What Do You Mean I'm The Captain Of A Yandere Mercenary Company?

Bleh, the loot was crap. All we got was mostly just cheap stuff.

Maybe that's why these guys stayed behind thinking they might go back down to the planet to look for better loot or something.

Well, now we're finally on our way out of here but we're now faced with another problem.

I looked at everyone who was gathered in front of me on the bridge while we were still floating in space just a distance away from the AI planet.

"Well… Now we have another question… What do we do now?" I asked, referring to the fact that we didn't really have a plan after coming here.

Well, actually, we do have one with the Exo-Knight license but since we now have two more people, I thought it would be best to hear their opinions first.

Ries pointed at Yumiko, "Well, this one probably needs to get herself a weapon since she lost hers and she's probably useless without them."

Yumiko scowled at her, "Aren't you supposed to be a weapons expert? Can't you just make me one then?"

"Hmph! I don't see you getting any materials for me! Even the best ones aren't able to make something out of nothing!"

Huh… And here I thought that I wouldn't see the cat and dog rivalry or something…

If I remember correctly, the two races were like this because they were competing with each other for something but I forgot what.

I cleared my throat to interrupt them, "Ahem… Yumiko? You said that you know a place to replace it, right?"

She turned back to me and nodded, "Yes. It's a forge world located in the fringes of civilised space. But I will have to warn you that we will need to pass through lawless space so we might run into pirates and other unsavoury sorts."

Sorry, but did I hear that we would be passing through a 'free to loot space'? In that case, I fail to see any problem?

But…

"What's a forge world?" I asked.

Yumiko tilted her head at me, "You don't know what a forge world is?"

I mean… By the name, I would assume it has something to do with building stuff or something but I don't know if that was really it, you know?

Thankfully, Ries came to my rescue, "Boss. Forge worlds are just names given to worlds that are focused on heavy industry. Most of them are owned by the Zwergers."

I raised my eyebrow, "What are Zwergers?"

"They're basically dwarves, boss."

"There's dwarves?!"

Yumiko was giving me an odd look like I just learned that there were stars in space.

But of course, the girls knew that I wasn't from this universe and Renata was also aware of my situation so they simply nodded at me.

I tapped my cheek thoughtfully, "Hmm… Does that place specialise in making weapons?"

Yumiko nodded slowly, "Yes… That place specialises in making all kinds of weapons from personal to even ship weapons."

Oh, that's nice. We might be able to get some good stuff there for ourselves as well.

Although I guess the first thing we need to do is drop off the loot that we currently have since we've been accumulating quite a lot of stuff but haven't been selling them off.

"Out of curiosity…" I asked, turning to look at Ries. "How much loot do we have?"

"Ah… We're nowhere near filling up our cargo space for sure but you might want to start selling them off soon, Boss. We have a lot of them and they're piling up."

"Great then. We can also sell them off there."

Lea shook her head at me, "Mistress. Most of the time places like these do not buy anything aside from raw materials."

"Ugh… Fine then… Where's the nearest place we can sell off to?"

Yumiko immediately jumped in, "I know a place where we can sell the stuff and they won't even ask questions. Not that it would matter to you anyway since you girls aren't pirates to begin with."

I raised an eyebrow at her, "Is this at some pirate base or something?"

"No, no. Just a trading hub that also doubles as a mining station my crew would use to get our stuff and sell off our loot. That place has really bad management and no one gives a shit about anyone there as long as you have the Credits. It's a shit hole, basically. But the people there would buy and sell anything."

She then took out her personal terminal and projected her map in front of us, pointing out the station in question a few jumps away.

Judging by the distance, we should be able to reach there in about a week or two.

That means this would be the perfect chance for us to get to know our new members too so there's no reason not to do this.

"Sounds like a plan. Shall we head there to offload our stuff before we head to that forge world for Yumiko's weapon and do some shopping as well?"

The girls nodded so I turned to the pink haired Renata that was still at the pilot's seat, "Set a course to the trade hub then."

She gave me a cute salute, "Aye, aye, Daddy!"

The course was set for the place and the ship turned to begin our journey towards the trading hub.

Now there was one thing that I wanted to know…

"So… What are these Zwergers like?" I asked, looking at the girls expectantly.

Yumiko tilted her head at me, "Forgive me, but… Are you actually a noble or something? I think now that I've thrown my lot in with you, there's no need to hide it, right?"

Oh geez… The truth is so much more than that…

I was thinking of what to say but Mara answered her for me, "You're not ready for the truth yet."

Huh… For Mara to say that… Maybe she read her mind and figured out that we shouldn't tell her yet? OR maybe because everyone is here right now and she might feel more pressured or something?

I guess I'll just find another chance later in private or something so I nodded at her, "Maybe in the future. Now's not the time."

She shrugged, showing that she doesn't really mind.

Amber turned to me, "Well… About the Zwergers, I guess the easiest way to describe them is that their society is basically a military dictatorship."

I blinked at her, "A what?"

"A military dictatorship."

I blinked again, "Really? Not some kind of government that revolves around crafting or something? I would assume that they were primarily smiths since you even said that forge worlds are mainly under the Zwergers?"

"That's because they use them to create war machines. Their society have been built up on a might is right kind of mentality and there has never been any period of peace within their history. Even now, they are embroiled in civil war that they demand no one else get involved in. Which is ironic considering despite the war, both sides still trade with outsiders anyway."

Amber then went ahead to tap on her personal terminal to bring up a projection of her screen to show me several pictures of what appeared to be dwarves and…

Err… How do I say this…

All of the pictures showed the dwarves were wearing military uniforms… But the style of the uniforms were really, really similar in design and colour to a very specific country back on Earth during our first and second world war…

Heck, there's even one picture with a dwarf wearing a metal helmet with a spike poking out at the top…

So… Dwarven military dictatorship, huh… I will refrain from commenting about that particular thing…

"What's the civil war about though? Are they trying to change the government structure or something?" I asked.

Amber chuckled, "Ahahaha! Oh no, no. It's just another group of Zwergers who believe that their race would benefit more under their jurisdiction instead. It's not even that uncommon. One civil war would end and then another one might begin right after that. As I said, their history has not had a long period of peace for a really long time."

"Don't they ever get tired of fighting?"

"Hardly. In fact, they revel in it. For the Zwergers, there's basically three types of people. One of them are the Zwergers who are obsessed with creating weapons of war. The second are Zwergers who are most at home using said weapons of war in a war. And the third are the Zwergers who are obsessed with the strategies of warfare. They are basically battle obsessed freaks."

"I'm surprised that they aren't waging war against us then…"

"Oh, we were quite close to it actually. First contact did not end well but when humans brought in our warships as a show of force, they practically treated humanity like gods for a period of time and started begging to be allowed to join the UTC. I will say that the process of them joining the UTC and then obsessing over the war machines humans have created was the longest period of peace they ever had. Then they went right back to killing each other after that."

"Huh… So… Humans had better weapons than them when we first met them?"

"Definitely. They only had a fledgling space program and barely colonised their system when we first made contact. The most ironic thing is that they might be the only race in the galaxy where their population still continued to boom despite being at war constantly."

I see… I guess I should just be glad that they aren't antagonistic towards us then…