Ch.489Don’t Leave Creativity to the Users (1)

The next morning.

“We’re now beggars!”

“You’re starting the day with quite a spicy statement.”

After spending all of yesterday contemplating various concerns.

And then consuming quite a bit of time at the end dealing with the employment costs for mercenary users whose automatic deposits didn’t go through…

Anyway, after handling all that, how should I put it.

“It’s been a really long time since our resource storage has been this empty.”

“Indeed, it feels like it’s been almost 3 years.”

I was feeling deeply moved seeing our resource storage—which had maintained at least 1 million units even when hiring large numbers of mercenaries—now revealing its intimate insides… no, its bare bottom.

And perhaps it’s because the resources were literally completely wiped out without a speck remaining.

—————————————–

<Event>

<Resource Depletion Crisis!>

<Details>

<There are no resources remaining in the Commander’s base!>

<If this situation continues, your fleet and base will suffer severe damage!>

<Minimum Resource Requirements: 10,000 Minerals, 1,000 Rare Resources>

˪<Current Resources: 103 Minerals, 29 Rare Resources>

<If you fail to meet the minimum resource requirements within the time below, massive debuffs will be applied to your base and fleet!>

<Time Remaining: 1 hour 22 minutes 38 seconds>

—————————————–

“But Jessica, how could I not say something when looking at that?”

“You have a point.”

When an event message pops up saying “We’ll all starve to death if you don’t give us resources soon!” like that.

Whether I liked it or not, I couldn’t help but grumble in response.

But fortunately for us, we were in a position where resources would be immediately available.

“Did you clear all the daily quests?”

“Yes, and the Krakens we dispatched to the resource zones just returned.”

“…Mm, good.”

After completing the daily quests and the resource fleet (2 Krakens) returned, the Krakens began to disgorge the resources they had stuffed in their bellies into the storage.

—————————————–

<Event>

<Resource Depletion Crisis!>

<Details>

<There are no resources remaining in the Commander’s base!>

<If this situation continues, your fleet and base will suffer severe damage!>

<Minimum Resource Requirements: 10,000 Minerals, 1,000 Rare Resources>

˪<Current Resources: 343,205 Minerals, 96,129 Rare Resources>

<If you fail to meet the minimum resource requirements within the time below, massive debuffs will be applied to your base and fleet!>

<Time Remaining: 1 hour 22 minutes 38 seconds>

—————————————–

—————————————–

<Event>

<Resource Requirements Met!>

<Details>

<You have met the requirements for the ‘Resource Depletion Crisis!’ event.>

<The dangerous situation that would have occurred due to this event has been averted.>

<Result>

<‘Resource Depletion Crisis!’ event chain terminated>

—————————————–

“That was a close call.”

“Yeeeeeah, tell me about it.”

After happily trying to select tanking vessels and waiting for price bubbles to burst, only to suddenly have this blood-shitting experience.

I realized why Humanity had such a headache over “compensation”—specifically employment costs and various other expenses—right after consuming the Earth Federation.

“So that’s why Humanity couldn’t pay compensation right away.”

“Exactly, and we only hired people for a single day.”

“And we hired fewer than 2,500 people…”

“The Humanity clan hired over 30,000 external mercenaries.”

Just paying “one day’s” employment costs to about 2,500 people required a total of 28 million resources… no, effectively 30 million.

Humanity, which had to hire tens of thousands of users for months at a time, spent at least 300 to 350 million resources per day…

No, that’s not right. They spent nearly 400 million just on “employment costs” alone, which made me shake my head in astonishment as I realized their insane resource consumption rate.

==========

And just as I was randomly following my stream of consciousness, mentally repeating “Humanity is amazing!” to myself.

A new event message window suddenly popped up before my eyes.

And the general announcement contained within that message was clearly something that neither I nor probably other users had anticipated…

—————————————–

<General Announcement>

<<<Mini-Event ‘Astral Expo’ Announcement!>>>

<Notice to all Commanders!>

<In one week, the mini-event ‘Astral Expo’ will be held.>

<Show off your and your Superhumans’ creative items to others!>

<Outstanding works will receive appropriate rewards!>

<Event Duration: 2 weeks>

<Event Information>

˪<This event does not provide a separate event map!>

˪<PVP will be restricted during the event period.>

<Detailed information will be updated the day before the event begins, so we look forward to your interest and participation.>

—————————————–

‘…What kind of event are they talking about?’

Quite uniquely, unlike previous events where we had “fleet battles” or battle royales with Superhumans…

They were suddenly announcing some kind of “creative item-making contest” for users and Superhumans.

Naturally, when news of such a cute and miniature event spread…

—————————————–

Title: What’s this mini-event???

Author: Anonymous

Content: [‘Astral Expo’ event full text screenshot.jpg]

What the heck is this

What’s happening

Is this a creativity battle between crazy people?

Comments:

-[Oh]

-[What happened to fleet battles and Superhuman battles? Why are they making users’ brains fight instead? lol]

-[Waaah too difficult]

-[Waaah I don’t want to use my brain waaah]

—————————————–

—————————————–

Title: This event is genuinely unique

Author: Bersaglieri

Content: [‘Astral Expo’ event full text screenshot.jpg]

We’ll need to wait until the day before the update for details

But it seems combat is really “not happening,” and it’s just an event for users and intelligent Superhumans to take it easy and relax

Like “let’s take a break” after getting beaten up by the factions?

Comments:

-[I see it the same way]

-[Sometimes we need these moderately interesting events]

-˪[For real lol]

-[But what exactly are we supposed to do with “creative ideas”?]

-[Is it about matching equipment concepts appropriately to ships??]

-˪[Dunno](Author)

-˪[The only information revealed so far is “make creative items,” so it’s hard to say anything definitive]

-[Ah OK]

—————————————–

—————————————–

Title: Isn’t this event exactly that thing

Author: Practical Boxing

Content: [A moving image that appears to be drawn in Paint, showing a vehicle with three Hakenkreuz symbols suddenly appearing at the start of the game.gif]

These days users are melting asteroids to make walls or

Carrying around shield walls that aren’t supported by the game system

And the Superhumans who are geniuses in the setting, if left alone, make weird things on their own

And some users also make weird things together with Superhumans

[<Link to a post claiming “Hey I made a moving biological d*ldo!”>]

I think the admins saw this and thought they might try it too

Comments:

-[There was also that erotic renaissance recently]

-[Oh that’s true]

-[Interesting story]

—————————————–

At the mention of “creation” rather than combat, not just me but other users as well were showing equally confused reactions.