“I’m about to blow.”
“E-Elma, calm down…”
The next day, I brought Elma and Mimi to a public casino operating on Arein Tertius. Elma was to my right, while Mimi attended me on the left: I had a flower in each hand.
“H-hey, you’re being a bit much!”
“C’mon, what’s the big deal? Go with the flow.”
The two practically clung to me, wearing…bunny suits, believe it or not! Whether due to material limitations or perhaps just the designer’s proclivities, the outfits had a slightly cyberpunk style, but they were definitely bunny suits. Of course, both girls also wore bunny-ear headbands, and round white tails were attached to their suits’ rears. Perfect.
“Nngh…M-Master Hiro…if you keep rubbing my belly like that…”
“Heh heh heh… If we need to, we can rent a room someplace and take a break. Bunny suits really are wonderful. The stuff of dreams.”
Under the gazes of onlookers, I ran my hands all over Mimi’s body. She gently tried to resist, but I continued without hesitation.
“You’re enjoying this,” Elma said.
“To be honest, I certainly am enjoying—ow, that really hurts!”
Elma had pinched my hand where it wrapped around her waist. It stung slightly, but she wasn’t really trying to stop me. It would’ve hurt like hell if she pinched me for real—like I’d been pinched with pliers. Oh man. Just imagining that calmed me down.
“So there’s a very good reason you’re forcing us to walk around with you in these embarrassing outfits, right?”
“Hopefully. In the end, that’ll come down to Iga Security.”
The plan I’d devised with Iga Security was a classic decoy strategy. Joined by Mimi and Elma, I’d act as a lure to draw out the enemies targeting me. Once they revealed themselves, Iga Security was supposed to surround and overwhelm them.
“Until they take the bait, let’s enjoy ourselves here in the casino.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“B-Boss, calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re definitely fuming.”
Of course I was fuming. No grandmother could maintain their calm while watching someone play around with their granddaughter like a toy. I was enraged…but it was coolheaded rage. I’d have loved to cut that bastard’s head off with my cutlass at that very moment, but not amid all these onlookers.
“Tch…from the looks of it, she really is in love with him. Damn it, Folto. You could at least have raised her properly.”
Or had her poor taste in men come from me? No, he wasn’t that bad. He’d just played around too much.
“What’s the plaaan, boooss?”
“Refer to me as ‘Captain.’ Hm…what should we do…? For now, let’s put aside the fact that she’s in love with that guy. There’s no guarantee that he’s being aboveboard with her. Either way, I need to test whether he’s worthy of entrusting my granddaughter to.”
“Huh?! He’s a platinum-ranker, and he was awarded a gold star. He has tons of money and can fight toe-to-toe with biologically enhanced humans. What mooore could you ask fooor?”
“Shut up. There’s no guarantee that any of that is true. He might just be a pathetic weakling. And Mimi could just appear to like him on the surface, while in reality a slave collar or something is forcing her to act that way.”
I was fully aware that I was stretching a bit, but first impressions were important. I had to get the better of this guy at least once to satisfy my anger.
“Besides, I really don’t like how his background is shrouded in mystery,” I added. “Have you found anything?”
“However much I loook, there’s nothing to fiiind.”
She was excellent at her job. When it came to hacking and cracking, few could beat her—at least on an individual level. She couldn’t take on an entire organization or AI.
Despite her abilities, though, no matter how much searching she did, she didn’t come across any evidence of that man’s existence prior to his arrival in the Tarmein System. It was as if he’d just magically appeared right in front of Mimi. She’d even accessed the star system army’s database, but all she’d found was a log entry that said he was “spat out into this section of space alongside his ship in a hyperdrive accident.” An obviously fake account.
He’d stayed on his ship for a while, then begun working as a mercenary after registering with their guild. He’d met his current crew member Elma, a silver-rank mercenary, that same day; then he’d run into Mimi and brought her aboard his ship. There was no way all that was coincidence.
“Can’t we just call it quits already, Boss? Your granddaughter was on the verge of falling to the lowest of lows, but good luck led a skilled mercenary to take her in. Starting out as a complete amateur, she eventually grew into a capable warship operator. Now she enjoys a rich and free mercenary lifestyle with the man she loves. She seems happy, so isn’t that enough, Boss?”
“I told you to refer to me as Captain,” I insisted. “I haven’t accepted their relationship yet.”
“Ahh, jeeeez…Why are you being so stuuubborn? If she’s happy and wants to be with him, I doubt anything you saaay will change her miiind.”
“Still, she’s Boss’s granddaughter.”
“Truuue…”
“Shut up. It seems you both want a taste of my fist.” I clenched it, and the pair immediately skittered away like spiders. Ugh… They sure run fast.
The first time I’d seen him with Mimi, I’d lost my cool, wanting to kill him on the spot. Regardless of his intentions, though, it was true that he’d saved her when she was on the brink of tragedy. That was, unfortunately, a fact.
Still, that didn’t give him the right to dress my granddaughter in such an embarrassing outfit and play with her as he pleased. Maybe I’d recognize their relationship eventually, but only after I tested his mettle in a fight.