What Do You Mean I'm The Captain Of A Yandere Mercenary Company?

Looking at the Exo-Knights up close was just as impressive as I thought it would be when I saw them from above.

It's like walking through a convention for those plastic models where you have a different variety of them all laid out in display cabinets except these were life sized.

It was, for the lack of a better word, really cool.

And of course, our resident cat girl was geeking out over the Exo-Knights like a kid that has been let loose in a toy store.

"Ahhh!! Boss!! This is the second best day of my liiiiiife!! I love you!!" She squealed as she spun around while looking at the Exo-Knights.

I raised an eyebrow, "Second best day? What's the best then?"

"Of course it's that day where you fed me fish and then railed me inside my workshop while we were talking about guns! Nothing beats that!"

Oh my gosh, shush, Ries! We're in public here!

Thankfully, it seems like no one was paying attention to us so no one heard what Ries said there.

Anyway, I asked our guide about the unveiling of the new generation Exo-Knights and it was set to be revealed in another two hours.

That gave us quite a lot of time to look around the rest of the place.

For now, I let the girls split up to explore the exhibition on their own and we would meet again at the unveiling of the new generation Exo-Knights.

The guide ended up following another group of my girls while I was, of course, grouped up with Ries as I was looking for potential Exo-Knights that we could purchase in bulk to place in the Drow of Dawn for Renata to pilot. I was hoping that Ries would be able to help me pick out the best ones that we could consider for that particular role.

We didn't need a really advanced model since these Exo-Knights would technically function as a sort of meat shield for us in case we were outnumbered greatly.

I watched as Ries skipped over to the next Exo-Knight on display and she gestured at it, "Boss! Boss!! This is the C-seven variant of the Paladin class Exo-Knight!! They stripped all its auxiliary systems away to give it the best defense it can possibly get! This thing can take several battleship cannons head on with all its shields deployed!"

Yep, she's definitely having the time of her life right now.

Though it might look like she was just running around and marvelling at the Exo-Knights, she was still properly noting down all the Exo-Knights being sold as well as their price ranges for consideration.

While this tank type Exo-Knight wouldn't really fit our requirements, it was still something that we noted down in case we decided that this would be a better choice later on.

As Ries was spewing out the stats for the Exo-Knight in front of us, a well dressed man approached us with a business-like smile on his face.

"Hello there. Forgive me but, could you be looking to purchase an Exo-Knight?" He asked.

He had blonde hair and his eyes were thin lines that were barely visible while his smile looked really suspicious.

If I had to say… He basically had the look of those shifty villains that try to scam someone in a story.

I nodded, "We are. Any suggestions?"

He maintained his smile and brought out his personal terminal to project a card into the air.

I already saw this before so I knew he was trying to give me his business card.

I tapped my Codex on the card and his business card appeared in front of me, the name 'Barak Leo' appearing in the name section.

Above the name was a company logo that I did not recognise.

"You can call me Barak," He introduced himself. "I'm representing Novalance Industries here."

I turned to Ries and she seemed to be scratching her head when she heard him.

"Novalance? I don't believe I've heard of you guys before?" She commented.

He nodded, "That's not surprising. Our company is relatively new and we are based in the Outer Colonies specialising in purchasing and modifying Exo-Knights to be sold in the Outer Colonies. We cater primarily to Mercenaries but we also create variants meant for construction and mining."

I gestured at the Exo-Knight that Ries had been introducing me to, "Is this one of your company's modifications?"

He shook his head, "Unfortunately, our company isn't big enough to qualify having our Exo-Knights displayed here. However, I do have a catalogue that you can peruse if you are interested."

I shrugged, "I don't see why not?"

"That's great! Could I first know what you might be using the Exo-Knight for?"

"I'm a Mercenary, if that helps."

"Ah, then for combat then. Here's our catalogue for our range of combat focused Exo-Knights."

He taps on his personal terminal and a message pops up on my Codex, showing a link that brought me to a webpage that has a whole list of Exo-Knights for me to browse.

I lowered myself to let Ries have a look as well, my Maochatte lover peeking over my shoulder as I scrolled through the list.

Ries then pointed at one of the Exo-Knights on the page, "The Victory Class Exo-Knight… What's this one?"

His smile widened, "Ah! You have a good eye, miss customer! That's our modified Vanguard Class Exo-Knight!"

"What's different about it?"

"I believe you know that the Vanguard Class model is known for their modability! But the downside for them is that they have to be equipped with the specific packages on their docking stations in order to adapt to the situation that they are fielded for! Which means if you ended up fielding the wrong package, you would find yourself at a disadvantage! Not only that, the packages that it's modded with will end up making the Exo-Knight specialised to that specific purpose and make them unviable for every other situation! In addition to that, to be able to make use of its modability to its fullest extent, you would need to purchase a whole bunch of different packages which may mean you might end up forking out enough Credits to buy several specialised Exo-Knights just to fully kit out one Vanguard Class Exo-Knight! That's not a good use of your Credits!"

I blinked at the salesman who had suddenly launched into a sales pitch out of the blue.

Before this, he had been pretty calm and collected but right now, he looked as excitable as Ries when she finds a new gun.

Ries didn't seem surprised by his outburst and even engaged him with it, "So what is the change here? Did you do something with its modability?"

He grinned at her, "That's right. Instead of making it rely on needing it to be modded before it is launched, we have simplified all of its mods into one backpack that it can carry on its back. This allows it to switch its specialty on the fly! Maybe you need a shield? You can just swap out your main armament for one in the backpack! Maybe you need to have a boost in speed? You can detach the additional thrusters in the backpack to your wrists and legs to boost its speed! Maybe you need to engage your enemies on the surface of the planet? You can also swap your space thrusters to grav thrusters too! Everything is carried on the Exo-Knight's back so you have access to it wherever and whenever!"

Huh… That… Actually sounds pretty nice? To the point that it actually sounds a little too good to be true?

But for me who has zero knowledge on these kinds of things, I wasn't sure what to make of it.

Ries frowned and made a face at him, "Sorry but… Have you sold any units?"

He grimaced, "N… No… It's actually our most unpopular one and we don't know why… Shouldn't this be the best choice for people? Yet no one is willing to buy it…"

Oh? This guy's surprisingly honest? I would have thought that a salesman like him would just lie and claim that it's their most popular product or something…

Ries huffed, "Of course it would be. You don't even know your own market! The reason why the Vanguard class is still popular despite the amount of resources you have to put in is because it saves space on not needing another docking bay for another Exo-Knight and pilots don't need to adapt to a new Exo-Knight each time they switch specialisations! Your modifications dumbed down all the specialties to fit into a backpack and while that makes it mobile, it basically makes it inferior to everything else!"

"What… What do you mean?"

"A Vanguard class with its packages can match other specialised Exo-Knights with its mods. Yours on the other hand just makes them slightly better than the unmodded variant which is completely not worth the resources to change! At that point, you might as well just get the normal Vanguard Class instead!"

The guy's face fell, as though he only just realised this problem.

Damn dude… Even I feel bad for you…