I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship, so I Became a Space Mercenary Chapter 345 – I Get How You Feel but It Ain’t My Fault

Translator: SFBaka

We returned to the Dauntless while escorting the Screech Owls fleet and decided to contact Col. Serena for the ti being.

『……Can you run that by again?』

Col. Serena’s stressed voice echoed around the break space of the Black Lotus.

“We managed to get multiple data caches that might lead to the discovery of the location of the pirate’s base from the wrecks of the pirate ships we encountered earlier. i’s still in the middle of analyzing them, but if you want, we can imdiately hand you our results so far along with the decryption keys and the physical data storage devices.”

As a result of helping out the Screech Owls and stripping the pirate ship wrecks of loot, we succeeded in recovering multiple data caches in addition to the various junk equipnt. i imdiately got busy analyzing the data storage devices, and I contacted Col. Serena to explain the situation.

『……Are you sure you aren’t actually connected with pirates? One just doesn’t usually bring such crucial intel right at the start of a subjugation operation you know?』

“Of course, not. C’mon, that doesn’t even make any sense…… Anyway, we already got our hands on them, so it can’t be helped. I’m not at fault here.”

You can also say it’s just my usual propensity for trouble twisting my fate, but I don’t really wanna rely on such a taphysical explanation. That said, I do recognize that I’m a trouble magnet to so extent.

『Haa…… Well, that’s fine, I suppose. It’s good that we’re making progress. There’s no downside to being able to destroy the pirates sooner.』

“As expected of you, Colonel. I’m glad you’re pretty reasonable.”

『Please send the data storage devices to us. I’ll transmit the port number to you.』

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

I gave her a crisp salute and ended the transmission. I quickly received the port number that’s used by the ship-wide goods delivery system, so I forwarded it to i. i will handle sending the data storage devices to Col. Serena.

“What shall we do next?”

“The military will probably announce a job to subjugate the pirate base before long, so I suppose we’ll just have to wait until then.”

“Will that be alright? If we don’t work, won’t Colonel Serena scold you, My Lord?”

“We’ve already done plenty by discovering and delivering those data storage devices to them, and we can earn more by participating in the base subjugation anyway.”

Tina and Whisker will be busy polishing up and performing maintenance on the equipnt we’ve managed to recover for a while, and the hangar of the Lotus was close to full already. The equipnt we got surprisingly took up a lot of space because most of them were laser cannons.

“It’s important to work hard, of course. But it’s also important to avoid taking unnecessary risks. It would be fine as long as we can earn our fair share of money.”

We weren’t heroes of justice on a mission to destroy evil, but rcenaries who hunt down pirates and the like for a living. It would be fine as long as we can make money in the end. It’s not like I was hungry for combat rits in order to accomplish so sort of goal. I’ve already achieved Platinum rank which was the highest rank available to rcenaries, so I didn’t really need to pay a lot of attention to contributing to the guild.

“And besides, even if you try avoiding trouble, it will just co to you anyway.”

“Don’t say sothing like that…… Anyway, good work out there.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

I knocked fists with Elma who just finished taking a shower in the Black Lotus. She then sat beside on the sofa. Mimi and Kugi were already sticking to my left and right though, so Elma ended up sitting beside Kugi.

“So, how was it? Your first battle piloting your own ship after a long ti.”

“It’s kinda lonely and stressful being alone to be honest. I have to do everything by myself, so it’s quite stressful. I ended up calling Mimi several tis during the battle.”

“Fumu. Do you want Mimi to accompany you for a while? I think it will be a good experience for Mimi as well.”

“Hmm. Thanks for the suggestion, but I’ll pass for now. I’ll probably get used to it after so ti.”

“That so? Well, it’ll serve as good training for Mimi, so try it soti.”

I pretended not to notice Elma exchanging glances with Mimi and the intense gaze piercing my left cheek. I think it’s necessary to raise her skills though. As I was thinking about such things, my portable terminal’s ringtone suddenly rang out. It’s Captain Souls of the Screech Owls huh. I exchanged contacts with the guy before we parted ways.

“This is Hiro. What’s the matter?”

『Souls here. Well, uh, I’m treating my crew for a al and I was wondering if you wanna co too. You did save our behinds back there, so let treat you guys to a drink or sothing.』

“Sounds good. But I’m actually a real lightweight so I’ll pass on the drink. Three of my crew mbers are heavy drinkers though. You sure you can handle them? It’ll probably cost you.”

『I don’t mind. We do have so extra budget from selling off the loot we got from those pirates. And it’s not like we returned empty-handed from our expedition.』

In other words, the Screech Owls managed to acquire so kind of loot in the unexplored star system…… Man, I’m getting a really bad feeling about this. Please just let it be my imagination. Anyway, I feel that I really have to get that cargo off the hands of the Screech Owls as soon as possible.

“We’ll take you up on the offer then. We have seven people on our end…… Uh, but only six of us will be eating and drinking. One of us doesn’t need to eat or drink at all.”

『Doesn’t eat or drink……? Well, alright. I’ll send you the eting point.』

Information on one of the restaurants inside the Dauntless was sent over by Souls. Hm. Well, it doesn’t seem to be the shady kind of restaurant. But the possibility of them pretending to be friendly while setting up a trap wasn’t zero, so we still had to be careful. After all, as their captain, I was responsible for the safety of my crew.

“Ok. We’ll see you there. We need to get ready first, so it’ll take a bit of ti.”

『Alright. How about eting up after half an hour?』

“Let’s go with that…… We’re getting treated by the Screech Owls guys.”

“Mm…… I’m a bit uneasy about it though.”

Mimi was slightly hesitant.

“Oh, their operator seed to be quite taken by you huh? It’s gonna be fine. Just don’t leave my side.”

“Then we should all stick close to Hiro later.”

“Yeah. Let’s stick to him closely. Like, really close. You have to stick to him too, Kugi-chan.”

“C-Closely? Like this?”

Mimi and Kugi snuggled even closer to . Mm. I’m happy about it, but doesn’t it feel a bit too eye-catching? I an, aren’t we overdoing it a bit?

“You sure have it hard, Hiro. You’ll have to take care of Tina, Whisker, and in that state later after all.”

“Please ease up a bit on the drinking, guys……”

Because I already felt an unpleasant premonition about those guys’ cargo, please don’t add to my troubles. I an, seriously.