Even If the World Collapses, There's Still a Place to Live (3)
Even so, while everyone else was running at least ten to fifteen people—twenty in the worst cases—we had to handle everything with a maximum of four, a mere fifth of that number.
Fundamentally, the sheer number of times we could even scrape together points was lacking. There was no getting around it.
Which was why, around this point, I decided to just give up on the rankings entirely.
For the rest of the event—however long it lasted, though it was going to run for at least another five months—I would grind quests as hard as humanly possible, stack trust until it overflowed, and then land myself a proper high-grade quest.
Just you wait, my honeys.
I abandoned everything else in the shop window. First I'd buy one of those ships whose name alone oozed cool—the Bahamut-class Artillery Heavy Cruiser—then dump every remaining point into a full pull of the Superhuman-exclusive gacha and finally get myself some proper personnel. That was the ironclad resolve I reaffirmed to myself.
Of course, at our current rate of point acquisition, even if we kept grinding for the full five months, we'd only scrape together about seventeen thousand points while everyone else was raking in forty thousand. Whether that plan was even realistic was an open question…
But quitting wasn't an option either. So I clenched my mental teeth and resolved to keep pouring effort on top of effort.
While Jessica and I were busy hyping each other up and locking in our determination, though—
"I don't really get what you're talking about, but is there anything I can help with, Oppa?"
"…Hmm."
Marianne, who had been watching us the whole time, stepped forward and asked if there was anything she could do.
Even if the world collapses, there's still a place to live. (3)
As the leader of a faction, I hadn't been able to bring myself to ask for help—and then she came to me first, offering it of her own accord. I was genuinely moved by our dear Bbangrian's words.
So that chest of hers was a personality pouch all along. Truly, it grew up magnificently.
Of course, if I said something like that out loud, the friendship gauge we'd finally maxed out would plummet straight into the abyss, and the heel of Marianne's boot would probably bury itself in my solar plexus. So I kept that particular thought to myself and simply conveyed my gratitude.
"You'll help?"
"Yes. You never said anything, so I was just watching… but no matter how you look at it, Oppa and this fleet are clearly overloaded right now, aren't you?"
She adjusted her pirate hat, planted a hand on her hip, and thrust her chest forward. All I could do was nod in agreement.
"Yeah. Anyone looking would think the same."
"Honestly, except for that one person—what was her name, 'Griyanaar'?—everyone else looks like they're really struggling."
"…Tsk."
She didn't need to add that last part, but whatever.
She was offering help. At a moment when I needed every hand I could get—even a cat's paw—having the Pirate Empress herself, treated as a near-SSS-grade hero, step up meant one more barracks' worth of capacity for our already-starved point income. Extra breathing room.
Our Marianne was the type to manufacture human pigs, burn down any force that resisted, and freely thrash her own subordinates so she could reign as a symbol of terror. On that shady site from my previous life, THE EYES, she was constantly getting put through the wringer by her own underlings in illustrations and 3D videos alike.
Here, though, none of that applied. Aside from Griyanaar—whom she'd only just met and still felt awkward around—she was on friendly senior-junior terms with Jessica and Ignis, mutual-respect master-and-disciple with Belial, and with Pashtura… well, they were close, somehow, though nobody could quite put a finger on why. A strangely amicable relationship all around.
In short, Marianne maintained a broadly friendly rapport with the entire fleet without any major friction. Having sorted that out in my head, I welcomed our admirable Bbangrian's offer with genuine enthusiasm, figuring that clearing even one extra quest would be a win.
But that feeling didn't last long.
I had completely forgotten that our Marianne was the Pirate Empress—that she, just like the Earth Federation or the Zenobia Empire handing out quests to countless users, was the head of a faction so vast it made ordinary players look like ants.
Which is why, exactly one hour, seventeen minutes, and twenty-four seconds after Marianne offered her help—
"C-Commander! Massive warp signatures detected outside the base!!!"
"What?"
"The numbers alone—at minimum… at least over a hundred thousand ships! A grand fleet!"
Eh, hontō?
"Ah, looks like they're already here. Fewer than I expected, though."
"Huuuh?"
"Well, you see, I told my subordinates to pick out a reasonable number of people and come help Oppa."
"…"
She had summoned a grand fleet of over a hundred thousand ships with a single word—and then had the gall to call it too few.
I felt a chill run down my spine all over again as the reality sank in: our Marianne was, quite literally, the leader of an entire faction.
But there was no time to dwell on it. The sudden appearance of a hundred-thousand-ship fleet, combined with Leonard's own fleet launching out from the base to meet them, finally snapped Jessica back to her senses. She stepped up beside me with a look of pointed doubt.
"Um… Commander? There's something I need to say."
"Hmm?"
"A hundred-thousand-ship grand fleet is impressive, sure, but to clear the quests Oxianor and the kaiju faction gave us… you know, right?"
"Ah. Right. Of course."
Jessica's words let me pull my mind back from the sheer shock of the fleet numbers and reclaim some composure.
Naturally, Marianne looked a little flustered by our reaction.
"Huh? Is there some kind of problem?"
"Mm… a little?"
"What? Why?"
When I put a firm period on that sense of bewilderment, Marianne swept her pirate coat dramatically and pointed through the command post window at the pirate fleet blotting out most of the vast expanse of space beyond.
"A hundred thousand ships is on the low side by my standards, but the kids still brought a pretty solid number, you know?!"
"Mm… that's true, but…"
"Commander, I'll explain this one."
Before I could say anything, Jessica stepped forward to brief Marianne—
"First of all, I'm not sure how best to put this, but…"
"Please explain in detail, Jessica unnie."
The moment she started, though, Marianne turned a face full of pure curiosity on her and called her unnie.
For Jessica—who was constantly treated as the base's little sister—it must have been a completely unexpected critical hit. Her face lit up with open delight, her rabbit ears twitching wildly atop her head, and she launched into a far more passionate explanation of our current reality than she'd been about to give.
"Basically, to process those commissions… we need people like Ignis, you know?"
"Pardon?"
"In other words, so-called 'Supers' have to participate in person for us to be able to clear the commissions the other faction gave us."
"…Wait, so only Supers can do the work? Doesn't that basically mean all those pirates out there can't even handle a simple job?"
Marianne fired back with a crisp, no-nonsense rebuttal. Hearing it, Jessica made a face like someone watching a seal get forged in real time.
"Right? Why do they set it up like that, honestly."
"But I get what you mean. We actually handle things the same way on our end because of commission trust issues."
What.
She'd just boldly called the whole system a load of nonsense—and then casually admitted she ran the exact same system herself.
Jessica looked thoroughly confused by that, but the Pirate Empress Nimu Marianne, who remained unflappable about everything, simply nodded as if she understood well enough.
"Anyway, the important thing isn't the raw headcount—it's the number of our own officers, the people in charge, that we can actually deploy. Is that right?"