Chapter 90

Chapter 90. Even if the world collapses, there’s still a place to live. (4)

It’s not like I made a stupid plan or anything.

To be precise, the plan I made was based on the score accumulation of a normal user.

But what’s happening right in front of my eyes is…

“I finished handling this. What’s next?”

“Ah, yes. Right now, we’re supposed to hunt a large wild monster and collect its sample…”

“Easy.”

“But… it’s a giant space centipede that’s tens of kilometers long. Isn’t it dangerous?”

“We’ll win.”

‘Declaring victory right after completing the quest!!’

…Thanks to the pirate “executives” Marian brought, who were exceptionally capable.

—————————————-

<Quest Completion Confirmed>

<Current Completed Quests: 164 + 3>

—————————————-

‘Whoaaaa…’

In just one day, not only were all the quests we had piled up cleared, but even the new ones we brought in were completely wiped out.

But that didn’t mean I was upset.

‘Ohohoho, nice.’

Instead of stressing over planning, it was much simpler to just overwhelm everything with sheer numbers.

And as a result of clearing such a massive number of quests like crazy…

—————————————-

<Ho’s Score: 100,543 points>

—————————————-

‘Kyaaaa… Boss!’

The guy who had been collecting 17,000 points over two weeks just added nearly 90,000 points in a single day. Why would I care about some plan I agonized over for just a day?

Instead, I should just enjoy the situation in front of me and let the dopamine flow.

<<“What on earth happened? Just a while ago, it was hard enough to handle the requests Her Majesty gave...”>>

“…There’s always a way.”

Of course, this sudden change had Oxianor, the envoy of the monster faction, sending out telepathic messages of confusion.

But all I could do was shrug.

After all, if I were to explain the situation to Oxianor in detail…

‘Well, we kinda made the Pirate Empress our subordinate (?) and now she’s whipping her lackeys to complete these requests like crazy.’

If I said that, how would Oxianor, a member of the “Monster Force,” take it?

It’s obvious they’d either go, “Is this guy double-crossing us?!” or lose trust, or something equally annoying.

So, I just shrugged off Oxianor’s telepathic inquiries and brushed it aside.

—————————————-

Anyway, after wrapping up Oxianor’s curiosity, I decided to check how much trust had been built.

After all, we completed 164… no, 167 quests in a single day.

You’d think the trust level would have gone up by at least 5 or 10, right?

But when I opened the status window to check the trust level…

—————————————-

<Current Trust Relationship with “Space Monster”: +18>

—————————————-

‘Why isn’t it at 20 yet?’

For some reason, the trust level barely moved.

Even if they were giving 0.01 per quest, with that many, it should’ve hit +20 by now.

But as I got annoyed, I suddenly remembered something I had forgotten.

‘Oh right, if I click this, a menu pops up.’

Realizing this, I felt a bit hollow, thinking I’d been too busy to remember even the basics.

So, I clicked the trust status window to check the details…

And as I unfolded the list, I started to dig into why it was like this…

<Current trust level with 'Space Monster': +18>

<Details>

<Trust increase index from clearing quests: +3>

<Suspicion about your attitude: -1>

<Unidentified, affiliation-unknown grand fleet: -1>

<Friendly response from listening to the monster's story: +1>

<Suspicion of double agent: -1>

<Total score: +1>

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“What the heck is this dating sim?”

As soon as I saw the list popping up, filled with suspicion towards me, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad. The monster force was, as expected, full of doubts about me mobilizing the pirates. But the important thing was that such a suspicious reaction had come out.

To avoid getting too much of a debuff in the trust department, I decided to gather some opinions and handle the situation right away.

==========

Meanwhile, our four musketeers—no, the four ladies—who had been having a blast getting sliced up, came running to the command center as soon as I called them, catching their breath.

Of course, that didn’t last long.

“The reason I called you is that the monster force, including Oxianor, suspects us of being double agents.”

“…Huh?”

“What? What do you mean by that?”

“Commander, you really are aiming for a thrilling experience, huh? ♡”

“Commander, why are you trying to walk such a tightrope?”

In order: Ignis, Belial, Pashtira, Gryanarr.

As soon as I brought up the topic, they each showed their own colorful reactions, and any semblance of calmness vanished as they expressed their confusion towards me.

“But everyone, you all know that the Commander isn’t the type to do such things, right?”

“…Well, that’s true.”

“Of course.”

Realistically, the monster force’s suspicion wasn’t because we did anything wrong. Our superhumans quickly accepted the situation and started discussing what to do about it.

Of course, I thought that these NPC-like friends wouldn’t come up with any proper ideas, so while they were chattering away, I was honestly deep in thought.

But just at that moment…

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<Quest>

<They're People Too, People!>

<Content: You seem to not trust your superhumans and subordinates for some reason.>

<Don't forget that they are loyal subordinates and comrades with very high favorability and trust towards you.>

<If you wish, they will do their utmost to help you through this.>

<Above all, their ranks are not just for show.>

<If you trust and entrust them, they will at least not disappoint you.>

<Objective: Accept the meeting results>

<Event reward points: 1,500 points added>

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“…What the hell is this?”

The quest window appeared, boldly pointing out that I should trust my subordinates, you jerk! I felt momentarily stunned.

“…But thinking about it, it’s not entirely wrong.”

Deciding that there wasn’t much of a problem, I figured I might as well sweetly take the event reward points and listen to what our people had to say.

And in the midst of this, Ignis turned her head towards me while talking and asked,

“Commander, why isn’t Marian participating in this?”

So I replied that if she did, Oxianor would turn into a mountain octopus thanks to Marian and the pirate uncles, and asked them to quickly summarize their opinions.