Chapter 717: The Instructor Has A Job For Us

"So you and everyone else just write logs in this?" Yumiko asked as I showed her our logs on our ship’s server.

"Yeah, you can just write anything you want really. You don’t need to do it, but I just thought it would be nice if everyone had a place to write their own records about the day."

"Are there things I can’t write about?"

"Hmmm? Of course not. These logs are for our own entertainment to begin with, we’re not publishing them out for others to see. Oh, you can also set any logs you don’t want others to see to private anyway, so you have full control over it. As I said, you don’t need to write any if you don’t want to."

Yumiko seemed to be thinking about it for a moment before she nodded, "I understand, Mistress."

Not sure why she’s making it sound like I just gave her an important mission or something... It’s not that deep, Yumiko, you really don’t need to think that much..."

Well... She’s a smart girl so she should be able to figure it out on her own I suppose.

I was already getting ready to leave the ship with my girls to attend today’s lessons when I received a call through my Codex.

Bringing up my Codex, I realised that it was the instructor that was calling me so I quickly answered it.

The screen popped up showing the usual helmeted face of the Instructor but I could somehow sense that there the atmosphere was rather grim despite not being able to see his face.

"Instructor?" I greeted him.

He nodded, "Miss Tera. I suppose you might have guessed what this call is about..."

I actually don’t know to be honest... Oh wait...

"Is it about the guy we caught yesterday?" I asked.

He nodded, "And I mentioned about needing your help as well for a certain matter too... Seems like I would need to call you in for that favour earlier than I anticipated... Is now a good time?"

I raised an eyebrow at my girls who shrugged in response before turning back to the Instructor, "I suppose so... We can at least hear you out at the very least."

"Let’s talk in person, it will be safer. I will have someone guide you outside your ship, please follow them."

The call was cut and the screen blinked off.

I turned back to my girls, "So... What do you girls think?"

Amber tilted her head, "Did you give him some of your cooking, Tera?"

"Huh? Of course not. Why would you even think so?"

"Oh... I thought that he might be calling you because he tasted your food and now can’t live without it and is begging you to stay or something. Guess that can’t be the case."

Lea tapped the side of her cheek, "Maybe... The Instructor is trying to propose to Mistress? Perhaps he fell in love with her at first sight?"

I waved my hand, "No, no, no. Don’t be ridiculous now, there is no way that could be possible."

Ries’s ears perked up, "Maybe he wants to join up as a crew member with Boss?"

I shook my head, "I don’t think that’s the reason either... Well whatever, it’s useless of us to just speculate here anyway. Let’s just go and hear him out."

We stepped out of our ship and sure enough, the same female android that had been guiding us since our first day here was already outside our docking hatch waiting for us.

"Miss Tera and company, please follow me," She requested with a bow.

We followed the android as she led us through the corridors of the station, taking us through sections that we’ve not been to so far.

Eventually, we reached a door which slid open and I was kind of expecting to be guided into an office or something, but what I saw inside was basically akin to a war room.

There were control panels, holographic screens and various different consoles that were displaying all sorts of different information all around and each of them was being staffed by an android that was fully concentrated on working on the station they were assigned to.

Standing in the middle and overlooking everything was the Instructor himself who was also in the midst of manipulating several holographic screens in front of him.

He quickly noticed us when we stepped in and waved his hand to shift the screens to the side to approach us.

"Miss Tera... Time is of the essence so I’ll have to ask you to forgive me for getting straight to business."

"Err... Right... So what’s this about?"

He raised his hand and another screen appeared beside him, showing a picture of the face of the guy we caught yesterday.

"This guy and the group he belongs to is after my life. They’re business rivals who wish to put me out of business by any means possible including attempts on my life. So far, they have avoided targeting me while there are outsiders present, which means I should have been safe while teaching a class, but it seems like they are no longer holding back."

The picture shifted aside to show another screen where it displayed a particularly large ship floating in the middle of several asteroids.

"They are intending to attack this place posing as pirates to make it seem like my academy is unsafe for students to attend and ruin my reputation. Previously even they would not want to get outsiders involved in this but I guess they have now become desperate enough that they would not mind harming innocent bystanders in this rivalry of ours."

That’s... Weird?

I mean... I’m pretty sure there are better ways to achieve what they want without resorting to this...

In the first place, this guy is literally only holding four classes a year, so wouldn’t it be a simple thing to just hold their classes when he’s not in order to not compete?

And that is also not even considering the fact that he only accepts a limited number of students each time so it’s not like he’s taking a big chunk of the market either... And it sounds like to me that even with the allure of a High Grade license, you might not even be able to get it even after paying such an exorbitant amount of money so I would say that most normal people would not choose to attend this school to begin with.

Then again... What do I know? Maybe there’s some deeper reason which I am not aware of, so whatever.

What I care is what he wants us to do and how much he is paying us, that’s what’s important.

I tilted my head at him, "So what do you want us to do? Fly out there and tell them not to do that?"

He shook his head, "Since they so graciously presented this opportunity to me to market myself, I don’t see why I shouldn’t make use of it. I want you and your group to stay near the edge of the training field today, right in the space in between them and the other students. They will see you as easy pickings and start from you."

"So what? You want us to act as a sacrifice or something? Or as bait to lure them to you to deal with them?"

"No, no. I want to show that even beginner students in my academy could also handle what appears to be veteran pirates trying to attack them. They will definitely be attacking with Exo-Knights so these would work even better in my favour when they see that beginner Exo-Knight pilots are able to beat more experienced Exo-Knight pilots when they are learning in my academy."

I raised an eyebrow at him, "You do realise that you’re literally speaking to a bunch of newbie pilots right now? What makes you think we can actually win against a bunch of experienced pilots?"

He huffed, "First of all, they will definitely be underestimating you so you already have that as your advantage. Second of all, you will be expecting them while they won’t be expecting you to be prepared. And lastly... Are you really trying to convince me of that after how you handled the supposedly more experience Exo-Knight pilot yesterday?"

"That’s different, I caught him off guard," I protested.

"And you will catch them off guard this time as well. Anyway, this will be an informal request since I don’t want any records that you were hired to do this. In return, I will be paying you more than what the normal market rate is, how does that sound?"

"And how much is that?"

"Six of you, so let’s say a million Credits each. Six million Credits for doing this job for me, how about that?"

Oh why didn’t you just lead the request with this? Six million Credits just for this? Easy money!

Let’s do it!