We spend a few days repairing the tattered armor of Tortilla Double, and after getting new cockpit chairs for the two of them, the interior remodeling is pretty much done. The armament side of things is done too, and with a go sign from the two mechanics, it’s finally time to start looking for work.
Which means coming here to the Mercenary Guild.
“So I’m here looking for work, but is there anything for a guy with a questionable origin that just registered a few days ago, that will pay enough to maintain the ship?”
“As much as I’d like to yell that there aren’t, there are always standing quests for ships with hyperdrives…”
“Even though I came here with this smug attitude!?”
“So don’t come here with that attitude right off the bat!”
“I just didn’t think there’d be any.”
The old guy with half his face covered in metal sighs and starts tapping buttons on his information terminal that’s like a computer.
Today the girls went to their place with a cargo drone to finish vacating it.
“Here’s what a smug greenhorn can do.”
He says while turning the monitor to me. Watch over a sector, patrolling an area and killing any space pirates that appear. That means patrolling for twelve hours a day, and resting only in my ship and outside of patrolling hours. It pays three thousand puni a day.
If I accept, I’ll register again on-site, and if there aren’t any special circumstances, I’ll do it for five days.
This is being put out by the United Zadar Metalworking Station, the United Zadar Methane Station, and the United Zadar Scrap Processing Station. And the rendezvous point is the metal working station.
All three stations are a day away through the hyperdrive, and since workers travel between stations, it’s possible to also use it to move between them. And if there’s a distress signal from one, we can execute a short jump to respond.
“Your ship should theoretically be able to do a short jump, but can it?”
“I haven’t tried. Can I come back again?”
“I just told you it’s a standing request, just accept it on your small information device.”
“Well, I wasn’t actually expecting to accept something today…”
“Geez, I know what happened with you, but think about it a little more.”
“I really was just showing up. I just finished repairs too.”
I scratch my neck, and the metal face guy puts his hand on his forehead.
“So what happened to your mommy?”
“She’s moving out of her place here in the colony.”
“Ah… So that’s really happening, uh?”
“By the way, I have two girls, two mechanics with me, so how do people distribute money in these cases?”
“That’s one more… Well it’s your ship, so you can pay them a wage of about one percent, or settle on a fixed amount beforehand. Just so you know, the lower classes make about a thousand to fifteen hundred puni a month.”
So if we accept this job for five days, I’ll pay a hundred fifty puni, and I’ll pay for most of their daily necessities.
“Doesn’t that mean having a ship is easy money?”
“What, you didn’t know? Go visit the Mining Guild too. You can make money just flipping what you buy from the metal processing station.”
“Something that silly can’t be real.”
“Transportation is more honest work than being a mercenary.”
He’s gesturing like he wants me to clear out. I start thinking about looking for the Mining Guild, but the smartphone’s navigation tells me it’s the building next door. It’s worth checking out.
▽▽▽
After asking at the reception desk, an older employee brings out a newbie and has this newbie explain to me. It looks like I’m being used as a practice subject, so I cross my arms with a bitter expression the whole time, acting like a nasty client. But then the older employee tells me to tone it down, so I act normally.
So basically, it’s possible to make money just by flipping what I buy from the metalworking station.
To be more precise, I pay a deposit, and get an amount of the product depending on how much that was. Once I’m back at the colony, I can apply for the Mining Guild to take it, and earn five percent on top of the deposit. It seems nice to make five thousand puni if I transport a hundred thousand worth of stuff, but it feels odd… Still, I ask to be connected through the Mercenary Guild.
When I show my green ID, the veteran employee’s attitude changes, and he apologizes with a pale face. After confirming that my information is connected between the Mercenary Guild and Mining Guild, I leave.
▽▽▽
“That’s about it.”
The girls are sorting their stuff in the cargo bay of Tortilla Double, preparing to take stuff through the elevator, disposing of trash in the container sized alchemist crafter in the cargo bay, among all sorts of other things.
And that’s a lot of roombas. Ten of them. How did they end up with so many… I thought they were broken, but they’re moving.
And they’re standing vertically while cleaning, not horizontally? I watch them roll around, and Saratha laughs a bit.
“Ah, mercenaries are seen as frightening things.”
“They say only some mercenaries are ruffians~~.”
“Scary.”
“It’s because people watch documentaries about them and get the impression that in the mercenary world power is everything. For better or worse.”
“Just be yourself, darling~~! People will accept you better that way~~.”
I should make time to check out what normal mercenaries are like…
“I’m interested in that patrolling work. What do you think?”
“It’s fine~.”
“I don’t know about being on edge for twelve hours. It would be a big strain on a pilot like Genma, so we could take turns and break it off into three hours of work and two hours of resting. That way we get some time to practice operating this strange ship, and we won’t be so tense. And use your slime core more, Kori…”
That’s why I didn’t give an immediate answer. It took seven hours on the highway to get from Tokyo to Osaka, but even with a thirty minute rest every two hours, I was beat when I reached the hotel. Never having tried a short jump was just a convenient excuse.
“Well… Maybe I’ll try transportation work with the Mining Guild instead. I heard they’ve been getting less recently, so they could add an extra one percent.”
“Oh, that sounds good~! We have space expansion containers, so let’s fill’em~!”
“Five percent doesn’t sound like much, but it’s safe and reliable work.”
We have four space expansion containers on board. They’re not that tall, but they’re about the length of the cargo bay, so it’s basically four times the space. And since they have a weight reduction feature, we can fit a thousand tons in there and the ship won’t get heavier.
I heard that objects don’t actually become lighter in zero gravity, so the ship being heavier would affect acceleration…
“We should increase our armament when the ship is landed.”
“Ah… We only have laser guns. Can we buy personal shields?”
“Yes, the ones sold at the Mercenary Guild.”
She says while showing me her belt. So it’s a belt shield.
“This should stop ten shots. We shouldn’t get weapons that are too fancy, but what about a used battle drone?”
“Like that huge one?”
“That’s a military one~. Civilian types are more agile, and can be used to transport cargo too~.”
“So they’re good at more than one thing. What else should we get?”
“Ah! Alcohol!”
As we chat, I think Saratha really likes alcohol. She’s a snake…
At the station, stuff like this tends to get excluded from usual resupplies, so it’s possible to sell it to people for one point one times the price. And apparently a lot of people like alcohol in this space age, so they’re happy to see it being brought from other star systems.
This is where I decide to have a space just for it in the cargo bay.
Thanks for the treat.