Excuses and Penthouse

For the time being, I asked Kugi-chan where she was currently staying,

or rather, whether or not she'd already booked a room at an inn or

something.

"There is an embassy of the Holy Vuelzarus Empire in this colony, so

I've arranged for a stay there."

"A stay huh… Since when?"

"I only managed to arrive at this colony yesterday."

Kugi-chan cheerfully answered my questions with her tails cutely

swaying back and forth. I see. Yesterday huh. So that would mean we

managed to arrive at this colony practically at the same time, and then

this girl actually managed to find me relatively quickly afterward, right?

Just in case, I signaled to Mei so she'd perform a quick check. Was it

really so easy and simple to perform a background check, you ask? Well,

us mercenaries have our means. Since it was part of a mercenary's job

to track down and hunt criminals (mostly pirates) active in various star

systems, we're able to obtain stuff like personal files and security

information such as colony entry and exit records as long as we

followed the proper procedures set by the Mercenary Guild.

"I see… So what are you planning on doing now? Will you be staying

with us after this?"

"If it isn't of any trouble to you My Lord, I would really like to be by your

side from now on."

"If that's what you want, then you'd better bring your luggage over.

We'll need to go through the procedures so you can check in with us."

The room we were staying at wasn't exactly comparable to a

presidential suite, but I think it more than qualified as a pretty

luxurious penthouse. We rented a room on the top floor, so adding one

more guest to the list shouldn't be too much trouble. It should be fine

after handing the hotel receptionist some extra fees. Probably.

"Thank you very much, My Lord! Then I shall depart now and prepare

to move posthaste."

"Sure. Go and accompany her as an escort, Mei."

"Understood."

Mei nodded promptly and followed after Kugi-chan. With this, I think

I've arranged everything that can be arranged for now.

"…"

"Jii–…"

Elma was dead silent, and Mimi was staring at me hard with a

reproachful gaze. Both of them seemed to not like Kugi-chan very much.

Man, what a headache. Well, I suppose all I can do right now is perform

the appropriate follow-through. You can do this, me.

"Let me say this first, guys; it's not like I believe in the words of that girl

a hundred percent. To be honest, I still suspect about 70 or 80% of her

story is just BS."

"Reaaally? And here I'd thought you'd be totally fine with accepting

Kugi-chan cause she's cute."

"Fine, I'd be lying if I said that isn't the case. At least part of it is. I mean,

hearing stuff like 'being disposed of' just rubs me the wrong way

y'know."

"I suppose. Even so, I think it was a bit underhanded of her."

I smiled bitterly and nodded in response to Whisker's words. Was she

really so easily overcome with emotion, or was that girl just really good

at acting the part?

"…So what about the remaining 20 to 30%, Hiro-sama?"

Mimi asked while pouting. How cute.

"There are just too many unknowns regarding the Holy Vuelzarus

Empire, right? Normally speaking, dispatching a young girl like Kugichan to search for these so-called 'visitors from the upper world'

without so much as a guarantee of even finding one doesn't really make

much sense. It's just too inefficient. But the Holy Vuelzarus Empire,

with their well-developed psionic technology, seems to be capable of

accomplishing something so unlikely. Since even someone like me

seemingly has the weird ability to somehow attract bad luck, I think it

isn't within the realm of impossibility that someone or something out

there is capable of stuff like precognition or messing with fate."

"Uh, have ya watched one too many holo-movies, Boss?"

"Maybe. And yet, maybe not. That's why I wanna go and check things

out first, guys. Things would be easy if all of this is just an elaborate

scam. Since all we have to do afterward is to throw that girl out."

I shrugged my shoulders after saying my piece. No matter how cute that

girl was, I had absolutely no intention of letting someone get close to

me with the intent of deceiving me.

"What if it's not a scam?"

"You mean if she's proven to be a hundred percent genuine priestess of

the Holy Vuelzarus Empire? If her duty is to get close to me and serve

me, then I suppose I'd have no choice but to let her…"

I gave Mimi and Elma a quick glance to check out their reactions. And

the result was… Well, that's a surprise. Instead of sulking even further,

Elma looked like she was already somewhat resigned. Mimi was still a

bit miffed, but it seemed she didn't completely reject the idea.

"You guys don't have any complaints?"

"Well, it's true that I'm here only due to that sense of compassion and

decisiveness of yours Hiro, so…"

"We really can't say anything further."

"No, I'd actually like it if you told me if you're still dissatisfied. I mean, it

would be bad if you guys let all of those bad feelings accumulate

y'know."

Relationships getting ruined due to bottled-up feelings of

dissatisfaction erupting all at once was quite a well-known story. I'd like

to learn from such cases and endeavor not to make the same mistakes if

possible.

"It's not like I don't have any complaints, but more than that, I believe in

your judgement, Hiro. We're just testing her for now, right?"

"Right. No matter what her status actually is, it's important to see

whether or not she can successfully get along with all of us. Even if first

impressions might not be so easy to overturn, I hope you guys can try to

communicate with her for the time being."

"Okay. I'll try not to overdo it and act naturally."

"Understood. What about you, Tina-san, Whisker-san…?"

"We ain't got any problems here either."

Tina waved her hand nonchalantly as she replied, and Whisker nodded

next to her. It seemed that these two didn't have any negative feelings

toward Kugi-chan from the start.

"We're just second-fiddle to Elma-neesan and Mimi anyway, right?"

"S-Second fiddle… I don't really intend to treat myself that way y'know,

Sis."

"Okay, just leave it at that, you two. Why don't we head to our room

now? We still have to unpack our things."

"Hmph…"

With that, we somehow concluded the talks in an ambiguous manner.

Well, it's true that I've already laid my hands on all of the ladies who

boarded my ships, and I had no words of gratitude enough to express

my thanks to these ladies who were always accommodating me and

going along with my whims, but… I really ought to take responsibility

somehow. I wracked my brains to come up with something as I followed

after the girls.

Before going up and heading to our room, we first informed the front

desk about the increase in the number of guests. The receptionist lady

probably scolded me inwardly for having the gall to bring in another

girl. We paid the extra fees and took the elevator to the penthouse.

"Hee, it's pretty spacious and beautiful."

Elma checked the room out in a good mood. Yeah, it was pretty spacious

alright. The furniture inside also looked quite luxurious and

comfortable. It was one level above an ordinary suite room huh. So this

was a penthouse apartment.

"I still feel a bit weird staying at places like this."

"Oh, I totally get that. What'd they call it again? Bourgeoisie?"

"Bourgeoisie… Well, I suppose I understand."

Mimi, Tina, and Whisker were all overwhelmed by the size and luxury

of the room. I actually do get where they were coming from too.

Anyway, the rate we needed to pay for such luxury was 5,000 Enels per

person for a week's stay. With the addition of Kugi-chan, we had a total

of seven people, so the final accommodation fee was 35,000 Enels.

When we stayed at the holiday resort on Sierra III, we had to fork up

560,000 Enels for a two-week stay. We only had four people back then,

so the fee per person was 70,000 Enels per week. The fee for a single

person back then was actually twice this time's total fee for all of us.

"But you gotta admit, this is way cheaper than staying at a planetary

resort."

"Well… that's true, I guess."

"Just look at these bourgeoisie, Whee. We definitely have a bunch of

bourgeois here. They're even casually sayin' somethin' about planetary

resorts an stuff."

"Well, Big Brother and the rest are mercenaries after all, so they

definitely have plenty of money to spend."

"No, aren't you guys quite rich now too?"

"…Yeah, we are, aren't we?"

"I thought I'd already forgotten all about it…"

The sisters just recently received 3.6 million Enels from the sale of the

starship we captured. They were entitled to a 30% cut of our earnings

after all. That's 1.8 million Enels per sister. It was an amount of money

that was hard to use up if one just lived a bit luxuriously. But it'll be

gone in a flash once you bought a starship though.

"What're we gonna do about taxes? Do we just treat it as a side job or

somethin'? But we were sent to Boss through a company order, so do

we treat it as job-related earnings instead?"

"I think it would be better to consult the company about it… or maybe

the tax bureau?"

Somehow, the two actually started talking about headache-inducing

stuff midway. In my case, I held first-class citizen status in the Graccan

Empire, but before that, I'm a mercenary so… Hm? Was I also obliged to

pay taxes since I'm technically a Graccan Empire citizen? I'll just ask

Mei later. A mercenary was a bit of a special profession, so I wasn't

completely sure about the particulars regarding its tax obligations. I

think the official reward money from the government gets tax deducted

automatically before it ends up in our hands, but the individual

bounties for pirates don't get taxed. However, I'm not sure if this rule

still applied once you're registered as a first-class citizen of an empire.

Tax bureaus are scary after all. I had to cover my bases properly, or else.

Mei will promptly take care of it for me if I asked anyway, so I wasn't

really all that worried.

"Alright, stop spacing out over there and unpack your stuff already

mister."

"Kay. I don't have a lot of stuff to unpack anyway."

After all, I only brought one bag. I wasn't even sure if it even was

necessary to unpack my stuff in the first place. Mimi definitely had to

unpack hers since she brought a lot of luggage, but it's not like I can

casually help her out with that. After all, they say that women had

things they definitely don't want the opposite sex to see or touch, even

if they were very close to them. Unless I was asked to help directly, I

guess I'll just watch over them for now.