Ch.114The Final Week. (5)

Meanwhile, at the same time Icarus was withdrawing his fleet and beginning reorganization.

“Tell the entire fleet to activate self-repair functions.”

“Yes, Commander.”

The user who had successfully defeated Icarus’s fleet gathered his expedition fleet at a nearby resource zone.

Looking at the condition of his assembled fleet, he expressed slight concern.

“We took more damage than I expected. Why is that?”

“The enemy fleet’s hit rate was marginally higher than our fleet’s evasion rate.”

“Oh?”

At the male adjutant’s words beside him, the commander nodded.

Then, looking at his fleet with various damages including a light cruiser that had lost half its hull, he continued the conversation.

“We plastered evasion equipment everywhere and even added supporters to boost evasion further… yet they still landed direct hits.”

“That’s correct, Commander.”

“Well, if they’re ranked higher than me, I suppose they should be capable of that much, right?”

“…You’re not wrong.”

But when the commander flashed an incredibly wicked smile while saying this, the male adjutant internally shook his head, thinking his commander’s mischievous tendencies and obsession had been triggered again.

And while the adjutant was thinking this…

“Oh right, how much damage did that person’s fleet take?”

“Confirmed sinkings include 4 cruiser-class ships, 2 destroyers, and 12 patrol ships, with at least 5 more suffering moderate damage or worse.”

“Hmm, not as many as I thought.”

“Considering our fleet’s total losses don’t exceed 15 ships, isn’t that a good outcome?”

“No, considering we can only acquire ships through capture in naval battles… it’s not that great.”

After reviewing the battle results again, the commander tapped the command console with his finger, lost in thought for a moment.

Eventually, he stood up and issued additional orders to his adjutant.

“Then this isn’t over yet.”

“I think so too, Commander.”

“Those repair ships we hid nearby? Deploy them and accelerate fleet repairs.”

“Understood.”

“Tell them to run the self-repair modules at full capacity and expedite reorganization.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Despite achieving quite a significant victory against Icarus’s fleet initially, the commander showed his intention to quickly repair his fleet and prepare for the next battle, not believing that Icarus would be so frightened as to hole up in his base.

But barely three hours after starting these repair operations…

“Commander!”

“Hmm?”

“The enemy commander’s fleet has reappeared ahead!”

“What’s their formation?”

“One Overseer-class medium cruiser, along with cruisers and a small number of destroyers!”

“…Heh.”

Seeing Icarus’s fleet appear much faster than he had anticipated after supposedly retreating with heavy damage, the commander twirled his long, curly pink hair with his finger and flashed a bright smile.

“Haha! As expected of someone ranked 3rd, they should have that kind of fighting spirit!”

==========

Having made the decision to hold onto my mental fortitude and enter the second battle, I wanted to confront that veteran player with a slightly different approach.

This approach involved reversing the previous decoy-main force strategy.

I would use my pretty Overseer and cruiser fleet as both decoy and anvil.

Then I formed a task force including 5 newly purchased <Azkran-class destroyers> from the shop.

While Overseer and Pashtra drew the enemy’s aggro with ultra-long-range bombardment, our task force would flank around and beautifully smash the back of the enemy fleet’s head once they were distracted.

However, since the enemy also appeared to have at least one superhuman similar to Pashtra—a “long-range firepower specialist”—simply deploying the cruiser fleet would obviously result in total annihilation.

-Crackle crackle.

“Crackle crackle.”

“…What are you doing, Commander?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s nothing.”

This time, I included resource mining ships in the decoy main force, allowing them to repair damage on the spot and hold out.

At the same time, I equipped the task force with high-grade heavy torpedoes that I had carefully saved after getting them from gacha.

Ready to show the enemy fleet what a proper bamboo spear attack feels like, I ordered the fleet to launch with all the preparations I could make.

==========

The battlefield I chose was an area near a large resource mining zone I had been using.

With many asteroid fields nearby, it allowed flanking fleets to move without being exposed to the enemy.

Although the trade-off was that fleet speed would be reduced while moving through the asteroid fields, and large ships like cruisers couldn’t be deployed through them, this wasn’t a major issue since the task force consisted entirely of destroyers and smaller vessels.

The superhumans aboard—Ignis and Partia—didn’t have fleet-related buffs and could only contribute their base abilities, so the main force with Berial, Pashtra, and Griyanar needed to buy enough time for our task force to successfully flank and strike the enemy from behind.

Therefore, I set up the main force in a formation focused entirely on long-range bombardment, intending to engage in a pleasant artillery duel with the opponent…

But when the second battle with this unknown opponent began, despite being an expeditionary force with limited repair capabilities, as soon as my cruiser fleet appeared within their detection range, they immediately launched their fleets from the resource mining area they had occupied, as if they had been waiting for this moment.

And unlike the first battle where they maintained distance while evading and firing, this time…

“Commander! The enemy is charging at us!”

“Ah, damn it.”

Using their excellent mobility to charge forward like berserkers…

Since I had reduced the number of small ships in the main force to form the task force, making us vulnerable to close combat, I started pulling the fleet back in frustration as they rushed in while pouring fire on us.

“Pull the fleet back! Keep firing while retreating!”

-“Understood, Commander!”

Facing the risk of being destroyed through sequential deployment rather than buying time, Berial, who was commanding on site in my place, was doing her best to maintain distance from the enemy by pulling back the destroyers and cruisers in front while sniping the enemy’s main ships through Overseer and Pashtra’s bombardment.

The problem was that while we were already slow and retreating backward, the enemy was advancing at full speed, disregarding some damage.

Not long after the battle began…

-“Enemy ships closing in!”

“Ah, shit.”

My main force became entangled with the pursuing enemy fleet, entering a chaotic melee.

And naturally, in such close combat, small ships are most effective, but my main force had only 5 destroyers.

Under the concentrated assault from the enemy’s small ships, my destroyers were destroyed one by one, turning into space dust. Then my precious Overseer and medium-light cruisers began taking a beating.

Although during this process, beams fired by Overseer and Pashtra coincidentally interfered with each other and scattered, resulting in a lucky shot that annihilated 10 clustered enemy small ships in an instant, immediately afterward, one of Overseer’s main guns was destroyed.

The enemy also had a superhuman—I couldn’t tell exactly what character it was—who fired powerful beam cannons like Pashtra. Each time they fired a battleship-grade beam cannon at close range, one of our cruisers would be cut in half or, if lucky, heavily damaged before being finished off by attacks from other ships.

This truly devastating scene continued, dealing severe damage to my mental state. Even Berial, who had been trying to maintain our battle line, had to sacrifice 3 regular cruisers to protect the Overseer, and was now urgently suggesting fleet withdrawal.

-“Commander, at this rate our fleet will be annihilated.”

-“Berial is right, Commander. The damage is accumulating faster than the self-repair systems I installed can handle.”

With Griyanar aboard the Overseer adding her voice to this, I was about to give up waiting for the still-silent task force and reluctantly issue a retreat order.

But at that very moment…

-“Enemy spotted!”

-“Savior, we have arrived.”

“…WOOOOOAH!”

Our long-awaited task force had finally emerged from the cursed asteroid field and was executing an angry spear thrust attack against the enemy, who had carelessly pulled their precious cruisers to the rear.