Chapter 18

Episode 18. Prep Prep Prep Prep! (2)

—

– [Pirate Empress?]

– [Does any newbie know about that?]

Of course, it’s a given, but the veterans tend to have a hard time holding back their frustration when they see newbies trying to learn.

– [Hey kid, come sit here.]

– [We’re about to tell you some absolutely legendary stories.]

As soon as that nameless newbie asked the question, the veterans swarmed in like they’d been waiting for this moment, eagerly reliving their own memories.

– [Ah! Pirate Empress! A name that always brings back memories.]

– [She’s our heart.]

– [Yeah, she’s our heart alright.]

– [She’s the one who slaughtered all the clueless newbies back then.]

– [The Empress of Refunds;;]

– [The Empress of Our Hearts, woo!]

But the way they were reminiscing, given the nature of the SF game genre, seemed to accelerate the aging process of the users. Instead of the usual veteran-newbie dynamic, it felt more like a bunch of old folks rambling in a nursing home.

– [Ugh, these old-timers;;]

– [Grandpas, stop talking nonsense and get back to work.]

– [You little newbie brats, how dare you!]

– [I asked for an explanation, and all I’m getting is heart stories.]

It was a bit sad to see the other newbies (?) cringing at this.

Of course, aside from those dementia-ridden grandpas, most of the veterans gave perfectly reasonable answers.

– [The Pirate Empress is the final boss of a large-scale event chain that’s part of the current limited-time event.]

– [In the event story, you can recruit her early on, or beat her up and recruit her later.]

– [Oh?] (Questioner)

– [To be precise, if you don’t recruit her early through luck, she’ll come back in one of three ways later.]

– [How does she come back?] (Questioner)

– [1. As a pirate admiral friendly to the Commander, bringing her fleet along.]

– [2. As a pirate admiral who sends her fleet or subordinate pirates as mercenary support.]

– [3. Or she becomes someone who genuinely tries to plunder us. One of the three, lol.]

Listening to this, I felt the buried memories in me resurfacing.

Of course, whether I was thinking about it or not, the chat continued.

– [But then, isn’t that just a multi-ending type of enemy? Why did she become the face of the refund runs?] (Questioner)

– [Ah, you don’t know?]

– [Is that so…]

– [I see…]

– [So that’s how it is…]

– [That’s…]

– [You don’t need to know.]

– [What the hell?] (Questioner)

In the midst of this, it seemed like the veterans were starting their usual routine of teasing the newbie.

– [These damn jokesters, can’t stop messing with the newbies.]

– [LOLOLOLOLOLOL]

– [Now’s not the time.]

Unfortunately, the ones who had been answering earlier quickly shut them down.

The jokesters’ antics were crushed, and the explainers’ time resumed.

– [To continue the explanation, before the Pirate Uprising event, this game was more of a resource management game, even though it was real-time.]

– [For real, even though time has been shortened now, back then, it took hours just to build one Patrol Ship.]

– [Plus, the idea of players controlling characters was practically non-existent back then.]

– [Really?] (Questioner)

– [Yeah, back then, character control or action scenes were just treated as cutscenes by most players.]

– [To be precise, it was a time when even melee characters were treated like trash.]

– [People just said, “Why bother? Just nuke them from a distance,” so the meta was all about long-range annihilation.]

– [Oh, that’s what I’m doing right now.] (Questioner)

– [But the Pirate Empress counters that meta head-on.]

– [Oh.] (Questioner)

– [LOLOLOLOLOLOL]

– [LOLOLOL Newbie reality check ON.]

Realizing the harsh reality, the newbie questioner desperately tried to turn things around with a question.

– [But you said there’s a 66% chance she’ll be on our side, right?] (Questioner)

– [No, if you don’t recruit her early, two out of the three outcomes are her being on our side. It’s not about probability, dude.]

– [To be blunt, there’s a 90% chance she’ll come to destroy our base, LOLOLOL.]

– [Oh, crap.] (Questioner)

As if to crush any hope, the veterans continued their explanation, shattering the newbie’s morale.

– [First, we need to explain why the Pirate Empress counters that meta.]

– [It’s because of the phase progression when she invades, which makes melee characters absolutely necessary.]

– [???] (Questioner)

– [First, her flagship—I don’t know how it is now, but back then…]

During the event, they brought in a cruiser and used reverse damage tactics against the enemy.

– [But here’s the important part: if we don’t set up reverse damage angles with SSS-Class Superhumans or ships, or if we don’t secure firepower superiority…]

– [Then the Pirate Empress will dive into our ships and hijack them one by one, lol.]

– [Plus, the Pirate Empress herself is like an SS-tier close-combat character on our side, and her AI is so well-programmed that if we just rely on our characters’ AI and push carelessly, we’ll get wiped out.]

– [She’s not called the Empress of Refunds for nothing, y’know.]

– [We could stop her if we had close-combat superhumans on our ships, but there’s another problem.]

– [Another problem?] (Questioner)

– [Yeah.]

– [When the Pirate Empress dives, she hijacks ships, right?]

– [The setting is that she uses the hijacked ships, and she brings her Imperial Guard and assault troops with her.]

– [WTF?] (Questioner)

– [Wait, so we have to face a diving force with just superhumans and empty ships, no soldiers or anything?]

The veterans’ explanation caused not only the shocked questioner but also other newbies to start panicking.

– [Yeah.]

– [How the hell are we supposed to stop that?]

– [There’s a reason this game is doomed.]

– [The farming level is insane.]

Of course, the pure anger of those newbies was nothing more than a spicy seasoning to the excitement of the veterans who were just starting to straighten their spines.

– [Of course, since it’s a game, there’s a way to beat it.]

– [?] (Questioner)

– [The Pirate Empress’s troops are only brought to hijack and control ships, so her troops decrease with each hijack.]

– [But the decrease is a fixed value regardless of ship size, so you can throw in a few patrol ships at the start and keep your main ships in the back.]

– [If you use our superhumans to chip away at her troops and Imperial Guard, there might come a time when the Pirate Empress is diving alone.]

– [Then we gather all our superhumans and focus-fire her to take her down.]

– [Oh.] (Questioner)

– [There’s hope after all, huh?]

The veterans’ answers seemed to spark a glimmer of hope in the newbies’ eyes.

Of course, if they only gave hope, the newbies might do something stupid.

So the veterans started giving an additional warning.

– [Oh, but here’s the important part: the Pirate Empress’s diving strategy is to eat away at the fleet from the outside.]

– [So?]

– [What does that matter?]

– [So if you push your main ships to the front for a fleet battle, the Pirate Empress will hijack your main ships.]

– [···]

– [During the actual event, there was this guy who bragged about getting an S-tier battleship from the gacha, but as soon as the event started, the Pirate Empress hijacked his battleship and he lost his mind, lol.]

– [WTF.]

Listening to the veterans’ past stories, the newbies started to show signs of their mental state breaking.

– [Wait, how are battleships and cruisers already appearing?]

– [The event only gives one destroyer as a reward, so why is the difficulty so insane?]

And then, some people came to patch up their shattered mental states.

– [Wait, I think you guys are misunderstanding something.]

– [What the veterans are talking about is the final part of the event chain that’s currently ongoing.]

– [???] (Questioner)

– [What does that mean?]

– [If you follow the current timeline, this is a story that happens at least a month to half a year later.]

– [???]

– [It’s a story about users fighting pirates, leveling up superhumans, and building up their fleets.]

It wasn’t a good cop, bad cop strategy, but a veteran who had been talking nonsense suddenly fixed the shaken mental states of the newbies.

I couldn’t help but feel a hollow laugh rising within me.

– [Oh, so that’s what it is?] (Questioner)

– [No need to be scared, bro.]

– [LOL, we’re screwed, let’s just build an invincible fleet and push through.]

Seeing our newbies regain their energy, I also decided to firm up my resolve.

‘First, I need to focus on development like crazy.’