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

Chapter 427: Letʼs Take Some Time Off

”I actually forgot about those things,” Amber remarked after I told the girls what I found with the logs.

Well… To be fair, we havenʼt really found any more of those things for quite a while so I also didnʼt remember about them until now.

”But we donʼt know what kind of treasure this is, right?” Ries pointed out.

Lea turned to her with a small spark in her eyes, ”Itʼs definitely something valuable. Otherwise the pirates wouldnʼt want it, right? What else would pirates be willing to hunt for?”

”Or… It could be a trap?” Amber suggested with a serious face. ”They make you think that you can get some kind of treasure map from them and you go seek them out. But you get ambushed instead and then you get robbed and die.”

I disagreed, ”I donʼt think that might be the case though. Otherwise, that Pirate Lord we found this from wouldnʼt have hidden them so carefully if they were just meant to serve as bait.”

Amber thought about it for a while before nodding, ”Sounds about right I guess… But what exactly would they consider ʼtreasureʼ? And this is the first time Iʼve even heard about something like this as well… How has no one else heard about this?”

Mara tapped a finger on the side of her cheek, ”If I had to harbour a guess… This is a secret that most pirates know but others outside of them wouldnʼt know. And anyone else that figured it out either arenʼt able to make sense of the Memory Cards or they are keeping it to themselves.”

Yep, since I know what they are now, youʼre not going to catch me telling everyone else about it.

Ries looked at the Memory Card that I had placed on the table, ”I have another question though… Who made these Memory Cards in the first place? Why are there so many of them? And why is it specifically for the pirates?”

I scratched my cheek, ”Who knows? Maybe thereʼs some legendary Pirate Lord with a shit ton of treasures that they didnʼt know what to do with and they were facing some kind of imminent death. Instead of just giving it away, he told the other pirates they can go find it by scattering the Memory Cards all around for people to find and hunt down the treasure?”

”That sounds really convoluted though…” Amber pointed out.

At least sheʼs not saying itʼs outright impossible since our crew is literally filled with people that are doing things outside the norm as well…

I shrugged, ”Weʼll probably find some of the answers when we get to the pirate leader with the map data chip. We might be able to interrogate him or get Mara to read his mind to figure out all of this.”

”Where is the station located again?”

I projected the map of the system that I got from the navigation data and the girls converged around it to inspect the map.

Ries pointed at one of the systems, ”This should be where weʼre at, right?”

I nodded, already having checked and cross referenced our own maps before meeting them.

She then traced a finger towards the system beside it, ”Thatʼs the system with the research station.”

I nodded again.

Her finger then moved several systems away, ”And thatʼs the station their base is located at. Thatʼs… At least a weekʼs journey away I think.”

Thatʼs pretty far…

Amber turned to me, ”Didnʼt the log say that they found pirates within the system? That means that they managed to find another way into the system… Could there be another Space Highway in the system?”

I raised an eyebrow, ”A Natural Space Highway that can stretch from that system all the way to this one? Is that even possible?”

”It is not,” Ries answered me.

”But then how were those pirates able to get past the guards they have no doubt stationed at the entrance and exit of the Space Highway that led there?”

”I think they just managed to slip through the patrol or something?” I guessed.

”Thatʼs really unusually sloppy of them if thatʼs the case.”

Ries raised her hand, ”Perhaps their ship has some kind of stealth module?”

Mara shook her head, ”Even if thatʼs the case, they should have sensors that are able to detect stealth ships as well. I think a more likely explanation is that they most likely encountered a wormhole that brought them there.”

I raised an eyebrow, ”A wormhole? Is that something that is common around here?”

”I would not say itʼs common but since that station was performing Psionic experiments, it is very likely that they inadvertently created a wormhole in one of their experiments that the pirates then used to get there.”

That sounds really improbable but then again… If I think about what kind of things Psionics can do, creating a wormhole doesnʼt sound that far fetched…

After all, the giant pillar was hovering over a hole that seemed to be leading to somewhere else in the universe so that might be a wormhole too…

Letʼs just not think too hard about it and just accept it I guess…

Actually…

I looked down at the ring that was on my finger, ”I donʼt suppose youʼre able to create a wormhole to where we want to be?”

The ring remained inert, not even doing anything to show that it heard me.

I guess Iʼll just take that as a no then.

”Alright… So I assume that the wormhole is no longer here and weʼll have to go there the long way?” I asked.

Ries turned to me, ”We could take a look around the area first? Who knows, after the station exploded, it might have triggered another wormhole formation?”

I shrugged, ”I guess itʼs worth a look in case there is one.”

Lea frowned slightly, ”Do we have to leave immediately, Mistress?”

”Eh? Well… Not exactly… But is there something else you want to do here?”

Lea hesitated for just a moment, ”If… If I may be allowed to do so… I would like to search around this planet for a while more, Mistress…”

”Ah, to look for plants that we can grow, right?”

She hesitated again for some reason before nodding, ”That is correct, Mistress. I thought that you might also be interested in taking some of the soil as well, either to sell or to grow more plants using methods outside of hydroponics.”

Ohhhhh! I canʼt believe that I had completely forgotten about that!

Seriously, so many things have been happening in such a short amount of time that Iʼve been distracted by them and forgotten about the rest.

To be fair, I was no longer thinking about the soil since I had Lea to take care of the farming so I no longer had to worry about it.

”Just asking… If we were to dig up the ground and bring it with us… Could we sell it for a lot of money as well?”

Mara was the one who answered my question instead, ”That would be unlikely unless the soil here is significantly better for growing crops than other harvest type planets.”

”They would even test that before deciding to buy?”

”Of course, soil like that is worth its weight in gold after all, especially for people out here in the outer colonies where finding a habitable planet like this is exceptionally rare. Still, I would say that it doesnʼt hurt to at least get some of it for both personal use and to sell if you really want to, Captain.”

I nodded, ”In that case, perhaps we could just spend a few more days here?”

The other girls seemed to be in agreement as well. No point in just rushing everywhere, we might as well just take this opportunity to take it easy for now.

I leaned back and suddenly, I felt like a big weight had slipped off my shoulders.

Huh… I didnʼt even realise that I had felt that tense… Perhaps this place really came at the right time for me to take a break as well.

But now comes the question of what could I do here?

As though reading my mind, which I already know that she couldnʼt do, Mara suggested, ”Why not try and get started on surveying the planet, Captain? We might find something useful here that we could bring with us.”

Amber nodded beside her, ”That sounds like a good idea, Tera! Even if we decide not to come back here again, we could just sell whatever data we scanned here and still get a nice payout from it!”

Lea then immediately raised her hand, ”I shall accompany you, Mistress. I have already done some scouting around so I can help you skip past the inconsequential stuff.”

Oh~ That would certainly be helpful. At least this was way better than just wandering around trying to find stuff to scan because there were instances of that where I was completely lost and just wasting time wandering around back when I was playing the game.

Alright then, I guess we can set off right now? The sun is still up after and Iʼm already tired of sorting through the stuff we looted from the station.

Letʼs go do some planetary survey!