Once Zhao Wan'er had the succubi settled, she came to the console on the far side of the ship workshop.
There Zhao Chen was mapping out his next shipbuilding plans, hands moving without cease across the holographic projection before him, adjusting one parameter after another.
"Hey — you brought those succubi back with some wicked purpose in mind, didn't you!" Zhao Wan'er eyed Zhao Chen like an interrogator sizing up a criminal.
Zhao Chen stopped his work and said helplessly, "Hey, now — surely this counts as a good deed on my part? Didn't you see how pitiable those succubi are?"
Zhao Wan'er narrowed her eyes at Zhao Chen. "Pitiable they certainly are — but I don't believe you brought them back just because they're pitiable. There's no shortage of pitiable people in this Arctic Fox Starport."
Seeing there was no fooling Zhao Wan'er, Zhao Chen dropped the act and said with a chuckle, "Hey — those are succubi!"
"I know — the alluring creatures you men love best." Zhao Wan'er folded her arms and gave a cold snort.
"Bah — as if I were so vulgar a man! What I mean is, those succubi are extremely clever!" Zhao Chen raised a hand and called up detailed material on the succubus race, drawing red underlines beneath their strong learning ability, their intelligence, and the like.
Zhao Wan'er guessed his meaning. "You mean to take them into your service?"
"Exactly! What I lack right now is talent. Those beast-folk crewwomen may count as fit interstellar soldiers, but on certain kinds of work they simply won't do. Take Charlotte — set her to fighting a battle and she's second to none; but set her to managing the myriad affairs of a fleet, and, tsk, tsk, tsk… it's an absolute shambles. The succubus race, by contrast, excels at exactly this sort of management, and with good memories besides, its members can do a great deal of work. They're perfectly suited to the civilian posts aboard a ship!" Zhao Chen said, eyes fairly glowing.
Talent!
This was talent!
What Zhao Chen most lacked right now was talent.
And female talent, at that!
"That's all well and good to say — but is that truly your only aim?" Zhao Wan'er fixed a suspicious eye on Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen rolled his eyes. "Hey — I'm your brother, aren't I! If I really were that kind of man, would you have seen me lay a finger on a single beast-folk crewwoman in all these months?"
"That's true enough, but every one of those succubi is alluring past bearing; even I feel my heart stir looking at them. Who's to say you won't turn out worse than a beast!" Zhao Wan'er gave another cold snort.
"All right, enough sparring with you. Go back and rest early; you have the interstellar cruise-liner tomorrow morning to catch back to the Northstar Starship Military Academy," Zhao Chen said.
"You're really not going back with me?" Zhao Wan'er asked.
Zhao Chen pointed at the holographic ship-design blueprints before him, one after another. "Take a look at this — do I look like I can go back?"
"And what ship is this again?" Zhao Wan'er asked, curious.
Zhao Chen gave a mysterious smile. "Something that can forge an interstellar fleet for us in the days to come."
An interstellar fleet?
Zhao Wan'er had been about to toss off some teasing remark.
For even the smallest interstellar fleet needed at least 30 ships, and all told he had, at the outside, two.
To speak of building an interstellar fleet was, surely, a bit much.
But then again — Zhao Chen had assembled Blizzard Zero, built the T2 Queen Bee-class Heavy Carrier Starship — which of those hadn't been "a bit much"?
Perhaps he really could do it.
"All right, then. I'll wait for you at the Northstar Starship Military Academy." Zhao Wan'er glared at Zhao Chen. "But I'm warning you — if I ever find out you've mistreated those succubi, watch out that I don't…"
Zhao Wan'er made a scissoring gesture with her fingers, then turned and left.
"Where does that girl pick up such things?" Zhao Chen grumbled, and bent back to his work.
As for the succubi — they needed only to sit a while; there was no rush to win them over.
Since they'd come aboard his ship, they'd have no chance to get off this pirate boat again.
Half a day slipped by.
A system advisory chime in his mind pulled Zhao Chen's thoughts back.
Zhao Chen set down his work and opened the system page.
Two pop-ups had appeared.
Quarterly Mission: Build and own three different classes of T2 or above-T2 starship (system-produced).
So the Quarterly Mission had come.
Zhao Chen glanced at the time; it was October now.
It seemed the Quarterly Mission was issued once every three months. There was no failure penalty, but if left uncompleted it simply canceled itself — and the reward was rich.
It counted, all in all, as one of the finest channels for reaping system rewards.
He looked at the other pop-up.
Monthly points: 80 points.
Zhao Chen's System points had, of all things, risen by 80.
He checked, and found it was passive income brought in by the T2 Queen Bee.
As mentioned before, there were a few ways to gain System points: apart from completing system missions, there was the passive income from owning system-built ships.
And this T2 Queen Bee had entered service in early September, so come October he could collect the monthly points — 80 accrued day by day.
The more ships one owned, the more points; the higher a ship's tier, the higher the points.
That was the gist of it.
"This is a fine thing! Down the line, as I have more and more ships, even if I never touch a system mission, I'll have great swaths of System points rolling in." A flush of delight rose in Zhao Chen.
Time slipped by in a blink; the day after the succubi came aboard the T2 Queen Bee, Zhao Wan'er took the interstellar cruise-liner back to the Northstar Starship Military Academy.
And the raw materials Zhao Chen had ordered arrived in full, whereupon he embarked once more on the long life of shipbuilding.
And over these five days, there was one person steeped in anxiety.
That was the succubus Lilith.
She'd assumed the man would come find her the very next day and lay out his purpose.
Against all expectation, the next day the man didn't come — and even Miss Zhao Wan'er took her leave and departed.
The third day, still the man didn't appear.
The fourth day, still no sign.
By the fifth day, Lilith had, of all things, grown used to life aboard this ship: rising by the crewwomen's schedule each day, tidying her bed, washing up, then going to the canteen for her meals.
And in the time left over, they'd help clean the ship's interior — though cleaning robots were charged with that already.
But they had no wish to sit idle all day, and so would go looking for things to do of their own accord.
Little by little, they grew familiar with the beast-folk crewwomen aboard, and learned that they lived very well here.
That captain had never once forced them to do anything.
By the sixth day, Lilith began to sink into anxiety; the more she grew used to this present life, the more anxious she became — above all with that man still nowhere to be seen.
That night, she couldn't sleep.
The seventh day, Lilith lay on the soft bed, staring at the ceiling, and for a long time couldn't drift off.
In all the time behind her, it had been an age since she'd slept in a bed. Never mind a bed — sometimes just a place out of the wind and rain to rest had been a fortune.
So the first day, a great many succubi had lain awake too, until in the end some of them had had to lie on the floor before they could fall asleep.
And Lilith had noticed, besides, that the same anxiety had begun to show on the other succubi.
That look — Lilith knew well what it meant.
They were desperately unwilling to lose this present life; this present life was the very thing they'd dreamed of.
The eighth day, Lilith came to the ship canteen with two dark circles under her eyes, ordered her favorite dumplings, and sat down in a seat.
Before long, a tray likewise bearing dumplings was set down before her, and someone took the seat across from her.
Lilith noticed, too, that the canteen had all at once seemed to fall silent.
Lilith raised her head, and saw the person across from her.
It was that man who'd vanished for seven days — the man she'd waited seven days for.
"Tell me — where do you all want to go next? I can send you off." Zhao Chen ate his dumplings and spoke the words plainly.
His voice was not soft, yet it carried to every succubus in the canteen.
To them, these words were like a bolt from a clear sky — like being plunged into a pit of ice!
The delicacies before them lost, in an instant, all their appeal.