Ch.106″The oil is oozing out.” (2)

When Marian’s reaction was more intense than expected, I had to take a moment to figure out what the problem was.

But that didn’t last long.

“Marian, if we continue like this, we’re literally going to starve to death.”

“What? What do you mean?”

Jessica appeared behind me with a pop, handing over what looked like extremely thick documents and a tablet.

Marian, who had been growling like a dog that sensed it was about to be abandoned, accepted Jessica’s items with a puzzled expression.

With her face full of doubt, she read through the documents Jessica had given her.

After a moment…

“…Brother, was the base’s condition this bad?”

I felt grateful as I watched Marian’s face transform from one possessed by a vengeful spirit to that of an innocent Golden Retriever.

After that, there were many complicated matters to deal with, but to cut to the chase, the nearly 100,000 pirate ships that had come at my request all amicably decided to return home.

Although in the process, apart from the repair costs…

“Boss, we’re pirates after all, so we can’t just leave empty-handed, can we?”

“Mm, true.”

I ended up having to give away another massive amount of minerals as compensation for the pirate alliance that had come all this way.

Naturally, there was no way these pirate uncles would accept a 36-month interest-free installment plan.

—————————————-

<Opened x3 Luxurious Resource Boxes!>

<Obtained 79,520 Minerals and 2,750 Rare Resources!>

<Opened x9 Rare Resource Boxes!>

<Obtained 62,339 Minerals and 1,311 Rare Resources!>

<Opened x11 Common Resource Boxes!>

<Obtained 25,894 Minerals!>

—————————————-

—————————————-

<Provided 183,257 Minerals and 4,533 Rare Resources to the ‘Pirate Alliance’!>

—————————————-

‘Sob.’

After emptying most of my remaining resource boxes and scraping together all the resources I currently had to pay the reward (?) in one lump sum…

—————————————-

<The ‘Pirate Alliance’ fleet is returning.>

<You will no longer provide repair costs to the ‘Pirate Alliance’ fleet.>

<All reconnaissance zones provided by the ‘Pirate Alliance’ have been deactivated.>

… … … … … …

—————————————-

A bunch of trivial status messages like that popped up, but that wasn’t what was important right now.

-“Boss! Just say the word from Lady Marian and we’ll come anytime!”

-“The repair costs were sweet!”

-“Since you’re such a sucker, we’ll give you a discount next time!”

“Ah, those bastards.”

After raising my middle finger to the departing pirate fleet that was openly admitting they’d ripped us off under the pretext of repair costs, I stood beside Marian, who was grinding her teeth with a smile, saying she’d need to teach them a lesson soon.

I asked Jessica, who was waiting beside us, roughly how many resources we had left.

In response to my question, Jessica took back her tablet from Marian, tapped on a few things…

Then suddenly paused, slowly raised her head toward me, and spoke with a slightly, no, considerably trembling voice.

“Commander, for some reason we have fewer minerals left than expected…?”

“What do you mean, Jessica?”

“We should have at least 10,000 left, but we don’t even have half that…”

At such an unexpected statement, I thought our Jessica might be joking and was about to calmly tell her not to kid around, but…

“We only have about 2,000 minerals left… and exactly 100 rare resources.”

“J-Jessica, what are you talking about?”

I couldn’t hide the trembling in my voice, as I never expected our resources to have plummeted that much.

Fortunately, we soon found out the reason…

—————————————-

<Event>

<Thieves!>

<Content: This is truly absurd.>

<Most of the newly constructed resource warehouses were built outside the base due to lack of space.>

<Some of the returning pirates have looted these resource warehouses.>

<Of course, your security forces tried to prevent this, but…>

<These weren’t the elite pirates summoned by Marian, but rather the dregs who came hoping for scraps.>

<After dealing with your security forces, they looted everything from the external resource warehouses.>

<External Resource Warehouses Depleted>

—————————————-

“What the fuck?”

“What is this nonsense?!”

So I called them to help, and these scumbags stole our resources?

It was truly a terrible event, but not one that couldn’t happen.

In fact, with “Pirate Mercenaries” recruited through the “Mercenary Dispatch Center,” there was a very low probability—about 0.1%—of an event where they would arbitrarily loot the user’s resource warehouses and flee.

While I was beyond dumbfounded and on the verge of lamenting my terrible luck…

“Brother? Jessica? What’s going on that’s making you both react like this?”

As Marian showed a very confused expression at our sudden change in demeanor, I was about to reassure her that it was nothing…

But at that moment, I noticed the pirate coat from Marian’s “Pirate Empress Full Set.”

‘Wait, I have the Pirate Empress right next to me, so why am I trying to let this go?’

In the game, it was just a forced “event” that you had to accept whether you liked it or not.

But here, the supreme leader of those pirates was clinging to me, calling herself my little sister.

Jessica seemed to have the same thought because as soon as our eyes met after she had been looking at Marian…

She nodded with a meaningful smile.

Returning her nod in agreement, I quickly began explaining the situation to the still-puzzled Marian.

“Actually… Marian, I’m sorry to tell you this.”

“What’s happened that’s making you both act this way?”

Of course, Marian still seemed bewildered by our change in attitude…

After I finished explaining…

-“Brother! I’ll catch them and crush them right away!!!”

“Ooh.”

While maintaining a smiling face, I watched as Marian left one sub-fleet of her personal guard fleet behind and rushed off with a large-scale fleet, including Leonard, to annihilate the pirate group that had looted our resource warehouses.

I felt truly satisfied.

“How fortunate, Commander.”

“Indeed it is. How fortunate that she’ll kill those bastards and recover our resources too.”

Of course, for the pirates who had looted without a second thought, this would be like a sudden natural disaster…

‘Haha, we should just take the compensation fee and go, why did we have to steal extra, damn it.’

If they’re upset, maybe they should have adopted the Pirate Empress as their sister too.

Anyway, after seeing Marian off like that, I looked at the suddenly spacious interior of the base after the 100,000-ship fleet and the pirates aboard had disappeared.

I decided to leisurely continue with the event progression while waiting for Marian to return.