Premonition Coming True

"We finally meet 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, Wiska¹, 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 socalled 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 selfservice 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!

Notes

TL Notes:

1. 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 so it's trickier. It's also the

name of a metallurgical phenomenon that occurs in electrical devices. I

actually suspected this was where the author got the idea for the name,

but I guess I was off huh.