Chapter 200: Comatt Star System

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person. I’m Space Dwerg Company Media Division Section III’s chief, Wamdo.”

“Hello. I’m Captain Hiro.”

I exchanged pleasantries with the oddly humble Wamdo and shook hands with him. Standing behind him were other dwarves who were probably members of his staff as well as humans, elves, people that resembled beastmen, lizardmen, and other species I couldn’t quite identify – though all of them were at least humanoid – and they looked like quite an eccentric mix.

“Are they the ones who are gonna do the joint interview together with you guys?”

“Yes. They are the staff of Moebius Ring, Fomalhaut Entertainment, and Nyaatoflix. Let me introduce you, sir.”

Wamdo introduced me to each of the three company’s representatives.

“I’m Allen from Moebius Ring Media Department Section II.”

“I’m Fomalhaut Entertainment Documentary Department’s Zuia.”

“And I’m Nia from Nyaatoflix, sir.”

Allen was a male elf, Zuia was a beastman-like alien with bright red body hair that could be mistaken for flames, and Nia was a dark brown-skinned woman with jaw-dropping beauty. She was beautiful to the point that she could correspond to or even exceed the APP18[1] value used on a certain TTRPG that deals with certain famous cosmic horrors with funky names. Elma was beautiful as well, but Nia’s beauty was just on another level altogether. I swore in my heart that I would try not to associate with her beyond what’s necessary. I feel a bit guilty about it, but I’ll just let Mei deal with her.

The number of staff brought by the four companies was five each, making it a total of twenty people. Well, there’s plenty of room inside Black Lotus anyway.

“Uh, I have a couple of things to tell you all before you board my ship. First, inside my ship, I’m the law. White is black if I say it is and vice versa. If, for some reason, you guys can’t accept that, then just give up boarding my ship.”

The media staff didn’t have any particular reaction to my statement and they just nodded obediently. Unlike the Space Dwerg guys who charged without any qualms back then, these guys are oddly docile and cooperative.

“Next, I’ll set a limit on the range of your activities within my ship. Specifically speaking, the crew’s private quarters and other important areas like the bridge, hangars, cargo hold, generator room and such are strictly off-limits. However, you would still be able to enter those areas as long as you guys get permission from me or my crew first.”

When I told them about imposing limits on their range of activity, they seemed to display some dissatisfaction, but when I told them it was possible to get access to restricted areas as long as they get permission first, their dissatisfaction subsided.

“Also, Whisker and Tina aren’t official members of my crew, but I treat them as official members anyway. That means they can freely move around the bridge, hangars, cargo hold, and other such areas. However, I will not allow them to lend a hand to you guys when it comes to that. I forbid you from trying to engage in any form of cooperation with them – whether direct or indirect – when it comes to your activities. If I manage to discover such an incident, I’ll stuff you all inside an escape pod and launch you guys out to space, so don’t even think about it. I’m a man who follows through what I say, and I’m more than capable enough to make good on my words. I’m guessing you all managed to watch the tournament, right?”

“””Understood!”””

Everyone straightened their backs and simultaneously replied. Un, nice answer. But these guys sure are obedient huh.

“Anyway, just take note of those points and we’ll be good. Our departure is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Each company has been assigned with three cabins for a total of twelve rooms. Just decide the room allocation among yourselves. If you have any questions or requests, feel free to ask them now…… So there’s none for the time being huh? Anyway, you can come to me later on if you do happen to think of something. You can spend your day inside the ship today or you can spend it outside. However, if you miss the departure time, we’ll leave you behind, no questions asked, so pay attention.”

By the way, the total cost for their accommodations on Black Lotus will be calculated by Mei later and billed to each company directly. Well, that kind of sum is just pocket money to me anyway. It can’t even come close to the profits we gained from selling off the crystal lifeform materials.

By the way, we managed to make a clean profit of about 2 million Enels after reselling the crystal lifeform materials we bought from the army after deducting the purchase cost and other fees. And of that amount, Mimi will get a 3% bonus. That means she’ll get about 60,000 Enels. Ain’t that too little, you ask? I think so too, but it seems that’s the standard rate in this dimension. I guess that’s just how advantageous owning a personal ship is.

Countries, nobles, and large intergalactic corporations have hundreds of thousands of such ships at their disposal. That’s why they are able to earn tons of money and can afford to pay enormous sums to mercs like us. Yep.

After my briefing, each company’s staff members picked up their luggage and showed Mei their security passes from their portable terminals before boarding Black Lotus… except for one guy. Mr. Wamdo headed over to me while carrying a large luggage bag.

“What’s up?”

“It’s nothing much. I just want to convey something to you all before I board. Please note that all the staff members dispatched here today are those who specialize in dealing with nobles.”

“Hou? So that’s why they are all oddly well-behaved huh.”

“Yes, well. And let me apologize once more for the behavior of the people from our company a while back. We’re truly sorry about what happened.”

“It’s not like you’re personally at fault Mr. Wamdo, so please be at ease. Well, for what it’s worth, I accept your apology.”

“Thank you very much.”

Mr. Wamdo then bowed to me, turned his heel, hefted the luggage bag that was nearly as big as him, and lumbered away to the hatch. As I watched his departing back, I mulled over what could possibly be on their minds right now.

They were certainly more put together and well-behaved than the ones who forced their way inside the ship the last time, but maybe it’s too early to let our guards down around them. Mr. Wamdo did say they all specialized in dealing with nobles. Perhaps that not only applies to Space Dwerg, but to the folks from Moebius Ring, Fomalhaut Entertainment, and Nyaatoflix as well.

In other words, they were all guys who knew their limits and take good advantage of that to avoid acting rudely and offending nobles while still getting the material they want. It’s not like they harbor particularly malicious intentions against us, but if we’re not careful, we’d probably end up exposing anything and everything there is to expose to those guys before we even realize it. And we’re gonna be spending at least a full month with those guys. We really have to be careful huh.

“I thought this would be an easy job, but…… Sheesh.”

You really can’t tell what surprises life has in store for you huh.

Now then, let’s briefly go over details regarding our destination, the Comatt star system.

The Comatt system is a star system centered on a G-type star fairly similar to Earth’s Sun. It’s composed of multiple terrestrial planets, gas giants, and a resource-rich asteroid belt. Most of the mineral resources in the asteroid belt are fairly common. So far, no traces of rare metal deposits have been discovered, but the other mineral deposits are fairly abundant. Therefore, House Dareinwald didn’t hesitate to set up mining, refining, and trading colonies in the system in order to take advantage of said deposits.

In addition to that, both the third and fourth planet from the sun of the Comatt system were promising terrestrial planets that were suitable to be transformed into habitable planets, so they obtained permission from the empire and started terraforming them with the empire’s support. And at this time, the terraforming process for the third planet, Comatt III, has finally been completed.

“What about the fourth planet?”

“Apparently, the environment on that planet is too cold. It would take about ten years to terraform it into a planet with surface temperatures suitable for life. Terraforming sure is difficult, right, Hiro-sama?”

“It’s about completely changing the environment of an entire planet to one’s liking after all. Of course, it’s gonna take a lot of work.”

I have absolutely no technical knowledge regarding the terraforming process though. My meagre knowledge only consists of being aware that they use nanomachines to adjust the conditions until it feels just right or something. Well, actually, terraforming methods may vary depending on the initial environmental conditions of each planet.

But, in any case, I still find it hard to imagine just how grand of a scale it was to transform an uninhabitable planet to a habitable one within tens or even hundreds of years.

“As for the pirate activity in the system, it seems there have been quite a few groups that have appeared with the aim of plundering refined metals, but in the future, we may expect attacks to the immigration ships and newly put up residences. It’s also expected that there will be an increase in the frequency of attacks aimed at the trading colonies that provide supplies to the immigrants in order to steal said supplies as well as the cargo ships that ferry them around. And so, we were hired in order to help out in repelling them.”

“I might be stating the obvious, but we can’t possibly handle them on our own. That’s why Earl Dareinwald hired a large number of mercenaries apart from us through the Mercenary Guild in order to bolster the defenses of the Comatt system. It looks like a force from the imperial space navy will also be dispatched.”

“The imperial space navy huh……”

Mimi exchanged glances with me. Yeah, I know what you’re getting at. According to our experience thus far, there’s a good chance we’ll meet ‘that person’ again during this job. We’re going up against pirates after all. Our current job description fits perfectly with the modus operandi of the Independent Anti-pirate Mobile Fleet.

“It’s almost a given at this point…… Well, it’s not like it’s absolutely set in stone, but it’s highly likely. I guess it would be better to give up and just roll with it.”

“That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Mr. Wamdo and company were tilting their heads curiously at our seemingly mysterious exchange, but I have no intention of explaining anything to them. It won’t be funny if they latch onto it and blow the topic out of proportion if we explained what we’re talking about without a care after all.

“We’re the only mercenaries directly hired by Earl Dareinwald himself guys. I’m assuming they’ll work us real hard, but the harder we work, the better the pay. So let’s do this and do it well.”

“Yes!”

“Sure. Let’s earn as much as we can.”

“Alright then. We’ll be departing shortly. Our destination is a trading colony in the Comatt system. After leaving port, we’ll join up with Earl Dareinwald’s private escort fleet, use the gateway, and warp to the Neeparc system. From there, we’ll travel through the Melkitt system, Zieger system, and Uerick system until we finally arrive at the Comatt system.”

“””Aye, aye, sir!”””

Mimi, Elma, and Mei, who was standing right behind me, crisply responded, and Black Lotus with Krishna parked inside one of the hangars finally left the Grakkis Secundus colony.

Amidst all that activity, four recording devices silently filmed our every move.

Ms. Nia is from Nyaatoflix, which is intended as a parody of Netflix mixed with the first characters of the Japanese spelling of Nyarlathotep, one of the Outer Gods in H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos. Hiro feels she gives off a dangerous vibe exactly because of this association. Heck, she might be Nyar-chan herself. Did you guys notice how close Nia is to Nyar? XD