Chapter 248: 10 Billion Aurum per Night
Akira and Carol were waiting beside the camping car for the signal caught on their radar to arrive. It did not take long for the source of that signal to be visible to the naked eye, a large vehicle stopped near them, and two men came out from the vehicle. Both men were Hunters. Judging from their equipment, they must have come from further east of Kugamayama city.
Carol was familiar with one of them. It was Babalod, who used her service from her side job. So, it did not take much for her to guess who was the other one. As she guessed, it was Zelos, the man she had heard from Viola.
Zelos scanned Akira and Carol’s equipment before lightly throwing a question.
“So you’re Carol, huh?”
Carol casually replied.
“Yep.”
“Well, since you even took your time to welcome us here, it means that I don’t need to explain everything from the start, right?”
“Hmmm, are you here because you heard your friends praise me for my side job? If that’s the case, I’m sorry, but it’s not like I’m accepting customers all the time. So, like, can you leave for today and ask me again some other time?”
Carol already knew why Zelos was there, but she was deliberately playing coy. Zelos understood what Carol was trying to say. Thus, he then tried to carefully probe Carol’s situation.
“Actually, the money that Babalod used for you, was from the team’s budget, you see.”
“Oh my, is that so? I didn’t know that. That must be rough, so, don’t tell me that you’re here to tell me to return it.”
“It depends.”
“Are you being serious here? I’m only accepting his money and he got that money from stealing from you. It’s him that you should be asking, not me.”
“Well, normally, that would be the case, as I said, it depends.”
“Oh, so, can you elaborate?”
Up until this point, both of them were acting casual while trying to probe the other’s intention, but this is where Zelos’ attitude changed. A certain pressure emanated from him, it was a pressure unique to high-ranking Hunters. It was calm and silent yet extremely suffocating.
“It depends on whether you put your hands on him trying to cause trouble for us right from the start or not.”
Carol was smiling like usual. But she also started feeling the pressure and got a bit anxious.
Zelos reached for Babalod’s neck to further intimidate Carol.
“Although I did say that he took the team’s budget, if it was a small amount, we could solve it by ourselves. And even if it is not that small, we can still solve it by discussing it among ourselves.”
Zelos’ gaze turned sharper. His grip also became stronger. Babalod started to frown from the pain.
“But the problem is that this guy leaked a piece of secret information. So, it’s only given that we’ll get suspicious toward the person who he gave this information to. We only knew that he gave away such a crucial piece of information to you because we interrogated this fool.”
Zelos’ gaze turned thick with intimidation.
“Answer me. What are you going to do with that information?”
Carol somehow managed to maintain her calm since it was not rare for her to have to face such intimidating pressure from a high-ranking Hunter due to her side job. She then replied casually with her business smile.
“Nothing in particular.”
“I’ll interpret that as you refusing to answer.”
Zelos’ stance shifted. The situation was on the brink of a fight. Akira also tensed up, he already activated his time compression and shifted his stance as well so that he could react to any sudden movement.
But Carol smiled and replied calmly.
“I didn’t mean that, it’s just exactly as I said, I have no plan to use that information.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s true that I received that information as a substitute for monetary gains, but it’s not like I was aiming for that information in the first place. I’m fine with getting paid anything as long as it has the same worth as the fee and I don’t really decide what that is. It was his choice to pay for my service using information gained from your team, not me.”
Carol’s face turned serious.
“Since I did my job, I have the right to receive my reward. If you don’t have enough money, you’ll have you pay for it with something else. Just because I’m not strapped for money, that doesn’t mean I’m willing to lower my fee. I have no plans to reduce the cost I set. It would reflect as me lowering my own worth. I’m sure you can understand that too, right? Or is that I’m mistaken?”
As the leader of a team of Hunters, whose jobs had death as an occupational hazard, his team members practically staked their lives to work under him. Thus, he could not deny Carol’s statement, which only left him with one choice.
“Well, yeah.”
“Well, that’s the gist of it. I don’t mind what it is as long as it is worth enough for my fee. It doesn’t matter if it’s money, or an object, or a person, or information, or just basically anything. Even if I have no idea how to use that thing. And by pure chance, this time, that thing is information. That’s all there is to it.”
Zelos could understand Carol’s argument. Thus, he lowered his pressure and disengaged. Akira also did the same after that.
But that did not mean Zelos was no longer suspicious of Carol. He kept his suspicion as he glanced at Akira.
“You’re pretty chill although you know my team is being hostile with you, is it because of that guy?”
Carol’s serious expression returned back to her usual smile.
“Well, that’s half of the reason.”
“So what’s the other half?”
“Even without him around, I’ll deal with it the same way. This is not a rare occurrence for me after all. So, I’ll just handle it the way I usually do.”
“Oh, in that case, is it okay to ask what you usually do in this situation?”
“I’ll offer you my service then explain the situation and help you understand what is actually going on. Of course, I’ll do that on a bed. Most misunderstandings get cleared after doing that, you know?”
“…I see.”
Zelos thought one more time. He was trying to judge Carol’s attitude. If she was his team’s enemy. He then added Akira’s fighting skill to the equation and finally made his conclusion as he lightly chuckled and declared.
“Ok! Fine! It seems that it’s my mistake!”
He then apologized to Carol.
“Well, I’m sorry. As the team leader, I must think about the safety of my team, you see. So, I can’t help but be extra cautious. Sorry about it.”
Carol was relieved but she did not show it externally, she just smiled and accepted Zelos’ apology.
“Don’t worry, it’s fine, it’s completely understandable and I’m already used to it too. So, what now? Do you want me to book a time for you?”
“Thank you for the offer, but I’ll refuse. As I said, we’re rather low on funds.”
“I normally make it cheap for the first time.”
“No no no, letting myself be swayed by something like that is the seed of money problems. So, I must be strict with myself on this.”
From the outside, it appeared as though two combatants were conversing peacefully with each other. Up until now, Zelos still had his hand on Babalod’s neck, but this is when he finally let go. Since Babalod was strangled off the ground, the moment he landed, he lost balance and fell to the ground, although, he somehow managed to support himself so as not to fall face-first.
Zelos glanced at Babalod and casually said to him.
“You hear that, right? So that’s it. You go deal with it yourself.”
Babalod was obviously flustered.
“W-wait for a sec, me alone?”
“Of course! If she’s the enemy of the whole team, we deal with her together. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. That’s why we won’t help you. Well, we won’t get in your way either. So do your best.”
After saying that, Zelos just moved away as if it was none of his business.
Now that Babalod was left alone to face Carol and Akira, his face turned desperate, typical only to someone cornered as he turned his focus to Carol.
Zelos only agreed to help him get back the team’s budget that he used to pay for Carol’s side job. And if it turned out that Carol was an enemy to his team, then Zelos would help him kill her and take back their funds while doing so.
But since that was not the case, Zelos’ team issue laid with Babalod and not Carol. Even if Babalod schemed to take back everything with force, this was in the end, a matter between a prostitute and her customer. Zelos did not have anything to do with it. That was what Zelos hinted at as he moved to the side.
Of course, Carol understood what he meant. She still kept her business smile from the outside as she thought of how to handle the change in the situation. She then made a dissatisfied face as she asked.
“Whoah, wait, are you serious? Isn’t that just way too pathetic?”
“Sorry, I’m desperate here. I did give you a lot of money. So, can you give it back to me? I’ll repay you later.”
How much Zelos would beat him later depended on how much he could recover from Carol. So Babalod did not have the leeway to be concerned about shame. Moreover, when he thought of how much he had given Carol, he could not help but frown.
“…In the first place, your fee is just way too high. There’s a limit on how much you can charge someone! 10 billion Aurum per night is just way out of line, you know!?”
Akira, who was listening to them with vigilance, was caught by surprise when he heard that statement. Carol, who saw that, smiled amusedly. She returned to her usual smile and explained to Babalod.
“A woman’s body can be as expensive as she wants. Moreover, I never forced you. You were okay with that fee and that’s why you used my service, right? So, there’s no way I’m okay with you asking it back after enjoying my service.”
“…But even so, I still need it back!”
Babalod took one step forward. Negotiations had ceased and he was about to make his move. Carol who saw that quickly analysed her choices to initiate the fight. But before she made her decision, Akira already stood between them.
“Carol, it’s okay to treat him as a mugger now, right?”
Carol was pretending to hesitate for a bit before giving her answer.
“Hmm, well, I guess that’s fine. Though I have one request, if it’s possible, don’t kill him or don’t injure him too much. Please beat him gently.”
“And the reason for that?”
“He’ll fetch more money that way. With him making you work like this; I’ll have him pay for your reward after all.”
“Fine then.”
Akira did not reach for his rifle, instead, he unsheathed his blade and faced Babalod.
The black blade decorated with golden linings was an optional item that came with his CA31R augmented suit. But the grip was from the modified blade that he received from Shiori.
The blade portion was destroyed back in the Kuzusuhara ruin. Normally, he would just need to ask for a replacement blade. But it was not practical to keep asking Shiori for the blade’s replacement every single time he broke it, not to mention that he broke it that time to kill Katsuya.
Akira had another choice to use the repairing feature of the sheath to create a new blade, but it would be creating a new blade instead of repairing the current blade, so it would take a lot of time and money.
That was when he remembered that a blade was in the optional item list back when he ordered his augmented suit, so he decided to ask Kiryou if he could purchase a blade from them without its handle and etc.
‘Due to the difference in their design, it was unusable at first, but with a little bit of modification to the grip, it solved the issue.’ After hearing that answer from Kiryou, Akira thought that it was a good opportunity to also repair the grip after all those fights and sent it to Kiryou to modify.
Since it took time to modify the sheath and the grip to be able to be used with Kiryou’s general purpose blade, Akira had to wait till they sent it back to him. Because of that, it did not make it for Akira’s inter-city transport escort mission. But it was finally done and returned back together with the rest of his new equipment just the other day.
Seeing Akira take a battle stance with his blade unsheathed, Babalod also took a fighting stance. He lowered both of his hands until they touched the ground. The joints suddenly disengaged. He raised his arms and slowly pointed them forward. The arms with seemingly unlimited disengaged joints moving freely as if they were whips. Thus, creating an anatomical stance impossible for a human to perform.
Hunters who did not use guns in battles against monsters were a minority. As such, there were not that many chances for them to have close-range combat where rifles were at a disadvantage. But even so, there were Hunters who still learnt that skill. After all, there are chances where they had to use that skill, for example, when they had to fight another Hunter.
Those who had learned such skill would be able to limit their opponents during a fight, after all. They would not be shooting stray bullets anywhere. In case of a fight where there was no wish to kill but both sides also did not mind killing the other side, due to some common unspoken convention between the Hunters, such a fight often turned into a battle without guns. Dealing with pain without the risk of killing was a good way to discourage the opponent. There were also cases where Hunters would look down on their opponents once they became completely useless without guns. Thus, most high-ranking Hunters knew how to do melee combat.
Akira accepted Carol’s request not to kill Babalod, and Babalod only wanted Akira, who was Carol’s bodyguard, to relent. This was in order for him to force Carol to concede. Thus, both of them basically acquiesce to fight without guns.
They were locked in a face-off as they were probing for an opening. The tense atmosphere continued. Zelos, who did not like the idea of that stalemate continuing forever, decided to snap his finger. The sound signalled the start of the fight as Akira and Babalod jumped into action.
Babalod’s blade arm reached for Akira. He swung his already bent right arm to pierce through the air. While at the same time, his arm extended while his legs did not shift at all, it was as if he suddenly threw a blade toward an enemy that was originally completely out of his reach.
The blade arm suddenly released a flash of light created from forcefield armour, which hardened the whole blade. It turned into a vicious weapon that can easily pierce through a thick metal plate, searching for its target.
Akira dexterously leaned to one side, evading the incoming blade. The blade passed next to him as if it was a speeding bullet, but even so, Akira calmly but quickly used the least needed movement to avoid it, and while still in that posture, Akira swung his blade to cut the extended arm.
But the combination of the arm’s movement, the speed of Babalod pulling back his arm, and the anti-cut armour protecting it prevented Akira from cutting it off. The moment it made contact with Akira’s blade, it released flashes of light, like a firecracker.
Babalod quickly pulled back his arm. Resting his hardened thumb on the blade guard, extending it out, Babalod tried to attack Akira from behind. But Akira immediately ducked to evade that and at the same time, he leapt forward to close the distance.
To retaliate, Babalod used his left arm and whipped it toward Akira. It was aimed to restrict Akira’s movement. The steel hand went to grab Akira’s head while the extended arm tried to circle itself around Akira’s body. It was difficult to get away from both of them at the same time.
Akira swung down his blade to repel Babalod’s left arm. Although he could not cut it off, the power of his augmented suit was more than enough to blow it away.
At that time, Babalod already launched another attack with his right arm that he just pulled back. The successive attack had come by quickly, even the slightest delay would be fatal.
But Akira also deflected that arm in the same way. Babalod’s successive rapid attack was relatively slow inside Akira’s compressed time perception. When he lost balance from evading the previous attack, he used his augmented suit to fortify his footing and forcefully fixed his posture, the backlash from the difference in the weight that would have originally blown him away was redirected and used to strike back at his opponent.
With both of Babalod’s arms blown away, Akira quickly closed their distance. With a rather light step, he raised his blade up.
That was when Babalod smiled. It was his original scheme to bait Akira to do that. With that posture that was obvious he was going to fall over; he suddenly regained his balance using his augmented suit. And at the same time, he whipped his arms as if they were claws trying to rip Akira from both sides.
With Akira was in the air and no footing, even if he used forcefield armour to project a footing and used it to jump away, it was already too late to try to evade that attack. It was a high-speed attack from both sides. Even if Akira deflected one of them, the other one would hit him. Babalod was confident that he already had his victory at hand.
And as Babalod had predicted, Akira could not get away from that attack, but that did not mean he was victorious.
Akira let go of the blade that he held with both of his hands. He then released an accurate strike to the left and right without glancing to the side. His retaliation was fast thanks to the physical power enhancement of his new augmented suit. With the angle of his attack being extremely exquisite, it was enough to make sure that the arm blades were deflected, avoiding a head-on clash.
Babalod was caught by surprise. With his left and right arms thrown aside, he could not move while Akira in front of him grabbed his blade again. Babalod could not do anything as Akira swung his blade down.
The blade stopped right in front of Babalod’s eyes.
Both Akira and Babalod had no wish to kill each other, so in another word, they were both holding back. But in an exchange that only lasted for a few seconds, it was easy to see who would die if they were going at it seriously, and both of them understood that very well.
Now that Babalod had lost his will to continue the fight, he disengaged his non-human posture. The moment he did that, his body fell back.
“…Alright, it’s my loss, goddammit!”
Babalod frustratedly admitted his loss and looked bitterly at Akira.
“You even got yourself a bodyguard like this, huh!? I bet you paid him with the money that I paid you! So how much is it?! How much are you getting paid!?”
With someone that powerful, it was only natural to be expensive. Although he lost, paying Akira for that fight would diminish Carol’s ability to pay him. Babalod thought so as he spat out those begrudging words.
Akira sheathed his blade.
“1 million Aurum per day.”
Babalod twitched, Akira’s answer only served to worsen his anger.
“The heck?! You?! You’re seriously okay getting paid that little?! You’re only making me look more stupid here, you know?!”
“Even if you say that…”
Akira seemed completely apathetic to that matter, Carol then came next to Akira and smiled at Babalod.
“I actually told him that it’s okay to have me every day on top of the base pay during his mission to protect me.”
Babalod, who already had a taste of Carol’s body, was completely convinced with that as he could not help but exclaim.
“I see, so that’s why, huh! Dammit!”
In contrast to him, Akira looked confused as he could not understand why that would make sense. But since he was in the middle of a job right now, he put that aside for later.
“So then, Carol, what do you want to do with this guy?”
Although he had defeated Babalod, it was not like he stripped him off his ability to fight. Akira went this far only because he was told Babalod would fetch more money when captured alive, but he had no idea what exactly to do with Babalod. Meanwhile, capturing him just like this was basically not in his job description as a bodyguard.
Carol giggled and answered that question.
“Hm? Just wait for a bit. They should arrive soon.”
“They who?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not like I’m talking about his reinforcement, ah, there they are.”
From the direction where Carol was pointing, there was an APC coming from the wasteland. It stopped close to them, and some people came out from that APC. It was Colbert, Levin, Erio, and their companions. Unlike Colbert and Levin, who were already used to this scene, Erio and the other children seemed a bit scared.
And lastly, Viola also came out from that APC. With a glance at the scene there, Viola understood what was going on and walked to Carol.
“Oh, that was way more peaceful than I thought.”
Carol smiled at Viola and replied.
“Well, it’s great to have a strong bodyguard. But still, you came just right on time, so, where have you been watching from?”
“Oh my. It’s just a pure coincidence.”
Carol did not tell Viola that she had employed Akira. She had also refused Viola’s offer to do the negotiation. With Viola not asking what Carol would do to handle what was coming, and the perfect timing when Viola came, it could be inferred that Viola already knew what was going on. Carol did not know if that was because of the precision of her information net or because of her amazing observation skill. Either way, Carol still gave a smile, indicating that she already knew everything about Viola.
In reaction to Carol’s smile, Viola replied with her usual smile.
“Carol. Since I’m already here, can you leave the rest of the negotiation to me?”
“You have a point, alright then.”
“Oh, that was easy. You could’ve accepted my offer like that from the start, you know?”
Against Viola who was making a rather exaggerated surprised expression, Carol’s smile deepened.
“The situation is not the same now, you do know that as well, right?”
Having Viola involved right now when Carol already won her negotiation with Zelos and Babalod was completely different from getting Viola involved from the time when nothing was certain yet.
Since Carol and Viola were such good friends and equally bad women, they really matched each other well. But this time, Carol wanted to avoid making this matter overly complicated with Viola’s involvement. That was why even if there was a minimum danger to herself, Carol refused her offer to get involved back then.
Carol tried to probe how much Viola knew about her situation as she threw a question to Viola with a smile that indicated that she already knew everything.
“That’s why I’ll have you cut the negotiation price. Well, then, I’ll leave the rest to you, Akira let’s return back to the car.”
Carol walked toward the camping car. Akira hesitated for a bit and looked at Babalod. Levin was in the middle of putting something that looked like a restraining device on him. Meanwhile, Babalod seemed to have completely lost his will to fight back and just let Levin do his job. In contrast to that, Erio and the other children looked extremely anxious, having to guard a Hunter who was obviously much stronger than them. Akira thought that it should be okay to leave as he went back to Carol’s camping car as well.
Viola smiled amusedly just like usual as she watched Carol and Akira’s back.
After they returned back to the camping car. Akira asked Carol what exactly just happened. That was when he asked the question that he shelved back then.
“Say, Carol, that 10 billion Aurum per night that guy said back then, was that true?”
“Hm? Yep, it’s true.”
Carol replied extremely casually to the point where he could not help but frown.
“I-I see… But still, the 10 billion Aurum, did he pay for it?”
“Of course, he couldn’t. That is why he gave me something else that was worth that much. Which is the secret information Zelos talked about. He also gave me other information a few times before that. I’m sure that’s why his team leader took his time to come here when that was out of the bag.”
“Well, that part is completely understandable, but… How in the world do you sell a piece of information worth that much?”
“Hmm, it’s true that it’s difficult to decide the price of a piece of information. For example, let’s say that it’s information that would have been fatal if it fell to the hands of someone who is up to no good to their team, and with that assumption in mind, the question would be how much they are willing to spend to get that information. With that as the basis on how to decide the worth of a piece of information, it becomes easier to tell that information would be worth 10 billion Aurum.”
“Hmmm, even if you say so, it’s 10 billion Aurum we’re talking about here… For me, it’s a huge amount of money. Even with my perspective about money lowered, we’re talking about just for one night here, right? Hmmm…”
Akira hummed as if he was trying to understand something that was completely alien to him. It was obvious from his expression that he looked really troubled. 10 billion Aurum for one night. It was in a whole other world that he could not understand.
Carol understood what Akira was thinking from seeing his expression and smiled at him.
“If you still can’t understand it, how about trying the body that is worth 10 billion Aurum per night for once?”
Akira frowned and smiled wryly.
“No thanks.”
“Geez, you’re as cold as always. Don’t worry, I won’t ask for money from you. Or at least, that’s the case while you’re guarding me.”
“Still no. I bet it’s one of those frauds where the first few tries are either for free or for a small amount of money. Do you really think I would accept it right after I just saw what happened to the people who fell for it?”
“For him, the experience must have been worth that trouble. That’s all there is to it. To be honest, if you use this chance to get used to it, I’m sure you won’t end up like him though. Even I must admit that you’re strong, that’s why I’m willing to let you have it without the need of paying. Don’t you think that it is a great offer? Are you sure you don’t want to take it? This chance will never come again, you know?”
“I know, and yes, I’m not taking it.”
“You’re really no fun at all.”
Seeing that Akira was even putting up his guard toward her, Carol just giggled amusedly.
Chapter 248: 10 Billion Aurum per Night
Akira and Carol were waiting beside the camping car for the signal caught on their radar to arrive. It did not take long for the source of that signal to be visible to the naked eye, a large vehicle stopped near them, and two men came out from the vehicle. Both men were Hunters. Judging from their equipment, they must have come from further east of Kugamayama city.
Carol was familiar with one of them. It was Babalod, who used her service from her side job. So, it did not take much for her to guess who was the other one. As she guessed, it was Zelos, the man she had heard from Viola.
Zelos scanned Akira and Carol’s equipment before lightly throwing a question.
“So you’re Carol, huh?”
Carol casually replied.
“Yep.”
“Well, since you even took your time to welcome us here, it means that I don’t need to explain everything from the start, right?”
“Hmmm, are you here because you heard your friends praise me for my side job? If that’s the case, I’m sorry, but it’s not like I’m accepting customers all the time. So, like, can you leave for today and ask me again some other time?”
Carol already knew why Zelos was there, but she was deliberately playing coy. Zelos understood what Carol was trying to say. Thus, he then tried to carefully probe Carol’s situation.
“Actually, the money that Babalod used for you, was from the team’s budget, you see.”
“Oh my, is that so? I didn’t know that. That must be rough, so, don’t tell me that you’re here to tell me to return it.”
“It depends.”
“Are you being serious here? I’m only accepting his money and he got that money from stealing from you. It’s him that you should be asking, not me.”
“Well, normally, that would be the case, as I said, it depends.”
“Oh, so, can you elaborate?”
Up until this point, both of them were acting casual while trying to probe the other’s intention, but this is where Zelos’ attitude changed. A certain pressure emanated from him, it was a pressure unique to high-ranking Hunters. It was calm and silent yet extremely suffocating.
“It depends on whether you put your hands on him trying to cause trouble for us right from the start or not.”
Carol was smiling like usual. But she also started feeling the pressure and got a bit anxious.
Zelos reached for Babalod’s neck to further intimidate Carol.
“Although I did say that he took the team’s budget, if it was a small amount, we could solve it by ourselves. And even if it is not that small, we can still solve it by discussing it among ourselves.”
Zelos’ gaze turned sharper. His grip also became stronger. Babalod started to frown from the pain.
“But the problem is that this guy leaked a piece of secret information. So, it’s only given that we’ll get suspicious toward the person who he gave this information to. We only knew that he gave away such a crucial piece of information to you because we interrogated this fool.”
Zelos’ gaze turned thick with intimidation.
“Answer me. What are you going to do with that information?”
Carol somehow managed to maintain her calm since it was not rare for her to have to face such intimidating pressure from a high-ranking Hunter due to her side job. She then replied casually with her business smile.
“Nothing in particular.”
“I’ll interpret that as you refusing to answer.”
Zelos’ stance shifted. The situation was on the brink of a fight. Akira also tensed up, he already activated his time compression and shifted his stance as well so that he could react to any sudden movement.
But Carol smiled and replied calmly.
“I didn’t mean that, it’s just exactly as I said, I have no plan to use that information.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s true that I received that information as a substitute for monetary gains, but it’s not like I was aiming for that information in the first place. I’m fine with getting paid anything as long as it has the same worth as the fee and I don’t really decide what that is. It was his choice to pay for my service using information gained from your team, not me.”
Carol’s face turned serious.
“Since I did my job, I have the right to receive my reward. If you don’t have enough money, you’ll have you pay for it with something else. Just because I’m not strapped for money, that doesn’t mean I’m willing to lower my fee. I have no plans to reduce the cost I set. It would reflect as me lowering my own worth. I’m sure you can understand that too, right? Or is that I’m mistaken?”
As the leader of a team of Hunters, whose jobs had death as an occupational hazard, his team members practically staked their lives to work under him. Thus, he could not deny Carol’s statement, which only left him with one choice.
“Well, yeah.”
“Well, that’s the gist of it. I don’t mind what it is as long as it is worth enough for my fee. It doesn’t matter if it’s money, or an object, or a person, or information, or just basically anything. Even if I have no idea how to use that thing. And by pure chance, this time, that thing is information. That’s all there is to it.”
Zelos could understand Carol’s argument. Thus, he lowered his pressure and disengaged. Akira also did the same after that.
But that did not mean Zelos was no longer suspicious of Carol. He kept his suspicion as he glanced at Akira.
“You’re pretty chill although you know my team is being hostile with you, is it because of that guy?”
Carol’s serious expression returned back to her usual smile.
“Well, that’s half of the reason.”
“So what’s the other half?”
“Even without him around, I’ll deal with it the same way. This is not a rare occurrence for me after all. So, I’ll just handle it the way I usually do.”
“Oh, in that case, is it okay to ask what you usually do in this situation?”
“I’ll offer you my service then explain the situation and help you understand what is actually going on. Of course, I’ll do that on a bed. Most misunderstandings get cleared after doing that, you know?”
“…I see.”
Zelos thought one more time. He was trying to judge Carol’s attitude. If she was his team’s enemy. He then added Akira’s fighting skill to the equation and finally made his conclusion as he lightly chuckled and declared.
“Ok! Fine! It seems that it’s my mistake!”
He then apologized to Carol.
“Well, I’m sorry. As the team leader, I must think about the safety of my team, you see. So, I can’t help but be extra cautious. Sorry about it.”
Carol was relieved but she did not show it externally, she just smiled and accepted Zelos’ apology.
“Don’t worry, it’s fine, it’s completely understandable and I’m already used to it too. So, what now? Do you want me to book a time for you?”
“Thank you for the offer, but I’ll refuse. As I said, we’re rather low on funds.”
“I normally make it cheap for the first time.”
“No no no, letting myself be swayed by something like that is the seed of money problems. So, I must be strict with myself on this.”
From the outside, it appeared as though two combatants were conversing peacefully with each other. Up until now, Zelos still had his hand on Babalod’s neck, but this is when he finally let go. Since Babalod was strangled off the ground, the moment he landed, he lost balance and fell to the ground, although, he somehow managed to support himself so as not to fall face-first.
Zelos glanced at Babalod and casually said to him.
“You hear that, right? So that’s it. You go deal with it yourself.”
Babalod was obviously flustered.
“W-wait for a sec, me alone?”
“Of course! If she’s the enemy of the whole team, we deal with her together. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. That’s why we won’t help you. Well, we won’t get in your way either. So do your best.”
After saying that, Zelos just moved away as if it was none of his business.
Now that Babalod was left alone to face Carol and Akira, his face turned desperate, typical only to someone cornered as he turned his focus to Carol.
Zelos only agreed to help him get back the team’s budget that he used to pay for Carol’s side job. And if it turned out that Carol was an enemy to his team, then Zelos would help him kill her and take back their funds while doing so.
But since that was not the case, Zelos’ team issue laid with Babalod and not Carol. Even if Babalod schemed to take back everything with force, this was in the end, a matter between a prostitute and her customer. Zelos did not have anything to do with it. That was what Zelos hinted at as he moved to the side.
Of course, Carol understood what he meant. She still kept her business smile from the outside as she thought of how to handle the change in the situation. She then made a dissatisfied face as she asked.
“Whoah, wait, are you serious? Isn’t that just way too pathetic?”
“Sorry, I’m desperate here. I did give you a lot of money. So, can you give it back to me? I’ll repay you later.”
How much Zelos would beat him later depended on how much he could recover from Carol. So Babalod did not have the leeway to be concerned about shame. Moreover, when he thought of how much he had given Carol, he could not help but frown.
“…In the first place, your fee is just way too high. There’s a limit on how much you can charge someone! 10 billion Aurum per night is just way out of line, you know!?”
Akira, who was listening to them with vigilance, was caught by surprise when he heard that statement. Carol, who saw that, smiled amusedly. She returned to her usual smile and explained to Babalod.
“A woman’s body can be as expensive as she wants. Moreover, I never forced you. You were okay with that fee and that’s why you used my service, right? So, there’s no way I’m okay with you asking it back after enjoying my service.”
“…But even so, I still need it back!”
Babalod took one step forward. Negotiations had ceased and he was about to make his move. Carol who saw that quickly analysed her choices to initiate the fight. But before she made her decision, Akira already stood between them.
“Carol, it’s okay to treat him as a mugger now, right?”
Carol was pretending to hesitate for a bit before giving her answer.
“Hmm, well, I guess that’s fine. Though I have one request, if it’s possible, don’t kill him or don’t injure him too much. Please beat him gently.”
“And the reason for that?”
“He’ll fetch more money that way. With him making you work like this; I’ll have him pay for your reward after all.”
“Fine then.”
Akira did not reach for his rifle, instead, he unsheathed his blade and faced Babalod.
The black blade decorated with golden linings was an optional item that came with his CA31R augmented suit. But the grip was from the modified blade that he received from Shiori.
The blade portion was destroyed back in the Kuzusuhara ruin. Normally, he would just need to ask for a replacement blade. But it was not practical to keep asking Shiori for the blade’s replacement every single time he broke it, not to mention that he broke it that time to kill Katsuya.
Akira had another choice to use the repairing feature of the sheath to create a new blade, but it would be creating a new blade instead of repairing the current blade, so it would take a lot of time and money.
That was when he remembered that a blade was in the optional item list back when he ordered his augmented suit, so he decided to ask Kiryou if he could purchase a blade from them without its handle and etc.
‘Due to the difference in their design, it was unusable at first, but with a little bit of modification to the grip, it solved the issue.’ After hearing that answer from Kiryou, Akira thought that it was a good opportunity to also repair the grip after all those fights and sent it to Kiryou to modify.
Since it took time to modify the sheath and the grip to be able to be used with Kiryou’s general purpose blade, Akira had to wait till they sent it back to him. Because of that, it did not make it for Akira’s inter-city transport escort mission. But it was finally done and returned back together with the rest of his new equipment just the other day.
Seeing Akira take a battle stance with his blade unsheathed, Babalod also took a fighting stance. He lowered both of his hands until they touched the ground. The joints suddenly disengaged. He raised his arms and slowly pointed them forward. The arms with seemingly unlimited disengaged joints moving freely as if they were whips. Thus, creating an anatomical stance impossible for a human to perform.
Hunters who did not use guns in battles against monsters were a minority. As such, there were not that many chances for them to have close-range combat where rifles were at a disadvantage. But even so, there were Hunters who still learnt that skill. After all, there are chances where they had to use that skill, for example, when they had to fight another Hunter.
Those who had learned such skill would be able to limit their opponents during a fight, after all. They would not be shooting stray bullets anywhere. In case of a fight where there was no wish to kill but both sides also did not mind killing the other side, due to some common unspoken convention between the Hunters, such a fight often turned into a battle without guns. Dealing with pain without the risk of killing was a good way to discourage the opponent. There were also cases where Hunters would look down on their opponents once they became completely useless without guns. Thus, most high-ranking Hunters knew how to do melee combat.
Akira accepted Carol’s request not to kill Babalod, and Babalod only wanted Akira, who was Carol’s bodyguard, to relent. This was in order for him to force Carol to concede. Thus, both of them basically acquiesce to fight without guns.
They were locked in a face-off as they were probing for an opening. The tense atmosphere continued. Zelos, who did not like the idea of that stalemate continuing forever, decided to snap his finger. The sound signalled the start of the fight as Akira and Babalod jumped into action.
Babalod’s blade arm reached for Akira. He swung his already bent right arm to pierce through the air. While at the same time, his arm extended while his legs did not shift at all, it was as if he suddenly threw a blade toward an enemy that was originally completely out of his reach.
The blade arm suddenly released a flash of light created from forcefield armour, which hardened the whole blade. It turned into a vicious weapon that can easily pierce through a thick metal plate, searching for its target.
Akira dexterously leaned to one side, evading the incoming blade. The blade passed next to him as if it was a speeding bullet, but even so, Akira calmly but quickly used the least needed movement to avoid it, and while still in that posture, Akira swung his blade to cut the extended arm.
But the combination of the arm’s movement, the speed of Babalod pulling back his arm, and the anti-cut armour protecting it prevented Akira from cutting it off. The moment it made contact with Akira’s blade, it released flashes of light, like a firecracker.
Babalod quickly pulled back his arm. Resting his hardened thumb on the blade guard, extending it out, Babalod tried to attack Akira from behind. But Akira immediately ducked to evade that and at the same time, he leapt forward to close the distance.
To retaliate, Babalod used his left arm and whipped it toward Akira. It was aimed to restrict Akira’s movement. The steel hand went to grab Akira’s head while the extended arm tried to circle itself around Akira’s body. It was difficult to get away from both of them at the same time.
Akira swung down his blade to repel Babalod’s left arm. Although he could not cut it off, the power of his augmented suit was more than enough to blow it away.
At that time, Babalod already launched another attack with his right arm that he just pulled back. The successive attack had come by quickly, even the slightest delay would be fatal.
But Akira also deflected that arm in the same way. Babalod’s successive rapid attack was relatively slow inside Akira’s compressed time perception. When he lost balance from evading the previous attack, he used his augmented suit to fortify his footing and forcefully fixed his posture, the backlash from the difference in the weight that would have originally blown him away was redirected and used to strike back at his opponent.
With both of Babalod’s arms blown away, Akira quickly closed their distance. With a rather light step, he raised his blade up.
That was when Babalod smiled. It was his original scheme to bait Akira to do that. With that posture that was obvious he was going to fall over; he suddenly regained his balance using his augmented suit. And at the same time, he whipped his arms as if they were claws trying to rip Akira from both sides.
With Akira was in the air and no footing, even if he used forcefield armour to project a footing and used it to jump away, it was already too late to try to evade that attack. It was a high-speed attack from both sides. Even if Akira deflected one of them, the other one would hit him. Babalod was confident that he already had his victory at hand.
And as Babalod had predicted, Akira could not get away from that attack, but that did not mean he was victorious.
Akira let go of the blade that he held with both of his hands. He then released an accurate strike to the left and right without glancing to the side. His retaliation was fast thanks to the physical power enhancement of his new augmented suit. With the angle of his attack being extremely exquisite, it was enough to make sure that the arm blades were deflected, avoiding a head-on clash.
Babalod was caught by surprise. With his left and right arms thrown aside, he could not move while Akira in front of him grabbed his blade again. Babalod could not do anything as Akira swung his blade down.
The blade stopped right in front of Babalod’s eyes.
Both Akira and Babalod had no wish to kill each other, so in another word, they were both holding back. But in an exchange that only lasted for a few seconds, it was easy to see who would die if they were going at it seriously, and both of them understood that very well.
Now that Babalod had lost his will to continue the fight, he disengaged his non-human posture. The moment he did that, his body fell back.
“…Alright, it’s my loss, goddammit!”
Babalod frustratedly admitted his loss and looked bitterly at Akira.
“You even got yourself a bodyguard like this, huh!? I bet you paid him with the money that I paid you! So how much is it?! How much are you getting paid!?”
With someone that powerful, it was only natural to be expensive. Although he lost, paying Akira for that fight would diminish Carol’s ability to pay him. Babalod thought so as he spat out those begrudging words.
Akira sheathed his blade.
“1 million Aurum per day.”
Babalod twitched, Akira’s answer only served to worsen his anger.
“The heck?! You?! You’re seriously okay getting paid that little?! You’re only making me look more stupid here, you know?!”
“Even if you say that…”
Akira seemed completely apathetic to that matter, Carol then came next to Akira and smiled at Babalod.
“I actually told him that it’s okay to have me every day on top of the base pay during his mission to protect me.”
Babalod, who already had a taste of Carol’s body, was completely convinced with that as he could not help but exclaim.
“I see, so that’s why, huh! Dammit!”
In contrast to him, Akira looked confused as he could not understand why that would make sense. But since he was in the middle of a job right now, he put that aside for later.
“So then, Carol, what do you want to do with this guy?”
Although he had defeated Babalod, it was not like he stripped him off his ability to fight. Akira went this far only because he was told Babalod would fetch more money when captured alive, but he had no idea what exactly to do with Babalod. Meanwhile, capturing him just like this was basically not in his job description as a bodyguard.
Carol giggled and answered that question.
“Hm? Just wait for a bit. They should arrive soon.”
“They who?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not like I’m talking about his reinforcement, ah, there they are.”
From the direction where Carol was pointing, there was an APC coming from the wasteland. It stopped close to them, and some people came out from that APC. It was Colbert, Levin, Erio, and their companions. Unlike Colbert and Levin, who were already used to this scene, Erio and the other children seemed a bit scared.
And lastly, Viola also came out from that APC. With a glance at the scene there, Viola understood what was going on and walked to Carol.
“Oh, that was way more peaceful than I thought.”
Carol smiled at Viola and replied.
“Well, it’s great to have a strong bodyguard. But still, you came just right on time, so, where have you been watching from?”
“Oh my. It’s just a pure coincidence.”
Carol did not tell Viola that she had employed Akira. She had also refused Viola’s offer to do the negotiation. With Viola not asking what Carol would do to handle what was coming, and the perfect timing when Viola came, it could be inferred that Viola already knew what was going on. Carol did not know if that was because of the precision of her information net or because of her amazing observation skill. Either way, Carol still gave a smile, indicating that she already knew everything about Viola.
In reaction to Carol’s smile, Viola replied with her usual smile.
“Carol. Since I’m already here, can you leave the rest of the negotiation to me?”
“You have a point, alright then.”
“Oh, that was easy. You could’ve accepted my offer like that from the start, you know?”
Against Viola who was making a rather exaggerated surprised expression, Carol’s smile deepened.
“The situation is not the same now, you do know that as well, right?”
Having Viola involved right now when Carol already won her negotiation with Zelos and Babalod was completely different from getting Viola involved from the time when nothing was certain yet.
Since Carol and Viola were such good friends and equally bad women, they really matched each other well. But this time, Carol wanted to avoid making this matter overly complicated with Viola’s involvement. That was why even if there was a minimum danger to herself, Carol refused her offer to get involved back then.
Carol tried to probe how much Viola knew about her situation as she threw a question to Viola with a smile that indicated that she already knew everything.
“That’s why I’ll have you cut the negotiation price. Well, then, I’ll leave the rest to you, Akira let’s return back to the car.”
Carol walked toward the camping car. Akira hesitated for a bit and looked at Babalod. Levin was in the middle of putting something that looked like a restraining device on him. Meanwhile, Babalod seemed to have completely lost his will to fight back and just let Levin do his job. In contrast to that, Erio and the other children looked extremely anxious, having to guard a Hunter who was obviously much stronger than them. Akira thought that it should be okay to leave as he went back to Carol’s camping car as well.
Viola smiled amusedly just like usual as she watched Carol and Akira’s back.
After they returned back to the camping car. Akira asked Carol what exactly just happened. That was when he asked the question that he shelved back then.
“Say, Carol, that 10 billion Aurum per night that guy said back then, was that true?”
“Hm? Yep, it’s true.”
Carol replied extremely casually to the point where he could not help but frown.
“I-I see… But still, the 10 billion Aurum, did he pay for it?”
“Of course, he couldn’t. That is why he gave me something else that was worth that much. Which is the secret information Zelos talked about. He also gave me other information a few times before that. I’m sure that’s why his team leader took his time to come here when that was out of the bag.”
“Well, that part is completely understandable, but… How in the world do you sell a piece of information worth that much?”
“Hmm, it’s true that it’s difficult to decide the price of a piece of information. For example, let’s say that it’s information that would have been fatal if it fell to the hands of someone who is up to no good to their team, and with that assumption in mind, the question would be how much they are willing to spend to get that information. With that as the basis on how to decide the worth of a piece of information, it becomes easier to tell that information would be worth 10 billion Aurum.”
“Hmmm, even if you say so, it’s 10 billion Aurum we’re talking about here… For me, it’s a huge amount of money. Even with my perspective about money lowered, we’re talking about just for one night here, right? Hmmm…”
Akira hummed as if he was trying to understand something that was completely alien to him. It was obvious from his expression that he looked really troubled. 10 billion Aurum for one night. It was in a whole other world that he could not understand.
Carol understood what Akira was thinking from seeing his expression and smiled at him.
“If you still can’t understand it, how about trying the body that is worth 10 billion Aurum per night for once?”
Akira frowned and smiled wryly.
“No thanks.”
“Geez, you’re as cold as always. Don’t worry, I won’t ask for money from you. Or at least, that’s the case while you’re guarding me.”
“Still no. I bet it’s one of those frauds where the first few tries are either for free or for a small amount of money. Do you really think I would accept it right after I just saw what happened to the people who fell for it?”
“For him, the experience must have been worth that trouble. That’s all there is to it. To be honest, if you use this chance to get used to it, I’m sure you won’t end up like him though. Even I must admit that you’re strong, that’s why I’m willing to let you have it without the need of paying. Don’t you think that it is a great offer? Are you sure you don’t want to take it? This chance will never come again, you know?”
“I know, and yes, I’m not taking it.”
“You’re really no fun at all.”
Seeing that Akira was even putting up his guard toward her, Carol just giggled amusedly.