Will Saratha get on my ship? Will she become wife number two? I’ve brought her in front of Tortilla Double, but if she’s going to work as a mechanic, it only makes sense for her to board it.
“Uwah, I’ve seen this before. Servant Model eight, right? I’m pretty sure this series went up to twelve.”
“If nothing else, I’ve now learned the useless info that it’s eight because it’s the eighth generation and not because someone thought eight was cool.”
If it goes up to twelve, eight must’ve come well before that…
“A model twelve of these goes for about twenty-eight million puni. A ship of this size having a large turret and a hyper drive really makes all the difference.”
“Uoh, that much…”
That’s nine times what I have. Wait, you can get it for three billion yen? Isn’t that cheap? What’s with the cost-of-living here?
“I feel like it’s cheaper than I would expect, but I’m going off the money sense in my world.”
“Well, you’re from a primitive planet. Even mining a bit of iron is tough, right? Here you can get it by smashing an asteroid with a few kilometers in diameter, and since there is a history of wars that spans tens of thousands of years, there’s plenty of scrap floating in space. There’s also the fact that our techniques to process it with machines are way different, and we can work in zero G.”
I see, I get it.
“And the most important difference is that there hasn’t been a technological breakthrough in millennia. With no novelties, people have to keep things cheap, even if they get orders from all over the galaxy.”
“Ahh… So there’s a lot of customers, but distribution is pretty different too… By the way, what are you doing, Kori? You’re pretty quiet.”
“Contacting the port authority to sell scrap~. I’m telling them to send their assessment drones~. Ah, can I make the call to sell it~?”
“I don’t know what it’s worth, so can you give me a list with the prices after you sell it? I want to check it and try to learn.”
“Yes~. I’m done, so let’s go in~!”
Yes, let’s go inside. Kori is taking the scrap piled up in the cargo bay and turning it into puni, and I’m taking Saratha to the living quarters to show her what it’s like. And so, we’re in the elevator.
Saratha has a strong build from the waist up, and her tail is pretty long. Less than ten meters, but at least eight. I was wondering if she would fit in the elevator, but she can roll up her tail.
“If you’re coming on board, maybe we should remodel the elevator.”
“No, that would be a big job. It would go beyond changing the section. And I can coil it easily, so don’t worry.”
She’s saying it’s not bad enough to be cramped. With a dinging sound, we step into the common area that’s the living quarters, and Saratha goes ‘I see’.
“It’s a military ship, so it was used by soldiers. Although I can’t say that this rugged style goes against the values of a mercenary.”
“Leaving aside whether it’s cool or not, I want at least a couch where I can lay down and sleep. I’d like a space where I can kick off my shoes and relax, but my room will do.”
“Ah, come to think of it, you also took off your shoes when entering our room.”
“Force of habit. If I don’t take them off, I’ll bring dust and dirt inside, and using indoor shoes for emergencies is also an option.”
“So you want a room to take off your shoes… I’ll need a cart inside a colony, so I’ll try to keep that in mind for the interior. What else?”
Bath, cookware, bedding, along with everything I can think of for a comfortable space. Apparently modding a bath is common, particularly for aquatic races. When I start advocating for how nice a bath is, she smiles awkwardly.
If I can have a hinoki tub at home, I will!!!!!???? With futuristic technology, there should be one that’s easy to clean and dry, and doesn’t get moldy at all!!!!!!!
“There is, calm down. But interior design is outside of my area of expertise.”
“Eh? Kori said you were an expert in armor and ship maintenance.”
“That’s not wrong, but I usually make use of this body for electrical work.”
“Ah… I see. Not having legs can be useful.”
“Along with the length of my torso. I thought this would be a great meal ticket when I decided to learn it, but this colony needs less repairs than you’d think…”
As I notice the atmosphere has gone in a weirdly real direction, I hear the chime of the elevator and see Kori come out.
“Genma~! I sold the scrap for a hundred thousand puni~!!!”
“Ah? Just the scrap?”
We retrieved a lot of scrap from Herald of Autumn, but that much? Ten million yen worth?
“What have you two been doing to have that much scrap?”
“It was a lot of it! And there were a lot of rare metals in there.”
Kori shows me the tablet PC with a summary, away from Saratha’s sight. Oh, it seems the burnt protein turned into about ten tons of fertilizer.
“I’ve seen silver, gold, and cobalt, and I’ve heard of magic silver and adamantine, even if their existence is doubtful… But I’ve never even heard of sulfenaite.”
“Eh, did you destroy a really big ship? Sulfenaite is about on par with adamantine when it comes to weight and toughness, so it’s used for stuff like stations.”
“Ah… Kori, did they transfer the money?”
“I had it sent to your account. You can check.”
They did send it. Yes, and I need to do repairs and resupplies that are more important than remodeling the interior. And as we talk, Saratha starts rolling up her sleeves.
Also, the Servant Model eight was sold sixty years ago!!!! That’s about as much as the Showa era.
I sit on a folding chair, and since there’s nothing to eat, I have some stuff delivered. We started talking about nonsense when we were talking about the ship, and got off track.
“By the way, what are you doing next, Genma~? Look for your planet~?”
“Hn… Probably not. I’ve secured enough to cover what I had there already. Actually, I might be set for life. I’m worried about my parents, my friends, and my job, but…”
“Looking for a planet that didn’t show up on search isn’t realistic.”
“I almost cried when I looked up stars, and planets and satellites in the habitable zone, and over a thousand results came up.”
“That makes sense~.”
“Yes. How about you use entertainment to search for it?”
Why? Then again, I heard a distinctive name makes it easier to search. Apparently in this space age, entertainment has spread more than a supernova explosion. And people who have a lot of free time while traveling, mainly merchants, mercenaries, and adventurers, bring their storage media to other planets and colonies.
And it seems these works have the name of their creators and companies, along with where they came from. This could work. I was thinking about casually looking around, but while I search, I hear about a manga that went over a hundred volumes, and there was one that got turned into a movie that brought in a hundred million puni.
“There’s this one that had seven volumes out and I thought was fun, but it turned out it was completed after thirty-two volumes five hundred years ago hahaha.”
I hear them talking.
When I was asked if I was going to look for Earth, I said probably not. So now I was going to be all jokey and act tough, but my vision is blurry and I can’t get the words out.
Kori is approaching me, but hold on a second.
I open the page to purchase manga digitally, and check the information on what she was talking about. Here it is. The name the alliance uses for Earth is listed as its origin.
I use that name to look up Earth, and see it’s been destroyed.
My homeworld colonized the moon and was in the process of terraforming Mars and building a few colonies, steadily advancing its technological level.
But it was destroyed long ago, when a mechanized fleet that was a step behind mechanical intelligence just happened to pass by the solar system. This mechanized fleet went crazy, and attacked humanity indiscriminately, bringing it to an end.
By the time the Galactic Credit Union Alliance’s rescue ships arrived, Earth was covered in cinders and was a pure white planet. They mined the moon for its resources and rescued a few tens of thousands that survived while working underground on Mars, the last Earthlings.
“Earth is gone. Well, in a way, that makes my decision for me.”
I figured I wasn’t going back. What I have to do hasn’t changed. I want a big ship like Herald of Autumn, and I’ll find other goals eventually. I’m a little scared of planting roots on a planet now, so maybe having a mother ship as my home isn’t too bad. And it makes me agile.
I sigh, and ask the two of them to come with me.
“Of course~~~~! Let’s get big~~~~!”
“You’re getting a bit carried away, calm down. But if I can stay on the ship, I’ll do it. And I have work to do.”
“Thanks, Kori and Saratha.”
“It’s fine. Ah, Kori, we need to check compatibility.”
“Okay~!”
“Hn? Hnn?”
Then they both have me in a lewd way. Saratha is pretty strong too.
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Thanks for the chapter.
But but but *I* wanted to watch earth burn! *sobs* Wait…maybe…there’s Millions of earths to be burned in the cultyverse! Yessssss!
He got eaten by monster girls again~
Lucky bastard~