Chapter 57: Morning of Departure

“Uh……”

“You got too carried away and drank too much, idiot.”

It’s been an hour since I shoved Major Serena inside the med pod. Our poor elf princess, who got carried away and opened one bottle another, ended up dead drunk and passed out in the end.

I just like what I did an hour ago, I carried the passed out Elma to the medical bay. It’s been an hour already, so I guess the alcohol has already been taken out of Major Serena’s system. I planned to wake the major up and place Elma inside the med pod.

When I came inside the med bay, I saw Major Serena sleeping peacefully within the med pod. The vital check came out clean, so I operated the med pod in order to wake Major Serena up. After a short while, Major Serena finally started regaining consciousness.

After a bit, she started looking around the room in mild confusion until she finally fully opened her eyes, which displayed some mild surprise. She hurriedly got up–

“–!?”

With a thud, she ended up hitting the transparent glass-like cover of the med pod and became all teary-eyed. My dear major, you’re still acting like a ditz even if you’re no longer under the influence of alcohol huh. Are you really a major?

I operated the console and opened up the med pod’s hatch. The hatch can also be opened from inside without my intervention, but I bet our ditzy major would have some trouble even with that.

“Anyway, can you get up first? I’m gonna put her in next.”

“O-Okay……”

Major Serena got up from the med pod while massaging her forehead. I then put Elma inside next, operated the console again, and closed the hatch once more.

“Um……?”

“Major had one too many drinks and ended up venting all her frustrations from work to me, then completely passed out afterward. While presumptuous, I took the liberty to put you inside the med pod in order to relieve you of the alcohol from your system. I hope you took no offense ma’am.”

“……”

Major Serena’s face turned bright red and awkwardly averted her gaze from mine. Well, of course she’d feel awkward. She something like barging in on a person’s private ship just to have an outlet to vent her frustrations after all. She then drank alcohol like crazy, acted like an unreasonable drunk, and had to be shoved inside the med pod in the end. Anybody with even a modicum of common sense would feel shame from these kinds of actions at least.

“U-Um, I’m sorry.”

“Nah, it’s fine. One really needs to let out all the stress that’s built up like this sometimes. It seems you’ve piled up quite a lot after all.”

“Uu……”

Major Serena hid her blushing face with both hands. Looks like I really hit the nail on the head.

“And this is the second time this happened anyway.”

“Uguu……!”

It was just a repeat of what happened last time.

“I suggest bringing some medical nanomachines that would help out with drunkenness the next time you go out for some alcohol ma’am. Or rather, don’t you think you’re just too damn defenseless? I mean, not only did you board the ship of a male merc like me. You also drank like there was no tomorrow and even ended up passing out. Be more mindful, alright. You’re a noble lady after all.”

I’m sure there are more than one or two methods to manipulate one’s consciousness in a technologically advanced society like this. If they only wanted to remove a person’s ability to move freely, they also had the option to resort to more ‘primitive’ things like cutting up the limbs and such. And there’s also the method of taking Major Serena to god-knows-where while she’s passed out as well.

It would have been totally possible to do a thing like selling off Major Serena to the guys from the Vereverem Federation if I ever had the mind to. Major Serena was a young and beautiful noblewoman with a nice pedigree after all. I bet there are guys who would pay any price to procure such a fine specimen in order to do whatever they liked to her out there.

“I’ll reflect on my actions.”

Major Serena shriveled up and got a bit dispirited. Cute– No, no! Don’t get fooled! Just who was the person in front of me? Major Serena. A completely sober Major Serena. Is there really any chance such a Major Serena would feel down after hearing my lecture? Well, I guess there is. But it might not be the case as well. I still have my doubts.

“Well, since you say you’re reflecting, I won’t lecture you any further. I’m not a guy who’s in any position to scold someone like you anyway.”

I picked up Major Serena’s sword I propped up on the wall earlier and gave it back to her.

“I guess it’s time for you to go back to your own ship already. You’d get in trouble if any strange rumors about this got spread around, right? Actually, me too.”

“Y-You’re right. Exactly.”

Major Serena received the sword and slowly got up.

What about Mimi? She woke up in the middle of my drinking session with Elma and was now busy tidying up the dining room. In the end, it was the youngest of the girls, Mimi, who had the most self-control among the three.

I opened the main hatch of the ship and assisted Major Serena down the ramp. Major Serena turned back toward me in the middle of the steps.

“Will I ever see you again?”

“I’m sure you’ll get to meet us again if you continue hunting pirates. Those guys are one of our main sources of income after all. And you also owe me, remember?”

If you think about it like that, I was like a predator who thrives in devouring the flesh and blood of pirates in order to live. Yeah, it’s an apt description, in a sense. But I’d like to think I’m a bit more decent of a person than that. There’s no real pirate worth pitying after all.

“I see…… You’re right. I’ll be seeing you then.”

“Yeah. Later, major.”

Major Serena flashed me a pretty smile one last time and turned away. After seeing her off, I returned inside the Krishna and let out a sigh.

“I’ll be seeing you, huh.”

It’s unfair for you to say a thing like that with those abandoned puppy eyes, lady. What the heck should I do? I really feel someone like Major Serena is a little bit too much for someone like me.

Well, I guess we’ll still get to meet up if there really was some sort of connection between us. I better just turn my attention to our departure tomorrow instead.

Then came the next day.

The actual reserve supplies used up during yesterday’s drinking party was fairly little (the alcohol was Elma’s and the food was Mimi’s), so we could launch anytime.

Since the girls were drunk from alcohol last night, we didn’t have the chance to do some nightly activities, so I just did some training first thing in the morning, took a bath, and did a bit of info gathering while sipping some warm coffee.

The info I searched for was not about the resort planet we were going to go next or the things to look out for while traveling there. It was about the bioterrorism incident that occurred a few days ago.

The cause of that incident has finally come to light.

Those pale white monsters were, as expected, variants of the ones we saw being bred at the cultured meat factory. The auto-apoptosis feature that was a security measure in case a specimen ever escaped from a meat plant was removed via genetic manipulation, and their aggressive instincts were instead enhanced to dangerous levels.

It seems a certain organization has already claimed responsibility for causing the bioterrorism incident this time, and the imperial government has already given an order to the military for the organization’s extermination.

The name of the terrorist organization was the Artificial Life Protection Association.

They were a group that was dedicated to protecting the rights and promoting the release of artificial life forms born and bred for the people’s convenience. So they were like the futuristic extremist version of conservationists or animal rights groups huh? They sound like a group I didn’t ever want to get mixed up with.

“Good morning, Hiro-sama.”

“Morning.”

Mimi and Elma entered the dining room just after I finished reading the article.

“Morning, you two. Let’s have breakfast and prepare to head out.”

“I hope there are no more interruptions this time.”

“Um, doing it two times in a row should be unlikely, even for someone like Major Serena…”

Mimi replied to Elma’s statement while sporting a wry grin. I’m sure Mimi has already classified Major Serena as『that type』inside her heart. You know. That type. A troublemaker, I mean.

“Well, I guess it’ll be fine. But let’s depart straight away, just in case. Being delayed for a day or two is already too much.”

I’m sure it’ll cost us quite a bit once we got to our destination, but we have a budget of over 17 mil, so we still have a fair bit of leeway available. That’s a whopping 1.7 billion if forcibly converted into Yen after all.

“Anyway, let’s eat up first. I wonder what today’s daily specials are?”

“I’m famished, so I want something that’s a little on the heavy side today.”

“I’m fine with something light. I don’t have much of an appetite during mornings anyway.”

We made a lively fuss as we started to order our meals from the auto-cooker.

We’re going to a new place later on. But first, we spent our morning doing our usual routine as always.