Ch.70Ordinary Days (1)

After spending a day reading various posts about faction trust relationships.

The next morning.

-Ding-a-ling♬

Having realized that I’d grown too accustomed to my old alarm sound to wake up properly, I was able to greet the morning refreshed thanks to my newly changed alarm.

Then, following my unchanged daily routine since being thrown into this place, I washed my face quickly, put on the exclusive uniform assigned to me as the base Commander, and headed straight to the command center.

And at the command center, I went through my usual actions to complete daily quests.

“Jessica, what about today’s long-distance mining expedition?”

“I sent it out as soon as you turned on the command console, Commander.”

“Good.”

So I reorganized the resource mining fleet and sent them on expeditions.

“What are we constructing this time?”

“We’re producing a patrol ship that was sunk in a battle with the Xenovia Empire patrol, and the ship that was towed back severely damaged is scheduled for dismantling.”

“Hmm.”

Similarly, after completing the ship construction and dismantling quests within a minute of arriving at the command center.

I felt satisfied and decided to browse the community gallery right away.

And as soon as I entered the gallery, I saw a post saying that the factions seemed to have somewhat stabilized.

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Title: Hey, don’t the factions seem pretty much settled now?

Author: Anonymous

Content: [Screenshot of Earth Federation statistics]

Everyone’s estimating the current user population to be around 100,000, give or take 10,000

I built up trust and asked the Earth Federation administrator, and he said there are approximately 30,000 to 35,000 Commanders aligned with the Earth Federation

Looking at the numbers of people rampaging in the gallery, since they’re all pretty similar

If we assume the other factions have similar signup rates, it seems like everyone has made their choice by now

Comments:

-[As expected of the home-world, they’ve gathered the most population]

-[Wait, even at maximum estimate there are only 110,000 users, and at least 30,000 flocked to Earth Federation? This is crazy]

-[Corrupt Earth Federation out]

-˪[If you’re jealous, join Earth Federation too, ya know]

-˪[Ya know? Where are you from, punk?]

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Ignoring the comments that naturally drifted in a strange direction, I pondered the information posted by the anonymous user with a contemplative expression.

And seeing my demeanor, Jessica, who had quietly approached to look at the gallery post, also showed quite a serious expression.

“Commander, if this is true, wouldn’t the power balance between factions completely collapse?”

“Power balance, you say?”

“Yes, if a major war breaks out between factions someday… I wonder if the Commanders’ fleets would function as meaningful forces.”

Jessica trailed off.

Even without her finishing the sentence, it was obvious what she was trying to say.

I shrugged my shoulders and told her that there was no need to worry too much about it right now.

“That is a concerning issue, but there’s nothing we can do about it right now.”

“Is that so?”

“Think about it. When we faced the pirates, what was the maximum force that users… Commanders like me could gather?”

“About 1,500 Commanders gathered with nearly 12,000 ships…?”

As Jessica searched through her memories to answer, I nodded and continued with additional explanation.

“Yes, that’s right. And at that time, the so-called Pirate King and those who gathered to help him had over 10,000 ships, so the total forces from both sides combined didn’t even reach 30,000.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“But do you know how many ships the Xenovia Empire has in total, which has the smallest number among all factions?”

“Um… I’m not sure.”

I recalled the setting of Astral Lagrange, a game I had once been immersed in enough to spend real money on, and shared what remained in my memory with Jessica.

“At least ten million, counting all types of ships combined.”

“…”

Hearing my words, Jessica momentarily looked as if she couldn’t believe what she had just heard.

Then, while gesturing as if she might have misheard, she perked up her rabbit ears showing interest.

Rather than going through the trouble of explaining further:

“Here are the results you’re looking for.”

Like a pilot drawing a box for the Little Prince and telling him there’s a sheep inside, I opened the previous global email and showed it to Jessica.

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<Global Announcement>

<Information regarding the ‘Pirate Attack’ event settlement.>

<First, we would like to share the results of the event.>

<Commanders have permanently annihilated a total of 16,905,151 pirate groups and eliminated 125,309,057 pirate ships.>

… … … … … …

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Over ten million pirate groups massacred.

And more than 125 million “pirate ships” sunk.

“Wow.”

Seeing Jessica’s astonished reaction, I wondered if I hadn’t shown this to her before, and continued:

“125 million, Jessica.”

“…”

“The pirates at their peak used over 100 million ships to invade the bases of more than 100,000 Commanders.”

Of course, to be honest, these weren’t ships that the pirates “actually” possessed.

It was probably something the operators or developers added separately according to the game system.

What’s important is that an insane scale of ships exists in this world, enough to say that such a tremendous number of ships were mobilized.

“Of course, now that so many ships have been destroyed, the quantity has clearly decreased.”

“Yes…”

“But there should still be tens of millions left, right? And while the other factions might not have more than that, they still have far more than the Xenovia Empire.”

After saying that, I called up a mini-map(?) on the command console and displayed it.

Tapping on the mini-map, I continued:

“The event was only scaled to a level that users could handle. If what you mentioned, a ‘war’ between factions, breaks out?”

“…The Commanders’ forces wouldn’t be able to do anything meaningful.”

“Precisely, in their ‘current’ state.”

After saying that, I opened the management window for my current base fleet and showed it to Jessica.

—————————————-

Fleet Status

Total Points: 370.5 points

Cruisers: 23 ships, 6 points

Destroyers: 45 ships, 3 points

Escort Ships: 25 ships, 1.5 points

Patrol Ships: 30 ships, 1 point

Resource Mining Ships: 20 ships, 1.5 points

—————————————-

“As you know, I don’t have a particularly large fleet compared to other users, right?”

“That’s right, even counting your mining ships, you have less than 150 ships.”

“But in the late game, a single Commander’s fleet point total reaches at least 1,500-2,000, with an average of 5,000 as the baseline.”

“…Hmm.”

“Of course, by then, everyone will have fleets composed mostly of large ships like cruisers or bigger, except for a few patrol ships as cannon fodder… but the fact remains that the numbers will be overwhelmingly larger than now.”

“Ah…”

“So by the ‘late game’ mentioned there, a clan with about 50-100 members could easily field 10,000 ships…”

“Using Earth Federation as an example, the minimum of 30,000 Commanders would produce fleets totaling over ten million ships, no joke.”

“That’s right, but right now nobody has that kind of power or anything close.”

“I see.”

As Jessica nodded in understanding at my words.

I nodded back, acknowledging her comprehension, and then decided to end this conversation.

I went back to browsing the gallery.

And the moment I reopened the gallery.

—————————————-

-[Where did all those neutral country jokers go?](44)

—————————————-

‘That’s right? Where did they all go?’

Seeing a post that caught my interest, I decided to click on it first.