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

Chapter 400: Psionic Chrysalis

”Alien creatures?” I asked, looking at the girls in bewilderment.

Amber tilted her head at me, ”Hmm? Yeah, I heard that too. What about it?”

”I mean… Alien creatures!”

Ries raised her hand slightly, ”Umm… Boss? Did you forget that there are space fish? They are also considered alien creatures too…”

Oh right… I suppose she does have a point…

”Fufufu~ I believe itʼs just because Captain has not seen one in person yet. What was your idea of an alien creature, Captain? Iʼm actually quite curious.”

I scratched my cheek, ”To be honest… I was thinking about some kind of wiggly creature with tentacles or something…”

Lea turned to me, ”I believe there are some creatures that fit that description Mistress. In fact, some of them are even kept as pets.”

I gave her a pointed look, ”Are they being used as sexual pets?”

Without even batting an eyelid at me, she nodded, ”Some are, yes.”

Iʼm not even surprised to learn that…

”Are you going to tell me that they are found mostly in the inner colonies too?”

”On the contrary, they are actually found mostly in the outer colonies,” Amber told me with a smug look on her face.

”Though itʼs mostly because they are found in the outer colonies so they are bred and raised out here which made them more common,” Mara added.

I see…

”Boss? Weʼre reaching the Highway soon,” Ries suddenly called out.

I turned to look at the front of the ship, though at this point I wasnʼt sure what to expect to see.

But then when my eyes adjusted to the darkness of space, I realised there was something that looked like those spinning black and white optical illusion discs that make it look like they were moving around but they were simply spinning in place.

That was what I was witnessing in the space in front of us right now.

If I didnʼt know any better, I would have thought that this might have been in a glitch in the game or something.

”Is that…” I asked, pointing at the space that was glitching out.

Ries nodded from where she sat at the pilot seat, ”The entrance to the Natural Space Highway, yes.”

”This pretty much blends with the background, doesnʼt it? How does anyone even find it?”

”It does and thatʼs why itʼs quite rare to find one,” Mara explained with a giggle. ”Sometimes you wouldnʼt even realise there was one right in front of you and fly through it accidentally. Which is what I believe happened to the ship captain from earlier and there was no incident with his Travel Drive but he just didnʼt want to admit he wasnʼt paying attention.”

I can see that happening… Like seriously, if you werenʼt even looking or paying attention, you could easily just glance over it without knowing it was there.

”Is there anything we need to prepare for before going in?” I asked.

Amber shrugged, ”Aside from the alien creatures that the guy told us about? Not really. It functions pretty much the same as the normal Space Highways we have used before.”

Alright then.

I angled the ship to fly directly into the distorted space, trusting the girlsʼ words on this.

Sure enough, when our ship touched the distorted space, we were suddenly pulled forward and our ship shot towards the darkness of space faster than the eye could see.

In other words, it really did function like the Space Highways that we have been using so far.

Wait…

I narrowed my eyes at the stars flying past our ship, ”Is it just me or are we moving a lot faster than normal?”

Ries nodded, ”Oh yeah, thatʼs another thing thatʼs different about Natural Space Highways. They tend to not have speed regulators so weʼll need to control our speed manually when we reach the end or we would be shot out even further than we intend to.”

”Err… How do we even know we have reached the end of the Highway?”

”Donʼt worry, youʼll see it, Boss. And I can control it as well so weʼll be alright!”

If you say so…

”Oh look, there it is, Boss!”

Wait, that fast? We were barely flying for a few minutes!

I looked ahead and I realised what Ries meant when she said that I would see it. While everything around us was a blur as we sped past, there was a circle that was somehow not blurry and looked crystal clear.

I leaned back in my chair right as we passed through that clear circle and I felt the ship jerk suddenly as if it just remembered G forces exist.

My hands immediately pulled back on the shipʼs throttle speed and began decelerating the ship.

As I got the ship under control, I brought up a projection of the sectorʼs map and turned towards Amber who was standing by the map console behind my seat, ”Initiate a wide area scan.”

”Initiating wide area scan~” She repeated, letting out a ping from our ship that spread across the system.

I was, of course, hoping that the scan would ping the station and make it show on the map so that we know where it was inside the system.

But what I didnʼt expect was for a whole bunch of red dots to also appear on the map as well.

Those must be the alien creatures the captain from earlier told us about… Why are there so many of them?!

There must be at least a thousand of them!

And as if they were spurred on by the wide area scan, all the red dots started to move towards us in unison.

I activated the monitors to bring up a display of the alien creatures, making the camera zoom in until we could see one of them appear on the screen.

Displayed there was some kind of triangular thing that looked more like a crystal shard than a living thing. But there was some kind of black matter enveloping the crystal and it seemed to be the thing propelling the crystal forward as it was flailing around behind it that coincided with the crystalʼs movement.

”What the hell is that thing?” I asked.

I thought someone would answer right away but no explanation came which made me turn to look at what was wrong.

I saw all of the girls staring at the screen in shock, clearly surprised by the sight in front of them.

Just as I was about to consider turning the ship around to flee like the previous captain had, Amber suddenly spoke up.

”Psionic Chrysalis… They are creatures that feed on brain waves…”

That explanation was so unexpected that the only thing I could say in response was, ”What?”

”Theyʼre a kind of parasite that feeds off of brain waves so they would seek out places with a lot of intelligent life to feed off the brain waves that they give off… They are normally harmless and can be ignored but if they gather in such large numbers, they would be really aggressive and wonʼt just stop at feeling brain waves but will also eat brain matter…”

Ah… Thatʼs kind of fucked up if you ask me…

I just imagined that crystal thingy burrowing inside someoneʼs skull and devouring their brain… And here I thought that this universe wouldnʼt have things like that… Now Iʼm also worried about those tentacle creatures that the girls told me about….

Also… If thatʼs the case, why are they all the way out here in the middle of nowhere? What made them gather here because I donʼt see any intelligent life around?

Wait… Looking back at the map… It seems like the scanners have also picked up the location of the station which was located exactly at where these things were swarming from.

Are there still people on that station then?

Damn… Does that mean the information given to us about the station being abandoned was outdated or false?

Nevermind, we can think about that later… For now we have to deal with the swarm of these Psionic Chrysalis that were heading straight towards us.

I turned to Lea, ”Can we take them on?”

Lea was scanning the map that was filled with red dots for a moment before turning to me and nodding, ”As long as we can keep our distance, we should be able to take them out before we sustain too much damage, Mistress.”

I turned to Amber, ”Should we launch our ships as well?”

She shook her head quickly, ”No, no, no. Bad idea. Those things swarm really quickly and they could cut off your engines before breaking into the cockpit to eat you. It will be safer here instead.”

”Wouldnʼt that apply to this ship as well?” I pointed out.

”It would be easier to deal with them if they are all clumped up together instead of being scattered and chasing multiple targets, Mistress,” Lea answered.

I see… I guess that makes sense.

”In that case, battle stations, everyone!”

Letʼs shoot them all down before we move to the station!