Ch.67The World with Monsters

“Ah, truly delightful to meet you. I am Oxianor, sent by Her Majesty to offer you advice and support.”

“Um… yes, nice to meet you, Oxianor.”

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<Intelligence Terminal, Oxianor>

<A being created by the Queen of Space Monsters to pursue dialogue with ‘intelligent beings’.>

<Normally maintains a literally ‘gentlemanly’ attitude and requests respect for etiquette when manners are breached.>

<Of course, as this varies according to the Commander’s intelligence and preferences, I will adjust my speech patterns if you wish for more casual conversation.>

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Our eyeball gentleman has quite the unusual name and equally unusual background.

Just as I’d heard in the gallery, he displays an exceedingly polite and gentlemanly demeanor.

Nodding my head, I decided to introduce the two people present with me.

“This rabbit Beastkin is my Adjutant, Jessica.”

“Hello, Oxianor.”

“Truly delighted to meet you. As the Commander’s Adjutant, we shall converse frequently, I presume.”

As Oxianor wiggled a tentacle tipped with claws, offering Jessica a handshake.

Our Jessica barely managed to suppress her trembling lips and somehow returned the handshake with Oxianor’s tentacle while maintaining a smile.

And unlike Jessica…

“Um… and this is Griyanar, who could be called our base’s research officer.”

“Hehehe, really nice to meet you, Oxianor.”

“Quite the mischievous young lady, I see.”

Though she seems to be openly expressing interest.

With her characteristic impish smile while greeting him like that, I sensed a rather peculiar atmosphere emanating from Oxianor’s eyes.

After that brief self-introduction session.

Oxianor, who told me there was no need to address him so formally, blinked his eyes a couple of times and continued.

“I will be stationed here, but feel free to contact me whenever necessary.”

“Hmm.”

“However, since our trust relationship has not yet been established, I must inform you that providing substantial assistance will be difficult.”

For a moment I hesitated, wondering what he meant.

‘Ah, that’s it.’

A forgotten memory from the past flashed through my mind.

Just because you join a faction, you can’t fully receive their “buffs” or get “fleets” or “Superhumans” without using player points.

Or receive resources and other support from the faction.

Of course, there was a chance I had dementia or simply couldn’t remember correctly because it was from long ago.

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<Notice Regarding Faction Support>

<A type of “trust relationship” needs to be formed with the faction you’ve joined, Commander.>

<Without sufficient trust, the faction’s representative or leader may judge you as untrustworthy.>

<This could significantly reduce the support provided to you.>

<To increase trust, you can complete quests given by the faction.>

<Attack enemy faction fleets, transfer mined resources, or use other methods.>

<Alternatively, building “personal rapport” with the faction’s representative or leader is also effective.>

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According to the newly appeared notice.

At least I wasn’t mistaken, so I nodded and replied.

“I understand. We just met today, so expecting too much would be impolite.”

“Hmm, compared to other discourteous individuals, you seem much more considerate. I see hope for the future.”

And right after hearing those words, a notification message appeared before my eyes indicating that our trust relationship had taken its first step.

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<Event>

<You have successfully elicited a friendly response from Oxianor, the intelligence terminal of the monsters.>

<Trust with Monster Faction +1>

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‘Oh, quick trust gain.’

Thinking this was a pretty good start, I decided to shake hands with Oxianor one last time.

-Splat.

‘…Hmm, what a strange feeling.’

Though I couldn’t help thinking that next time, rather than the slimy tentacle, offering the relatively dry claw might be better.

==========

Anyway, after (successfully?) concluding my first meeting with the Monster Faction like that.

I immediately went to the command center and checked the command console to see if there were any daily quests remaining…

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<Daily Quest Completion List>

<Expedition Resource Mining 1 time> (Completed)

<Resource Mining 3 times> (Completed)

<Resource Mining 10 times> (Completed)

<Starship Construction 1 time> (Completed)

<Old Starship Dismantling 1 time> (Completed)

<Base Upgrade 1 time> (Completed)

<Superhuman Upgrade 1 time>

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“Nothing much left.”

“Pardon? What did you say?”

“Nothing, never mind.”

It seems the monster neural network module that was attached counted as a base upgrade.

Except for the unexpectedly completed <Base Upgrade 1 time>, the daily quest window looked exactly the same as usual.

After confirming there were no major issues, I decided to continue with the actual base upgrade.

But first, I asked Jessica to check how many resources we had.

“We have about 23,000… no, 23,500 minerals, and about 5,000 rare resources.”

“Hmm.”

“Oh, and we just received a communication that the resource mining fleet returning to base has 3,500 minerals.”

“That’s plenty.”

After hearing Jessica’s report, I immediately opened the base construction window on the command console I was holding.

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<Available Base Upgrade Facilities>

<Additional Docking Facility> (2,500)

<Resource Warehouse> (3,000)

<Weapons Development Lab> (19,000) <Selected>

<Forward Base> (30,000)

<Mercenary Dispatch Center> (17,500)

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<Weapons Development Lab construction in progress…>

<<<Time remaining until completion: 8 days 1 hour 9 minutes>>>

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After a moment’s consideration, I decided to build the weapons development lab first.

Having issued the construction order, I put down the command console as there was nothing more to see today.

This time, I opened the community window in the status screen to check out the newly created “Trade & Auction House.”

Since there had been some bartering among users based solely on trust before.

I figured a trading and auction house under system control would be quite active.

And if there was anything worth buying, I thought I might do a bit of shopping too.

The “Trade & Auction House” I entered for the first time was even more vibrant than I had imagined.

The only difference from what I expected was…

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-[Selling Staria, level 50 with no negative traits and limbs intact]

-[Ranya twins for sale, 1+1, both level 42]

-[Selling Ignis level 23, beginners only]

-[Polka Ramada, level 35, missing one arm]

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The auction house had turned into a human trafficking (???) marketplace for all sorts of Superhumans.