I’m going with a big ship big gun doctrine! Take aim at a slow life! ~I was thrown out into space, but I took over a spaceship by coincidence, so I’ll work as a mercenary while playing with the dirt.~ – Chapter 5 – Payday!

Hyperspace is a stranger thing than I thought. It’s dark purple, but sometimes we go through rings of mushrooms, and fields of flowers run beside us. Maybe I’m just tired… Then I see a person with small wings waving, and wave back.

“The fields of flowers running with us are cute~~. I like those~.”

“I thought I was seeing things because I’m exhausted after you squeezed so much from me…”

“Everyone’s like that in hyperspace for the first time~.”

My brain is bugging out. I’ve heard some things about civilization here, but my head starts to reject it when fantasy elements start being mixed in. But reality is steadily approaching.

It’s time to get out of hyperspace.

“We’re almost there, Kori.”

“Yes~.”

Kori is sitting on the co-pilot’s seat, but she really pushed herself on me. Leaving that aside, it’s time to exit my first hyperspace, and I feel like counting down.

“Five, four, three…”

“You don’t have to count~.”

“I do for me! Ah! We’re out!”

“Zero~~~~!”

Without any fanfare or even a big loud noise, we’re back among the stars. And in front of us is a big gray structure in the shape of a diamond. There’s a light blinking in the middle, and I get nothing but a bad feeling from it.

She says it’s a colony, but I don’t get it. Is it secure with gravity magic?

“It’s huge…”

“I heard it’s tens of kilometers~. And that blinking light is the space port, so go there~. Request to dock~.”

“Got it. Let’s try to not cause an accident.”

I go straight ahead at cruise speed, and it takes me longer than I thought, even though I’m going at two hundred meters per second. Also, my cockpit shutter is filled with images of the colony. In the middle there’s a hole with tens of ships coming and going. It’s like a beehive.

“Request to dock… Okay, it won’t let me.”

“I told you, the deposit is five hundred puni~. I’ll do it~.”

I’m a freeloader with no money. But this puni electronic currency is incredible. There are many things in this galaxy, from single planets to countries that rule over hundreds of stars. That should cause a problem in terms of currency. Would closed economic blocs make sense? Is what some people thought, but others disagreed, and tried to use hyperdrives to trade.

And so, after some twists and turns and some evaporated stars, artificial life forms called machine intelligence pushed for a common currency. The electronic P.U.N.I, Planet Unified Network Interchange.

The value of this currency is guaranteed in many countries and people who live outside of planets, and its safety is guaranteed by an organization run by machine intelligence, the Galaxy Credit Union Alliance. Since it has branches on every planet with intelligent life, you can use it virtually everywhere.

Even space pirates use it.

Spearheading this union are the Mining Guild, Mercenary Guild, Agriculture Guild, among other sub organizations. This space colony where Kori lives, Zadar, doesn’t have an Adventurer Guild, so I’m going to register in the Mercenary Guild, get ID, and open an account in the credit union.

The history of the credit union is the same as this sector of space’s. It’s existed for eight thousand nine hundred sixty-three years, and today is the thirtieth day of the sixth month of the year eight thousand nine hundred sixty-three. And each year has three hundred sixty days.

I was told all of this in an area to nap in a corner of the cockpit. It was like binaural learning ASMR. And today’s trivia is that Kori can create two mouths and talk with both at the same time.

“We have permission to dock~. Let it park itself~.”

“I know, get ready to head to the colony.”

Zadar, a colony with a large population. A few kilometers suddenly open vertically. This way, even a ship as big as Herald of Autumn can enter. Normally, even ships that aren’t quite as big would have to park outside.

We enter the colony, and see old apothecary medicine chests on either side, or shutters lined up vertically and horizontally like drawer units in an office. These shutters are very big, fifty meters tall and wide, and they’re for military ships that are no larger than a corvette.

The AI of Tortilla Double follows the colony’s instructions to go towards a shutter, which opens automatically. It really is a fifty meter cube.

The ship stops, and there’s a mechanism for people to get off the ship and go to the colony through moving paths, escalators, or trams.

Apparently having all these big shutters lined up is normal in other colonies too.

▽▽▽

I’m wearing plain brown pants, a black polo shirt, and a navy blue jacket, with my laser pistol in a shoulder holster as I enter the colony.

I was wondering what to do about clothes, but Kori got them for me with the alchemist crafter. Turns out that’s not just a machine to make missiles… I was shocked when she told me.

“That’s a magic workbench to extract, synthesize, and create~. It’d be nice if we had more proper clothes recipes, but…”

“We don’t, so it’s okay. I’m sure we can buy them in this colony. Lead the way.”

“You need to set up an account and get money first~~.”

After exiting the dock, we see a five meter wide moving walkway with stalls and stands on both sides. I smell different kinds of food and almost stop, but Kori pulls me by the arm and I follow her.

But I can’t quite let go, and keep looking. I see a meaty skewer costs twenty puni, and a can of what I assume is three hundred fifty milliliters of beer costs three.

So what’s the exchange of puni to yen… If we’re using beer as a base, then one puni should cost anywhere between a hundred to two hundred yen. That would put the safety deposit of five hundred puni at fifty thousand yen. Wasn’t that also the landing fee at the Haneda Airport? I guess it’s cheap if I put it like that.

But if I’m using beer as a standard, isn’t meat expensive? Or if I use the meat instead, isn’t the beer way too cheap? And the other stalls… My arm is being pulled again.

“You’re penniless~.”

“Yes.”

“Bumpkins who act like that attract weird attention~. And shooting the laser pistol is a pain, right~?”

“Yep.”

Kori turns my jacket up to purposefully show off the laser pistol. I get the feeling she’s no stranger to fighting.

Apparently anyone can carry a weapon in this colony, but there’s a penalty if you shoot it without a good reason. It feels unsafe, but maybe the idea of shooting back if someone shoots isn’t bad. It’s not good either.

After walking, looking around, and getting poked multiple times, we finally reach the Mercenary Guild.

It’s a five story building that looks like a town hall or something. There’s no extravagance to it, just a hanging banner with this month’s motto. It’s ‘Let’s work while observing our rules, manners, and laser guns.’

It’s pretty big inside. There are benches to the left and right near the entrance, and I see people that look like mercenaries talking. I see one with elf ears, one with the lower body of a horse and the upper body of a human, an old beardy man that’s about a hundred thirty centimeters tall and built like a barrel, a big praying mantis… All sorts of people.

I try not to look too much, and head straight to the reception desk. There’s almost no one near it, and a man with half his face covered in metal quickly tends to me.

“Your business?”

“New registration.”

“At that age?”

“He has his reasons~.”

Kori, please be quiet for a bit.

“Oh, is she your mom?”

“Well, my guardian. Please just register me.”

The guy snorts and comes out. He tells me to follow him, and I do, walking past partitioning screens until we reach a place that looks like it’s used for briefing sessions. The old guy sits at the back, and prompts us to sit too. Good thing there are two seats.

“Where are you from?”

“A country called Japan on Earth. It’s probably a primitive planet from your point of view. Maybe you call it Terra or Chikyu.”

“Earth, Japan, Terra, Chikyu… Nothing. How did you get here?”

“I was drinking alcohol in Japan, when all of a sudden I was in a cold sleep capsule in space. Is this common?”

“Of course not, idiot.”

“It’s common for people to be kidnapped from primitive planets~.”

The guy says it doesn’t happen that often, and scratches his head while handing me a tablet PC. I think it’s showing a resume.

“I figure you don’t have much to write, but write what you can. Did you get here by station connected shuttle bus?”

“Nope~. The spaceship Genma picked up is in dock five of thirty-one!”

“Ah? That number means it’s pretty big. Did you get it wrong? Wait, picked up!?”

“She’s right.”

The guy does something on his tablet, and I start filling this one too. But it’s asking for things used in the Galactic Credit Union Alliance like place of birth, age, name, a copy of my ID from where I came from if available, previous occupation, and qualifications applicable to the union. I can only fill my name and age.

“Ship ID… Tch, there’s already one. It’s pretty old, and it helps that there’s a decommission request. Other than that, no problems, I’ll make the request. There’s no reason to deny it. And the camera… Ah!? Hey, what is this!? What did you do!?”

“Eh?”

“Amazing right~~~~~~~~?”

The guy screams for some reason, and Kori brags. Then he shows me the tablet, and it’s footage of the destroyed Herald of Autumn.

“When did you get…”

“The ship camera. Everyone affiliated with the Galactic Credit union Alliance from public officials to sub organizations has limited rights to access the memory of external cameras of ships. Ah, and purposeful destruction or concealment of a ship camera’s memory device is a serious crime and will affect your payment from the guild, so make sure to service it every time you dock. But seriously…”

The guy is rattled. I hope people outside can’t hear…

“Ah, this reception office has a magic device that prevents our voices from being heard outside. Say all you want.”

“Then why was such a big target moving around freely? It has to draw attention, so why didn’t the army take it down?”

“They’re space people who wreck havoc in the neighboring star system. We don’t know why they were here. And this star system only has one prized destroyer guarding the homeworld, and colonies have a few corvettes, so what are we supposed to do? We have a few mercenaries working, but not a big group.”

Union destroyers are typically between two hundred meters and five hundred long. Corvettes are between fifty and a hundred, was what I heard from Kori’s ASMR.

With that in mind, it was as big as a destroyer and had a pretty tough shield, even if I broke the shield with my main cannon that’s normally loaded on destroyers. It had a lot of missiles too, so I can see the army and mercenaries having trouble with it.

“The reward for the first five ships is two thousand five hundred puni, and the reward for taking down the Herald of Autumn is three million. Hold on, I’ll create an account and ID for you. Actually, I don’t think you have an information terminal either. Hey, laffloty, I’m sure you already decided what model you want, so tell me and I’ll bring it.”

My rough conversion puts it at three hundred million yen. I think I’m gonna pass out.

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