“A Warped horde?” the alien merchant’s said in surprise. Weirdly enough, his eyes glittered. “What an excellent harvest opportunity! Tell me, do they have a Broodmother?”

Nori was taken aback by his reaction. “A what?”

“When a Warped reaches level ten, it can sometimes transform into a Broodmother. A Broodmother is an intelligent specimen, capable of drawing in and directing the lesser Warped. Broodmothers are highly valuable hunting targets as it’s possible to extract a significantly larger amount of piTec from their bodies. They also drop essence cores which can serve as a component in extremely advanced technological branches, and therefore worth quite a lot. You’ll have no shortage of funds should you kill one and its horde, I’m sure of that.”

Bulco gritted his teeth. “How hard is it to understand? The entire point of us being here and considering going to the moon is so we can kill those sons of bitches.”

“Please excuse our Engineer,” Lana smoothly cut in, throwing a warning glance at Bulco. “He hasn’t slept much lately. He does have a point, though. We first need the casing if we want to have a chance to hunt down this ‘Broodmother’. Is there a chance to come up with some sort of another form of payment?”

The alien nodded. “Of course, I understand. I am well aware of your intention and was beginning to suggest a possible solution when your Engineer ...” he paused to look at Bulco, “started cursing. You want to fix your freighter to reach the moon, for that you’ll need the core casing, of course. But that’s not all. If you’re planning on going outside the ship you’ll need spacesuits, communication devices, and possibly a multipurpose land vehicle to move around. I can offer all of that - and at a very affordable price.” Seeing as Bulco was about to snap at him again, he hurried along. “I understand the cost surpasses your current means, but should you succeed in your mission you would have no issue paying me back.”

Nori frowned. “Are you just going to give us everything we need and trust us to pay you back later?”

Alzigo craned his neck as he looked at her. “Of course not. I’m a merchant. I run a business, not a charity. I’m offering to give you a loan to buy everything you need. A loan which you’ll have to repay within a set amount of time, along with a small interest.”

“Alright,” Nori said, a bit too quick to Lana’s opinion. “Sounds fair, let’s do it.”

“Excellent. I will, of course, require collateral. Your shuttle will do.”

“You want to take away our shuttle?” Bulco nearly yelled, the veins in his neck popping.