Ch.294Stronghold Update (3)

But when I clicked on the detailed menu for the base mercenary corps, something different from what I expected popped up.

—————————————–

<Avalon Fortress Base Mercenary Corps Hiring Menu>

<Fleet composition when hiring a mercenary corps is as follows:>

<Base Level x100 points>

<Current Base Level: 5>

<The mercenary corps’ fleet will be configured to ‘500 points’.>

<Commander: ???>

<A random commander will be assigned when you hire the mercenary corps.>

<Note that the mercenary corps commander may or may not be a Superhuman.>

… … … … … …

—————————————–

“…The mercenary corps leader might not be a Superhuman?”

“Huh, really?”

“That’s what it says.”

“Really?”

At those words, both Jessica and I raised question marks above our heads.

That’s because even now, the leader of the “Rodos Mercenary Corps” who had signed an exclusive contract with me—Rephan, who was enjoying his daily pleasures at the fortress’s resort(?)—was a Superhuman ranked between S and SS.

—————————————-

<Rephan>

<Level 46>

<Type: Anti-personnel close range>

<Characteristics: Pirate, Mercenary, Commander, Leadership, Friendly>

<Stats>

Health: S+

Attack Power: S-

Physical Defense: A-

Magic Power: B+

Magic Defense: SS-

Mobility: S+

—————————————-

But a normal person?

How could a normal commander exert leadership over such rough mercenaries?

Maybe they expect us to kill them and take over command, or something like that?

Anyway, while I was thinking about this, I noticed a new setting as I scrolled down.

—————————————-

… … … … … …

<This mercenary corps is a mercenary corps in name only; it’s essentially a private security force hired by you.>

<Therefore, please note that the commander may sometimes be a normal person rather than a ‘Superhuman’.>

<Of course, since a normal person has taken the position usually held by a Superhuman, they might demonstrate superior command abilities.>

<Would you like to hire the Avalon Fortress base mercenary corps?>

<Required resources: 2,500 minerals daily, 550 rare resources>

<Y/N>

—————————————-

Seeing this, I nodded as it made sense.

‘So it’s a character type that’s all-in on command ability, I see.’

With this clear understanding and resources to spare at the moment, I decided to hire the mercenary corps without much deliberation.

I just hoped they wouldn’t literally match the 500 points by giving me 500 patrol ships.

==========

A short while later.

In front of our Avalon Fortress, the mercenary corps I hired, the “Avalonia Security Fleet,” made its appearance…

—————————————-

<Avalonia Security Fleet>

<Fleet Composition>

<3 Battleships, 15 Cruisers, 50 Destroyers>

<Commander: Aquarias>

—————————————-

“Better than I expected.”

“Indeed, it’s quite a well-balanced fleet.”

The fleet composition itself was excellent.

This was evident from just looking at a few posts from people who had failed their base mercenary corps gacha(?) on the gallery…

—————————————–

Title: Base Mercenary Corps is Trash

Author: Anonymous

Content: [A shock assault mercenary corps consisting of 500 patrol ships… or rather, a “plunder corps”.jpg]

WTF are 500 patrol ships supposed to be? Just meat shields?

And their armament is just basic beam cannons and missiles with no additional equipment

Comments:

-[LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL]

-[Heaven wants you to use human wave tactics]

-[People’s Liberation Army gaming;;]

-[This is pretty extreme]

-[At least you got a concept post, cheers~]

—————————————–

—————————————–

Title: WTF Why Does a Base Mercenary Corps Give Me a Mining Corps

Author: Anonymous

Content: [A mercenary corps consisting of 3 battle cruisers, 1 destroyer, 2 patrol ships, and ‘250’ resource mining ships.jpg]

What the hell

What the hell

And the battle cruisers have transport compartments stuck all over them, what is this

Is this a joke?

The worst part is that these resource mining ships can’t even be used for resource mining in my territory

Comments:

-[LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL]

-[LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL]

-[Resource mining ships (can’t mine)]

-[Then what’s the point of their existence?]

-˪[They can do repairs](Author)

-[This is comparable to the 500 patrol ships guy]

-[This deserves to be a popular post]

-˪[Not easy to become popular]

—————————————–

At least I didn’t get stuck with 500 patrol ships as I had worried.

Nor did I get 250 resource mining ships like that other guy, so I should count myself lucky.

Anyway, feeling relieved that I got a decent fleet, I started to feel a small desire rising within me.

‘If a level 5 base gives this kind of fleet, how amazing would the level 7 I was originally aiming for be?’

As if detecting my desire and curiosity, someone from a clan that had conquered a level 7 base posted their mercenary corps on the gallery.

—————————————–

Title: Level 7 Mercenary Corps is Pretty Good

Author: Anonymous

Content: [A mercenary corps matched to 700 fleet points, composed of 3 carriers, 7 battleships, 20 cruisers, and 50 destroyers.jpg]

With 700 fleet points, it’s really generous

And from what I hear, other bases don’t have this info

From level 7, mercenary corps don’t include ships smaller than destroyers

So the patrol ship spam or resource mining ship spam that sometimes appears at level 6 or below is completely blocked from level 7

Comments:

-[Oh]

-[Still, that’s only about the size of one user fleet, which is a bit disappointing]

-˪[Considering regular mercenary corps are only about 1/3 of a user fleet, this is actually quite good]

-[But doesn’t this mean we might get 500 destroyer spam instead?]

-˪[Unlike patrol ships, destroyers can carry a lot of medium torpedoes, so it’s fine]

-[This is a pretty good composition, but it might be hard to generalize]

—————————————–

Although there were quite a lot of destroyers in the mix.

One mercenary corps with 3 carriers, 7 battleships, and 20 cruisers was impressive.

Seeing this, I figured I had nothing urgent to do right now.

With my newly recruited Avalonia Security Fleet and my other fleets, I wanted to gather as many resources as possible and hire as many mercenary corps as I could to conquer a new base.

And not just any base—one much larger than my current Avalon…

For example, the “Tannhäuser Gate Fortress” that I had tried to conquer before but gave up on because it seemed impossible.

Of course, conquering the Tannhäuser Gate Fortress would clearly require far more resources than last time.

“Hmm… Jessica, how many points would our forces that we deployed to conquer this place be worth?”

“With 512 mercenary corps, pirate fleets, our main force, and the monster fleet included… about 120,000?”

‘Interesting.’

Based on Jessica’s answer, to conquer Tannhäuser, I would need to invest at least 5 million minerals and 200,000-300,000 rare resources just for hiring costs.

But then I realized there was an example right in front of me of a small clan that had attacked a level 7 base.

“Jessica, how much force did Rattan Water mobilize when they tried to conquer Tunguska Fortress City?”

Since Rattan Water had nearly succeeded in conquering the “Tunguska Fortress City” by burning themselves out, I decided to ask Jessica directly for the answer.

But internally, I was already estimating the forces they had deployed.

‘Well, probably around 200,000 to 250,000 points?’

Contrary to my expectation:

“At that time, their clan had about 85 members, and considering they were all around level 8… about 64,000 points?”

“Hmm.”

“And they deployed about 18,000 points worth of mercenaries, plus the forces of 300 commanders from the Magellan Clan and their mercenary corps… that’s at least 350,000 points in total.”

“Hmmmm.”

About 350,000 points of fleet power.

Realizing they had deployed three times the forces I had used and barely pushed through, I had to deeply reconsider my plan to siege a level 7 base alone.