Rebuild World

not see them, that in itself was scary enough.
But Alpha then smiled and said.

“As long as you keep following my instructions, there won’t be any trouble.”

Akira’s face stiffened.

“…They’re not here, right?”

Alpha gave off a rather ominous smile.

“It’s not a problem.”

“Wait, they are here?”

“It would be fine.”

Akira kept telling himself that Alpha was only teasing him in order to calm his nerves.

The area that Akira was in looked like a downtown district in broad daylight except for the missing human presence, it was completely silent and filled with an abnormal atmosphere as if all the humans there suddenly vanished in one snap.
But from the point of view of a Hunter, it looked like a treasure trove filled with valuable old-world relics.
It could even be said that it was a mountain of relics.
Every time Akira passed a building that looked like a shop, he could not help but peek inside, imagining all the valuable old-world relics that he might find inside them.

Akira thought that sooner or later, he would go inside one of those buildings, but Alpha did not show any sign of that at all as she kept pacing the bike forward.
So Akira could not help but get curious and asked her.

“Alpha, I feel like we’ve been going around the same area multiple times now, are we looking for a building with expensive relics or something?”

“Well, to put it simply, yup, that’s indeed the case.”

“I see.
Well, I’ll leave that to you, but like, can we stop and take a look at one of those shops? I feel like we can get expensive relics no matter which one we go to though…”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

Alpha replied casually.

“It’s not like you have any money to buy anything there, right?”

“…Buy? No, I mean like, wait, buy…?”

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Akira was confused, he did not expect Alpha to say that.
What he had in mind when he asked Alpha that question was to break into one of those shops, fill his rucksack with any expensive relics that he could find, and escape the building while fighting back the security drones before finally getting away from that place on his bike.
He did not expect to have to pay anything with his money.

“I understand what you want to say, but that would be too dangerous.
The only way to get out from this place with those relics is to bring along the city defence squad, render the security drones temporarily disabled, and get out from this place while they are still disabled.
And of course, the ensuing battle would leave this place half-destroyed.
You need enough firepower to turn this place like the outskirts of this ruin.
Have you forgotten the reason why we have to obey the speed limit?”

Akira frowned slightly.

“Well, you have a point there, but if I can’t do that, then why are we here? It’s not like I came here risking my life just for sightseeing, you know.
My only choice would be to look for a place with relatively weak security to break in, right? Isn’t that why we’re just roaming around the area?”

“That line of thinking is not wrong, but it’s better to break into a place where it’s unlikely to turn into a fight, right? Just leave that to me, you did say that you’re leaving that kind of thing to me too, remember?”

Alpha smiled and sent a rather strong gaze than usual to Akira.
Akira who noticed that decided to stop saying anything unnecessary.

“…Alright.
Although I don’t know what’s your plan here, I can’t afford to go back without anything.
So I expect to get some relics to bring back, okay?”

“Of course, just leave it to me.
You just need to make sure to follow my instructions.
Don’t just go ahead and shoot even if you spot a mechanical monster, okay?”

“Wait, so they’re actually really here, huh!?”

“They won’t cause you any trouble as long as you follow my instructions.”

Akira frowned.
His expression was a mix of worry and expectation, but Alpha only smiled back at him with her usual smile.

Even after that, they were still only driving around the area for some time.
Akira then noticed something strange in front of him and squinted his eyes.
He could see a tall building in front of him, and there was a vertical road on the side of that building.

When Akira thought that the old-world ruin was indeed a place filled with strange things, his bike suddenly accelerated.
Akira raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“…Alpha, wait, are we going to climb the side of a building again? I don’t think we can do it for that road though?!”

“Don’t worry.
Not to mention, you ran down on the side of a building not too long ago, remember? We’ll do that again but with a bike this time.”

The bike accelerated even more.
It then went to the curved part of the road that was connecting the road on the ground and the side of that building and went straight up scaling the side of that building.

Akira looked down past his feet and into the wall of the building and frowned.
He already climbed pretty high up and his bike also started slowing down, if he fell down now, it would be simply disastrous.

“Is it that the old-world roads even have a feature that allows people to drive vertically?”

“Not in this road here, this one is basically just a simple wall.”

“Just a wall!? And I’m scaling a normal wall?!”

As Akira was dumbfounded, the bike slowed down even more.
At this rate, he would be falling down with his bike.
As he thought so, he immediately grabbed his bike’s handlebar and raised its power.
But the bike kept slowing down, and once it reached a certain speed, it stopped slowing down and continued climbing at a constant speed.

Alpha smiled amusedly at Akira who was still in a panic.

“Although the wall doesn’t have that feature, the bike has the feature to prevent you from falling over.
Or to be more precise, it has the feature to stick its wheels on the surface that it’s running in order to prevent losing control of the bike when you’re driving through uneven ground.
Since its wheels are sticking on the surface, you won’t fall that easily.
Compared to the last time you were running on a building’s wall, this time it’s way safer, isn’t it?”

Akira sighed in relief, but he immediately pouted soon after.

“…Didn’t I always tell you to at least let me know before doing something like this?!”

“Just think of it as a training for you to keep calm at a time of emergency or when facing an unexpected turn of events.”

Alpha said so while smiling.
Her expression then suddenly turned rather serious as she pointed her finger.

“Let me warn you about one thing.
Don’t shoot at it and don’t show any hostility.”

Akira looked at Alpha’s expression and frowned.
He then looked forward in the direction that she was pointing at and noticed that a portion of the towering side of the building was distorted.
As he put up his guard, the distorted part of the building revealed a mechanical monster.
That monster was disengaging its camouflaging device.

That gigantic mechanical monster had multiple legs with wheels equipped on the tip of its legs.
It approached Akira and then started climbing the wall beside Akira.
Its side camera revolved and was fixed at Akira.
Other similar monsters appeared and did the same thing too.

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Alpha lightly waved at that drone.
The drone looked toward Alpha, who pointed her finger and an insignia appeared floating on the tip of her finger.
All the drones there immediately focused their cameras on that insignia.

A few seconds afterwards, all of those drones looked away as if they just lost interest in Akira and Alpha.
They then broke up into two groups, one group went up the building, while the rest went down the building.
On their way, they reactivated their camouflaging device and vanished from Akira’s views.

Akira lightly sighed and lowered his guard.
He then sent an annoyed look at Alpha.

“…As I thought, they’re actually there, huh.”

Alpha smiled amusedly.

“I didn’t say they were not.
Moreover, just like I said, it’s not a problem as long as you follow my orders, right?”

Akira sighed once more before shifting his gaze forward.

He continued climbing the wall with his bike.
The road eventually led to an entrance on the side of that wall.

After Akira went through another slope, his posture was back to normal and he felt slightly relieved.
But he immediately spotted something that he did not expect and was astonished.

A girl in a black old-world dress was standing there.
In contrast to Akira, she did not look surprised at all as if she had been waiting for him.
She had a beautiful appearance but she looked at Akira with a business-like expressionless face.
At least, she did not look welcoming at all.

She then spoke in a business-like tone to Akira, who had already stopped his bike.

“Welcome to the Tsubakihara building.
I’m the manager of this building, Tsubaki.”

Akira looked at Tsubaki with a surprised face.

“Alpha, is that one of those projected hologram image thingies?”

“Nope, she has a real body.
Though I don’t know if it’s an automaton or a remotely controlled humanoid robotic body.”

“Normally, automata are used for an external interface, but in my case, my personality is also downloaded over to this body to allow me to be seen through local connection too.
So normally, you should be able to recognize me through your information-gathering device too, but since your information-gathering device has been completely rewritten, I came with this body just to be safe.”

Tsubaki was obviously looking at Alpha.
Akira was surprised by that as he looked at Alpha and Tsubaki alternately.

“Alpha, not only she can see you, she can even talk to you too, huh?!”

“But she can’t hear telepathic communication between you and me, though that doesn’t seem to be the case for the telepathic communication from me to you.
She can see me through the network, but locally, she can only see you.
But still, to think that she would come all the way here to welcome us, I wonder if she doesn’t have anything else better to do.”

Alpha somehow looked rather displeased.
But Tsubaki did not seem to be bothered by that at all.

“It’s a precaution so that I won’t get even busier later.
I’ll guide you in.
Over here, please.”

Tsubaki turned around and went into the building.
Akira was still a bit surprised as he just stood there.

“Akira, let’s go.”

“Eh? Ah, right.”

Akira returned back to himself after Alpha reminded him.
He then slowly drove through a tunnel that went straight into the building with his bike.

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Although Akira was not wearing anything on his head and the sunlight was far away from his reach, he was clearly able to see the interior of the building as if it was under broad daylight.
There were multiple multi-legged security drones from before roaming on the walls and the ceilings of that building.
Some of them were not moving as they were loading something, while some of them were moving around at a rather high speed.
Just like the drones that Akira encountered on his way, all of them had already disengaged their camouflaging devices.

These drones went past Tsubaki who was guiding Akira and also went past Akira without doing anything.
But even so, Akira could not help but feel nervous.
These drones did not slow down at all as they passed next to him while carrying heavy materials, it was understandable for him to get scared there.

Not too long afterwards, Tsubaki stopped, turned around, and pointed at the wall on her right.
There was a ginormous imposing-looking door.
The door silently opened up.
Behind that thick metallic door, was a room that looked like a warehouse.

“It’s over there.
Please leave as soon as you’re done with your business here.”

Akira carefully looked left and right so as not to get crushed under the passing transport drones as he went into that room on his bike.