Chapter 346: Premonition Coming True

"We finally met face to face- But you sure are amazing, lad."

We finally met up in person with Captain Souls instead of just through the holo-screen, but...... his cheeks cramped as soon as he saw us. Mimi and Kugi were hugging my arms and sticking closely to me just like they said earlier. Elma was standing nearby with a smirk on her face, accompanied by Tina, Wiska [1], and Mei.

"You're living every man's dream huh? Impressive. As expected of a Platinum ranker. You sure like to play big."

"We have our own circumstances...... Anyway, nice to meet you. I'm Hiro."

"Souls. It's nice to meet you as well."

Mimi and Kugi let go of my arms so I can shake hands with Captain Souls.

He was a dapper middle-aged guy, and was quite handsome even from the perspective of a fellow guy like me...... In other words, he was a so-called ikeoji or handsome uncle. He had gray pupils paired with silvery gray hair. His clothes weren't anything special, but his build was pretty good. He was neither too muscular or too skinny. However, he didn't seem weak. His body was pretty well-balanced.

"Let's not just stand here then. Let's go ahead and take our seats."

Captain Souls entered the shop along with his crew and prompted us to follow. According to Mimi's research, this shop wasn't a regular restaurant but a sort of bar that's operated as part of the entertainment facilities within the Dauntless. It seems this place was intended to be used to deepen the friendship between different squads and platoons, and it looked like it could accommodate dozens of people.

"We don't often get to invite other guys to these kinds of get-togethers. So some of my crew were actually pretty excited about this, but......"

Captain Souls glanced toward a young male crew member of his whose expression now resembled a Tibetan fox. It feels like negative aura was about to overflow from the guy. Was this guy really okay?

"Well, it's a good wake-up call for this guy who easily gets the wrong idea. So please go ahead and show them the difference in your levels."

"I don't really like getting caught up in troublesome stuff though......"

Captain Souls repeatedly slapped my back in amusement and took his seat. Curiously, it looks like this place actually serves food buffet-style. You can freely pick and choose what to eat from all the food that was prepared and sit wherever you please to chat. Do we have to do self-service for alcohol as well? Oh, it looks like you can get the drinks yourself or ask for some from the waiter robots. It can be dangerous for drunk people to get drink refills by themselves after all.

The dinner party started that way, but it didn't lead to a volatile atmosphere.

"Man, you have to deal with jealousy and all sorts of other emotions constantly huh. I really respect you for that."

"Uhuh, uhuh...... It's like, like... Anyway, you're amazing, Hiro-san."

"Y-Yeah."

For some reason, the young male Screech Owl crew members were crowding around me instead of Mimi or Kugi. Apart from Mei who was a maidroid, it looks like they ended up really respecting me for managing to surround myself with five different women.

"It's my first time seeing such a harmonious harem."

"And every single one of them is freaking cute...... Can you let us in on your secret?"

The male crew member who was previously crushing on Mimi asked me with a straight face.

"There's nothing like that, guys...... I just went with the flow. The flow. As for advice, I suppose all I can tell you is not to miss the timing when an opportunity presents itself and be prepared to take responsibility no matter how things turn out in the end."

Technically, the only girl I specifically aimed to get on my ship was Elma, so I wasn't exactly lying. I impulsively helped Mimi and that led to her boarding my ship as a result. Elma was the only one I specifically pulled into the ship with the intention of making her into part of my crew.

"I can't believe you still have the energy to get involved with a maidroid even when you're surrounded with five beautiful girls already...... And that maidroid is even a high-end custom product, right?"

This time, a gangly young man wearing glasses was the one who spoke out. Un, he looks like your typical nerdy type. It's a stereotype! Well, his glasses kinda looked mechanical, so it was probably some sort of wearable device.

"Yeah. If you wanna get something at the level of our Mei, you're gonna have to shell out at least a couple hundred thousand Enels."

"A couple hundred thousand! It's cheaper than a ship, but...... Uh, how should I say this? ......Err, do you have enough stamina?"

A gaudy-looking crew member rocked his hips back and forth as he posed his question.

"Uh...... I do work out a lot, I guess. And our chef is pretty good too."

I tensed my abdominal muscles and hit my stomach with my fist. In fact, Tetsujin V, the automatic cooker installed in my ship, analyzes my work out data in order to provide me with the optimal meals. It's been regularly scanning my health data using the med pod, my portable data terminal, the exercise machines in the training room, and even receives data from Mei in order to determine what nutrients I need the most each day. It was honestly too high-performance.

"I've been dealing with pirates almost every day, gotten myself involved in the shady plots of nobles, plunged into swarms of crystal lifeforms, fought bioweapons using power armor, got slashed at with swords by nobles, and even experienced a crash when the flying machine we were riding fell from the air. If you get yourselves into those sorts of situations, maybe you'd experience encounters with the fairer sex like me as well."

"That's definitely impossible for me."

"I'd probably die."

"Well, I only turned out the way I am today after experiencing those kinds of troublesome stuff. Please understand."

I really went through some crazy stuff huh. Just how did I survive all that anyway?

"But it's not like I encounter dangerous stuff all the time. Like today for example."

"But today was really dangerous though."

"If Hiro-san and the others didn't come, we probably would have died you know...... Our ship's shield would have been taken down eventually and our hull would have been pierced, so I was kinda already preparing myself for death back there."

Oh? Apparently, glasses-kun here was the pilot of one of the small escort fighters launched by the explorer fleet during the previous battle. He looked so spindly, so it was a bit of a surprise.

"I see. In other words, today's encounter really is a chance for us lonely guys......?"

"Oh? What's this? Are you gonna challenge me?"

"I was joking. It's impossible for me."

"But maidroids are nice...... They can also support you during combat, right?"

"Well, if you ignore combat ability and just focus on a high-performance positron brain, you can probably buy a custom one for only 100 thousand or so."

"If it's only that much then...... Un."

Megane-kun, whose name was apparently Hector, ignored his food and started thinking in a daze. Now should be a good time to pry for info, right? I'll try poking around a bit.

"By the way, your captain mentioned that you found something during your expedition to the unexplored star system. What exactly did you discover over there anyway?"

"Oh? So you've heard from the captain? Yeah, that's right. It was some sort of- Uh, can I really spill the beans about it?"

"I'm a mercenary y'know. It's not like I'm in the same trade. I'm not really interested in the place you got that treasure. I'm just really curious about the treasure itself. I mean, it's a treasure. You get it, right?"

"That's true. This is off the record, okay?"

After saying so, Hector used his portable data terminal to display the image of an explorer-use power armor standing next to a mysterious sphere.

"We found this strange sphere. Lasers just bounced off of it and it's pretty tough. It clearly doesn't seem like a natural object. Moreover, the place where we found it looked artificial too. It didn't look like naturally occurring terrain. We're hoping it might be some sort of artifact."

"Ah...... Okay. By the way, are there any crew members left on your ships?"

"No. All of us were starving so we all came here."

The gaudy-looking crew member turned his gaze toward the back of the shop. Oh, it looks like Captain Souls and the three drunkards were already drinking their fill huh. Mimi and Kugi were accompanied by Mei and seemed to be having fun chatting with the sailors who were a little older than the ones crowding around me.

"Excuse me for a bit."

"Okay."

I took out my portable data terminal, selected Col. Serena's number from my address book, and called her up. Before long, Col. Serena answered my call.

『What is it? The data storage devices just arrived-』

"Uh, colonel, I managed to find more of those spheres. The Screech Owls brought one with them, and all of the crew members are out right now."

『......』

"Um, colonel?"

『Please shut up for a moment. I'm focusing all my mental strength to control my emotions right now.』

"......You seem to be really irritated, but it's not like I meant to trouble you intentionally y'know. Really. I swear to all the gods of heaven and earth."

『I know already, so just shut up please?』

"Okay."

She's definitely snapped! Scary! I'm not at fault y'know!

[1] TL Notes: The official romaji name of our blue-haired dwarf girl is Wiska. I'll be using this name from here on out to stay true to the JP romanization. It does make a lot more sense, doesn't it? That's the trouble with translating Western names spelled out in katakana. Common ones like Tina are easy, but Wiska's name is written the same as Whisker (as in animal's whiskers) in katakana (ウィスカ) so it's trickier.