"He just… Gave me five million Credits," I muttered to the girls.

Amber shrugged, "That's normal."

I blinked at her, "It's normal for some random guy I just met to hand me five million Credits just like that? That's the same as our bonus that we're getting from the trader!"

And as though on cue, a notification came from my Codex indicating a payment of twenty five million Credits had just been transferred to me.

That was fast… I guess he must have set an automatic payment that would send me the money the moment the delivery was confirmed.

I was actually afraid that he might renege on his payment and I have to go hunt him down for the rest of the payment.

Amber made a face at me, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you didn't realise… That client that we delivered for was the owner of this station."

I blinked at her, "Ok? And?"

"And? Tera… He deals with billions of Credits on a daily basis. Five million Credits is really nothing to him."

Oh… Ok, this explains a lot now.

Ries looked at the Credit Chip he gave me, "Still… He's pretty generous huh?"

I shook my head, "Actually, now that I know he's the owner, this is basically just a trap for us."

That's right, this is a common trap that even I have used before in my days in sales. You first reel them in with promotions, gift cards, discount vouchers and whatever other benefits you can think of. Then once they're in, they'll just start spending and you don't even need to do anything anymore.

Unexpectedly, Lea nodded, "That's right, Captain."

Ries seemed confused, "Trap us? How? He just gave us a whole ton of money!"

I smiled at her, "You see, he already knew that we came here to make use of the facilities in this place, so whatever money we would spend here would go right back into his pocket anyway, minus the cost of course. But the main deal is that because this money was given to us, it's not something we earned and we would have less restraint in spending it."

Lea nodded, "And then you would spend it recklessly especially on things that you never thought to spend on before since the money does not belong to you. It would then be very easy to start spending over the five million limit once you start and you might even end up spending twice of what he gave you."

Ries pursed her lips, "But… If we're poor anyway, that wouldn't matter, right?"

I gestured at where the dogs had been, "Don't forget we just delivered something worth several millions, Ries. With that delivery, we would have earned more than what he just gave us. If he even gets us to spend a fraction of our earnings in this station, he would have profited."

Amber moved beside me, "Not to mention the fact if you were to go into debt while you're here… He might choose to do you a 'favour' by writing the debt off, but you have to work for him for a set amount of time. And he would even specify in the contrat that you have to do whatever they tell you to do."

Ok, I didn't really think that far since what Amber was describing was being bound to a slavery contract… But then again, I guess there's pretty much the equivalent of such contracts back in my universe as well.

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Ries shuddered, "So he was just trying to entrap us from the start?"

I shrugged, "I would say that there's some intention to do so but… I would also say that it's also not his real intentions. He definitely meant for this to be a reward of sorts but if you were to abuse it, he won't hesitate to reap the rewards either."

"Ah, I got it. So he's a hypocrite."

Well… I guess she's not wrong to call him that…

Lea turned to me, "So are we leaving this place then, Captain?"

I raised an eyebrow, "Leave? We just got here didn't we? And we're here precisely to play! Plus, we even got ourselves a bunch of free money too!"

"Captain… You're doing the exact thing that you were warning us about…"

I wagged my finger at her, "Nuh-uh, we can stop that from happening by setting a limit. Since we got five million, I'm capping our expenditure on this station to five million and nothing more. Alright?"

Lea pursed her lips, "Captain, if I may… The allure of it would still be too great. After you spend the five million, you would believe that the money you spent was just something that did not dip into your own monetary reserves and you already planned to spend money here anyway resulting in you spending even more than you planned to."

I raised an eyebrow at her, "You sound like you're speaking from experience, Lea…"

She hesitated for a moment before nodding, "I am, Captain."

Oh, that was a surprising revelation from her.

I waited to see if she would elaborate but when she remained silent, I guess she either didn't want to talk about it here or she wasn't ready to talk about it yet.

Amber spoke up then, "It'll be fine, Lea! Like Tera said, we're just here to have fun so we'll set a limit on how much we're spending! Once we hit that limit, we stop, alright? Although I doubt we would hit that limit anyway."

Lea frowned, "You do not understand, Amber, the allure of--"

Amber stopped her with a raised hand, "Oh no, I understand the temptations well enough. It's just that I think we might end up leaving here with more money than we came with purely because of a certain someone."

The three of them then turned to look at me.

Eh? What? What did I do?

Then, as though a switch had been flipped, Lea relaxed, "I see… I agree in that case, though that would bring about another range of problems."

Amber grinned, "Oh, don't worry, I'm prepared for that!"

"Very well… In that case, shall we go, Captain?"

Err… While I don't mind, what's with the sudden change in attitude? Also, why were you looking at me?

Wait, did they mean that I would somehow earn even more money while I'm here? I don't intend to work while I'm here, you know? This place was supposed to be some leisure resort so that's exactly what I intend to do!

That means I don't intend to cook anything either! Surely they would have some nice food here right?! Please tell me yes…

I looked at the three girls who were still staring at me.

I groaned, "Alright, let's set some ground rules first, ok? We'll come back to the ship to eat our meals. This one is non-negotiable. We do not eat any food in this station on our own and you do not take my food outside. Ok?"

Surprisingly, all three of them nodded.

"I agree. In fact, I think we should have made this as a rule from the start!"

"I also think this would be the best choice, Captain."

"Ah… Umm… I also agree with them, Boss!"

Ok, good. Now I won't be sucked into another situation where I have to do a cooking battle with some other chef or even roped into some shady restaurant to help them make their lunch service or whatever.

I clapped my hands together, "Alright then. In that case, where shall we start? I know this place is known as a Pleasure Station but what can we actually do here?"

"Anything you want that doesn't break the station's rules, Tera," Amber answered me before pointing to one of the holographic displays nearby. "And according to the notice over there… Looks like the only rules here are no killing and no rape."

Well, that seems simple enough to follow… But just in case…

"What happens if someone were to break those rules?"

Amber chuckled, "Ahaha~ If you're lucky, you'll just be kicked out of here. If you're really unlucky though, you might be taken away to be forced to become entertainment I would guess~"

"Entertainment?" I repeated.

Lea nodded beside Amber, "What do you think that guy was going to use those dogs he bought for, Captain? He's definitely not going to just put them in some room and just pat them like you have been doing."

Amber took out her personal terminal and tapped on it, "He definitely has a blood sport arena here… Let me see… Yep, here it is."

She turned the terminal around to show me the screen. On it was a page advertising an arena on this station where people can go there to watch actual fights unfold between participants of the arena and there's promises of blood and death as well.

One of the things listed was the fact that exotic animals would also be featured in the arena as well.

Damn… So this was what he meant by them being cute huh… I take back what I said about him being a nice guy…