I don't get page 28 where Alpha is thinking that the loli AI considers Alpha convincing Akira not to help to be interfering with Katsuya. She shouldn't be expecting another AI's subject to do anything for her own subject in the first place as she should be aware that they have their own goals to reach. The loli AI isn't actually saying anything so I think it makes more sense if she just appreciated not trying to convince Akira to not help.
Actually, wouldn't the loli AI want Akira to not help Katsuya? Loli AI is clearly against Katsuya acting as a decoy, and if Akira doesn't help him, that means he's bringing him back to base and not acting as a decoy.
I'd say this is more a question of both AI realising there's little to do in this situation. Even if Katsuya isn't helped by Akira he'll still do the decoy thing, so it's better if he has someone competent during that stunt. So her suggestions to not act as a decoy are basically ignored. As for Alpha, I'm sure she knows, Akira is very stubborn.
I wonder what the loli AI thinks after seeing the way Alpha interacts with Akira.
Page 24 and 25, Akira was really acting like a diva. "Oh, is that all?" XD
Man, it's extra creepy seeing Katsuya's unit suddenly follow orders like drones. It's an amazing ability for a leader who is willing to sacrifice pieces to achieve objectives (Does he realise that when he fights, he sometimes gets injured? If he's the entire unit, it's perfectly normal that some parts of the unit might get injured and die), and it'd have been great if Katsuya could have activated that earlier when dealing with the mutinous girl, but it's just wasted on him; will he ever be able to give orders for a member of his unit to sacrifice themselves for the greater good? To be fair, it's a dangerous ability to have; people who send others to die in war and see battles as only numbers on a spreadsheet get pretty callous. I guess the ability is something he can do precisely because everyone in his unit believes he'll never sacrifice them so they'll happily shut their brains out and do whatever he says.
I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason why she can't just dump his ass right then and there and find a new slum kid with the neural interface thingamajig to try again with, but I can't think of it myself. "Sunk-cost fallacy" is the only thing that makes sense to me, at this point.
I'd say guys who can interface with them are pretty rare, and them additionally being talented is even rarer. Katsuya may be moronic in many ways but he is a pretty strong hunter.
Akira is probably jackpot for Alpha since he's fairly selfish and also has a strong connection and can thus be directly trained and guided. In fact, while Alpha may consider Akira's willingness to put himself at risk for others to be a liability, the reality is that she's plain wrong. Sure, it may increase the risk for him, but that creates people he can trust and who will be willing to support him which is invaluable. Well, I'm sure Alpha just wants him to be even more dependent on her.
Well, I say that Elena and Sara are trustworthy, but they really come off as useless sometimes. Why did they just patch a call straight from Katsuya straight to Akira without asking what is was about nor considering that it was probably an idiotic risky request? They know these two are like cats and dogs and they also weren't hired to do anything about the snake so what the hell? Worse, the contract with them is that they get a pay deduction for everyone from the main force who died, and that's currently a lot through no fault of their own. Well, Akira's pay doesn't come from Drancam, but from Elena and Sara, but Elena and Sara need to get paid themselves and they also need to ensure that Akira's pay matches the work he provided; how much should they pay to ensure fair compensation for playing decoy for the snake? Shizuka will be extra pissed about that too, and I'm sure that if Elena and Sara knew what the request was they'd be noping out of it and doing some contract negotiation (well it's hard to do in a rescue situation but still). Anyways, the bottom line is that Elena and Sara are responsible for giving orders to Akira, so the direct patching to Katsuya is just absurd. It's basically only done for the plot to get Akira into combat which is more exciting I'll admit, but it's pretty dumb. (Also, the message was just "time to work, help me out". Dude.)
I'm still wondering how well he'll get paid for his previous battles and now I'm wondering about his pay for this battle too. I don't think he has that much cash laying around since he's always spending it all on better equipment. At this point, I wonder if they'll even successfully take down the snake this battle. If Drancam can't even get the bounty money, and they paid so much to make this mission safe, they'll definitely be using every death to skimp out on paying for the external help they hired.
Maybe Drancam will pay to keep his contribution in this battle on the down low and focus as hard as they can on selling their Katsuya brand to their investors.
Well, lots of pew pew next chapters, which will be fun, but I'm really curious about the pay. XD