Ch.205Bright and Wholesome Tentacle Dungeon Exploration Journal. (4)

According to Sumeragi and Oxianor’s explanation, Rain’s sneak attack was indeed threatening.

But separate from that, to be frank, that “threatening” level was… only threatening relative to someone of her rank.

“Well… compared to those weaker than us, it was quite a threatening attack.”

“Indeed, she was certainly weaker than us, but…”

Finding their reactions somewhat peculiar, I checked the status window of Rain, who was already almost completely subdued.

—————————————-

<Rain>

<Level 39>

<Type: Support>

<Characteristics: Powerless, Survivalist, Resource Management>

<Stats>

Health: D+

Attack Power: D-

Physical Defense: A+

Mana: S+

Magic Defense: A-

Mobility: D-

—————————————-

And upon confirming she was exactly the typical “brainy support” character.

I started wondering what on earth this sub-level 40 weakling with no combat ability of her own was thinking when she attacked from behind.

Of course, in the end, it was probably a forced backstab due to systemic bad luck.

And besides the obvious power difference, the matchup was apparently terrible from the start…

“Commander Icarus, just to clarify… that woman didn’t charge at us barehanded.”

“I figured as much.”

“She merged with a giant monster that she had modified herself by fusing with part of the facility and attacked us.”

“Oh?”

“Besides that, she used research facility chemicals and such… she seemed to have prepared various ways to fight.”

Right after hearing those words, looking again at the condition of the three advance team members here, I could clearly understand how the situation had unfolded.

==========

Oxianor = Envoy of the “Space Monster,” currently a direct “executive” to the Princess and a natural-born superhuman.

And if someone tries to capture her, Rain’s monster gets consumed instead.

Sumeragi = A superhuman assassin-type with ultra-high speed that’s extremely difficult for a “giant monster” fused with the facility to handle.

Simply impossible to land attacks on her.

Griyanar = Whether using monsters or chemicals or facilities, she’s already operating similar things, so she notices everything and counters accordingly.

Though Griyanar herself is relatively weak, her guard tentacle pets provide ironclad defense.

==========

‘Hmm, truly a terrible structure.’

The person in question, Rain, probably never imagined it, but looking at the results, it was a perfect hard-counter formation.

As a result, while she managed to capture them with a biological barrier at first…

After being thoroughly beaten and dragged out of the monster’s body.

She ended up being trapped in reverse and enthusiastically pummeled by the advance team until the follow-up team arrived to rescue them and smashed the biological barrier.

“That seems to be what happened, Commander.”

“Holy moly horrible terrible.”

And as if that thorough beating wasn’t enough.

Griyanar was apparently poking around in Rain’s brain as part of additional information gathering, saying it was for research purposes.

Anyway, after hearing that story, I first touched the already subdued Rain to clear the quest.

—————————————-

<Linked Quest>

<<<Traitor’s Plot! Cleared!>>>

<Rewards for clearing ‘Ancient Base Ruins Exploration’ and ‘Traitor’s Plot!’ are being awarded to the Commander.>

<Rewards>

<Dimensional Causality Fixation Right (Starship) 1 time, Dimensional Causality Fixation Right (Superhuman) 1 time>

—————————————-

‘Ah, finally got it.’

Seeing the quest clear message, I decided we could probably stop the dungeon exploration now.

I was about to order the superhumans inside the asteroid base-dungeon to return soon.

But at that moment.

“Commander, wait a moment.”

“Hmm?”

“If we continue a bit longer, I think we might get more useful information. Ah, not doing this in a proper facility is so frustrating.”

Griyanar, who had been thoroughly rummaging through Rain’s head, suddenly called for a stop.

Eventually she nodded at me with a bright smile, saying there was some useful information.

And simultaneously with Griyanar’s smile, a new event message appeared before my eyes.

—————————————-

<Quest>

<Hidden Starship?!>

<Content>

<Surprisingly, the information extracted from the researcher who betrayed you and your superhumans reveals that there is a starship in this asteroid base that the ancient empire was experimentally developing as a prototype.>

<Of course, the researcher only knew about the existence of such a ship, not any details beyond that.>

<To find out exactly what kind of ship it is, it seems you’ll have to go see for yourself.>

<Objective>

<Go to the hidden ship docking facility in the asteroid base and identify the ship>

—————————————-

‘Oh.’

Though I wasn’t sure what it was, seeing the mention of an “ancient empire” ship.

I nodded, recalling that while its in-game performance was just average, its rarity made its trade value quite high.

“Then we first need to find where this ship is located. Go search and contact me if you find it.”

“Understood, Commander.”

“Got it!”

==========

And about 10 minutes later.

“Found it!”

“Oh.”

After wandering through the bizarrely twisted interior of the asteroid base, our superhumans finally discovered an entrance buried in flesh.

After forcibly breaking through the entrance with Ignis and Sumeragi’s attacks, we finally discovered the ship inside, but…

“It’s small.”

“Indeed, it’s small.”

Seeing the size of the ship in the docking facility, I felt my expectations rapidly diminishing.

While its overall exterior design was somewhat impressive, its size was similar to or slightly smaller than a destroyer.

“Weapons?”

“Hmm, from what I can see here, there don’t seem to be any.”

“I don’t see any either. There’s not even a 50mm CIWS chain cannon typically mounted on small vessels.”

The visible armaments, such as ship cannons or anti-air defense systems, were nowhere to be found.

‘Could it be completely unarmed?’

Of course, it was too early to feel such disappointment, as the ship’s exterior was covered in a thick layer of dust, making it impossible to even see the proper panel lines.

“Pashtra, use your beam cannon at minimum output to lightly scan and blow away the dust covering that ship.”

“Got it♡”

I used Pashtra like an air blower to burn away and remove all the dust.

After examining the now much cleaner exterior of the ship, I could finally draw a conclusion.

“I have a rough idea what kind of ship this is…”

“What is it?”

“It’s a ship with all weapon systems built internally. Looking at the panel line structure, it seems all those weapons are VLS systems that only fire missiles or torpedoes.”

“Heeeeh.”

And with this conclusion, I thought this ship didn’t seem particularly good.

In this world’s setting, having ‘only’ missiles or torpedoes meant you could only engage from long distance.

Given that electronic warfare equipment that can disrupt missiles or guided torpedoes exists in this world, a ship with ‘only’ those weapons didn’t seem particularly valuable.

Of course, things would be different if it could overwhelm such electronic jamming with massive missile barrages, but…

‘Just eyeballing it, there seem to be only 10 to 20 launch tubes at most.’

Considering that a typical “thunder destroyer” with proper modifications would have at least 30 launch tubes.

I couldn’t help but think that the performance of this miniature ancient destroyer(?) wasn’t particularly useful.

‘Well, it’s free anyway.’

Since nobody in the world refuses something free, I decided to take this miniature missile destroyer(?) as well.

With the boss(?) neutralized and the quest cleared, the dungeon restrictions on the asteroid base were gone, so I decided to send landing pods with crews to operate the ship.

Of course, those landing pods would also bring back our superhumans.

But several dozen minutes later.

When my crew boarded the ship and began operating it, causing the “ship information” to appear.

I realized that what I had acquired was not a simple “missile destroyer” at all.