Chapter 394

Episode 394. For real? It’s real!

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And thanks to Arcadia’s advice, I went all in.

Honestly, rounds 6 to 9 were, like, super smooth.

—————————————–

<Round 9 Cleared!>

<Battle Result: Victory>

<Enemy Fleet Annihilated>

<Proceed to the next round?>

<Y/N>

—————————————–

“Sweet as candy.”

“Yeah, we made the right call going all in.”

Though, in the process, we lost an average of 4 to 5 destroyers per round.

And patrol ships were popping like popcorn, about 10 each time, so it took a while to rebuild and level them up before deploying again…

“Commander.”

“Ah, Belial, how are the other ships?”

“Yes, thanks to the sacrifices of the small ships, the main fleet only has minor damage and will be repaired in a few hours.”

“Perfect.”

Thanks to the small ships acting as cannon fodder, the expensive main fleet didn’t get scratched.

I took a moment to silently honor the 100 small ships—no, the patriotic spirits—that had been sunk so far.

‘Thank you, small ships. Stay strong, even in the mountains.’

‘You bastards.’

Though, in the process, I thought I heard some ghostly curses.

But since ghosts can’t exist in an SF world, I brushed off the minor insults.

Finally, as the “long-awaited Round 10” approached, I made one last thorough defense preparation.

“Jessica, how long until the slowest small ship is ready?”

“The destroyer being built at Shipyard 5 has about an hour left.”

“Hmm… really?”

“And as you mentioned, once the destroyers are done, Belial will take them for basic leveling up to level 10.”

It was going to take some time to recover the small ship losses from Round 9 and complete the basic leveling.

So, during the downtime, I decided to take a short break.

And while I was at it, I opened the always-buzzing gallery to do some management as a moderator.

But while I was in the gallery, slicing through the usual weirdos posting creepy images.

I stumbled upon some peculiar posts…

Turns out, despite it being an event period.

Some idiots tried to force PVP and got royally screwed.

—————————————–

Title: Some idiots thought PVP would work during the event period

Author: Bahamut

Content: [A fleet surrounded by other fleets, physically unable to move.jpg]

Absolute legend, lol

No thoughts, head empty

Comments

-[What?]

-[They’re at it again with their inside jokes]

-[Trying PVP during an event?]

—————————————–

—————————————–

Title: For those who just joined the gallery, here’s the tea.txt

Author: ㅇㅇ

Content: [Image of a toad screaming “THINK”]

Some idiots tried to raid a clan’s main fleet while they were away for the event.

But they forgot that PVP is disabled during events, so the remaining fleet surrounded them “physically.”

Now they’re begging for mercy, and the clan has abandoned the event to capture and sink their entire fleet once the event ends.

If I’m wrong, I’m right, and you’re wrong. Bye.

Comments

-[What confidence made them charge in?]

-[Dumbasses lolololol]

-[The funniest part is that they charged in while the main fleet was gone, which shows they’re weaker than the clan.]

-[So the clan abandoned the event midway, and the winners came back to physically surround the fleet, and boom, it’s over.]

-[LMAO]

—————————————–

‘Wow.’

Of course, I had no idea what was going on between those two clans at the moment.

And digging deeper into it right now would be…

“Commander, the small ships are ready.”

“Ah, already?”

“Fast, huh.”

Now that it was time to participate in the event again.

‘Sigh, it’s a shame, but what can I do?’

I closed the gallery window, leaving my regrets behind.

I decided to head straight through the wormhole above the base and embark on the journey back to the event map.

==========

But the moment I entered the 10th round.

—————————————–

<10th Round Battle Commences>

<Opposing Fleet Undetectable>

—————————————–

‘What the hell is this, Status Window?’

Unlike the previous rounds, this time it didn’t tell me what the enemy fleet composition was.

Having gotten used to the ‘Fleet Composition Notifier’ from rounds 5 to 9, I felt a surge of irritation when it seemed like it was trying to mess with me.

Of course, in this game, you originally had to scout and figure out the enemy fleet composition yourself, whether you liked it or not.

I grumbled, thinking that I had one more ‘annoying task’ to deal with, and prepared to do some proper scouting for the first time in a while.

But just as I was about to launch reconnaissance planes from the Kraken and carriers that had emerged from the wormhole…

-Beep beep beep! Beep beep beep!

“Commander, we’ve detected a large-scale missile reaction ahead!”

“What?”

Suddenly, a massive barrage of missiles was pouring in from what was previously empty space.

-“All ships, prepare to intercept!”

-“Hreðsvelgr launching swarm missiles for interception, impact in 3…2…1…”

-KABOOM! BOOM! BANG!

Of course, we were already in combat mode before entering the wormhole.

And with Hreðsvelgr, an arsenal ship classified as a missile battleship, on our side, we could intercept those mysterious missile spam in no time.

But that was short-lived.

-“This is Habarovsk, we’ve detected enemy ships in stealth-cloaking mode all around.”

“What…?”

-“They’re all different sizes, ranging from battleships to patrol ships.”

“…Oh, damn it.”

After 9,980 rerolls, I finally got Habarovsk, and now that I knew what kind of fleet the enemy had, I couldn’t help but feel a stream of curses bubbling up.

“Sigh, of all things, it’s a bunch of stealth bastards.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

As always, since I was using player slang instead of the proper in-universe terms, Jessica didn’t understand.

I thought to myself that I should eventually give Jessica a translation(?) of in-universe terms and player slang, and calmly opened my mouth.

“Stealth battleships, stealth cruisers, stealth destroyers… basically, the entire fleet is using both stealth and cloaking. A damn stealth fleet.”

“Oh… that’s…”

Moreover, as Habarovsk’s analysis continued, I was able to figure out what kind of fleet the supposed 10th round boss was.

-“Reporting on the enemy fleet’s main ships.”

“Ooh.”

-“One stealth-type missile battleship confirmed, wait… the enemy battleship is launching a new attack.”

“…Attacking while reporting, these guys have no manners.”

Even though the report was interrupted due to the additional attacks, causing the situation to shift slightly, amidst the fireworks of Hreðsvelgr’s countless intercept missiles taking down the stealth battleship’s surprise missile attacks, I was able to get a very detailed report from Habarovsk on exactly what ships were in the enemy fleet.

The problem was that among those ships…

‘What the hell is that?’

I realized there were some very unusual ‘special ships’ that you wouldn’t normally see in a typical fleet battle.