I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship, so I Became a Space Mercenary Chapter 23

Translator: SFBaka

“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?”

“Wh !? 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 million."

"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!

"To think you don't drink alcohol. Hiro's unexpectedly childish in some aspects huh~?"

"Shut up! That's just how my physical constitution is. And it's not like you'll be considered an adult just by drinking some alcohol."

Elma, who was sitting beside me, wrapped her arms around my shoulder and latched on to me. It seems this disappointing space elf was the clingy type once she gets drunk with alcohol. Her tension's higher than usual. Our skinship has increased by a lot. She's really been coming on to me a lot more.

"You really enjoy drinking liquor, don't you Elmsan?"

"Uhuh. It's fun. Drinking it straight down and getting smashed feels pretty great y'know!"

"No drinking."

"…Yes."

I wagged my finger at Mimi who was staring hard at the liquor bottle. When I looked it up, I found that this world, or rather, this galaxy, doesn't have any particular legal drinking age imposed. But I don't think it's a good idea for young people to start drinking alcohol early in any case.

In my eyes, Mimi's still just a kid so drinking alcohol's still- Hold up. If Mimi's just a kid, then doesn't that make me, who laid his hands on such a Mimi one hell of a pervert?

No, no. I'm probably safe cuz there was mutual consent. I also looked into that and since she's over fifteen and consented to the act, I'm probably fine. Yeah, that's right. I'm safe. Yup.

"But you really have some great skills, don't ya? This ship's really powerful, but you're impressive for fully taking advantage of that power. You're also great at ambushes and surprise attacks."

"It seems like my body remembers. Battle related stuff just flows into my head and my body moves accordingly."

"Hmmm… Hey, are you perhaps hiding something from us?"

"Nope, I'm not."

I immediately retorted to Elma, who was staring at me closely. There's quite a few things I'm hiding from them actually, but I don't think I can talk about that stuff with these girls yet. For example, I'm actually a guy from another world (or would 'real world' be more appropriate in this case?), or that my supposed amnesia is a big, fat lie, or the fact that I knew this world as something from a 'game'. I think I've become quite close to Mimi and Elma, but if I confess these things right now, they'll probably just think I'm saying some really weird, unbelievable stuff.

"Well, I guess that's fine. We also have some things we find hard to talk about after all. Right, Mimi?"

"I don't really have any though."

"Oh really~? Let's see. Right now your current weight is- "

"Wh ! No! You can't say! You can't say that!"

Mimi started to panic all of a sudden and Elma cackled in glee. Body weight huh? In Mimi's case, doesn't she have to worry about her chest instead of her stomach? Those lethal weapons are super-dreadnought-class after all…… even though her body's just destroyer-class.

"Mimi."

"Hyes!?"
"Believe in your trainer. Don't do things like carelessly increasing your workout load, alright?"

"Y- yes…"

Looks like I hit the bulls-eye and Mimi hid her reddened face with both hands in embarrassment. I actually think Mimi could use a few more extra pounds though. Yosh, I'll secretly fiddle with the AI trainer settings later. Hehehe.

"Oh right. About tomorrow."

"Tomorro~w?"

"Yep, tomorrow. How about we skip earning money for tomorrow and go shopping instead. Take a breather, so to speak."

"Take a breather?"

Mimi tilted her head curiously after hearing the words 'take a breather'.

"Yup. We've been doing nothing but hunting pirates for money lately, right? How bout we go around eating and drinking or sightsee and shop for stuff like clothes and accessories. There's actually a lot we can possibly do."

"You simply want to take a break right~?"

I honestly nodded to Elma's teasing words.

"That's part of it, sure. It's also to prevent us from making silly mistakes out in the field because we didn't set some time to relax and de-stress. Moreover, I want Mimi to feel how it's like to spend the money she put her life on the line to earn."

"Ah, I see. That's right huh. That kind of experience is important."

Elma nodded in agreement with a serious expression. Her face was still red from the alcohol, but she wasn't really that drunk.

"Um, I'm…"

Mimi displayed a troubled expression. Guess it's to be expected. The total amount of reward money I handed to her thus far is 16,850 Enel. If we use the 1 Enel = 100 Yen conversion rate, it'll amount to 1,685,000 Yen. At Mimi's age, an amount of 160,000 Yen in 'earnings' would probably be enough to make her hesitant.

"But all I did was sit in the Operator's seat… I still think this much money is- "

"It certainly is hard to say that Mimi's mastered being a ship Operator. But even so, aren't you a team-mate who rode my ship and put your life on the line together with us? That reward money is money well-earned."

"That's right. There's no need to be reserved. It also includes the reward for taking care of this guy after all."

"Well, um… If you really don't want to, well, y'know- "

"I didn't say I didn't want to, okay!?"

"I definitely don't hate doing it!"

Mimi and Elma's retorts drowned out my words. Mimi looked at me straight with a reddened face. Elma, on the other hand, looked away while blushing until the tips of her long ears in embarrassment.

"I like you, Hiro-sama. I really love you. I love you so much, from the bottom of my heart. Hiro-sama is my everything. So I can offer my every inch of my being to Hiro-sama as well."

Mimi stood up from the table and confessed to me with a beet-red face. Man, I think this kind of passionate confession is rare, even in things like movies and novels. And to think that the target of her affection is me, of all people… Did I actually drink some alcohol earlier, passed out and am now dreaming about all this stuff?

"I- I can't… really go that far but… W- well, you did save me and all. If it wasn't for you, I would have experienced something truly terrible. S- so I'm kinda grateful and stuff… Really thankful or something… But it's not like I did those things with you simply because I'm thankful. If not, then I wouldn't have offered my body to you so many times… Idiot."

It seems like she was inspired by Mimi's confession, so Elma also expressed her feelings toward me. I somehow felt that they were simply driven by obligation because of all the help I've offered them all this time. But, somehow, after hearing how they truly felt, it kinda seemed like a weight's been lifted from my shoulders and my chest felt light.

"Wait, why are you crying all of a sudden?"

"Hi, Hiro-sama?"

"No, sorry. I'm just so happy to hear you both say those things. To be honest, I was a little… nah, I was actually pretty anxious about it."

"You were anxious?"

"Are you stupid or something? There's no woman who wouldn't fall for the Prince Charming who saved them from a desperate pinch y'know."

Elma kissed my cheek while laughing. She kissed me again and again.

"If it wasn't for you, I'd probably be in prison now, being used by those brutes for their amusement. You're definitely the Prince Charming who saved me from that kind of fate. Don't go worrying about strange things."

"Ah, me too! Hiro-sama! If Hiro-sama didn't help me, I would have suffered terribly as well! Hiro-sama is my hero!"

Mimi also went over and hugged me tight. I smelled alcohol on her. Did you mistakenly drink some while thinking it was juice?

"Mimi, let's thoroughly express the depths of our feelings for this stupid prince."

"Yes~! I'll do my best~!"

The two of them stretched their hands out to grab me. I didn't resist at all and allowed them to do as they pleased.

Chapter end