Chapter 1173: The Hired Mercenaries

"Now, Valeria, you shouldn’t be cursing in front of the kids. And I know you’re embarrassed, but you shouldn’t try to blame your eating habits on Helios."

"No! I’m not doing that! It really is him!"

"It’s both of you."

Arte suddenly spoke up from beside Jason, and Valeria gave Arte such an intense glare that he actually squeaked in fear and quickly went to hide behind Jason! Jason raised a brow at Valeria in disapproval, and Valeria huffed at him! Valeria already warned Arte to stop looking through her mind wth his abilities! Valeria didn’t like it when people could see through her so easily! Tsara put her hand over her mouth and laughed lightly when she saw the interaction between all of them, but Tsara quickly controlled herself when Valeria turned to her with a glare as well!

Valeria let out another annoyed sound before she looked over at Jason and Stella. Valeria’s eyes travelled down to Jason’s hand that was still holding Stella’s, and Valeria raised a brow before asking.

"Did you two go on a date or something? Where’s the food?"

Stella’s cheeks reddened when she heard this, but Jason just rolled his eyes before he let go of Stella’s hand and told her to handle sorting the food. Stella nodded and opened her spatial space to release all the bags that they had bought. There were more than thirty of them, and both Arte and Tsara exclaimed in shock when they saw all the snacks and ingredients in the bags! Stella smiled at them and asked them to help her take them to the kitchen.

"If you finish quickly, I’ll give you some snacks."

The two kids exclaimed in joy, and they quickly began taking the bags away. Jason walked into the ship to head for the main cockpit, and Helios leapt off Valeria’s shoulder and quickly flew to Stella’s shoulder and sat there comfortably. It was obvious that Helios wanted to get some snacks as well, and Valeria gave the bird a look of betrayal.

"Traitor."

Caw!

Helios let out a cry, and Stella just laughed as she took some bags and began carrying them inside. Valeria shook her head at the disloyal bird, and she began heading into the ship to go and join Jason in the cockpit.

Jason was sitting in the captain’s seat and looking through some images on the large holographic screen in front of him when Valeria arrived, and Valeria asked him what that was.

"Information on the world of Dev’arn."

Jason answered while scrolling to another map image, and Valeria raised a brow.

"What? Why are you looking at Dev’ran?"

Valeria walked up to stand beside Jason, and she leaned down with her hands on her knees as she looked at all the images curiously. Valeria’s position placed her exposed cleavage right beside Jason’s face, and Jason glanced to the side in surprise. Jason had done his best to ignore it for the past few days, but at this point, it was becoming difficult for him not to notice that there was something wrong here.

Jason didn’t know why, but Valeria had become a lot more ’comfortable’ around him lately. If it was just her smiling more and acting closer to him, then Jason could’ve just put it down as them becoming closer as siblings, but Jason knew for a fact that this was something far more than just that. It seemed like Valeria was always coming closer to Jason, and she constantly did things to pull Jason’s eye towards her. If Jason didn’t know any better, he would think that Valeria was trying to seduce him. But Jason knew that it was impossible, so he put that thought out of his mind.

But although Jason was concerned about Valeria’s actions, Valeria herself had no idea that she was doing any of these things. What Valeria was wearing were the most comfortable clothes she had, and she always wore them whenever she was alone and relaxed. And her constant closeness to Jason was not planned either. Valeria was just doing what felt the most natural to her without really considering what her actions looked like to others.

Valeria gave Jason a curious look, and Jason finally turned back to the holograms and explained what he was looking at. They were mainly documents and images about Dev’arn that were available publicly, and Valeria asked Jason why he was interested in it. Valeria couldn’t imagine why Jason would suddenly want to know about this random world. But Jason’s answer actually surprised her.

"Stella and I were being followed earlier. Four mercenaries were hired to keep an eye on us and gauge our general strength."

Valeria raised a brow and turned to Jason curiously.

"And what did you do to them?"

"I killed one of them and interrogated him. Turns out they were hired by soldiers from Dev’arn, but I couldn’t get the exact reason why from the mercenary since they weren’t given that information. I’m trying to see if I can find anything important in the database."

Valeria hummed, and she looked up at the holographic images one more time before she finally turned to head towards the navigational station in front of Jason. For some reason, at this moment, Valeria didn’t really feel any sort of panic or concern about the situation. Although Valeria was sure that she would’ve been very worried if she had still been living her mercenary life, things were different now. Valeria was no longer around strangers, and she didn’t have to sleep with her sword under her pillow in case she was attacked at night. The mere fact that Jason was already looking into things just made Valeria confident that everything would be fine.

If the previous Valeria knew that Valeria was having these sorts of thoughts about someone, especially a man, then she would’ve been shocked. The life of a mercenary was cruel, and trusting anyone was just another way to lead you to an early grave. But even though these feelings were new to her, Valeria found that she didn’t hate them. Valeria didn’t hate depending on Jason.

"Do you think this might have something to do with the kids?"

Valeria spoke up while pressing some keys into the navigational chart and bringing up the route for their next trip, and Jason hummed while reading through one of the documents.

"I thought about that too. Seems possible, especially since Malovena said she was bringing the kids back for an aristocrat. How come you mercenaries never know who your employer is?"

Jason had asked Malovena for the identity of her employer, but the name that Jason got from her was something that didn’t really exist. Apparently, Malovena’s mission was to take the kids to a mercenary branch on a distant world, and the mercenary branch would handle the rest of the exchange.

Valeria huffed in amusement and asked.

"Would you use your real identity if you wanted to hire a mercenary for something illegal?"

Jason hummed in acceptance.

"Hmm, I guess I wouldn’t."

Valeria went back to typing on the panel, but her hand accidentally hit something that fell over and rolled down the panel. Valeria spoke up as she knelt and bent over to pick it up.

"Look, I think the mercenary guild might have information on who hired Malovena. We can find something if we go to another branch."

Jason looked over at Valeria when she said this, and he was about to say something, but his words died in his throat as he found his eyes immediately traveling towards her ass that was staring him right in the face. Valeria was wearing tight shorts that didn’t hide anything at all, and her toned body made her current pose look a bit too sexual to just be some accident. What the hell was she doing?