Ch.92Trust and Leave It to Me (2)

When Griyanar noticed Berial was concerned about her words, she lowered her feet from the table, unclasped her hands, and wiggled her fingers to signal Berial to sit down.

Seeing this, Berial sighed deeply but returned to her seat.

Once Berial obediently complied, Griyanar widened her purple-tinged eyes before returning them to normal, then immediately began explaining why she had Berial sit down.

“Think about it. After the Commander returns… this is the first time he’s properly asking for our opinions, right?”

“…That’s true, but?”

“And we’re going to leave after just 20 minutes… no, not even 20 minutes? How do you think Commander Icarus will view us?”

“How do you think he’ll view us, Griyanar?”

As Berial showed interest in her words, Griyanar continued the conversation while petting her pet tentacle, which had somehow emerged again despite being tucked into the pocket of her scientist coat.

“It’s nothing complicated. Just think from the Commander’s perspective.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think the Commander gave us two hours for no reason?”

“…Indeed, I suppose he has high expectations of us.”

Though not quite at Griyanar’s mad-scientist level of intellect, Berial herself possessed one of the highest intelligence levels in Icarus’s fleet. Understanding what Griyanar meant, her expression darkened.

“I almost committed a grave discourtesy to the Commander.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s simple. Think about bringing back in less than 20 minutes a problem that he thought would take at least an hour to consider.”

“Hmm… I don’t understand.”

“From the Commander’s perspective, wouldn’t it seem like we just ‘half-heartedly’ thought about it?”

“…Ah.”

“That makes sense♡”

With Berial’s clear explanation, Ignis and Pashtra, who hadn’t grasped the issue, nodded in agreement.

“I don’t know much about this… but honestly, the Commander has been struggling with this problem, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Indeed.”

“But if we, after putting our four heads together, bring him a solution in less than 20 minutes when he’s been struggling with it for days…”

“…Hmm.”

Pashtra paused briefly, then shook her head, causing her violent bosom—impossible to conceal with her thin nun’s habit(?)—to sway as she expressed her disapproval.

“It’s essentially like saying ‘We solved in less than 20 minutes what you’ve been struggling with!’ How do you think the Commander would feel?”

“You’re right, Pashtra… my thinking was shallow.”

Despite her self-deprecation, Berial simply bowed her head in self-reproach, unable to make excuses. However, while nodding at Berial’s words, Pashtra casually added:

“Of course, considering our Commander’s personality, I don’t think he’d scold us for it♡”

“Certainly not.”

“Indeed.”

“Our Commander does have quite a gentle side.”

After expressing their agreement with Pashtra’s assessment of Icarus’s leadership(?), they concluded it would be better to wait about an hour and a half before leaving rather than going right away.

==========

But ten minutes later, they were feeling considerably bored.

“So what are we supposed to do now?”

“…Who knows?”

The reason was simple. Having lived lives filled with grueling schedules, they had no idea how to spend this suddenly available “short” break.

Of course, our superhumans weren’t complete idiots—they each had their own ways to spend leisure time. But that was when they had finished their work properly and could rest in their own fully-equipped quarters.

Having left their smart-phones and other devices outside for the meeting, their options for the remaining hour and 20 minutes were severely limited. Hence Ignis’s questioning look, followed by:

“Ignis is right. Do we have any additional opinions to offer… or anything else to discuss?”

Berial raised her hand to speak, seemingly at a loss for activities, but Griyanar, who was racing her pet tentacle against a snail, shook her head and replied:

“Well… haven’t we already said everything we can say right now?”

“That’s true.”

With nothing particular to say, Berial simply fidgeted with the hem of her military coat.

Seeing the atmosphere turn into what seemed like a group silence meditation, Pashtra in her nun’s habit (or whatever she claimed it to be) declared a girls’ talk session to liven things up.

“If we have nothing else to do, how about we each share what we find most attractive about the Commander?”

The moment Pashtra announced the girls’ talk:

“Face.”

“Face.”

“Face, of course.”

“…Why is everyone answering so quickly? Though I agree it’s his face.”

Their immediate consensus on Icarus’s “plausible” good looks as the top choice created a momentarily awkward silence in the meeting room.

But as mentioned, the silence was very brief.

“…Pfft.”

“That seems a bit much, don’t you think?”

“With how charming the Commander is, wouldn’t it be strange to only focus on his face?”

“Indeed. It’s no wonder Marian is so smitten with the Commander, following him around like a lovesick puppy.”

Mentioning Icarus’s “plausibility” had been everyone’s attempt at a witty joke to lighten the mood, but the coincidental identical answers had created the awkwardness.

After a brief moment of stiffness, they all remarked on the poor timing, and a warm atmosphere quickly enveloped the meeting room. And so, the girls’ talk session officially began…

“So everyone, what do you like most about the Commander?”

“Body or mind, that is the question.”

“Must we choose just one?”

At Berial and Ignis’s words, Griyanar, who had been silent after a brief chuckle, was the first to raise her hand.

“For me, it’s definitely his tolerance—how he accepts whatever I do.”

“Tolerance?”

“Yes!”

While stroking her squishy pet tentacle, Griyanar lifted it up like in The Lion King and said with her characteristic mischievous smile:

“He rarely stops me from creating all sorts of things, including these little ones.”

“…I see.”

“Compared to those uptight folks in the Xenovia Empire, he’s truly the best.”

“The Commander’s capacity for acceptance is certainly remarkable. He even managed to win over the Pirate Empress.”

At Pashtra’s words—who had thoroughly instilled devotion and affection for Commander Icarus in Marian through “early education”—Griyanar nodded with satisfaction.

Of course, they all intentionally avoided mentioning that the Pirate Empress was on the verge of becoming Icarus’s fanatical yandere because of this.

“Though he is rather unlucky.”

“That’s true.”

“Jessica mentioned in passing recently that he has seriously bad luck compared to other commanders.”

They subtly shifted the conversation topic to an assessment of Icarus’s “luck.”

“But thinking about it, is the Commander really that unlucky?”

“What do you mean, Griyanar?”

“Think about it. Among all those people in hibernation chambers, and through countless twists of causality, he managed to bring us all together again in this place.”

“…”

“Isn’t that pretty amazing? I heard some don’t even have a single SSS-rank.”

“Certainly… hmm.”

And so, naturally defending Icarus’s “luck” before smoothly transitioning to the next topic, they thoroughly enjoyed their unexpected short break with impromptu girls’ talk.