Chapter 10

Episode 10. Community Open!

Since the time I spent talking with Jessica was in the evening, I decided to hit the sack right after pressing the construction button.

And the next morning.

<Dimensional Signal Collection Communication Amplification System Construction Complete>

“Ooooh.”

Receiving the refreshing construction completion message instead of my usual morning alarm, I immediately jumped out of bed and headed to the central command center of the base.

Glancing at Jessica’s empty seat, as if she had pulled an all-nighter, I plopped down into my dedicated commander’s seat.

I opened the status window… no, not that. I decided to look for the newly added menu inside.

And it didn’t take long to find the new menu.

<<<Enter Community>>>

A simple, clean menu stood out starkly in the barren UI of the status window, exuding an intense presence.

Drawn by that presence, I immediately pressed the “Enter Community” button.

In front of my eyes appeared a status window slightly larger than the monitor I used in my past life (?).

And inside that status window… was the raw, unfiltered image of a “community” I often saw in my past life.

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―Pirate bastards suck, lolololololololol (13)

―Today is a fun time for resource gathering. (1566)

―How do you even make a ship? (3)

―Newbies who just joined, read this post before you leave (8)

―F*** (3)

―dksltlqkf gksrmfdl dks cuwu (54)

―Please save me, everyone

―My address is here, I’m getting wrecked by real pirates

―Only those with S-grade or above, gather here (78)

―Resource Zones are so trash, seriously. (10)

—————————————-

‘I wondered what the community structure was like, but thankfully it’s a familiar format.’

Seeing the overly familiar structure, reminiscent of the community I often used in my past life (?), I couldn’t help but smile.

I decided to skim through a few things, of course, adhering to the “Daknunsam” rule (Shut up and lurk for three days) that exists in every community.

Unlike the chat window, I resolved not to say anything and just observe.

With that in mind, I decided to check the content starting from the top post.

—————————————-

Title: Pirate bastards suck, lolololololololol

Author: VelvetSilk

These bastards keep showing up at my base for impromptu performances, dammit.

What the hell is wrong? A pirate group with over 10 patrol ships has attacked three times in a week, is this for real?

—————————————-

Witnessing the utterly devastating content of the post, I couldn’t help but feel a solemn mood.

‘I’ve only been attacked twice in a week, and combined, it’s less than 10 ships.’

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one thinking this.

The comments on the post were mostly filled with sympathy for the author.

˪Is this for real?

˪Three times in a week lolololololololol

˪At this point, aren’t you just one with the pirates?

˪You might as well be called an honorary pirate.

˪Is there a large pirate habitat nearby or something?

Of course, as is the way of the world, if you look closely at the content of someone complaining about being harassed by pirates, the main story isn’t about being harassed by pirates.

It’s more like, “I keep getting invaded by pirates with over 10 ships, but I’m actually strong enough to wipe them all out!”

Realizing this, some comments seemed to catch on that the author was subtly bragging.

˪This guy is lowkey just flexing, huh?

˪Go die.

˪Yeah, we get it, your base is awesome, so stop showing off.

Seeing the typical hostile community reactions, I nodded and decided to check out the next post.

It had an insane number of comments, so I clicked on it out of curiosity…

—————————————-

Title: Today is a fun time for resource gathering.

Author: PureChild

[Content Blocked]

—————————————-

‘Huh.’

I have no idea what’s going on, but I can’t check the content at all.

Seeing that even the comments are completely blocked, I felt a question mark slowly rising above my head.

If the author got blocked or something, they could just say the user is blocked and restrict access to the post itself. That would be it.

Why aren’t they doing that and only blocking the content and comments?

“Man, this structure is hard to understand.”

I tilted my head in confusion at this strange “community” structure and continued my exploration.

==========

And just like that, 30 minutes had passed since I started exploring.

“Oh, Commander, you’re already up?”

“Yeah, Jessica, you’re up too?”

“Yep! Oh, would you like some coffee?”

“Hmm, sure.”

I received a cup of strong Americano along with some snacks from Jessica, who appeared while brushing her messy hair.

After munching on the crispy snacks and sipping the Americano, I decided to wrap up my exploration of this “community.”

“No need to look further.”

“Oh, uh, did you not like the snacks or coffee?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant the community.”

After 30 minutes of non-stop exploring, I was able to draw a conclusion about the state of this “community.”

“Is there something wrong?”

“Not exactly wrong, but it’s completely different from what I expected.”

As I said that, I pointed to the date of the very first post in the gallery section of the “community,” addressing Jessica.

“All the users, including me, who got dragged into this game weren’t pulled in at the exact same time.”

“Is that so?”

“But even if we’re being generous, the difference in the so-called ‘influx’ dates is at most a week.”

At my words, Jessica tilted her head, looking puzzled.

“A week is quite a lot, isn’t it? If we take the middle point, a week would mean almost a two-week difference.”

“No, I mean the time difference between the last person to join and the first person to join is only about that much.”

“…Ohhh.”

Seeing Jessica’s confused reaction, I nodded and continued.

“Well, it’s not like there wasn’t any useful information. Now that everyone has adapted, they don’t talk much and just use the community to vent their emotions…”

“I see.”

“But in the beginning, there were traces of people seriously pursuing survival and sharing all sorts of information.”

And only after seeing those “information-sharing” scenes did I understand why the system gave users only a very limited chat feature from the start.

It was to prevent users unfamiliar with communities from being instantly left behind due to cliques and information shared from the very beginning.

The developers must have put some thought into it.

And, by the way, after wrapping myself in all sorts of advice and gaining a bunch of coincidental (?) opportunities from the start.

Easily dealing with pirates and aiming for a late-game comeback didn’t seem to be the way the developers intended.

Anyway, thinking there was nothing more to see, I folded the “community” window floating in front of me and pushed it to the corner of my vision.

Then, I started thinking about what we should do next.

Of course, by “thinking,” I mean I had already sorted most of it out in my head.

“Jessica, how many resources do we have left?”

“Well, thanks to the Resource Mining Ship that just came and went, the total minerals just surpassed 500.”

Hearing Jessica’s words, I closed my eyes for a moment to gather my thoughts.

Then, I opened my eyes and spoke about what we should do next.

“Then, the next construction… we should start with the system recovery, right? The gacha first.”

“You mean the Causality Adjustment Device? Got it!”