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

So…. Dinner was really good.

Like, really, really good.

I would even say that this might be the best dinner I've made so far and yes, I do realise that I've been saying that constantly the last few times but it really is just getting better and better.

I'm sure the other girls also agree with me since all four of them had eaten the food so clean there was literally not a single crumb left on the plates.

That was not even an exaggeration because they had licked their plates of the sauces as well so if you had just arrived and looked at the table, you would see the clean plates and think that dinner had not been served yet.

Aside from that, the four of them were currently leaning back in their seats with a far off look on their faces.

Heck, even I had to take a moment where I was just sitting there leaning against my chair's backrest and basking in the afterglow of the meal I just had.

I wasn't even expecting them to taste as good as it did but holy crap… Everything was just that good.

I managed to snap out of my food coma after a minute and looked at the other girls who were still stuck in it.

Ah… Guess my plan where we would bond over dinner was kind of ruined since everyone was too occupied with eating the food than anything else.

While they were all still recovering, I decided that I should just clean up first but then Amber stirred and grabbed my arm.

"We'll do that, Tera. Don't worry about it."

Umm… Ok? Everyone else still looks like they are not awake yet though so I don't think they would be doing that soon.

Unexpectedly, Amber suddenly clapped her hands together which made everyone at the table jump.

It even made Mara bang her knee against the table, causing the poor doctor to hunch over the table in pain.

Amber ignored her and pointed at the dishes, "Come on, we got to clean up now. There's no way we're letting Tera clean up after that, are we?"

Well… Just saying… It's not like it's that hard to do…

All they had to do was do a quick wipe of the kitchen and toss all the dirty utensils into the appliance washer and that machine will do all the washing for you.

Yep, no more washing plates by hand! That's one of the things I absolutely did not mind being changed in the kitchen!

Ahem… Anyway, I went ahead to prepare a couple of beers for us and I cracked open one for myself first.

Ries came over to me while wiping the counter near where I was standing, "Boss… You should have just told me that Mara was your 'contact'..."

Oh yeah… I ended up leaving that part out of our conversation, didn't I?

To be fair, I didn't know if Ries remembered her since the last time was just a short meeting at that particular hotel.

"I didn't think you remembered her. Heck, you didn't even remember about Theeve station either."

She blushed visibly, "Umm… I recognise it now… I didn't know this place was called Theeve…"

I raised an eyebrow, "You came here without knowing about the name of the station?"

"I was still a Galactic Hitchhiker back then, Boss. Most of the time when I find myself working on board ships, they don't bother telling people like us where we're headed to since it's not like we get a say in it anyway. Especially when we didn't board the ship for a specific station."

Galactic Hitchhiker? Wait…

"Err… I tell you girls about our destination though?" I pointed out.

Ries chuckled, "Ehehe~ I know, Boss. But I was referring to people like myself who just want to hitch a ride on ships in return for some work on board. Usually, we're just happy that we get a place on the ship itself so the destination wouldn't be a problem for us."

Ok, I think I can guess what a Galactic Hitchhiker is now.

"That… Sounds like a really dangerous idea, doesn't it? Especially since those ships could just fly off to somewhere that might kidnap people like you?"

Unexpectedly, it was Mara who popped out beside our cat girl to answer my question.

"You're actually right about that, Tera. There's various instances where people get tricked on board these ships and then find themselves being sold to slavery or even robbed and killed. There's a lot of risk involved."

Ries nodded, "Mmhmm… And it's a risk that people like me would have to take since we either can't afford our own ship or to buy passage on a ship that's travelling there… Or the place we want to go to doesn't have ships that accept passengers."

I frowned, "That still seems like you're taking a really big risk to get to where you want to go… Like for your case, you were almost abandoned here with nowhere else to go had we not met that day."

Ries shrugged, "My case was still not that bad, actually. I still had the option of working at the hangar as a dock worker to buy passage on another ship or even look for a ship captain willing to take me on board to my next destination. Besides, there's actually a guide for people like us to follow and as long as we follow it, we're at least safe most of the time."

I blinked, "There's a guide on this?"

"Yep, it's a really nice guide too. It's titled 'The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galactic Rush'. You can find it on the GalaNet and it gets periodic updates when new tips are added."

Huh… Sounds interesting… I might go and check that out when I have the time I guess.

Speaking of which…

"I'm surprised that I've yet to encounter someone like that though," I pointed out.

Mara leaned on the counter with a wry smile, "Let me guess… Because you haven't listed your ship as a Transport vessel and you've listed it as a Combat vessel?"

I raised an eyebrow, "There's such a thing?"

Mara's smile turned into a frown before turning back, "Amber?"

"What?" My blonde haired lover called back.

"Did you not tell Tera about this?"

She obviously had been listening into our conversation since she immediately knew what Mara was talking about, "The topic never came up, ok? And it's not like we are equipped to transport people at the moment!"

"Hmm… Fair enough. Fine…"

Mara turned back and took out her own personal terminal to lay it on the counter in front of me. She then tapped on it to navigate to a certain site that showed a list of ships.

"There," She pointed, her finger resting on my ship that was shown on the list. "Under the 'ship type', you have listed it as 'Combat'."

I leaned over to look at the screen and sure enough, there it was.

Looking at the other ships on the same list, I could see that they had different words in that place with some being 'Transport' and a few being 'Security'. Some of them even had a few combinations of the three.

"So… This designation would affect what kind of jobs I can get?" I asked.

This time it was Ries who answered, "Well… Yes and no… Umm… If I'm not wrong, you're still free to choose whatever hustles you want to do from the Guild network?"

The Maochatte turned to Mara as if to ask for confirmation and the gene doctor nodded.

Seeing her guess affirmed, Ries turned back to me, "Yeah, so you can still take whatever hustles you want but in the cases where it's the clients contacting you to ask you to take a job… They would usually look at the type of classification the ship is listed under to decide who to hire. Like merchants and traders who are looking for a ship to transport their goods would sort the list to only look at ships with the transport tag instead of the combat tag."

Things clicked into place for me.

"I see now… So for hitchhikers, they might also be sorting for ships that only have the transport tag?"

Ries grimaced, "Well… If one is desperate enough… They might also look for the other tags too… But generally speaking, yes."

I then turned to look at Amber, "So why aren't we listed as a transport vessel? We do have the rooms and space for it."

Amber placed her hands on her hips, "Uh-huh… And assuming we took in ten people to transport and all ten of them decided that it would be very profitable for them to take over this ship forcibly and also enslave us… Do we have enough security in place to stop something like that from happening?"

Ok, I get it… Although I actually think that even if we had ten guys on board our ship and they turned hostile, Amber could probably handle all of them on her own.

Like seriously, that girl would probably just go ahead and either shoot them in the heads or just snap their necks somehow the moment she knew about it.

But yeah, it's not worth the risk…

Ries perked up, "Oh! Don't worry Boss! Once I got the drones up and running, we would be able to solve that issue! So don't worry about it! In fact… Do you want to see some of the drones I have brought back?"

Oh? That fast? Of course I do!

Lead the way!