I Didn’t Lie You Know

Refill IV — a few days after descending to Theta. A lot has happened

since we first arrived. We deepened our relationship with the people of

the Willrose main house, repelled(?) the advances of the chief of the

Minfa clan, had the daughter of the Grado clan chief Tinia-san and her

two attendants who unexpectedly arrived incognito join us in our

sightseeing tour around the Rose clan's territory, and so on. Anyway,

things have been pretty lively these past few days.

And so, we finally bid farewell to the people of the Willrose family today

and boarded Krishna in order to head to our next destination, but...

"You seem like you've taken quite a liking to that huh."

"Doesn't it make me look like a successful career woman?"

Mimi displayed a self-satisfied expression while wearing her recently

bought military uniform-style dress. She even made an effort to make

herself look smarter by wearing non-prescription fashion glasses.

"Well, I guess. Somehow, you kinda resemble a receptionist working for

the Mercenary Guild though."

They wore a roughly similar style of uniform after all. Mimi's outfit also

had a pretty distinct military uniform styling, so she did look the part of

an intellectual career woman or a female military officer. I personally

found her get-up with minimal exposure appealing as well.

"I think it's not bad to change things up a bit from time to time. I

personally feel the same after all."

"I definitely want to see you sporting that innocent and pure get-up

again, Elma."

"No way."

Elma, who was sitting on the sub-pilot seat, stuck her tongue out at me.

Her cheeks were slightly red. Did she get embarrassed after

remembering herself as an innocent and pure child? Well, she did

eventually run away from home and lived life as a mercenary despite

being a genuine aristocratic lady after all. She must have faced a lot of

troubles when she started out. But I still think she's pretty impressive

since she managed to climb up to Silver rank in just a few years.

"Master, I've finished loading the luggage."

"Thanks, Mei. Where's Tina and Whisker?"

"They will probably arrive here soon as well."

After saying so, Mei sat down on the sub-operator seat. Well, she wasn't

actually assigned any work in the cockpit though, so she was merely

using the seat as a passenger chair. Krishna was a ship that one can

pilot solo with little to no problems after all, so having Elma as sub-pilot

and Mimi as the main operator was more than enough to operate her

smoothly.

"Sorry fer makin' ya wait guys."

"Sorry."

A little bit later, Tina and Whisker finally arrived and sat down on the

sub-seats they personally modified.

"So, how was it?"

"Preparations are goin' pretty smoothly."

I already told everyone about the request I made to the Mercenary

Guild. Well, the contents of the request were simple enough. I sent out a

request to escort a VIP out of refill IV and wanted to recruit a suitable

number of ships for that purpose.

Mercenaries often accepted private requests without going through the

Mercenary Guild, and in order to more reliably complete such requests,

mercenaries can opt to recruit other mercenaries affiliated with the

guild after forking out a suitable remuneration and giving the guild a

commission fee for their service. I made use of that system to increase

our fighting power by hiring reinforcements.

As a condition, the contract fee will be increased by 50% for

mercenaries who are Silver rank and below. If a pirate ship gets shot

down, the bounty money will go to the merc ship that shot it down. Any

loot recovered by them will also become theirs. Also, since we had a

mother ship, the Black Lotus, I also offered to lend the cargo hold to the

mercenaries free of charge if their own cargo spaces proved too small

to store all the loot they would manage to recover.

"But they're just a rag-tag mishmash of different mercenaries in the

end, right? So those Crimson Lance guys or somethin'…Ya sure the

mercs we'll hire will be able to keep up with them, Boss?"

"That depends on how many we'll be able to hire, but I guess it's a

pretty tall order."

"So it's no good then."

The Crimson Lance was a Gold rank mercenary fleet, and they've been

active as a fleet for quite a while, so they should have polished up their

coordination in combat to a considerable degree. Even if we

supplemented our strength with Silver rank mercenaries or lower, it's

honestly doubtful if we can actually win by taking them head-on.

Though there's also the possibility of overwhelming them with

numbers depending on how many mercs we'll be able to hire.

"It's not like we absolutely have to beat them head-on in this situation.

Isn't that right, Hiro-sama?"

"That's right. As expected of Mimi. You have a good handle on things."

"Ehehe."

Mimi smiled cutely after hearing my compliment. She has already

gotten quite accustomed to my style as a mercenary. She's most likely

been thinking about a lot of stuff since first hearing about the request I

submitted to the Mercenary Guild.

"What do you guys mean by that?"

"Um, our win condition this time is to use the gateway to shake off

Crimson Lance. In order to do that, we don't have to go head to head

and beat Crimson Lance. It would be enough if we can make Crimson

Lance hesitate to pick a fight with us."

"Hmm-?"

Tina tilted her head in confusion after hearing Mimi's explanation. It

looks like she couldn't reconcile the info of us being unable to win in a

head-to-head clash against Crimson Lance despite hiring mercenary

reinforcements and them hesitating to actually fight with us in the first

place.

"Ah, I got it. Even if they do beat us, it's still technically gonna be a big

loss for them if their ships suffer damage in the battle. And if even one

mercenary we hired ends up escaping and reporting their attack to the

Mercenary Guild and the system garrison, it would spell the end for

Crimson Lance as a mercenary fleet."

"Yep, that's absolutely correct."

"Oh...? I see?"

It looks like Mimi's explanation clicked for Whisker. But it seems Tina

still wasn't clear about everything yet.

Well, it's exactly as Whisker said. Even if we're inferior in overall

combat strength, if even one of us makes it out to report to the

Mercenary Guild and the system garrison, Crimson Lance would

essentially be over. Their captain's status as a Gold rank mercenary will

be stripped from her, and they will become prime targets for other

mercenaries, local star system forces, and the imperial military as a

whole.

The Mercenary Guild especially loathes people under their wing

targeting their fellow members. In addition to the prize money from the

empire, a large bounty is also offered by the Mercenary Guild for the

necks of former mercenaries who've gone rogue. Back when I was still

playing SOL, one of my biggest money-making methods was hunting

down big bounty targets for loads of Enels. Ever since I got sent to this

place, I only checked them out but never actively pursued them yet. It's

because doing so was pretty dangerous.

Most of the big bounty targets were former mercenaries and exmilitary. Their ships were powerful and were a cut several levels above

your average pirate ship. Of course, that means many of the parts they

had equipped on their ships were high-quality and powerful as well, so

they were also pretty valuable. But that also meant their equipment and

weapons were on par with most players, or if you were unlucky, even

better. So hunting them down was really dangerous. They also had a

knack for running away when the odds turned against them.

Of course, if players keep doing shady stuff in-game, they'd also get

branded as bounty targets. If you accidentally sink an NPC or a neutral

player's ship, you'd usually just be asked to pay some compensation,

but if you double down on it and perform repeated assaults, you'd find

yourself on the bounty list pretty quickly. People called it cringy stuff

like "falling to darkness". There are people who prefer that style of play.

Of course, that would lead to them not being able to access stations.

They would be fired upon by the station's powerful defense net if they

attempted to approach one with a bounty on their heads, and they

would get hunted down by the system garrison, military forces, and

other players. But even so, there were still masochistic players who got

off from getting hunted down from all sides.

"That's how it is. I'm trying to overcome the situation with the help of

our courageous mercenary friends. There's no need to fight with the

enemy head-on with our own strength."

"I see... But isn't that kinda underhanded Boss?"

"Tina."

"What?"

"The one who survives, in the end, will be the winner. Dying for honor

and pride is just plain stupid."

"That's true, I guess. But isn't what you did basically lyin' to the

Mercenary Guild?"

"Lying?"

"Yeah. The part about escortin' a VIP outta Refill IV."

Tina tilted her head again, but I just grinned in response.

"What are you saying, Tina? Isn't there a genuine daughter of a noble

family right next to me? I didn't lie, see?"

"...Uh, I guess you technically didn't lie, yeah."

Tina rolled her eyes at me for some reason, but I didn't mind it one bit.

Yep. Not one bit. Everything's fine as long as we win in the end.