A Matter of Dignity
No—wait. This is actually an opportunity.
The road ahead was already long, and every mercenary he had hired was dead. With the defensive armaments destroyed on top of that, their combat strength was effectively zero. In a situation like this, hiring people who possessed this level of skill and mecha would get them to their destination safely.
"Of course we'll pay a reward. But I have an additional proposal as well—would you care to hear it?"
"Hmm… Fine. I'll listen."
Fortunately, the Gareld pilot seemed to be the leader. After a brief moment of thought, he made his decision.
"Then there's no need to keep standing around like this. Let's talk calmly."
"Wait a moment. I'll bring our ship over."
"Understood. We'll handle the cleanup in the meantime."
The transmission ended. The Garelds seemed to exchange a few words among themselves, then turned and headed back the way they had come.
"Haa… We made it…"
"Thank god they're the type you can actually talk to."
The crew felt a wave of relief wash over them—the other side was negotiating instead of simply taking what they wanted by force. Pirates in this lawless star system stripped you of everything worth credits; they did not sit down and bargain. If a nation that still practiced slavery had been nearby, the attackers would have sold them off as slaves without a second thought. They would have to hand over a considerable sum of credits, but it still beat dying.
"Cap. What are we doing?"
A plump woman with gray skin and a single large eye set in the center of her face turned toward the lizard man.
"What do you think? We hire them and get to the destination somehow."
"Hiring people like that is going to cost a fortune. And then there's the repair bill on top of it."
"What choice do we have? First we stay alive. The Jotala family's commission is big enough that if we negotiate carefully, we might still scrape a little profit off the top."
The others nodded in agreement. Compared to losing the cargo and walking straight into assassins, this was several times better.
"Cap."
Just then, an alien whose face was smeared with soot—hairless, bumpy skin, a perfectly round head—opened a channel on his Bio Device.
"The engine's completely finished. We need a full replacement."
"What? Even a little bit—can't you do something?"
"This isn't something you can patch with emergency repairs. Force it and the reactor will blow."
"Haa… Damn it… Fine. Clean up your end first."
The lizard man covered his face with one hand and scrubbed at it dryly.
"We'll have to ask them for a tow as well. Please let them have a ship strong enough to drag ours…"
From one to a hundred, they needed the other side's help for everything. Just thinking about how much money would be siphoned off under one pretext or another already brought tears to his eyes.
"Cap. Ship spotted."
After some time, a massive man with stone-like skin reported in a heavy voice.
"Identify it."
"Calsorn Empire manufacture. Small transport. TTL-7."
"Good god. A Calsorn Empire transport? Who the hell are these mercenaries?"
Even the simplest Calsorn Empire weapons rivaled the galaxy's latest military hardware. Mecha in particular were so rare that a single Calsorn unit elevated an entire group's standing. And these people had three Calsorn mecha and a transport?
"I ran their faces through the database. Nothing matches."
"Who are they? Mercenaries this well-armed operating in this area—there's no way we wouldn't know them."
"The facial search came back with three races: Elbania, Terra, and Giranlek."
"Aren't all three of those rare around here?"
The crew talked among themselves, trying to piece together the identity of their rescuers.
"Incoming transmission."
"Take it."
When the channel opened again, the lizard man smoothed down his clothes to settle his nerves.
"We never properly introduced ourselves earlier. I'm Jincheon. No surname—two syllables, so just call me Jincheon."
"Kader. I was never given a surname."
The moment the connection opened, they introduced themselves. Kader's race was the Hazkerdeb—a people with a complicated name and a culture in which one received a surname only after performing an act that benefited the group one belonged to. Kader had left for space before that could happen, and so he had none. Using the tail coiled behind him—out of view of the camera—he signaled the crew to run a search.
"As you can see, our situation is rather dire."
Rather than risk angering the other side with clumsy lies, he laid out the truth and let them feel they held the advantage. When it came time to settle the numbers, he planned to weep and plead until the other side believed they had already squeezed him dry. After painstakingly explaining just how bad things were, Kader saw the crew member who had checked the database cross his arms in an X.
Nothing? We have the name, the face, and the mecha they use, and still no hit. That means they either came from a distant star system—or they're adventurers who got lucky and pulled a mecha and a transport out of some ruin…
Judging that any scrap of additional information would help in the negotiations, he carefully opened his mouth.
"We've traveled through quite a few star systems in our line of work, and I've never heard that name. Mercenaries with that kind of skill and those mecha—surely the name would have reached us…"
"I said mercenary earlier, but strictly speaking we're mercenary hopefuls. Introducing yourself as a 'mercenary hopeful' on first contact just looks pathetic, doesn't it?"
So the latter was right.
Deciding they were adventurers who had hit the jackpot in some ruin, Kader moved on to testing their temperament and began his pitch.
"We'll of course pay a reward for saving us, but before that I'd like to make a propos—"
"Reward first."
"No, no, please don't be like that. If you escort us, the current amount—"
"Reward. First."
"…"
This is bad. This type doesn't fall for a half-baked opening bid.
He had tried to glide naturally from the reward into an escort commission, but the other side had already cut that line of attack off in advance. It wasn't so much that Jincheon was immune to rhetoric—he simply refused to let himself be drawn into it in the first place. Kader, a spacer who had survived the brutal reaches of the galaxy for years, kept his expression carefully blank.
"Of course. The reward comes first. Give me an account and I'll send it over."
"ABW…"
Jincheon recited his credits account. Kader transferred sixty thousand credits into it. Sixty thousand credits was the kind of sum you only saw after capturing more than eighty of the highest-priced animals in the White Shriek Forest without a single scratch on them. Jincheon checked his account, then lifted his eyes to the screen without the slightest change of expression.
"Not an amount I'm entirely happy with—but this isn't a situation where bleeding you dry would look good."
Apparently the cargo ship, its plating in tatters and its engine destroyed, had stirred something like pity.
"All right. You said you had a proposal?"
This is the real negotiation. I have to do this right.
Kader threw everything he had into the deal, facing the man whose gaze seemed to look down on him from above.
"Would you escort us to our destination? The moment we arrive, I'll pay three hundred thousand credits."
Commissions registered on the mercenary deep web ranged from F-class to A-class, ranked by the level of mecha the client required. Higher ranks meant higher pay, of course. A commission worth three hundred thousand credits was B-class work. Naturally, Kader had started here expecting the number to climb.
Please… stop at five hundred thirty thousand…!
At five hundred thirty thousand, after splitting the reward among the crew and roughly calculating the ship repairs, their net profit would be close to zero. Anything higher and they would take a loss.
"I'd like to hear the details first."
Yes!
Asking about the job before jacking up the price was a sign he was taking it seriously. There was still a chance he would hear them out and refuse—but the eyes looking back at Kader through the transmission were full of a confidence that bordered on arrogance. People with eyes like that took the job out of sheer pride, as long as the situation wasn't completely hopeless.
"We need to deliver cargo to this location."
He transmitted their map data.
"It's the Jotala pirates' stronghold, but they're not the kind of savages who take a commission and then break their word."
Four or five days of smooth sailing would get them there. Towing a cargo ship, though, stretched it to seven or eight.
"Hmm…"
Jincheon hesitated slightly. Unlike his own party, who wanted to leave this star system as soon as possible, these people's destination pointed toward the system's core.
But three hundred thousand… depending on the negotiation, we could get more.
For Jincheon's group, who needed money, three hundred thousand credits would make a solid foundation.
And once the job is done, we can travel the routes they know and slip out to an external system. Or spend a month or so with the Jotala pirates and warp out safely.
"Fine. Three hundred thousand it is."
"Three hundred thousand… that's—excuse me?"
Kader had been about to pretend to deliberate instead of accepting the asking price immediately—then his eyes went round.
"Are you… serious?"
"Squeezing every last credit out of people who have nothing is beneath my dignity. But I have one condition."
"A condition…?"
"I'll tell you after we reach these Jotala people, once I've seen the situation. I promise it won't be an unreasonable demand."
"…Understood. Then we'll be in your care."
"Ah—we don't have towing equipment on our end. Do you?"
"Yes. We'll link the ships with the towing gear right away."
"We'll keep watch on the perimeter in the meantime. Call when you're done."
Jincheon said what he needed to say and cut the transmission cold.
"Wow… I'm grateful they helped, but that guy is seriously annoying."
"Right? Did you see his eyes when he said 'beneath my dignity'?"
"If lines that cringey come out of his mouth that naturally, he has to be from money."
"Some noble's son?"
"And he's doing mercenary work?"
"Could be a noble brat they sent out for 'life experience.'"
"In a lawless zone like this?"
"He's got a Calsorn Empire transport, Garelds, and laser weapons. What's there to be scared of?"
"Okay, fair. Not completely ridiculous."
Once the call ended, the crew tore into Jincheon among themselves. People who had clawed their way up from the bottom, they bristled at the way he looked down on them from above. Still, whatever his reasons, he was helping them—so they stopped short of anything worse than "annoying."
"Hell yeah! We just saved a fortune!"
Kader, who had kept himself carefully humble throughout the entire negotiation, whooped with joy at the realization that more money than necessary had just stayed in their pockets.
"Cap! You do realize they're looking down on us, right?"
"So what? The man is talking about dignity and taking less money—we should be celebrating, not crying!"
"Come on! We have pride too!"
"You try being the one who has to pay your wages and repair this ship, and that pride talk dries up real fast! Hoo-ah!"
"You're not even worried about that condition he mentioned?"
"Well, a little—but would someone who takes less money because of 'dignity' make an unreasonable demand?"
"That's exactly why it's more worrying! If his whole frame of reference is different from ours, who knows what he'll ask for?"
The crew protested at Kader's glee over the saved money. But they were bound by their own kind of loyalty, and the warnings came from genuine concern.
"That's a problem for when we get there. Engine room! You heard all that? Send the work machines out and install the towing gear!"
"Got it."
From Kader's cargo ship, a work crew boarded machines with round bodies and mechanical arms, gathered the towing equipment, and went outside to begin linking their vessel to the transport floating nearby.
"Why didn't you push higher? It looked like you could have gotten five hundred thousand."
Meanwhile, watching their work from a distance, Heliane turned to Jincheon with the question.
"Like I said—squeezing every last credit out of people like that is beneath my dignity. If rich bastards tried to lowball me, that would be a different conversation."
"Jincheon, you sound more aristocratic than the Zabalcan royals."
"Heh."
Jincheon, who had not yet told either of them the truth about himself, answered with an easy smile. That was part of it—but he was also in an excellent mood from his first real combat. He had been so elated he wanted to cut the transmission and shout for joy.
"I'll check out the Jotala pirates and decide whether we spend a month with them or leave with these people."
"With them? They don't even seem to know the local geography."
"That's because their destination is toward the core. If they're heading outward, they might know the routes just fine."
"Hmm…"
Heliane nodded, finding the reasoning plausible enough.
"But the pirates might get greedy when they see our ship and mecha. Will that be all right?"
Calsira still lacked much knowledge of the outside world, but she knew pirates were greedy—and her expression remained worried.
"Then we deal with them. Though first I'll have to hand over my calling card."
"…"
"…"
The two women exchanged a look at the words "calling card."
1. Any fight with Jincheon must be conducted in mecha.
2. Should Jincheon lose, he will serve the victor free of charge for ten years.
3. During that service, only Jincheon's abilities may be freely used.
4. If the free service is abused to seize Jincheon's property, the contract is void.
5. Ignore the above warning and start a fight outside of mecha, and you will regret it.
What kind of lunatic would actually follow this?!
As if pirates would honor any of it!
Both women wanted to shout exactly that—but the fact that Jincheon himself already knew it made the whole thing even worse.
"Heh heh. I hope the Jotala pirates are fairly famous."
For his calling card to become well-known, a famous opponent had to break its terms and get demolished. Jincheon smiled wickedly, already looking forward to whatever came next.