Ch.472War Not, Punishment It Is. (2)

It was truly incomprehensible.

I had tried my absolute beeeeeest to maintain silence to prevent additional nicknames from being created about me.

Yet what I got in return was…

—————————————–

Title: All familiar faces here.

Author: Anonymous

Content: [Image of anti-faction users’ bases clustered between Icarus and Humanity’s territory.jpg]

Seriously, all familiar faces

I heard some bases were destroyed, how did you all survive for real

Comments:

-[Just click repair for destroyed bases lol]

-[Lots of users repairing those wrecked places]

-[This is all thanks to Icarus THE King of Neutrality, the mayor of the Central District]

-˪[Praise the King of Neutrality]

-˪[Ohhh]

-˪[Wtf what kind of title is this]

-[The Icarus Kingdom is so sweet, no wonder thousands are docking here or just living here]

—————————————–

Beyond all these strange nicknames and titles being added, now my territory was being called a kingdom.

Thanks to this, I felt an extremely heavy burden that made my stomach burn terribly.

The reason monsters and pirates don’t come here isn’t because I’m awesome or because of the Leviathan Squadron as users think.

It’s simply because I’m being used as a messenger and hotline for both pirates and monsters, and the monsters are just following Marian’s consideration toward me.

Watching them create these delusions about things I never did, I could deeply understand why protagonists of such misunderstandings always carry antacids.

The one fortunate thing, though I’m not sure if it can even be considered fortunate:

At least I could prevent the anti-faction users who had been causing all sorts of trouble before the event from pushing into my territory.

—————————————–

Title: Things anti-faction users should know when entering Icarus Kingdom

Author: Anonymous

Content: [Chat verification with Icarus.jpg]

The immigration office guy says don’t cause anti-faction trouble when entering here

He says he has no intention of fighting other factions, so leave if that’s your plan

Comments:

-[When in Rome, follow Roman law, for real lol]

-[But that’s obvious, Icarus was really pissed seeing anti-faction users acting like idiots]

-[Well if something goes wrong, monster or pirate unions or Xenovia might attack the Central District, and Icarus can’t stop that]

-˪[Worried about that when there’s the Leviathan Squadron?]

-˪[If the Leviathan Squadron is slow to respond, Icarus’s fleet and bases will all be destroyed without mercy, so it’s obvious]

-˪[I see]

-[Now he’s got immigration office added to his nicknames]

—————————————–

As mentioned in the comments and post, I was functioning as a sort of immigration office, cutting off anti-faction users who might attract aggro.

I was using every means available to prevent unnecessary conflicts with other factions.

The problem was, as mentioned in previous user posts, anti-faction users didn’t “need” to enter my territory.

Once it was discovered that fleets wouldn’t approach if they just stayed near me, most anti-faction users, as mentioned above:

Began gathering somewhere between my territory and Humanity’s border, living as new members of the Central District.

==========

But not long after.

About three weeks after the event started, as we entered the fourth week…

Something happened that neither I nor other users had anticipated.

Specifically, when anti-faction users who belonged to the “Xenovia Empire” fled from oppression:

Very naturally, the vast Central District—no, “my territory”—ended up positioned between the Xenovia Empire and them.

And what that meant was…

—————————————–

<<<GLOBAL EVENT>>>

<The “Punishment Fleet” of the Xenovia Empire has launched!>

<Details>

<Unlike the “Space Monsters” and “Pirate Union” who have no intention of going to the neutral “Central District”.>

<The “Xenovia Empire” has issued a final ultimatum to the commanders who fled their territory, declaring there will be no more mercy.>

<Upon confirming that the fleeing commanders have gathered in the Central District, they immediately dispatched a large-scale punishment fleet toward that location!>

<Moreover, due to the nature of punishment, the Xenovia fleet has declared they will crush anything that interferes with them.>

<To preserve your bases and fleets, it seems best not to provoke them carelessly.>

<Result>

<The “Punishment Fleet,” a large-scale subjugation force including the Obsidian Squadron, has entered the Central District>

<The current position of the “Punishment Fleet” is being detected in real-time on commanders’ mapping systems.>

—————————————–

‘Oh my god.’

“Holy shit.”

“What’s wrong, Commander?”

“The Xenovia Empire is sending an elite fleet including their best units this way.”

“Wow.”

Unlike the Pirate Union or Space Monsters who had merged (!) with us or didn’t touch us because they were allied factions engaged in their own socializing:

For the Xenovia Empire, which had no connection to me, their reaction was literally “Why should we care about that?”

That meant they had chosen a strategy to literally “mindlessly” push through the Central District users including myself.

The problem was that what they mobilized for this strategy wasn’t just a regular elite fleet, but the “Obsidian Squadron”…

==========

—————————————–

Title: Guys, the event message mentioned the Obsidian Squadron, what is that?

Author: Shockwave

Content: [Screenshot of global event message.jpg]

What??

I don’t know about this

Comments:

-[To answer super simply, they’re “extremely powerful” friends on the same level as the Earth Federation’s Leviathan Squadron]

-˪[Oh that strong?](Author)

-˪[Yep]

-˪[Don’t know why they’re moving guys who should be permanently stationed with the capital defense fleet, but anyway]

-[If we’re just talking raw firepower, they’re even crazier than the Leviathan Squadron, but why the hell are they showing up here?]

-[Central District is screwed, run away]

-[Lolololololol]

-[Wow, they’re deploying their elite squadron just to catch some runaways]

-˪[In a class-based system, when slaves escape, of course you have to bring them back lol]

-˪[Damn, I was already a slave animal in real life, do I have to be a slave in games too?]

—————————————–

Naturally, since this event appeared as a <global message> visible to all users:

Not only the anti-faction users who had fled here, but all regular users were showing extreme confusion.

If there was any good news, it came shortly after such posts appeared.

—————————————–

Title: Not the entire Obsidian Squadron is moving

Author: CameraInside

Content: [Image of the Xenovia Empire’s Punishment Fleet captured from extreme distance.jpg]

There’s no artillery ship

From what I can see, it looks like they’ve sent some ships from the Obsidian Squadron, some from the Capital Defense Fleet, and mixed in some frontline main fleet vessels

Comments:

-[Hmm interesting]

-[Wow, how did you confirm that?]

-˪[Checked each one with a telephoto lens](Author)

-˪[What kind of monster are you]

—————————————–

Unlike what users feared, it was revealed that the Obsidian Squadron included in the Punishment Fleet was very minimal.

Thanks to this relatively reduced pressure, hope could be seen on users’ faces.

Of course, that didn’t last long.

—————————————–

Title: Central District folks, I think you’re misunderstanding something

Author: Anonymous

Content: [Image showing the scale of the ‘Punishment Fleet,’ with at least 100,000 battleship-class or larger vessels.jpg]

Even if the entire Obsidian Squadron isn’t coming, that doesn’t mean you can stop this

They’re deploying something equivalent to a faction’s border defense fleet lololol

Comments:

-[Come to think of it, that’s true]

-[“I’ll only use one hand to deal with you.”]

-˪[Even with one hand, you’ll still die lol]

-[Can ants defeat an elephant that’s only using one foot?]

-˪[Stop using cowardly fact-based violence, let’s fight honorably with propaganda and fabrication]

—————————————–

But that didn’t mean they could face the Punishment Fleet.

Users agreed this was absolutely correct and showed desperate hope that the Punishment Fleet would just pass by.