Chapter 209

Chapter 209. Nice Boat. (4)

What is a battleship equipped with a strategic missile platform?

To put it bluntly, by our standards, it’s what we call an “Arsenal Ship,” a missile-spewing vessel.

To be precise, it’s the battleship version of such a ship.

Anyway, to summarize, the appearance of the “Hreðsvelgr,” an Arsenal Ship ver. battleship, brought me immense joy, albeit briefly.

As my mind, soaked in chaos and euphoria, gradually stabilized, I began to notice the structure of the newly appeared Hreðsvelgr.

But when I actually looked at it… how should I put it?

“Hmm… that looks…”

“Like a space oil tanker.”

“…Shut it!!”

Unfortunately, Jessica beat me to it, and I ended up blurting out a retort.

Sadly, the Hreðsvelgr’s exterior did give off a strong oil tanker vibe.

“If you’re going to give it such a cool name and class, at least make the design cool too. What is this?”

Its lumpy, potato-like appearance was enough to drain anyone’s energy just by looking at it.

So, not only Jessica and I, but also Belial, Pashtra, and Ignis, who came to see the new ship, all unanimously agreed that the ship’s design was terrible.

“Quite… um, an original design.”

“It looks like an eggshell.”

“Reminds me of the capsules we used during training with Marian♡”

But unlike us, Smeragi, who had apparently seen a thing or two beside the former commander, seemed to have a different perspective.

As if her earlier excitement was just for show, she examined the ship with a serious expression and eventually nodded.

“Commander, there’s no need to worry about the exterior.”

“Huh?”

“That’s a cover applied to prevent the ship from being damaged by spatial erosion during the process of dimensional causality fixation to arrive here.”

“…Ah, I see.”

Hearing that, I finally remembered a setting from over four years ago.

“Oh right, there was that setting.”

“Huh?”

While superhumans are only about the size of a person, so the probability of such issues is almost nonexistent, larger ships like cruisers and above are so massive that during dimensional travel through causality fixation, they can be deformed or destroyed by a mysterious phenomenon called “spatial erosion.” Hence, they come wrapped in such protective gear.

Of course, as for what “spatial erosion” actually is, the developers unfortunately turned it into a MacGuffin, so… no one really knows what happens.

Honestly, from a meta perspective, it was just a homage to the once-popular capsule gacha, so… even I, who had flipped through the setting books, only skimmed over it as a background detail.

So, it’s only natural that I’m remembering it now.

Of course, Jessica couldn’t possibly know about my realization.

“Commander, what does that mean?”

“Hmm, guess you don’t know…”

I decided to show Jessica the wiki tab containing the content I had just been pondering.

“Here, take a look at this.”

“…Ah, I see.”

==========

Anyway, despite that minor commotion, the confusion has now completely settled.

After removing the gacha capsule… no, the protective gear, I couldn’t help but marvel at the true appearance of the “Hreðsvelgr.”

Not only was the ship massive, but its overall shape was like a square “airship” with structures attached all over, top and bottom.

Its form and armaments embodied the identity of an “Arsenal Ship” in a truly masculine way.

Right off the bat, its armament composition screamed, “I am an Arsenal Ship!”

Despite being a “battleship,” it only had three cannons.

And those were low-output, high-speed rapid-fire particle beam cannons, effective only against destroyers and smaller ships.

The rest of its armaments were entirely filled with loooooong-range missiles and torpedoes.

In fact, what we call the “deck” was almost entirely covered in VLS systems.

Additionally, on both sides of the hull were large, beautiful launch tubes, presumably part of the “strategic missile platform” attached to the ship class.

And as if to show off to me, the commander, the open launch tube entrances revealed the size…

It’s showing off a massive ‘missile’ head as big as a light cruiser.

‘Wow.’

Although it’s a bit ambiguous to call it a ‘giant ship with giant guns,’ I could still feel a deep sense of satisfaction realizing that it’s at least a manly, firepower-packed ship.

Of course, apart from that, it’s already been revealed multiple times that this game doesn’t necessarily make appearance and performance proportional.

Since the ship called Hreðsvelgr wasn’t around during the time I used to play.

I immediately clicked on the wiki tab in the gallery to gather information about Hreðsvelgr.

—————————————-

Title: SSS-Class Arsenal Ship ‘Hreðsvelgr’ Review

Author: Wiki Officer mk-25

Content: [Concept Art of ‘Hreðsvelgr’-Class Strategic Missile Platform Equipped Battleship]

One of the ultimate kings of mindless missile and torpedo spam.

It has the firepower projection capability of 5~6 regular battleships or cruiser battleships combined.

To be precise, it’s a ship that allows individual users to perform mindless missile and torpedo spam with a single ship.

There’s something even more insane than this in terms of missile spam, but it’s so ridiculously hard to obtain through clan-level gacha and crafting that it’s not even worth mentioning.

Anyway, so how’s its performance?

First off, its firepower is ridiculously strong and its range is long, but its tracking radar is kinda trash, so its accuracy sucks.

Before I got reincarnated here, I asked a veteran to let me try playing with it.

Without any buffs, its accuracy is trash, and its radar detection range is so bad that it just gets pummeled by battleships or cruiser battleships of the same class.

Even if you put a superhuman inside to buff accuracy and radar range, and deploy a superhuman nearby for fleet support, the ship itself is still trash.

But why is it so strong and treated as SSS-Class?

To use this thing properly, you absolutely need reconnaissance forces and radar linkage to cover its radar range.

If you don’t know this and just charge in alone, you’ll end up looking like a disabled mess.

But if you have aircraft or other ships light up the vision for you?

Then from that point on, it just mindlessly spams missiles from out of range and beats the crap out of enemies unilaterally.

Anyway, so when operating this, assuming you have support ships and reconnaissance forces ready, here are the pros and cons:

Pros:

1. Due to the nature of missiles and torpedoes, it forces unilateral damage on enemies from extreme range with a kiting meta.

˪Especially in small-scale fleet battles, the limited interception capabilities of each ship make it physically impossible to block.

2. Aside from the fixed ‘strategic missile platform,’ the rest of the armaments can be freely customized by the user.

˪You can load micro-missiles with cluster warheads to spam even more missiles and make them impossible to intercept, or go all-in with heavy torpedoes to turn it into a spear of death.

3. The strategic missile platform is ridiculously strong.

˪One shot from it can heavily damage large armored carriers or battleships.

˪It’s one of the few spears of death that allows Dreadnought-Class or lower ships to compete with super Dreadnoughts or higher.

Cons:

1. Its durability is trash, it has no defense whatsoever.

˪Just look at how it’s designed, you’ll know. If it gets hit wrong, it’s fireworks time.

2. The kiting meta doesn’t work against battleships with intact main guns.

˪If you try, you’ll get hit by battleship main guns that are way longer-ranged, stronger, and faster than regular missiles or torpedoes, and you’ll be left groggy.

3. If you let enemies get close, even small ships can take you down.

˪In close combat, its armaments are all either missiles, torpedoes, or just three particle beam rapid-fire cannons for show.

˪If you get caught, you’re dead, period.

Comments:

-[Holy crap]

-[Content is solid]

-[So what’s the conclusion?]

˪[It’s a glass cannon, no, a glass missile launcher with no durability] (Author)

—————————————-

After reading that long and detailed review, I went back into the gallery and looked out the window.

I leisurely watched a Hreðsvelgr-Class ship docking at the port and couldn’t help but shake my head.

‘Why don’t we have any durable ships, man.’