“Man, I just can’t stop laughing.”

“Okay, okay. It’s great that we made a profit huh.”

“As expected of Master.”

After arriving at the Dexer star system, which was the home system of Earl Daleinwald, we entered the Dexer Prime colony and finally completed our bodyguard mission. We just got our rewards for the job. We would be paid 250,000 Enels per day, and the time it took to arrive at the Dexer star system was a total of 22 days. The battle we went through and our time resupplying at the Comatt system was also included in the calculation. The time we spent getting the fleet repaired and hospitalizing the injured crew was also taken into account.

And we also got a bonus for stopping Balthazar’s rampage. The initial reward was 5,500,000 Enels, with a bonus of 2,500,000 Enels. That’s a grand total of 8,000,000 Enels all in all. As expected of Earl Daleinwald! He’s filthy rich!

Since Mimi’s share was 0.5% of the total rewards, she’ll receive 40,000 Enels. Elma’s was 3%, so she’ll get 240,000 Enels. The remaining 7,772,000 Enels will be my share. My assets last time was 24,400,000 Enels, so I now have a total of over 32,100,000 Enels. I have to subtract about 10,000 Enels or so for the maintenance and repair fees as well as restocking ammunition and supplies.

“M-Mm……”

Mimi’s face froze when she saw the numbers displayed on the data terminal. Fumu…? Was the pay she got not enough? But, yeah. 0.5% was really too little. Yosh.

“Come to think of it, you’ve already accustomed yourself to being our ship operator, right Mimi?”

“Eh? Um… I guess so?”

Mimi got surprised when I suddenly called out to her and nodded reflexively.

“That’s right. I guess it’s about time for her to graduate from being a trainee huh.”

It looks like she already knew what I was getting at, so Elma backed me up. Un. It really is the case though.

“That means it’s also about time Mimi gets a raise, right?”

“Eh…… N-N-No! I’m fine! I have enough money!”

Mimi started panicking after hearing our exchange. What are you getting flustered for, girl?

“That won’t do. Once you get promoted to a full crew member, it is a standard procedure that you’ll get a pay raise. After all, you’ve already mastered all the necessary procedures, resupplying, selling loot, as well as keeping watch on the radar. Since you’ve raised your skills, you should be rewarded an appropriate amount.”

“That’s right. The 0.5% share is just the very minimum after all. Should we raise it to 1%?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Alrighty then. Instead of 40,000 Enels, you’ll be receiving 80,000 Enels for the job this time…”

“I-It’s fine! You can raise it later! Later, okay!”

“No, well, we made an unexpected killing this time, so it’s better to raise your salary now, right?”

“I won’t be able to use up that much money though!”

After hearing Mimi shout, Elma and I exchanged gazes.

“80,000 Enels won’t be enough to customize a cheap Zabuton ship though.”

“Yeah. You can probably purchase a second-hand generator, but that’s about it.”

The Zabuton is the nickname SOL players gave to the cheapest ship in the game – a so-called noob ship. It was squarish and flat, so it got the nickname zabuton. Zabuton is an in-game slang used by SOL players, but Elma was actually familiar with it for some reason. It’s things like this that make me question if this was really another dimension or not.

“But I don’t have the same common sense for money compared to Elma-san and Hiro-sama. I just can’t keep up. I’m just your regular citizen, okay. 40,000 Enels is enough for us to live comfortably for a year, you know?”

“Is that so…? Hm. Come to think of it, it does seem like that huh.”

If you convert 40,000 Enels to Japanese Yen, you’ll end up with 4,000,000 Yen all in all. If you don’t include taxes and insurance premiums, it does seem that it would be enough for an average family to live off of for a year.

“But that is that, and this is this. If you really insist on it, then I’ll keep your share to 0.5% this time, but you’ll need to receive 1% the next time we complete a job, okay? That’s final.”

“Uu… Okay.”

Mimi still looked quite troubled and let out a sigh. Anyway, that does it for the salary talk.

“I mentioned this before, but I’m planning on buying a mothership with the money we received.”

“A mothership huh… How much do we have on hand again?”

“About 32 million.”

“Nn… If we have that much… But we’re barely scraping it, don’t you think?”

Elma inclined her head and raised her eyebrow. Well, it’s true that 30 mil would be barely enough to cover purchasing the ship, customizing it, and setting aside an emergency fund for the possibility of getting shot down.

“We’ll just take on most enemies with Krishna. It doesn’t have to sport high firepower. It would be okay if it has a tough enough shield and hull, a large cargo space, and sufficient speed and maneuverability for its size so it can escape if need be. Besides, Krishna would be more than enough for combat purposes anyway.”

“I see. So a support mothership that won’t participate actively in combat huh. I guess we could make that work. But our budget would still be barely enough.”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m planning on purchasing one directly from a ship-maker to get it as close to the factory price as possible. We’ll have to go to a system with lots of ship making companies for that. We’ll have to choose the ship maker and model carefully though.”

I then fiddled with my portable terminal and connected with the holo-display inside the dining area.

“I’ve managed to list some prospects already.”

The first one I showed on screen was Recon Industries’ 【RIMS – 013 Night Hawk】. This ship was designed for speed. Although the armor, shields, and cargo capacity suffer a bit due to that, it was still a top-class mothership with great speed and maneuverability. And even if the shield and armor strength, as well as cargo capacity, were a bit lacking, that’s only compared to ships of its class. It only loses out to medium-sized combat starships, but it’s way tougher than those repurposed civilian ships that the pirates use.

“It’s a really cool-looking ship, Hiro-sama. But it doesn’t hold a candle to Krishna though.”

“It has a sharp and streamlined feel to it. Having great speed doesn’t sound bad at all.”

“That’s right. But it doesn’t have enough synergy with Krishna, I think. Wouldn’t something with greater defense be better in order to take advantage of Krishna’s firepower?”

“I think this is a good choice though. Anyway, next is this one.”

The next unit I put up on the holo-display was the mothership model 【SDMS – 020 Skizbrazunil】 manufactured by Space Dwerg. It’s lacking in the speed department, but it has powerful shield output and thick armor. It has a large cargo capacity so it’s used as a mercantile ship often, and since it is fairly easy to customize, it can not only serve as a mothership and transport ship but also as a mining or research ship, depending on the customer’s needs.

But due to the heaviness of the ship, its speed and maneuverability suffer a lot in exchange. It may fall prey to things like interdictors quite easily, and its FTL Drive speed was mediocre as well. The Hyperdrive doesn’t seem to suffer too much though.

“It’s tough-looking and really big!”

“I have no complaints about its specs, but the style is just not for me.”

“This ship would make good use of Krishna’s abilities, I believe. It may be weak to interdictors, but Master would actually prefer it if we engage with pirates often, right?”

“Well, that’s right, I guess. But I kinda have reservations on it being too slow for my tastes.”

I put up another ship model on the holo-display. This is a mothership manufactured by Ideal Star Way; the 【ISMS – 007 Chrome Elephant】. This ship is in the middle ground when it comes to performance and overall specs compared to the two earlier models. It’s slower than Night Hawk, but it has a tough shield and thick armor. Its cargo capacity is also quite satisfactory. It’s faster the Skizbrazunil, but its armor and shield don’t measure up to it. The cargo space also isn’t quite as large.

“Doesn’t it kinda resemble an imperial military starship?”

“Well, the official manufacturer of imperial ships is Ideal Star Way after all. Looking at Ideal ships kinda brings back some bad memories though…”

“It’s not good to be half-baked. It won’t be able to outrun enemies the Night Hawk can outrun, and it won’t be able to defend against attacks the Skizbrazunil will be able to easily take on. That isn’t good enough, in my opinion.”

“So this is a bust as well… The specs look fine though.”

Mimi didn’t have a problem with it, but it looks like Elma was getting goosebumps just looking at it. May was against it as well, so I guess Chrome is a no-go.

“Okay then. We’ll remove Chrome Elephant from the list and choose between Night Hawk and Skizbrazunil.”

“Agreed.”

“Alright.”

“I-I think either is fine… I’ll leave the choice to you, everyone!”

Mimi hurriedly bowed out of the discussion. Well, Mimi still didn’t have enough knowledge about ships after all. In any case, it looks like Elma likes Night Hawk while May is in favor of Skizbrazunil. In the end, it’ll be up to me to make the choice huh… Decisions, decisions.