simple question, and Alpha answered immediately. They are. Think about it: there were almost no relics of worth in Higaraka; and the Minakado Ruins, the multigun snail’s habitat, was an abandoned husk completely deprived of anything of value.

  In fact, ruins completely stripped of their relics could be found all over the East. However, they tended to be more on the western side, as the monsters were comparatively weaker there. Once the yield of relics in a region had dried up, the hunters would then move farther east in search of more relics. And the League, desiring more valuable relics as well, would also proceed farther eastward with their wasteland development plans. Of course, the monsters were stronger the more one went east, which meant higher development costs. But since the relics there were also more valuable, it all balanced out in the end. In fact, there were still ruins yet to be completely plundered around Akira’s hometown Kugamayama City, so the League still had no trouble maintaining a profit.

  Akira felt a vague sense of unease as he listened. “So these ruins will be cleaned out one day too. Are we gonna be okay?”

 

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