Chapter 303: A Totally Tongue Twisting Name

Chapter 303 - A Totally Tongue Twisting Name

Translator: SFBaka

"Wow, amazing. There are large-scale colonies everywhere!"

"What's even more impressive is that all these colonies have shipyards. Or rather, the traffic volume sure is crazy huh."

"The imperial capital also attracts a lot of traffic, but Windas system is even more bustling. How nostalgic."

Elma muttered such words while looking at information about the star system gathered through Black Lotus' sensors which were now being projected on the break room's holo-display.

"You've been here before?"

"When I was just a newbie mercenary, I based myself here in the Windas system. I stayed here until my brother gave up investigating my whereabouts."

After saying so, Elma lightly shrugged her shoulders. I see. This was indeed a star system that was relatively close to the imperial capital, so you didn't have to use a gateway in order reach it from there. Also, there were lots of colonies and an equally large amount of traffic, so it wasn't that difficult to blend in with the crowd if you were trying to go under the radar. If you changed your name, ship, and worked as a mercenary without specifying your sex, you wouldn't be caught so easily.

"Wow. You did pretty well for a runaway."

"That's because I had a reliable bible to follow."

"Ah, you mean Mimi's grandmother, right?"

"My grandma huh."

Mimi's grandmother was actually the younger sister of the current ruling emperor, and she ran away from the imperial family on a small combat ship she secretly prepared when she officially reached adulthood at the age of fifteen. She was an amazing maiden who successfully hid her true identity and avoided the pursuit of the imperial family. She then made a name for herself as a very skilled mercenary. Tales of her exploits have been widely circulated through various mediums like novels and movies, and the said novels have become the official bibles of practically all adventurous tomboy ladies in the empire, including our resident viscount's daughter who just shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly earlier.

"Most only dream of being like her, and folks like me who actually put what they read into practice are few and far between."

"So you're one of the few successful examples huh, Elma."

"That's how it is. Even now, at least two aristocratic daughters run away from the imperial capital each year. Most end up being caught and taken back to the capital though, and a good number of them faced even worse fates than what they ran away from."

"Worse fates......"

Mimi's expression didn't look so good. She must have imagined something dreadful after hearing Elma's words. Well, if those aristocratic daughters who didn't know left from right got deceived by nasty fellows, or if their ships get shot down by pirates and they end up getting captured, saying they'll suffer worse fates is probably putting it lightly.

However, if their families ever got wind of what happened to their precious princesses, I imagine those conmen or pirates would be on the receiving end of a merciless counterattack that makes use of all a noble house's financial might and influence, so they won't have good ends either. What goes around comes around.

"Aah...... Boy, I'm beat."

As we chatted while admiring Mei's smooth piloting maneuvers, Tina and Whisker entered the break space looking all worn out. They were cooped up inside their room for a couple of days writing their report, but it looks like they were already done with it. Tina tottered toward me and plopped herself on top of my lap.

"We're finally done. Praise me, Boss."

"Yes, yes, you did great, Tina. There, there."

I gently stroked Tina's head. Hm? Did she just come out from the shower? Her hair feels silky-smooth. She acted all worn out, but maybe she made sure to fix herself up before coming here.

"Mou, Big Sis."

"You did great too, Whisker. There, there."

"Ahaha, thank you."

I also called Whisker over and stroked her head as well. So both of them were fresh from the bath huh. Well, I suppose there's no point in calling them out, so I'll just keep quiet.

"Where are we headin' this time, Boss?"

"Ah, did I not tell you guys yet? It would be good to head to somewhere with a Space Dwerg branch office first, so we'll be going to the Windas Tertius colony. By the way, the name Windas Tertius is kinda hard to say, isn't it? It feels like it would be easy to fumble if you talk fast."

"Right."

Tina nodded with a straight face. If you quickly say the name Windas Tertius three times in a row, you'd probably end up garbling the words eventually. Well, anyway, it's the Windas system's third colony. The system's primary colony, Windas Prime, was where the imperial mlitary's starport was located and was essentially built as a military colony. The second colony, Secundus, gathers and distributes the ores mined from the asteroid belt within the Windas system as well as various other supplies collected from other star systems. The third colony, Tertius, was a commercial colony where the branch offices of various companies such as major private starship manufacturers were located.

The other colonies were the fourth colony Quartas and the fifth colony Quintas where the private ship manufacturers built their shipyards. In any case, we plan on finishing all our business in the Tertius colony. After all, we can remotely place an order for a starship from any of the other colonies from within the Tertius colony. As long as it's within the same star system, communication was a breeze.

"In other words, depending on how things go, we'll immediately get to business as soon as we arrive huh."

After saying so, Whisker bent down her head in thought. This time around, I was planning on selling the foreign small high-speed combat ship that I managed to snag from the Red Flag pirates to Space Dwerg. Tina and Whisker will basically act as our intermediaries during the deal.

"We'll go with you guys so they won't beat down the price too much. But it's not like I don't trust you two, okay? It's just that since you're directly related to them, they probably won't restrain themselves when bargaining."

"That's true. Dwarven merchants are pretty tough customers, so we can't let our guard down."

Mimi, who was in charge of trading with other parties for us, nodded in agreement to my words. In fact, she seems to have purchased a lot of specialty products from the Refill system - mainly fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, clothing manufactured from natural materials, and spirit silver - with the help of the Willrose family and the Rose clan. All of them were luxury items out in space and sell pretty well in trading colonies.

"We can't let them beat down the prices of the souvenirs we got from the Refill system."

"We really need to be careful."

It's naturally gonna be a pretty tall order to earn enough profit to buy a new starship with just the amount of goods that can be loaded inside the Lotus, but it'll probably be more than enough to cover our stay. In any case, I want Mimi to do her best just like this.

***

Black Lotus reached the Windas Tertius colony smoothly and safely made port after a bit of waiting time.

"Good job out there, Mei."

"Thank you, Master."

Mei performed her maid duties perfectly like always. She already made an appointment for us in advance, so we'll head straight for the local Space Dwerg branch office as soon as we get off the ship. All of us will be heading there together.

That's because unless we sold that foreign ship to Space Dwerg, we won't be able to get enough funds to secure a new starship for Elma. Hence, selling that ship is our first priority, then we'll buy Elma's new ship and lastly buy my new power armor. In the worst case that we aren't able to find a suitable power armor here, we'll just head to another star system and try our luck there.

"Are you tired? ...Err, I guess that's kinda a weird question to ask you huh, Mei."

"Yes. But thank you. I'm more than happy that you're concerned about me, Master."

"Is that so......? I'd feel more at ease if you requested a little more from me though."

"I will consider doing so."

Mei displayed a soft smile after replying.

"Aa...... Goin' there is such a pain."

"Don't be like that, Sis. C'mon, buck up."

"Oww."

It seemed like Tina didn't really like the idea of heading to the Space Dwerg branch all that much and was acting all listless until Whisker slapped her back to get her to shape up. Tina was averse to reporting to the office even though she enjoys heavy manual work like performing maintenance on our ships and does them without complaint.

"So we're heading to Space Dwerg first. What's next after that?"

"Aren't we going to check out the ships being sold by Space Dwerg?"

"Uh, Space Dwerg is a bit iffy when it comes to small-class high-speed combat ships so......"

I got the chance to test pilot a prototype small-class high-speed combat ship by Space Dwerg in the Brad system, but even if it was a prototype, it was still a bit disappointing. Space Dwerg's starships tend to be less maneuverable than other ships of the same class in exchange for better loading capacity and armor, so honestly, when it comes to small-class high-speed ships, the models from other companies were better options. In the first place, they didn't have any small-class ship models that can be considered as high-speed ships available.

"It kinda feels like our company's getting dissed, Big Sis."

"Can't be helped. It's true that we ain't good when it comes to that field after all."

"There's also ease of maintenance to consider, so we'll ask you two's opinion when choosing, okay?"

"Keep it a secret from the company though, Boss."

"If they get wind of us recommending ships from other companies, we'd probably get slapped with harsh warnings even if they don't penalize us directly so......"

The two smiled bitterly. Well, yeah, that would probably be the case. They'd probably get scolded a lot for not promoting their company's own products.

Well, in any case, we better hurry up and get to Space Dwerg.