As we approached the meeting room, the door suddenly opened by itself, and Mei stepped out to greet us.
“Hey there, Mei. How’s it going?”
“Greetings, Master. We’ve informed them of our requirements and are currently midway through selecting candidates who meet our needs.”
“I see. Let’s deal with the tasks here first, then.”
“Yes, Master.”
If that hostility or murderousness was only targeted at me personally, there would be plenty of ways to deal with it, so I decided not to spend too long dwelling on it for now. What? There are plenty of solutions to problems. They say money can’t buy happiness, but it can definitely resolve most of the issues in your life.
“Thank you for choosing us,” a representative of the shop said. “I’m Terada of the Okamoto Trading Group.”
“Nice to meet you. But it’s these two who chose you.”
I hadn’t been at all involved in selecting which company we’d deal with, so being thanked for choosing Okamoto Trading Group felt weird. I accepted Mr. Terada’s holographic business card using my terminal, then sat down on Mei’s invitation.
Terada of Okamoto Trading Group, eh? The names on Arein Tertius are awfully similar to Japanese names. Dr. Shouko’s name sounds pretty Japanese too; so does “Inagawa Technologies.” Is there a reason for that?
“The main specialists who will actually use these facilities are Wiska over there and Dr. Shouko over here, so focus on meeting whatever requirements they have. As for budget, I’ll leave all that to Mei’s discretion.”
“Understood,” Terada said.
“Yes, Master.”
We had quite a bit of money saved up. Between what we’d earned hunting pirates during our travels, and through retainer fees from jobs like the military mission earlier, we were currently sitting on about fifty million Ener. The income from the trading Mimi conducted also amounted to a not inconsiderable sum, and then there were the earnings generated by selling loot the twins salvaged.
Uh…well, sure, what we do isn’t really all that different from the work of highwaymen. Our targets just happen to be pirates rather than ordinary people. But that distinction is important! Since we target pirates, our actions are justified! Yeah—they absolutely are!
“Having one of Shun Dimetric’s chamber scanners would definitely be useful.”
“We’re looking for a replicator that can handle larger objects…”
“I believe you’ll find this product to your liking.”
“Let’s modify the room over here like this.”
“Oh, you’ve also got one of our—that is, Inagawa Technology’s—latest medical pods, right?”
The researcher, engineer, company employee, and Maidroid had gathered around the hologram of the Black Lotus, as well as holo-displays of various catalog-like things, to discuss upgrades. Kugi and I watched as we enjoyed tea poured by the dealer’s companion gynoid, which may or may not have been a Maidroid manufactured by Orient Industries.
“This tea is quite good, my lord,” Kugi noted.
“The tea and treats are good.”
I wasn’t sure how Mei and Wiska had described us after contacting this place, but Okamoto Trading Group must’ve seen us as VIP customers. I couldn’t tell whether this tea was brewed from real, natural tea leaves, but they were very aromatic and definitely not low quality. Meanwhile, the confections they’d served us resembled rakugan; it was my first time seeing such refreshments since coming to this universe. I hadn’t been very fond of them before, but they paired pretty well with warm tea.
“Do you think Elma’s group is in any danger?”
“They should be here soon.”
Just as Kugi asked me that question, a message from Elma had arrived on my terminal. Once Mimi and the others got here, it’d be time to get to work. Hopefully these people exist and aren’t too difficult to hire…
✦ ✦ ✦
I greeted Elma and her group, who’d just arrived at the business we were visiting, Okamoto Trading Group. “It’s good to see that you’re safe.”
“Of course I am; this is an extremely safe colony,” Elma replied, sarcasm lacing her voice. “Only someone like you would run into trouble here.”
“Elma, please don’t…” She’d stabbed me right where it hurt.
“Are you all right, Master Hiro?”
In contrast, Mimi here was worrying over me. She was an angel—an absolute angel. But I could tell that Elma was concerned about me too, even if her words didn’t show it. As for Tina… After a hasty greeting, she charged over to join the group discussing the upgrades.
“I’m fine… I wasn’t actually attacked. Hopefully I’m just being paranoid,” I said, glancing at Kugi. She looked down and shook her head. Yeah. Figures. I wasn’t being a worrywart; someone actually was targeting me.
“So what’s the plan?” Elma asked. “I’m in favor of just running away with our tail between our legs.”
“Well, yeah—but shouldn’t we identify whoever’s targeting us first?” I replied.
It would be hard to make appropriate decisions without having accurately determined the level of threat we faced. If I’d only sensed some local hoodlums who had it out for me, then this was just a farce. I doubted common space pirates or hoodlums could muster that murderous energy, though.
“Have you got a plan?” Elma followed up. “This could be getting pretty dangerous.”
“I do. We can simply hire others to handle the dangerous aspects for us,” I answered, showing her and Mimi my terminal. Its screen displayed information on security companies operating on Arein Tertius.
“Oh, I see,” Elma said. “That could work, but it won’t be cheap… Can we afford it?”
“The cost shouldn’t be a problem. We can always make more money if we need to.”
This was a high-tech system, so some of the cutting-edge products here were really expensive. That meant there were lots of pirates nearby targeting those expensive products. On top of that, the people who traveled around this system tended to be relatively well-off, resulting in a lucrative business for kidnappers. All that made this the perfect hunting ground for someone like me.
“In that case, I’ll get to work finding a company that suits our needs!” Mimi volunteered, “What requirements do you have in mind?”
“It’s fine if they’re expensive, but ideally we’ll want a company that can launch a counteroffensive against whoever’s targeting us. We want someone willing to operate on the assumption that we are indeed being targeted, and able to either hunt the culprits down or lay a wide net to catch them.”
“Understood. I’ll start searching,” Mimi said, taking her tablet out of her personal pouch. It would be best to leave this task to her, and having Mei double-check the information she gathered would be the icing on the cake.