I wake up to the beautiful face of Venti staring down at me with a confused expression.

I can’t help but tease her:

“If you stare that intensely, even I will get embarrassed you know~”

She darts backwards bumping against a large shelf behind her, shaking it a bit.

“S-S-S-Sorry… I euuhmmm… I don’t get to observe many Sapien here…”

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot one of the empty glass jars start to wobble on top of the shelf that Venti just bumped into, It’s going to fall on top of her if I don’t do something!

I clumsily grab Venti’s arm and pull her towards me in an attempt to save her. Not realizing how light she actually was, I used a bit more strength than necessary and accidentally pulled her on top of me.

*CRASH*

The glass jar hits the ground, shattering in the process.

“Fuck!” I yell out in pain as Venti is now suddenly resting her entire weight on top of me, not that she weighs a lot, but it doesn’t take much to hurt my injured and tortured body.

Although I can also feel the sensation of two large, round pillows on my torso, which are oddly soothing…

Due to the commotion, H’Mara suddenly comes rushing to the door.

*SIGH* Great timing… I can see H’Mara expression turn from ‘worried’ to ‘absolutely pissed’…

“W-Wait, H’Mara, I can explain, I was just trying to save her, right? Tell her Venti!”

Venti, still shocked from our sudden skin contact, turns red from embarrassment and starts flailing around, which, yes, was excoriatingly painful. She also started mumbling:

“R-Ryder just suddenly p-pulled me towards him a-and then t-that jar-“

Looks like H’Mara heard enough, she pulls Venti off of me and sends a punch flying towards my direction, then, everything turned black.

…

I wake up to the beautiful face of Venti… Again!... I could get used to this though, *AHEM* minus the fainting of course.

Before truly getting to appreciate each and every little detail of Venti’s immaculately sculptured features, my attention is pulled by a glaring H’Mara threateningly fiddling with her claws…

*SIGH* She won’t even let me enjoy a single second of peace onboard this ship will she?...

H’Mara snarls:

“Using the opportunity of a falling glass jar to take advantage of Venti, really… I was gonna congratulate you for your resolve back there, even finding that red denser… But I guess that won’t be necessary now.”

“Oi! You didn’t even let me explain the situation! You can’t just punch a hospitalized person like that!”

“Tch, stop whining, I only hit you lightly, not my fault you fainted. Besides, we were already in the hospital ward, what safer place to punch you?”

*SIGH* “There really is no reasoning with you… Just leave and let me recover please, the sooner I recover, the sooner I can start mining those asteroids for you again.”

H’Mara suddenly comes a lot closer and rests her hand on my broken leg, pushing down slightly.

“Aaahaaah fuccckk! What are you doing?!”

“I didn’t like that condescending tone of yours, slave.”

She only stopped applying pressure after Venti convinced her to go away and let me rest.

With another ‘Tch’ she finally left the room, but not before making sure I saw her hand a plasma handgun to Venti for ‘self-defense’…

Finally alone with Venti again, I try to start up a conversation:

“Sheesh, it must be tough working for that cat-woman.”

“N-No… Not really, she’s actually really nice, after I explained the entire situation to her, she wanted to apologize, but I guess she didn’t find the courage to…”

C-Could it be? H’Mara is actually a tsundere?!... N-No definitely not, remembering everything she put me through… She’s probably only nice to Venti…

“A-Are you kidding me? Nice? She forced me to dig for densers with my bare hands. She threatened to sell me off if I didn’t!”

Venti grabbed some gauze before squeezing some liquid out of an alien bug on to it and wrapping it around my hand while continuing our conversation.

“S-She wouldn’t do that, selling you off I mean… She already gave you the training suit.”

Speaking of the training suit, apparently it’s made out of self-healing fabric since the hole my bone was poking through earlier is gone now… Great, so the only true way to get rid of this torture device is to speak those humiliating words and give up…

“Still a dick-move to threaten me with it though. She didn’t even care that my leg was broken.”

“D-Dick-move?... A-Anyways! I-I’m sorry! She probably just wanted to help me with my training, I mentioned before that I needed more experience with complicated bone fractures… B-But I also think she didn’t expect you to faint like that, she looked really worried and guilty when she brought you in here…”

*SIGH* “Whatever, I guess she isn’t horrible, she did give me an opportunity to grow stronger… I’ll just view her ‘unique’ personality as another trial to undergo.”

I actually managed to get a small giggle out of Venti with that last statement, how cute…

Suddenly, Venti pauses what she was doing. It looks like she’s trying to gather up the courage to say something?

This is taking a long time though…

Right before I wanted to lighten the mood with another joke, she speaks:

“U-Uueemm, you’re a real, genuine male Sapien right?”

I nonchalantly answer:

“Yes? I’m definitely weak enough to be part of the Sapien race and last time I checked in the shower, definitely male.”

She blushes:

“R-Right… Is it okay if I touch your body and ask a few questions? F-For scientific purposes of course!”

Niku20

Hey, no explanations for this chapter, I just wanted to express my gratitude to you, the reader! Writing this book has been a lot of fun, unfortunatly, I think the topic is a bit niche since it doesn't get as much attention as my other novels. Definitly leave a rating or comment if you want to show some kind of support! I'll definitly finish the first arc at least though. :)