になって奮闘し続けていると、AF対物砲を3回ほど使用した辺りで状況に変化が現れた。
『......? 敵が来なくなったな』
不思議に思って周囲の少し先を見渡すと、他の場所ではハンター達が今も交戦中だった。別に敵の群れが退いた訳ではない。しかしこちらには来ない。アキラが軽く顔を
『アキラ。気を緩めずに、今のうちにいろいろ整えておきなさい』
アルファの指示通りに、装備の状態などを整え直す。回復薬を飲み、弾倉とエネルギーパックを交換する。ついでに周囲の死骸を蹴飛ばして足場を整備しておく。それを
増援が来ない理由は、アキラが敵を倒しすぎたからだ。死骸から発せられるフェロモンはその濃度に応じて同種の増援を呼び寄せる働きを持つ。だがその濃度が一定以上になると、逆に遠ざける効果を生み出す。その濃いフェロモンから戦力差を感じ取り、小型は勝ち目が全く無いと判断して近寄るのを止めるのだ。
濃いフェロモンは同時により大型の個体を呼び寄せる原因にもなるのだが、そちらの大型達は車列前方の部隊が相手をしているので、車列後方に向かうことはなかった。前方の部隊も大型モンスターを車列後方に向かわせてしまうと
その結果、配置場所に対して中途半端な実力を持つアキラを襲う敵がいなくなったのだ。
『急に暇になったな』
『暇なら他の場所に応援にでも行ったらどう? と、言いたいところだけれど、それはヒカルに止められているわね』
「アキラ。一応伝えておくけど、応援の要求が来ているわ」
「分かった。どこだ?」
あっさり答えたアキラの態度に、ヒカルが軽い困惑を見せる。
「無理しなくていいのよ? 応援要求があったからって、絶対に助けにいかなくちゃいけないって訳じゃないの。随分戦ったようだし、疲れたでしょう? 休憩を取って、残弾等も整え直して、その後で気が向いたらで良いと思うけど。便利に押し付けられると思われたら、後で大変よ?」
「軽く休憩は取ったし、弾薬にもまだ余裕がある。それに
そう言って軽く笑ったアキラに、ヒカルも笑って返した。
「分かったわ。そっちの交渉は任せておきなさい。じゃあ、応援要求の情報を送るわ。アキラ。頑張ってね」
アキラの拡張視界に表示されている索敵反応が更新され、アキラの新たな担当分が表示された。
『......いや、黒字だって。多分。きっと』
弾薬費は自費の契約だ。赤字の危険性は低いとはいえ残っている。アキラは湧いた僅かな不安を拭い去る
輸送車両の車列後方でハンター達が陣を敷いて必死に戦っている。ハンターランク40台の者達で構成された部隊だ。その動きの統率や手際から、普段からハンター稼業を部隊で実施している者達だと分かる。単純にランク40台のハンターを集めただけの者達とは一線を画する成果を上げていた。
車内との出入口を中心にして複数の簡易防壁を設置し、車両側の許可を取って屋根から
しかし戦況は思わしくない。敵が多すぎるのだ。
「ジリ貧だぞ! 応援要請はどうなってる!」
「交代要員から予備戦力ぐらい出せるだろう!?」
「先に音を上げた連中に全部派遣したってさ! 俺達ももっと早く音を上げるべきだったな!」
「仕方ねえだろう!? 応援を気軽に呼んだら
り潰されないように戦況の推測をしっかりやれって意味だったんだろうがな。その推測を誤ったのは事実だ。後はもう時間を稼ぐしかねえよ。このままだと負けるが、ジリ貧だからってすぐに潰れる訳じゃねえ。前方の部隊が大型を片付けさえすれば、戦況は一気に好転するんだ。それまで持ちこたえるぞ」
「分かってるよ! ちくしょう!」
全員がこのままでは敗北は時間の問題という戦況を理解しながらも、下手に動じることなく統率を崩さずに戦い続けている。それは制限時間の引き延ばしに大いに役立っていた。
その姿を消す。突然の事態に驚く男達の前で光が消える。そして、多少焦げてはいるが健在なモンスター達が再び姿を現した。
「......倒してないのか」
『残りをさっさと始末して、頑張って黒字にしましょうか』
アキラはそのまま走って敵との距離を縮めながら、今度こそLEO複合銃を構え直す。そして憂さを晴らすように敵の残りを苛烈に銃撃し続けた。部隊の者達も周辺の敵の大半が一気に倒されたことで意気を上げて応戦する。戦況はアキラ達の優勢に急激に大きく傾いた。
そのまま周辺の敵を粗方一掃すると、敵の増援が緩やかになり、更に減っていく。モンスター達も無限に湧く訳ではない。輸送車両のハンター達の奮闘もあり、そろそろ全体数も減ってきたのだ。
これでまた一息付ける。アキラがそう思って僅かに気を緩めた時、警備側から送られている索敵反応が拡大された。アキラのいる車両周辺に敵の反応は無い。だがその更に外側から大規模な反応が迫ってきていた。思わず視線をそちらに向けると、昆虫系の群れが再び迫ってきていた。しかも群れの個体は先ほど倒した小型達より大型なものばかりだった。
『......ちょっと多くないか? それに大きくないか?』
『真っ先に倒された母艦のような大型種から湧いたモンスターの中で、小型高速の個体群が先に車両に追い付いたのよ。そして中型中速の個体群も
アキラが思わず弾幕の発射元に視線を向ける。大型の人型兵器が車列の前方から後方に向けて飛んでいた。両手の5本の指が巨大な砲口になっており、右手からは実弾を、左手からはエネルギー弾を撃ち出している。人型兵器の肩には重武装の女性が立っていた。
女性はこの場の警備部隊の上司であるメルシアだ。体の線を強く出す旧世界風の強化服を着ており、肩や腰や腕から伸びる拡張アームに体型差を大分無視した大型の銃などを取り付けている。背中と脚には飛行装置も装着していた。
メルシアは自分に気付いて歓声を上げる部下達を見た後、アキラに気付いた。すると表情に僅かな警戒を表す。そして人型兵器の肩から勢い良く跳躍してアキラの近くに着地した。
少し驚いているアキラに、メルシアが内心の警戒を僅かに
「ここは私達の受け持ち範囲だと思うけど、うちの新人じゃないわよね? どちら様?」
アキラが自分の名を名乗ろうとして、言葉を止めた。そして苦笑を浮かべる。
「すまん。俺のオペレーターから私語厳禁だって苦情が山ほどきたから黙ってる」
メルシアの方にも警備側の通信経由で、かなり焦った様子のヒカルから通信が届いていた。メルシアは以前自分達のチームに不審者が紛れ込んだ事例からアキラへの警戒を示した。だがヒカルの慌て振りを見て、警戒を解いて苦笑を浮かべる。
も大変ね。私はメルシア。部下達の救援を感謝するわ。後は私達で対処するから大丈夫よ。ゆっくり休んで。じゃあね」
大型種を片付け終えた車列前方の部隊も続々と群れの撃破に加わっていく。戦車や人型兵器が車両近くの地面を逆に進む。ハンターが強化服の飛行装置で飛んで後方に向かう。
アキラはその派手な戦闘光景を見て、もう自分の出番は無いと理解した。
「ヒカル。俺、もう車内に戻っても良いよな? それとも一応持ち場で突っ立ってないと駄目か?」
えず元の持ち場に戻って。私が警備側に許可を取ってから迎えに行くわ」
上には上がいる。そのある意味で当たり前のことを、アキラは強く実感しながら戻っていった。
部屋に戻ったアキラはヒカルの勧めで少し念入りに休憩を取ることになった。警備側との調整はヒカルが行った。強化服を脱ぎ、付属品のインナーを備え付けの洗濯機に入れる。洗濯中に風呂に入り、家の設備より高性能なことに少し複雑な感情を覚えながら汗を流す。高性能な洗濯機により短時間で洗濯が終わる。少し残念に思いながら入浴を切り上げ、インナーを着て部屋に戻る。
そして半分日課になっている柔軟体操を始める。入念に体を
「......あー、えっと、ず、随分体が柔らかいのね」
アキラのインナーは強化服と体の細かな動きのずれから生じる皮膚等の裂傷を防ぐ緩衝材であるのと同時に、強化服側で取得した感覚を体に伝える媒体でもある。その
「そんなに違うの?」
「ああ。知り合いが強化服の動きに体が付いていけなくて、訓練中に腕を
「本当に、大変だったのね」
「まあな。でもまあ、ある程度は慣れだ。もう慣れたよ」
それほどのことに慣れてしまうのに、どれほどの経験が必要なのか。ヒカルは少し考えてみたが、分からなかった。
先ほどの戦闘後は目立った敵襲も無いので、警備人員の仕事は屋根の掃除になっていた。残っている大量の死骸を荒野に捨てるのだ。直接触ると危険な液体が散乱していたり、まだ生きている個体も混じっていたりなど、掃除とはいえそれなりに危険だ。その
アキラはヒカルと一緒に屋根での戦闘を振り返っていた。ヒカルは自分が見ていた映像を部屋の壁にスロー再生で表示して、隣のアキラ本人に状況の解説などをしてもらい、その内容に改めて少し引き気味になっていた。
「アキラ。今の銃撃だけど、どう考えても視界の外にいる敵を撃ってるわよね? しかもこの命中率から考えて、偶然じゃなくてしっかり狙って当ててるわよね? どうやってるの?」
「情報収集機器で敵の大まかな位置を
ヒカルに大分頭のおかしい人を見る目で見られたアキラが、自分が普通に言ったことの内容を今一度確認する。そして相手が普通の人だということから、過去の自分を基準にして、アルファと出会った頃の自分が同じことを聞いたらどう思うか、という想像をしてみた。過去の自分の反応もヒカルと似たり寄ったりだった。
「た、確かに、誰にでも出来るとは言わない。それに俺だって昔から出来た訳じゃない。物
「......人による、かな?」
ヒカルが非常に手間の掛かる問題児へ向けるような小さな
んでるの? いえ、情報収集機器が索敵したのは分かるの。その結果をどうやって知ったの? 私もアキラの拡張視界情報を送られてきたデータから見てたけど、その索敵結果なんかどこにも映ってないわよね? 音とかで知ったようにも思えないし......」
旧領域接続者の能力を介して情報収集機器のデータを取得し勘を働かせている、となど言える訳がない。アキラは何と言ってごまかそうかと考えながら、適当なことを言っただけだった。だがそれで、変人に向ける視線をアキラに向けていたヒカルは、何かを思い出して納得したように軽く
「ああ、そういうこと。アキラは拡張感覚の訓練もしてるのね。まあ、それなら、索敵情報が通常の拡張視界に映ってなくても不思議はないか」
「ああ、うん」
アキラが当然知っているという態度を取りながらアルファに助けを求める。
『アルファ。拡張感覚って何だ?』
『五感以外の感覚、人工的な第六感のことよ』
高ランクのハンターやその関係者の間では、第六感が拡張感覚の俗称としてそれなりに認識されている。元々は情報収集機器等を自身の脳に
げばすぐに得られるようなものではなく、通常は拡張四肢や全身義体の操作以上に取得が困難だ。取得できるかどうかには本人の素質も関わってくる。場合によっては脳が未知の感覚を扱い切れずに発狂しかねない。その取得難易度や危険性から、感覚機器の情報を徐々に少しずつ慣らしていくのが基本的な訓練方法だ。
そして、何となく、という表現は、新たな拡張感覚の取得訓練を実施している者が、拡張感覚がまだ脳内に新たな感覚として定まっていない段階によく使用する言葉であり、拡張感覚を持っていない者にその感覚を取り合えず伝える時にも多用される言葉だった。
それらの拡張感覚は通称として第六感と呼ばれているが、高ランクのハンターには元の5と合わせて6どころか10も20も持っている者もいる。アキラなら拡張感覚の1つや2つ持っていても不思議はないだろう。ヒカルはアキラの戦い振りからそう判断していた。
アキラはその後もアルファに説明の補足を頼みながら、ヒカルと一緒に屋根での戦闘の記録を見ていた。常人のヒカルでも状況認識が追い付くようにスロー再生を続けた結果、本来は
高ランクハンター。そのそこらのハンターとは格の違う実力と、その実力ゆえの扱いの難しさを肌で感じたヒカルは、結構へこたれていた。
自身が有能であるという自信に揺らぎはない。だが何でもかんでも出来るとも思ってはいない。今回は少し手に余るだけ。そう考えて意気を取り戻し、気合いを入れる。
にも、今はゆっくり休む。......この風呂、家のやつより高性能なのよね。
に違うわ。アキラもいつもこんなのに入っているのかしらね。本当に、いろいろと住む世界が違うわ」
ヒカルは日々億を超える金を平然と稼ぎ豪遊する高ランクハンター達の生活を少し羨ましく思った。アキラが日々安い風呂に入っているとは思いもしなかった。
浴室を出たヒカルが備え付けの寝巻きを借りて部屋に戻ると、アキラは既に眠っていた。強化服のインナーを寝巻き代わりにしてベッドに横になっている。
ヒカルが何となくアキラの寝顔を見る。その寝顔は穏やかで、スラム街の路地裏で寝ていた時のような警戒の色は無い。
ヒカルは笑ってそう言うと、自分もベッドに横になった。備え付けのベッドは十分広く、問題は無かった。
Akira got too fired up fighting the monsters and ended up using AF anti-material cannon 3 times, that was when he noticed a change.
"...? They stopped coming, didn't they?"
As he said so, he scanned the area and saw the other Hunters were still locked in an intense fight with the swarm. So, it was not like the swarm retreated, but even so, none of them was trying to come near Akira. Akira knitted his eyebrows.
"Akira, don't relax yet, let's use this opening to reload."
As Alpha ordered, Akira checked his equipment. He took some medicines, exchanged the energy packs and magazines for new ones. And while he was at it, he also walked around and kicked the dead monsters off the rooftop to give him more space to move around. But even after finishing all that, there were still no monsters trying to approach him. This sudden free time really weirded Akira out, but when he looked around, the others were still locked in intense battles.
The reason why no more monsters coming at him was simply because he had already killed too many. The dead monsters were releasing a pheromone that would normally attract other monsters, but when it got too thick and reached above a certain level, it instead repelled monsters. That thick pheromone let the other monsters know that there was a power gap in that area so the weak monsters with no winning chance would avoid getting closer.
While at the same time, the thick pheromone would also attract bigger and stronger monsters to come. But in this situation, those stronger ones were already killed first by the vanguards, so none of the bigger monsters was able to reach where Akira was. The vanguards knew that it would be disastrous to let any of the bigger monsters pass through them, that was why they made sure that none could pass.
Thanks to that, no more monsters approached Akira, who was stationed a little bit too far to the back that no monsters would try to attack him.
"Seems like I have nothing to do now."
"In that case, how about going to the other transport vehicles to help the other team? Or so I want to say but I'm sure Hikaru would stop you from doing it."
"Akira, just in case you are curious, there are help requests that you can take up."
"Sure, where?"
Hikaru was lightly shocked by that sudden and casual answer from Akira.
"You don't have to push yourself too hard, you know? Just because there are help requests, it doesn't mean that you have to take them. You've fought quite a lot already, aren't you tired? You can take a break, refresh your supply, and only take on the requests if you really want to. It would be bad if they start forcing help requests to you, you know?"
"I already took a short break and I still have some leeway in my medicine and ammo reserve. I would also be sticking out if the rest are still fighting while I'm just taking it easy here. Well, of course, I won't help them just for free, but I'll leave that part to you. If they won't pay me for taking on their help requests, I'll be more than happy to just stand by."
Akira chuckled as he said so, Hikaru replied with a smile.
"Alright then. I got it. Just leave that part to me. For starters, I'll send the help request details to you. Good luck, Akira!"
The help request's detail was added into Akira's augmented vision, and it identified the extra area that was assigned to him.
"...Don't worry, it will be okay, right?"
According to the contract, he was to pay for his ammo on his own. Although it was unlikely that he would end up in the red, it did not mean that the possibility was zero. In order to shake off that creeping anxiety, Akira took up his LEO multi-rifles and went to answer the help request.
Hunters were fighting desperately on the back of the convoy. They were the Hunter group consisting of Hunters around Rank 40. It was obvious from their movements and teamwork that they were already used to working in a team. So, they were completely a different unit compared to a simple gathering of Hunters who worked together for the first time.
The inside of the vehicle was equipped with portable walls, especially around the entrance. They were using the energy from the forcefield armour on the rooftop to increase their durability, of course, they did that with proper permission. The Hunters used these walls as covers as they fought against the monsters. The bullets slowly tore off the armour plating from the huge insects and eventually killed them. The rooftop was already riddled with dead monsters as they fell over to the ground one by one.
But the situation was far from good, the monsters were too numerous.
"We can't keep this up forever, you know!! What's going on with the help request?!"
"They can at least send us the reserve force, you know!?"
"Yeah, they did! But they were already sent to the transport vehicles that sent the help requests first, you see!! I knew it, we should have sent the help request sooner!!"
"It can't be helped, you know! Melshia-san warned us that she would crush us if we sent a help request so lightly!!"
"I'm pretty sure what she meant by that is that we should handle the situation better so that we don't get crushed, you know? It's true that we made a mistake and handled the situation wrongly. What we can do now is nothing more than buy time. We'll lose at this rate, but it's not like it would happen right away. If the people in the front finish off those larger monsters, the situation will turn around. So, we just need to survive until then."
"I know I know!! Goddammit!!"
Everyone there understood that what they were doing was simply buying time in a losing battle. But even so, they were still able to maintain their teamwork and fought relatively well. That was the biggest reason why they were able to postpone their defeat for that long.
But right on the next moment, the area was enveloped in a blinding light. The blinding light temporarily devoured the monsters and disintegrated them in an instant. The Hunters were taken aback as that light went off and was gone. Once their vision returned, they could see some of the stronger monsters rise back up with some of their body parts scorched black.
"...So that wasn't enough to kill all of them, huh?"
"Let's clear the leftovers and hope that the reward is worth the expense."
Akira immediately started running to close the distance, this time, he used his LEO multi-rifles to mow down the surviving monsters. As half of the monsters surrounding the Hunters were eradicated, they quickly bounced back and joined the battle. The situation was turned over, Akira and the Hunters had the upper hand now.
As they cleaned up the monsters in the area, reinforcement slowed down and shrunk in size. It was not like the monsters were limitless as well. With the Hunters working hard, it was a matter of time before the swarm was eradicated.
As Akira thought that should take care of the monsters for the time being, another notice came from the security, which showed the enemy's location in the area. Although there were no more monsters around them, there was a huge swarm coming from outside the area under their watch. They immediately glanced toward the direction of the signal and found another swarm of insect-like monsters coming at them. But this time, they were bigger than the ones that they just fought.
"...Wait for a sec, aren't there a bit too many? And a bit too big as well?"
"Among the monsters that came out from the mother ship-like monsters that were defeated by the vanguard, the smaller ones reached us first and basically the rest, which are mostly the medium-sized monsters, finally caught up with the transport vehicle."
Akira quickly traced back the source of those bullets. A powered suit from the frontline flew to the back of the convoy. All the five fingers of its each arm turned into cannon muzzles. The right hand was shooting out physical bullets while the left was shooting energy bullets. A heavily armed woman was standing on the shoulder of that powered suit.
That woman was the leader of the Hunters in that area, Melshia. She was wearing an old-world augmented suit, and as usual, the old-world design was very daring. The extra arms that were coming out from her shoulders and back were carrying huge rifles that did not suit the size of those arms. While a flying device that was equipped on her back extended to her lower half.
Melshia noticed her men cheering on her, after sending a glance at them, she also noticed Akira and obviously raised her guard. She then jumped from the powered suit's shoulder and landed next to Akira.
Akira was a little surprised when Melshia landed next to him. She then threw a friendly smile with a tint of suspicion at him.
"I'm pretty sure this area is assigned to my team though. You're not a new member of the team either. So, who are you?"
Before Akira said his name, he suddenly stopped there and smiled wryly.
"Sorry, I'm under a strict prohibition from my operator so I can't speak any further."
Melshia also received a flustered call from Hikaru through the security team's shared network. Melshia was being extra careful of Akira since they just got through a bad experience with a stranger infiltrating her team not too long ago. But after seeing how flustered Hikaru was, she lowered her guard and smiled wryly.
"I see. You must be having it hard too, huh? I'm Melshia, thank you for saving my men. I'll take care of the rest, so it's okay now. You can go ahead and take a break first. Later then."
As the vanguards finished taking care of the larger monsters, they slowly joined the battle at the back of the convoy. The tanks and the powered suits coursed back; past transport vehicles one by one. While the Hunters used the flying device equipped on their augmented suits to jump to the transport vehicles behind them, some of them had air bikes. With the vanguard joining the fight, they had the upper hand to quickly disperse the remaining monsters.
Akira was watching that battle and thought that there was nothing left for him to do.
"Hikaru, can I get back inside now? Or should I just stand by at my post?"
"Just return back to your post for now. I'll get permission from the security team first and pick you up after that."
It was as the saying goes, there would always be someone else better. Akira could really appreciate that saying now.
After returning to his room, Akira was recommended by Hikaru to take a good rest. She would be watching the radar and take care of anything else. So, Akira took off his augmented suit and threw it together with the exclusive inner that came with the augmented suit to the laundry machine, while he himself went to the bath. It was so luxurious that it made him feel a bit conflicted as he unconsciously compared that to the bath back home. The high-tech laundry finished laundering and drying the augmented suit and the inner in no time. Akira felt that it was a bit regrettable as he dragged himself out of the bath, put on the inner and returned to his room.
Akira then started stretching his body, which was a daily routine for him. He made sure to stretch every part of his body to slowly increase the flexibility of his body. One of the stretches that he did was standing on one foot while having his other foot pointing up, making almost a straight line while maintaining the balance. That was when he caught Hikaru watching him.
"...Ah, uhh, i-it's just that you're pretty flexible, aren't you?"
The inner that Akira was wearing was designed to be durable enough to prevent inflammation when his skin rubbed the augmented suit as he moved around inside it, while at the same time, it was also thin and tight enough to allow sensation to flow through the augmented suit and convey it to his skin. Because of that, it stuck close to his well-trained and pronounced body.
"Is it really that different?"
"Yeah, I know someone who could not follow the movement of his augmented suit and ended up having his arm torn off, you see. I'm pretty sure that something like that is completely avoidable with a body that is flexible enough."
"It must have been really hard."
"I can't deny that, but still, I've already gotten used to it."
[Just how many cruel experiences did he have to go through to get used to it?] Hikaru tried to think of an answer but she could not come up with anything.
After the previous battle, there were no more major confrontations with monsters, so the escort team mostly worked on cleaning the rooftop. They pushed the dead monsters off the rooftop, cleaned up the dangerous fluids, and made sure that no monsters were still alive. Although the payment was not as much, they were still paid for doing it.
Akira and Hikaru were looking back at that battle on the rooftop. Hikaru was playing a slow-motion replay of what she saw on the room's display, Akira was beside her explaining what he was doing in the clip. After listening to his explanation, Hikaru could not help but frown.
"Akira, that. Over there. You obviously shot at the monster when it was completely outside your field of vision, you know? And you hit it accurately on top of that, it's not like it happened out of luck, right? How exactly did you do it?"
"Basically, I got the general direction from the information-gathering device and then locked my aim using the video feed from the aiming device."
Seeing Hikaru looking at him like she was looking at a crazy person, Akira retraced back what he just said. He tried to put himself in a normal person's shoes, using his past self before he met Alpha as the starting line. He imagined how he would have reacted if he heard someone say the same thing to him. And as expected, he would have reacted the same way as Hikaru.
"I-it's true that it's not something everyone can do. It's not like I could do that right from the start, you know? I only started being able to do that after getting expensive equipment and rigorous training, you see."
"...It depends, I guess?"
Hikaru looked at Akira as if she was looking at an immensely problematic child and sighed.
"Let's return back to the point you mentioned. You did say that you get the general direction from the information-gathering device, right? To be honest, I can't really understand that part. How did you do that? Wait, I understand that it was the information-gathering device that picked up the monsters' locations, my question is how did you get that information? Judging from the recording, it doesn't seem that it's displayed in your augmented vision, you know? And I don't think you get that from sound as well..."
Of course, Akira could not say to Hikaru that he accessed that data using his connection to the old-world domain. As Akira was trying to find a plausible answer, he ended up making vague excuses instead. But with that answer, Hikaru looked at him as if she was looking at a strange person and nodded convincingly as if she just remembered something.
"Oh, I see, So, you've gone through sixth sense training too, huh? Well, in that case, it's not strange for you to be able to understand the information from your information-gathering device without using any display."
"Ah, yeah, that's right."
Akira was acting as if he understood what Hikaru was talking about while asking Alpha for help.
"Alpha, what is this sixth sense thingy?"
"It's an artificial sixth sense which is outside the normal five senses that people usually have."
The sixth sense was rather popular among high ranking Hunters. It started from the cyborgs who directly connected their brains with their information-gathering devices. It then evolved to a word referring to an artificial means to perceive information and to expand it outside 5 normal human senses. Basically, it referred to an extra sense outside the 5 normal senses.
Of course, it was not something that one could easily gain by installing an extra device in one's brain. It was much more difficult to achieve compared to prosthetic arms or extension limbs. It relied deeply on the compatibility of the person. In the worst-case scenario, the brain might not be able to process that sense correctly, which would cause chaos in the brain. So, in order to get used to that difficulty and danger, Hunters often would have to go through particular training.
And then, the words 'I can just tell' became an expression often used by those who had gone through such training and attained sixth sense. Normally, this expression was often used by those who received a sixth sense just recently.
Although the word sixth sense was not an unfamiliar expression among the high ranking Hunters, more often than not, those high ranking Hunters had dozens of senses including their original 5 normal senses. So, judging from how Akira fought, Hikaru thought that it would not be strange for Akira to have more than 5 normal senses.
After that, they continued discussing the record from the last fight with Akira asking for Alpha's help from time to time. Due to them going through the record in slow motion, when they finished reviewing the battle that should have only taken minutes, it was already night outside. Hikaru had a stern look on her face as she told Akira her thoughts.
The high-ranking Hunters were way more skilled than the normal Hunters, while at the same time, they were harder to handle as well, that realization hit Hikaru hard.
She did not doubt her skill, but that did not mean everything went well for her. As she told herself that this was nothing more than a bump, she pulled herself together and renewed her resolve.
"Alright then, only 2 days left, let's do this! But for that, I will need my important rest... This bath is even better than the one back home, so I might as well enjoy it while I have the chance... As expected, equipment for high ranking Hunters is really special. I wonder if this is normal for Akira? Seriously though, the world that we live in is really so different."
"When I look at him like this, he looks completely normal. Well then, good night, Akira."
Hikaru started to feel a tint of jealousy toward high ranking Hunters, it was normal for those Hunters to earn billions of Aurum. The thought of Akira only using cheap baths daily never crossed her mind.
After she finished her bath and changed into rental pyjamas, she returned back to the room to find Akira already sleeping. He was even wearing his augmented suit's inners when sleeping.
Hikaru took a peek at Akira's sleeping face. He was sleeping so soundly without a shred of anxiety. It was completely unlike how he usually was when he slept back in the slum's back alley.
Hikaru smiled and went to sleep in the bed as well, since the bed itself was pretty big, it did not cause any inconvenience to her.
Rebuild World (WN)
リビルドワールド
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/rebuild-world/
Action Adventure Drama Harem Mecha Mystery Sci-fi Seinen
Abandoned Children Adapted to Manga Adventurers Alternate World Anti-social Protagonist Apocalypse Artificial Intelligence Beautiful Female Lead Cautious Protagonist Child Protagonist Dense Protagonist Determined Protagonist Distrustful Protagonist Futuristic Setting Gangs Gunfighters Harsh Training Lack of Common Sense Male Protagonist Manipulative Characters Monsters Near-Death Experience Older Love Interests Poor Protagonist Poor to Rich Ruthless Protagonist Shota Sudden Strength Gain Survival Twisted Personality Unlucky Protagonist Weak to Strong
https://ncode.syosetu.com/n9736dt/
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