Grey Nightmare (3)
Meanwhile, as the allied fleets threw themselves into a no-holds-barred grapple with the nanomachines, I sat aboard the fully repaired ancient warship—the Leviathan-class Super Dreadnought, or simply the Leviathan—watching the battlefield from a carefully measured distance.
To be precise, even watching was almost more than I could manage.
After all, the reason I had come to this battlefield at all—and dragged this enormous, magnificent Leviathan with me—was never to trade blows with the nanomachines the way the allied fleets were doing.
Event: An Excellent Means of Dialogue
You have learned that the best way to stop the Grey Nightmare endlessly spawning from the gate is to find Ash, who vanished beyond it.
To that end, the only viable option was the sortie of the repaired Leviathan-class Super Dreadnought.
And at last, after mobilizing every ounce of the Empire’s industry and technology… the ancient colossus finally revealed its majestic form to the world.
Leviathan-class Super Dreadnought x1 acquired
Event: Crisis Designation (Grey Nightmare)
The nanomachine fleets pouring through the gate hidden in the Rixi Republic appear to possess truly endless, infinite numbers.
However, aside from the gate itself, additional production occurs only after a planet has been coated in nanomachines.
You must purify the planets and eliminate the nanomachines to halt further mass production!
But as always, the Galactic League tends to remain indifferent to crises that do not directly concern them…
Turn the League’s public opinion and save the galaxy from this crisis!
One look at the event messages floating before my eyes made it clear…
Under normal circumstances I should have been racing to Galactic League headquarters—or at least locked in a fierce video-call contest of political maneuvering with their people. Instead, thanks to that damned sense of responsibility and these events, I had brought this enormous, beautiful “means of dialogue” all the way to the front lines…
“Minister, the ambassador from the Nurbval Republic is requesting additional information?”
“Minister Arto, the Galactic League’s envoy is asking about the Empire’s—”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh—”
The problem was that diplomatic work was now flooding toward me while I stood on the absolute front line.
“Minister, you really shouldn’t rest.”
“I’m not! Resting! Right now!”
As if piloting a colossal warship with pure brainwaves weren’t enough, I now had to handle diplomacy on top of it.
Grrrk.
I was being forcibly educated on exactly what “dying of overwork” felt like.
Fortunately, that particular torment did not last long.
Given the Leviathan’s actual purpose, I almost never entered direct combat… and then—
—“Arto.”
“Urgh… A-Artraia?”
—“I’ll take over the diplomatic side from now on. You just focus on what you need to do.”
The vast maternal kindness of Artraia—equal parts mother and walking bag of pure humanity—wrapped around me like a warm blanket.
The result:
“….”
“Minister, you’re happy right now, aren’t you?”
I could finally devote myself entirely to the operation and keep only a wary eye on any League-related incidents. Happiness levels rose accordingly.
And while Arto was busy cycling through the stages of sobbing and then pure bliss, the situation of the allied fleets began—ever so slightly—to improve.
—BOOM! CRASH!
“Lakshamuth destroyed! Vien Kong heavily damaged!”
“Whoa, cruisers and battleships are getting blown apart left and right.”
—BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
“…The 343rd Destroyer Squadron that was trying to flank the line has just been wiped out.”
“Destroyers and corvettes are literally melting away, huh.”
Of course, from the perspective of the soldiers and admirals exploding on the front line, that assessment would have sounded like pure nonsense…
“The Galactic League hereby designates the nanomachine crisis occurring in the Rixi Republic as a crisis situation.”
Thanks to the frantic efforts of Arto, Artraia, the Sevelian Empire and other rear-echelon powers—plus the nations like Rixi that already had fire under their feet—the League’s crisis agenda passed in the blink of an eye, unlike during the Warlord incident.
“Wait, we definitely pulled some dirty tricks… why did it go through so fast this time?”
Naturally, the Fuxviet Union tried a little “mischief” of their own, hoping to recreate the disaster of the Warlord era…
“Why the hell would we join in on your little games?”
Unlike last time, there was no eastern power left that could meaningfully influence League politics.
If Zeltec had still been intact, or if the old eastern nations—including the former Sir Citizen League—had retained even a fraction of their former shape, things might have been different…
“Why should we help with anything you do?”
The Sir Citizen… no, the Sir-Horde League that had been split in half and then fused with the Warlord immediately slapped a tag on Fuxviet’s antics.
As for the Zeltec Subjugation Corporation…
“Zeltec is… dead.”
“Indeed.”
Fuxviet itself had turned them into a doughnut.
“Not interested.”
The Kerzin Federation was pouring every last resource into dealing with Prosnark’s movements and had no spare capacity for such games.
“We’re already in the fight—what nonsense are you spouting?”
The Ikh Nurbval Independent Republic League—now simply the Nurbval Republic—had already joined the war alongside Sevelia.
“If we play this right, the national debt might just disappear…!”
The Uko’Praknar Interstellar Union, driven half-mad by debt collectors, had completely lost their minds in a different direction.
“Watch your tone, bro.”
“Ah.”
And right next door, the Rixi Republic was in utter chaos, leaving the Loirakan Republic extremely on edge.
For the Fuxviet Union, the timing could not possibly have been worse.
Even if the timing had been perfect…
“Why should we look kindly on people like Fuxviet who ignore interstellar agreements?”
“Exactly. Sevelia actually honors treaties, responds almost instantly to League requests, and even takes in countless refugees with open arms. They’re clearly better.”
Quite apart from the League’s internal politics or Arto’s various schemes, Sevelia had already completed every possible goodwill campaign.
“Righteous Ztrakfor. Benevolent Ztrakfor.”
“The most evil of the Ztrak is equal to the most virtuous of alien races.”
And since the original masters of goodwill campaigns—the Ztrakfor—were in favor of this war, the Fuxviet Union’s mischief never stood a chance from the start.
After all that, once you set aside the rear supply lines and all the strategic this-and-that I neither understood nor cared to understand, our sturdy allied fleet kept pushing the front until we finally reached the star system where the nanomachines had first appeared.
Of course, “reaching” it was all we managed.
—BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
“What the actual hell.”
Faced with an allied fleet advancing toward their “origin,” the nanomachine fleets redoubled their desperate thrashing.
“The nanomachines have turned into space monsters and are charging us!”
The same space-monster assault we had once used against the Warlord was now being turned against us.
—Wheeeee… KRA-KOOM!!!
“Uko’Praknar fleet flagship Penicylon destroyed!”
“….”
“Additionally, the forward Ztrakfor 3rd Fleet has exceeded 75% casualties!”
Nanomachine fleets forged from the planets and space stations they had already seized in Rixi territory kept pouring out through a colossal gate the size of an entire planet. Their frantic resistance made the allied fleet’s losses climb exponentially.
But while other nations might have been fighting for survival, the Sevelian Empire had a different objective entirely.
—“Minister, we have just succeeded in opening a route toward the gate.”
—“It will only last a very short time, so you must move as quickly as possible.”
“Understood. Thank you.”
The plan was simple: ram the Leviathan straight into that gate and find out what the hell was actually going on beyond it.
That was why we had plastered the ship with every cloaking device normally reserved for our Empire’s prized stealth destroyers.
“Cloaking system online!”
“Main engines engaged. Gate transit in three minutes.”
Still fully cloaked, the Leviathan I rode…
“Trust the equipment we built, Minister Arto.”
…placed its faith solely in the confidence of our mad scientists and dove through the chaotic battlefield, plunging into the gate from which nanomachine fleets continued to pour.