After everything that happened, I can’t believe I’ve only been in this new universe for a day…

I woke up staring at an unfamiliar ceiling in an unfamiliar bed, taking me quite a bit of time before I remembered where I was.

So it wasn’t all just a dream.

I mean… I already knew that but still… I guess my mind hasn’t come to terms with it yet.

I took a look at the clock that showed it was around eight in the morning, the usual time I might wake up for work back in my old life.

This place operated using a time unit called Standard Hours and by coincidence or design, it was the same as Earth’s. So no need for me to adjust to a different time schedule at least.

I sat at the circular dining table munching on something called synthetic meat on the packaging.

It looks like beef but it’s a little dry and rubbery. I even went ahead to heat it up on the induction stove so it’s not even because I ate it cold.

The ramen I ate yesterday tasted better…

Ugh… One thing I will put my foot down on is eating good food, so I might need to go out and get some better food than this as soon as I can afford it.

Meanwhile, I tried to see if there was some kind of internet or something equivalent on my SC and turns out there actually was one.

They call it the Galactic Net which is basically just the internet but on the galactic scale.

There were quite a lot of things there and there were even social media equivalents of it, though I kept myself away from those for now… No need to get too involved with the rest of the galaxy while I’m still trying to figure out my own place in it.

I scrolled through the terminal, already finding the online Trader Union marketplace and even a few video hosting sites that included the… Other kinds of videos.

Come on, anyone would be curious…

I was just in the midst of searching up which galactic races had tentacles when I heard the door to the other room slide open, causing me to quickly close the screen and act like I was busy eating.

Amber walked out from her room, stretching her arms while a slightly damp towel hung around her neck.

The only problem was… That was the only piece of cloth above her waist.

Her bottom wasn’t any better either since all she had on was a pair of lacy black panties.

“Nnggghh!! That was a nice sleep. The shower is to die for~” She groaned, walking towards my direction.

I couldn’t help but point a finger at her, trying my best to ignore the two voluminous things bouncing up and down with every step she took.

“Did you… Forget to put on a top?”

She raised an eyebrow at me without slowing down, “Hmm? Not at all. Aren’t we both girls here?”

“You’re still on a stranger’s ship…”

“Oh, Tera, I’m trying to seduce you if that wasn’t obvious enough,” She smirked, moving towards the fridge with an intentional sway in her steps.

She even bent over unnecessarily as she looked inside the fridge for food.

That ass… Is literally asking to get spanked…

I went back to concentrating on my food, only looking back up when I heard the fridge door slam shut.

She had a look of disappointment on her face when she realised that I wasn’t ogling at her but shrugged after a while.

The Merc sat across from me, tearing open a packet of the same synthetic meat and eating it directly from the package.

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Her face didn’t even change when she took a bite out of it and started chewing.

“So what’s the plan today?” She asked.

I raised an eyebrow at her, “I dunno? I was expecting us to just take another Guild quest and head out to hunt pirates like yesterday?”

“Oh really? Have you found us a quest yet?”

“Huh? You’re fine with me just picking the quest myself?”

Her smile turned a little mischievous, “Well, why don’t you go ahead and look at what quests are available for us?”

I did as she suggested and looked up the window that had a list of quests displayed, searching through it for any quests related to hunting pirates.

I even sorted it according to the reward amount and… No pirate hunting quest came up.

Amber noticed my frown right away, “Let me guess… No pirate hunting quests?”

I nodded, “There’s a few bodyguard quests… A Delivery quest within the station… Some cleaning and maintenance quests… But no pirate hunting?”

Amber grinned and leaned back on her chair, “Tera. Where do you think we are?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this place. This station is out in the middle of nowhere. Do you even know what this station is for?”

I shrugged, “I only know it’s a habitat station.”

“Yep. But what purpose does it serve?”

“Err… For people to live in?”

She rolled her eyes, “Ok, that’s on me. But what was the purpose of putting a station all the way out here?”

I shrugged again.

She tapped a finger on the table, “The planet below us is a gas giant. This place serves as a habitat station for the miners to head out there and collect the gas resources from the planet to store here. Those mined resources would be later taken by transport ships to a processing station at another system. This station doesn’t even have processing facilities so do you know what that means?”

“What?”

“Only the really desperate and criminals would find themselves here.”

“Err… So which one are you?”

She stretched her arms above her head, causing the towel hanging around her neck to ride upwards and give me a full unobstructed view of her nipples.

Naturally, she noticed my gaze but did nothing to hide them. In fact, she even intentionally slid the towel aside so that they were no longer covering her chest as she relaxed back in her chair.

She then continued like nothing happened, “Neither. I’m the one who comes chasing after the people in those two categories~”

I looked back at the quest list, “Doesn’t really look that profitable though…”

She shook her head, “Oh definitely not. At least… Not at the moment.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, “What do you mean?”

“I tend to take a long term approach, you see,” She smirked, kicking back to place her feet on the table.

I don’t know why but I moved instinctively and smacked her foot off the table, causing her to look at me in surprise.

“Ahem… Don’t put your foot on the same place as where we eat…” I told her.

She giggled, “Hehehe~ You’re really interesting, Tera. Well~ Your ship, your rules. Anyway… I take the long term approach. It’s not profitable now, especially when this place is relatively new. But that means the security is low and it’s a prime location for pirates to do some low risk raids from time to time even if the rewards aren’t that great.”

“Err… Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to go to a place with low risk and high reward instead?”

“Ha! Like as if those places are in abundance. And those that are are already saturated with other pirates anyway. The more enterprising pirates would see this place as an untapped source of income, especially when we’re this far away in the fringes of occupied space. Smugglers may also use this place as a stop since the security is more lax and there might also be the odd investor or two coming here looking to exploit some cheap labour.”

She took a moment to gesture towards the bodyguard quests with a knowing smile, “Hence, there’s also no shortage of work for Mercs like us even if the pay isn’t that good. The work is easy and we don’t even need to pay a docking fee since there isn’t any ship docked permanently here.”

“Docking fees?”

Amber nodded, “On normal stations where they have more ships coming than docks, you’d need to pay a fee to have your ship docked at a station. Obviously that isn’t a problem here.”

I made a face at her but that only made a grin wider.

She then leaned forward again, her bare boobs resting on the table and distracting me for a moment.

“So what do you want to do? We can just relax today or do another quest. Maybe one of those bodyguard or shakedown ones. I don’t mind beating some people up too~”

“Shakedown? Wouldn’t that already be criminal?”

“Pfft~ That kind of idea is useless out here, Tera. Anyway, most of the targets are lowlifes who took out a loan to buy drugs or alcohol and then don’t want to pay the money back because that would mean they would no longer have the money to buy more drugs and alcohol. We get hired to rough them up a bit so that they have their priorities shifted a little. So what do you say? Want to try one?”

…

You know what? Let’s do it.