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

I got to the cargo bay just in time to see Amber lowering the probe down from the air.

The probe itself was circular in shape with some odd antennae sticking out on one end and there were metal struts at the bottom to stop it from rolling around.

”I don’t sense anything else on it at least,” My Psionic lover remarked, bending her body to the side from her waist to look at the side of the probe. ”At least nothing with a conscious thought that I can sense.”

Ries tapped on her personal terminal, ”Hmm… The data is locked behind a pretty tough security wall… We might need Boss to come and take a crack at it before I can open it up.”

I cleared my throat, ”Ahem… You called?”

Both of them turned towards me and their faces lit up in smiles.

”Tera!”

”Boss!”

”Both of you act like you’ve never seen me in a while…” I pointed out as I walked towards them.

Amber skipped over to my side and wrapped her arm around mine, ”Ehehehe, it’s always nice to see you, Tera~ Right, Ries?”

The Maochatte slid to my other side and mirrored Amber’s action, snuggling her face against my arm without saying anything.

”So what do we have here?” I asked, deciding to just get to the point instead.

Ries pulled up her personal terminal to show me the screen, ”The probe is encrypted quite heavily… Even with my best equipment, I don’t think I could crack it. Would you like to try, Boss?”

”They didn’t say we can’t take a peek right?” I pointed out.

Amber scoffed, ”Hmph, that bastard was so arrogant claiming that we wouldn’t even know what is recorded and it will be useless to us anyway.”

Yeah, he did say that…

But the reason why I’m here was not for that at least.

I looked down at my hand with the ring, ”So this is what you’re after. Do I need to hack it or you’re going to just do what you want now?”

The ring moved my finger to point at the probe and repeated the action a few times.

I’m guessing that means she wants me to actually hack it then…

I separated from the girls and tapped on my Codex to connect to the probe.

The familiar hacking screen appeared and I only needed just half a minute before an audible hiss came from the probe.

All of us looked up to see one part of the probe popping open like some sort of hatch.

Right then, a black tendril slipped out from the opening of the hatch and I reacted immediately by reaching for my gun while Amber raised her hands to conjure a fireball above her.

But the ring on my finger quickly slipped out from my hand to fly towards the dark tendril and transformed itself into a small orb, prompting both Amber and I to pause our attack of that black tendril.

The black tendril seemed to be looking around until it spotted the black orb floating in front of it.

Without a moment’s hesitation, it flew forward and wrapped around the black orb. Then, very slowly, it seemed to melt into the black orb, fusing into it and disappearing inside.

All of us simply watched to see what would happen next but the orb simply transformed back into a ring before flying back to slip itself onto my finger.

Our gazes switched back to the ring and we stared at it for a good long minute, waiting to see if anything else would happen.

When nothing was forthcoming, I couldn’t help but let out a cry, ”What the hell?”

Amber turned to me and said what I was thinking as well, ”Was that it? I was expecting something… Well… More?”

Before I could answer, the ring vibrated and a voice spoke from it.

”Apo… Logies…”

The voice sounded more like nails scratching on a chalkboard so all of us couldn’t help but flinch when we heard it.

Despite that, I had to ask, ”Did absorbing that thing give you the ability to speak now?”

”Cor… Rect…”

Owww… My poor ears…

I looked at the other two, ”Are you both alright?”

Both of them had their ears covered and while amber only showed discomfort, Ries had curled herself up on the ground while hugging her head to cover her ears.

”Owww… Boss… If you want to ask it more questions… Could I leave first?”

”Of course.”

My poor Maochatte got up from the floor and stalked off, her hands rubbing her ears delicately.

”What about you, Amber?”

She winced, ”I’ll stay… Just err… Give me a minute to recover from it talking each time you ask it something, ok?”

Well… I can agree with that because I probably need that too…

I turned back to the ring, ”Alright… So what was that black tendril you absorbed earlier?”

There was a small pause before the ring answered.

”Part of… Greater Consciousness…”

Good thing I had already prepared myself so the voice didn’t hit me as hard as before.

Ok… That doesn’t sound ominous at all… I assume that this ’greater consciousness’ is probably some entity that these Psionic Chrysalis are related to.

I waited for Amber to fully recover before I continued, ”Are you trying to gather more of these?”

”N… No…”

”Then why did you want us to go get this one?”

”Happened… To be… Nearby…”

…

Really? So it was just by chance that it managed to get something like this?

”Do you know how many are out there?”

”No…”

”So how did this one get stuck in that probe?”

”Un… Sure… Guess… Black hole… Is not what you… Think it is… Might be a portal… To a different plane…”

I paused after recovering from hearing its voice before turning to look at Amber, finding my lover giving me the same look.

I turned back to the ring, ”What about those shadow figures? What are they? Are they related to you guys?”

”Unsure… Most likely another… Entity from… Another plane… Unknown to us…”

And here I thought we only needed to worry about one kind of eldritch being… Seems like there might be even more of them out there…

”So… Did you know that you can speak after you absorb this?”

”No…”

”Would you gain more abilities or other stuff if you absorbed more?”

”Per… Haps… Unsure…”

”Are you able to sense if there are any nearby?”

”Not… In the system… Must be… In the same system… Then maybe…”

”Right… Did you choose to follow me because you think I can lead you to them or something?”

”Incor… Rect… Merely wished… To repay… And… Like you…”

Ok… Piercing voice aside… That was actually pretty cute…

I looked down at the ring again, ”Are you able to do something about that voice of yours?”

There was a pause before it spoke again, ”Will… Try… Still… Learning…”

The voice this time wasn’t as jarring as before so I think it might just take some time for it to tone that down.

Amber shook her head, probably to clear the ringing in her ears before she turned to the ring to ask a question of her own.

”How do you even know how to speak this language?”

”Mem… Mories… From… The previous hosts…”

Oh right. I guess there was that too…

Amber recovered again before asking, ”So is there anything special you can do now? Or is just being able to talk the only addition to this?”

”Un… Sure… Would need… More time to… Figure out…”

Amber threw her hands up in frustration, ”Really?! We took this job because of you, you know?! We could have died there and all we got was just you being able to speak?!”

The ring vibrated for a moment before five Psionic Crystals materialised themselves to deposit onto my hand.

The ring just deposited at least three million Credits in my hand…

”Should be… Able to… Make more… Each time… Now…”

Amber stared at the crystals in my hand before looking at me.

Oh right, both Mara and Amber want this to increase their Psionic powers… So we most likely wouldn’t be selling any more of this unless we really have to.

”You want them?” I asked.

She nodded her head quickly.

I handed the crystals to her wordlessly and she took them carefully in both her hands before scoffing, ”Hmph… I suppose this wasn’t such a bad trip after all.”

I turned back to the probe, ”Speaking of which… Shouldn’t we check what is recorded here anyway?”

Amber grinned, ”I’ll go get Ries~”

She skipped away, leaving me alone with the probe.

Deciding that I might as well just check it out myself first, I opened my Codex and tried to connect with the probe to see what kind of data it had.

Navigating through the folders, I found the folder that kept its recording data and opened it.

The moment I did so, the screen flickered and what looked like an eye appeared, staring straight at me.

I blinked and the eye suddenly disappeared, almost like I just imagined the whole thing.

What the heck was that?