Ch.488″Being a ma-ad scientist doesn’t mean I can do everything.”

However, when our mad scientists received my plan, they showed quite negative reactions in many ways.

After successfully separating the pet tentacles and mechanical arms that had been fused together, the two mad scientists who made chairs from them and sat in front of me said:

“So you want us to modify all the fleet’s main ships? Nope, impossible.”

“Y-y-you want us to do th-that?”

“Why not? Use the Kraken and various ships as your canvas to show off your excellent craftsmanship!”

“It’s not ‘craftsmanship’… wait, you deliberately mispronounced that, didn’t you.”

And when I responded to their reaction with “just do what I tell you,” our mad-mad Griyanar and nero-nero replied:

“R-realistically, it’s i-impossible…”

“It took us several days of all-nighters just to modify the Overseer, which is only a medium cruiser. And now you want us to modify ships that are dozens of times larger?”

“Hmm.”

“Commander, do you know why I haven’t done any additional modifications since the Kraken first arrived?”

“C-C-Commander’s main ships… they’re t-too big for us to handle…”

To summarize, they were basically saying, “Your ships are too massive, so modifying them would be too damn difficult!”

Of course, I had the common perception that people in STEM fields can solve anything if given enough time and resources.

Based on this perception, I decided to give them some encouragement with a “you can do it” approach.

But despite this, what couldn’t be done simply couldn’t be done.

“With plenty of time and 100% resource support, what’s the problem?”

“I told you, it’s physically impossible.”

“C-Commander, do you w-want all ships modified… or j-just some ships heavily m-modified?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

To this brief answer of mine, the two mad scientists offered somewhat plausible responses:

“Commander, all of our fleet’s major named ships, except for the Khabarovsk, are at least several times larger than battleships.”

“That’s true.”

“Even the Ouroboros-class, which has the smallest area to modify, would take at least a month to work on according to your requirements.”

“A-and once we s-start working… we c-can’t stop in the middle…”

“Hmm.”

“But Commander, will the price bubble in that trading market really last that long?”

“Oh.”

Unlike their usual selves who show no interest or knowledge outside their specialized fields (which include all sorts of random things),

Today, seeing Griyanar point out practical issues including the very concern I had,

I nodded in acknowledgment, agreeing that what they said was absolutely right.

And at the same time…

“Then there’s no helping it, but why do you put all your effort into modifying bases and outposts that are even larger than those ships?”

“Ah.”

“Ah.”

“Wasn’t it recently that all the beds in Mr. Bendalov’s mercenary quarters turned into tentacle mimics, sending everyone to the medical bay?”

“…”

“That… that was…”

“And you strangely modified the mechanical arms in the medical bay’s surgical equipment, turning an injured male superhuman soldier into a female during training?”

“Umm.”

“That was…”

As our Jessica began to probe into the “reasons” they were “busy” after they claimed they couldn’t do what I asked because they were too busy,

Our two mad scientists trembled at the sight of bunny-bunny Jessica with the form of a malevolent spirit rising behind her back.

…Well, anyway, although it wasn’t my intention, somehow their pranks were exposed through this interrogation.

While our Jessica was giving them a proper lesson with cross-shaped veins popping on her forehead…

‘Seriously, what should I do about this?’

Now, no joke, I was starting to feel sad about the fact that there really was no way to do it.

Adding equipment to boost performance was already being done, so there was no point in mentioning it further.

The buffs from superhumans only applied to aspects like firepower or mobility.

When it came to the “defense” of ships, there were surprisingly few superhumans who could provide such buffs.

No matter how I looked at it, I felt there was no solution other than to endure and wait for the damn price bubble in the trading market to burst.

And while thinking about this…

—————————————–

<Tannhäuser Mercenary Network Official Chat Room>

<Notice: Payment of hiring fees in progress, those who haven’t received it should chat with me (Icarus) separately>

-[My dear employer, I haven’t received my payment]

-[Me neither]

-[Writing here without reading the notice smh]

-[Ah]

-[Read the damn notice!!]

-[Oops sorry sorry]

-[Keep saying sorry and you’ll get your base blown up]

-[I apologize]

-[Anyway, those who haven’t received payment, read the notice and contact Icarus directly;;]

-[OK]

—————————————–

—————————————–

<Chat requests: 115>

—————————————–

‘Argghhh.’

Suddenly, with 115, no, now 116 complaints flooding in saying “give us our payment,”

My mind prioritized dealing with these mercenary users who were about to rush at me demanding payment, rather than thinking about tanking ships.

But before that…

‘I definitely set up automatic transfers, so why are they saying they didn’t receive anything?’

Despite clearly setting up resources to be automatically transferred, they were claiming they hadn’t received anything, which confused me.

Perhaps my thoughts showed on my face?

Jessica, who returned with a gleaming face as if all her stress had disappeared after possibly punching those two mad scientists in the stomach, tilted her head and asked me:

“What’s wrong, Commander?”

“Well, other users are contacting me saying they didn’t receive the payment for being hired as mercenaries.”

“Maybe it’s because it’s still in progress? Let me check just in case.”

“Yeah, please do.”

And a moment later.

After tapping on the computer installed in the command center and checking something, our Jessi-Jessi said:

“Commander, we’ve run out of resources.”

“What.”

Delivering such shocking news directly to my eardrums without any filter or censorship,

I immediately denied reality by shaking my head.

But just because I denied reality didn’t mean that what had already happened would change.

“Didn’t we have over 20 million resources accumulated?”

“We did.”

“And now there’s nothing?”

“Both minerals and rare resources are barely over 30,000, which is effectively zero.”

“Oh shit.”

‘This is crazy.’

It became very urgent to accept the reality of the resource depletion crisis that had already hit us and to establish countermeasures.

The one fortunate thing was…

“Well, we still have resources being transported by the resource mining fleet, and resources that will soon be produced at the forward base, which will yield over 100,000 at once.”

“Really? How long do we have to wait?”

“5…”

“5 minutes? Not bad.”

“4…3…”

“I see.”

The resources needed for the users with the most overdue payments appeared just seconds later, so I was able to handle that.

After somehow putting out the urgent fire, I told the mercenary users via chat to wait a moment.

Unlike the ships with extremely inflated prices…

I purchased a large quantity of resource boxes, which were actually decreasing in price due to oversupply rather than inflation.

“Jessica, what was the average hiring fee per mercenary user?”

“A minimum total of 20,000 resources. If that’s not enough, we can calculate in gold, but minerals should be at a 100:1 ratio and rare resources at 10:1.”

I hurriedly paid the remaining unpaid users, about 100 of them, to quickly suppress the proletarian revolution directed at me.

However, as a consequence of handling things as quickly and easily as possible…

—————————————-

<Trading and Auction House Notice>

<To use this system, you need the exclusive currency ‘Gold’>

<This is different from the rare mineral ‘gold’ and can only be used here>

<Commander’s remaining currency: 72,886 Gold>

—————————————-

“Ugh, my God.”

“There’s not much left.”

Seeing my 100,000 gold, which had been full of dreams and hopes, suddenly drop to the 70,000 range, I found it hard to hold back tears.