Chapter 482

Chapter 482. Just because the battle is over doesn’t mean the work is done. (1)

And it turns out Marian, who’s great at surprise attacks, isn’t our only savior.

<[“Oooh, looks like things are pretty lively! Commander Icarus!”]>

“Commander, Princess Luka’s hobby… I mean, her royal fleet has arrived.”

“Oh, Princess Luka.”

-“Now even the Monster Fleet is here.”

Did they go all the way to the monsters’ base during the event and stuff themselves with growth potions or something?

Now they have over 20 battleship-class ships alone.

Combined with other ships, the royal (hobby) fleet has grown to triple digits and warped back to Tanhoizer through the neural network.

Just as I was looking at this scene and thinking, “Hah, now I can finally stand up to those jokesters!”

—————————————–

[Global Announcement]

<<[The ‘Counterattack Factions’ event has ended!]>>

[Attention, Commanders!]

[As of this moment, the ‘Counterattack Factions’ event has concluded!]

[The ‘Faction Dispatch’ and ‘Mercenary’ systems, which were disabled due to the event, are now active!]

[All faction fleets will switch from offensive to non-offensive mode!]

—————————————–

Seeing the event end message pop up at just the right time, I naturally flashed a bright smile and immediately posted a victory declaration in the gallery.

—————————————–

Title: LMAOOOOOOOOOO

Author: Icarus

Content: [Screenshot of event end notice.jpg], [Highlighted paragraph about mercenaries being available.jpg]

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Screenshot showing total resources exceeding 20 million.jpg]

LOL

Comments:

-[LOL]

-[The mercenaries are saving the day]

-[Why do you have so many resources?]

-˪[Icarus has 7 bases, so even just the docking fees from other users bring in millions of resources a week]

-˪[He says he’s a solo player, but he’s basically the leader of a clan]

-[LMAOOOO]

—————————————–

And as soon as I posted something like, “I have so many resources, if you mess with me, I’ll just use mercenaries to deal with you!”

It didn’t take long for the jokesters who were lurking around the gallery or nearby to mysteriously disappear.

Of course, after seeing them act all smug, the public sentiment wasn’t exactly favorable toward those who fled as soon as I made that post.

—————————————–

Title: Real-time status of the jokesters.gif

Author: ㅇㅇ

Content: [GIF of ‘looting’ posts disappearing with each refresh.gif]

It’s been revealed that no user’s main ships were destroyed in the 2nd Tanhoizer Siege, they’re all just in repair status.

+

The event’s over, so Icarus has unlimited mercenaries ON.

+

Pissed-off Kingdom users are threatening to flood Icarus with resources and deploy millions of mercenary ships if anyone tries to loot.

The jokesters are scared and deleting their posts while running away.

[GIF of a toad throwing popcorn.gif]

Comments:

-[Disgusting looters!]

-[Don’t be scared, fight back!]

-˪[If they fight back, they’ll die LOL]

-˪[That’s why I’m telling them to fight back, it’s not my base anyway LOL]

-˪[Smart guy;;;]

-[As long as it’s not meeeeeee!]

—————————————–

I got to witness the truly desirable ending where the users who were trying to kill me and others ended up getting killed themselves.

==========

And by the time things in the gallery had settled down, I was already dealing with two new tasks.

First of all, what was the first one, you ask?

—————————————–

[Icarus-Rockstar Chat Room]

-[Icarus-nim]

-[Can we live in your territory?]

-[Not all of us, just some people who want to settle down here] (Rockstar)

-[Huh?] (Icarus)

—————————————–

Before the event, they were shouting, “Factions are trash♡ Let’s destroy them♡.”

But now, after getting their heads smashed in during the event, former Anti-Faction members are asking to live in my territory.

Of course, these Anti-Faction defectors…

The number of users alone is close to 30,000, but it’s not like all of them are going to enter my territory.

—————————————–

[Icarus-Rockstar Chat Room]

-[Looks like you’ve been through a lot, huh?](Icarus)

-[Yeah, so most of them decided to just go back to their faction territories and live peacefully.]

-[Or some are thinking, “Since we’re already here, might as well settle down here.”](Rockstar)

-[But how many are planning to come in?](Icarus)

-[Hmm, around 3,000?]

-[Not exact, though. Some seem to want to live as Central Zone users, not in your area.](Rockstar)

-[Ah, I see.](Icarus)

—————————————–

I nodded at Rockstar’s (former Anti-Faction user representative) evasive chat and then turned to Jessica to check how many docking points were left at the current bases.

The problem was, contrary to my rough estimate that there would still be around 400-500 docking points left…

“Docking points? There are less than 100 left in total.”

“…Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah, Spiralus has surprisingly few docking points for its base level.”

“Ugh.”

Not only were the docking points more scarce than expected…

“Also, Commander, did you know that your territory is practically at capacity right now?”

“What?”

“Even excluding those currently docking, there are 2,000 bases here. Plus, the Earth Federation Temporary Government has been established, so it’s pretty chaotic.”

“…Hmm.”

“Of course, if we include the three new bases we recently captured, it might be manageable… but if 3,000 new bases come in, it’ll be tough to handle.”

“Now that you mention it, that makes sense.”

I was only accepting users based on the maximum capacity that the base defense fleet and my fleet could handle.

If something like the Leviathan Fleet becoming useless happened again…

Or if we included Marian’s Pirate Fleet, which is only here temporarily and will have to leave soon, we couldn’t possibly accept users based on that strength…

“Alright, so what’s the maximum number we can take?”

“Even being generous, I’d say around 1,000 is the limit.”

“Got it.”

After organizing my thoughts…

—————————————–

[Icarus-Rockstar Chat Room]

-[Hey, I did the math]

-[I can only take a maximum of 1,000 people]

-[And there are hardly any docking points left](Icarus)

-[Oh, really? Bummer. I’ll pass that info along and make sure we send the exact number.]

-[So, up to 1,000. The rest will either go back or stay if they want.](Rockstar)

-[Yeah, okay.](Icarus)

—————————————–

I messaged Rockstar that I could only take a maximum of 1,000 users to avoid any potential conflicts.

Rockstar acknowledged my message.

Then, the next morning…

As the bright lights assaulted my vision and woke me up, I realized that exactly 1,013 users had requested to transfer (?) into my territory.

But at this point, I realized I had made a serious mistake.

—————————————–

[‘Holy Rom’ wants to enter the Commander’s territory.]

[Do you want to adjust your stance?]

[Current stance with this Commander: Hostile Neutral]

[Y/N]

—————————————–

In my mind, I had assumed that most of the users coming in would be those who had fought the Punishment Fleet with me before.

So, I thought there would be no need for the tedious “stance adjustment” grind like before.

The problem was, most of the users who had fought the Punishment Fleet had decided to return to their own territories after realizing the dangers of the factions.

The users who wanted to join me now were mostly those who had been watching the situation and decided to come late…

“Ughhhhh.”

“The Commander is being crushed under the weight of the calamity he brought upon himself.”

As Jessica succinctly commented, I let out a feeble scream, crushed under the “calamity I brought upon myself.”