Ch.149″Commander, have you done your work?” (1)
by fnovelpia
“But Commander, we can’t really use other people either, can we…?”
“…That’s exactly the problem.”
Ignis and Partia were excluded from this discussion from the beginning.
First of all, to be frank, those two are ‘anti-personnel’ or ‘boarding combat’ characters, meant to be thrown at enemy ships or to defend against enemy boarding parties.
They couldn’t be used to command ships and fleets.
Compared to our reliable and trustworthy Berial, the difference was truly night and day.
To give you an idea of how different they are: if I were to order an advance somewhere…
If there were natural obstacles like asteroids in the way, Berial would assess the situation and navigate around them.
Meanwhile, Ignis and Partia would mobilize the fleet’s full firepower to simply obliterate the obstacles and advance in a straight line. That’s how bad it was.
“What about Pashtra? She’s a ranged fighter, so I thought she might be of some help…”
“…Would you entrust fleet command to a trigger-happy person who might waste ammunition and carrier aircraft?”
“Ah.”
“Above all, Pashtra is also a ‘damage dealer,’ not a command character.”
Pashtra was in the same boat.
She did have characteristics that slightly improved accuracy and attack power, but only for the ship she was aboard.
And that “slight” improvement was truly minimal, just single-digit increases, which wasn’t very helpful.
In the end, like Berial, her structure wasn’t compatible with the Kraken.
Our concerns only deepened as time passed.
But that thought didn’t last long.
Eventually, Jessica hit her palm with her fist as if she’d just remembered something and offered a new suggestion.
“Oh, Commander! I just realized we also have Marian!”
“Marian, you say?”
Right after Jessica said this,
I noticed that Berial and Marian, who had been facing each other while talking until just a moment ago,
Were now both turned away from us,
And I could see Marian’s shoulders noticeably flinch.
It was so obvious what she was thinking that I felt something indescribable, but…
Pretending not to notice the two of them, I decided to respond to Jessica’s suggestion first.
“Honestly, I’d love to deploy Marian as a commander of our fleet right away.”
“Is that so?”
And as soon as I said this, I saw Berial put her arm around Marian’s shoulders and pat her comfortingly.
Additionally, though partially obscured, what appeared to be Marian’s arm was gesturing in a way that looked like she was celebrating with an “Yes!”
I thought that if I left her be any longer, she might start fantasizing about commanding our fleet and living a happy life with her beloved, so…
I quickly provided an explanation for why we couldn’t use Marian.
“But you see, Marian isn’t my subordinate, is she?”
“That’s… true? Although Marian herself seems to feel otherwise.”
“Anyway, the important thing is that Marian is not my ‘subordinate,’ which means I can’t arbitrarily put her on our ship.”
“…I see.”
If this were still a game, Marian would have been “recruited” to my base as my subordinate.
If that had happened, like the others, I could have freely assigned her to my fleet, organized formations, leveled her up aggressively…
And diligently developed her as our fleet’s only “commander-type” character to serve as our backbone.
Unfortunately, Marian didn’t surrender to me after being defeated; rather, she became the Pirate Empress ‘on the premise that she would surrender to me from the start.’
So while she remained a faction leader, the disaster was that she wasn’t recruited to our base…
To be honest, the “Marian” currently at our base, if we’re just talking about her capabilities,
Doesn’t come with the “free fleet that doesn’t cost points and I can control” that veteran players used to mention when explaining the Pirate Empress.
And despite being labeled as SS-rank, the actual “Marian” herself, who is far superior to most SSS-rank characters, can’t be used as a character. It’s quite a peculiar situation.
Of course, someone unfamiliar with this might ask, “Then what about the permanent placement and mobilization of Leonard and the pirate fleet?”
Those guys are indeed “free of point costs” as mentioned above, but they’re certainly not “controllable by me.”
If I had to describe them, they’d be friendly neutral units?
Anyway, the important point was “We can’t use Marian either.”
“That’s how it is, understand?”
“Ah, yes.”
I was trying to impress upon Jessica that we had no solutions to our concerns at this point,
And that we needed to somehow roll the snowball that had terribly failed at the beginning to catch up with other top-ranking users.
But just as I was about to put in the effoooort to formulate such a grand plan…
-Droop.
-Pat pat.
Even as Berial naturally patted Marian’s shoulders,
I had to feel a pain in my heart seeing Marian’s shoulders visibly slump.
‘Sniff.’
The next day.
Since a person can’t stay depressed forever, I figured the cruiser must be under construction by now.
I was completing my “daily quests” first, then planning to think about what to do next.
But my contemplation didn’t last long…
While I was sitting at the command seat striking cool poses and thinking,
“Commander, do you have time right now?”
“Hm? Why so suddenly?”
“Well, Princess Luca and Marian have something they want to ask you.”
When Jessica suddenly approached me with this question, I wondered what was going on.
The sudden news that representatives from two factions wanted to see me made me think a new quest might be coming,
But if that were the case, a message or something would have appeared before my eyes by now. Still, with a dubious expression, I decided to meet with them.
But when those two actually came before me,
I was presented with a pointed objective from our two factions that I truly hadn’t expected at all…
“Icarus, I have been truly curious about something… but first, I shall yield the floor to the Empress here!”
“Thank you, Princess. Um, big brother?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you build a mercenary business office but never use it?”
‘Uh.’
“And I have the same complaint! Despite granting permission, why haven’t you built breeding grounds for our forces, or even production facilities for biological ships!”
‘Ah.’
Right after hearing them both,
Two quest windows popped up before my eyes, as if they had been waiting for this moment…
—————————————-
<Quest>
<First Opening of the Mercenary Business Office!>
<Details>
<Despite the mercenary business office being built nearly half a year ago,>
<The office is expressing complaints because you, the Commander, have not utilized any ‘mercenaries’.>
<Of course, you might have forgotten about the office’s existence because you’ve been so busy until now,>
<But the mercenary units, unable to endure any longer, have reported the severity of the situation to their superior, the Pirate Empress!>
<Objective>
<Hire at least 1 mercenary unit from the mercenary business office!>
—————————————-
—————————————-
<Quest>
<Why Aren’t You Building Infrastructure!>
<Details>
<Princess Luca, who came directly from the space monsters’ home base as both an envoy and a kind of hostage.>
<Being such a high-ranking individual, while also handling diplomacy between monsters, pirates, and you,>
<She needs quite a lot of help, but…>
<You haven’t built any evolutionary breeding grounds to recruit general workers who could assist the princess at the base,>
<Nor fleet production facilities needed for self-defense, nor buildings necessary for various biological modifications.>
<Princess Luca is expressing complaints because you haven’t established any ‘infrastructure’ needed by the monsters.>
<Objective>
<Build a general monster breeding ground>
<Upgrade the biology research lab>
<Build a monster ship production facility>
<Note! Please refer to <Monster Faction Exclusive Trust Relationship Unlock Feature> for monster ship production facilities!>
—————————————-
‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’
These quests were telling me that I had more than just a couple of objectives to accomplish,
And boldly pushing the idea that I shouldn’t be worrying about other things right now.
0 Comments