Chapter 647: Mercenary Contracts For War

The Zwerger tapped on his personal terminal again and a new screen with an image of a space station appeared in the air.

"That’s the mining station you’re after," He explained, gesturing at the screen. "It’s in the middle of an asteroid field where they mine the minerals in those rocks. About a week ago we lost contact with that station and no supplies came in from them either."

"Shouldn’t you guys send a ship to investigate or something?" I asked.

He raised an eyebrow at me, "If you haven’t noticed, girl, we’re in the middle of a war here. We don’t really have extra hands that we can just send to check on a station. They were basically just written off as occupied by the enemy forces and forgotten about."

Damn... That’s sad...

Imagine you’re one of those workers on that mining station and you get attacked by some pirates or the opposing side of the civil war but your own side can’t even be bothered to check up on you...

"Right... So you want us to head there and check if they were actually destroyed or something?" I asked.

"If the station was really destroyed, it would be helpful to know as well so that our station can find another source to supply us with the crystals. If the station is still intact, it would help us a lot if you could find out what made them stop supplying us with the crystals and solve that problem for us if possible."

"Assuming it was taken over by the opposing side of the civil war... You’re not going to ask us to participate in it on your side, are you?"

He waved at me, "Unfortunately, that is outside of my paygrade. You are Mercs, aren’t you? We might be able to hire you as Mercs to deal with them so you don’t need to worry about that."

I turned to my girls and raised an eyebrow, silently asking them what’s the difference for them to hire us as Mercs as compared to letting us volunteer.

Amber giggled, "Ehehe~ If we’re hired by them and operating as paid Mercs to deal with the opposing side, we won’t spark off a war between UTG and them even if we start shooting them. And if we cancel our Mercenary contract, we would immediately be regarded as a neutral party once again~ What’s more, we will also be paid a bounty for each ship and unit we disable during the course of the war~ That’s why quite a lot of Mercs actively seek out combat zones to offer their services~ Sometimes a battle would just be Mercs on one side fighting against Mercs on the other side~"

I see...

Doesn’t that mean this was also another money making opportunity for us?

I gestured at him, "Why can’t you guys just hire us to investigate that place to begin with anyway? Then we would be able to just deal with the issue accordingly when we’re there instead of coming back and waiting for you guys to decide?"

He paused for a moment, "Well... Technically... That’s not up to me to decide. You’ll normally have to speak to a recruiting officer to see if they are willing to put in an official hiring request for this job."

"Well... Shall we do that then? What’s the procedure to do that?"

The Zwerger smith seemed surprised that I was even suggesting that and raised an eyebrow at me, "Are you sure? A contract like that would bind you to fulfil it you know?"

I turned back to my girls again, wondering what might be the issue with that.

This time it was Mara who answered me, "Without a contract, we could fly there and realise that it was a problem too big for us to solve and decide that we wouldn’t deal with it and just leave without incurring any penalty. If we are to officially become contracted Mercenaries to them, we are obligated to complete that mission or face penalties for it. During the period of the contract, we might also be called to deal with other problems that might not be related to the specific problem as well. For example, if a battle was happening near the station and they needed reinforcements, they could call for us to participate in that battle as well and we would need to answer their call."

Ah, I get it.

Basically if we were to just accept this unofficially and go check that place out, we can still leave without any repercussions if we decide not to handle it aside from not getting the weapons this Zwerger promised to make for us.

But even if we decide to deal with it, it will be seen as voluntary work and we definitely won’t be compensated even if we helped them deal with whatever the problem was.

If we decide to take this officially under a contract though, we will be expected to solve it and will face a penalty if we were unable to, probably in the form of a fine or maybe even a demotion in our Merc rank. But if we do solve the problem, they would also be obligated to pay us as well.

I shrugged, "We came all the way here to get weapons for her so it would be a waste if we were to return empty handed. So one way or another, we’ll get that crystal supplied for you to make that weapon. What’s the procedure to get this accepted officially?"

He grinned at me, "Confident are you? Hmph... Fine, I won’t turn down help anyway. I’ll contact the station master here and let them know I found a Merc willing to do this for us. We have an open hustle that we placed for the past few days but no one took it up so you can just accept it from the Merc network. I can get started on making the Power Armour and the machine gun that you requested while you’re dealing with that."

Oh, so that means a job was already posted to begin with? That’s convenient.

"Great then. I guess I should ask how much money can we expect to make and what’s the cost of commissioning you to make those weapons?"

He waved at me, "You don’t need to worry about that. I can just put in an official request on my side that this commission is part of your reward for dealing with that station. I’ll be able to claim my material cost directly from them this way and we both win!"

Ah, taking advantage of the loopholes in the bureaucratic system I see. I won’t say no to that.

"Very well then, you have a deal. Can I count on you to make those weapons while we deal with that station?" I asked, stretching out my hand.

He grasped it and shook it firmly, "Of course. Leave your weapons to me and we’ll leave that crystal supply shortage to you."

Guess that seals the deal then?

We left the forge and I brought up my Codex to browse the hustles that have been posted in the open channel and sure enough, there was a specific one that was requesting for someone to investigate and deal with the station’s problem.

I guess since this wasn’t the front lines of the civil war, most Mercs wouldn’t be travelling through here so no one has picked up this job so far.

If it wasn’t for the fact that we were here for Yumiko’s sword, we wouldn’t be here anyway.

I tapped on the accept button and the hustle was officially registered to us.

"That’s it? We’re now officially contracted Mercs to these guys?" I asked, looking up at my girls. "I thought we might need to sign some kind of actual contract to be like... Privateers or something?"

Amber turned to me, "There’s also a contract for that if you want to sign as a war Merc for them. That would directly involve us in their civil war like what we were talking about earlier. Do you want us to participate in that war?"

"Is it a bad thing though? We can back out of it whenever we want, right?"

"Oh, it’s not a bad thing at all~ It’s really, really profitable! I just thought that Tera wouldn’t want to be involved in it directly~ Ehehehe~"

"Why do you seem excited about that?"

"Because if it’s a war... That means there will be a lot of enemies... And if there’s a lot of enemies, I don’t need to hold back, you know?"

Right... Figured that would be the reason...

I cleared my throat, "Let’s just deal with the crystal problem first, alright? Yumiko still doesn’t have her preferred weapon and Renata obviously wants that Power Armour made as well. Then after we deal with that, we can decide whether we want to join this as contracted Mercenaries. Besides... We still want to get that Exo-Knight license, don’t we?"

Yeah... I almost forgot about that after everything that happened but I still want an Exo-Knight you know?!