Chapter 488

Chapter 488. Mad scientists aren’t omnipotent, you know.

But when our mad scientists received my plan, they were pretty negative about it.

After successfully separating the fused pet tentacles and mechanical arms, they made chairs out of them and sat in front of me. The two mad scientists said:

“So, you want us to retrofit the entire fleet’s main ships? Yeah, no way.”

“Y-you want us to do all that?”

“Why? Use the Kraken and other ships as canvases to showcase your brilliant craftsmanship!”

“It’s not craftsmanship, it’s insanity… Wait, did you say that on purpose?”

And when I responded with “Just do it,” the mad duo, Grigri and Nero Nero, said:

“I-it’s realistically impossible…”

“We spent days working overtime just to retrofit the Overseer, a single heavy cruiser. And you want us to do ships dozens of times larger?”

“Hmm.”

“Commander, do you know why I haven’t done any retrofitting since the Kraken first arrived?”

“Y-your main ships… are too big… we can’t handle it…”

In summary, they were saying, “Your ships are too damn big to retrofit!”

Of course, I thought that engineers, given enough time and resources, could solve anything. So, based on that belief, I tried to encourage them with a “You can do it!” attitude.

But even so, some things just can’t be done.

“We have plenty of time, and I’m giving you 100% resource support. What’s the problem?”

“We told you, it’s physically impossible.”

“C-Commander, what you want is either a full retrofit of all ships… or a powerful retrofit of some ships, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

To my short answer, the two mad scientists gave a somewhat reasonable response:

“Commander, except for the Habarovsk, all the major ships in our fleet are at least several times larger than battleships.”

“True.”

“Even the Ouroboros-class, which has the smallest retrofit area, would take at least a month to meet your requirements.”

“A-and once we start… we can’t stop midway…”

“Hmm.”

“But Commander, do you think the price bubble in that trading market will last that long?”

“Oh.”

Unlike their usual disinterest in anything outside their field (which is basically everything random), today Gryanarr pointed out the realistic issues I was worried about.

I nodded, acknowledging that their points were valid.

And at the same time…

“Then there’s no choice. But why are you going all out on retrofitting bases and outposts that are even larger than those ships?”

“Ah.”

“Ah.”

“Not long ago, all the beds in Bendalope’s and her mercenaries’ quarters turned into tentacle mimics, and they all ended up in the medical bay, right?”

“…”

“T-that was…”

“And you weirdly retrofitted the mechanical arms in the medical bay’s surgical devices, turning a male superhuman soldier injured during training into a woman.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“That was…”

As Jessica started digging into the reasons why they were “too busy” to do other things, our two mad scientists began trembling at the sight of Jessica’s demonic expression.

…Well, it wasn’t intentional, but somehow, through leading questions, the scientists’ mischief was exposed.

While Jessica, with veins popping on her forehead, was busy “educating” them…

‘Seriously, what should I do about this?’

It wasn’t a joke anymore. I was starting to feel sad because there was literally no way to make it work.

We were already maxing out the equipment to boost performance, so there was no point in mentioning that.

Superhuman buffs only applied to firepower and mobility, not defense.

And when it came to ship defense, there were surprisingly few superhumans who could provide such buffs.

I was starting to think that the only solution was to patiently wait for the damn price bubble in the trading market to burst.

And while I was thinking this…

—————————————–

[Tanhoizer Mercenary Network Official Chatroom]

[Notice: Payment for employment fees is ongoing. If you haven’t received yours, DM me (Icarus) separately.]

-[Hey boss, I didn’t get my payment.]

-[Me neither.]

-[You didn’t even read the notice, did you? Smh.]

-[Oh.]

-[Notice]

Read it properly!!]

-[Ugh, it’s so annoying]

-[Do you want the base to explode while you’re being annoying?]

-[Sorry]

-[Anyway, those who are lacking, check the notice and contact Icarus directly;;]

-[Okay]

—————————————–

—————————————–

[Chat request count: 115]

—————————————–

‘Ughhhh.’

Suddenly, 115, no, now 116 complaints(?) exploded in, demanding “Give us our hiring fees.”

My head prioritized dealing with the mercenary users who were about to rush in demanding their hiring fees over thinking about the tanking ship.

But before that…

‘I definitely set up auto-payment(?), so why are they saying they didn’t receive it?’

Despite setting up the resources to automatically drain, they’re saying they didn’t receive it, which left me puzzled.

Maybe that thought showed on my face.

Jessica, who looked like she had just come back from punching two mad scientists, her face glowing as if all her stress had vanished, tilted her head and asked me:

“What’s going on, Commander?”

“Well, other users are contacting me saying they didn’t receive the hiring fees for the mercenaries I hired.”

“Maybe it’s still in progress? I’ll check just in case.”

“Yeah, okay.”

And after a while.

Jessica, tapping away at the computer in the command center, said:

“Commander, we’re out of resources.”

“Huh?”

She dropped this shocking news directly into my eardrums without any filters.

I immediately denied reality and shook my head.

But denying reality doesn’t change the facts.

“Wait, didn’t we have over 20 million resources?”

“We did.”

“And now we don’t?”

“Both minerals and rare resources are barely over 30,000. We’re practically in the red.”

“Oh shit.”

‘This is insane.’

Accepting the reality of the resource crisis, it became urgent to come up with a countermeasure.

The only silver lining was…

“Well, the resources being transported by the Resource Mining Fleets and those about to be produced at the Forward Base will give us over 100,000 at once.”

“Really? How long do we have to wait?”

“5…”

“5 minutes? Not bad.”

“4…3…”

“Ah.”

The resources needed to pay the most delayed hiring fees would pop up in just a few seconds, so we could handle it.

Having successfully put out the immediate fire, I told the mercenary users via chat to wait a bit.

Unlike the ships with inflated prices…

I bought a large number of resource boxes, which were getting cheaper due to oversupply.

“Jessica, what’s the average hiring fee per mercenary user?”

“At least 20,000 resources in total. If we’re short, we can calculate in gold, but minerals are 100:1 and rare resources are 10:1.”

I hurriedly paid the remaining unpaid users, about 100 of them, to quell the proletarian revolution aimed at me.

But the price for handling things quickly and easily was…

—————————————-

[Trade and Auction Notice]

[To use this system, you need ‘Gold,’ a special currency.]

[It’s different from the rare mineral ‘Gold’ and can only be used here.]

[Commander’s remaining currency: 72,886 Gold]

—————————————-

“Ugh, my gold.”

“There’s nothing left.”

The 100,000 gold filled with dreams and hope had plummeted to the 70,000s in an instant, making it hard to hold back tears.