Chapter 157

Posted by Kuze, ? Views, Released on January 2, 2025

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Chapter 157. Things don’t always go smoothly in life. (2)

As soon as Jessica finished speaking, her bunny ears and bunny chest bouncing as she ran towards me, a message about the incident popped up in front of my eyes, briefly summarizing the situation.

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<Event>

<Unexpected Accident>

<Time remaining until the defensive pirate fleet arrives: 7 days, 1 hour, 53 minutes, 47 seconds>

—————————————-

‘Well, isn’t this just peachy?’

The fleet that was supposed to come and defend my base got wrecked out of nowhere by another user’s clan. From my perspective, this was the most ridiculous stroke of bad luck ever…

Fortunately, thanks to the super-competent Marian’s quick response, additional reinforcements are on their way, which is a small silver lining.

…Of course, the fact that “quickly” means over a week later than originally planned is still a huge bummer.

But hey, sometimes you just have to be grateful for what you have, so I decided to be satisfied with the fact that “at least they’re coming!”

The problem, however, is that this has completely messed up our plans.

As I mentioned earlier, my shipyards are currently busy dismantling small ships to free up points. This process is almost complete, but…

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Fleet Status

Total Points: 280.5/550 Points

Aircraft Carrier: 1 ship, 70 points each = 70 points

Cruiser Battleship: 1 ship, 30 points each = 30 points

Heavy Cruiser: 7 ships, 10 points each = 70 points

Light Cruiser: 3 ships, 6 points each = 18 points

Destroyer: 15 ships, 3 points each = 45 points

Escort Ship: 2 ships, 1.5 points each = 3 points

Patrol Ship: 7 ships, 1 point each = 7 points

Resource Mining Ship: 25 ships, 1.5 points each = 37.5 points

—————————————-

If we exclude the 10 “resource transport destroyers” optimized for resource transport (with all but one laser turret replaced by cargo holds), as well as the 2 heavily damaged heavy cruisers and 2 escort ships that are about to be scrapped…

“Commander, don’t you think our remaining combat strength is too low?”

“Hmm.”

“Excluding the one Kraken-Class and one Leon-Class (a standard cruiser battleship), our main forces are only 5 heavy cruisers including the Overseer, one Kanhel-Class, and 2 light cruisers modified for anti-aircraft purposes.”

“That’s true.”

“Not to mention, if we exclude the ‘delivery’ destroyers—your term for the resource transport destroyers—our small ships are just 5 Azkran-Class destroyers and 5 standard patrol ships.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Honestly, the fact that we only have 20 ships in total, from carriers to patrol ships, seems extremely risky to me.”

Once upon a time, our fleet had over 150 ships. Now it’s less than one-seventh of that. From Jessica’s perspective, it’s understandable that she’d think we’ve cut back too much.

Still, I didn’t feel any particular sense of crisis.

“Why worry? We’ve hired 12 mercenary groups this time around.”

“The Commander is right, Jessica.”

“Ah, Belial.”

As Belial, the foremost expert in fleet command at our base, pointed out, we have a whopping 12 mercenary groups working for us…

Because the base and the surrounding airspace were being guarded and the role of the subordinate squadrons was being handled very well.

Of course, relying solely on words can naturally lack credibility.

So, I decided to show Jessica the current status of the mercenary groups we’ve hired, including the newly hired ones.

“Here you go, Jessica, it’s the Nightglow Mercenaries.”

“…Ah, yes.”

—————————————-

<Destroyers: 22>

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Even though they’re gobbling up resources like crazy, just by the numbers, we have a whopping 135 ships.

As Jessica looked at the mercenary group employment status I showed her, she let out a sigh of relief and tried to put on a positive face.

“Hmm, I see. But, Commander.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Is there a reason you’re keeping 5 regular patrol ships?”

“That’s a great question.”

And now that a more substantial question came up, I gave a very simple answer.

“Well, you can’t just deploy cruisers or mercenaries for every little speedboat or small pirate group that pops up, right?”

“Ah, I see.”

“Those 5 ships are organized into one squadron, and they periodically patrol here, the forward base, and the resource zones to fend off unaffiliated pirates or wild monsters.”

“That’s a brilliant idea, Commander.”

But no matter how much I prepared contingency plans like this.

The basic way the enemy here deals with us is…

“Well, since Leonard=Pirate handles all the defense, we just throw all our forces into offense!”

With the thousands of ships from the defense fleet that were always on standby near the base now gone…

Now, if we don’t want to get raided, we need to keep at least 3-4 mercenary groups stationed at the base.

I just kept hoping and praying that no one would attack us in the week until our base defense fleet returns, given my infamous reputation (?) in the gallery.

==========

But after falling asleep with those thoughts and waking up the next day.

Exactly 3 hours after I sent out my small, precious 5 regular patrol ships for their usual patrol.

“…Huh?”

“Jessica, didn’t I say that hearing ominous sounds in the morning ruins the whole day’s luck?”

“Commander, that luck’s already gone, so how about you listen to the report first?”

Even though I scolded Jessica for her ominous muttering.

Seeing Jessica respond so seriously to my joke.

I straightened up from slouching in the command seat, splashed some water on my face, and calmly opened my mouth.

“Sigh… What’s going on?”

“First, don’t be shocked, Commander.”

In situations like this, drawing things out usually means something truly terrible and shocking is about to happen.