“Take care, everyone. Leave everything here to us.”
“Uu…… Booze…… I also wanna go………”
“Big sis…… We have to prioritize work right now, okay.”
Mimi, Elma, and I headed to the Restalias, which was the flagship of the Independent Anti-Pirate Mobile Fleet, as the other three saw us off.
I did feel a bit uneasy about leaving May, Tina, and Whisker to deal with that temperamental merc on their own though…… But I guess those three would probably be fine anyway. There aren’t a lot of people who could duke it out with May without using power armor anyway, and Tina and Whisker were actually stronger than me despite their cute appearances. I guess there’s no problem. Or rather, I was the second to the weakest within the crew when it comes to pure physical strength. I only ranked above Mimi.
I mulled over such pointless things as I launched Krishna out into space. The scenery outside was quite spectacular. There were quite a lot of mercenary and imperial starships parked all around us, and the mercenary ships were especially eye-catching since no two ships were alike.
Strictly speaking, there were ships with the same base model, but each ship was heavily customized and painted according to each owner’s preferences. Some are so heavily customized that you wouldn’t even be able to recognize the base model. Some had sharp spikes and protrusions all over their hulls, and some had wing stabilizers that didn’t serve any particular purpose whatsoever. Did those guys want to feel like they were flying in the sky while out in space, I wonder?
Of course, there were also some that didn’t get customized much at all and still retained their basic looks. Well, it depends on each person’s taste after all…… By the way, I also didn’t have any qualms about heavily customizing the exterior appearance of a ship if it was necessary. Before I got Krishna, my last ship was customized heavily as well. There wasn’t even a hint of the original base model. I didn’t put on any meaningless stabilizers or the like though.
Some of my buddies opted to put on those spikes and stabilizers too in order to get that end-of-the-century ‘Hyahaah!’ look, while some opted for more classy designs. Uh, but no matter how much of a fan of the end-of-the-century ‘Hyahaah!’ gang those guys were, I still think modifying the attitude control thrusters of their ships so they could spit fire jets like flamethrowers were too much unnecessary drama. But that method did make it slightly difficult to judge how much they floored their thrusters by masking it with the flames, so it’s not like there wasn’t any practical benefit at all…… Ugh. Okay, let’s just stop there.
“That ship looks really cool……”
“Eh……?”
“Eh……?”
I and Elma let out puzzled gasps as we looked at Mimi, whose eyes were sparkling as she gazed at a particular mercenary ship. I mean, c’mon. They have too much unnecessary stuff on the hull, like spikes, large screw-like protrusions, and a huge skull-head on the bow…… So Mimi was also a fan of this kind of stuff. Krishna would probably turn out like that ship if we ever left customizing it to Mimi huh.
“I like a ship with a sharper and more elegant design.”
“Yeah. But you don’t care much about the interior, do you?”
“I’ll properly focus on the interior design as well next time, okay……”
The last ship Elma purchased really was aesthetically beautiful from the outside. But the interior looked quite crude and spartan due to her strange fixations. So Elma was the type who judged mostly by looks and not substance, huh.
We continued to talk about the other mercenary ships all around us as we headed for Restalias and finally reached it after a few minutes.
Actually, we experienced being scanned several times from different directions as we made our way to Restalias. Perhaps they were wondering why a relatively undamaged ship was heading for the flagship while the fleet was currently on stand-by. And Krishna was a rare and unusual ship as well. It didn’t really bother us, so we just let them do as they liked.
Mimi sent a docking request over to Restalias, and it was immediately approved. It was still a bit earlier than the appointed time, but they should have been told we would be coming over already. I immediately flew the ship behind the landing hatch of Restalias and activated the auto-docking program. A certain space elf was still complaining beside me while murmuring stuff like ‘auto-docking is heresy’ or something like that. Elma was a diehard fan of manual docking as always.
“There we go. We’ve arrived. Let’s head out guys.”
“Yes!”
“……Okay.”
Mimi had a big smile plastered on her face as she looked forward to the imperial military’s ‘best menu’, but Elma looked slightly less enthusiastic due to the auto-docking sequence from earlier. Just admit how convenient it is already, you stubborn elf.
I checked the Silver Sword Wings Assault medal pinned on my jacket and started walking ahead with the pair of noble-issue swords strapped to each side of my waist. After I received the Silver Sword Wings Assault medal, May expressly told me to always wear it on me if possible along with the swords in addition to my laser gun. I didn’t really like them that much since they made me stand out, but she told me they would allow me to avoid unnecessary trouble since the medal and swords will make other people treat me the same way as an imperial knight in accordance with imperial law and customs.
It was May’s advice after all. And Elma didn’t say anything about it either, so there probably was no danger of dangerous noble factions like the Drawn Sword eyeing me and suddenly challenging me to a sword duel to the death.
I, of course, knew jack squat about swords and swordsmanship, so if a real noble did challenge me to a sword duel, the outcome is already fairly obvious. Should I take some swordsmanship lessons from May……? Or maybe it was more practical to just leave the medal whenever I go out? I think so, anyway.
I got off Krishna while feeling slightly annoyed by the weight of the swords strapped to my waist, and found an imperial soldier already waiting outside for us.
“Welcome to Restalias, everyone. I shall serve as your guide this fine evening.”
“Thank you for the trouble, sir.”
We exchanged salutes, and the soldier started walking ahead to lead us.
Well, this ship was like a familiar neighbor’s house to me already in a sense. I used to walk around it a lot when I was teaching Major Serena’s fleet about pirate hunting tactics.
“……Everyone seems to be quite busy.”
“We just finished engaging in a battle after all. They probably have some post-processing work to deal with.”
“But then, is it okay to have a dinner banquet in the middle of this situation?”
“This dinner is also part of the post-battle proceedings after all. They have to make a good show of rewarding the battle’s top ace to the rest of the fleet.”
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