A Totally Tongue Twisting Name

"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