Rebuild World - Ch. 82

[StormSen]

Recap...

Alpha: An AI catfishing Akira, manipulating him in all sorts of ways so that he can fulfill her mission. Though she's manipulating him, she has some balances... 1) He has to be strong enough to complete the (extremely high level) mission. 2) For the final part of the mission, she'll be disconnected from Akira. So he'll have to be strong enough and independent enough to complete it on his own. Akira is her (and Beta's) 500th attempt. She's had at least one person reach the end point... and refuse to carry out the mission.

Kibayashi: He's a fan of hunters who live on the edge, and Akira has (inadvertenly) become his new fave. Kibayashi is high up in the hunter's office and has city connections, so he has a lot of pull. He's happy to throw Akira (and other "living dangerously") types into dangerous situations... Which generally results in high payoffs but a much higher chance of death. He'll also help Akira out in other ways as well (like he does here, by offering to help with negotiations).

Shikarabe: A member of Drancam Hunters (essentially a hunters guild/corporation). Drancam is going through internal political/cultural conflict. The foundation is the older, veteran hunters. But due to its growth Drancam now has swelled with beancounter/adminstrative types who were never hunters. So internally it's "Veteran Hunters" vs "Admin + Newbies". Katsuya (the shonen hero type) has become the leader of the newbies.

Beta/Alias: Alpha competitor AI. They have the same goal, but have slightly different methods. So there is something of a competition between Alpha and Beta. ("Beta" is unofficial name. Official name is "Alias".)

Between the various actors and factions, there's some overlap. Katsuya is Beta's pawn, and Katsuya is (unknowingly) part of the Admin faction of Drancam. Akira is Alpha's pawn, and Akira is somewhat favored by Shikarabe, so Akira is inadvertently associated with the Veterans faction of Drancam. So it's (sort of) Alpha/Akira/Drancam Hunters vs. Beta/Katsuya/Drancam Admin. (But that's only "sort of". E.g. although Shikarabe has a personality clash with Katsuya; Shikarabe also recognizes and respects Katsuya's high level of talent. (And yes, Katsuya does have substantial innate talent -- probably more than Akira.))

 

[StormSen]

did she lose total connection? are they going to discuss what happened?

Keep in mind that Alpha isn't actually present, her "body" (AI computer core, presumably) is far away, and her connection to him is wireless. That connection can be blocked. (Similarly, Alpha's ability to scan the local environment varies between locales.)

"Wireless" is certainly not as simple as "radio waves". It's probably something more like a nanobot based internet saturating the environment. Probably related the "colorless fog" mentioned way, way back. ... Effectively it's techno-magic left over from the old civilization.

 

[Shinigamisama]

Summary of first few pages: AHAHAHA. Bang Bang
I wonder what will happen if he does get stronger than Alpha calculated. It's not like she can touch him.
Yes, those huge weapons are really dangerous.

Alpha changed her hairstyle and wore a nightgown while in bed with him. Ik it's just Alpha being Alpha, but sometimes I feel like she's using it to keep him under control.

 

[gaystrikerz]

Beta: Alpha competitor AI. They have the same goal, but have slightly different methods. So there is something of a competition between Alpha and Beta.

Her official name is Alias not Beta.

 

[Salfaro]

It's kind of funny to declare Akira as being in a really tight spot without Alpha, and then he just goes crazy mode and makes it out in a matter of a few pages instead.

 

[koldtk]

It's a bit weird that Alpha considered that Akira wasn't capable of surviving in that situation when all he did was just go wild and drive in the snake's stomach while shooting haphazardly. There was nothing that required skill; he had plenty of firepower which he didn't even focus and didn't need to since clearly shooting the snake from the inside was far more effective than from the outside. So the snake was actually dumb to swallow that. Maybe there's some explanation I'm missing?

I'm not sure how Kibayashi intruding in the pay negotiations with Drancam is a good idea. Akira's already got Elena and Sara trying to extract pay from Drancam by calling in the favour from Katsuya and Yumina to pay what they owe him, but now Kibayashi is going to come in the negotiation and also try to force Drancam to pay up by apparently using the information that the oversynthesised snake was not completely defeated. Drancam's not at fault there though, it's not like they actually noticed the other snake body retreating so there was no lie in their report, and it's the guild that confirmed the dead body and decided to pay up on the bounty. This is also a double slap to Katsuya because he'll learn his, already massive failure of an operation, never even successfully took down the bounty monster and that Akira cleaned up after him and that the favour he's trying to pay back is worthless to Akira since Akira is using other means of ensuring he gets paid by Drancam. Seems he's just antagonising the entire faction Mizuha is managing in Drancam. I mean, if Kibayashi sees that negotiations don't go Akira's way and decides to interfere then, I guess that'd be acceptable, but otherwise it seems unnecessary.

How is Kibayashi even going to keep everyone involved in retrieving this smaller oversynthesised snake quiet about it to avoid damaging Drancam's reputation? I guess there wasn't any bounty on the monster, but shouldn't the materials be worth something to the guild? I can't quite remember what the guild was paying for early on.

I thought for sure that Shikarabe also wouldn't be able to pay up properly (and I still have no clue why he included him in the extra bounty mission; sure he didn't do much there, but is he getting any pay from that) but he's making good use on Drancam's ability to get discounts through large orders so he's managing to make it worth Akira's while. He's really gotten lucky because he has no clue that his offer is exactly what Akira needs right now. If Akira still had his previous vehicle, would he have cared that much about getting a new one (though I guess that if he didn't total his equipment he could actually resell it and recoup his money)? I wonder how Akira is going to get his new vehicle; I'm guessing he might go pick it up at Drancam's headquarter and that might be fun depending on who he meets.

Either way, after these bounties, he's definitely going to be well known in Drancam.

I guess we should look forward to his new vehicle and equipment now.

It was explained more in the novel. In Alpha's caculation, the moment Akira is disconnected with her, she caculate Akira's dead probality with his current skill as base (calmness, the ability to make decision, and more) and it's almost certainity that he will die inside the snake. So that's why when the connection is back, Alpha's quite shock that her caculation is wrong again.

 

[Amariithynar]

Her official name is Alias not Beta.

Fuck "official" localizations.

 

[mojo72400]

Akira managed to kill the snake alone w/o Alpha's & a new vehicle w/ discount. I hope he gets paid in the end.

Shizuka's gonna be pissed when he visits her next time.

 

[Rim_Strike_Dice]

Where is the protagonist Kazuya? I hate this overpowered rival character, Akira.
...
I misses how Akira used to fight for his dear life against one little dog. Now he is probably soloing a Gun*am and still won.

 

[gaystrikerz]

Fuck "official" localizations.

Who says it’s a localization? It’s the official name from the latest novel — the Japanese version. She don’t actually have real names, so she let Haruka call her “Alias” instead. And FYI, Alias and Alpha are one.

 

[Slingerman]

Not quite. It's definitely not fraud. The bounty was for the large snake, and that was completed. Note that Kibyayashi specifically says that the small(er) snake does not have a bounty on it.

However, there's also reputation, which is important to Drancam. So, Kibayahi's play can be... "Sure you killed the bounty target, but you also let this get away, and this kid over here solo'ed it." OR... we could bury that little factoid if you play nice in some other ways.

I mean, it IS the bounty monster. It just shed its skin. But clawing back the money and harming the relationship with Drankam would be a pain for the city, and a claim from Akira would hurt the credibility of both organizations.

 

[Amariithynar]

Who says it’s a localization? It’s the official name from the latest novel — the Japanese version. She don’t actually have real names, so she let Haruka call her “Alias” instead. And FYI, Alias and Alpha are one.

999/1000 times, when someone says that something is the "official" name of something (in the english-speaking forums, anyways), they're referring to the localization put out by whatever company bought the ENG rights to it. Since you're saying it's not, can you show or name the page that has Kazuya's AI saying to call her "Alias"? Manga, specifically, not the WN or LN, since there have been many changes, like Lucia instead of Aruna being the thief of Akira's wallet, and her subsequent survival.

I'm well aware that they're both just shards of the same AI core.

I mean, it IS the bounty monster. It just shed its skin. But clawing back the money and harming the relationship with Drankam would be a pain for the city, and a claim from Akira would hurt the credibility of both organizations.

Agreed. They even made a big deal of looking at the tunnel it left in its shed skin, but then didn't follow up from it- Drancam didn't do their due diligence, and then neither did the city. It gives them some pretty strong leverage to apply lightly to lubricate things.

 

[StormSen]

I mean, it IS the bounty monster. It just shed its skin. But clawing back the money and harming the relationship with Drankam would be a pain for the city, and a claim from Akira would hurt the credibility of both organizations.

What matters is the evaluation from the Hunter's office. And Hunter's office is treating the smaller snake as new monster, not the bounty monster.

Practically, the large snake was a vastly larger, more powerful threat requiring large numbers of hunters to bring down. Vs. the smaller snake which was brought down by a single hunter. So the distinction between the two makes sense.

However legality is separate from reputation. So, "sure Drancam took down the big one, but you still missed the core" would hurt Drancam's reputation (especially the Admin/Newbie faction of Drancam).

 

[StormSen]

Her official name is Alias not Beta.

I've only read official LN through vol 5, and in her name has not been given in that yet. I'm not sure where I got "Beta" from... probably from forums here where we needed a name for her and "Beta" seemed pretty obvious.

I updated my post to "Beta/Alias".

Also, be careful of spoilers. Giving her name is not a real spoiler, but details around how it's revealed might be a spoiler.

 

[gaystrikerz]

999/1000 times, when someone says that something is the "official" name of something (in the english-speaking forums, anyways), they're referring to the localization put out by whatever company bought the ENG rights to it. Since you're saying it's not, can you show or name the page that has Kazuya's AI saying to call her "Alias"? Manga, specifically, not the WN or LN, since there have been many changes, like Lucia instead of Aruna being the thief of Akira's wallet, and her subsequent survival.

If you don’t even know about it, you should ask first instead of going full “fck localizers” to my face, no?

Also, Lucia is just Alna’s new name that the author changed in the LN, so that’s not the localizer’s fault.

As for the “another Alpha” name, I used the word “official” because it was only just confirmed in the latest LN volumes. She never revealed her name before, so a lot of people assumed she was “Beta” since it matches “Alpha.”

But she actually revealed her name as Alias in the WN too. Since the author discontinued the WN and changed the story direction, we couldn’t fully confirm it until now, in Volume IX Part 1 that came out last year.

Here’s the proof. You can use AI or whatever translator you want.

 

[Ingway]

-Everyone keeps talking about how he doesn't seem like such a big deal
-Alpha does too, but clearly she wants to undermine him so he doesn't try to think too independently
-Pulls off something that goes beyond perceived potential of his
I can't tell if everyone is fucking blind and stupid, or if he's so naturally unassuming that everyone can't read him properly at all, not even Alpha.

 

[Amariithynar]

If you don’t even know about it, you should ask first instead of going full “fck localizers” to my face, no?

Nah, fuck localizers. That part is 100% genuine and will always remain so. I'm not going to ask for a 1/1000 chance that someone using "official" means "in the original media", especially in the English-speaking forums without a qualifier.

Also, Lucia is just Alna’s new name that the author changed in the LN, so that’s not the localizer’s fault.

No, it is not just "her new name"; it is a different character in the same starting setting that changes from there significantly.

As for the “another Alpha” name, I used the word “official” because it was only just confirmed in the latest LN volumes. She never revealed her name before, so a lot of people assumed she was “Beta” since it matches “Alpha.”

But she actually revealed her name as Alias in the WN too. Since the author discontinued the WN and changed the story direction, we couldn’t fully confirm it until now, in Volume IX Part 1 that came out last year.

That's why I specified in the manga, because WN & LN are two different continuities, and manga is effectively yet another with the further deviations it has taken from the LN.

Here’s the proof. You can use AI or whatever translator you want.

1) That's LN, not manga. Different continuity, as I said. 2) She said for Haruka to call her Alias (『私か？ そうだな。私のことはエイリアスとも呼 ぶと良い。私はそういう存在だ』) as a pseudonym, because she doesn't have a name that she considers herself as, unlike Alpha.

-Everyone keeps talking about how he doesn't seem like such a big deal
-Alpha does too, but clearly she wants to undermine him so he doesn't try to think too independently
-Pulls off something that goes beyond perceived potential of his
I can't tell if everyone is fucking blind and stupid, or if he's so naturally unassuming that everyone can't read him properly at all, not even Alpha.

Katsuya's power is magnetism/leadership, Akira's power is underestimation/stealth, basically. It's been mentioned several times before, now, that it's both asset and penalty, since he doesn't get the recognition he deserves and constantly is underestimated so a lot of unnecessary conflicts arise, but it also means that the big players don't really watch him and he doesn't have his freedom curtailed by large groups or the city.

 

[Pyras]

Can't wait for him to go see Shizuka again. She needs more screentime ngl.

 

[danceofmany]

That just looks like a madman firing his guns nonstop that coincidentally was enough. Kinda hard to tell if any skill went into that.

 

[Doutorfunga]

Ill restate this again:

Cyberpsychosis is a HELL of a drug.

I'm sorry in advance for the detail and please don't take this as aimed at you, but I just cleared this game for the first time today and man did I hate these endings (

Spoiler: BIG spoilers for CP 2077

and not because they're all unhappy, but because it seems like V makes the stupidest choices after the final Arasaka raid, like managing the Afterlife when he/she had only six months left to live

)