Ch.260″Watch closely what I am capable of.” (2)

Of course, hiring thousands of mercenary units would consume nearly 100,000 resources per day.

“Commander, if we do that, we’ll be burning through 100,000 units daily. How do you plan to manage that?”

“Hmm.”

“Our current maximum resource gathering capacity is 5.5 million minerals and only 1 million rare resources at most.”

“Hmm.”

“You remember that hiring mercenary units costs resources too, right?”

“Hmm.”

“Won’t our base run out of resources before we even begin the stronghold siege?”

“Ah… so that’s what you’re worried about.”

Hearing Jessica’s concerns, I shrugged my shoulders and explained that it wouldn’t be a problem.

“No need to worry too much. I’m planning to hire them all at once on the day of the siege… and dismiss them as soon as it’s over.”

“Oh…”

“Even with thousands of mercenary units, our resources should last 2-3 days at maximum capacity.”

“That should work fine then.”

We wouldn’t need to conduct a prolonged siege on the city… stronghold anyway.

As I mentioned before, this area was literally a den of wolves.

If I were to conduct a slow siege?

Other predatory users would swarm in like wolves.

Saying “Oh, just let me have a bite too!” while gradually nibbling away at the defense fleet was highly, highly, HIGHLY probable.

And that would be the best-case scenario.

If things went wrong, they might start nibbling at my fleet instead of the defense fleet, exponentially increasing the employment period of my mercenary units.

We had no choice but to go for an ultra-fast, decisive battle from the beginning.

==========

After settling on this plan.

With 20 days until the Air Command headquarters was built… and another 4 days until the large aircraft carrier repairs were completed.

I wanted to make the most of the remaining month to stockpile as many resources as possible.

To be frank, the mercenary hiring system only limited “changes” to once per day.

As long as we had the capacity, new mercenary units would fill in immediately upon hiring.

So to hire mercenary units en masse for the stronghold siege, we only needed plenty of resources…

My goal became to push our resource stockpiling to the limit.

But to achieve that, our current resource income was clearly insufficient.

“Hmm… Jessica, Jessica.”

“You only need to call me once, Commander.”

“What’s our current resource situation?”

“You mean the income rate?”

“No, not just that. Tell me everything—where we’re spending resources and where we’re getting them from.”

“Umm… just a moment.”

Following my order, Jessica checked various things on her tablet.

Eventually, she brought up a separate hologram screen in front of me and began speaking calmly.

“First, our daily resource income from the base itself is 6,200 minerals and 470 rare resources.”

“Hmm.”

“Through our resource mining fleets, we’re getting about 23,000 minerals and 8,100 rare resources.”

“What about the forward bases?”

“You’ve built three in total, and two of them provide 6,000 minerals and 1,300 rare resources. The remaining one should be fully operational in about 2 days, but…”

“I see, we’ll have to wait and see what it actually yields.”

“Yes, though the projected figures are 2,500 minerals and 800 rare resources.”

“And from quests?”

“From daily quests, we get 3,000 minerals and 500 rare resources.”

As Jessica spoke, she entered this information into the hologram display.

—————————————-

<Icarus Astral Base Resource Status>

<Current Resource Income: Minerals 33,315, Rare Resources 10,370>

—————————————-

“Hmm, hmmmm.”

“That’s roughly what we’re getting.”

It seems like just yesterday I was bragging about exceeding 20,000 in daily income, and now we’re hitting the 30,000 range.

Perhaps it’s because of Rain’s resource income buff increasing our base resource acquisition rate.

While I was feeling quite emotional about this progress, it was short-lived.

With Princess Luca’s hobby(?) support funds, and the maintenance costs skyrocketing due to our battleships, aircraft carriers, and cruisers…

“…And if we subtract all our expenditures from that?”

“Calculating average fleet repair costs, plus maintenance fees, hiring costs, and other expenses?”

“Yeah.”

“Then… it comes to about this much.”

—————————————-

<Icarus Astral Base Daily Resource Status>

<Current Resource Income: Minerals 33,315, Rare Resources 10,370>

<Current Resource Expenditure: Minerals 13,519, Rare Resources 3,453>

<Net Income: Minerals 19,796, Rare Resources 6,917>

—————————————-

“…Quite insufficient.”

“Well, once the third forward base becomes operational, we should hit a daily net income of 20,000 again.”

That’s not bad, but at this rate, even after 24 days when the aircraft carrier repairs are completed…

We’d barely gather 500,000 minerals and not even 50,000 rare resources before having to hire mercenary units.

“But Commander, we also have weekly quests, monthly quests, and occasional quests from the monster faction, right?”

“Yes… though weekly and monthly quests are fine, but faction quests are quite random.”

Even if we opened all the resource boxes currently in our base, including those from the recent gacha pulls…

We might get about 200,000 at most.

After assessing the situation, I realized that organizing forces to attack the space city stronghold would be much more difficult than I had anticipated.

“This won’t be easy.”

“Isn’t that always the case with city sieges?”

Since I couldn’t abandon the plan I’d already set in motion.

I resolved that, if necessary, I would spend all my gold in the marketplace to buy massive amounts of resource boxes to create mercenary units.

I was determined not to let this burning ambition be extinguished.

==========

But truly, as they say, fortune favors the prepared.

Just three days after making that resolution.

Shortly after the third forward base became fully operational…

—————————————-

<Global Announcement>

<Mini-Event ‘Tracking the Ghost Fleet!’ Now Open!>

<Notice to all Commanders.>

<Long ago, some exploration fleets that ventured into the far reaches of space suffered accidents or were left behind.>

<Now, these abandoned fleet ships have been drifting aimlessly and are heading toward your bases!>

<Acquire and investigate these incoming ghost fleet ships to receive small rewards!>

<Warning!>

<We don’t know what’s inside these ships!>

<They might contain simple resources, ancient technology, or Superhumans in stasis.>

<Alternatively, they could house monsters that evolved from crew members or their corpses over the years, or terrible viruses or killer robots.>

<But whatever you find, you’ll receive rewards in real-time upon completing the investigation and exploration of the ships!>

<We look forward to your participation and interest, Commanders!>

—————————————-

“Oh…”

“My goodness, this could be an opportunity to secure additional resources, couldn’t it, Commander?”

“You’re right, Jessica.”

With this event distributing resource box(?) ships to users.

I decided to establish a formal capture and investigation team to secure as many resources as possible through this bittersweet event.

Of course, calling it an “investigation team” was just a fancy term—in reality, they would go in, cut down everything, destroy, and plunder resources(?)…

And if we happened to obtain Superhumans, “technology,” or “equipment” along the way, that would be a nice bonus.