Ch.218″If there are five people, one of them is trash.” (2)

What happened afterward was quite simple.

When the enemy’s main force suddenly halted after three of their eight aircraft carriers in the rear were destroyed and five became crippled with destroyed engines, I seized the opportunity. My Hresvelgr and Kraken launched a merciless bombardment with missiles and carrier-based aircraft, joined by our allied carrier planes.

This was immediately followed by a tremendous artillery exchange between battleships and heavy cruisers from both sides.

As massive beam cannons the size of ship hulls flew wildly across the battlefield, our small vessel squadrons, led by light cruisers as flagships, charged forward.

As both sides tried to avoid enemy fire while closing in, our Superhuman users aboard the small vessels infiltrated enemy ships through assault pods.

They engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat with the defending enemy Superhumans…

Just another typical battle scenario in the crappy game Astral Lagrange.

Of course, our small vessels suffered tremendous losses while approaching—literally being “shredded”—which naturally had a negative impact on the users’ morale.

—————————————-

-[Don’t all our small ships just explode when we ram them?]

-[We can’t win unless we sacrifice small ships to deploy Superhumans](me)

-[Icarus managed to take down 3 enemy battleships, but those two trolls on our side made 7 of our battleships useless]

-[For real]

-[Oh seriously?]

-[Yeah, if we continue with a straightforward power struggle, they’ll win because they have more battleships and cruisers]

-[So while I’m keeping their main force tied up, we should pretend like we’re engaging in the frontal power struggle they want](me)

-[Then what?]

-[If I succeed in tying them up, make it look like we’re initiating a frontal fleet battle as I just mentioned](me)

-[Ok]

-[Got it]

-[And when they bring their battleships forward for a power struggle, our battleships and heavy cruisers should slowly withdraw while medium cruisers hold the line]

-[Then we need to ram ALL our small ships with light cruiser command buffs into the enemy fleet for close combat](me)

-[Hmm-teresting…]

—————————————-

Since I had enough variables to control the situation even without the Kraken, I confidently issued proper commands in the chat.

The other users didn’t lose morale and continued to fight thoroughly against the enemy.

As a result, although we lost about 20% of our small vessels during the approach…

We somehow managed to get close, deploying Superhumans and assault troops while launching torpedo attacks at close range.

The enemy battleships, apparently not expecting us to charge in while accepting casualties, were taking cumulative damage as they were hit one after another with virtually no defense.

Of course, the enemy wouldn’t just stand by and watch. Their small vessels urgently rushed from behind their battleships to engage us, but…

As mentioned earlier, we had more carrier-based aircraft, including both regular carriers and light carriers, so the enemy’s small vessels couldn’t even approach properly due to our aircraft interference.

If they carelessly broke their anti-air formation and charged recklessly, they would face over 100,000 aircraft, including Kraken’s biological torpedo bombers armed with light torpedoes and missiles, along with other aircraft that had flanked around. Their mere hundreds of small vessels simply couldn’t advance.

Of course, if they had ignored the damage and charged in anyway, our fleet engaged in close combat would have suffered considerable losses…

*BOOM! BANG!*

—————————————-

-[Enemy carrier engines and catapults destroyed, no need to worry about enemy aircraft anymore](me)

-[How did you do that?]

-[Skillfully](me)

-[Is this the secret technique of the 3rd ranked player?]

-[Don’t know what it was, but it was good]

—————————————-

“But then, Naranjara appeared.”

“Well… it certainly did appear, right?”

Of course, with just one ship, it wasn’t possible to generate enough firepower to sink the enemy aircraft carriers and escort vessels, so the kill count was quite lacking.

Naranjara didn’t just have spatial torpedoes that were virtually impossible to block since they only appeared seconds before impact, but were relatively weak in firepower.

It also carried regular medium torpedoes, light torpedoes, and missiles, so the enemies only thought they were being attacked by something hidden.

They couldn’t possibly notice that they were being hit by spatial torpedoes from Naranjara hiding in subspace.

Moreover, during this chaotic battle, some carrier-based aircraft occasionally managed to reach the enemy carriers and score several missile hits.

It seemed the enemy would need to put in more effort to identify our Naranjara.

“Report from Naranjara: confirmed destruction of engines and catapults on all 8 enemy large carriers… One light carrier was hit in the engines but has been repaired and is moving again.”

“Hmm.”

“Commander, Naranjara is requesting permission to move closer to the fleet and actively use its weapons…”

“That’s not possible.”

Of course, I didn’t just throw Naranjara into the center of the enemy fleet.

Why is Naranjara “completely protected” from enemy attacks when it enters subspace?

It’s literally because it no longer exists in this world.

The problem was that because of this, Naranjara also becomes completely disconnected from our world when it enters subspace…

Without a separate sonar buoy doubling as a periscope spanning between subspace and reality, it would be impossible to launch accurate attacks from subspace to our world.

Well… since that periscope is naturally smaller than the ship, there’s less chance of it being detected when pounding the enemy from a distance like now.

But if the ship goes right into the middle of the fleet as requested?

That small, fragile periscope would inevitably be destroyed, leaving Naranjara effectively blind.

Of course, if the situation became desperate enough that Naranjara needed to draw aggro while gritting its teeth…

*KABOOOOM!!!*

“Ohh.”

“Enemy heavy battleship sunk. Exact class unknown, but it seems to have emerged through dimensional causality fixation.”

“Kyaaaah!”

—————————————-

-[LOLOLOLOL]

-[Holy shit, we got one!]

-[Those bastards’ battleships and heavy cruisers are getting shredded]

-[LOLOLOL]

—————————————-

The enemy fleet was suddenly split in two, unable to protect each other and getting torn apart.

And on top of that…

—————————————-

-[I’m back, fuckers]

-[You’re late as hell, you troll]

-[Don’t be too harsh, so why were you late?](me)

-[Found someone trying to desert, threatened him and brought him along]

-[???]

-[How did you manage that?]

-[Just destroyed a regular cruiser’s engine with my battleship, then towed it while keeping it in my sights]

-[What]

-[Oh, and I destroyed all this bastard’s repair ships, and I’m just going to have the rest of his ships charge in, yeah]

-[Whaaaat]

—————————————-

“Turns out our troll was actually a political officer.”

“Ah…”

The guy who had been away repairing his battleship had caught someone who was trying to desert…

More precisely, he crippled the deserter’s large ship, put a leash on him, and dragged him all the way back to the front line.

Not only that, he was even using the deserter as a penal battalion.

I felt a truly complex and profound mix of emotions seeing someone exploit the fact that “team killing” was possible in this event, but that was only momentary.

Anyway, with this additional force joining the fray, the opposing team found it impossible to hold out any longer and finally surrendered to us in defeat.