Ch.9″The tutorial is now over.”

It’s been one long, long week.

“Haha!”

“There’s a base to plunder here!”

“Starting today, all resources in this base belong to us!”

I never expected that pirate scum would raid us for resources twice in just one week.

Of course, the unexpected situations only caused me to feel flustered.

“Now I’ll gently slice through the power core.”

“No, don’t!”

“Yes, I will!”

Unlike the first time when we only had one patrol ship.

By the second raid, we had a fleet of four vessels.

The pirates, who only brought five ships, unlike the first group, failed to make proper decisions until the end.

The price for their hesitation was becoming sacrificial lambs to Ignis’s sudden intrusion and massacre ending.

And the third time…

Pirates apparently don’t experience power inflation, as the third group came with even fewer numbers than the second.

“Yee-haw!”

“We don’t even need to deploy against a base like this!”

Uniquely, the third group had fewer ships but…

Their flagship carried an assault team filled with only C-rank to B-rank fighters.

And their captain was even an A-rank superhuman.

If I had been like typical newbies who only amassed a bunch of ships…

I would have either been lucky enough to survive if the extremely low probability of intercepting them during their assault triggered…

Or I would have lost half my defense fleet to that crazy assault team.

The odds would have been roughly 1:99, leaving me to rage in frustration.

“But then, Ignis appeared.”

“Aieeeee!! Why SS? Why SS?!”

Unfortunately for the ABC chocolates, they were all beheaded by the double-S Ignis’s top-tier anti-personnel combat abilities in the game.

“The captain is down!”

“Attack the fleet at least! It’s just one superhuman…”

“Hello mother*ucker?”

“…Oh.”

The remaining pirate ships were caught in the barrage from our defensive fleet of five ships, including the newly acquired patrol ship, and were completely destroyed.

‘I’ve really been through so much. It’s truly exhausting.’

Besides the pirates, I also had to manage resource mining operations.

The gacha system that locked up after the return reward, saying it couldn’t be used without base upgrades.

And worrying about how to use various auxiliary systems that would appear later.

I truly felt like many things were violating my meager brain.

But those feelings would completely end as of now.

“Commander! The base repairs and upgrades are complete!”

“Hmm, I just confirmed that myself.”

Jessica, who popped up the moment I checked the message, began explaining the systems that would be added through the base upgrade, bouncing up and down excitedly while I tried to maintain a calm appearance.

“First of all, Commander! I’ll tell you what new facilities we can establish through the base upgrade, including the newly updated ones!”

“Alright, please do.”

Jessica adjusted her necktie and assumed a more composed posture at my response.

Then she summoned a drone that projected a hologram of the base, and with a very excited face, she began speaking.

“First, I’ll explain what you already know, Commander!”

“Hmm?”

“We can add more production lines to the shipyard, and we can also increase the size of the resource warehouse!”

“And?”

“Along with research facilities for technology development, the multi-dimensional fixed causality generation device, which commanders always call by strange nicknames, will now be permanently available.”

“Hmm.”

“Is there anything specific you’d like to ask about?”

Since everything up to that point was information I already knew, and there weren’t any particular changes, I nodded and told her to move on to the next topic.

“I understand. What else is there?”

“Yes, from here on are the new facilities added through the update… ohhh…”

“What’s the problem now?”

Jessica, speaking like someone trying to cheat on a test, rolled her eyes around and dragged out her words.

Eventually, she began to explain the information about the updated facilities, or rather, facility.

“Um, Commander? I’m sorry to get your hopes up, but…”

“What is it?”

“Regarding the updated facilities, I can only tell you about one of them right now.”

“…”

Of course, before that, our poor Jessica tried to apologize to me first.

“Siiiiigh…”

“I-I’m sorry…”

“No, how could it be your fault? Just tell me about the facility.”

Thinking that the developer was trying to mock users again, I shook my head and sighed deeply.

After stopping Jessica’s behavior, I decided to hear about the content of that precious updated facility first.

“Yes, the name of the newly updated facility is ‘Dimensional Signal Collection Communication Amplification System’.”

While thinking that the name itself was quite complicated, I silently nodded and spoke.

“This facility itself actually has no effect on the base.”

“…?”

“Instead, as this facility exists and is upgraded…”

“As it’s upgraded?”

“More and more ‘Community’ features for commanders will be unlocked.”

“Community features?”

“Yes, the ones you tried to ask about before, but couldn’t access due to insufficient permissions.”

As Jessica finished speaking, a new status window popped up before my eyes.

—————————————-

<Available Base Upgrade Facilities>

<Shipyard>(300)

<Resource Warehouse>(100)

<Research Facility>(500)

<Multi-dimensional Fixed Causality Generation Device>(500)

<Dimensional Signal Collection Communication Amplification System>(600)<NEW!

—————————————-

‘Hmm.’

Seeing this status window, I immediately asked Jessica how many resources we currently had.

“Including what we obtained from the recent pirate attack… we currently have 720 minerals.”

“Hmmmm… I see.”

It was a truly ambiguous amount.

Since I was planning to produce one more patrol ship in preparation for any contingencies,

I effectively only had 600 to work with, meaning I could build just one thing.

“This is quite the dilemma.”

“You can do it, Commander…!”

I felt my mind becoming complicated due to the sudden bundle of worries that appeared before me.

What should I choose? I was suffering from decision paralysis…

But that suffering was brief.

I realized that when faced with such decision paralysis, sometimes the best solution was to rely on collective intelligence.

So I opened the chat window and threw out a question seeking advice on the choices before me.

-[Hoeeee baby newbie, don’t know which building upgrade to do first.]

And as always, people who seemed to have too much time on their hands, whoever they were, immediately replied.

-[Community function activation is a must]

-[Community function is seriously essential]

-[The chat window automatically censors so I can’t explain in detail, but there are many really necessary things]

-[Without it, you’ll be treated like a country bumpkin]

-[^True]

-[^Saw a kid worse than dentures, well observed.]

Since the nonsense that followed had no value whatsoever,

I gathered the most sensible opinions and summarized the results.

“So the community function activation is the most popular choice.”

Thinking that this was quite predictable, I immediately manipulated the status window before me.

—————————————-

<Dimensional Signal Collection Communication Amplification System>(600)<Selected>

<Would you like to construct? Y/N>

—————————————-

Seeing the subsequent message, I nodded with a determined face, pressed Y, and spoke to Jessica.

<Dimensional Signal Collection Communication Amplification System construction initiated, time remaining 07:22:19>

“I’ll upgrade the communication system first.”

“…Yes, Commander!”

“After upgrading, I should also check what’s actually in the community.”

“Yes!”