Return to Daily Life (?) (1)

"At the very least, if you wish to witness such things, you would need to visit Her Majesty's 'Nest.' There, the 'Pillars' aboard the stellar-class mobile fortresses are of a thickness comparable to what you described."

"Oh… hmm."

"So what Miss Griyanaar and I wish to say is simply this: should something of that nature grow within this base…"

"The countless blood vessels and flesh that would form as the tentacle's 'roots' would be more than this base could handle, Commander."

"I see. So that's how it is."

And the moment this conversation ended, I resolved to slap a one-day ban on that Yudong fellow who had shoved false information into my brain.

Then ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I decided to ask Griyanaar whether the upgrade was still possible…

"I understand, but does that mean the Biology Laboratory's 'upgrade' is impossible?"

"Absolutely not! What do you take me for?!"

At my deliberate provocation, our Professor Griyanaar immediately declared that such a thing was out of the question.

"It's perfectly possible, of course. Though no matter how much you insist it was false information… once you've seen intel that bizarre, the suspicion is hard to shake, isn't it?"

"Mm."

"So when we proceed with the 'upgrade,' I'll personally supervise and manage the internal growth!"

Interestingggg.

With Griyanaar making declarations like that, rather than waste more time arguing pointlessly, I decided to move on.

"Alright then, Griyanaar. I'll leave the Biology Laboratory's 'upgrade'—no, its growth management—to you."

"Just leave it to me, Commander."

As the foremost monster specialist within our base, if nowhere else, I entrusted Griyanaar with resolving any problems that might arise during the upgrade process, then headed straight back to the command center with Jessica.

And even amid all this, when I spotted the 'sofas' that for some reason were still sitting there…

Ah, maybe I shouldn't have refused. Griyanaar was probably offering them out of consideration for us, in her own way.

I felt a twinge of conscience, and found myself thinking that next time I should either say something upfront—or just grit my teeth and sit down at least once, as a matter of courtesy.

A short while later.

Griyanaar, who had seen Icarus and Jessica off with a smiling face as they returned to the command center, waited until the door of her nest—the Biology Laboratory—closed with a wet, slimy squelch of mucus.

Then she stared at the two 'sofas' left sitting blankly there, immediately frowning and clicking her tongue.

"Tsk. I really thought this time I'd finally unravel the secrets of the Commander's body."

"Hmm…"

"At this rate, creating the 'Commander's clone'—my actual goal—is impossible…"

Watching Griyanaar mutter while gnawing on her teeth, Oxianor shook her head and spoke.

"There's no need to rush, you know. Honestly, we're conducting similar work with other commanders as well."

"…"

Of course, Oxianor had only said this to calm her down, insisting that Griyanaar's assistance wasn't an 'urgent' matter…

"Granted, we haven't yet extracted meaningful results or genetic material from the other commanders, but with just a bit more time, from some of them we should be able to obtain sufficient…"

"No. If it's not our Commander, it means nothing."

Spitting out the tooth she'd been chewing, Griyanaar declared this with absolute certainty. Seeing the peculiar obsession gleaming in her eyes, Oxianor nodded, realizing she had been mistaken.

Ah. So rather than providing clones to us… the clone of Commander Icarus himself was the goal.

And that thought was confirmed moments later, when Griyanaar lifted the so-called 'extraction sofas' she had placed on the floor to harvest Icarus's 'genetic material.'

"A shame, but it can't be helped. As you said, there will be plenty of opportunities."

"Mm."

"And if I can just get the Commander's somehow… next time… ufufufufu."

Watching Griyanaar smile with a thoroughly complicated expression filled with pure delight, Oxianor found herself wondering if she might have chosen the wrong partner.

And at that same moment, our protagonist Icarus was…

"Let's gooo!"

Completely oblivious to the fact that a crisis for his chastity was approaching, he was leisurely enjoying his base-building tycoon game.

Return to Daily Life (?). (1)

For about a week after that, the state of my fleet and base could be summed up as follows…

From the perspective of clueless newbies approaching without knowing better, we looked like an extremely delicious ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meal.

To put it bluntly, because they were docked outside the base, the number of ships visible in the external berthing facilities if you approached nearby was a mere few dozen. And most of those were either 'Common grade' or stuff bought from the Favor of the Reward shop. Meanwhile, the resource zones were absurdly abundant—and on top of that, I was a ranker?

From the perspective of clueless newbies, or those special types who barely used the community—or didn't use it at all—I was essentially a living treasure goblin.

And those types would, with high probability, take a single battlecruiser—something any player in the top forty percent would have by now—as their flagship, and invade my territory with a swaggering attitude.

But what awaited them was a collaboration of pure madness: at least five hired mercenary fleets, plus the newly constructed Battlecruiser No. 1, and the Kraken—which through continuous combat had achieved delicious leveling and was now fully displaying its dignity as a proper carrier.

Though early on, having charged in at Level 1, it had shown a pathetic side where half its fighters got shredded by a mere pirate band… through steady leveling and growth, our Kraken—which three days ago had reached Level 30—was now something else entirely.

"Hahahahaha! Behold, you worthless humans!"

"Whoa."

Teleporting a thousand organic bombers right over the heads of newbies who charged in trusting only their single battlecruiser, it turned those large and beautiful battlecruisers into cutely bisected sausages like the Goliath from StarCraft, performing every kind of exploit imaginable to wipe away its early humiliation.

Moreover, with the Kraken taking a "smash the battlecruiser, smash them all" stance from long range and essentially handling all the damage-dealing alone, it was thoroughly displaying the form of that "insanely overpowered top-tier assault combat carrier" I had envisioned.

No joke—it was literally embodying with its entire body what a "massive hexagon" was supposed to look like, making newbies and non-community players feel the wall of despair.

Of course, even so, some players might not use the community but still had decent skills. They'd send two or three corvettes for reconnaissance early on, realize there was a carrier on this side, switch their fleet to anti-air formation, and rotate destroyers with high anti-air defense stats to the outer perimeter to thoroughly prepare for fighter raids—showing truly excellent countermeasures.

But such formations were optimized only for defending against fighter raids.

"Alright, let's go~"

"Oh for fuck's—"

When the Kraken used eye-bearing organic missiles and bio-plasma instead of fighters… and though the Kraken was doing its job so well that leveling work for the others became lackluster as a side effect…

Unlike our small, cute, precious Kraken, Battlecruiser No. 1 and the Overseer and other cruisers—which could properly receive command buffs from Belial and the others—would open up with a full barrage. Before long, the enemy would realize that no matter what they chose, they were screwed, and come begging for surrender.

And if they somehow endured the fighter raids and the concentrated fire from my capital ships and still managed to close in?

"Hyat-ha!! It's plunder time!"

"The employer has given permission! Kill them all!"

"Uwaaaaaah!"

Using the fact that there was no point limit, I'd deploy the ten pirate-mercenary bands I'd hired in advance. Throwing in a massive fleet that no single player could field at this stage and completely shredding them—a perfect space defense…

…was essentially my entire daily life for the past week.

However, in the process, the resource fleets frequently had to run because of the battles.

"Jessica, the resource acquisition rate seems a bit lacking lately."

"Resource acquisition from the base and the nearby forced labor camps is fine, but some of the resources that should have been transported from the nearby resource zones were plundered by the fleets of the commanders who invaded last time."

"Mm."

Due to the plundering that was essentially inevitable whenever combat broke out, the resource acquisition rate had dropped sharply.

"Then roughly how many resources do we have left?"

"When you pressed the construction button for the Gravity Detector Radar for early warning a few days ago, Commander, minerals were at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠about ninety thousand and rare resources at eight thousand four hundred?"

"Mm."

"And considering that today's opponent brought five anti-air cruisers of all things, and the Kraken's fighters got shredded by the thousands for the first time in a while…"

"Ssssss…"

"…you'll need to expect about another fifteen thousand minerals going out."

Watching the consumption rate graph finally form an X-shaped intersection with the acquisition rate, I felt a pang in my heart.

But even so, unlike before, my mental state didn't completely shatter.

Because after all that resource-burning, hardcore turtling upon turtling…

One week from the start, now…