In a white, spacious, and sterile-looking room with several tables and chairs set within. There was a cacophony of people’s voices engaged in discussion amidst the sound of moving machinery.
I was sitting on one of the chairs set within that room. It felt refreshing to be out of that stuffy power armor.
“Man, you really saved my sorry behind today. I also thought that was it for me when we were attacked by pirates back then, and this time was also looking quite hopeless too.”
Dr. Shouko handed me a drink while saying stuff like that. It was a chilled, cloudy white liquid. It didn’t seem that thick, so I guess it was some sort of sports drink or something.
“This is?”
“It’s a kind of rehydration drink. It has a nice flavor, so it’s quite easy to chug down.”
Looks like it really was a sports drink. I took off the cap and gave it a big swig. Yep. Sure tastes like Po**ri Sweat.
“Good work out there. It was tough, right?”
“Well, not much. I had my power armor, so it really wasn’t all that dangerous.”
When the development of the anti-creature nanomachine swarm got finished, I was invited into the general hospital’s premises and finally got the opportunity to get out of my stuffy power armor and take a nice shower. Afterward, Dr. Shouko was sent to welcome me. It seems she was assigned the duty because we already knew each other.
I was told to stay put inside the hospital for a while because coming back to the ship without properly dealing with the creature remains and residue stuck to my power armor may potentially cause some health problems and such. It wasn’t sure if they carried some sort of pathogen or not after all.
I was told to properly go through a round of disinfection, just in case, while the researchers made use of the creature’s remains and body fluids on my power armor to make some improvements in the performance of the anti-creature nanomachines.
“Is it fine for you to be here, Dr. Shouko?”
“Yep, the work over there’s just about finished anyway. There’s a chance of making some more improvements by using the results garnered from analyzing the samples stuck in your power armor, but they’ll be minor ones at most. They don’t need me there.”
She gently waved her hand in front of her in dismissal. She still seems a bit shaken from the whole ordeal though. Can’t fault her. She just went through another life-threatening crisis after all.
“But you sure are an unlucky lady, aren’t you, Dr. Shouko? It hasn’t even been one month after the pirate incident and here you are, getting involved in something dangerous again.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Based on the probability theory, it really seems unusual. Though I do feel the tug of fate somehow, since it’s you who managed to save me both times, Hiro-kun.”
“You believe in that sort of stuff?”
She really didn’t seem like the type to believe in occult stuff like that.
“Nope, not really. But there’s a chance I might just be swayed to believe in them. I mean, it’s happened twice already y’know.”
“I see? Well then, why don’t you follow what fate is telling you and become a crew member of my ship?”
Dr. Shouko’s expression froze up after hearing my invitation, that changed into a nice-looking smile afterward.
“That honestly doesn’t sound too bad y’know, but does a mercenary ship even need a physician on board? You can just stop over a colony and go to the medical facilities there in order to satisfy your medical needs if necessary after all. And at the very least, you can still make use of a med pod if you don’t have access to a colony for some reason. It would be a different story if it were a long-distance pioneering immigration ship or a deep space exploration vessel though. I probably won’t be able to sit still in a ship without proper research facilities, equipment and research specimens too.”
“That’s a shame then.”
Dr. Shouko is a very charming lady, so I really do feel it’s unfortunate. Eh? My motive is impure, you say? I’m a healthy guy, so isn’t this just natural? She’s a bespectacled beauty with chest assets on par with Mimi y’know. Any healthy male would have the urge to get a load of those knockers at least once, yeah.
“Fufu, your stare looks really lewd, you know?”
“That just goes to show I’m a normal healthy male Doc.”
“Are these really all that good? They make my shoulders stiff and grab too much unwanted attention, so I don’t really like them that much though?”
After saying that, Dr. Shouko brought her bountiful chest assets closer to my face. What a sight for sore eyes. Excellent! I praise and worship thee.
“Did you manage to get your fill?”
“The creatures known as males have natures that wouldn’t get tired of looking at a sexy woman’s body y’see.”
“Such a cheap-sounding nature.”
Dr. Shouko stood up from her seat while giggling cheerfully.
“That’s it for service time, mister. It’s almost time for the creature clean up operation to begin.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
I also stood up and saluted Dr. Shouko, who was overflowing with service spirit.
I didn’t encounter many problems on the way back to the ship. I didn’t have any more business left cause the imperial power armor division had already started their creature extermination operation in teams of three.
But since I was wearing power armor myself – equipped with powerful weaponry to boot – I looked very much like a suspicious character. I was called out by imperial patrols once or twice and detained for questioning, but I was able to get out of them easily enough through declaring I was just coming back from responding to a rescue request sent to the Mercenary Guild by Inagawa Technology.
“So, what was the cause of the incident in the first place?”
『There’s no info regarding that for now. But it seems several private firms have already put forth their own measures to eliminate the creature threat.』
“Private companies? You talking about Inagawa Tech’s nanomachine swarms?”
『Yes. There’s also Eagle Dynamics, a military robotic weapons maker, that dispatched a large number of combat robots specializing in creature extermination within the colony. Cyclone Chemicals also succeeded in synthesizing chemical substances only toxic to the creatures and provided them to the military, along with specialized chemical sprayers. There are several more companies that sent out their own countermeasures as well.』
『It looks like the imperial military has stepped up the extermination efforts. And the independent fleet has also managed to return to port. It looks like this incident is closed to being completely wrapped up.』
“I see. But it really was a big incident huh…… We did manage to earn some money off of it, but I’m sure a lot of people have been injured or killed during the commotion.”
『Yeah. Oh, right. You don’t have to give us a cut of the earnings for this time’s incident, okay.』
“Hm? What do you mean?”
『If it was earned using the starship, then we wouldn’t have any qualms about taking a share because we all risked our lives together. But this time, it was just you who was out on the field, right? We’ll feel bad if we take a share of the money while knowing that we didn’t really face any sort of danger.』
“You sure?”
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