After seeing Bimic off to his temporary room, I returned to mine and found Lea in her underwear while Amber was occupied in the shower.

I raised an eyebrow at Lea's state of undress, "I thought you would only be taking off your clothes when you're with your plants or something?"

She smiled at me, "That is not exactly correct, Captain. While it is true that the plants make me comfortable, I strip when I feel comfortable. That does not mean that I will only strip in the presence of plants."

I pointed at myself, silently asking if she meant that she felt comfortable around me enough to make her strip.

She giggled, "Ufufufu~ Of course it's because of you, Captain. There isn't anyone else around now, is there?"

"I mean… Bimic is in the other room right now."

"But he isn't going to come in here, is he? That's why I'm comfortable now."

"And Amber?"

"She is a non-issue."

A 'non-issue' she says… Ok… I mean… If that's how she feels, who am I to say otherwise, right?

Putting that aside, I should make something for us to eat now.

And since I don't need to make anything for Bimic, I don't mind tapping into our reserve of organic ingredients to make something nice for all of us.

Let's see… I guess I could make some steak with boiled vegetables and mashed potatoes. No need to preserve them anymore since we're most likely going to stock up on more ingredients when we reach Theeve station.

Still… I should set a note for myself to refrain from spending too much money since we'll be looking for another ship to purchase soon enough.

I went ahead to start preparing the ingredients I needed for the steak while Lea watched me from the side, the Alv seemingly fascinated by the process.

Just as I was about to start searing the steak, a knock came from my door which made me pause and turn towards the source of the sound at the same time as Lea.

The knock came again and I looked at Lea who proceeded to pick up a towel to wrap herself up before moving herself out of sight of the door.

I then placed the steak down before approaching the door, opening it up right as another knock sounded from it.

Bimic was standing there with a concerned look on his face.

"What do you need? Is the room not good enough for you or something?" I asked.

He shook his head, "I… Thought you might want to come and see this… Since I'm not sure if you are aware of it or not…"

Huh? Was there something wrong with my ship that I don't know about?

I nodded at him to lead the way and he turned around to lead us back to his temporary room.

I stepped inside with him and looked around, wondering just what the problem was.

Everything seemed to be in order?

He then pointed at the far wall where Lea's hydroponics garden was, "Do you know your Alv slave is trying to take over your ship?"

I blinked at him, "Take… Over my ship? What?"

He nodded seriously, "Yes. Look! If you look into those pipes, she's manufacturing some kind of weird green thing! What even is that?!"

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I blinked a few more times, then I realised that he was serious.

"Wait… Have you not seen a hydroponics farm before?"

"What the hell is a hydroponics farm?"

"Eh? Seriously? You know? The type of farm that uses water to grow crops?"

"Corpse? She's growing corpses?!"

"No, no, no… Crops."

"What the hell are crops?!"

No fucking way…

I gave him a serious look, "Are you being serious right now?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

"Where do you think organic stuff comes from?"

"What kind of question is that?!"

"Just answer it."

He puffed up his chest, "They come from the high end stores, obviously!"

"Uh-huh… And where do the high end stores get them from?"

"From the Harvest planets of course!"

"Ok… And what are on the harvest planets?"

He paused for a moment, "The… Factories that manufacture the organic stuff?"

Oh my god… This guy is actually being serious… I don't even know how I should react…

I groaned wondering if I should tell him about the farms and stuff but I figured that he might ask even more questions that I don't really want to answer.

Instead I just pointed at the farm, "Ok… All I can tell you is that those things are safe and it's being done with my knowledge. We're making something using that so don't touch it. If you touch it, I am going to kick you out of the airlock, understand?"

He seemed surprised by my reaction, "Wait… What? Why would touching that make you do that? What even are those things?"

"You don't need to know. Just don't touch it, got it?"

If he's that curious, he could just search it up on the GalNet anyway so there's no need for me to waste my own time to explain.

I then turned and left the confused Bimic behind, returning back to my room.

It seemed like Amber was already done with her shower and she was seated on our bed with only a towel wrapped around her hair and nothing else.

I noticed that the foam was still on her side

"Took you long enough~ What did that guy want?"

"He thought we were making something dangerous in that room. Apparently he doesn't know what farms are…" I explained, going back to cooking the steak.

I thought the two of them would be shocked as well but surprisingly, the two of them nodded in understanding.

"It's normal that most people wouldn't know about it. I was surprised that Captain knew about the hydroponics farm and even how to make them at first," Lea admitted.

I spun towards them after placing the steaks on the frying pan, "Wait… Is that not common knowledge? He even thought that the organic stuff is manufactured on harvest planets!"

Amber shrugged, "Ehhh~ Most people don't care about it enough to learn it. In the first place, unless you're really rich or really lucky to be living in the inner, inner colonies, you'll most likely be eating synthfood your entire life with just the occasional splurge on organic food. Heck, even if you ate organic food your entire life, you might not even wonder about where your food came from anyway. So unless you're directly related to the organic food industry, you might never bother to learn about it."

I don't even know if I should feel sad that it's normal in this universe that people don't even bother to learn where the things they put in their mouth comes from… Or that they are so deluded into thinking that the food magically appears out of thin air…

Then again, seeing the state of the synthfood that I have tasted so far… I'm not surprised.

Ok, that's it… I'm setting a new plan for us.

I seasoned the steak before speaking again, "New plan. We're going to Theeve and I'm going to find a map that can guide us to the inner colonies. Then we'll find an actual good food store and taste the food they have there. How about that?"

Lea and Amber shared a look with each other before turning back to me.

"Umm… Captain… Are you not aware about the restrictions?"

I blinked, giving her a look that told her I most definitely did not.

Amber chuckled, "You need a permit to even be in the inner colonies, Tera~ Not just anyone can go there. If you're caught within the inner colonies' space without a permit, you would be labelled as a criminal and may even be shot on sight."

"What the heck? Seriously?"

The two of them nodded.

"They don't want the 'common riff raff' to taint their perfect paradise, after all," Amber sneered, showcasing her clear disdain for such a rule.

I flipped the steak over, "And how does one get a permit?"

"Hmm… If you aren't born within the inner colonies itself… You'd need to be someone influential, have a lot of money, get formally invited by someone who lives there, or did something worthy of recognition."

"Ok… Aside from the money part and the invitation part… What about the other two? We captured a pirate lord, does that count?"

Amber giggled, "Oh, it does count to a certain degree but not enough. That would get you recognised in that sector but to humanity as a whole, you'd just be seen like someone who managed to catch the local robber in a small town far, far away. You'd need to be some CEO of some top company that is doing business throughout several systems, or be the one that single handedly defeated an entire pirate armada threatening a key human system."

"That sounds rough… How many people even managed to get to that level?"

"There's a number of them to be honest. Another way is that you can reach Diamond rank as a Merc and apply for the permit. They might grant it to you depending on what you have done as a Merc though the chances of success are higher if you're at least Emerald rank.."

Ok, that sounds a little bit more achievable…

God damn… Who knew that the future could be so shit?