Rebuild World (WN)

fer to buy those relics too.
Then from there, they had some debates on who to sell those relics to.

Both Viola and Katsuragi pressured Akira to sell his relics to one of them.
So in the end, Akira decided to auction it starting from 60 million Aurum in 1 million Aurum units.
If both of them were offering the same price, Akira was planning to sell them to Katsuragi since he made the offer first.
And so with that, he made Viola transfer the minimum 60 million Aurum first and quickly left Sheryl’s base.

On their way back, Alpha asked Akira a question.

“Akira.
Though it might be too late for me to say this, are you sure you’re okay with leaving them alone? After all, Katsuragi and Viola might manage to lower the price as much as possible in their negotiation with Sheryl, you know?”

“Judging from how Katsuragi gave me store credits instead of cash money yesterday, he might not have the money to buy those relics.
So from that point of view, I was at least able to get 60 million Aurum out of those relics.
And if their negotiation leads to more profit, it’ll motivate them to get along more.
So I don’t think it’s a bad idea.”

Adding the money from yesterday, Akira had earned 90 million Aurum plus those expensive medicines.
So he had nothing to complain about.

After Akira left the base, Katsuragi and Sheryl were having a negotiation.
During that negotiation, Sheryl had the upper hand since Katsuragi did not have much money.

Katsuragi had made a plan to have his branch inside Sheryl’s base and invested some money in Sheryl’s gang for the sake of that plan.
Moreover, Sheryl had also ordered a lot of equipment and defensive devices for the gang from Katsuragi.
So Katsuragi had also spent a good portion of his money to put those orders in.
Because of that, he did not have much money in hand and he had a disadvantage during the negotiation.

Of course, Viola did not let it slide and pushed Katsuragi into a difficult negotiation.

[Don’t tell me that Akira sold those relics to me yesterday for the sake of probing my current financial situation? No, it can’t be… Right?]

Katsuragi put extra effort during that negotiation, but when he looked at how Sheryl was acting and how Viola was smiling like usual, he could not help but feel anxious.

Sheryl kept coming up with demands that were cutting close to the limits that he could accept.
To be honest, he was feeling anxious having to face it while thinking that Sheryl was slowly turning into another Viola as he was doing his best trying to fight back those offensive moves from her.

—*—*—*—

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On the next day, Akira went out to Higaraka residence ruin again, and just like last time, he was searching for relics there which also doubled as training for him.

Akira was being careful not to encounter any monsters or other Hunters during the training.
He also did some training with his bike without Alpha’s support, or spotting places for relics where Hunters would normally miss.
He was doing his best in his training by following Alpha’s instructions.

Akira stood in front of a dilapidated mansion and sighed.
He looked slightly annoyed at Alpha.

“Alpha, as expected, I didn’t find anything valuable, you know?”

“That’s normal.
After all, if you can easily find valuable relics here, Hunters would still frequent this ruin.
That’s why this place looks abandoned.”

“Well, that’s true, but still, I’m not here for rubble, you know? What can I say, uhh… It’s not that encouraging when I can’t find any good relics…”

“This in itself is a good training for hunting relics.
If you don’t do this seriously, it would be pointless.
So just get over it and put your back on it.
You did promise me to do this training seriously, remember? So do it earnestly, okay?”

“…Alright.”

With a light sigh, Akira changed gear and restarted the training again, but more seriously this time.

His training for hunting relics continued, he closely checked all corners of the mansion.
If the interior of the mansion seemed relatively okay, he would check all the furniture and move them around to check for secret rooms.
He did not forget to use his information-gathering device to look for secret rooms too.

In case if the mansion was mostly run-down, Akira would move aside the rubble and check the interior in case if the rubble buried a secret safe or something similar.
He also checked the furniture using his information terminal, and if he found any hollow space, he would break the furniture to see if there was anything inside it or not.

Akira had been doing that since two days ago.
But even after three days, he did not get anything valuable.
Of course, it was not like he did not get anything at all, but for a Hunter who had now spent 500 million Aurum for his equipment, it was not worth the hassle.

At first, Akira was diligently and seriously doing it.
But after some time, if it was not for Alpha’s order, he would have started cutting corners.

Akira held a cracked plate in his hand and stared at it with a stern face.
He looked slightly displeased as he said.

“I wonder if this thing might be an expensive relic.
Like that thing, you know, that handkerchief that turned out to be an expensive article when I brought it to the Hunter Office.
I wonder if this plate can be actually an expensive relic too.”

“That’s mostly based on its material since it’s an old-world nanomaterial.
If you want to check the material of that kind of tableware, you can just lightly knock it and analyze the sound using your information terminal.”

Akira lightly knocked the plate, of course, he could not tell if it was made of expensive material or not.

“…Alpha, I know that judging it by myself is also a training for me, but can you help me with this one?”

“I can only tell a limited amount of info based on your information-gathering device.
But from what I can get, it’s made of usual ceramic.”

“So?”

“You can get a small amount of profit by selling that for 100 Aurum in a street stand.
If you still have some doubt, you can try bringing that to Katsuragi.”

Akira did not say anything back, he just threw that plate away.
If that was good enough for him to bring back home, he would be bringing a lot of relics back home from that ruin.
Not to mention that Katsuragi would definitely take it as a bad joke.

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Alpha smiled wryly and said.

“If you learn how to quickly check for relics in this ruin, you’ll be able to efficiently hunt for relics in the other ruins.
So make sure to keep doing it seriously.”

“I know.
Diligent training is the shortcut to success, right?”

“Yup, exactly.”

Akira got back half of his spirit, so he made up the other half with bravado and returned back to training.
He continued looking for relics for some time after that, but in the end, his training ended that day with almost zero results again just like the other days.
He looked slightly tired as he got on his bike and drove back to the city.

After Akira left Higaraka residence ruin, some Hunters arrived at the ruin bringing few other people with them.
One of them frowned and looked doubtful as he said to his friend.

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“Is this really the place? It has been quite a long time since all the relics from this ruin were carried out, right? Though I’m sure there are still some relics here, I feel this would be nothing short of a pointless endeavour.”

“Like hell if I know.
It’s an order from the boss to inspect this Higaraka residence ruin, especially for places where other Hunters are also searching.
Even if we can’t find anything, we still can get some money by reporting back the result from our inspection.
So just stop complaining already.”

“You have a point there.
We were paid to come here…”

The Hunters present were paid by someone to come there, so they decided to focus on their job and started searching the ruin.

When Akira returned back to the city, he went to his house and took a box full of relics to Shizuka’s shop.
Unbeknown to him, Elena and Sara were hanging out in Shizuka’s shop at that time.

When Akira entered, they froze for a few seconds and just stared at each other without saying anything.
As things started getting awkward, Elena smiled to exorcise the awkwardness and said.

“Akira, long time no see.”

“Ah, yes, long time no see.”

“I heard from Shizuka that you’re starting your Hunter job again, so how is it going?”

“Eh, ah, it’s going pretty well.”

“I see.”

Elena looked a bit troubled on how to continue from there as she threw a friendly smile at Akira.
But behind it, she actually felt relieved that she saw no sign of contempt, or alertness, or hostility from him.
Sara, who was also smiling awkwardly until now, looked relieved seeing Akira’s friendly reaction.

Shizuka smiled as it seemed there was no need to worry about their friendship and welcomed Akira.

“Akira, welcome.
Are you here for ammo again today?”

Akira’s face immediately turned slightly serious.

“No, I’m here to sell relics today.
I remembered that you said you can buy fabric relics from me, so I’m here with those relics today.
This is it.”

Akira placed a box filled with relics on top of the counter.
Shizuka opened that box and checked the content.
Elena and Sara also peeked at the content of that box.
Shizuka, Elena, and Sara were amazed when they saw what was inside.
That box was filled with lady’s underwear, and of course, all of them were old-world relics.

Elena and Sara could not help but hum in amazement.
It’s a common reaction for Hunters when they saw a huge amount of expensive relics.
There was no feeling of awkwardness although the one who brought in that huge amount of lady’s underwear was a boy.
But that was exactly because Elena and Sara were Hunters.

Shizuka took one of the underwear out of the box and checked it.
It seemed to be in excellent condition without any damage.
But something else surprised her, its design was rather daring.

In her surprise, she made eye contact with Akira and ended up blushing, which was very very very rare of her.
Seeing that, Akira who was trying his best to make a poker face could not help but blush too.

It was not like Akira was fully indifferent to what he did there.
He knew that he would be flustered if he let it bother him, that was why he was trying his best to just ignore it.
He was there solely to sell relics, so he was sure that Shizuka would react accordingly and there was no need to be overly concerned about it.
He kept telling himself that in order to keep his calm.

But since Shizuka gave a reaction that he did not expect, Akira could not hide his surprise and started feeling embarrassed too.

“Ah, uhh, I think I promised to bring this kind of relic here if I find them.
So, yeah, here I am.”

“I-I see.
Well, I too remember that we did have that kind of conversation before, yup.”

Akira and Shizuka smiled at each other, trying to avoid the subject.
Looking at that, Elena and Sara seemed slightly surprised.

Shizuka put the underwear in her hand back into the box and closed it.
She then intentionally tried to change the mood by saying.

“Akira.
It’s rather difficult to inspect this kind of relic, you see.
Though I did say that I would buy them from you, it’s not like I’m an expert in this.
So if you’re okay with it, can you leave them here? I’ll have them inspected and get a good deal to sell them.
But that would mean you’ll receive the payment later when everything is done.”

“Yes, I don’t mind.”

“Alright then, I’ll take care of the rest.”

Shizuka said so as she moved the box behind the counter, out of everyone’s view.
The only thing left was the lingering awkwardness from what just happened.

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