Ch.158While You Weren’t Looking (1)

After screaming like a pterodactyl for quite some time.

To find out exactly who these guys were, we risked power loss by sending one Azkran-class destroyer on a forced reconnaissance mission.

And after that single ship barely survived, hanging on by a thread after taking severe damage while conducting intense reconnaissance.

We were finally able to identify the bastards who dared to invade my small and precious territory.

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<Unity Clan>

<Members: 5>

<Affiliated Faction: Earth Federation>

<Disposition: None>

—————————————-

The problem was that once we received this information.

“I mean, they’re obviously a new clan, so why are they suddenly invading us?”

“Y-yes, exactly.”

I had absolutely no way of knowing why a rookie clan with just 5 members would try to invade me.

The only thing I could guess was…

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Title: Shouldn’t we be blocking people who DIDN’T get capital ships rather than those who DID?

Author: 1557

Content: [Mocking toad image]

People who got the ships either have enough resources to hit the pity ceiling,

patiently saved up, or got lucky

People who didn’t get them lack wealth, skill, AND effort lol

They’re basically the epitome of incompetence, so why the reverse discrimination?

Comments:

-[Take back what you just said…!]

-[What an asshole lol]

-[Where do you live?]

-[MODS!!! Track this bastard’s IP!!!]

-[LOLOLOLOLOLOL]

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“It’s probably because of this.”

As someone pulled up the troll post.

Jessica shook her head and asked why I had done such a thing.

“Commander, why didn’t you delete this and just left it up?”

“People make mistakes sometimes.”

Of course, contrary to this confident attitude.

The truth was that I just wanted to join in on someone else’s trolling for once, such a small-minded idea.

I couldn’t make any excuses as Jessica stared at me with an incredibly complex expression.

==========

But contrary to what Icarus thought, reality was much more complicated.

Just as our protagonist Icarus was making great strides behind the scenes by forming a secret alliance between the Pirate Empress Marian and the monsters.

The Earth Federation also had someone similar…

“We’ve completely taken control of the Earth Federation internally now, right?”

“Yes, Clan Leader.”

“Except for border areas and some unusual territories, we can basically consider all users within the Earth Federation as our subordinates.”

“Wow.”

This person was the leader of the “Humanity” clan, currently ranked #1 in clan rankings.

And simultaneously ranked #1 himself—a user named “Antares.”

And his goal, unlike other users who had somehow entered enjoyment mode after being trapped in this game…

“It seems difficult to stage a coup and take over the Earth Federation as things stand.”

“I suppose that’s true, isn’t it?”

“Honestly, even though the Clan Leader has used trust ratings to scatter their main forces here and there, there are still over ten million remaining near Earth, their home base.”

“At least our other clan members have also raised their trust ratings and completely dispersed the colonial fleet forces across the Federation, so there shouldn’t be any major issues.”

To see the end of this game through the victory of the clan he led = his own victory.

He was making thorough preparations for a “coup” to firmly control the “Earth Federation,” the faction with the most user participation.

Of course, even with nearly 15,000 direct clan members.

And even counting subordinate clans, so-called “external mercenaries,” friendly allied clans and users, which together amounted to at least 20,000 in strength.

The opponent was literally a massive faction capable of mobilizing a million—no, ten million “ships.”

“We’re hungry.”

“Agreed.”

To somehow increase the success rate of the Earth Federation coup, Antares and the clan leadership were trying everything possible.

They were scattering the Federation’s “main forces” in all directions or inducing them to waste their strength against other factions, as mentioned above.

And to prevent the possibility of mobilizing regional forces other than the “main force.”

They were using their high “trust rating” with the Federation to call in forces that should be maintaining territory or engaged in “war” through “faction offices.”

Then they were working hard to build rapport with the forces and commanders they called in, making them their own people.

These were all actions that would cause the Earth Federation to express extreme anger if they knew, calling it “internal sabotage.”

Of course, since the Earth Federation’s leadership, the “Security Council” and its chairperson, had no idea about this.

The Humanity clan was meticulously carrying out this thrilling coup plan.

But nevertheless, Antares and the Humanity clan’s leadership believed that their “Earth Federation coup” and establishment of command authority would be impossible as things stood.

So to increase their chances of success even slightly, they felt they needed more “military power.”

And what were they trying to do for that?

“To acquire military power for the coup, it makes sense to bring the ‘neutral’ users located in the central sector to our side, right?”

“Of course, and besides, we’ll need to commit most—no, all of our forces to stage the coup within the Federation, but then who will guard our empty house?”

“That’s true.”

It was a “preventive war” to both increase the success rate of the coup and prevent invasion by other factions or clans during the inevitable power vacuum that would occur during the coup process.

But there were two problems with their plan:

“We managed to defeat Arcadia’s clan last time by borrowing the power of the Federation’s main force, but we also lost quite a bit in the process.”

“The subordinate clans that were on the front lines used up a significant portion of our strategic material reserves from the clan warehouse to restore their capital ships.”

“If we step forward again in this situation…”

“…That damn pink-haired TS bitch from the Loki Clan definitely won’t sit still.”

Recently, the damage to subordinate clans from the war with the “Justice” clan, which had tried to establish itself in neutral territory, was more serious than expected.

This damage was enough to nullify the increased strength they had gained through “dividing factions within the power” and dismantling intact clans.

And then subjugating the disbanded clan members into Humanity or subordinate clans—that was the first problem.

And even if the damage hadn’t been that severe…

The second problem was that the “Loki Clan” and its leader “Betelgeuse,” who looked askance at the growing Humanity clan, would certainly not sit idle.

“That damn pink-haired TS bitch will definitely interfere with us.”

“It’s quite impressive how that originally male person mysteriously seduces and uses other clan leaders.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about…”

Therefore, Antares and the Humanity clan’s concern was how to deal with the Loki Clan’s check and completely take over the neutral forces…

After much deliberation, Antares suddenly had a brilliant solution cross his mind.

“Wait a minute, they’re going to focus on us anyway, right?”

“Um… yes?”

“Justice has been damaged, so there’s no one particularly noteworthy besides us.”

“Then why don’t we use that to our advantage and use this clan as bait?”

“…What?”

“Clan Leader, how exactly would you do that?”

Since this sounded incomprehensible just from hearing it, the Humanity leadership raised many question marks over their heads.

But only for a moment.

“To explain simply, we persuade a clan located far from the central zone in the Federation-Pirate border area to create a conflict with a Pirate Union affiliated clan.”

“And then?”

“We show ourselves directly intervening in that conflict, while simultaneously using the trust we’ve built up to get the main force to deploy even a small number of troops.”

Hearing Antares’ continued explanation, the leadership nodded and showed their approval.

But some still offered their opinions as advisors:

“Um, Clan Leader? Due to the damage we took last time, the main force won’t be able to move much even if they do move, right?”

“That’s right, they’ll probably just send a few small fleets with cruisers at most and be done with it.”

“The scale isn’t important. What matters is the ‘fact’ that the main force moved.”

If they could just show the “fact” that the Earth Federation’s main force had moved, along with the Humanity clan’s fleet moving in large numbers.

Whether they liked it or not, the Loki Clan and Betelgeuse would have to move accordingly—hearing Antares’ plan.

The clan leadership applauded and decided to develop and implement the details of the operation plan.