Ch.56New Update (3)

Overcoming the sorrow of my gacha disaster, I decided to stand up again and walk forward with determination.

“Only weak men obsess over gacha results.”

“I see. Then I’ll quietly forget about how Commander collapsed mentally and cried ‘mommy’ while being cradled in Pashtra’s arms after failing the gacha.”

“…”

Though there were some… incidents along the way.

“Don’t be so harsh, Jessica♡”

“Ms. Pashtra.”

“I enjoyed it though…♡ Mmm, I can still feel the Commander’s trembling through my chest and stomach…♡”

“Do you see that, Commander?”

“Tsk.”

Anyway, with the gacha business taken care of, I decided to focus my eeefforts on tackling the tasks ahead one by one.

And among those future tasks—

Joining a faction, dealing with future gacha pulls.

Or handling wars with other factions or users—I decided to address the most important one first.

Namely, the now-urgent Level 5 upgrade for the base.

First, let’s check the current status of the base…

‘Let’s see, open base status window.’

—————————————-

<Astral Base Lv. 4>

<Currently Available Facilities>

<Commander’s Office>

<Command Center>

<Shipyard>

<Medical Bay>

<Recreation Room>

<Shop>

<Training Room>

<Resource Storage>

<Docking Facility>

<Hibernation Chamber>

<Dimensional Signal Collection Communication Amplification System>

<Multi-Dimensional Fixed Causality Generator>

<Advanced Research Lab>

<Resource Synthesis Production Facility>

<Rare Resource Synthesis Production Facility>

<Advanced Technology Management Center>

<Rare Resource Production Facility>

<Comprehensive Defense System>

—————————————-

Perhaps because all that was newly unlocked at level 4 was just the “Rare Resource Synthesis Production Facility.”

It didn’t look much different from what I’d seen before…

‘Next… base upgrade window.’

—————————————-

<Base Level 5 Upgrade>

<<<Required Resources: 95,000 Minerals, 3,500 Rare Resources>>>

<Facilities Unlocked Upon Upgrade>

˪<Additional Docking Facility Available>

˪<Additional Resource Storage Construction Available>

˪<Biology Research Lab Construction Available>

˪<Weapons Development Center Construction Available>

˪<Forward Base Construction Available>

˪<Mercenary Dispatch Center Construction Available>

<Upon reaching Base Level 5, one randomly selected Superhuman will be released from hibernation>

—————————————-

As you can see, from level 5 onward, along with the basics, a bunch of new facilities would become available at once.

‘My goodness, that’s a lot.’

Although the resources required for the upgrade suddenly jumped nearly tenfold from level 4.

Showing a resource consumption level that completely disregarded any sense of business ethics.

Looking at that long and beautiful list of “new construction” options, plus…

‘Finally, this day has come.’

Seeing the “hibernation release” clearly written at the end.

I felt my mental state, which had been shaken by the failed gacha, recover slightly.

Of course, it’s uncertain “who” would emerge.

But at least it wouldn’t be a complete dud like the gacha I just wasted.

With that thought, I decided to check with Jessica beside me to see how many resources we had.

“Jessica, how many resources do we currently have in stock?”

“Hmm… just a moment.”

Suddenly I wondered why I couldn’t check these minor details through the command console and had to go through adjutants like Jessica.

I had these renewed doubts, but…

“Ah, found it. We have about 25,000 minerals and… 800 rare resources?”

“Hmm.”

Fortunately for the developers(?), Jessica reported back before I could pursue that line of thought further.

So I abandoned that train of thought and continued thinking about our current situation.

“The minerals are one thing, but why do we have so few rare resources?”

“We used to get plenty of rare resources from the causality fixation device you operated, Commander, but this time there was hardly anything?”

“…”

When my expression hardened at her words, Jessica quickly waved her hands, saying it was a joke, and continued.

“I’m just kidding. It’s because you’ve had so many uses for minerals lately, Commander.”

“…Did we use that much?”

At my question, Jessica nodded, looked at her tablet, and spoke again.

“Yes, you simultaneously proceeded with all sorts of construction work, including the additional docking facility that you’d been postponing for various reasons.”

Well, “simultaneously” isn’t exactly right—it was more like starting the next project as soon as the previous construction finished.

As I nodded in agreement with her statement, Jessica brought up a hologram beside her and continued with additional explanations.

“Plus, there was that Commander who recently invaded our resource zone without any declaration of war.”

“Ah.”

At Jessica’s words, I nodded again, recalling a “minor” conflict from just a few days ago.

“But didn’t our pirate friends raid that Commander’s base and bring back minerals for us?”

“Most of that went to repairing our pirate ships, many of which suffered medium to heavy damage.”

“Hmm…”

“Additionally, we lost a resource mining vessel, one resource zone, and three destroyers when it was sunk.”

“Ah… right, we recruited new ones to replace those.”

In summary, after hearing that the resources were spent where they needed to be spent,

I felt somewhat embarrassed for having fretted about not having enough resources for the upgrade.

==========

About a week later.

—————————————-

<Base Level 5 Upgrade in Progress…>

<<<Time Remaining: 7 days 15 hours 35 minutes>>>

—————————————-

‘Good, that’s taken care of.’

Including the newly produced resource mining vessels,

After sticking straws into and sucking dry more than 30 resource zones in the vicinity,

I could finally see my precious level 5 base upgrade steadily progressing.

And simultaneously, the long-awaited update was also implemented…

—————————————-

<General Announcement>

<To all Commanders enjoying Astral Lagrange.>

<As of this moment, including the existing pirates,>

<The void space monsters, aliens from distant reaches, and the Earth Federation—your commanders’ homeland and sponsor.>

<Each faction is revealing themselves.>

<Whether Commanders will follow their superiors in the Earth Federation,>

<Or develop through exchanges with aliens possessing amazing technology,>

<Or join hands with space pirates to plunder weak civilizations,>

<Or utilize space monsters at the pinnacle of bioengineering,>

<It all depends on the Commanders’ choices.>

—————————————-

—————————————-

<Additional Announcement>

<An “Auction House and Trading Market” has been established in the community.>

<Random enemies will now spawn throughout space.>

<Major factions will be generated in each quadrant!>

˪(Quadrant 1: Earth Federation, Quadrant 2: Space Pirates, Quadrant 3: Aliens, Quadrant 4: Space Monsters)

<Fleets of the corresponding factions will primarily spawn in each quadrant, but fleets of other factions will randomly spawn in each quadrant.>

<Resource harvesting fleets from each faction will appear at existing resource zones!>

˪(To mine at resource zones, you will now need an appropriate defense fleet.)

—————————————-

“Oh shit!”

I was reading along fine until I saw the additional update content at the end.

I couldn’t hold back my tears at the realization that my “octopus-style resource harvesting” method was being forcibly terminated.