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

Chapter 960: Bug Open Contract

I told the admiral I had to discuss this with my girls and thus postponed the decision about it.

I went over to my girls as they also dismounted from their Exo-Knights to gather around to wait for me to approach them.

"So, what’s up?" Amber asked with a raised eyebrow, probably sensing that there was something up.

"There’s more than one nest... The Admiral wants us to hit all the nests around the planet... There’s almost ninety different bug nests..."

Yumiko nodded, "That was to be expected, Mistress... The entire planet it infested with them. I am pretty sure that this particular nest was one of the smaller ones with only a million or so bugs. That’s why the military chose this area to establish a foothold."

The other girls also didn’t look that surprised by my news, as though it was something they already knew would happen.

So it was just me? I guess I was just too naive then...

Hey come on... It’s not like I ever had experience exterminating an entire species from a planet before... This is my first time, ok?

I looked around the base, "Even so... This isn’t a lot of people to exterminate an entire planet, right? Even if we take into account the number of ships that are still in orbit above the planet..."

Yumiko shook her head, "This is going to be an extended campaign, Mistress. It’s not something that will be solved in just a few days. I suspect that this might take more than half a year before the entire planet is completely cleansed."

Ah... Right... I guess I was thinking about it from a Merc’s perspective where we get a job and then deal with a job in the shortest amount of time possible before we move to the next job.

This was quite literally a war, I suppose...

I turned to them, "Still... I’m not very keen on staying on a bug infested planet for an entire six months and doing nothing but killing bugs..."

Amber shrugged, "We don’t have to. It’s an open contract isn’t it?"

Oh right...

What that means is that we aren’t really contractually obligated to clear out all the nests. The military just basically posted an open contract that any Merc could cash in on where a Merc that clears out a bug nest will get a billion Credits.

I misunderstood the admiral, he wasn’t ordering me to continue clearing out the bug nests, he was telling me that there were more targets that I could make money from if I wanted to continue the extermination.

Though I’m not sure what his thoughts are about Nerissa and the dogs... Does he still think that Nerissa can control them perfectly and he’ll just continue deploying them with her at the helm?

Because if that’s the case... It’ll probably be a disaster waiting to happen...

And I’m also worried that the dogs might get hurt because of this misunderstanding as well so I don’t really want to just leave it to them either...

I turned back to Nerissa and I guess she also understood that if we were to decide to leave, she might be screwed again.

Still... To her credit, she didn’t try to say anything that might influence my decision and just looked at me, waiting to see what I would decide to do.

"They probably wouldn’t just make you participate in combat all the time, right? I mean... Like there’s definitely going to be breaks for both you and the dogs, right?" I asked.

Nerissa grimaced, "I... I’m not sure..."

Yumiko came to the rescue again, "They would most likely rotate out the battalion every few weeks or a month. Now that they have an established safezone, they will start to build a base here and establish a supply line and use this place to launch planetary assaults to the other nests. Civilians like her will most likely get a break after a week or so, so I’m guessing she would get a notice of leave to allow her to leave the planet to return home for a time."

That seemed to alarm Nerissa, "Home? I... I don’t want to return home! That’s the whole point of me coming out here!"

My doggirl lover turned to her, "You don’t actually need to go back home, but they do need you to leave the planet. It’s part of the law that they can’t let civilians remain in active combat zones for too long even if they are participating in said combat."

I was going to ask if we were considered civilians but I’m guessing Mercenaries don’t count.

Nerissa seemed to panic at that, "But... Where would I even go?! I don’t even have any money! I won’t even survive out there!"

Amber turned to me, "Didn’t we get a reward from clearing that nest?"

I nodded, "I got a billion Credits. I was thinking we could just split it amongst ourselves."

"You did most of the work though..."

"But you girls helped me keep guard so I want to split it. We can split it nine ways if we include Nerissa so... That will be about a hundred and eleven million Credits for each of us."

Nerissa let out a choked gasp at the number I just spoke aloud, "A... A hundred... And eleven?"

By the way, a billion credits for a bug nest might seem like a lot, but they are paying for Mercs to clear out those nests to speed up the process.

The military would probably spend that much money in terms of supply, ammunition and other resources to clear out one nest anyway... Possibly even more than that amount if I’m not wrong.

And the billion Credits would be paid to the entire Mercenary group, not every person, so if you were to factor in the fact that a Merc group would have to pay for their own ammunition and energy they expended during their clearing of the nest, their net profit might only be around five hundred million Credits or less.

And if you also consider that the Merc team would definitely be more than just a party of nine people, you might be seeing a split where each person only gets about a hundred thousand Credits for putting their life on the line to clear the bug nest.

And from that, it no longer looked like a really profitable job anymore.

The good thing was that there seemed to also be a bounty for the bugs where extra Credits were paid out for each of the special type bugs that the Mercs killed so the earnings at the end might actually be slightly more than what I just calculated.

It might not make someone really rich, but it definitely was still quite a significant amount of money for a single job.

We’ve also expanded quite a bit of ammo and energy cells so far actually, so our profit is actually somewhat lower than what I had decided to split too.

Nerissa finally managed to recover her senses as she shook her head frantically, "No, no! Wait! That’s too much money for me!! I... I can’t take that much!! Especially since I’ve only been relying on you all this while!!"

I raised an eyebrow at her, "So you really think you can survive off this planet on your own without any money?"

She hesitated, "Can’t... Can’t I just stay with you?"

I huffed, "We’re planning to hit another nest though... So I don’t think you can stay here with us... I’d recommend that you take some of the Credits if you don’t feel comfortable taking everything and just fly off the planet to head to another station where you can spend a few days or something before coming back here. We could even pick you up if you want."

She paused before letting out a breath, "You... Do know that without me, you can’t use the dogs, right? At least... Not without exposing yourself as a Biotamer..."

Oh... I kind of forgot about that... But then again, that means my girls could follow me down to those burrows so I don’t really see a problem with that. We’ll have three Psionics, a Maochatte in power armour, an Alv sniper, an Inucani soldier, and an eldritch maid entity.

I think we can handle a nest by ourselves just fine~

I smiled at that thought and I think she misunderstood my smile since she stiffened slightly before nodding her head, "I... I understand... Of course, you don’t actually need the dogs to crush those bugs... Sorry..."

She probably thought that I would be the only one crushing the bugs since I’m a Psionic. Not that I was going to correct her of course.

In the end, we settled on paying her two million Credits and split the remaining amongst my girls and I after Vier deducts the cost of replenishing our supplies from the reward.

Now... I suppose we should plan for the next nest that my girls and I will clear~