Chapter 329

Chapter 329. The ‘Real’ Event. (1)

After a bug that made only the victims sad and everyone else happy disappeared…

“By the way, Commander, about the fleet formation you set up earlier… Now that I look at it, you only have 100 Fleet Points. Did you do that on purpose?”

“…No, I miscalculated. I thought it was 200 points, but it was only 100.”

Realizing that we almost blew our first victory due to a small mistake, we were busy revising the event fleet formation.

—————————————–

<Event Fleet Formation Status>

<Aetheric Submarine: 1 ship = 50 points>

<Cruiser Battleship: 3 ships = 90 points>

<Light Cruiser: 3 ships = 18 points>

<Destroyer: 12 ships = 36 points>

<Patrol Ship: 8 ships = 8 points>

<Total Points: 200>

—————————————–

‘Yeah, this is it.’

This could be considered a well-rounded fleet formation.

While the Cruiser Battleships zip around, the 8 Patrol Ships would throw themselves in front of the enemy’s small ships to block them.

The Light Cruisers and Destroyers, formed in a 1:4 ratio, would scout around in small groups, and if they found the enemy, they’d swarm like wolves to tear them apart.

Or, our Nerañzara could go into stealth mode, and when it spots the enemy’s main fleet, it could launch a space torpedo to neatly take out their propulsion systems.

According to the event notice, the enemy fleet, without a Resource Mining Ship = Repair Ship, would be left flailing.

Meanwhile, the scattered Destroyer squadrons and Cruiser Battleships would rush in, nibbling away at the enemy’s defenses.

And when the chaos breaks out?

Nerañzara would slip in and, instead of space torpedoes, unleash a barrage of heavy torpedoes at close range, blowing everything up.

‘Mmm, tasty.’

The enemy would probably be like, “What the hell is hitting me?” thinking they’re just getting randomly hit in the chaos.

Or they’d be like, “Wait, there should be a 50-point fleet here, but I don’t see it. What the hell?” and end up getting tricked while trying to counter a fleet that doesn’t even exist.

Anyway, after roughly planning the strategy like that…

The detailed plan would have to wait until we entered the event map and saw the enemy’s fleet formation…

“Jessica, while I go fight, can you manage the base?”

“Of course, leave it to me.”

Having sorted out my thoughts, I entrusted the base to Jessica and immediately clicked to join the second round of the event.

==========

And the map for the second round, well…

‘It’s full of shipwrecks.’

Instead of the usual ‘terrain’ like planets or nebulae that are hard or impossible to destroy…

The map was mostly filled with ‘wreckage’ that could easily be destroyed by fleet firepower, aptly named the ‘Graveyard of Shipwrecks.’

And in this terrain, Belial, the superhuman I brought for the second round, looked around, nodded, and reported to me.

“Commander, deploying the squadrons quickly as planned might be risky in this terrain.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, most of the wreckage is so fragile that even a Destroyer’s main guns can easily destroy it. If we’re not careful, the enemy fleet could ambush us before we can even respond.”

“Hmm.”

That made sense.

Even in the actual game, ‘wreckage terrain’ only provides stealth effects and lowers the enemy’s accuracy.

It doesn’t block enemy fleet firepower.

“So, what do you think? I was planning to tweak the original plan a bit.”

But when I asked that, Belial paused for a moment, looking like she was thinking, ‘I’ll answer since you asked, but I really don’t like this.’

Then, as calmly as possible, she started explaining.

“Given the special circumstances, there’s no chance the enemy is using a large number of aircraft, right?”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“So, instead of assigning the Patrol Ships to escort the Cruiser Battleships, we should spread them out to scout the enemy fleet. Then, using Nerañzara’s stealth, we can gradually whittle down their strength.”

“So our fleet waits until the enemy’s strength is reduced, then we all attack at once?”

“Exactly.”

Belial’s strategy was essentially to use reconnaissance to locate the enemy fleet.

Then, using Nerañzara’s ‘Aetheric Submarine’ ability, avoid direct confrontation and engage in one-sided damage trades.

Once Nerañzara exhausts all its firepower, the entire fleet would attack the weakened enemy fleet to finish them off.

‘That’s similar to what I was thinking.’

So I thought it was pretty good.

I was just sitting there, you know.

Then, Belial shook her head like crazy, saying there was a problem.

“But Commander, there’s one downside to this operation.”

“Huh?”

“As far as I know, in this area, aside from our fleet and the other Commander’s fleet, there’s supposedly another fleet…”

“Oh, right, that.”

Hearing Belial’s words, I realized why she looked so hesitant when proposing that strategy.

Even now, she has this uneasy look on her face.

‘This strategy only works in a 1:1 situation, right?’

Unless it’s just the opponent and an NPC, but in a 1:1:1 situation with me, the opponent, and an NPC, trying to take out just one is pretty risky, don’t you think?

And when I showed that I understood, our Belial nodded.

“Hmm, then what should we do?”

After I threw out that innocent question, our Belial said:

“Keep the strategy as is, but if we spot any fleet, we’ll use Nerañzara’s full firepower to pin them down.”

“Okay.”

“Instead of directly attacking that fleet, we’ll use patrol ships and squadrons as bait to lure another fleet into the pinned-down one. How about that?”

“…Oh.”

At the suggestion of using a ‘divide and conquer’ tactic, I thought for a moment whether it would work.

‘…If it’s a user, the lure might not work, but if it’s an NPC, it’s different.’

“Alright, let’s go with that.”

“An excellent choice, Commander.”

“But I’ll decide when to strip the fleet’s mobility.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll check who the opponent is before launching the attack.”

At my words about checking if it’s a user or NPC before striking, Belial nodded in agreement.

==========

But as some German dude once said, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”

Our plan was to spot the user fleet, cripple them, then lure the NPC fleet into a mutual destruction using the divide and conquer tactic.

After that, we’d casually stroll in and pick up the spoils of victory…

But as soon as the real battle started, not long after, the first fleet we encountered turned out to be the NPC fleet.

At the same time, the enemy user’s fleet managed to spot our main force and the NPC fleet before our scouts could even detect them.

And then, well…

-BOOM!

-BANG! BANG!

-KABOOM! CRASH!

-“Fire all CIWS! Go in close!”

-“Enemy assault pods incoming!”

-“The enemy’s cruiser battleship is charging at us!”

“Ah, crap.”

The delicate ‘staring contest’ of the 1:1:1 situation went out the window.

Everyone just started brawling in close combat.

And here’s the kicker: since Nerañzara took up a quarter of my fleet points, in this kind of head-on brawl, our fleet was at a disadvantage compared to the other two.

Well, at least after the brawl started, Nerañzara fired all its missiles and torpedoes like crazy.

And thanks to Belial safely controlling the fleet and buffing from inside Nerañzara, we somehow managed to win…

—————————————-

<Battle Results of 'Clash of Squadrons' Round 2>

<Victory!>

<Sunk>

<2 Cruiser Battleships, 1 Heavy Cruiser, 5 Destroyers, 10 Escort Ships, 5 Patrol Ships>

<Assists>

<3 Cruiser Battleships, 5 Heavy Cruisers, 10 Destroyers, 4 Escort Ships, 12 Patrol Ships>

<Damage (Sunk)>

<2 Cruiser Battleships, 2 Light Cruisers, 8 Destroyers, 5 Patrol Ships>

—————————————-

‘Oh my god.’

The cost was losing two-thirds of our fleet, including 2 Cruiser Battleships. What a disaster.