Half a Million Strong
"Ooooh."
For all my bold talk, Jessica beside me was shaking her head in clear disapproval.
"Commander, if you're sending over a hundred ships and taking Miss Partia, Miss Pashtura, and Miss Belial with them… who exactly is supposed to handle base defense?"
"Hmm."
"To be precise, there won't be anyone left who can defend our territory — including the resource zones."
High rank was one thing. Being able to cover for someone who left their post was another entirely. In our base's current state, that kind of redundancy simply didn't exist outside of Ignis and Partia. Griyanaar could manage limited command at best, but even she freely admitted her leadership skills fell short of Belial's. And as for Pashtura's ultra-long-range beam bombardment — there was no one else in the entire base who could replicate it.
I nodded at Jessica's point and settled in for a stretch of genuine deliberation.
It didn't last long.
Into the middle of our little tableau — one man and two women fretting in the command center — Marianne swept in with a flourish.
"What's going on? The three of you look so fascinatingly troubled."
The pure, unfiltered curiosity written all over her face made it immediately clear: the key to solving our problem was standing right next to us. Jessica and I locked eyes, exchanged a silent nod, and stepped over to our Marianne to carefully lay out the situation. And for the finishing touch…
"We need something to defend the base and our territory, but if we go ahead like this, holding off invasions from other commanders or factions is going to be seriously difficult…"
"That's terrible! Oppa is in danger? There's no way I could just sit still after hearing that!"
The instant I drove the point home, the exact reaction we'd hoped for burst out of her. Behind Marianne's back, Jessica and I carefully high-fived without making a sound.
Busy, Yet Not Busy. (4)
The method Marianne produced after hearing Oppa's "troubles" was, as always, something that completely transcended our imagination.
"So the idea is that the Pirate Coalition is gathering near the kaiju territory under the pretense of group training?"
"Of course!"
Worried about base defense equals need to block enemy approach equals make it so enemies can't come in the first place. Following that exact chain of logic, she had simply dumped a full five hundred thousand pirate ships at random all around our base.
My base — and the resource zones nearby — were now swarming with pirate vessels. Watching the spectacle, I couldn't shake the growing suspicion that this would draw aggro not just from other players, but potentially from entire rival factions…
Jessica sidled up beside me, reading the look on my face.
"Commander, why do you look so worried?"
"Well…"
I laid out the concern I'd just been chewing on. Jessica flicked one of her folded rabbit ears straight up, then put on a strangely self-assured expression — a bunny girl wearing a cat's mouth, somehow.
"Don't worry, Commander. Every other commander and faction already knows we're connected to the Pirate Empress."
"…That's not what I mean. Even so, if hundreds of thousands of ships all pile into this sector, won't the other factions take it as a provocation?"
As I remembered it, whenever a fleet belonging to another faction — or to a commander affiliated with one — gathered past a certain threshold, rival factions would get drawn in and dispatch massive fleets specifically to crush them. When I brought that up, Jessica nodded thoughtfully, conceding it was a fair point.
Marianne, the person at the center of all this fretting, simply waved it off.
"Oh, that? It's not really a problem."
She said it while simultaneously putting both Leonard and some other nameless male pirate beside her into headlocks.
"Other factions do the exact same thing, you know? They station huge fleets at the bases of their favorites and top commanders all the time."
"…They do?"
I've never heard anything like that.
In all my time playing the game, I had genuinely never once heard of or seen such a thing. But then again — if we were going to start picking at inconsistencies, the fact that Marianne hadn't simply brought her personal fleet to join a player, but was still reigning as a faction leader while simultaneously existing as my subordinate, was already something I should have rejected outright.
"Besides, the fact that I of all people am here is something those Earth goody-two-shoes and those constantly posturing Zenobians already know full well!"
"That's right, ma'am!"
"With Her Majesty present, it would look more suspicious if we weren't standing guard!"
The spirited affirmations from the two men locked under Marianne's arms drove the point home. I accepted, with a newly open mind, that this world did not flow exactly like the game one hundred percent of the time.
That said…
"Anyway, Oppa doesn't need to worry about any of that!"
"…Is that so."
"Yep! Before anything hostile even gets near Oppa's base, my subordinates — including these two right here — will take care of it themselves! Right?"
As she spoke, Marianne casually tightened the headlocks further. Despite knowing full well that everything she ate seemed to go straight to her chest — which was developing with remarkable consistency — she appeared completely oblivious to the fact that her bosom was currently serving as a cushion for her subordinates' heads. The two men buried against the Empress's lower chest could only gasp and moan in excitement.
"Huff… huff…"
"Uoooooh…!"
"Hey, you two — what are you doing? Answer me."
She tightened her grip even further as a pointed hint. Watching Leonard and the unknown pirate executive — men I normally felt sorry for every time Marianne put them through the wringer — I found myself, for once, feeling a sharp pang of envy.
Then the blissful squeeze turned into a painful one.
"Ghk— o-of course, ma'am! Her Majesty is absolutely right!"
"We'll guard this place with our lives!"
"There, see?"
The two men, snapping back to their senses at last, bellowed their agreement and offered the most extreme possible affirmation of Marianne's words. Looking thoroughly satisfied, she released the headlocks and casually tossed both of them onto the floor, then turned to me with a look that said, Well?
I could only nod and tell her she was truly incredible.
With Marianne's help, base defense was no longer a concern. Under the increasingly pointed stare of Oxianor — whose patience was visibly eroding with every second I delayed, and whose trust I could practically feel dropping by the second — I moved on to the final fleet inspection.
"Belial. I'm leaving fleet management for this expedition to you."
"I will live up to your expectations, Commander."
First, I appointed Belial as fleet commander — the only one among my supers who actually possessed a proper fleet buff. On top of that, I couldn't send the Overseer, the sole heavy cruiser and flagship responsible for our fleet's firepower.
"Oh my, I'd much rather stay by the Commander's side if I could♡"
"Sorry, but there's no one else I can entrust this to, Pashtura."
"Of course♡ Just leave it to me♡"
As a contingency, I assigned Pashtura for fleet fire support. And finally, to prepare for boarding actions as well—
"Partia. I'm counting on you to keep Pashtura in check."
"I shall bear it in mind, Savior."
"Excuse me?! Just what do you take me for?!"
Leaving Pashtura — a walking cocktail of yandere triggers, trigger-happy impulses, and pure unhinged energy — unsupervised would have been an unbearable burden on Belial, who would already be busy commanding the fleet. So I slotted in Partia, her senior from the Order, as Pashtura's handler.
With the expedition fleet bound for the kaiju stronghold assembled, and resupply clearly going to be difficult, I also packed in resource mining ships loaded with repair materials — doubling as repair vessels — along with transport-type destroyers.
"Commander, about the fleet composition you just finalized…"
"Mm."
"It's twenty ships larger than originally planned. Is that all right?"