Chapter 344: Sensitive Fox

Translator: SFBaka

A mercenary fleet arrived late and left straight away as soon as they confirmed that the pirates had already been dealt with. We'd do the same if we were in their position, so there was nothing strange about it. First come, first served, as they say.

"I see. You got stuck in the asteroid belt and forced out of FTL state."

『Well, not exactly. It was actually my mistake. The accuracy of this star system's map is still lacking you see.』

The operator bro of the Screech Owls was currently pouring out his troubles onto Mimi. She was diligently serving the role of a good listener. I suppose the guy was simply happy about the opportunity to chat with such a beautiful young girl. But just don't overdo it, man. Mimi's mine.

"Tina, how's the progress of the recovery work."

『Not bad. The quality of the parts really is a bit better just like you said, Boss. Their maintenance is another story though.』

"No matter how good the parts are, if the maintenance is poor, the original performance will suffer......"

『Laser cannons can shoot without worrying so much about ammo, but you have to properly maintain them.』

『The problem is if we don't spend effort sprucing up this supposedly good equipment, they would probably just get sold for cheap. And the demand for them here isn't that high in the first place.』

"Yeah."

I agreed with Elma's remarks. It was true that the equipment these pirates sported was of a slightly higher quality. Compared to the pirates operating in other star systems, their condition was a league apart. However, their quality was still lacking for mercenaries who come to this frontier system for work. And as for explorers, they had the same performance as the equipment their ships were already using.

They were also practically useless to the civilian trading ships that come to the Dauntless for business. Well, taking them is better than returning empty-handed. Regardless of the relatively poor maintenance, they were of reasonable quality anyway, so we'll just treat them as disposable junk items.

『Folks will probably drive a hard bargain fer this stuff.』

"Let's just fix them up and take them to a place where they'd sell well later."

『I have a suggestion, Boss. We'll just focus on makin' these almost-junk items look all shiny and new. We don't really need to cobble up a whole ship this time around, right?』

"Yeah, there's no need for that this time. There isn't much demand for those kinds of ships here anyway."

Unless it was in a special environment where people only need to travel relatively short distances, a chimera ship made out of parts cobbled together from pirate shipwrecks normally doesn't sell well. It was fine to use such ships simply for ferrying cargo, but it was too troublesome to incorporate an advanced fire control system and sub-systems into them. And even if you did, their overall service reliability was iffy at best. Using such ships for combat or exploration roles wasn't advisable because you don't know if or when their weapon and sub-systems would suddenly malfunction. That's why such chimera ships are only used by space pirates or rookie traders who are just starting out.

There were practically no rookie traders in this frontier system. The explorers and traders active here all had decent escorts accompanying them, and the trader fleets themselves were rather heavily armed. And other than traders, mercenaries, and explorers, there were only military personnel and civilian staff working for the military present in this system. Hence, there was no demand for a chimera ship.

『Got it. Just a bit more and we'll be finished with the recovery work.』

"Okay. Contact me once you guys are done."

After concluding the discussion with Tina and the others, I turned to the sub-pilot seat next to me. I found Kugi seemingly performing meditation while sitting on the sub-pilot seat. It didn't seem like she was sleeping because her ears fluttered from time to time. Un, if they kept moving cutely like that, I'd get more and more tempted to touch them. But just what is she doing anyway? Is it some kind of image training or something?

It looked past Kugi's fluttering ears and met gazes with Mimi. It looks like she's done talking with the operator bro. It looks like Mimi was also curious about Kugi's ears...... Now I was feeling more and more mischievous.

I carefully nudged my face closer to Kugi's ears while making sure that she didn't notice and gently blew on them.

"Hyaaaahn!?"

Kugi shrieked and frantically shook her head. She must have found it incredibly ticklish. She pressed her ears down with her hands and turned her bright-red face toward me.

"M-My Lord......?"

"Uh, they were fluttering about so cutely, so that stimulated my mischievous instincts a little too much...... Err, sorry."

"Me too! I want to do that too!"

"N-No! My ears are very sensitive!"

Kugi vehemently refused Mimi's request, but the latter was rather determined to get her way. If the ears were no good, then I'll go for the tail instead. I started to reach out for Kugi's tail, but Kugi quickly escaped my clutches. I thought she was completely distracted by Mimi, but her reaction was pretty fast.

"T-The tail is no good too......! No, if it's My Lord......"

"Uh, haha. Sorry. I won't do it if you don't want to."

I apologized to Kugi who meekly handed her tail over while still pressing down on her ears. I didn't think it would bother her this much. Sorry for trying to touch it without permission.

"Uh, so, your ears and tail are sensitive huh."

"S-Sensitive...... Um, yes, that's how it is. I end up shivering whenever someone touches them so suddenly."

"Please allow me to touch it someday if possible. It looks pretty fluffy and nice to touch."

"Me too. Pretty please."

"I-If you really want to, My Lord, then I'll let you touch it next time......"

It looks like she'll let me touch them next time. I did it. However, did Kugi properly understand that I'll be touching her ears as well? I decided that I won't back down even if she ends up chickening out later.

"Now then...... Let's escort these guys back to the Dauntless after finishing the recovery work."

I suppose this much after-service is fine. Besides, if Tina and the others actually end up finding data caches, it would be better to get them analyzed first rather than launching out blindly again.

That's because those caches might contain valuable intel like the pirate's attack and gathering points or even their main base. We can hunt space pirates more efficiently with that intel compared to fishing for them.

"Understood!"

"Yes, My Lord."

There was no sign of any additional pirate reinforcements. It would have been nice if some more of them showed up, but it looks like that ain't happening huh.