Planning Course of Action

In the end, the suggestion of having a casual dinner tonight was brought

up to Grado clan's Tinia-san since we were currently out of the ship,

and she graciously accepted. She then left for the meantime. I left Mei in

charge of arranging the dinner venue, but it seems she opted to have it

in a high-class restaurant that serves the native dishes of Refill IV,

which the locals call Theta.

"Refill IV's traditional dishes... I'm really looking forward to it!"

"Yeah. As far as I remember, there are no dishes comparable to roasted

giant hornworms and the like, so you can eat with confidence."

"That's a relief."

I guess the specialty dish of Comatt III, which was roasted hornworms

the size of an armful, really had that much of an impact on the girls

huh... It was plenty tasty though. That's if you can ignore the dish's

appearance.

And so, we chatted around like that until we finally found ourselves

back in the Lotus. We received more info regarding the Grado clan's

Tinia-san from Mei as she researched the local high-end restaurants to

choose where we'll be having our dinner.

"I've troubled you this time, Mei."

"Oh, it's no trouble at all, Master. Tina-sama did withdraw immediately

after all."

"What kind of person was she, Mei-san?"

"She seemed to be quite an intelligent and spirited person."

After saying so, Mei projected an image of an elven lady on the holo

display. She was probably Tinia-san huh. She was a beauty with dark

brown hair that went down to her waist. I remember seeing this lady

before. She was the beautiful lady who exchanged words with me inside

the pirate ship.

"So it really was her."

"Are you familiar with her?"

"She was the one who seemed like the leader of the captured elves. She

was the only one who managed to have a calm conversation with me in

that situation. I also gave her my name."

"I see. She's quite pretty, isn't she?"

"Yep. She's plenty beautiful alright."

"She's truly a beautiful person. As expected of big brother."

There was a hint of thorns in Whisker's tone. I definitely wasn't aiming

for establishing a relationship with the beauty when I gave out my

name okay. But since they would probably say I was merely making

excuses, I decided to just keep mum.

"We'd like it if you'd bring yourself to finally acknowledge our feelings

instead of checking out every new beauty you manage to come across

though, Boss."

"..."

The mechanic sisters stared at me intently after saying their piece. I

turned my eyes away from them and took out my portable terminal.

"I'd like to review the incident that led to our current situation with you

all. Let's check out the report I got from the Mercenary Guild."

"Hey, Boss. Look at us, will ya?"

"Big brother..."

"Just wait a bit longer. I'm not ready yet."

I did feel affection for both of them and acknowledged they were pretty

cute. They were also really nice kids. Uh, I probably shouldn't call them

kids though. They were both adults who were the same age as me after

all.

But I really couldn't bring myself to lay my filthy hands on them, okay!

It's just that their physical appearance was... like that, you know! Ain't

I going to be thrown in jail if I made a move on them? Anyway, that sort

of feeling just wells up first. And I was also a part of the big boobies

faction as well.

"Oh well. I'm gonna make ya absolutely head over heels for me one of

these days, Boss."

"Head over heels, she says (wry laugh)."

"What are ya laughing at? Do you want me to sock ya, Boss?"

"Sorry."

Please lower your fist, lady. If I get seriously punched by Tina, my

unreinforced bones will likely get broken easily. I kinda feel like not

wanting to ruin this current state of affairs where we're able to interact

comfortably with each other like this. But it isn't like a guy like me to

refuse to eat a meal that's freely offered to me. Hm.

"Alright, leave it at that for today, guys."

"Muu... If Elma-neesan says so, then I guess it can't be helped. I'll let

you off for today in honor of neesan."

"Sorry."

Honestly, though, I feel like my hands are full with handling Mimi, Elma,

and Mei already. In order to accept the sisters as well, I have to raise my

caliber as a man even further. In all sorts of meanings, that is.

"Ahem. Anyway, let's take a look at the particulars of the previous

incident, shall we?"

I operated the portable terminal and displayed the outline of the

incidents related to the large-class pirate ship we captured on the holodisplay.

"Nn... There aren't any particularly interesting points huh."

"Well, it's just your classic planetary raid and abduction case after all."

The incident was mostly like what Elma and I surmised. Multiple pirate

ships raided Refill IV and used their superior firepower and

maneuverability to subdue the locals. It's said in the report that the

attack occurred while a certain local ceremony was being conducted,

and that led to the abduction of several young people, who were mainly

young elven women.

The ones held inside that large-class pirate ship we captured were of

particularly high status, and the rest of the captured elves died after the

system garrison and the imperial space navy attacked the pirate base

and shot down the other ten pirate ships. It looks like the imperial

military was receiving a lot of flak for failing to defend against the

planetary raid.

It was already bad that they failed to defend the planet against the raid,

but having us, who were just passing by, deal with the escaped pirate

ship just added salt to the wound. Furthermore, we managed to capture

the said pirate ship intact instead of blowing it up. They're probably

being criticized a lot right now.

Anyway, judging from that general's attitude, it doesn't look like they

were holding a grudge against us for being busybodies, so I guess we're

fine for now.

"The occasion in question was the engagement ceremony between the

second daughter of the Grado clan leader and the second son of the

Minfa clan leader… Hey, so it's between Tinia-san and the son of

another clan leader huh."

"So it was like a marriage interview to strengthen the ties between both

clans huh."

"It's a tragic incident for sure, but... are we sure politics wasn't

involved in the attack?"

"Yeah. The incident itself seems pretty commonplace, but it does seem

like a situation where shady stuff like that might be involved as well."

"Another clan that wasn't happy with the Grado and Minfa clans

building stronger ties sending information to the pirates in order to

ruin the ceremony is a reasonable theory huh."

Of course, since we outsiders were able to theorize something like that

right away, the victims themselves would have been able to think of it as

well. The two clans probably have some hostile relations with other

clans, and they were probably wary of other clans making trouble for

them to some extent when they decided to go ahead with the ceremony.

"Well, what can I say? We managed to arrive here with some rotten

timing huh. How about we cancel our plans for touring the Refill system

and head to another place for now?"

"That would be better I think, Boss. How bout we make fer the home

system of us dwarves instead?"

"The Maxil system, right? It's seven hyperlane nodes away from here."

"Right. The incident in the Comatt system was more than enough for

me."

"M-Mm... Maybe that's a good idea after all."

Apart from Mimi, it looks like the rest were in agreement with my

proposal to immediately leave the Refill system. Mimi was probably

feeling somewhat reluctant to leave without seeing the incident we got

ourselves involved in though.

Mei? She basically supports any decision I make unless she deems it

was of a sufficiently big deal to warrant her intervention. Mei didn't

really assert her own opinion most of the time.

"Anyway, let's check the situation out first. We'll leave immediately

depending on what happens. We've already applied for a descent

permit, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a little peek first."

Everybody nodded to my suggestion.

With this, we were able to unify our opinions regarding our next course

of action. I wonder what'll happen at tonight's dinner? We have to be

careful not to be caught up in the power struggle on Refill IV.