Ch.138″Since I’ve completed the mission, I should receive my reward, right?” (2)

After suppressing the intention to add the clearly young-looking girl to my harem, and preventing Marian’s natural assassination attempt…

I thought our conversation was over and everyone could go about their business, but…

“Oh my! This princess almost forgot and nearly left!”

Princess Luca, who was about to leave after a pleasant conversation with Oxianor, suddenly remembered something and delivered news that was extremely exciting for me.

“Icarus, you see that thing we brought with us?”

“Ah, yes.”

“That starship is a gift from the Queen to you! You were of great help in establishing an alliance with the Pirate Union, so it’s only right that you receive a proper reward!”

“Oh…”

As she spoke, pointing to the massive ‘organic starship’ visible through the command center window, I could barely contain my excitement.

Unlike me, Jessica, who was standing beside me, asked with a voice full of doubt.

“Um… if you don’t have that, where will the Princess and her entourage stay?”

“Entourage? What do you mean by that?”

‘Jessica, if you say that, what happens to my starship reward?’

For a moment, I felt the blood drain from my face at Jessica’s words, but Princess Luca’s face showed genuine confusion, not understanding what Jessica meant.

“Princess, the Commander’s Adjutant is referring to ‘accompanying personnel’ like the representatives of other factions we’ve seen.”

“Ah… you mean those people they drag around everywhere?”

Thanks to Oxianor’s sharp interpretation from behind us, Princess Luca quickly grasped the situation. Perhaps due to her young appearance matching her actual age, she showed some inexperience, but our Most Exalted Princess Luca shook her head and assured us there was no need to worry about that.

“I understand what you mean, but there’s absolutely no need for such concern!”

“Pardon?”

“Unlike the Xenovia Empire or Earth Federation over there, full of empty formalities, we prioritize practicality!”

As she spoke, she tapped her modest chest—no, her carapace dress, and continued.

“My entourage consists only of myself and this loyal guard, which is quite sufficient!”

“I see…”

“The starship cocoon was brought purely as a gift, so there’s no space inside it whatsoever.”

“The Princess speaks the truth.”

Hearing this, I realized what the quest reward mentioned as <Gift of one random starship with monster biotechnology> actually meant.

After finishing that conversation…

“This princess and her guard will be staying in the neural network section of this base!”

“You’ll be staying with Oxianor?”

“Yes! That way I can maintain connection with mother while minimizing energy consumption!”

After saluting Princess Luca, who had given us a definite ‘starship’ (albeit random), I immediately fell into thought as I gazed at the ‘giant cocoon’ docked near the neural network section once she and Oxianor had left.

Just in terms of size, it was even larger than our cruisers, and even bigger than the ‘battleship’ that the former Pirate King—now a human pig and Marian’s slave—used to drag around.

As a man, I couldn’t help but wonder if it might contain something magnificent like a ‘super dreadnought’ with massive guns—the romance of big ships with big guns.

Of course, realistically speaking, if they were actually giving away ‘super-sized monsters’ for ‘free,’ the quest difficulty would have obviously increased exponentially.

Thinking that the interpretation matters more than the dream itself, I tried to check the status of that big space cocoon…

—————————————-

<‘Behemoth’ Class Mobile Starship Cultivation-Growth Platform>

<A massive space cocoon used widely by ‘Space Monsters’ to build… or rather, conceive and grow starships.>

<Of course, many scientists were skeptical about why such a thing exists.>

<Since monster starships are essentially ‘living organisms,’ producing large vessels from ‘nest shipyards’ and sending them to the front lines significantly increases ship fatigue.>

<Simultaneously, it could affect the ‘aging’ of the ships, so as a solution, the monster faction decided to:>

<Continue the growth of relatively slow ‘large ships’ during transit to the battlefield or target area.>

<Upon reaching the target area, deploy ‘young’ large ships with fresh vitality whose growth has just completed.>

<What scientists didn’t realize was that:>

<The remains of the cultivation-growth platform left behind after the ships emerge at the target area>

<Also serve as nutrients=supplies for frontline units.>

<Time remaining until ship completion: 12 hours>

—————————————-

‘What kind of setting is this?’

While this was something I hadn’t seen during my active gaming days, I was simply trying to see ‘what’s inside,’ so why was a settings screen appearing?

As a sci-fi enthusiast, I found this genuinely interesting enough to stay put, but for others, this would be a situation worthy of extreme rage.

I wondered briefly why things were turning out this way, but that thought didn’t last long.

‘I should just check the wiki tab for this.’

There was clearly no point in struggling with this on my own.

I immediately opened the community window and decided to check the wiki tab for information.

Of course, before that, I took the opportunity to deal with the pile of reported posts that had accumulated, slicing the necks of those damn pedophiles and gore-posters who started causing trouble as soon as their bans expired.

After passing through the gallery that resembled a jungle teeming with toxicity and beasts, I quickly reached the wiki tab.

After searching for quite some time for information about our large and beautiful <‘Behemoth’ Class Mobile Starship Cultivation-Growth Platform> or whatever it was called, I finally found one decent-looking post.

—————————————-

Title: Behemoth Class Mobile Starship Cultivation-Growth Platform

Author: Wiki Historian mk5

Content: [Image of giant space cocoon], [Image of setting text]

I’m writing this because many people probably don’t know about it

This was updated about 2 years before we were transported into the game

It first appeared in an event story about space monsters conquering the world

To cut the crap, this is basically a monster-style random ship capsule

It produces only 1 ship of cruiser-battleship class or higher

For cruisers, they pop out 2 at a time, like twins

But there are downsides: the probability for large ships is extremely brutal

And second, only monster ships will emerge

Though given the setting that ships are ‘cultivated’ inside, it would be weird if ships from other factions came out

Comments:

-[Oh damn]

-[How do you get one of these?]

-˪[Users can’t make them; they’re occasionally distributed from the monster headquarters during events] (Author)

-˪[Damn, what a waste]

-˪[If monster users had these, they would’ve been whining about it all this time, ffs]

-[But the appearance probability itself is insanely bad]

-[How bad is it?]

-˪[During the game, cruisers had a 99% appearance rate lol] (Author)

-˪[Damn.]

-˪[And the remaining 1% is further divided among other ship probabilities lolol] (Author)

-˪[99% cruiser, 0.5181% cruiser-battleship, 0.4816% battleship, 0.0003% each for dreadnought, assault carrier, and assault invasion ship]

-˪[The last ones are basically like winning the lottery]

-˪[What’s an assault invasion ship?]

-˪[I’ll tell you when the time comes; now is not the time] (Author)

-˪[This damn green-haired cat]

—————————————-

Somehow the comments seemed more informative than the post itself.

After learning all these facts I didn’t know before, I first gave the post a thumbs up.

‘Since I have terrible luck anyway, I’ll just make a hellhound Cerberus with the cruisers that will come out of that magnificent space cocoon.’

I immediately threw my dreams of big ships with big guns into the trash and made a new plan: strengthen the backbone of my fleet with the two monster-cruisers that would emerge, and have them escort my regular cruiser-battleships that I would build as resources allowed.

But when the next day came and I saw the ‘big and beautiful’ thing that emerged from the cocoon, I had to immediately throw that ‘realistic’ plan into the trash as well.