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

”What would you guys say about getting a dog of our own?” I asked after our dinner and the girls were cleaning up.

Four pairs of eyes immediately swivelled towards me, all of them looking quite alarmed by my suggestion.

”Tera… Are you… Oh, you’re actually seriously considering it?” Amber asked.

I shrugged, ”They’re supposed to be really strong right? And from what I’ve heard all of you say about them, they would be quite an asset to our team, wouldn’t it?”

Mara pursed her lips, ”I suppose that if your… What do you even call this? Your ability?”

I shrugged, ”I don’t know, really. I thought they like me because I don’t fear them or something…”

Lea disagreed, ”That is definitely not the reason, Mistress… There are examples of such incidents where the person ended up having their faces ripped apart or their limbs mauled and bitten off despite that. You might say that they were just pretending to not be scared of them but there were also cases where it was with people who had never known about how dangerous they could be and approached them, only to be ripped to shreds.”

Mara nodded, ”So let’s just call it your ability. If your ability does work on all dogs, then I suppose I could agree with you.”

Ries spun around, ”Wait! Do we really need to?! I could… Umm… If Boss gives me some time… I could also create a robotic variation of one instead! That would be better, right?”

I tilted my head at them, ”Seems like you guys are pretty much against the idea? You know you can just tell me that you guys are against the idea and that would be it. I’m not gonna force it.”

Amber scratched her cheek, ”Well… To be honest, having one would definitely scare me though I believe I would eventually get used to it… The only issue is that… Well…”

Mara took over, ”The issue is that there’s regulations on getting one legally. Animals like these are classified as controlled and highly dangerous weapons. One would need a very specific permit to be able to obtain them and the people who can get these permits are usually tied to the military or the government. The only way for us to get one is through illegal channels and if we get caught with one, we could be labelled as criminals.”

Oh.

Now that she mentioned it… I suppose the dogs that I have seen so far all belonged to people who didn’t care about the law.

Ries added, ”If Boss is interested to know… You also need a licence to operate a Power Armour… And you can get it by just registering yourself as an owner of one and paying a small fee to get the licence… It’s easier to get permission to own power armour than it is to own a dog.”

You know… I want to say that this was surprising but I think this would be true in some places back in my old universe where it’s easier to get through the legal process of obtaining a weapon than it is to get a pet.

I sighed and leaned back in my chair, ”Oh well… I guess I will give up on that…”

”Captain. If you really wanted one though…” Mara muttered, hesitating for a moment before continuing. ”I might be able to get some contacts to get the licence… If you really want it.”

I blinked at her, ”Something tells me it isn’t as simple as just calling up some people and asking them for it.”

”No… I would need to do some favours for them which may or may not alert my pursuers of my location so that’s also a risk we would be taking. Although I suppose if we were to get a dog after that, the risk would be mostly mitigated by the presence of the dog anyway.”

I considered it for a moment, ”Hmm… Is there another way for us to get a certification for that without making use of your contacts?”

Amber raised a hand, ”I would say that the most clear path for you would be to raise your Merc rank, Tera. If you’re in the Platinum rank, you’ll definitely start receiving sponsorship requests and people trying to butter you up for favours. If our rank is high enough, we might get a job from some important dude that could help up with that process in return for completing the job.”

Oh, I guess that might be a better choice then.

I don’t really want to make use of Mara’s contacts if that brings us more problems anyway.

I shrugged, ”In that case, we might as well just leave this problem for the future. It’s clear that you girls are uncomfortable with the idea and there’s no easy way to deal with the licence problem as well unless we’re willing to become outlaws. Doing black market trading is one thing but I believe if we were to be caught with a dog, we wouldn’t just be let off with a fine like if we were caught doing black market trading, right?”

Mara nodded, ”You would essentially be labelled as a permanent outlaw and a bounty might even be placed on our heads… Which would effectively lock us all out from gaining entry into the inner colonies.”

And since one of my goals is to try and find Earth which was located within the regions of the inner colonies… I would like to avoid that happening if possible.

”In that case, I suppose we should really just forget about that for now,” I decided.

I could see all four girls relaxing the moment they heard me say that.

Seems like they really are scared of dogs huh… Or rather, I guess that’s the normal reaction here and I was the abnormal one.

But who knows? With how our luck has been so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if the very next day, I just happen to walk into an alley and find a free dog with a dog ownership licence right next to it and tadah, we have a dog now.

… For some reason, it doesn’t even sound impossible to me that it might actually happen just like that…

”Anyway… To change the topic… Are we fine with returning to the gambling den after this? I’m not even sure if this would lead us to the answer and we could just be chasing a red herring the entire time.”

Lea looked at me, ”What’s a red herring?”

”It’s a fish… I think?” Amber explained after looking at her personal terminal.

Ries immediately perked up, ”Fish?”

”Ah… Ummm… It’s an expression… Like maybe this lead of ours wouldn’t even lead us to the right conclusion and we’re being misled… Either intentionally or unintentionally.”

Ries’s ears drooped in disappointment after realising there wasn’t actually any fish.

Amber grinned at me, ”Well, even if this lead ends up leading nowhere, we still benefited from all the Credits we earned, right? We’re already a few million Credits richer just from the gambling, aren’t we?”

Oh right… We’ve already earned at least five million Credits in just one day already…

Damn… Gambling in these places might actually be more profitable than black market trading… Maybe we should just do this more often?

As though reading my mind, Lea spoke up, ”I recommend that we do not make this a habit, Mistress… Sooner or later we’ll make a bet that we lose and end up losing more than we have won. I would strongly advise against doing this more than we have to unless we have no choice.”

Oh right, she’s really against gambling.

Well, I do agree with her on that though, this is a slippery slope to addiction and it’s best to just do it in moderation. We’re only engaging in it this time because we don’t really have a choice since this was our only lead and there’s no other way to get it.

Lea continued, ”That’s why, I do not recommend us to continue gambling there to get the organic food.”

I tilted my head at her, ”But that’s the only way we can get the chips to obtain it, right? Unless you have another idea?”

”Of course, Mistress. We do not need to gamble in the gambling den to get chips, we just need to wait outside the gambling den and tail someone to a secluded area before ambushing them to get their chips instead.”

…

”Let’s… Err… Let’s not turn ourselves into muggers, ok?” I suggested.

”In that case, I think sneaking into the gambling den and then stealing it from their kitchen would be another choice.”

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Damn… Just how much do you dislike gambling so much that you would not mind committing a crime to avoid it, Lea?

”I think we’ll keep those ideas as plan B for now since the ’legitimate’ way is working so far. We’ll just go back, make a few more bets and hopefully we could get that prize within the day and also get our clue as well.”

Lea obviously didn’t look that happy with my decision but she did not argue, probably because she knew that I was right about this plan going well so far.

Anyway… I suppose we should prepare to leave soon.

Just because no one has solved this case so far doesn’t mean no one is trying and I’d rather not miss out my chance for this after we’ve gotten this far.

I will admit that part of the reason is also due to curiosity but who wouldn’t, right?