She brings the Allrounder into the Wakagawa Garage and ships the Secondi Apples off to the client, New Frontier Chemical Industries.
Apparently there’s a research facility near the Wakagawa Garage where they’ll run component analysis and genetic testing. The specialized side of things is completely beyond her, so Chihaya just follows the instructions and packages everything up.
The payment will come through tomorrow, so she checks the Allrounder into the government-owned warehouse.
She gets the used ammunition and remaining battery charge tallied up and pays the costs. A hundred thousand yen total — nothing to sneeze at.
She’d heard that shooting carelessly could put you in the red, but looking just at the fight with the Fernleg Scorpion, it was absolutely in the red. And since every round she’d fired at it with the assault rifle was useless except the killing shot to the abdomen, she feels a little like crying.
Having it debited straight from her account doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
“just let me have my payment already……”
She’s lying on the sofa bed muttering this when her phone buzzes.
Apparently a message has come into her Actors’ Quest account.
Wondering what it is, she opens the account management screen to find a message from the New Frontier Resource Agency and a direct job request.
The message is about the results of the auction for the rare metal deposit she’d stumbled across during the job.
Chihaya hadn’t expected it to sell the very next day — she’s grinning at the unexpected windfall when she looks at the details and springs upright from the sofa bed.
“……two million yen!?”
A simple set of coordinates, valued at two million yen.
Since she hadn’t made them public, whoever bought them gets exclusive access to the vein — that must be why, Chihaya thinks, and it makes sense.
It might be cheap as far as rare metal deposits go, but since the New Frontier Resource Agency had set a valuation before putting it up for auction, it’s probably at or above market rate.
Either way, for one person to bring in that much in a single day — that was real money.
“……taxes are scary”
She’s an ordinary person at heart.
She sits there dazed for a while, then takes a sip of tea to settle herself and looks at the direct request.
The request came through the New Frontier Resource Agency. The company that won the auction for the deposit’s location wants someone to guide them to the site.
Since the auction had been run precisely to keep the discoverer’s identity private, the company didn’t know Chihaya’s account. So they’d asked the New Frontier Resource Agency to act as intermediary — it says so in the notes section of the request.
“the client is Unison Human-Machine Technology……ugh, I might be sick”
Unison Human-Machine Technology is a domestic company that designs, develops, and manufactures Actanoids.
They’re a newer company focused heavily on Actanoid development, but they’ve already built a track record and are well-known nationally.
The Actanoids developed by this company have a strong visual identity — the Cyclone, a Rounder-series unit with a dice-shaped head, and the Husaria, a Rannoid-series unit that’s been compared to the Rio Carnival, among others. All very distinctive-looking.
They keep churning out Actanoids that get treated as jokes for their looks — but their information processing capabilities are exceptional, and among Actors the company actually has a solid reputation.
For a brand-new Actor just a few days into their debut, this is a pretty big player to be getting involved with.
Chihaya flops back down onto the sofa bed and stews.
She doesn’t have a next job lined up. The two million yen from earlier gives her plenty of breathing room for rent and the like, but Actanoids rack up costs in ammunition and elsewhere, and if she wants to keep working as an Actor she needs to keep taking jobs one after another.
Honestly, living paycheck to paycheck is the reality of being an Actor.
“I don’t have a reason to say no, but……”
It’s a guiding job to the deposit, which obviously means bringing someone along. Too much to ask of someone with social anxiety. More than the logistics — the emotional weight of it.
She scrolls to the payment details.
An advance of two hundred thousand yen, with five hundred thousand yen upon successfully guiding them to the site. Necessary expenses included in the advance.
Duration: three days. Chihaya had done the round trip to the site in almost one day with the Allrounder, but factoring in the travel speed of Unison Human-Machine Technology’s Actanoids and equipment transport vehicles, three days seems reasonable. Since it’s a one-way guide job, there’s probably a buffer day built in too.
The terms are normal. There are Fernleg Scorpions and the like out there, but the guide — Chihaya — has no obligation to participate in combat. Meaning she won’t have to use ammunition.
Even factoring in ammunition spent on self-defense, the math still puts her over five hundred thousand yen in profit.
“I can’t say no……”
She rolls around on the sofa bed, dragging her feet, turning it over and over in her head.
While she’s at it she looks up the client, Unison Human-Machine Technology.
Searching on Actors’ Quest, the Actor-facing app, she finds an official account for Unison Human-Machine Technology.
“makes sense they’d have one if they’re posting jobs. hm. they lend out Actanoids too……”
She might end up working with them someday. In that case, turning down this job and making a bad impression isn’t smart.
“I could always make a new account……”
If she started fresh with a new account — wiping all her existing history — she could leave a bad impression without it mattering, as long as nobody identified her personally.
She’s browsing the list of jobs posted by Unison Human-Machine Technology when she stops at a particular piece of data.
“the Actanoid loss rate is high……?”
Jobs where thirty to forty percent of participating Actanoids are destroyed have been occurring on and off. There was even one where they were all wiped out.
It seems the company is actively pushing into the deep interior of the New Frontier as well, and since they post jobs that double as performance evaluations, Actanoid loss rates tend to run higher.
But looking through the data, something nags at her.
“what is it. I d-don’t know”
After going back and forth endlessly in the most indecisive way possible, Chihaya accepts the job.