Won 5 to 1
Unfortunately, the ships ferrying those superhumans either blew apart while docking or detonated mid-evasion — massacred by sheer overwhelming numbers.
"Ngyaaaaaah!"
"L-let go of this! Let go!"
"Even the deal's broken."
"Griyanaar, watch your spacing."
Our superhumans, who'd been taking a thorough beating, had no intention of politely watching the enemy flee. The SSS-grade superhuman with the cutesy speech tic, along with two or three others who'd invaded the base, never made it out — and ended up captured right there on the premises.
And with three battlecruisers whose armor was already in tatters — engines hastily patched in a situation where proper repairs were impossible — driven to the brink of sinking under the overwhelming fire of the pirate fleet...
A short while later, I found myself staring at this:
> NOTIFICATION!
> The Unity Clan tenders an unconditional surrender to you!
> Effect: Combat status between both sides is immediately lifted.
> As the opposing party has preemptively offered unconditional surrender, you are granted authority to set ALL available demand conditions!
I realized that this godforsakenly long, full-of-bullshit, thoroughly tedious battle was finally over.
I let out a deep, exhaustion-laden sigh. Rather than setting conditions right away, I decided to give my worn-out body and mind some rest first.
And the next morning—
"Good morning, sir! I am Liran, dispatched under Her Majesty the Empress's orders to protect Commander Icarus with absolute thoroughness!!!"
"Ah, right."
The moment I stepped into the command post, a shaggy pirate who looked like a mountain bandit snapped me a perfect right-angle salute.
Finally, another regular male character in this base.
The weird part was what came immediately after that greeting.
"Well then, I'll be taking my leave! I only came to pay my respects and confirm that Commander Icarus still has all his limbs attached, per Her Majesty's orders!"
"...Hmm."
I already knew from the "Betelgeuse's Heart-Pounding Secret Video" Marianne had sent me that the system prevented commanders from actually shedding blood. Watching him check that my limbs were still attached and then casually walk off left me thoroughly speechless.
So yes — the morning kicked off with that kind of chaos. But everything that followed was the equivalent of pure, blissful narcotics for a man whose body and mind had finally recovered.
"Commander, perhaps you should deliver your demands to the opposing commanders?"
"Ah, right. Almost forgot about that."
Despite their cowardly 5-to-1 pile-on, the trash♡clan that had still managed to lose to me got the following conditions:
1. As war reparations, the Unity Clan shall pay Icarus 250,000 Minerals and 50,000 Rare Resources.
2. The clan and all affiliated users are prohibited from invading Icarus's territory for a period of one year.
3. Dominion over all superhumans currently held captive within Icarus's base shall be transferred.
··· ··· ··· ··· ··· ···
Ahh, sweet as candy.
Honestly, I wanted to demand resources in the millions and force them to hand over their entire fleet. But even under "unconditional surrender," the system constraints were pretty severe — and what I'd listed was the absolute maximum I could squeeze out of them.
Sure, back in the day you really could go unlimited... but that was early-game stuff. During a ranking event based on fleet power, some creative little jokers had abused the system by having their entire clan surrender to a single player, instantly maxing out that player's power and snatching first place. The admins tore the whole system apart so it would never happen again.
> Resource seizure permitted, limited to a maximum of 1/5 of the target user's remaining resources.
> Ship demands permitted, limited to under 20% of the target user's total command points. If the opposing fleet's power is already under 20% of total points, seizure is impossible.
> Superhuman dominion transfer is only possible for those the user personally captured.
Tsk. This isn't unconditional surrender at all.
I kept thinking, How is this supposed to be what the winner of an "unconditional surrender" gets? — but what was I going to do about it? The system said so.
Anyway, I finalized the demands roughly like that and tossed them at the so-called Unity Clan. And "demands" was just the polite word for it — the system enforced them automatically.
A short while after sending them off:
> The Unity Clan has surrendered to Commander Icarus.
> Superhumans of the clan captured by Commander Icarus have had their affiliation transferred to Commander Icarus.
> Resources transferred from the clan to Commander Icarus: Minerals 250,000 / Rare Resources 50,000
··· ··· ··· ··· ··· ···
The status window messages popped up clean and crisp. I screenshotted the relevant parts, opened the gallery, and decided to drop a verification post about this battle.
A thought did flicker past — Do I really need to post this? — but then I reconsidered.
If I don't brag about something like this, what the hell am I supposed to brag about?
Showing off a little "yeah, I'm that good" might even scare off the idiots who'd try something stupid with me later. Convinced that was the right call, I started carefully writing up a full story post... then stopped.
Hmm... hang on. Posting a full write-up right away might look a little tryhard.
Starting off with a rambling wall of text just felt off. I wiped the entire draft I'd been pouring my heart into and instead posted this:
"Yeah. That should be enough."
"Pardon? What should?"
"Nothing. Never mind."
No need for a long story — just the verification shots. I deleted a few troll posts that happened to be visible, closed the gallery window, and got back to my actual work.
And because I'd closed the gallery without turning on external notifications...
When I opened it again later and saw tens of thousands of comment alerts and report notifications stacked up, my brain short-circuited.
That post would become a holy site.
Of course, the initial reaction when Icarus first dropped the verification shots and post wasn't particularly explosive.
Just a perfectly ordinary "wow, that's impressive" level of response. Nothing special.
But mere minutes later—