I and Mimi spent the next few days following the end of the pirate subjugation operation relaxing and discussing about our future plans. I also taught her about how to perform equipment replacement procedures. We were finally going to receive our reward from the military today, so I planned to bring Mimi along to the dealer who sells ship equipment and spare parts.

"Ehehe."

"Well, someone sure looks happy."

"Hehe, I"m really looking forward to our future travels."

After making eating all sorts of gourmet food in the galaxy as a future goal, Mimi immediately made preparations with unexpected zeal. She researched all kinds of trivia about gourmet food on her info terminal in her room as soon as we got back from the operation. She"s actually found a deluxe auto-cooker model which promised to pump out all sorts of delicious gourmet dishes, and found a local dealer of said auto-cooker on Termaine Prime.

She persuaded me to buy it yesterday, and we made a decision to upgrade Krishna"s on-board equipment. Yep, the new equipment we"re going to install this time is just the aforementioned deluxe auto-cooker. Of course, we also planned to upgrade the living facilities and equipment such as the bathrooms with full-featured washlets, water and air purification modules and high-performance air conditioning devices. The costs are reasonable and cheaper compared to the price of a new reactor and energy shield emitters.

We"re going to the dealer today to test out the new equipment and see if it really fits our needs. I"m wearing my usual mercenary get-up, but Mimi was in casual clothes which made her seem somewhat more mature.      

"Yep, you look really cute today. Or should I say pretty?"

"I- I s that so?"

"Uhuh. You look great. You look like the perfect example of a beautiful lady."

"Eeeeh…"

Mimi, who just got praised by me, fidgets while holding her blushing cheeks. How cute. If this keeps up, I"m afraid I"d be tempted to disregard today"s schedule and dote on Mimi all day, so I decided to immediately disembark from the ship and head out to the equipment dealer.

"The shop seems close to the Mercenary Guild building."

"Yes. There are a number of government offices, major shipmaker outlets and equipment dealers in that area, so public security seems to be quite good."

"I see. It seems you really do have talent for being a ship operator, Mimi."

"Eh? Really?"

"Yeah. At this rate, I"m sure you"ll soon get the hang of information gathering and navigation as well."

"U- Um, I hope so too."

Mimi flashes me a cute smile while holding her personal tablet terminal. By the way, my policy when it comes to tutoring is mostly a hands-off approach. If you meddle too much while teaching, it would be counter-productive. I don"t think building a sort of relationship where one unilaterally pushes one"s standards on another is ideal. You can"t develop trust between people with that sort of approach. It"s impossible for me at least.  

I and Mimi are partners who entrust each other with our lives. We may have started out on unequal grounds in our relationship as a captain and his crewmember or a guy who paid off a ma.s.sive amount of debt and a girl who owes said guy her life and newfound freedom. But whenever we go to a battlefield, we"d be partners in the truest sense of the word. At least, Mimi and I are trying to build that sort of rapport between us.

In order to build a relationship of absolute trust, I have to respond to her as seriously, honestly and caringly as possible. But y"know, maybe I just can"t bring myself to be strict with her because she"s completely won me over. It can"t be helped guys. Mimi"s just so utterly cute! There"s always a risk that overly indulging myself with Mimi"s cuteness might dull my edge, but I honestly try not to think of it that much.   

We got on an elevator which leads out of the hangar bay and managed to get a nice view of the scenery out in s.p.a.ce. The elevator shaft was made of metal frames which supported transparent panels, so one can peer through it and see the scenery outside.

"I"ll really never get tired of seeing this view."

"Aren"t you already used to this sort of scenery, Hiro-sama?"

"Nah, not really. I"ve actually just started seeing this sort of stuff in person quite recently."

"Is that so… Where did you stay before coming to this colony then, Hiro-sama?"

"Before coming to the colony huh…?"    

I was indulging in my memories of my former world, but remembered my cover story about losing my memory. That was close man. I was seriously about to answer her honestly for a sec.

"Well, truth is, I don"t really remember much. I seem to have been blown over to this star system due to an accident or something during hyperdrive. But my memory"s kinda vague when it comes to the kind of life I was leading before or where I actually come from."

"Eh!? Truly? Isn"t that difficult for you?"

"Is it? I don"t really care much because I"m getting by just fine anyway."

And I actually don"t have any amnesia, but am just forced by the circ.u.mstances to lie about it.

"I actually plan to go to a s.p.a.ce station specialized in healthcare one of these days so I can get a detailed check-up."

"That would be for the best. When we get back, I"ll search up the nearest station with the best medical facilities for you."

"Thanks."

It seems Mimi was really concerned about my health. How kind of her. I also have to be mindful about it myself because Mimi would lose her backing if I do kick the bucket.

I comforted Mimi who was worrying about my wellbeing as we continued to head towards the equipment dealer"s shop. She implored me to have my vitals checked daily, which honestly seemed kind of a ha.s.sle, but if it would allow Mimi to feel secure, I won"t fuss about it. It doesn"t take much time to have my vitals checked through the ship"s med pod anyway.

Mimi was finally somewhat relieved when I agreed to having my vitals examined daily. But she still seemed to be a bit worried and hugged my arm tightly… Whoah, this soft sensation is amazing. To think having someone worry about you would feel this great!       

The dealer was really located in the place Mimi researched in advance, and the two of us, who made an early appointment, were guided through the store with impeccable service.

"This is our latest high-performance auto-cooker model, the Tetsujin V produced by Mushashino Tech Ltd. The Tetsujin series continues to maintain the top share in the industry as the longest selling high-performance auto-cooker. This model is the latest one, only released two months ago."

"Two months ago huh. How long has this brand been in the market?"

"It"s been out for about eight years or so. The Tetsujin line has continued to improve in quality with each subsequent release owing to the meticulous response regarding the feedback the company has received on various instances of accidents and breakdowns due to being subjected to different harsh environments. As a result, the brand"s reliability continues to rise with each subsequent model. In fact, the overall failure rate of the previous model, Tetsujin IV, was an astonishing 0.004% all throughout its run, and was able to provide delicious meals in any environment one might find oneself in. And of course, Tetsujin V has inherited this outstanding quality and even improved upon it."

"What"s its power consumption and projected maintenance costs?"

"The overall power consumption is a little on the high side, but maintenance costs are minimized due to it having an auto-maintenance function utilizing nanomachine technology. It"s virtually maintenance-free. The filters and internal mechanisms are all cleaned when it"s switched to standby mode. It"s all done automatically."  

"I see. That"s a nice feature huh."

"You"re right. It won"t do no matter how high its performance if maintenance is a ha.s.sle. Are you okay with its power consumption rate though, Hiro-sama?"

"That won"t be a problem. Our ship"s power reactor has plenty of power to spare."

The reactor installed on Krishna is the highest-grade military model. It"s got plenty of juice under the hood.

"Now let"s move on to an actual demonstration. Let"s start with a standard hamburger recipe from a common food cartridge available on the market."

As he said, the store clerk activated Tetsujin V and started having it make burgers. Hamburgers are actually the most common food template all auto-cookers are able to make. In the first place, auto-cookers are 3D food printers which create meals by adding water and seasonings to the contents of food cartridges filled with dehydrated foodstuffs made from a certain type of special algae. No matter how unique its features, this thing"s still making this stuff from said food cartridges, so the resulting product shouldn"t be that tasty… but…     

"That"s friggin delicious dammit! What the heck!?"

"It really is delicious…"

Mimi and I couldn"t help but react. Is this thing really using the same food cartridges as the ones on my ship? The taste is delicious enough to make you doubt otherwise. Compared to this masterpiece of a burger, all the ones I"ve eaten before seem to be at the level of cold burgers you can buy in the street for a hundred Yen. There"s no comparison.

"Food texture and taste would vary greatly depending on the method of mixing ingredients, heating and adding seasonings. The patented AI installed in the Tetsujin series is capable of utilizing these factors to great effect, in order to recreate this sort of sublime flavour."

"I see… Mimi, we"re buying this thing!"

"It"s expensive though."

"The regular retail price is 48,000 Enel. But if you buy now, we"ll give it to you for a special introductory price of 45,000 Enel! That"s a 3,000 Enel discount folks. And we"ll also throw in various accessories. All for the low, low price of 45,000 Enel! It also comes with a free three year warranty!"

"Wow! Alright then, we"re definitely buying this."

"Thank you very much for your patronage."

We then proceeded with the rest of our business, and finally, everything from the auto-cooker to the air filters and other equipment related to raising the living standards inside the ship were replaced by luxury products from Musashino Tech Ltd.

The total price reached 300,000 Enel, but a comfortable living environment would directly affect the overall wellbeing of the crew. Since that"s the case, we decided not to skimp on the costs and bought the finest equipment the store had to offer. And besides, 300,000 Enel is cheaper than Mimi"s debt plus her unrestricted moving rights pa.s.s. My wallet won"t budge from just this amount of expense. Even after including the cost of Mimi"s clothes, we still have about two million Enel saved up.

Also, we"re set to receive the pirate subjugation rewards today as well. The number of ships I managed to take down during the operation a few days ago amount to 42 small craft and five medium ones. The military kill rewards alone would be 310,000 Enel. That"s already enough to cover for today"s purchases. The separate bounty rewards posted for the medium warships would net me a total of 480,000 Enel as well. Plus, there"s the goods we managed to plunder from the pirates too. Since there were some rare metals among the supplies, I imagine the profits would be quite substantial. I roughly estimate it to be about 800,000 Enel or so.

In other words, I managed to earn roughly about 1,600,000 Enel through the pirate subjugation mission. Honestly, it"s on a level which makes me smile involuntarily every time I think about it. I can"t help myself from laughing as well. So, considering this, 300,000 Enel used for home improvement and clothes is truly cheap.

We also had the beds replaced. The bed in my room was changed to one big enough to accommodate two people. I don"t really need to spell out the reason right?

Oh, and while we were purchasing the bed, Mimi"s face flushed bright red and seemed to be ready to let out steam from her head. To be honest, I also felt kinda embarra.s.sed, but seeing Mimi in such a state was worth all the trouble.

After completing all the orders for the ship"s equipment, we decided to head to the Mercenary Guild in order to receive our rewards for the large-scale subjugation mission.     

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