Chapter 141: New Destination

Someone suddenly shook me awake.

I was right in the middle of sleep and wakefulness when I heard a lively voice and a somewhat timid voice calling out to me. When I opened my eyelids with great effort, what appeared before me were the faces of a red-haired girl who looked like she was enjoying herself quite a bit, and a blue-haired girl who was desperately trying to stop her antics.

It looks like the girls noticed that I was already awake, and their identical faces peered up at me with doe eyes. Their uncannily similar looks pointed to the fact that they were actually twin sisters.

Uh, what’s going on anyway……?

“We’ll be reaching our destination soon, boss.”

“Um, we were told to wake you up, big brother.”

I see. I remember now.

The name of the red-head who was speaking in Kansai dialect was Tina. The name of the blue-haired, more timid-looking one was Whisker. They were the engineer sisters who have recently boarded my ship.

“……Morning, you two.”

“G’morning, sleepyhead boss.”

“Good morning, big brother.”

“What’s with you, boss? Did you not recognize us right away back there? How heartless–”

“Uh, it’s not like we spent that much time together already y’know.”

“Ugh. I guess. We’ll be together from now on though.”

I was walking down one of the aisles of my spaceship while being sandwiched by the engineer sisters, whose heights only went up to my chest. This spaceship is mine; the Skizbrazunil-class mothership Black Lotus. It has two fully functioning hangars that can accommodate two small starships and has a cargo capacity of 180 tons. My favorite ship and dependable partner, Krishna, was currently parked inside one of the hangars. If needed, it can valiantly be deployed from the mothership and engage enemies or perform missions as required by the situation.

“Don’t you think this girl is far too straight-laced for her own good sometimes, boss?”

“Yeah. It’s kinda unexpected actually. She sometimes just freezes up and gets all silent when she gets embarrassed.”

“I’m just trying to act with proper modesty, okay!”

Whisker’s face turned red as she raised her voice in protest after being teased by Tina and me. Hahaha, how cute.

They really were quite short. Yep, they were really lacking in the height department. But there’s a good reason for that. Both of them are actually dwarves, not humans. Yep. Dwarves. It’s the race that’s probably ranked number two when it comes to the frequency of appearances in fantasy works.

They were strong, had tougher bodies than normal humans, and were quite adept with their hands. But aren’t dwarves fantasy creatures that were great blacksmiths and lived underground, you ask? And weren’t dwarven females burly and bearded like their male counterparts? No, no, no, folks. That may be true for some previous works, but there’s been an increasing trend of cute loli dwarves appearing in recent media as well.

The type of dwarves that live in this dimension is the latter, and these two girls, who look underage at first glance, are actually full-fledged adults. The age of these two, whose heights only go up to below my chest, was actually 27 years old. They were the same age as me.

“So boss, just when are you plannin to lay yer hands on me?”

“Eh…… No, no, that’s impossible y’know?”

After saying so, I moved my gaze toward Tina’s stomach. Even if I did have the intention to do those kinds of things to her, wouldn’t that be physically impossible? She was pretty small after all.

“It’s fine. I’m a dwarf y’know. I’m pretty tough.”

“Seriously……?”

“That’s how it is. So why don’t ya just go ahead and do it, boss?”

“Certainly.”

Uh, I already had a track record for those kinds of things after all.

“I’m not saying I’m not interested at all, but it’s not like doing that with you is absolutely necessary, right? Even if you did board my ship, that doesn’t automatically mean you guys are now my women and have to serve me.”

There seems to be a lot of peculiar customs in this dimension I’ve been transported to, y’see. Among them, there’s a custom that a woman who boards a guy’s private starship will be considered that guy’s woman.

Before the development of interstellar navigation tech to what it is now, it took quite a long time to travel between different star systems and sectors in the early days of the true space age. There was a time when traveling between different star systems took up to a whole year. Due to those circumstances, there were plenty of incidents of something happening between men and women stuck inside the same ship for days on end while space traveling… so it developed into the custom we’re all familiar with now.

In other words, if a guy offers for a girl to board his own ship, that’s the same as saying『Become my woman!』to her. And if a girl offers to board a guy’s ship instead, it means that she was willing to enter into that sort of relationship with the guy.

And it just so happens that I’m the sole owner of both Krishna and Black Lotus. And since Tina and Whisker have agreed to board my ship, in the eyes of this dimension’s society, they are already considered my mistresses even though I haven’t laid my hands on them at all.

“You were ordered to accompany us by your company after all. So it’s not like that counts, right?”

They did agree to board my ship, but it wasn’t actually of their own volition entirely, but instead had a large part to do with the company they were working for, which was called Space Dwerg Co. Ltd. In other words, they weren’t directly working for me, but for the Space Dwerg Company that sold me the Black Lotus instead. They were sent to me in order to perform maintenance on this new edition of the Skizbrazunil line and obtain necessary data for the company.

“It’s not like that at all. We were specifically chosen to be assigned to this ship by Space Dwerg for a reason y’know.”

“Are you really fine with that……?”

“I don’t hate it, okay. Or do you really not like me, boss?”

“You’re coming on to me straight, aren’t you?”

Am I really averse to entering that sort of relationship with the two of them? Honestly, I’m not. I have a policy of eating what’s offered to me. But I find the idea of using their position as a means to lay my hands on them distasteful.

“Well, let’s just talk about this next time, okay? If you want to be with me from the bottom of your heart and not just due to some sense of duty or your job, it’s not like I won’t consider it.”

“I see. It would just be a matter of timing then, huh.”

“That’s right. But you first need to set a proper mood, sis.”

“That’s a bit of a tall order for– Whisker?”

I and Tina simultaneously turned toward Whisker and found her face red as an apple.

“It looks like you got to her good this time, big sis.”

“You really are straight-laced, aren’t you, Whisker?”

“I-I-I’m not straight-laced!”

“Ow, ow. Easy there, girl. Easy.”

The red-faced Whisker forcibly tore her hand from my grasp and started hitting me with her tiny fists. Even if they were tiny, she was still a dwarf, so they actually hurt more than they looked. Please stop.

I continued to pacify the red-faced Whisker as we headed toward Black Lotus’ cockpit.

As I entered the cockpit of the Black Lotus while pulling Tina and Whisker, I found three other women waiting for us there. No, it’s not like they were specifically waiting for me. They were just doing their usual jobs.

“Hiro-sama, we’ll be arriving soon.”

It was Mimi who smiled and greeted me as soon as we entered the cockpit. She was the first to join my crew and was just your regular lass who lived in a colony a while back. She was a really beautiful young girl with a bodacious chest, and she now works as an operator for my ship. I also recently gave her full responsibility regarding the trading of goods and selling off our loot. She was also the first case of me being served a taste of the weird customs of this dimension.

“You probably couldn’t get much sleep, right? You can go back to sleep once you finish your tasks as captain, okay.”

The next one to address me was a beautiful girl with silver hair and long ears. Her name was Elma. She’s a veteran mercenary, and also an elf. Due to an accident that happened, she ended up joining as a member of my crew as well.

That’s right folks. An elf. It’s a major race that is one of the absolute staples of fantasy works. The race with beautiful men and women with long ears that were often highly attuned to magic and nature.

So what were elves and dwarves doing in this clearly SF dimension filled with flying starships, laser artillery, and electromagnetic cannons, you ask? Truth is, I have no idea myself. But it’s what it is. And she doesn’t really use it all that often (if at all), but she actually can use magic, or so I’m told.

“Master, we will warp out to normal space in approximately 15 minutes.”

The last to call out was a tall maid with long, jet black hair that stretched to her waist and sported a stern look. Her name was May. She looked like a human, but she had various un-human aspects such as mechanical headphone-like ‘ears’. She was actually a female android. To be more specific, she was a maidroid who was manufactured first and foremost to serve as a maid to her master.

She’s in possession of an ultra-high-performance positron electronic brain and a highly evolved artificial intelligence. Although an android, she was actually recognized as an official citizen of the empire we are currently in and is guaranteed a certain extent of ‘human’ rights. There’s quite a complicated history regarding the position of independent AI in the empire, but anyway, I ended up purchasing her, and now, she was also part of the crew.

When I designed her, I made liberal use of the best and most high-end parts and materials without caring about the price, so her specs were far beyond the norm for maidroids. Frankly speaking, she’d probably beat the ever-loving crap out of me even if I wore power armor. That’s how strong she was. She’s arguably the strongest ‘person’ in this ship by far.

“Should I, Mimi, and Elma go on stand-by inside Krishna just in case?”

“Yes, that would probably be a good idea. Though we’re going to a place with a large imperial military presence, so I don’t think we’ll encounter much danger right off the bat.”

After saying so, Elma stood up from her seat. Mimi followed after her. May didn’t get up as she would be piloting the Black Lotus instead.

“So how was it? Black Lotus, I mean.”

“We just got our feet wet, so I still don’t have much of an impression. But I think you’ll actually have the most trouble with it, Hiro.”

“Yes, that’s right. I’m only in charge of the radar and sensors so it isn’t much different from Krishna, but it would be a different story when it comes to piloting it, right?”

“Well, I guess. I’ll leave this place to you then, May.”

“Yes, please leave it all to me.”

We left May to take charge and went over to the hangar where Krishna was parked. Tina and Whisker also followed after us since their room was located near the hangar.

“I don’t think we’ll have much opportunity to pilot this ship, but it’s better to get some practice in, just in case.”

“That’s right. There may be a situation where May wouldn’t be able to pilot Black Lotus after all.”

Basically, all the controls and systems of Black Lotus were left for May to handle. She’s a powerful maidroid with an advanced AI, but just like Elma said, we might encounter a situation where May would be left incapable of piloting the ship. So it would be best if I used a cockpit simulator to train to pilot it in my spare time once we got to our target destination.

“The front line base for battling and defending against the crystal lifeforms huh…… We’d better be careful.”

“Right. It’s better to be safe than sorry. I don’t wanna let my guard down and end up being absorbed by those monsters after all.”

The Izrooks star system, where we will be warping out soon, was at the forefront of the empire’s battle against the alien crystal lifeforms. The crystal lifeforms are quite troublesome creatures(?), and it seems that the imperial military was having a tough time with them. They weren’t all that strong individually, but they came at you in massive swarms, and if a ship’s shields were broken through, they’d pierce the hull and pose an extreme danger to the crew.

“They’re really creepy.”

“We’ll be fine, right, big brother?”

“It’s okay. There’s no need to worry with Hiro-sama here. After all, we did make use of a swarm of crystal lifeforms to achieve victory over a Vereverem Federation fleet and raised major achievements some time ago.”

“What the heck? That’s scary!”

Oh, right. There was that one time, huh. I used the Singing Crystal we looted in order to summon a swarm of angry crystal lifeforms in the middle of the Federation fleet. It was quite a disaster for that fleet.

“They don’t possess an ability similar in effect to interdictors, so we’ll be fine as long as we’re navigating via FTL Drive. And as long as the outpost we’re going to isn’t attacked en masse, there would be no need for us to stick our noses in any way.”

“Ugh. When Hiro says something like that, I somehow have a bad feeling that the military outpost would really end up getting attacked……”

“Don’t jinx it, you!”

“There’s also the time when he took the Krishna out for testing……”

“This is bad.”

Now that’s just cruel, everyone. There’s no way that would happen, right? And even if it did, we’re heading to an imperial military outpost, so they should be able to deal with it. I mean, c’mon.