“You beast!”
“Yeah. Just leave it to me.”
“I wasn’t praising you!”
Elma, who was sitting opposite me, bristled in anger. We were in the dining area once again. Mimi was beside me, clinging tightly onto my arm while smiling in satisfaction.
“You did all of… ‘those things’ to me last night! And now I find you going at it with Mimi first thing in the morning!? Just how backed up are you!?”
“That’s cause I think fairness is important. Don’t you think so too?”
“Fair……!”
Elma’s sharp criticisms faltered after hearing my retort. She should be thinking about what exactly I meant with ‘being fair’.
“We’re all comrades here, staying on the same ship. I think it’s better if we all got along, right?”
“Well, it’s certainly a great situation for you huh.”
“Do you dislike Mimi, Elma?”
“Wha- !? Of course not!”
“So it’s fine then. And also, you boarded this ship willingly despite knowing just what kind of relationship Mimi and I were in, right? I think it would be ridiculous if you start complaining about that sort of thing now.”
“That’s……! I guess you’re right, but……”
“Everyone gets along. Everyone’s happy. Isn’t that great?”
“……It kind of feels like I’m a kid being coaxed.”
“What? No, of course not.”
I flashed her my most sincere-looking smile. If Mimi was OK with this kind of relationship, then I’ll have to persuade Elma as well. It was just the three of us here after all.
“Well, let’s just leave that issue for later, okay?”
“Later huh… Oh, fine. It’s not like I can do anything about it at this point anyway. So, what’s up?”
“Mm. I want us to decide our next course of action.”
“Well now, this actually sounds serious.”
“Oh, more than serious. First, I think we’ll have to earn more funds the soonest we can. We still have enough to live off for a while, but it’ll dry up quickly if the ship ever gets severely damaged.”
“That’s, um……”
Elma seems to want to say something, but held herself back. Well, our reserve funds decreasing was a direct result of paying for Elma’s fines, so I guess she was still feeling guilty about it.
“Right now, we have two options. The first one is moving out of this star system right away and searching for a more profitable area to earn money on.”
“Is this system no good?”
“Well, since the numbers of pirates prowling about have decreased, so have the money-making opportunities. Besides, the current situation here seems a bit fishy. I personally think moving to another star system would be the better option.”
“It does seem that way.”
Elma nodded in acknowledgement.
“Tensions between the Empire and the Federation have been flaring up lately, so this border sector would probably be the first to be affected once the situation develops into open hostilities. If you consider our safety as first priority, moving out of this system does seem like the best choice.”
“Yeah. And the other option is to remain in this star system and wait for the conflict to occur while hunting down pirates in the asteroid belt area. Once the war starts, demand for mercenaries will surely rise. There would be a risk of going against the Empire’s interstellar army, so it’s quite dangerous, but the potential returns are huge as well.”
“There’s also the fact that lots of small-scale pirate groups would probably start becoming more active from here on out. The military’s security patrols will surely become more lax after that large-scale pirate subjugation, so those pirate groups would not pass this chance up. Aside from being hard to find, they have some decently high-quality weapons and equipment on them and their bounties are also quite high. Because there’s a danger of being caught up in the impending war, this is a high-risk-high-return option.”
“I see… But which one will we pick?”
“That’s what we’re going to discuss right now. What do you think, Mimi?”
Mimi let out a *hauu after hearing my question and opened her mouth to speak after being troubled for a bit.
“I think it would be best if we stayed here and hunted some pirates.”
“Hou. Why’s that?”
“Well, with Hiro-sama’s piloting skills and Krishna’s firepower and combat capabilities, I don’t think pirates with just some decent equipment would pose us any danger. And even if we get caught up in the conflict, it would still be possible for us to get away, right?”
“Guess so. It’s not like we absolutely have to participate once the conflict erupts anyway.”
I nodded at Mimi’s words. It’s just as Mimi said. We really don’t have to get involved even if conflict erupts between the Empire and the Federation. Rather, I’m sure pirates would take advantage of the conflict and become a lot more active in order to attack civilian ships and military supply convoys. There’s the option of getting rid of those opportunistic guys once the war gets going and escape right away once things turn for the worse.
“I’m also for staying in this star system. With your skills, I’m sure you’d also be able to rack up achievements even if you decide to participate in the conflict. The pirates shouldn’t be much trouble either.”
“What, you too, Elma?”
“Yes. I’m all for it as well.”
Elma nodded nonchalantly. It kinda makes me happy that a veteran like her rates my skills so highly.
“So it’s decided then.”
“So, Hiro-sama is okay with it as well?”
“Well, I would have preferred the other option, honestly. I want to earn more money even if we had to move to a different star system. But we really can’t tell what would happen during long-distance navigation, and it’s not like I’ve decided where exactly we will go either anyway.”
“I see. How much do we have on us right now by the way?”
“About five hundred thousand.”
“It certainly doesn’t seem to be enough. Alright then, shall we go ahead and earn some money?”
Mimi and I nodded at Elma’s words, and we started to prepare for a sortie right after.
After we’d decided on staying on the Termaine star system to earn some money, we immediately set off. What we needed to do was quite simple: go around the resource-rich asteroid belt area to find and hunt down pirates who were aiming for the mining ships. We need to proceed with utmost caution, drop our generator output once we find a mining ship being targeted, set up an ambush, and swiftly take down the pirates coming in to attack the mining ships in question.
The earnings have been quite stellar so far. We’re averaging about ten pirate bands a day. We’re also salvaging a lot of spoils from them, and the average income flow is 10,000 Enel per band. If the bands have more members than usual, it goes up to 30,000 Enel, including the bounty money. We even managed to swipe a cargo of rare metals today. Adding up the bounties, salvaged equipment and plundered cargo, we’ve managed to earn 1,780,000 Enel in a week.
The current reward distribution was 0.5% for Mimi and 3% for Elma. Mimi’s share, including the bounty and loot sales is 12,900 Enel, and Elma’s share is 53,400 Enel. Our total assets earned right now amounts to about 2,200,000 Enel, which finally allowed us to break away from being in the red.
“We earned a lot today as well~! Cheers!”
The disappointing space elf poured lots of liquor into her cup and drank without reserve, downing the entire cup in one go. It was kinda frustrating that I found the movement of her white, delicate throat to be somewhat alluring.
By the way, the alcohol we’re drinking right now is ale. Elma and the store clerk insisted it was actually beer, but it really looks and tastes like ale as far as I’m concerned.
“Ah, okay, okay. Cheers, cheers.”
The content of my cup however is chilled tea. Don’t I drink alcohol, you ask? I do, as a matter of fact. But I don’t have much tolerance, so I’ll immediately get piss drunk and get knocked out cold once I’ve downed a few! Yeah, I’m extremely weak to alcohol dammit!
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login