Sensitive Fox

A mercenary fleet arrived late and left straight away as soon as they

confirmed that the pirates had already been dealt with. We'd do the

same if we were in their position, so there was nothing strange about it.

First come, first served, as they say.

"I see. You got stuck in the asteroid belt and forced out of FTL state."

[Well, not exactly. It was actually my mistake. The accuracy of this star

system's map is still lacking you see.]

The operator bro of the Screech Owls was currently pouring out his

troubles onto Mimi. She was diligently serving the role of a good

listener. I suppose the guy was simply happy about the opportunity to

chat with such a beautiful young girl. But just don't overdo it, man.

Mimi's mine.

"Tina, how's the progress of the recovery work."

[Not bad. The quality of the parts really is a bit better just like you said,

Boss. Their maintenance is another story though.]

"No matter how good the parts are, if the maintenance is poor, the

original performance will suffer…"

[Laser cannons can shoot without worrying so much about ammo, but

you have to properly maintain them.]

[The problem is if we don't spend effort sprucing up this supposedly

good equipment, they would probably just get sold for cheap. And the

demand for them here isn't that high in the first place.]

"Yeah."

I agreed with Elma's remarks. It was true that the equipment these

pirates sported was of a slightly higher quality. Compared to the pirates

operating in other star systems, their condition was a league apart.

However, their quality was still lacking for mercenaries who come to

this frontier system for work. And as for explorers, they had the same

performance as the equipment their ships were already using.

They were also practically useless to the civilian trading ships that

come to the Dauntless for business. Well, taking them is better than

returning empty-handed. Regardless of the relatively poor

maintenance, they were of reasonable quality anyway, so we'll just treat

them as disposable junk items.

[Folks will probably drive a hard bargain fer this stuff.]

"Let's just fix them up and take them to a place where they'd sell well

later."

[I have a suggestion, Boss. We'll just focus on makin' these almost-junk

items look all shiny and new. We don't really need to cobble up a whole

ship this time around, right?]

"Yeah, there's no need for that this time. There isn't much demand for

those kinds of ships here anyway."

Unless it was in a special environment where people only need to travel

relatively short distances, a chimera ship made out of parts cobbled

together from pirate shipwrecks normally doesn't sell well. It was fine

to use such ships simply for ferrying cargo, but it was too troublesome

to incorporate an advanced fire control system and sub-systems into

them. And even if you did, their overall service reliability was iffy at

best. Using such ships for combat or exploration roles wasn't advisable

because you don't know if or when their weapon and sub-systems

would suddenly malfunction. That's why such chimera ships are only

used by space pirates or rookie traders who are just starting out.

There were practically no rookie traders in this frontier system. The

explorers and traders active here all had decent escorts accompanying

them, and the trader fleets themselves were rather heavily armed. And

other than traders, mercenaries, and explorers, there were only

military personnel and civilian staff working for the military present in

this system. Hence, there was no demand for a chimera ship.

[Got it. Just a bit more and we'll be finished with the recovery work.]

"Okay. Contact me once you guys are done."

After concluding the discussion with Tina and the others, I turned to

the sub-pilot seat next to me. I found Kugi seemingly performing

meditation while sitting on the sub-pilot seat. It didn't seem like she

was sleeping because her ears fluttered from time to time. Un, if they

kept moving cutely like that, I'd get more and more tempted to touch

them. But just what is she doing anyway? Is it some kind of image

training or something?

It looked past Kugi's fluttering ears and met gazes with Mimi. It looks

like she's done talking with the operator bro. It looks like Mimi was also

curious about Kugi's ears… Now I was feeling more and more

mischievous.

I carefully nudged my face closer to Kugi's ears while making sure that

she didn't notice and gently blew on them.

"Hyaaaahn!?"

Kugi shrieked and frantically shook her head. She must have found it

incredibly ticklish. She pressed her ears down with her hands and

turned her bright-red face toward me.

"M-My Lord…?"

"Uh, they were fluttering about so cutely, so that stimulated my

mischievous instincts a little too much… Err, sorry."

"Me too! I want to do that too!"

"N-No! My ears are very sensitive!"

Kugi vehemently refused Mimi's request, but the latter was rather

determined to get her way. If the ears were no good, then I'll go for the

tail instead. I started to reach out for Kugi's tail, but Kugi quickly

escaped my clutches. I thought she was completely distracted by Mimi,

but her reaction was pretty fast.

"T-The tail is no good too…! No, if it's My Lord…"

"Uh, haha. Sorry. I won't do it if you don't want to."

I apologized to Kugi who meekly handed her tail over while still

pressing down on her ears. I didn't think it would bother her this much.

Sorry for trying to touch it without permission.

"Uh, so, your ears and tail are sensitive huh."

"S-Sensitive… Um, yes, that's how it is. I end up shivering whenever

someone touches them so suddenly."

"Please allow me to touch it someday if possible. It looks pretty fluffy

and nice to touch."

"Me too. Pretty please."

"I-If you really want to, My Lord, then I'll let you touch it next time…"

It looks like she'll let me touch them next time. I did it. However, did

Kugi properly understand that I'll be touching her ears as well? I

decided that I won't back down even if she ends up chickening out later.

"Now then… Let's escort these guys back to the Dauntless after

finishing the recovery work."

I suppose this much after-service is fine. Besides, if Tina and the others

actually end up finding data caches, it would be better to get them

analyzed first rather than launching out blindly again.

That's because those caches might contain valuable intel like the

pirate's attack and gathering points or even their main base. We can

hunt space pirates more efficiently with that intel compared to fishing

for them.

"Understood!"

"Yes, My Lord."

There was no sign of any additional pirate reinforcements. It would

have been nice if some more of them showed up, but it looks like that

ain't happening huh.