577 「What the Hell are You Saying to a Newlywed Couple…?」
The wedding reception held on Dexer III wrapped up without any major trouble.
…Well, if you ask whether there was absolutely zero trouble, I’d have to eat my earlier words, but at the very least, we didn’t have murder lasers flying around or blades flashing in the air.
They served a local Comatt System specialty as banquet food—a whole roasted caterpillar the size of a small dog—and Chris’s face went sheet-white. Our resident booze fiends drank like they were trying to drown the galaxy, embarrassing me a little. Lucia presented herself as Mimi’s little sister and proceeded to guzzle alcohol until she was plastered. The Imperial Guard Knights—Lucia’s supposed escort—got plastered too. Seriously, these people!
I mean, this is probably Lucia and the royal guard’s first time ‘traveling’ incognito, so I can’t say I don’t get cutting loose a little…
Still, if I take it as them getting comfortable enough to be this careless, it’s kind of cute. The fact they’re exposing such massive openings means, at minimum, they trust me… or something close to it.
Which is a problem for me. Why are you trusting me that much? What am I supposed to do with that?
「This is strange. In holo-novels and holo-comics, if you carelessly leave yourself wide open, the other person’s supposed to say something like, ‘It’s your fault for letting your guard down, you know?’ and then pounce on you.」
「What the hell are you saying to a newlywed couple…?」
I couldn’t help but fire back at Lucia, who’d been spouting nonsense first thing in the morning. What are you even reading, exactly? Also, if I ‘pounced on you’ in this situation, that wouldn’t be a normal novel or comic—more like the kind that’s very thin and comes with an ‘R18’ slapped on its cover.
…Not that I’m particularly knowledgeable, but I feel like I’ve heard that certain ‘a bit more adult’ comics aimed at ladies can get pretty brutal. Is that the genre she’s into?
「Hiro-sama, as your wife, don’t you think it’s acceptable for me to knock her flat…?」
「Ooh! A sticky, tangled drama of love and hate!? That’s good too, isn’t it!?」
Don’t get excited, you goddamn chaos gremlin. You really are the fucking Emperor’s granddaughter.
「Chris, you’re cleared hot.」
「Yes!」
「Fufu, I won’t lose~!」
And with that, Chris finally snapped and started grappling with Lucia.
Chris was actually going at her pretty seriously, but Lucia looked totally relaxed. Yeah… this might be a little uphill for Chris.
「I shall be your opponent.」
「I’ll join in too.」
「No, um, we’re not really—」
「You’re aiming for a chance, aren’t you?」
「Fhyuu~ fhyuu~♪」
「That’s the worst whistling I’ve ever heard!」
「You should stop. There’s no way you can beat double your number of Imperial Guard Knights.」
「Oh? Fine—then I’m buying that fight!」
Over there, Serena and Elma had teamed up and started a pro-wrestling-style brawl with Isolde and the other female knights.
Two versus four seemed like a bad matchup… or so I thought, but it was actually a pretty even fight. Ah—Elma is mixing in her psionic body enhancement too. Elma is folding them up one by one with submission holds, while Serena keepst the other three busy until each ‘folding’ is complete.
「Um, Hiro-sama… aren’t you going to stop them…?」
Only Mimi looked genuinely worried. Everyone else was either amused or exasperated.
「C’mon, Captain. This is where you shout, ‘Don’t fight over me!’ right?」
「Nah… I kinda think Lucia and the others could stand to learn a painful lesson.」
「Mighty lively for this early in the mornin’, huh…」
「They’re… playing around… maybe?」
「Fufu… should it come to it, this priestess will lend her strength as well.」
「Could you not create extra work for me first thing in the morning…?」
Kugi was the only one who looked ridiculously into it, which was kind of hilarious. Her tail is swishing back and forth. Every so often, she gets this… oddly combative streak, like she’s just itching to cut loose.
☆★☆
「He’s mine. I’m not giving him to anyone.」
「Yeah, yeah. I’m yours, Chris. And Elma and Serena’s too. And everyone else’s too.」
Chris had lost, and now she was sulking with her head on my lap. I patted her head to comfort her while also telling Serena, Elma, and the others the same thing—just to spread the peace around.
Lucia beat Chris… but the moment Kugi stepped up next, Lucia got absolutely demolished.
I mean, ‘demolished’ might not be the right word. It was more like Kugi used some weird pseudo-aikido mystery martial art to make Lucia self-destruct.
I already knew Kugi’s physical specs were on Elma’s level, but I didn’t know she had that tucked away.
「…I got careless.」
Lucia took Kugi lightly, got slammed into the floor with a BAM loud enough to echo, and instantly crumpled in agony. Now she was back in seiza again, wilting like a salted leaf vegetable.
This time I didn’t prepare a board to hang from her neck, so instead we stacked three disk-shaped cleaning bots we’d ‘captured’ nearby and made her hold them on her knees as a weight.
The Imperial Guard Knights had been physically folded by Elma, and some of them had spun vertically through the air from Serena’s gorilla-like strength lariats, so they’d been shipped off to the Dareinwald main house’s infirmary.
And Lucia? After getting slammed that hard, she’s still totally fine.
Is she made of reinforced steel or what? What kind of body enhancement did they give that princess?
「Man, I’m tired and it’s not even noon… So, Sierra System next, huh. Think Miro’s doing well?」
「Security at the Central Management Center near the equator is solid. I believe he remains in good health.」
「He still getting chased by maidroid sales quotas? If we’re thinking about upgrading to a bigger mothership later, maybe we should consider increasing our maidroids, too. And while we’re wandering all over the place, running as a passenger-cargo ship could be kind of fun, too.」
Expanding the business side might actually be interesting. If we got a ship bigger than the Black Lotus, even just operating as an armed freighter would probably pay pretty well.
「A passenger-cargo ship that almost certainly gets dragged into combat has, like, zero demand, doesn’t it…?」
「But we’d almost never lose, so it might be safer, in a weird way?」
「‘It definitely gets dragged into combat, but we never lose so the accident rate is zero’… Even if that’s true, people would still hate it, wouldn’t they…?」
「But if we make it as luxurious as the Black Lotus—and upgrade the facilities even further—then as a passenger ship, it’d be top-tier service in its own way, wouldn’t it? And we have a ship’s doctor—me. I think the commercial guild would approve the registration as a passenger-cargo ship.」
「If we market it as, like… ‘a tiny taste of a luxury mercenary lifestyle,’ maybe…?」
I can already hear the whole galaxy yelling, ‘What the hell is a luxury mercenary lifestyle?’ But the sheer absurdity might hook people out of sheer curiosity.
「Is there any system in Marquis Holz’s territory where we could source a mothership? Ideally one with a Space Dwerg shipyard.」
「There are a few systems in our territory that build ships. I’ll look into it later.」
「Ah, Serena-san! I’ll help too!」
「Yes, Mimi-san. Please do.」
Serena and Mimi smiled at each other.
They’ve been a bit awkward for a while after Mimi’s lineage came out, but lately, they’re acting more normally. They’re interacting naturally again. Mimi really is a good kid. And she can be surprisingly pushy—maybe Serena’s finally gotten used to that.
「Alright. Time to get moving… We’ve got a mountain of stuff to do.」
First, we’ll relax at the Sierra System resort, then pick out a machine intelligence to support Chris, possibly increase our maidroid staff, then do some suspicious work in Marquis Holz’s territory… and on top of that, shop for a new mothership…
Yeah. That’s a lot.
Still, having a direction is a good thing. One step at a time—let’s get it done.
You know, it’s getting harder and harder to guess who ‘s the one talking with all the characters now. Usually I can tell with how the person talked or by the info after the dialogue, but it’s hard to do so in this chapter. For example, when they’re talking about the passenger cargo ship.
Well definitely looks like Lucia and guards will be joining the crew at some point. at least I hope they do.
Thank you for the chapter(s). I found Kugi’s occasional urge to duke it out hilarious (and a cool extra part of her personality that’s in-line with what we knew before). I’m also happy that Hiro is resisting Lucia and the guards, and I honestly hope they’re able to find love without it being Hiro. It’s a big Galaxy, and with over 3000 star systems in the Empire, and with Hiro not being the kind of person to go live in the “village” they came from, I think they could reasonably accomplish this.
It’s nice to see the author working on releasing the next LN volume. And I really hope the anime gets the good animation and writing it deserves.
Personally, I’m still hoping the new mothership will be large enough that it works like a miniature space station and not another personal ship to lounge around in. With that said, a passenger/cargo transport with a hint of the luxury mercenary experience could be quite popular.
Thanks for the chapter
Hiro’s getting a new maidroid? Kinda doubtful, considering Mei’s explanation(?) about having more than 1 maidroid in service of 1 master, esp if both having their own independent AI/personality…
Unless what Hiro’s got in mind is to upgrade(?) Mei into +/- the same level/type as Miro
Mei becomes the Ship AI and just Puppets a number of bodies about could circumvent that for sure but I would like the Girls to design a few maids with less combat focus and more general companion/house servant. Although a Combat Maid Corps would be pretty badass
Might be more like the island has, with more impersonal maidroids designed to not be as relationship-centric from the start. I guess?
As expected, the princess WANTS things to get 18+, she wants to get all pervy and experience all kinds of H-rated tropes. One the other hand those poor cleaning robots, most likely ‘fantasy & SF’ Roombas, ended up used like weights to punish a gremlin of a princess. Sad robot life.
Thanks for the chapter! Awesome translation! May God bless you!
NGL I want Miro to join the gang. It’s a good option to add “male” character without adding actual male. He can become Hiro’s bro, talking about guy stuff that he can’t talk with the others. Something something man’s romance.
Thank you so much for the new chapters!!!
Hopefully we will finally get to know more about the machine intelligence doings with this… its been hinted so often that they are some kind of in the shadow with tendrils everywhere.
The author might have taken inspiration from the lore of Stellaris, more specifically the “rogue servitors” type of civic (google that for more information). With a twist of course, or more.
Man, if hiro is going to get a new mother ship + maidroids, he really should took the holy empire’s offer for a new huge mother ship with dozens of sexy female crews (plus holy empire paid all the expenses).
Seems Chris’ bodyguard is not mentioned, wonder if she is on leave for the rare homo sweet home moments
Until next time, thanks for the chapter.
‘a tiny taste of a luxury mercenary lifestyle,’… bwahahaha!!! Take my Enel, where do I sign up?
The only catch is that, as the “guest” didn’t sign up for the merc. guild, they don’t have the license to kill as well……
Oh boy, guess princess got ultra enchanted body royal style
After the boring last chapter this one is great 😆
Lucia and her guards aren’t even trying to hide the fact that they want Hiro… I’m pretty sure the guards are serious about it, but Lucia being herself i’m still not sure about sincere she is, though she clearly doesn’t mind or even want her purity to be taken by him. But i don’t know what’s her real endgame, i mean Hiro is already completly tied to the Empire, as long as they don’t do stupid things, so adding herself to tie him more is useless.
After all, while it’s most certainly true that she want to let loose and have fun she doesn’t yet strike me as the type to throw her responsability away
You can’t just skip over the drunken part! *shakes fist*
The princess and her guards letting loose by drinking, that’s an image I never thought I would conceive
Chris will get a Maidroid Assistant and Hiro will increase his Maids in advance of this new ship acquisition its gonna be a wild ride