Chapter 216

Chapter 216. Protect Each Other From Now On. (3)

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By the way, while chatting with users here and there, I spent time leisurely preparing for battle.

While diligently arranging the fleet, I suddenly had a thought.

“Oh, by the way, Marian?”

“What is it, Oppa?”

“What happens to the Pirate Alliance now that you’re here?”

At the time I had to come here, I was too busy to think about it…

But now that I think about it, uh, what should I even say?

According to Marian and other pirate admirals, the Pirate Alliance is always full of complainers.

They said that if Marian, the Pirate Empress, doesn’t regularly step in and crack down, it would collapse.

But now that Marian has come here, wouldn’t the Pirate Alliance just fall apart?

When I subtly brought up this thought, Marian gave me a blank, unreadable expression.

But that was only for a moment.

Soon, Marian flashed a bright smile and confidently opened her mouth, saying she understood my concern but there was no need to worry.

“Oppa! Thank you so much for worrying about me!”

“Uh…?”

“But it’s okay, this time there shouldn’t be any big problems.”

“…Why?”

Wondering why she was so confident, question marks floated above my head and Jessica’s beside me.

While maintaining her confident attitude, Marian explained why she is called the “Pirate Empress” in the setting.

“Because I’ve already legally purged all those whiny pests across the southern region!”

“Oh.”

“Since the southern region seemed like they were trying to deliberately throw away their troops, I just used them as meat shields under the pretext of blocking the Earth Federation’s main force.”

‘…So when they said the two factions and the giant clans were seriously clashing, it was just another WWE match, huh?’

Hearing a pirate talk about legality (?) felt oddly strange for a moment.

Hearing from Marian herself that the southern region was essentially WWE, I felt a mix of complex, subtle, and mysterious emotions.

And aside from that, I felt a chill seeing Marian confidently declare that she had purged internal dissatisfaction…

“You’re so reliable, Marian!”

“Hehe.”

“Commander, Marian really does handle things well.”

“Yeah, she does.”

After Jessica beside me immediately clung to Marian and gave me a look.

—————————————-

<Quest>

<Pet Her!>

<Content>

<Although she is called the Pirate Empress and praised as the iron-willed woman leading a massive Pirate Alliance.>

<Even so, she’s still at an age where she craves praise, so she’s subtly “bragging” about what she’s done to you, secretly wanting your compliments.>

<Objective>

<Praise Marian.>

—————————————-

Seeing the quest window pop up naturally.

I decided to give Marian some well-deserved head pats, vigorously ruffling her hair.

‘Prini-prini-rehu.’

==========

Anyway, while we were handling those trivial matters, no actual battles had taken place since we arrived here.

So, the users gathered here, having finished arranging their fleets, had nothing else to do.

They were either taking small shuttles to check out the Kraken or Hreðsvelgr I brought along.

Or taking selfies with the Kraken in the background, showing off their utterly mundane activities.

Of course, even I would want to take a selfie first if a big-freaking-huge monster the size of a small satellite was right in front of me…

‘Am I here to participate in an event, or did I just come to provide a spectacle for users to chat about?’

It was inevitable to feel a bit strange when I came here to participate in an event but ended up just being a spectacle.

After taking screenshots of some uniquely designed gacha ships brought by other users, I opened the chat window to ask a question.

—————————————-

-[Wow, the Kraken is disgustingly huge.]

-[Hey guys, aren’t we gonna fight?] (Me)

And as soon as my question popped up, other users quickly responded.

-[We want to fight too, but we have to wait.]

-[Seems like we have to wait until the event participation restriction period is over, no exceptions.]

-[Honestly, even though they say it’s random, I think users are assigned based on the time they joined at first.]

-[Oh.] (Me)

So, in other words, the current situation is basically just waiting for matchmaking, right?

And hearing those answers, a thought suddenly popped into my head: If I launch the aircraft now, couldn’t I preemptively attack the enemies?

But it’s not like those users hadn’t thought of that already.

-[Aren’t you launching the aircraft early?] (Me)

-[You must be new here, huh?]

-[Even if you try to launch the aircraft, the system blocks it because the battle hasn’t started yet.]

-[I brought two large aircraft carriers, but I’m just sitting here twiddling my thumbs.]

-[Kinda into the thumb-twiddling, though.]

-[?]

Something weird came up at the end, but anyway, the point is that there’s a system block in place.

‘Well, if you think about balance, that makes sense.’

Plus, after I asked a question, maybe because it felt like a veteran (?) top-ranked player was asking, the users started giving answers to questions I didn’t even ask.

-[Oh, and by the way, you can’t send out scout ships from this area either.]

-[You can only set up formations near this area or move around inside. Nothing else is possible.]

-[Oh, for real?] (Me)

-[Yeah.]

Well, at least I got all the info I needed.

I took my eyes off the chat and gave an order to Jessica, who was waiting beside me.

“Jessica.”

“Yes, Commander?”

“First, put our battleship fleet on standby. And what about Nerañzara?”

“Still submerged. According to the report, strangely, there’s no energy consumption.”

Huh, so the Nerañzara-class started off submerged. According to the wiki and in-game performance, it should’ve been forced to surface by now, but it’s still holding up.

I nodded, thinking that energy consumption would probably start once the battle began.

I gave orders to have the aircraft ready for launch at any moment and decided to lie down and rest until the battle started.

But just as I got up from the command seat with that thought…

<The participation restriction period for ‘Capital of the Ancient Empire’ has ended!>

<The event battle will begin shortly! Commanders, please prepare!>

<Time remaining until battle starts: 5 minutes 3 seconds>

‘Ugh.’

What terrible timing.

How does the battle start announcement pop up right when I’m about to take a break? It’s so annoying.

‘Has it already been two days since I got here?’

Time flies, huh? I shook my head and sat back down in the command seat to prepare for the battle.