I’d advise against that.

  Why? And don’t say it’s because I’d only get a third of the profit. I’m sure we could hash that out—

  No, that’s not why, Alpha said, cutting him off. After your discovery of Yonozuka, it’s going to be much harder to pass this find off as mere coincidence.

  He was visiting Mihazono for the first time, and yet rather than heading to the business district like most people did, he’d gone to the factory district. Moreover, he’d made it deep into the ruins without even so much as a map and had discovered an unexplored sector teeming with relics. Elena and Sara wouldn’t buy that all this had been pure happenstance—they’d find it far more reasonable to think that he’d gained some sort of intel beforehand. Even if they weren’t clear exactly how he’d done it, they’d surely deduce that he’d used some sort of trick.

  But he couldn’t let Elena and Sara know about Alpha.

  Good point. Well then, guess I gotta bring them back one at a time.

  Unless you can somehow convince those two it all happened by chance, I’d say that’s your best option, she agreed.

  Knowing full well what a tall order that would be, Akira gave a tight smile and continued to lug the pack behind him.

  ◆

  They had been trudging through the derelict factory corridors for some time when Alpha stopped in her tracks.

  What’s wrong? he asked.

  Akira, watch out. And back away from that wall.

  Akira did as he was told, looking where she indicated. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

  The next instant, however, a powerful gunshot blew a hole in the wall from the other side. As Akira watched in shock, more blasts pierced it, weakening its structural integrity. Finally, someone kicked the wall in, scattering chunks of plaster everywhere, and hurriedly leaped through the gap.

  It was Carol.

  “Whew...! Okay, I should be safe here. Man, that was close!” she said, breathing a sigh of relief, but traces of fear were evident on her face. Then she noticed Akira, frozen in shock beside her, and grinned. “Hey, fancy seeing you again here! Quite the coincidence, huh?”

  “Coincidence...?” Akira echoed, dazed.

  Paying his bewilderment no mind, Carol peered back through the hole she’d just made, and her face went taut once more. “What?! You’ve got to be kidding! This is supposed to be outside their jurisdiction!” She turned to face him, panicked. “Akira! I know this is sudden, but I really need your help!”

  “What?” Still clueless, he nonetheless immediately raised his DVTS minigun. Aiming through the hole, he sent a shower of rounds toward a charging mechanical monster nearly a meter high.

  But the machine didn’t slow its advance even after he destroyed it. Its metallic body dented, and the tires on its many legs were torn to shreds, but another monster right behind pushed its lifeless husk forward.

  Carol began firing at the monsters with her own weapon—a handgun so large one hesitated to call it a handgun at all. Its rounds, too, were powerful enough to rival the proprietary ammo of Akira’s CWH. These reduced the fallen monster to scrap, sending metal flying, and even pierced through to the machine behind it, demolishing it as well.

  Akira was surprised by the power Carol’s gun packed, but it also puzzled him. If she can take care of them so easily, why was she so freaked out?

  Alpha helpfully magnified his vision. His face paled—an army of machines was charging straight at them.

  Scanners scouted more efficiently in open spaces—the fewer the objects obstructing a scan, the greater its accuracy. With the wall partially destroyed, and with Alpha’s support for additional accuracy, Akira could clearly see the magnitude of the threat before him.

  Yet the hole was still only about two meters wide—too small for an entire horde of robots to squeeze through—and the littered remains of the monsters they’d just annihilated were also blocking the way. As the situation stood, it should have been easy enough to pick them off while the obstacles kept them at bay. But Carol’s earlier shots had already weakened the wall, and the machines were slamming into it as they charged, causing it to crack and crumble. It wouldn’t be long before the entire thing gave way, allowing them to attack Akira and Carol without hindrance.

  Carol could also tell things were about to turn ugly, and decided to make a run for it. “Akira, we’re outnumbered! Let’s retreat!”

  “Roger!” They continued to fire upon the horde until they saw their chance. Then, glancing at each other to make sure they acted in tandem, they dashed out of the corridor as one. Since he had to drag along the spare pack with the relic inside, Akira fell a bit behind. But with his free hand he fired at the pursuing machines as he ran, leaving ruined hunks of metal in his wake and delaying the mechanical swarm’s advance.

  He managed to make it out by the skin of his teeth.

  ◆

  After reaching the neighboring factory grounds, Akira and Carol saw they were no longer being pursued and sighed deeply in relief.

  “This far out, we ought to be safe for real. Wow, that was a close one!” Carol said with a shudder. “Oh, before I forget: Thanks, Akira. You really saved me back there.” She was honestly grateful—but the bewitching smile on her face was the same one she used to lure clients in for her side job. Any typical male would’ve been taken instantly.

  Yet it had no effect on Akira. “Don’t mention it. More importantly, don’t you think it’s about time you tell me what’s going on?”

  Carol’s smile faltered a bit, but she recovered quickly. She told him more or less what he’d expected—that she’d come across a horde of monsters in the ruins and gotten separated from Monica, fighting tooth and nail alone until she ran into Akira. So far, her tale sounded like an unfortunate turn of events, but nothing out of the ordinary.

  Yet Carol was nonetheless completely baffled. As surveyors, she and Monica had extensively researched the behavior of the sentries patrolling Mihazono, so the pair knew how to slip past their defenses. Under normal circumstances they would never have let themselves get taken unawares by a horde like that, let alone get separated from each other. But these monsters had completely ignored their designated patrol routes.

  Most mechanical monsters were tough. They didn’t go through a natural growth process like organic beasts and were designed to eradicate their target from the get-go. Even so, many hunters chose to hunt relics in Mihazono because the patrolling robots were incredibly predictable. Such guardians were forbidden by the ruin’s system from going outside their area of surveillance. In the Old World, a huge dispute would have flared up if a guard belonging to one company entered another company’s turf while chasing a fleeing intruder. So the system bound its sentries to designated sectors. It didn’t matter if those rival territories were now merely piles of rubble no longer worth protecting—even in the New World those boundaries should still have been in effect.

  So the hunters in Mihazono had a surprisingly high chance of staying alive against even the toughest monsters. Even if they got in a situation where they’d normally be cornered, they could simply move to an area the guards were unable to reach, like an adjacent building. All one needed to do was determine where that border lay, which was usually just as simple as spotting an area that looked drastically cleaner or more ruined than the one they were currently in.

  The guardians lurking in the Mihazono Town Ruins were powerful and incredibly dangerous—yet enough hunters came here to justify the construction of a Hunter Office branch. This was because all of the monsters in Mihazono, including the business district, were supposed to follow the same predictable rules. And Carol had gone out of her way to smash through the wall earlier because the neighboring factory grounds were on the other side, and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the robots pursuing her.

  Yet the guards had continued to give chase—completely upending the inviolable logic of the ruins.

  “Something strange is going on,” Carol finished. “Abandoned or not, those guards shouldn’t have been able to leave their sectors. For one, if they were that flexible, I never would’ve tried to slip past their surveillance in the first place.” Several possibilities came to her mind, but none of them made sense. So she turned to Akira instead. “Might as well ask—do you know anything about all this?”

  “Nope.”

  “Figured,” she said with a sigh.

  Carol’s dilemma hardly mattered to Akira. “More importantly, where are we headed right now?” he asked. “Nowhere in particular? Or do you have some sort of destination in mind?” Circumstances had dictated they travel together, but if they were just going to wander around aimlessly, then he’d take charge and lead the way (or rather, let Alpha lead).

  But Carol looked conflicted. “Ah, well, y’see...” At first she’d just been running through the sectors with the least amount of monsters, but now that she’d given her pursuers the slip, her goal had changed. Finally, she said, “Well, first off, let me just say that I mean to escape this place as quickly as I can. I’m not going to try to search for Monica.” The two women had made a promise that if they ever got separated for some reason, they wouldn’t try to look for each other and would both head for the exit instead. Once outside, if one didn’t meet up with the other after a while, she’d put in an emergency job to the Office to send out a search party. They’d also agreed not to contact one another until they were outside the ruin—making a call like that inside could alert monsters to their presence.

  Akira listened and nodded. But then he asked doubtfully, “Wait, isn’t the exit over that way? We’re going in the wrong direction.”

  “Yeah, about that...” Of course, Carol was well aware that her best option would normally have been to pull out Monica’s detailed map and try to reach the exit—and under any other circumstances, that’s exactly what she would have done. The map painstakingly recorded all the positions of the monsters and their areas of surveillance. And because Carol had explored these ruins extensively, visiting most of those areas with Monica herself, she knew firsthand that the map’s data was all accurate.

  Even so, she was deliberately heading in a different direction. “There’s a safe route marked out on the factory district map we’re selling, of course. But that’s only useful if the monsters stick to their designated sectors. Did you see how the robots almost seemed blind to their boundaries? I don’t feel comfortable relying on that route.”

  “Okay, so what’s the plan instead?” Akira sensed that Carol was building up to something. He now knew why she wasn’t using the map to escape, but that didn’t explain why she was heading in the opposite direction from the exit.

  “I mentioned this earlier, but as surveyors we basically sell information on the ruins we explore. And well, over the course of investigating this one, I learned of a sort of”—she hesitated—“a back exit.”

  “A back exit? Seriously? So that’s where we’re headed?”

  Carol looked reluctant to answer. “Yeah—but you know, we surveyors make a living on info like this. So I’m sorry, but I can’t just give it to you for free.”

  Akira finally got it.

  “So let me just ask you, Akira: Are you willing to buy that info from me?” she inquired.

  “Um, well... Depends on the price.”

  “Let’s see: considering you just saved me from a tight spot, I’ll give you a discount—twenty million even, just for you.”

  Akira flinched and immediately shook his head. From his expression it was clear to Carol that he didn’t have that kind of money.

  “Well, I figured as much.” Carol sighed. On the one hand, if Akira stuck with her, he’d find the back exit for free. On the other hand, she couldn’t just tell him to get lost—it didn’t sit right with her, an expert on the area, to send a kid off to fend for himself at a time when something dangerous was clearly at work in the factory district. I guess I have to compromise somewhere. After all, if I tried to force him to pay up, he might decide to show me exactly what he was capable of—and that would be bad news. The rogue monsters were already enough of a concern—she didn’t need to make an enemy of Akira on top of that.

  To justify her hesitation to abandon him, Carol told herself she had no other choice but to take a loss. I’ll just have to collect that twenty million from him by roping him into my other job... At least, that’s what I’d normally think, but honestly I’m not so sure that’ll work with Akira. Carol was confident she could trap any ordinary man into laying a hand on her and extort them for all they were worth. Yet for some reason Akira didn’t seem interested in her in the least, and her normally unshakable confidence wavered slightly. She was certain she’d be able to make enough at her side job to support herself if hunting and surveying didn’t pan out—but wasn’t so sure Akira would take the bait.

  At any rate, Carol was resolved to make some sort of compromise. So Akira’s next words struck her like a bolt from the blue.

  “Guess this is where we go our separate ways, then. Later.” Without another word, he turned on his heel to leave.

  “What?! W-Wait!” she called out without thinking. “A-Are you kidding me?”

  “I don’t have that kind of cash on me, and I don’t wanna go into debt either,” Akira replied matter-of-factly.

  Carol was dumbstruck. He’s one hundred percent serious! At first, she’d assumed Akira was intentionally threatening to leave so she’d drop the price. But she’d come across her fair share of swindlers and hagglers—both as a surveyor and through the course of her side job—and could tell that he wasn’t particularly skilled at either. Which meant his response had been completely genuine.

  They’d just been inexplicably attacked by a horde of robots, so there was safety in numbers. Neither of them would benefit from antagonizing one another here, so she’d expected that she would have to make some sort of sacrifice on her end. If necessary, she would have warned him he’d be in trouble without her expertise, or even have compromised on the price to make it affordable for him. Yet all to no end—he’d chosen to part ways and forge ahead on his own.

  To Carol, his decision was inconceivable—and at the same time, utterly fascinating.

  An amused grin played about her lips. “Hey, you wanna make a deal?”

  “A deal? I don’t think so. Even if you halved the price, I wouldn’t be able to afford it.”

  “No, no. How about I hire you as my bodyguard? I’ll pay you twenty million aurum to help me until we get back to the Hunter Office branch. In other words, my juicy info for your reliable strength. How about it?”

  Akira looked doubtful. “You’re assuming an awful lot. Payment for information is one thing, but how are you so sure my protection’s worth twenty million?”

  Carol gave a winsome smile. “Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, don’t they? I’m willing to shell out a bit more for extra protection—I value my life just as much as anyone else, you know. And I’m not an idiot—I can tell just how strong you are, silly. You made it this far even with a worthless map, and just now you didn’t even hesitate to leave me behind and go off on your own. So I’ve got to at least put out this much, right?” Then, looking provocative, she added, “Although, if you don’t feel you’re worth it, I can lower the price as much as you want. But I’ll have you make up the difference later in other ways.”

  Akira grimaced. Then, as if to prove her wrong, he grinned boldly. “I don’t think so. Twenty million suits me just fine.”

  “Then we have a deal. Nice to be working with you.”

  Carol happily offered him her hand, and Akira shook it.

  ◆

  So due to their exceptional circumstances, Akira had become Carol’s escort, and they were now traveling together. Akira left most of the scouting to Alpha, but didn’t neglect to pay attention to his own scanner as he and Carol cautiously made their way through the ruins.

  Suddenly he had a thought. Hey Alpha, back when we first met Carol at that wall, how come you didn’t notice those monsters approaching sooner?

  Well, sorry for being slow on the uptake. Alpha looked a bit pouty, which was a rare sight.

  Akira quickly tried to cheer her up. N-No, I’m not upset or anything! I just figured someone as amazing as you would’ve noticed immediately. Forgive me, Alpha! I’m eternally grateful for the stupendous support you give me daily!

  That perked Alpha up. As long as you understand my awesomeness, I suppose I can forgive you. Now, then: I believe I mentioned this previously, but as incredible as my support is, it’s regrettably much less effective outside of Kuzusuhara. My scouting ability, especially.

  Is it really that different?

  Absolutely. And moreover, you know how this is an Old World factory complex? Many of these manufacturing plants were specifically designed to be scanner-proof for confidentiality. That means here my scanning is significantly less accurate than it would be in any normal building or out in the desert. Think of this entire area as if it’s covered in low-density jamming smoke, and you’d get the idea.

  Akira nodded.

  Now, Akira, I have a question for you as well. Why did you agree to be her bodyguard?

  Huh? Was that a bad move?

  Not especially. It’s just that at first you were all ready to leave her high and dry, without even trying to get her to come down on the price. Now all of a sudden you’ve decided to accept her offer. That’s quite an abrupt change of heart. Care to explain?

  Really? I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I just... Akira tried to put his feelings into words. I just kinda felt like it.

  In truth, it was more complicated than that. Akira was even more afraid of Carol turning on him than she was of him turning on her. Coming to blows with her would only mean a greater headache for him. And he hadn’t even attempted to negotiate with her because, unconsciously, some part of him had resisted that idea. In his mind, having someone lower their price on his behalf was tantamount to stealing a portion of their pay.

 

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