Translator: SFBaka
Editor: Thor’s Stone
In the face of the overwhelming power of the star system garrison fleet, all the summoned crystal lifeforms eventually got annihilated.
And now that they’re gone, this matter is over!
“Yeah, there’s no way that’s happing huh.”
The crew of Krishna and Black Lotus along with the mercenaries we hired as escorts were detained by the Mirabreeze star system garrison forces. Well, even if we got detained, we didn’t display any resistance and obediently went with them to their system’s main colony, so we weren’t bound like prisoners, and the treatment wasn’t too bad.
“Then you guys just got caught up in the mess and didn’t illegally possess a Singing Crystal, correct? Is that what you’re saying?”
I was now sitting face to face with my interrogator from across a table. I was now inside a gray-colored and dimly lit interrogation room, where a crisply dressed Military Police Officer from the Star System Garrison was questioning me.
“Yeah, that’s right. If you wanted to make a profit by using a Singing Crystal to hunt a crystal lifeform swarm, you wouldn’t do it right before a hyperlane node with heavy traffic passing through it, right? And you certainly wouldn’t use one if it would get your mothership and the mercenaries you hired as escorts along with yourself trapped in the middle of a crystal lifeform swarm, let alone stay behind in order to buy enough time for them to get away. Anyone other than me would have died ten times over you know. And you already checked the logs of all our ships, right?”
“But of course. However, we still need to hear the statements of all parties involved after all. I also personally think that acting all suspicious of a Gold Star recipient like yourself is a bit improper, but this is just protocol you see. So according to the statements of your crew members as well as the mercenaries you hired, you said something about possibly being caught up in a crystal lifeform swarm mid-transit within the hyperlane, and that you devised a concrete plan of action and relayed it to them afterward. What exactly led you to this development?”
“I’d like to say it was nothing but unfounded intuition, but I ended up actually being dead-on. However, it would take quite some time to relate the process of how I got to such a conclusion, and it might even include subjective paranoid and as-of-yet unfounded suspicions that would possibly throw some shade on the reputation and honor of a certain group. Even so, do you still want to hear it?”
“Yes. And do make it concise, please.”
“I did say it was gonna take some time y’know?”
So I proceeded to tell the Military Police Officer the entire story that could even get published as a full-length novel and finally got released afterward.
“It sure took you a while in there.”
“Thanks for the hard work, Hiro-sama.”
“Yeah. I’m bushed.”
After getting released from the Star System Garrison’s interrogation room and returning to the Lotus, I was welcomed by Elma and Mimi. It looks like the mechanic sisters were busy performing maintenance and repairs on Krishna. The Black Lotus also fired its main cannon and all its armaments during the battle, so they were planning on performing a thorough maintenance on it as well.
“What are we going to do after this, Hiro-sama?”
“Since we already got cleared of all suspicions, let’s just get ourselves out of this colony first. Let’s just perform maintenance on the ships after passing through the gateway.”
“Right. We got held up a bit, but it looks like we’ll be able to reach the Eineolus system, where the gateway is, roughly on schedule.”
“Since we got them in trouble, I suppose I better give those guys a reasonable bonus.”
Luckily, we managed to earn some extra income this time. Since we got cleared of any suspicion, we were able to turn the ship’s combat logs in for some nice rewards. Since I managed to defeat a considerable number of crystal lifeforms with a single ship, I earned more than enough to cover the cost of the four reactive torpedoes I used up.
Also, rare crystals could be obtained and processed from the remains of the crystal lifeforms, so the Resource Management Department of the Mirabreeze system happily bought them off our hands. In total, I earned more than enough to cover all the expenses we incurred, including the employment rewards of the mercenaries. Since we did get them involved in something so dangerous, I suppose a nice bonus is the least we could do.
And according to the reports, the mercenaries also hunted quite a few crystal lifeforms, so they did earn some extra as well. Well, that is that and this is this.
“Okay then. I’ll go inform everyone that we’ll be leaving soon. Would 30 minutes from now be fine, Hiro-sama?”
“Sure. Thirty minutes should be enough for those guys loitering around inside the colony to make it back to their ships anyway.”
I won’t wait up for those who are late though. I’ll leave them behind with no hesitation, and that means no pay, let alone a bonus.
And so, I went with Mimi and Elma to the Lotus’ hangar so we can get onboard Krishna, and right when we arrived there, my portable data terminal’s ringtone went off. It wasn’t a simple voiced message but one with video. Hm? I wonder who could it be. Was it Chris? Was she taking a breather and then decided to message me? I took out my terminal from my jacket pocket and looked at the screen. I immediately frowned when I saw who it was that sent a message to me.
“What’s up? You’re making a really ugly expression again, Hiro.”
“What’s wrong, Hiro-sama?”
“It’s this.”
When I showed the two of them my terminal’s screen, they both wrinkled their brows as their mouths twitched involuntarily. Yeah. I get that reaction. I really do.
“Just how did she manage to get her hands on your contact address……?”
“No idea. I certainly didn’t give it to her.”
“Maybe she got it by asking the Mercenary Guild or the mercenaries we hired……?”
“In any case, we can’t just ignore this.”
To be on the safe side, I contacted Mei and had her check if something strange like malware was attached to the message.
『Hi. You probably won’t agree to meet with me in person, so I took the liberty of messaging you instead. You’re fine with this, right?』
Was it taken from her ship’s cockpit? Marie’s entire upper body was displayed on the terminal screen looking all relaxed. Just look at this hag. Grinning and giggling all creepy-like.
『Well, it’s not like we have a lot of stuff to talk about, but…… I figured I had to say hello at least, yeah?』
Marie’s hologram performed a theatrical but flirtatious side-glance.
“If you have nothing good to talk about, then don’t send me a message in the first place, dammit!”
“There’s no point getting angry at a holo-message you know……”
“I also find this person strangely unpleasant.”
Mimi unusually puffed her cheeks in distaste as she looked at Marie’s hologram. I’m not sure why exactly, but seeing Marie this time seems to have gotten on Mimi’s nerves.
『You were really great, you know? You held your ground against that crystal lifeform swarm with just one ship. It was something little old me can’t hope to imitate…… Thanks to that, you were also able to avoid an accidental friendly fire incident. Sorry about that, by the way.』
“This shameless hag…… You were obviously aiming for us on purpose dammit.”
『I really wanna get along with you better the next time we meet y’know…… We’d really appreciate someone as skilled as you have an amicable relationship with us. Anyway, for the time being, I’d be glad if you can consider all that’s happened between us water under the bridge. We’ll at least treat it that way on our end.』
After saying so, hologram Marie displayed a suggestive but nasty-looking grin.
“What do you think she means by this?”
“If we take it at face value, it looks like she’s saying the grudge held against me by the Red Flags will become ‘water under the bridge’ so to speak. But it’s pretty risky to take her words as true.”
“She didn’t really make any clear-cut statements after all. Not that we should be expecting any from people like them.”
The two ladies seem to have come to the same conclusion as I have regarding Marie’s words, yet accepted that it would be dangerous to believe them just like that. After all, she might pull something like saying she forgave me personally but doesn’t guarantee that the rest of her comrades would too.
『So there you have it. Let’s get along the next time we meet, kay? I’m fine with taking it even further you know. If you catch my drift.』
“No way.”
“The hell is this ugly hag saying!? You’re so dead when I get my hands on you!”
“That’s absolutely no good.”
Yeah, this just earned her everyone’s ire. Well, of course, it would. I personally don’t want to have anything to do with a woman who’s like a carnivorous plant that would devour anything that it manages to ensnare. She was dangerous in a different sense from Commander, or rather, Captain Serena.
“Let’s just forget about her. This universe is vast. Anyway, we’ll probably never run into her again once we make it past the gateway.”
“Right. The Empire is huge after all.”
“I really hope that’s the case.”
Elma muttered while displaying a faraway gaze. Stop that, you! I refuse to get a repeat of someone like Captain Serena who we always manage to encounter even after jumping around through gateways. Speaking of which, I wonder if we’ll encounter her again soon…… Just what’s the heck is the deal with us and that disappointing beauty anyway?
“Okay, let’s switch gears, guys. Anyway, right now, we have to focus on getting to the gateway and jumping to another place.”
“It kinda feels like we’re just running away though.”
“It can’t be helped. We can’t deal with a large-scale organized pirate group by ourselves after all. We’re not heroes. We’re just plain old mercenaries.”
“Um, hearing you saying that just sounds so wrong for some reason, Hiro-sama……”
“Right. After all, a plain old mercenary can’t possibly survive after plunging right in the middle of an enemy nation’s fleet or a swarm of hostile crystal lifeforms, can’t fight and beat Nobles with swordsmanship even while not undergoing any biomodification procedures, and certainly not have the Emperor himself award him with a Gold Star when he got promoted to Platinum rank in record time.”
“I can’t heaaar you!”
I’ve made my ears unable to hear anything inconvenient. Amazing, right? I endeavored to forget the matter with Marie as we continued to head inside Black Lotus’s hangar. The mechanic sisters noticed us immediately.
“Ah, hi there, Boss. Congrats on gettin’ released.”
“Congratulations, Big Brother.”
“I wasn’t actually put in prison, you know? So can you not act like I’ve just tasted the air of freedom again after doing some major jail time?”
“”Kyaaa!””
I ground my fists on top of the work helmets of the two sisters who were clearly in the mood for playing around. They were wearing seriously lame-looking helmets with the Space Dwerg logo printed on them. Yep. It was the logo depicting an old dwarven guy straddling a retro-futuristic cartoon rocket.
“We didn’t take that much damage, right? Just finish up replenishing the equipment and ammo for now. We’ll be departing soon.”
“We’re already done with that, so no worries, Boss. We can head out anytime.”
“We’d really like to do a full check after such an intense battle even if we didn’t take any damage though.”
“Let’s do that after getting to a safer place. Thanks for the maintenance work as always, you two.”
I then gently stroked the top of their helmets and headed for Krishna.
Phew. We’re finally saying goodbye to this place and heading to our next destination.
I m pretty dissatisfied with how things goes lately ,
most of the story is : I got a bad premonition about this , lets make preperations about this in case of everything goes apes***
all crewmates start to believe in this and few chapters has no content aside from them talking about being unlcuky
his hunch proves to be true and they get s**t on for absolutely no reason , they suffer for bunch of chapters and when they survive , nothing really happens to people who made them experience nearly death and they accept it but nag about it and the cycle repeats
Nothin solved at all. This is getting on my nerve. After days binge reading Rebuild World, it feels like heaven and earth to this one
Thanks for the Chapters! This is still one of my favorite web novels. I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.
Thanks for the chapters!
I have to agree with the previous comments(that have nothing to do with the translation) COME-ON AUTHOR give us something!
Yeah I feel the same with the others. Like really? It isn’t like Hiro is an honorary noble who’s basically allowed to cut non-nobles down by the imperial law, and even if the honorary nobility doesn’t let him do that, Elma is a goddam noble. It isn’t like Hiro don’t have connections with bigshot nobles that trust him a lot like someone in the military who’s mission is specifically hunting pirates or the heiress of a powerful noble house who has feelings for him. Lastly, Mimi is the grandniece of the goddam emperor. Hiro could just send a message to the emperor saying this group of pirates just tried to kill him with Mimi onboard and is getting away scot free and you bet the emperor would order a special task force to hunt down those Crimson pirates. Like what the fuck author, Hiro has tons of connections that he can use and call in favors from, but nah herp derp, we don’t have EviDenCe, guess we can’t do anything.
Thanks for the chapter though, I’m upset at the author for this development, not you SFBaka.
Even though she doesn’t clearly say it, the records of her conversations with him + that last message would be substantial evidences enough if you take into account the shit-ton of connections he has.
And I bet Hiro would just say…
I don’t want to owe anything to the King and so on…
Sadly, yeah..
Eh. Hiro doesn’t have to “ask”. … this is the king who had access to all Hiro’s records when he first arrived in this universe, including his computer search records.
King would/ should find out about this and black ops it from behind the scenes
They shouldn’t go to the king. That’d be rightly criticized. You don’t want to be a royal,, live your own life, them do it. Don’t cry to the king. He also would look really bad killing someone with no evidence. He should contact Serena and ask her to investigate. She finds evidence and and they do it right. I’m sure she’d be down as shed get to take down a big pirate group, expose a gold ranker who works with pirates and get a favor from Hiro is one fell swoop..I’m as annoyed with no resolution as anyone but I’d be more annoyed with some of your suggestions.
And again
Hiro will say
“I don’t want to owe anything, especially to her”.
I hope there will be a revenge match someday. It will do good to my mental health.
At least there was a flag for next appearance of Col. Disappointing Beauty.
I just wonder if Hiro ever finds out that Marie is a fellow SOL player from Earth, what will be his reaction?
Thanks for the treat.
it would be fun if he declared open season on her lmao
She played space pirates online, evidently. A different game?
She might actually be a he though. Since she monologued about can’t getting used to being called “young miss”, however we want to interpret it. Probably a dude who played a female character, from a different world than Hiro, playing a different game with pirate POV.
That’s more about her not being used to the term ‘Ojou’ since she doesn’t consider herself young enough for it anymore.
I don’t know what the author plans in the fure but, this development is goddamn infuriating.
I feel like I’m even more pissed than Hiro rn…
If this is another harem member because they are also from earth just wow but at least it would make sense why he doesn’t just march over and chop her head off/ get elma to do so or i dont know tell the system Garson to arrest them using heir rank/ status as reason.
Did I misunderstood the previous chapter? The bitch is also a player like Hiro?
Yes, but she’s being a pirate in the game… Unlike Hiro who’s being law abiding mercenaries
Now that is some BS. All this buildup for nothing to happen? Literal months waiting for a satisfying conclusion and that’s it?
That sucks Hiro.
If only you had some kind of mystic, unseen power that could destroy a mountain or protect your ship from any attacks.
Too bad this isn’t a fantasy isekai cause that would be the go to.
Well you win some you lose some.
*deadpan sarcasm*
Ok after 300 chapters I am done with this series. Hiro gets yanked around seven ways to Sunday by all manner of either antagonistic or stupidly inept people and all he can do is complain about it without actually doing anything to rectify the issue or get justice/retribution/revenge. The elves nearly kill you by accident and fail to rescue you after their initial mistakes because of cultural bias and ineptitude? Oh just give me a stay at a resort and I’ll consider it even. Some random bitch decides she wants to kill you for shits and giggles? Meh I’m mad but I’ll let it slide. Dude you’re a PLATINUM merc and a noble. Start using your power ffs and deal with that shit instead of letting them get away. As much as I enjoy reading LNs so many of these Japanese MCs get on my nerves due to how stupidly non-confrontational they are. They’re like the polar opposite of Chinese light novel MCs who are waaay too aggro and edgy.
I agree with the other commenters – a little disappointing. It lacks global antagonism/goal, as well as memorable villains. Marie is the first one to be marked out at all. There was so much suspense as if something was going to happen. Nothing in the end. Too much focus on his foreboding and attracting bad luck. The sighing and complaining about it is getting annoying.
But the characters are cool
I’m so pissed off right now. At least have a god damn conclusion at the end of an arc. All that preparation all for nothing, NOTHING. This is like the first time that he actually prepare for SOMETHING and THIS is what I get? An unsatisfying cliffhanger with a god damn annoying scheming bitch
It’s really annoying, these chapters were only to add a future criminal or evil heroine, who after a hundred chapters, falls in love with the protagonist after multiple scenes of conflict between them, the annoying thing is that the author threw away all the content prior to the garbage just to perform these scenes, despite being a commoner and he is a noble (honorary) and having so many connections he didn’t even use them, on other occasions he did them without a problem, he even killed space pirates for less, but since he was a girl he didn’t nothing. In the first chapters she used everything she had to get ahead, but since the competition arc in the capital, she became less and less intelligent. Surely the author then justifies it with the vaccines he received from that doctor. XP
one would think that the battle log showing nine consultive shots that otherwise would be deadly blows if not dodged, and the log of crimson lance recon ship following them, could be used as proof. even if it wasn’t enough to convict crimson lance it should put them on a to watch list
The problem being the plausible deniability prevents them from flagging the crimson fleet as rogues.
After all they never admitted to setting the trap or targeting Krishna. They even helped clean up the crystal beings after the System Guard fleet interrupted their assassination attempt.
The message is clear if you start with the premise that they are rogue, but nothing that will stop them asking the Mercenary Guild to step in and defend them.
That final bit was
Sorry we failed this time, but we’re declaring a cease fire until we can arrange another ambush. Just relax and enjoy life until we’re ready to kill you.
Serena will accept they’re rogue, but again all she can do is monitor their movements because as far as anyone else is concerned they are successful mercenaries doing an important job.
Thanks for the chapter desu~
[“Yeah, there’s no way that’s happing huh.”]
• happing —> happening
Thanks
This entire Arc or whatever you want to call it from the beginning of when he woke up to this last chapter now has been a complete 180 of the character it was almost a complete loss of face the only thing that the character did which made sense was finally get with the two dwarfs but even then he fought against it happening the only person who gave a s*** was the author about them looking younger an FYI if you have such a big issue with it don’t put it in your book weirdo I absolutely loved the book up until this last Arc headed to complete spit in the face to every fan that he did this ark this way seriously considering dropping on the more positive note thank you to lover’s translating very much appreciated not sure if the original author writes off of this website but this is where I found his extra work and I just had to write my s*** two cents I hope the author gets his head out of his ass and everybody else in the fandom hope you have a lovely day
what did he mean there’s no proof?? the scout been tailing them, there’s the holomessege, the log of the 9 fatal snipe if he didn’t evade it, it’s a freakin scifi, there’s should be record of everything
then there’s his position, platinum are considered noble, he had connecton to the royal!! ( didn’t want to use it?) connection to military from serena? (still didn’t want to use it??) fine, connection through elma house or chris house!! heck he should be the favorite person for the A.I community, considering how high spec and protective
and this fight, he got cornered because his shield keep depleting, well, it’s a good thing he absolutely refuse even getting to know the magic shield for absolutely dumb and vague reason
man this entire arc are infuriating
Magic is reader speculation. Hiro just finished explaining how he did it.
Young Miss is a trained expert sniper. This made her timing predictable.
No matter their rank they cannot just go around executing high ranking mercs with good reputation with no explainable reason. The Guild has already ruled this fleet as suspicious, but no evidence they can act on. Everything they did setting up and executing the attack was done with plausible deniability. Extremely suspicious, but nothing to justify calling them rogue.
Randomly executing heroes is the sort of thing that makes you a target of others who think an ounce of prevention is cheaper than a pound of cure.
Executing the renegade is the ounce of prevention
Dropping after this bullshit arc. Intuition tells him the future? Fine, chalk it up to his newly awakened magic power. What’s he do with this knowledge? Hire a small group of nobodies to guard him. List of possible solutions.
1. Giving the elves the seed, “Hey you know what, I got this feeling I’m going to get attacked by this merc group that has been highly suspected of piracy in the past. If i don’t message you guys after going through the gate assume i got attacked and send help then tell the guild it was them so they get flagged.
2. After confirming the tail before entering the gate. Contacts the guild and the elves “Yea just confirmed a tail on my way to the gate. Pretty sure we’re about to get ambushed. It’s the Red Flags if we do get ready to send help.
3. After the battle. Give the interrogator the looks of them talking while she was sniping. “Here’s what’s going to happen, if you don’t arrest her right now, I’m going to get in my battle suit and storm her base and sucking kill everybody that gets in my way. I can do this because I have literally no equal in close quarters and am the most valuable mercenary and a FREAKING NOBLE that has already been established to have the authority to kill fools. And after I’m done slaying everything in my way, the empire will go out of its way to blame every death on her and her crew and make me the hero for killing her, just to not piss me off.”
4. Call the guild and demand they flag her for piracy after giving them all the logs they have. They CLEARLY already suspected her and we’re just waiting for ANY evidence. Demand reparations for the guild failure to weed out pirates and failure to prevent an ambush on him. They wouldn’t be able to deny a platinum rank/ noble’s demand like nothing.
Fuck this lazy ass author for wasting my time with this bullshit. Fuck any reader that doesn’t drop this dogshit novel after this chapter, for supporting this lazy author. Fuck everything, I’m out.