Ch.161″How are you feeling? Are you coming to your senses?” (2)

Of course, regardless of all that, I was burning with a strong will to resist.

In the chat window, responses matching my answer(?) were popping up like mushrooms after rain…

—————————————-

-[5 people coming](Icarus)

-[Hah, as expected of our friendless solo play king]

-[Your Majesty, may you live long and prosper]

-[Farewell, though we won’t be going far.]

-[So is Laura our new ruler now?]

-[Dunno?]

-[Shouldn’t we focus on surviving first?]

—————————————-

‘These jerks.’

Perhaps it’s because they’ve survived in this hellhole for so long.

Thinking that they all possessed remarkably resilient mentalities, I closed the chat window and hurried to prepare my resistance against the five attackers who were about to invade.

And the first thing I did was:

“Jessica, are there any additional ships currently being dismantled at the shipyard?”

“Yes, we have one medium cruiser and one destroyer.”

“Cancel the dismantling work on all of them and repair them for reuse.”

“Ah… yes, sir.”

I decided to hurriedly revive the ships that were being dismantled for points and add them back to our forces.

After taking that measure:

“Jessica, what resources do we have left?”

“Huh? Oh, 90,000 minerals and 10,000 rare resources!”

“That’s enough.”

Even if it meant using up all those resources, I wanted to hold out in this wretched war of attrition.

I quickly moved to use the unlimited recruitment function of the mercenary agency again—a benefit I gained from obtaining(?) Marian.

But here, I realized a truly unexpected problem.

“I’m sorry, Commander Icarus, but the mercenary agency currently doesn’t have the capacity to hire more mercenaries.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, it’s not that you have any restrictions, Commander. The problem is that our agency is having trouble finding mercenary groups suitable for you to hire.”

“…”

Until now, I hadn’t properly understood this fact since I hadn’t needed to hire more mercenaries.

While there was no limit on ‘my hiring’ from the mercenary agency, separately…

Just as Marian had told me yesterday, perhaps because so many troops had been mobilized for the recent war…

The mercenary agency was having difficulty providing mercenary groups that I could hire.

Of course, this wasn’t just empty talk.

—————————————-

<Event>

<Mercenary Shortage Crisis!>

<Details>

<Due to the recent conflict between the Pirate Union and the Earth Federation, not only the main Pirate Union forces,>

<but the mercenary hiring rates of numerous commanders in the region have exploded, causing a complete drought of mercenary groups in other regions.>

<For the next week, the mercenary agency will only be able to renew existing mercenary contracts.>

—————————————-

‘Even this is working against me.’

The event message that appeared before my eyes confirmed the situation beyond doubt.

After acknowledging the agency clerk’s explanation that there was nothing to be done, I realized I would have to fight the enemy with only the forces I currently had, which made me groan involuntarily.

But since I couldn’t just sit around doing nothing, I immediately headed to the command center.

‘Information is power…!’

I decided to quickly search the gallery for information about the large-scale invasion currently happening in the Central Zone.

But when I opened the gallery, oh my goodness.

—————————————-

-[No mods here let’s gooooooo](15,235)

-[F*cking sex](64,123)

-[Mods too busy to do their jobs lolololol](71,055)

-[Above is f*cking gay furry porn and below is a pedo posting disgusting stuff](186,133)

-[Nonononononononononono](59,144)

-[Am I the only one who can’t see it?](91,560)

-[For f*ck’s sake keep your gore posts to yourselves you bastards](56,615)

—————————————-

I was utterly shocked by the Sodom and Gomorrah of the modern age(?) unfolding before me.

‘What the hell are the other mod bastards doing?’

Although some rankers including myself were under attack in the Central Zone…

Since there were only three of us, the other rankers=mods should normally be managing the gallery quality.

But for whatever reason, the mods had half-abandoned gallery management.

There were far too many idiotic posts for me to do the ‘information search’ I needed.

Thinking this was hopeless, I was about to close the gallery when:

—————————————-

-[Mods are working]

-[All comments are blocked lol]

-[Seeing the comments blocked, these must be real mods, not ranker mods]

-[GGWP]

-[We hope you have another productive day for comfortable gallery browsing]

—————————————-

‘Oh.’

Like Jehovah-nimu raining orbital bombardment on Sodom and Gomorrah, the admin mods, not user mods, had directly intervened and were purging the crazy posts.

Only then could I find posts that would answer my questions in the now-comfortable gallery listing.

—————————————-

Title: Explanation for those who just entered the gallery

Author: Anonymous

Content: [Image of a toad entering with pizza into a chaotic scene]

Now it’s fine because the real mods are carpet-bombing idiots with month-long bans

But it was absolute chaos until just now, so I’ll explain

First, why was the gallery in chaos?

Because most of the mods who should be managing the gallery couldn’t participate

You might wonder what I mean, but you’ll understand when you hear about the user mods’ situation

1. First, ranks 1 and 6 are too busy with clan activities to intervene

These two are busy preparing for all-out clan wars among themselves

2. Ranks 2 and 4 are completely silent

From what I hear, they’re busy with internal discipline after losing in the war, so they’re not checking the gallery at all

3. Ranks 3, 5, and 10 are reportedly getting ganged up on in the Central Zone

Don’t know why they’re being attacked

Anyway, with active users suddenly reduced to a third, trolls are trying to burn down the gallery

Don’t know why they’re doing this, but tens of thousands rushed in and everything went to hell

At some point, those three also gave up on management and just let it go, causing a disaster

Now the admins are intervening to quickly normalize the situation

Comments:

-[It’s time to praise the admins]

-[Admin punch! Admin punch!]

-[These guys were cursing the admins as idiots just an hour ago and now they’re praising them]

-[Lololol]

-[How did you know that, Master Namgung?]

-˪[I have my ways](Author)

-˪[What]

-[What’s this about the Central Zone? Are rankers fighting each other?]

-˪[No, some clans are launching massive offensives against solo players who were living in the Central Zone](Author)

-˪[Oh sh*t]

—————————————-

—————————————-

Title: Attention!) Large-scale battles currently in progress at the Pirate-Earth border and Central Zone!

Author: Troublemaker

Content: [Image of a cruiser ramming another cruiser]

This is for those who don’t understand the situation

1. A small clash between clans in the border area between the Pirate Union and Earth Federation has escalated into a large-scale battle involving major clans (Loki, Humanity) representing both factions and their main forces

From what I can see, both Loki and Humanity clan leaders are directly involved, seemingly determined to engage in a full-scale battle

This is why the mercenary agency function is currently suspended

2. Separately, small clans from various factions, led by the Earth Federation, have launched a massive invasion of the Central Zone where solo players essentially live

Though they’re moving at different times and dates with different reasons

The common goal seems to be either absorbing the existing solo players’ forces or simply destroying them

Comments:

-[Are these guys really trapped in the game?]

-[All they do is fight, damn it]

-[That’s… because it’s a game…]

-[Man, this isn’t easy.]

—————————————-

‘…So that’s what happened.’

Although it was just a post explaining the gallery situation.

Thanks to it, I could understand not only my current situation.

But also how the exact ‘war situation’ was unfolding.