Brad Star System

I felt someone's presence and my drowsy consciousness started waking

up.

I heard the soft rustling of clothes while in the midst of warm and

comfortable sleep. I finally managed to open my eyes somehow and

turned my gaze to the direction of the sound. There, I saw the figure of a

woman who just finished putting back her maid clothes on. She had her

back turned to me and bunched her long, black hair into a neat-looking

ponytail.

It seems she picked up on me being awake, and the woman turned

toward me.

"Good morning, Master."

The woman in classic maid clothes had a faint smile on her face which

was near unnoticeable if you didn't look hard enough.

"Good morning, May."

I returned her morning greeting while still feeling drowsy.

"Good morning, Hiro-sama, May-san."

"Morning."

"Yeah. Morning."

"Good morning."

I went out of my room with May after taking a quick shower and found

Elma and Mimi lounging inside the dining room. But both of them seem

to be devoid of energy.

"It would be better if both of you took the entire day off, I think. Rather,

I insist."

"Yes. Thank you very much."

"Sorry about this."

The both of them smiled at me while looking under the weather.

They're not really sick. It's that time of the month for both of them.

Even if they already took some pills, they only alleviate the symptoms

and do not completely eliminate them. Well, it can't be helped.

"I'll hole up inside the cockpit. Please bring my breakfast to the cockpit

later, May. You can look after both of them afterward."

"Understood."

"Oh, it's okay. We're fine. We're just feeling a bit sluggish. The symptoms

aren't that bad."

Elma made a strained smile. Mimi, who also looked a bit sick, raised her

voice as well.

"That's right. Please just accompany Hiro-sama, May-san."

"Really? Can you help me out with some routine tasks after bringing my

breakfast then, May?"

"Understood."

After seeing May nod, I headed to the cockpit block.

"Mm. It's quite psychedelic as always…"

After entering the cockpit, what entered my view was a torrential wave

of bright multi-colored lights. Right now, my private ship, the Krishna,

was navigating through the hyperlanes and heading for the Brad star

system. The estimated time of arrival displayed on the cockpit's HUD

was approximately seven hours.

Interstellar travel using the hyperlanes. It's basically just auto-pilot

navigation using the Hyperdrive, so there's actually no need to sit inside

the cockpit and watch the funky light show. But on the off chance that

some sort of incident happened, we would be able to respond better if

someone was stationed inside the cockpit. Therefore, it was a common

practice for someone to keep watch inside the cockpit while navigating

the sea of stars.

"Now then, it'll take seven hours to get to the Brad system… Guess I

have to find ways to kill time."

While saying so, I sat on the main pilot seat and operated the console. I

pulled up the galaxy map and projected it on the holo-display. I checked

out the galaxy map and confirmed the coordinates of the Brad system.

The Brad system was quite similar to the Termaine system, where I

found myself in when I first came to this dimension. It's composed of

four planets and an asteroid belt centered on the G-type star Brad. The

asteroid belt was a rich source of mineral resources for the system and

was regularly mined. Valuable gaseous raw materials were also

harvested from the gas giant Brad III. It was one of the most resourcerich systems in the entire Graccan empire.

Since there were plenty of resources and riches to be had here, pirates

should have been quite active as well. But that actually wasn't the case

at all. The reason for this is because this system is the home of the main

branch and shipyard of the famous ship-making company Space Dwerg.

Why would there be no pirates because of the shipyard, you ask? That's

because they will be immediately attacked by a swarm of prototype

ship models produced by the Space Dwerg company the moment they

show their ugly mugs.

Why is the Space Dwerg Co. Ltd. so enthusiastic about getting rid of

space pirates? That's a good question. There was once a journalist who

asked a representative of the company this very question during an

interview, and this was how they responded:

[Our company has excellent engineers who constantly challenge

themselves in making the most advanced and innovative ships in the

market. When a chance to test the performance of the ships and

equipment presents itself, there's no reason why we wouldn't take

advantage of it. It would be a shame to waste test targets that come

basically free of charge after all.]

In other words, the crazy engineers of Space Dwerg considered pirates

as mere guinea pigs for their tests.

They would make a nice profit if the pirates can successfully capture a

ship, but since it was a prototype, it was unknown if it had any major

issues or flaws, so capturing one was basically a gamble. Hence, the

pirates generally don't even attempt to capture prototype ships. It

wasn't just Space Dwerg either. All ship-making companies had the

same policies regarding pirates, so they generally avoid any system

with a ship-making company present.

And systems two to four hyperlane nodes away is fair game for the ship

engineers in order to test long-distance navigation, so pirates avoid

them too if they can. The destroyed pirate ships are also a source of

valuable materials and data for those mad engineers, so they plunder

everything they possibly can, and the money from selling the unneeded

parts will be used to fund even more experiments.

They can test their new prototypes and secure funds. There's no reason

to let go of such a delicious opportunity.

"Man. They totally picked the surrounding systems clean…"

This time, the chance of getting in trouble with pirates was close to

zero. It was a bit boring and it's a pity that there are no opportunities

for making money present, but it's also a good thing since we can finally

put our feet up and relax after that fiasco in the Sierra star system. It

would also take a bit of time to completely customize the ship once we

purchase one, so maybe I'll take this opportunity to get Krishna an

overhaul as well. Mimi and Elma weren't feeling well anyway, so the

timing is just right.