Ch.53″No, that’s not it.”

Anyway, as Marian kept clinging to me, constantly babbling about absorbing some weird thing called “Icarusium” or whatever.

Looking at this overgrown Marian who was going crazy about absorbing something strange, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

‘Come to think of it, if she surrenders to me, what happens to the actual pirates?’

The current situation is somewhat similar to… the “Happy Ending #1” that other veteran players told me about.

From what I understood, that was supposed to be a scenario where the Pirate Empress is defeated by me and then surrenders.

I never imagined she would surrender without even fighting me, and then leave behind an entire fleet of her royal guards telling me not to get into danger while she’s gone.

Up to that point, I could somehow understand it if I really tried.

Looking at it this way… isn’t the Pirate Empress essentially defeated by her enemy, just like the Pirate King?

Especially since she surrendered without even fighting, from the pirates’ perspective, shouldn’t they be ousting Marian and installing a new leader?

Or maybe they should stop following any leader and just run wild on their own? Wouldn’t that be normal?

Of course, this is a game, and judging by the weird management style of the administrators… they might just be making things up as they go.

They’ll probably handle it “somehow”…

But curiosity is curiosity, so I cautiously expressed my question to Marian.

When Marian heard my question, she opened her distinctive brownish-black eyes wide, making them sparkle.

“Ohhh… Oppa! Have you finally become interested in our operations? Are you ready to plunder the entire universe with me?!”

“Whoa!”

The way she suddenly accelerated with madness gleaming in her eyes was truly terrifying.

Of course, her behavior was immediately restrained by the others nearby, so we decided to continue our conversation in a much calmer state.

—

Anyway, once Marian was properly subdued, she heard my question.

As if it was nothing special, she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head before beginning to speak…

“There’s no problem at all? My situation is different from that human pig’s.”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking about.”

“To put it bluntly, my surrender to you was predetermined from the beginning.”

“Hmm?”

Upon hearing those words, as I was about to ask Marian for additional explanation,

A new event message promptly appeared before me, explaining things to my insufficient brain with a cheerful chime.

—————————————-

<Event: Pirate Contract>

<From your perspective and that of outsiders, the Pirate King who was defeated by other commanders and>

<the Pirate Empress who surrendered to you might seem the same.>

<But in reality, the circumstances are somewhat different.>

<From the beginning, you were treated and publicly acknowledged as the Pirate Empress’s master by the pirates.>

<Furthermore, unlike the Pirate King who only showed incompetence with continuous defeats until his purge,>

<The Pirate Empress herself has led her pirate fleet so well that they could truly be called an invincible armada,>

<And by winning every battle until surrendering to you, she has demonstrated her capabilities…>

<For the other pirates, this wasn’t a surrender due to incompetence,>

<But rather acting according to a “contract” from the beginning, which allowed her leadership over both you and the empress herself to remain unshaken.>

<Of course, there must have been those who opposed the empress’s decision in this process…>

<But such individuals have now all become unable to survive without agreeing with the empress’s decisions.>

<Therefore, the empress’s control over the pirates is unlikely to disappear, at least in the near future.>

—————————————-

And as soon as I finished reading that event message.

“You don’t need to worry too much. Any pirates who dare to defy me… will only be able to agree from now on.”

“Hmm.”

‘Creepy.’

Hearing Marian’s words delivered with a beaming smile, I felt that this child had “grown up well” in a rather strange direction.

But according to the event message, it seemed as though Marian was “perfectly” controlling the pirates.

Yet when I mentioned this impression to Marian herself, she shook her head.

“I’d like nothing more than to move our pirate den here, beyond just being with you every day.”

“…”

‘I’d rather you didn’t do that.’

Whether I had such thoughts or not, Marian continued grumbling and carrying on the conversation with me.

“This is all because that human pig, as the first Pirate King, failed to show proper dignity.”

“Dignity, huh.”

“Thanks to that, no matter how much I squeeze and drive the pirates, if I don’t show my face often at the pirates’ den… my control over them weakens.”

“I see.”

I suppose that makes sense when you think about it.

Although when I played the game before, I never obtained the Pirate Empress.

And separately, in the game, pirates operated as a completely separate system.

The empress, just like other superhumans, was permanently subordinated to the player…

I’ve never heard of something like this happening.

But then again, talking about the “game” doesn’t make much sense when my current relationship building with Marian would have been impossible in the original game.

So it didn’t seem like a good idea to equate everything with the old game.

I shook my head and decided to tell Marian that it must be tough for her.

“You really have it rough, huh.”

“Hehe, it’s nothing… When I think about you, time passes surprisingly quickly.”

“I-I see.”

—

Anyway, Marian, whom I met after a long time, said she was just passing by and left rather quickly.

After seeing her off, I immediately sat at the command seat and fell into contemplation about what to do next.

Of course, as always, I wasn’t pondering this alone.

“Jessica, do you have any advice about the situation going forward?”

“Well…”

Together with Jessica, who exists as the player’s advisor, secretary, and event notifier.

My IQ of 100, Jessica’s IQ of 200.

We were challenging the creation of future plans with a perfect combined intelligence of 300.

And this state of “no planning” wasn’t just limited to me.

—————————————-

-[Upvote if you’re gay with nothing to do](24)

-[Event’s over, what now?](3)

-[Bored, wanna start a war between users?](5)

-[Did 100 pulls, any SSR drops?!](3)

-[Sex](8)

-[Uung… mommy… gimme milk…](13)

-[99% chance to trigger Empress rape pic](6)

—————————————-

—————————————-

Title: Event’s over, what now?

Author: Speed of Mach

Content: [Pirate Raid Event End Notice]

There are fewer pirate raids now, and fighting other users is a hassle because you have to contact and find them. Are there any other contents?

I’m bored

Comments:

-[Just grind base upgrades hard, then you’ll unlock facilities to build large ships including cruisers.]

-˪[Still haven’t gathered all the resources for that]

-˪[This guy abandoned the game]

—————————————-

—————————————-

Title: Did 100 pulls, any SSR drops?!

Author: Anonymous

Content: [Proof of Regular Resource Box x10]

I wouldn’t be posting if I got one, you bastards

Comments:

-[LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL]

-[LOLOLOLOLOL]

-[LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL]

—————————————-

As you can see from the gallery, after the rankings were announced,

All users had nothing to do and were just spouting nonsense out of boredom.

But truly, the only things you could do in the game right now were upgrading your base after gathering resources,

Or occasionally using collected currency to do some gacha pulls.

There was literally nothing else to do, so unless the administrators gave us something proper,

Considering they’ve kidnapped and imprisoned the minds of over 100,000 users,

It seemed highly likely that users would rise up in a strange way against the administrators’ incompetent management.

—

Fortunately, exactly one week after having that thought,

A new update message appeared before the eyes of all users including myself, and I thought that at least we wouldn’t be bored for a while.