Rebuild World 85

Index

Akira, Sara and Elena started gathering relics. Although they encountered some unexpected fights, it was not enough of a reason for them to just go back home. Indeed, it was important to return back alive from the old-world ruin, but it was also equally important to come back home with relics. After all, it was not like they went out to the old-world ruin with their lives on the line just to return back in red.

They dug through the rubbles, dead monsters, and corpses of Hunters, searching for relics.

Akira filled the empty space in his rucksack with relics. He chose the relatively still good-looking relics that he could find since most of the relics in that place were either already destroyed or drenched in blood or oil.

Some of the relics were thankfully still fully intact, relics with strong casing were left untouched by the blood and oil outside. Akira was searching for those kinds of relics.

“…Hm?”

He suddenly raised his voice.

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“Akira, what's wrong?”

“Uh, I found underclothes for women…”

“Really?!”

Sara shrieked in delight. Just like what she told Akira before, she was in dire need of durable underclothing. If it was possible, she wanted to get more of them.

“…It seems that blood had slipped through its wrapping though.”

It was as Akira said, the wrapping of that underclothing was actually torn and some kind of liquid had seeped through that opening, thus turning its colour into something strange.

“… I see, that's really unfortunate.”

Sara sounded very disappointed.

Akira then left that underclothing on top of rubble near him. He had no plans to put that inside his rucksack as he quickly returned back to look for more relics.

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He then found something else.

“….Huh?”

“Akira, what's wrong?”

“Nothing, just another underclothing, but…”

“…But?”

It was the second time, so Sara calmly asked Akira.

“…It has a bullet hole.”

It seemed that a bullet had randomly pierced through that underclothing.

Sara knew that it was not Akira's fault, but she then smiled at Akira and asked.

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“Akira, what kind of bullying are you playing here?”

“I didn't mean to bully anyone.”

Akira simply answered Sara's question. After all, it was not like he did that on purpose.

Sara, who looked a bit annoyed, seemed to realize something as she smiled mischievously. As she directed her displeasure after getting disappointed for the second time into another direction, she then smiled teasingly at Akira.

“Or is it like you want to see me wearing that?”

“N-No…”

Akira fl.u.s.teredly answered her question, his face had turned beet red. Sara looked completely satisfied with his reaction.

Elena sighed exasperatedly and said to Sara.

“Stop teasing him already and move the rubbles aside, will you?”

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“Yes yes, I know.”

There was a good chance of finding intact relics around that place, thus Sara focused on searching relics around the same area with Akira.

There were all kinds of shops in the underground city, but compared to the type of relics that they found, they were only able to find a few different types of relics. The other Hunters might have already carried away some of the relics from this area, or some of them might have gotten destroyed from the battles that happened there, or they might have turned into dust after being left in that place for years. Whatever the reason was, it did not change the fact that only a few relics were left around. There was nothing that Akira and the others could do about it.

They might still be able to find some relics if they moved all the rubbles aside and searched carefully. They could also dig out relics from under the crumbled shops. But of course, they did not have enough time to do any of that. There was a good chance that they would encounter monsters on their way back, thus it was better if they focused only on collecting small relics that they could easily carry back with them.

But, even so, it was enough to fill up Akira's rucksack to the brim. Although there might be some relics in bad conditions mixed in, it was still better than coming back empty-handed. Because of all the ammo that he used in the last fight, Akira was able to bring back quite a lot of relics with him.

Sara suddenly came to Akira and pointed her finger at the relics on top of the rubble.

“Akira, if you're not planning to bring them back, can I take them instead?”

It was the underclothing that Akira found. One of them had suspicious-looking liquid seeped through the wrapping while the other one had a bullet hole. That was why he did not consider taking them back with him.

“…Sure… Wait? It's not like you're planning to use them, right?”

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Akira looked a bit weirded out, he thought that they were not in a usable state.

Sara laughed and said.

“Of course I won't use them like that. I'm planning to bring them to a specialist and have them fixed. If I'm lucky, it will be as good as new and it's way cheaper than buying new underclothing.”

“So there are specialists for this too, huh. Sure then, I don't mind if you take them.”

“I see, I'll go ahead and take them then.”

Sara then put them inside another transparent wrapping before placing them inside her bag.

That transparent wrapping piqued Akira's interest.

“Sarsan, what's that plastic bag?”

“This? This is a plastic bag to preserve the relics. I usually use this to carry relics that look fragile or easily damaged. This is just a cheap bag, if you use the expensive bag, it can even protect the relics from gunshots too. It's just a small hack that you can employ to increase the quality of relics that you carry back home.”

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Akira looked amazed.

“So there's something like that too, huh. Hmmm, I guess I should buy some too.”

“That's right. It's really convenient to carry dirty relics inside this bag. You won't lose anything by keeping some handy too. Ahh, but I don't recommend replacing the original relics wrapping with this bag. After all, the original wrapping might actually be more durable than this bag.”

“I see.”

Akira just received another advice on how to be a good Hunter. Getting such new information was one of the benefits of exploring a ruin together with the other Hunters.

They finally finished gathering relics in that area. Although there was an unexpected fight, they were able to harvest a good number of relics.

Elena then asked Sara and Akira what they planned to do next.

“Now then, what's your next plan? I don't mind going back to the city now, but personally, I want to go further a bit to get more information about this ruin. Since we've killed most of the monsters around this area, this should be a good chance to do that.”

Akira looked to the inner part of the ruin, he remembered that his original aim when he came to that ruin was to look for something that was located deep down there. It was the very thing that was indicated by the pointer in his vision when he was searching for that ruin, it was for the Lion Steel Corp information terminal.

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“That's right. The relics in the deeper part of the ruin might still be intact, it might be a good idea to at least check them.”

After Akira found an unexplored ruin and the info about that ruin spread among the other Hunters, he had lost most of his reasons to go to that ruin. But even so, he thought it might be a good idea to at least check the terminal inside.

“I still have enough reserve ammo too, so I guess we can continue going deeper.”

Since Sara also agreed, they decided to continue going deeper into that ruin.

The underground ruin that they were in was not that big. The whole area was illuminated by unknown light sources, but thanks to that, they were able to see clearly the interior of that place. There was also a staircase leading to the surface, but according to Elena's scan, the entrance was buried under rubbles. It was not very surprising since if that staircase did connect to the surface, someone else would have discovered that ruin before them.

There were traces of battles here and there, it could be inferred that the relics in that place were also left in a bad shape.

Elena finished scanning the area. She did find another hallway, presumably connecting to the other places in the underground city, but she could not see how far that hallway went. So she thought that it was a good place to finish the exploration for that day and decided not to go any deeper.

But then she suddenly stopped, her expression turned serious.

Sara, who noticed it, found it suspicious as she quickly readied her rifle and closely watched her surroundings.

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“Elena, did you find something?”

“Somebody's there.”

Akira put his guard up. But he did not feel any human presence and it was confirmed by his information-gathering device which did not detect any signal.

Elena noticed Akira's misunderstanding and explained it to him.

“It's fine, it's not like someone is hiding using a camouflaging sheet or something. I'm getting some kind of signal from behind that door, it might be from a Hunter who came here before us and somehow survived until now.”

Elena was pointing at a door not too far from them. That door was bent in a horrible form, probably by some monsters as it did not seem like it could be easily opened.

As Akira and Sara turned to the direction of that door, a voice came out from a crack behind that door.

“Heeey!! Is someone there?!! Someone's there, right?!! Answer me!!”

The person behind that door was shouting in desperation for anyone he could find in that underground city.

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After Akira, Sara and Elena looked at each other, they walked toward that door.

As the man behind that door caught a glimpse of the trio, he shouted in delight.

“Thank goodness!! I'm saved!! You guys are Hunters too, right? What happened to the monsters in the area?”

Elena answered his question as the representative of their team.

“We've killed all the monsters in the area. Anyways, what are you doing in that place?”

“We were running away from those monsters when we ended up here!! Please!! Help us!!”

“We? How many people are with you?”

“With me included, there are 5 people over here. The other 4 are also inside this room. Can you please open the door? It's all good that it was strong enough to withstand the monster, but now it's bent and we can't open it. Can you guys do something about it?”

There was a short silence before Elena turned to Sara and Akira.

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“What to do? Should we help them?”

“What are you talking about? You shouldn't be hesitating here!? We're also Hunters, just like you, we should help each other when we're in trouble, right?!”

“I'm sorry but we have had experiences of meeting people like you in a similar situation but they ended up trying to kill us instead. So it's not like I can simply trust you guys. Not to mention that there are so many dead Hunters out here. It means that basically, you guys abandoned them just to save your own lives, right?”

“W-well, it couldn't be helped. The monsters were too strong, we had no chance to win, we just got lucky that we found this door close to us when the others didn't even get the chance to evacuate here too. As a team leader, I chose to prioritize the life of my own team members. I can't ask them to risk their lives just for the other Hunters whom we just met exploring the same ruin.”

“I see, well, I can understand your decision.”

“S-so?”

“Basically, you'll understand if I use the same argument to leave you there, right? I have team members that I'm responsible for too.”

“P-please have mercy.”

That man pleaded from behind the door.

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Elena turned back to Akira and Sara.

“So then, what should we do?”

Sara stepped up first to answer that question.

“Let's see, we can at least open the door for them, right? After that, well, let's have them escape from this place with their own power. There's no need for us to escort them all the way back to the city or to the surface.”

“You're right, I guess we can do that much. Akira, are you okay with that?”

“Sure, but then, what should we do to open this door?”

When Akira said that, Sara smiled smugly and said.

“Let's kick it down.”

Sara then stood in front of the door and said to the guy behind that door.

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“It's gonna get dangerous, so get away from the door if you don't want to get crushed!!”

After she said that, Sara used the full power of her nanomachine augmented body to deliver a powerful blow to that door. The banging sound indicated just how much force her kick had delivered to that door as the door got bent even more. Sara then continued kicking that door, although it bent more and more, the door itself was still standing there.

Sara frowned as she noticed that the door was stronger than she had thought, she then mumbled.

“This door is pretty strong.”

Akira came and stood next to Sara. She understood what he meant as she smiled at him.

After they looked at each other for a few split seconds, they kicked the door simultaneously. Both of them used their augmented strength, which allowed them to carry heavy weaponry unthinkable for a normal human, to deliver their kicks on that door at the same time.

The door was sent flying with a loud bang. The heavy door flew and landed right in front of the guy who was behind that door just a few minutes ago.

That guy stared at Sara and Akira with his jaw dropped. Elena just stood on the other side while smiling bitterly at him.

Now that the door was down, all the Hunters trapped in were able to leave the room. All of them looked extremely tired but also relieved at the same time. Since they ran to that room to save their lives, they must have been psychically exhausted staying inside that room.

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Sara then said to those Hunters.

“We're going back home now but don't tail us!! You guys should go back home on your own!!”

Elena then added.

“Or at least keep your distance that we deem to be acceptable. If you guys are too close, we'll see that as a hostile action.”

The leader of those Hunters, Revin, fl.u.s.teredly turned to Elena and Sara and said.

“Wait for a sec!! Are you going to just leave us behind?!”

“Yep, that's what we just said, right?”

Elena showed no hesitation when she said that.

“I'm sorry but we're being utmost careful right now… Or is it like you want to fight us here?”

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Elena's and Sara's smiles vanished. It was not like they were showing hostility toward Revin and his team, but instead, it meant that they were serious about what they said.

Revin looked at Sara and Elena while being overwhelmed by their pressure. In his eyes, both Sara and Elena were beautiful ladies, he figured that they might have gone through a lot of difficult situations thanks to their beauty which made them be extremely cautious against strangers.

He then turned to Akira, his eyes were pleading for help, but Akira then apologetically said to him.

“Uhh, I'm sorry but just recently I gave a ride to some Hunters who asked for my help and one of them tried to kill me. So I understand Elensan's and Sarsan's decision.”

“Who the heck was that bastard!!!”

Revin cursed his situation. The fact that they got locked inside that room was enough of bad luck that he did not think he would get hit by another bad luck so soon.

“If I'm not mistaken, his name was Guyver. I heard that he had a huge debt, so he tried to kill me and the other Hunters to get his hands on more relics.”

“We don't have any debt, okay!! You guys have no debt, right?!”

Revin shouted as he turned to his team, the other Hunters then nodded at him.

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After hearing what Akira said, Elena turned to Akira and asked him.

“Akira, were you okay?”

“Yeah, I didn't get injured and I was able to kill him. So it ended without any problem.”

“I see, I'm glad to hear that.”

Elena smiled.

Revin placed both of his hands on his head, he was at loss on what to do. Akira, Elena and Sara refused to go together with them. At this rate, he and his team would really get left behind. There might be some monsters lurking around somewhere, and even if they were able to reach the surface, they still had to go back to the city. And with their current reserve ammo, their chance of survival was really low.

Revin then tried to negotiate with Elena.

“…Alright alright, let's do this instead. I'll send an SOS request to you. If you guys escort us back to the city, well, since there are 3 of you, we'll pay 3,000,000 Aurum for the reward. It's not a bad offer, right?”

If Revin sent an SOS request, then it would be an official request sent through the Hunter Office as the proxy. It carried more weight than just a simple promise.

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Elena was also a Hunter, if it was a request then she might as well consider it. She then thought for a while and said.

“Well, that's not a bad offer.”

“Right?”

Revin's expression relaxed for a bit as he felt that he finally got something that might help him salvage his situation. But Elena then said to him with a serious face.

“But it's a different story whether you can pay for it or not, right?”

After he heard Elena's question, Revin began to panic. He then desperately pleaded to her.

“Of course we'll pay!! What is it now?! Do you have a bad experience of this thing too?!”

“The last time we received a similar SOS request, the requester gave us a hard time when we asked him to pay for the reward and the ammo expense. The request even mentioned that the ammo expense will be paid by the requester. Well, we did make him pay in the end though, but it was really a huge pain in the ass.”

“What the heck!? What's wrong with you guys?! Why did you guys meet so many of those bad people?!!”

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Revin shouted in reflex. He thought that there was a limit on how bad his luck could be, but that did not seem to be the case.

“By the way, that guy's name is Katsuragi”

“Alright alright!! Then how about this!! Old-world relics!! We'll give all the relics that we found inside the room. I don't know for sure if they can get you 3,000,000 Aurum, but it should be able to get you quite a lot of money. They're still in good shape after all. So how about that?”

If this did not work, Revin had nothing more that he could offer. That was why he looked really desperate.

Elena turned to Sara and Akira again.

“What do you guys think?”

Judging from Elena's intonation, she leaned more towards taking that offer compared to the previous offers. But it did not sound like she was looking forward to taking that offer either. It was more like she was okay either way.

Akira then asked Revin.

“Can you tell me what kind of relics you have?”

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“They're mostly clothes. It's not like those clothes that you can use in place of Hunter armours, they're mostly normal clothes and some underclothing too. Well, I'm not sure myself if I can call them normal clothes though, like, you know, old-world clothing sometimes have a very weird design, right? What can I say… The culture is just so alien for us.”

“I see… Well, since it seems that you have something to pay me with, I don't mind taking your offer.”

After he said that, Akira turned to Sara. Elena smiled and looked at Sara too. Sara seemed a bit embarrassed as she returned a smile and said.

“Alright then, let's take that offer.”

Revin and his team let out a big sigh. They were greatly relieved that Akira, Sara and Elena decided to take their offer in the end.

They then walked to the hallway leading to the surface. It was the same hallway they passed when they went down there.

Elena was talking with Revin as to know how they ended up inside that room. It was in order to gather information about the area.

Revin understood what Elena was trying to do. For the Hunters, information about a ruin was something that they could sell for money, so normally he would not share the information that he had so easily. But since Elena was the leader of the team that eradicated the monster swarm that he and his team could not fight, he chose to avoid souring her mood if it was possible.

Just like Elena and Sara who did not trust Revin and his team, Revin also could not completely trust Elena and Sara without any reason. He thought that when the push came to shove, they might abandon him and his team.

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So in order to buy more time, he started his story from when he left the city rather than going straight for what happened in that ruin.

Since Elena might tell him to just skip the unimportant part of his story, he glanced at her to check her expression. But Elena seemed to be listening to him just fine, so he continued his story starting from how he got the information about that ruin.

There was a pub in the lower district that Revin frequented. That day, he and his team were enjoying cheap beers while talking about their plan in that pub just like usual.

In reality, it was not like they were talking about anything in particular. With the alcohol mixed in their blood, they were only talking about random stuff. The moment they veered from the main subject about where to go next, it was obvious that their discussion would not be productive.

At that time, a guy suddenly came to them offering the location of a ruin that was just discovered recently.

That kind of thing was a common story for fraud and scams. A lot of Hunters were fooled by similar occurrences. After all, if they got lucky, an unexplored ruin could turn them rich in a single night. It was understandable that such a talk would easily lure those Hunters.

But not all cases were scams. The possibility of such information to be true was more or less the same as the possibility that it was a scam.

There were cases when Hunters found an unexplored ruin filled with monsters that they could not handle, thus they did not have any other choice but to earn money only by selling that information. There were also cases where Hunters from a gang or people working in a corporation secretly sold classified information about relics or ruins. And last but not least, some people intentionally spread information about ruins and relics in order to incur damage to the competing corporations.

Although Revin and his team hesitated at first, they decided to buy that information in the end. There were many reasons why they decided to do so. The information about the location of that ruin and the information about the inner part of that ruin were sold separately, but both of them were sold at a relatively cheap price. Their deal was that Revin would pay a portion of the price upfront, he then would go to that ruin to gather relics and then pay the rest later.

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Compared to the information about the inner part of that ruin which cost quite a lot of money, the information about the location of that ruin was pretty cheap. Not to mention, he could go and verify the authenticity of that information before paying the rest of the money. So, even if that was a scam, it would not cost him much.

And in case if that information was genuine, then he might be able to strike it rich in one go. This gave enough reason for him to accept that deal.

That guy, who sold the information, had given the same offer to the other Hunters too. Some of them accepted his deal, prepared themselves with enough equipment, and went to that ruin.

On their way to their destination, Revin and his team regained their logical faculties and started to doubt whether they got scammed. But when they arrived at the coordinates they had received, they did find a ruin that they never knew of until then. Revin then happily sent the remaining payment to that guy and waited for the rest of the information about the inner part of that ruin to be sent into this information terminal.

But at that time, that guy was busy making deals with the other Hunters and did not have the leeway to respond to Revin. As they were waiting for the information, more and more people arrived at that ruin. Now that many Hunters knew there was really an unexplored ruin in that place, they began spreading the information via their own channels.

Some of those Hunters waited just outside the ruin like Revin and his team, but more and more Hunters started thinking about going ahead and searching the ruin.

Eventually, one of those Hunters just could not wait for the information about the inner part of the ruin and decided to dive in. Soon after that, more and more Hunters got swept by the flow and decided to go into the ruin without waiting.

Although no one knew for sure how big the ruin was, they guessed that it would not be as big as the Kuzusuhara ruin. So in short, the number of relics inside that ruin was limited. If they waited too long outside, the other Hunters might take out all the relics inside that ruin and leave nothing for the Hunters who came in late. All the Hunters in that place thought so too.

Revin was pushed by that line of thinking as they also decided to go into that ruin.

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When Revin's story reached that point, Elena suddenly interjected.

“There's a hallway right after the stairs leading down, right? Do you still remember how the hallway looked when you went down?”

“Well, it looked just like a normal hallway to me.”

“Was it bright inside? Was there any trace of battles? Did you see any monster corpses?”

“Yeah, it was pretty bright, as for the traces… We were in a hurry so I didn't really pay much attention. As for the monster corpses… I think there were some in the hallway. We were running while avoiding those corpses, so I'm sure about that. I think those corpses are from the monsters killed by the Hunters that went in first before us. So as for the traces from battles, there should be some traces left from those fights.”

It seemed that the state of that hallway had changed in a short span between when Revin's team went there and when Elena and her team arrived there.

“I see. You can continue your story.”

After Elena said that, Revin thought for a bit before continuing his story.

“…Then after that, we looked around and ended up in that area. When we were collecting relics together with the other Hunters, suddenly a huge swarm flooded out from the hallway we came. We did try to fight back, but we were overwhelmed by the number and the strength of that swarm. It seemed like some strong monsters were mixed in that swarm as well. We basically had no chance of winning that battle. We then ran inside that room and locked the door. We just kept ourselves locked inside while hoping that the monsters would be gone. And we waited until you guys saved us. That's all.”

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“When you passed through that opening, there's another hallway other than the one leading to the underground city, right? Did you guys check that hallway?”