Chapter 9

Episode 9. The tutorial is finally over.

What a long, exhausting week it’s been.

-“Hahaha!”

-“There’s a base here to plunder!”

-“From today, all the resources of this base are ours!”

In just a week, I never expected to be attacked by pirate scum not once, but twice.

Of course, the unexpected situation only left me flustered.

-“Let me gently slice through the power core here.”

-“Ah, no!”

-“Yes!”

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

By the second attack, I had four ships on my side.

The pirates, who only brought five ships this time, unlike the first group, couldn’t make a proper decision until the end.

The price of their hesitation was becoming the sacrificial lamb to Ignis’s sudden, massacre-ending intervention.

And then the third time…

It seems pirates don’t get power inflation, as the third group came with fewer numbers than the second.

-“Eeek!”

-“We don’t even need to deal with a base like that!”

This third group was peculiar. Instead of many ships, they had a sort of assault squad on their flagship, filled with C to B- rank soldiers.

And their captain was an A-rank superhuman.

If I had been a typical newbie, just mass-producing ships without much thought, I would have either been lucky enough to survive their assault or lost half of my defense fleet to that insane assault squad.

The odds would have been roughly 1:99, leaving me to vent my frustration at such unfairness.

-“But then, Ignis appeared.”

-“Aieeee! Why SS? Why SS aieeee!”

Unfortunately, the ABC chocolates were all beheaded by Ignis’s top-tier in-game combat abilities.

-“The captain’s down!”

-“Attack with the fleet! It’s just one superhuman…”

-“Hello m*ther f*cker?”

-“…Ah.”

The remaining pirate ships, including the newly produced patrol ships, were caught in the barrage from my five-ship defense fleet and were utterly destroyed.

==========

‘So much has happened, I’m really exhausted.’

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

After the return rewards, the gacha system was locked unless base upgrades were performed.

I had to think about how to use various auxiliary systems that would come later.

It felt like my already weak brain was being assaulted by all these tasks.

But now, that feeling is completely over.

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

“Hmm, I just checked that too.”

Jessica, who popped out as soon as the message was confirmed, started excitedly jumping around, explaining the new systems added through the base upgrade.

“First, Commander! Let me tell you about what new things we can establish with the base upgrade, including the newly updated ones!”

“Alright, go ahead.”

Seeing my attitude, Jessica adjusted her tie and took a more composed stance.

She then brought up a hologram of the base with a drone and spoke with an excited face.

“First, let me start with what you already know, Commander!”

“Hmm?”

“First, we can add more production lines to the shipyard, and we can also expand the resource warehouse!”

“And?”

“Along with the research facility for technology development, the Multi-Dimensional Fixed Causality Generator, which you all always call by weird nicknames, will now be open all the time.”

“Hmm.”

“Do you have any other questions?”

Up to that point, it was all stuff I already knew, with no significant changes.

I nodded and told her to move on.

“Got it, so what else is there?”

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

“What’s the problem now?”

Jessica, as if she were cheating, rolled her eyes and dragged out her words.

Then she decided to list out the information about the updated facilities, or rather, the facility.

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

“What is it?”

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

“…”

Of course, before that, our poor…

Jessica tried to start by bowing in apology to me, but…

“Haaaaaa…”

“I-I’m sorry…”

“No, what could you have done wrong? Just tell me about the facility info first.”

With the thought that the developer was trying to mess with the user again, I shook my head and let out a deep sigh.

I stopped Jessica and decided to listen to the details about that fancy new update facility.

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

Even though the name itself sounded complicated, I silently nodded.

“This facility itself doesn’t actually affect the base at all.”

“…?”

“However, as this facility exists and you upgrade it…”

“As you upgrade it…?”

“Commander, your ‘community’ features will gradually unlock one by one.”

“Community features?”

“Yes, the things you tried to ask about last time but couldn’t due to lack of permissions.”

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

—————————————-

<Base Upgrade Facility Possible List>

<Shipyard>(300)

<Resource Warehouse>(100)

<Research Facility>(500)

<Multi-Dimensional Fixed Causality Generator>(500)

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

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'Hmm.'

After seeing the status window, I immediately asked Jessica to check how many resources we currently had.

"Combined with what we got from the pirate group's attack earlier... we currently have 720 minerals."

"Hmmmm... okay."

It was a really ambiguous amount.

Since we were planning to build one more patrol ship just in case of emergencies...

We practically only had 600 resources, so we could only build one thing.

"This is really annoying to think about."

"Hang in there, Commander...!"

I felt my head getting tangled up due to the sudden lump of worry in front of me.

What should I choose? The agony of choice made for a painful time...

But that pain was short-lived.

Thinking about it, when such choice paralysis hits, sometimes relying on collective wisdom is the best solution.

So, I opened the chat window and threw out a question to seek advice.

-[Heeey, newbie here, dunno what building to upgrade first.]

And as always, some folks who seemed to have too much time on their hands quickly replied.

-[Definitely activate the community feature]
-[Community feature is a must]
-[Can't say much 'cause it's auto-censored in chat, but it's really necessary]
-[Without it, you'll be treated like a country bumpkin]
-[Nah, wrong]
-[You're worse than a noob, more like a kid.]

The nonsense that followed wasn't worth paying attention to.

After compiling the most reasonable opinions...

"It seems activating the community feature is the most popular."

As expected, I thought, and immediately manipulated the status window in front of me.

----------------------------------------

—————————————-

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

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

“Let’s upgrade the communication system first.”

“…Yes, Commander!”

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

“Yep!”