I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship, so I Became a Space Mercenary

567 「「「Nope. Not happening」」」

「It’s kind of late to be saying this, but…」

「Yes? What’s wrong?」

Mimi was sitting beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched, working a tablet terminal. She looked up at me and tilted her head.

「It’s a ridiculous girls’ club, isn’t it…? Like—having this many people around and I’m the only guy. That’s kinda insane.」

Uh… how many is it, again?

Mimi, Elma, Mei, Tina and Wiska, Kugi, Dr. Shouko, Neve, Serena, Chris, Edeltrude, Lucia, Isolde… and three female imperial guards who still hadn’t introduced themselves properly.

If I exclude Tamamo since she is inside Kugi…

Sixteen. Sixteen, huh…

「Ahaha… Well, yeah. That really is coming a bit late. But I don’t think it’d be easy to bring in a man as crew now, either. Not when things are like this.」

「Seriously. That’s exactly it.」

The reason I can be the lone guy in this household without feeling like I have to hunch my shoulders all the time is because the women go out of their way to make it comfortable for me.

And also because, excluding Lucia and her guards, my relationship with them is… well. The ‘husband and wife / fiancés / lovers / partners’ kind of relationship—and they’ve accepted that fact and are, somehow, managing to share me without it turning into a war.

If a new male crew member joined this environment…

‘Awkward’ wouldn’t begin to cover it. And it’d force the women to start minding a bunch of things they don’t currently have to. Elma and Tina sometimes wander around in their underwear after a bath or shower. And Dr. Shouko… Dr. Shouko sometimes walks around stark naked like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

「When we get to Windas Tertius Colony, we have to go to Hazel Starship and the sword workshop, right? We’ll probably all be moving as one big group.」

「Most likely… though Dr. Shouko might lock herself in the lab.」

「She’s a homebody, yeah. Still… fifteen girls, not counting me. If I walk around with fifteen beauties in tow, that’s gonna be a whole thing, isn’t it…?」

「Ah… Someone’s going to upload holo pics to social media for sure.」

From legal loli types like Tina Wiska and Neve, to model-tier beauties like Serena and Isolde, to straight-up pretty girls like Mimi, Chris, and Lucia… and then the ‘unique category’ beauties like Elma, Kugi, and Mei.

And one mercenary-looking guy leading the parade.

Yeah. We’d stand out. No question.

「Wouldn’t it be better if I just moved separately and met up with you guys there…?」

「And then while you’re alone, you get dragged into trouble, and we mysteriously gain another girl. Yes, yes. I understand perfectly.」

「Mimi, isn’t that what they call… a stabbing comment? Like, a real ouch one? I mean, I can’t deny it even a little, but I’d like to plead not guilty.」

She told me that with a bright, gentle smile, and it hurt my heart a little.

But I really don’t think I’m at fault here. Trouble comes flying at me. I’m not the bad guy. And hey—there’s that saying, right? If you see righteousness and don’t act, you’ve got no courage.

If a cute girl is getting caught up in trouble right in front of you, you help her. That’s just how it goes.

「If something happens right in front of you and someone’s in trouble, you can’t ignore it, Hiro-sama… You saved me because of that, so I can’t exactly complain too strongly.」

「I’m not some saintly savior who rescues everyone out of pure love, alright? I don’t just help anybody. I mean, I helped you because… you were cute, Mimi.」

「Really…? I don’t know. I feel like, in that situation, even if I’d been a man… you still would’ve saved me, Hiro-sama.」

「Nope. If you were a guy, I’d ignore you. Ignore, ignore. Men should handle it themselves.」

I said it firmly, but Mimi didn’t look convinced.

I’m serious! I don’t save men!

…Okay, fine, I have helped plenty of guys within reason. It’s not like I deliberately abandon people. But still.

「Sounds like you’re having an interesting conversation?」

As Mimi and I were chatting about nothing, Serena—fresh out of the shower, apparently—spoke up. She was wearing something like training wear, which probably meant she’d been moving her body around.

Nice. Very nice. I won’t specify what, but yes. Very nice.

「Your gaze is kind of lewd… Though I don’t really mind.」

「Mmm… I wish I could get more like you, Serena-san, you know… all… toned and tight…」

「Mimi, stay exactly how you are. Anyway—an interesting conversation… You mean the one about how I get dragged into trouble so often it’s like trouble spawns on top of me?」

「That one. Do you really get caught up in that much trouble? And is that really how the number of women around you keeps increasing?」

At Serena’s words, Mimi and I looked at each other—and then started counting on our fingers, thinking back through the trouble that had, in fact, increased our headcount.

「The first one was you, Serena. When I first came here, I got picked on by space pirates, beat them back, went to a colony, got harassed by a corrupt official—then you swept in like some dashing hero. And after that… well. We don’t even need to say it, right?」

「We kept running into each other over and over at astronomically unlikely timings.」

「Th-that’s… true…」

Serena’s cheek twitched. She’d said she’d been somewhat aware of it, but from her perspective it was more like we were somehow always there wherever she went, which made her suspicious.

「Then Elma. I got off the ship and went looking for somewhere to buy food, and she came and picked a fight with me.」

「And then, as Serena-san already knows, Elma-san rammed a star-system military ship, got slapped with damages, couldn’t pay, and was basically about to get hauled off to a prison colony… right before Hiro-sama saved her.」

「And Mimi—during that stretch between meeting Elma and Elma officially joining the crew, I found Mimi getting dragged into an alley by some thugs and pulled her out.」

「I’ll never forget that. Nobody… nobody helped me. And in the middle of all that, Hiro-sama was the only one who saved me.」

Saying that, Mimi hugged my arm tight and pressed close.

Elma had told me to ignore it back then, but I couldn’t. There was no way I could just stand by and let a girl like Mimi get hurt right in front of me. If I’d walked away, I wouldn’t have just ‘slept badly’—I’d have hated myself.

And then there is Dr. Shouko: the moment I arrived in the system I was heading for, I ran into a ship being attacked by space pirates. I helped, a bunch of things happened, we reunited later, and she ended up joining the crew.

Chris was similar—I jumped to the system I was heading for, fought off pirates who attacked, and salvaged an escape pod from the loot. The pod had Chris in it. After that, I got wrapped up in her family drama, helped her through it… and somehow ended up her fiancé.

Mei—when Chris and our crew dropped into that resort system as a diversion from pursuers, a sly overseeing management AI tried to sell her to us. Then, during our emergency takeoff, she casually boarded my ship like it was normal… so we bought her, and she stayed.

Tina and Wiska—when I went to buy a mothership, Wiska suddenly came flying at me and I got injured. Then they tried to offer up their bodies as an apology, and after a whole lot of back-and-forth, they boarded Black Lotus as dispatched maintenance engineers. Then, after even more back-and-forth, they became official crew.

Kugi—The last time we came to this Windas Tertius Colony, she basically showed up out of nowhere and came to us. At first, she sounded like a nutjob, but it was later revealed she was a priestess of the Vuelzarus Holy Empire, had information related to my origins, and apparently, if we refused to take her along, she’d be ‘disposed of,’ so she ended up joining in a way that was less choice and more… getting swept along.

And Neve… I salvaged the wreckage of a Federation battleship, found a life sign inside some weird can-like part, and couldn’t ignore it if there was a survivor—so I opened it up and went, ‘What the hell!? This is an inhumane biounit!’ She was in a wrecked state with less than a year to live, and I couldn’t just leave her like that, so… I ended up saving her and taking responsibility.

As for Tamamo—I’ll skip that. I still haven’t explained Tamamo’s existence to Serena and Chris, and it’s a pain to explain. I feel like a distant 「What in blazes?!」is being beamed at me, but I better ignore it.

Oh—and what about elf girl Tinia, or Linda from Reemay Prime Colony?

Tinia isn’t going to become my crew, and we aren’t in that kind of relationship. And Linda is more like, ‘Maybe in a few years she might join,’ at most.

Even so, Mimi had brought both of them up.

「Aren’t you picking up way too many women???」

「I plead not guilty!」

「No, that’s… come on… can that really all be coincidence?」

Somehow, everyone except Mei had gathered in the lounge area, listening to my… romantic history, or rather, my ‘how I keep getting girls because trouble is magnetized to me’ story.

Mei was probably listening from the bridge, so in practice, it was basically everyone.

「But you do end up sleeping with them, right?」

「Listen—when it comes to Serena and Chris, I held myself back a lot, okay? I was exercising serious restraint. If I’d been trying to pounce aggressively, it would’ve happened way sooner for both of them. And even with Tina and Wiska, I agonized over whether I should make a move.」

「Yeah, that’s true.」

「It took you forever to finally do it, y’know?」

「This one as well. My lord is the sort who properly considers the other’s position… their circumstances, and their heart.」

「And for me, you still haven’t made a move yet.」

Tina and Wiska, along with Neve—the trio of legal lolis—nodded along with what I said.

With those three, it wasn’t just restraint—it was also that the gap in size and build made me… nervous, alright? Hard to take that step without feeling like I’m doing something wrong.

And with Kugi, her sense of duty and responsibility as a priestess was so strong that me pushing from my side felt… no. Just no.

「You moved pretty fast with me, though.」

「Same here. The moment I became official crew, you didn’t waste time.」

Elma gave me a flat stare, and Dr. Shouko looked at me like she was enjoying herself.

Well, those two were independent adults. And there’s that saying: you don’t refuse a meal served right in front of you. I do think about the other person’s situation before I do anything.

「Anyway… you’ve got a strong ‘women trouble’ aura, or whatever you’d call it… Right. What was it again? Your plan was to keep us from standing out by leaving you alone when we go inside Windas Tertius Colony, right?」

「That was the idea. What do you think?」

「「「Nope. Not happening.」」」

Unanimous.

Even so, I’m pleading not guilty.

I’m not the bad guy!