Betelgeuse's Peace Offer
Opponent 'Betelgeuse' is requesting a peace negotiation!
Effect: Combat status on both sides is immediately lifted.
Y / N
Huh?
Between the machine-gun barrage of chat messages and the shock of the information pouring in, the fact that my opponent was the one initiating a peace treaty left me so stunned I felt my brain short-circuit on the spot.
I stared at the peace offer from that opponent—man or woman, I still had no idea—and took a moment to think it over. But frankly, the bastard's fleet had been a perfect hard counter to mine, and the damage had already ballooned past the point of reason. So I cut the nonsense, set aside any further deliberation, and accepted the request.
And through that decision, I learned three astonishing facts.
First: the identity of the person I'd been fighting. This wasn't some mid-tier clan with a few dozen or a few hundred members.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
A clan that accepted anyone regardless of faction or alignment, boasting over ten thousand members—at this point in time, the undisputed largest single clan in the game: the Loki Clan.
And I hadn't been fighting some officer. I'd been fighting the clan leader herself—a figure so reclusive that most people said you were lucky just to catch a glimpse of her. That was the first revelation.
The second…
"So you're telling me… what, exactly?"
"Commander, the opposing commander is currently en route to this location."
"Hold on. The clan leader is coming in person?"
"Yes."
Given the nature of the Loki Clan, the vast majority of its members were trolls who'd signed up purely to stir chaos for their own factions. Other major clans loved to sneer that Loki had no real cohesion and that its cooperation was a joke—but that kind of talk only worked when you were another large clan of comparable size. For someone like me, a pure solo player, a force like that was an extremely uncomfortable presence to have hanging over your head.
And yet that very person hadn't been sitting safely in a command post deep inside Loki's main base. She'd been leading an expeditionary fleet all the way out here on her own ship. That was the second thing I learned.
I desperately wanted to cancel the peace treaty on the spot and scream Go get 'em, Leonard!—but unfortunately, once a peace agreement was signed, the game system locked out all player-versus-player hostilities for a full month. And to deploy Leonard at all, I absolutely needed Marianne's help.
"Jessica, where did Marianne go?"
"I'm not sure. She hasn't been around for a while now."
For reasons unknown, Marianne had vanished without a word to any of us. So, grumbling the whole way, I finished the battle, regrouped with Belial and her forces, and decided to meet this so-called clan leader at our base's docking facility to formalize the peace agreement.
Of course, if this Loki Clan leader had come all this way just to spout nonsense, I fully intended—consequences be damned, even a month from now—to make sure her entire clan got a massive middle finger in return. That resolve was burning hot.
But then the clan leader arrived at the docking facility and stepped into view…
"Whoa, so you're Icarus? I could tell just by looking!"
"…???"
"Ah, I should introduce myself first, right? Nice to meet you! I'm Betelgeuse, clan leader of the Loki Clan!"
"…"
The third and final revelation: the clan leader of the Loki Clan was a small girl with long, curly pink hair.
While I stood there frozen by the completely unexpected appearance, Pink-chan—no, pink-haired Betelgeuse—launched into a full barrage of praise.
"Seriously, that was incredible! Aside from the stuff you bought from the event shop, you fielded nothing but regular ships besides the Overseer—how did you even hold out?"
"Ahem."
"I went on a whole tour fighting other people, and some of them were clan leaders with hundreds of members under them, but out of everyone, you fought the best!"
Judging purely by looks, I'd figured she was another little-devil type like Griyanaar. But the way she talked—nothing but pure, earnest compliments—made me wonder if this was one of those cases people talked about, where the possession process had twisted the character's appearance into something completely mismatched.
Of course, the moment I entertained that pure-hearted theory—
"Your fleet composition is that much of a dumpster fire, and you still managed to put up a fight against mine… that's genuinely impressive!"
"…"
"Now that's what I'd expect from rank three!"
—she slipped the digs in so smoothly between the compliments that I just shook my head and decided to answer halfheartedly.
"That was only because I got lucky and accepted the Pirate Empress's surrender. You already know that."
"Luck is a skill. That's my personal philosophy."
Betelgeuse had plopped herself down on a nearby crate, swinging her dangling feet through the air. She kept cycling through remarks that could have been praise or mockery—until her expression shifted into genuine curiosity, and she finally asked the real question.
"Hmm. On a more serious note, though."
"What."
"You accepted the Pirate Empress's surrender. So why didn't you use her in this battle?"
"…"
"Once the Pirate Empress joins you, you get an entire additional pirate fleet that doesn't cost you any points."
"…Hmm."
"I figured that was your ace in the hole. But I get here and there's no fleet—and no Pirate Empress either?"
"…"
The moment I heard that, I silently unleashed every curse I knew at the system.
That damn system said the Empress wasn't formally under my command, so it never even gave me the fleet.
Of course, if I admitted that out loud, she might use it against me later. And there was nothing dumber than broadcasting your own weaknesses to the world. Marianne wasn't here anyway, so I kept my face carefully neutral and decided to dodge the issue.
"Does that really matter? The way you're talking, it feels less like praise and more like you're trying to squeeze every scrap of information out of me."
"Aha, as if I'd do something like that."
"More importantly, this meeting only exists because you were the one who proposed the peace treaty first."
"Uuugh… so you want to pin down responsibility and all that, huh?"
I nodded at Betelgeuse's words and answered again.
"Exactly. And next time, I'd prefer you don't pull the same stunt—launch a preemptive attack, then immediately hit me with a preemptive peace offer."
"Ahaha, does that bother you that much?"
"If it didn't, I'd be a complete sucker."
"My, my."
I crossed my arms and delivered the line flatly. Betelgeuse just laughed it off with that same unshakable composure, which only irritated me further. I decided to leave her with one last warning.
"If you show up like this again, I won't let it slide as cleanly as I did this time."
"Oh, of course, of course. Still, I was in the wrong this time, so take this and we'll call it even~"
Betelgeuse is requesting a trade with you!
50,000 Minerals, 10,000 Rare Resources⇒ Icarus
Y / N
And of course, even while apologizing, she paid a reasonably appropriate price. Faced with someone who kept operating entirely at her own pace no matter what, I could only shake my head in exasperation and decide to be salty about it.
"Get out. Or, to put it more politely—piss off."
"My, how scary. Don't be like that, okay? Next time I absolutely won't do it again."
…Though, that said, I still snapped up the apology compensation without a second thought.