In truth, there were not that many goods in this shelter worth money.
At best, there were the hides of animals hunted to keep Green Shark’s hunger at bay, and the rare metals scattered here and there among the ore veins.
It was not an insignificant amount, but it was not worth enough to buy every component I wanted.
If I paid solely with what we had now, I would have to give up a considerable portion of them.
"....."
Lumi was smiling brightly, but she did not look at all inclined to give me a discount.
If I "mobilized" Green Shark, we could get everything for free, but if the gun slung over her shoulder started spitting fire, there might be unforeseen casualties.
And Marmotte, our medical specialist, was too cold to move.
"...What is that?"
I pointed to the dented cylindrical device in the corner of Lumi’s bag.
She had several similar devices hanging from her waist, so that one was probably broken.
"Ah. That...."
Lumi’s ears folded slightly. She did not seem to want to talk about it, but if she wanted to make even a little money, she had no choice.
If I could fix it, I could take a cut as payment for my labor.
"It’s not for sale, but are you interested?"
"It looks like a machine. I’m an engineer."
"Really?"
Lumi’s folded ears sprang upright. Seeing them fully spread like this, they were much larger than Marmotte’s.
She picked up the cylindrical device and twisted its two halves in opposite directions, causing it to slide open.
Green Shark took one quick look at the machine, promptly lost interest, and turned her gaze toward the heater.
.
.
.
What is he up to?
Lumi’s seasoned merchant instincts had already told her that the person before her did not have enough money.
She had prepared herself for the possibility of a fight in the worst case, but the man, Polaris, was interested in something else.
...So that was in my bag.
The [Planetarium Collector].
The high-precision device filtered blue powder from the atmosphere: the Planetarium that was both the Rabbies’ lifeline and their currency.
Most of her kind built cities on the moon and lived in orbit, but small-time merchants like Lumi had to travel in person.
Collecting Planetarium directly from planets as a side business whenever possible, then selling it on the moon, brought in a tidy profit.
An engineer from a backwater planet like this, at best....
The Rabbies’ technological level was advanced enough to collect Planetarium, the essence of planets dispersed minutely throughout the atmosphere by volcanic activity.
With such advanced science and technology as its foundation, the Rabbity Empire commanded a power that traversed the satellites of multiple planets.
"I’ve never seen a substance like this before..."
Pola continued as he glanced over the Planetarium stuck to the collector’s cooling plate.
What could an uncivilized backwater resident who did not even know what Planetarium was possibly do? Lumi watched him coldly.
"Have you been somewhere hot?"
"Wandering from place to place is the fate of a traveling merchant."
Pola removed the casing and carefully examined the internal structure.
It was clearly a high-precision device, so it was difficult to tamper with carelessly, but mechanical principles held true regardless of technological level.
If technology could disregard the laws of physics, would that not be magic?
"Looks like it overloaded. I just need to redo the wiring and replace the filter."
Since it was a collector that extracted substances dispersed in the atmosphere, it naturally had a high-density filter, and Lumi had spare filters for it.
Pola stripped away the casing and slowly inspected the internal circuitry.
The implant installed in his pupils identified the shorted sections, and he restored them with smooth, practiced movements.
"????"
The collector was fixed in no time through primitive repairs—primitive by Rabbies standards—even without the ultra-precision equipment of a lunar machine shop.
Once he had reassembled it in the reverse order of disassembly and pressed the switch, its distinctive blue glow began to shine.
Whiiir—
"...W-why is it working?"
It naturally did not run as smoothly as one repaired at a professional maintenance shop, but Lumi was astonished at the device, now repaired well enough to work without trouble for the time being.
She had brought plenty of them in the first place, anticipating breakdowns because she had to travel all over the planet gathering Planetarium, but this changed things.
The amount she had expected to lose to damage and loss had become additional potential profit.
It was a feat impossible at the technological level that she—the Rabbity Empire—had assessed this planet to possess.
"Would this be enough payment?"
A confident smile hung on Pola’s face.
.
.
.
"More than enough!"
Lumi beamed as she folded and unfolded her ears.
There were several more devices similar to the one he had just repaired in her bag.
Besides ones whose circuits had burned out from overload, some were dented from external impact, and a few even bore bullet holes.
"Sniff."
Marmotte, also sniffing as she remained bundled under a blanket, watched the scene closely.
They salvaged what could be saved, and for the ones that were beyond repair, they gathered the remaining components and assembled them into working units. There was more to salvage than expected.
They were able to repair roughly seventy percent of them.
"As for the repair fee...."
"Ah."
Lumi’s cheerful expression stiffened again.
He had repaired them through precision control using his implant, but since he did not know what the machines were used for in the first place, his work was not perfect.
Even taking that into account, it should be worth no small sum, but the minor issue was that I did not know the market rate.
"It can’t be helped."
With a sigh, Lumi handed me an armful of the components I had picked out earlier.
"I should be giving you more, but collecting and selling the Planetarium is my job anyway, so let’s call it even."
"Is it worth that much...?"
There was nothing I could do even if she was ripping me off from the start.
Still, labor costs had to be set somehow, and we were the desperate ones, so it was not a loss.
"May I ask you something?"
"Of course."
She was not going to charge a separate information fee, was she?
I cautiously asked the thing I had been most curious about all this time.
"If I were to sell ‘myself,’ how much would I be worth?"
Lumi blinked at the abrupt question.
Even Marmotte, now a bundle of blankets, and Green Shark showed interest.
"You’re an expert, so I was just wondering."
Oh no. Had that sounded like I was asking whether she was a slave trader?
It could have been an offensive question, so I hurried to make excuses, but Lumi held out her hand.
"Could you pluck out a hair for me?"
Was it because of my genes? I had not undergone any major modifications.
I plucked out a hair and handed it to Lumi. She took out some kind of device and inserted the hair into it.
"....You’re pureblood?"
"Huh? Ah, yes."
Looking at the results on her pad, Lumi began tapping at a calculator.
"Baseline human, no disqualifying conditions or disabilities, implants installed, well-nourished, enough engineering knowledge and manual skill to repair a Planetarium Collector, and on top of that... male."
Why was that last one the most important?
"It would depend on the intended purpose, but you’d fetch five times as much as a prostitute slave from a prosperous system."
"Is that a compliment?"
"In silver coins, around 70,000?"
"What?"
Something was wrong with the unit.
"Ah, if you were put up for auction, you could probably be traded for an entire settlement."
[Mental Shock: -10]
A guidance voice played in my head, telling me to regulate my breathing and calm down, but I had no time for that.
Had I heard that correctly?
"Th-then... why?"
"Because you’re a man?"
Lumi asked back as though the answer were obvious.
The reply made no sense to me.
"There’s an extreme shortage of men in the Icarus Star System. You could call it supply and demand."
Only then did I realize what had been wrong with the common sense I had encountered so far.
I carefully turned my head and looked at Marmotte and Green Shark.
"You’re worth far more than I thought! Not just enough to buy a bathtub—you could fill an entire room with silver coins!"
"Mm-hm. You should be worth at least that much."
The reason they had kept me alive was not kindness or affection.
Was I not essentially a lump of gold that molded itself?
"To think someone like you is on such a backwater planet. I suppose pearls really are found in the mud."
"What?"
And apparently this planet was a frontier world, too.
That was actually even more surprising.
-----
Today’s average frontier world.
Let’s install a repair mod.
Mending is a hassle; nanotech is more convenient.
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