What Do You Mean There Are Other Transmigrators In My Harem Fantasy?

At least, that was what it might look like to outsiders.

But I\'ve seen her enough times to know that she was definitely still hung up about the money she lost back on the ship.

Still, this is much better than the mopey and depressed Emilia from this morning I guess, especially since I can finally talk to her normally without her feeling sorry for herself.

I looked at the Nekomata merchant seated across from me who was busy sorting the pile of coins in front of her.

She really didn\'t waste any time and got right to work organising the money I loaned her.

Meanwhile, I sipped on the tea that Katsuki had served me, enjoying the taste of the beverage.

For today, we did not have any plans so everyone else was just taking a break in the manor. Not the city\'s in any state for us to go out anyway since there\'s still an uproar about Emilia\'s ship right now.

From what Mary had told us, it was determined to be a terrorist attack that burned down half the ship and the harbour was still closed off right now.

At least they already put out the fire so there\'s no danger to the city right now.

I set down my tea cup, "So… Can we talk about it now?"

She set down one of the coins on top of another coin before tilting her head at me, "Talk about what?"

"You know what. The explosion on your ship of course."

"Oh, that… What do you want to know?"

"You did blow up your entire ship that\'s pretty much the size of a small city, you know? How many people died?"

She shrugged, "Probably in the dozens I would say. But all of them are those stupid traitors though, I gave the order as the captain that the ship had to be cleared for security inspections the day before so no passengers were on board when I blew it up."

Oh… So she did properly evacuate the ship before she blew it up… Not gonna lie, I wouldn\'t have been surprised if she had just blown the passengers along with the ship yesterday.

"I see… So what actually happened yesterday? If you don\'t mind talking about it of course."

She paused for a moment before pushing the pile of coins aside, though she was still careful to keep the pile intact so that they did not topple over.

Emilia then sighed, "I suppose you should know, since now you\'re basically my boss anyway…"

I shook my head, "I\'m fine with not knowing if you don\'t want to talk about it."

"No, no… It\'s not really that big of a deal. I already had time to come to terms with the fact that my family betrayed me so I\'m fine with it. Right now I would say it\'s just me being upset at myself for falling for their trick."

"So what happened?"

She sighed again, "It\'s really stupid actually… I guess they must have hired several other people in the city to watch my movements instead of making use of our own family members since I would have recognised them. I was sending various letters to my contacts which might have tipped them off and they intercepted my messages."

She paused there, taking a moment to look out the window with a far off look on her face.

I realised she was looking out the window and I turned to look, taking a moment to figure out she was looking in the direction of the harbour.

There\'s still a little bit of smoke coming from that direction floating in the air but where we were did not allow us a direct view of her ship.

She then continued without any prompting from me, "Yesterday, I was preparing to come and find you to let you in on the plan. I went to open my safe in my quarters with the intention of bringing everything I had accumulated to you when I found my safe was completely empty. That\'s when I knew I had been had."

I tilted my head at her, "How did they even get access to your safe? I don\'t think you told the password to anyone on your crew right? And knowing you, I believe you would have changed the password the moment you knew about their plans too."

She chuckled, "Seems like Aster already knows me quite well. You are right of course. I went back to check everything I had and changed the passwords of my safe as well on that same day. But I overlooked one thing…"

Emilia picked up a coin from the pile and started flipping it through her fingers.

"The safe was a wall mounted one and it was already part of the ship before I took over command of it…"

I grimaced, "Don\'t tell me… There\'s another way to access the safe and bypass the lock?"

She nodded, "The back of the safe is a false panel and they took everything from inside that way… All my savings, all the deeds I own, all the jewellery I had bought for myself… All gone just like that."

Oof… The thing I understood from this was the fact that her parents might have already planned this even before handing control of the ship over to her… Meaning they had probably planned to cut her out from the start.

Damn Emilia, just how screwed up is your family? Do they do this to all your siblings too or only just you?

"What happened after that?" I asked.

She chuckled, "Well… I admit I went a little mad there and decided to bring forward my plan by a day. I figured that they must have learned I was planning to leave tomorrow so they most likely had some surprise planned for me tomorrow anyway."

"So you blew up the ship… While you\'re still in the ship?"

"Ahahaha! That was not the plan actually. I had gone around activating the bombs but my actions must have tipped them off and they tried to stop me. They didn\'t know about the bombs before that since I got them through intermediaries and they were rushing to try and disarm them while another group attacked me in my quarters. You know the rest."

Yeah… She most likely killed the ones that came after her and then blew up the ship before they could disarm the bombs.

Speaking of which…

"What even are the bombs? What kind of bomb can even cause that much destruction?"

She smirked, "Simple actually. Mana Crystals imbued with fire and air mana stuffed in barrels. Put enough mana in them to cause a few of them to blow and then it would cause a chain reaction throughout the entire ship as long as you placed them correctly."

Right… I remember back when I was experimenting with them before and something like that happened too…

"And you can get barrels of these easily?" I asked.

"Easily? Definitely not. If you have the money and know the right people? Definitely possible. Why? Are you looking to bomb something too?

Just saying, one barrel costs like… Ten thousand Creas or so."

Ok, yeah… That\'s pretty expensive.

"And how many barrels did you use?"

"Hmm… I think it was about a hundred and fifty? Give or take a few dozen."

Damn, she really wasn\'t playing around huh? I\'m more surprised that they even had more than a hundred of these just lying around for her to buy…

"Any chance of your family coming to find you for revenge after that?"

She shook her head, "I don\'t believe they will. At least… I don\'t think they would for the next few weeks or months at least."

"Eh? Why?"

"After an explosion like that, they should be expecting me to be dead already. Coupled with the fact that there\'s multiple dead bodies in my previous quarters, there shouldn\'t be any reason why they think I survived the explosion."

"And the time limit you gave is because…?"

"Well, once I start doing business again, they would most likely figure out I\'m behind it when some new company starts rising up through the ranks rapidly and maybe even start rivalling their fortunes after a few months."

She\'s that confident huh?

Then again, I\'m also quite confident that she could pull it off as well. Otherwise, I wouldn\'t have entrusted my entire savings to her either.

"And after that, they\'ll retaliate and seek trouble with your business?" I asked.

"Heh, I can deal with them when that time comes, you need not worry about it, Aster. I said I would triple the investment you made in me after three years. I do not intend to break the trust you have had in me."

Well… I guess I can just leave things to her then.

Now for the most important question…

Can I head pat her?