Complex Problems Sometimes Have Solutions Right Next Door (2)
And before long, the two of them appeared and immediately laid out why they had come to see me.
First up was Oxianor.
"Commander Icarus, have we not begun construction on our fleet production facilities?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"Thanks to that, Princess Luca wishes to convey her gratitude to you — for carrying out her demands as swiftly as possible, despite the recent unfortunate incidents."
"Ah, I see."
The moment those words left her mouth — that ever-striking figure of hers, clad in a "formal suit" woven from writhing tentacles and living flesh — an event message I hadn't seen in quite a while popped up with a cheerful little jingle.
And the reward? It far exceeded anything I had expected.
"Why Aren't You Building Infrastructure?!" — Cleared!
Minerals: 100,000 | Rare Resources: 10,000
Small Kaiju Fleet Incorporated:
1× Harpy-class Light Cruiser
5× Gargoyle-class Mobile Destroyers
"…A fleet?"
"Indeed. Though remaining neutral in battles between commanders is an unwritten rule…"
At my blank-faced reaction, Oxianor scratched her cheek with a carapace-covered finger, briefly pondering how best to phrase things. Then she waved both hands, making sure I understood that this was all thanks to her superior — Princess Luca — and not her own doing.
"Her Highness Princess Luca noted that, thanks to your efforts, a secret alliance with the Pirate Coalition has been secured. Accordingly, she decided to add a modest extra to the reward for this matter."
"Ohhh."
"Our Nest is currently quite busy producing large numbers of ships, so we cannot offer a great deal more…"
"No, no — this is more than enough! Plenty!"
Even so, she maintained that naturally humble demeanor — the very picture of a gentleman, if you will. Watching Oxianor carry herself that way, I nodded and shook her hand without bothering to hide my delight.
"Thanks to you, I've got a little more breathing room with the fleet. I appreciate it!"
"Hmm. I did not expect you to be quite this enthusiastically pleased."
Of course, with players everywhere starting to field battlecruisers, battleships, and carriers in earnest, one might wonder what was so great about a mere light cruiser and five destroyers. But free ships? Those don't grow on trees.
Getting an entire small squadron — free of charge — as a bonus reward for an ordinary quest was already impressive enough.
Whoooosh!
"Commander, six ships have appeared in front of the base."
"Hell yeah."
And these free ships didn't even make you wait. Instant delivery — who in their right mind would complain?
With that thought, I thanked Oxianor once more, then turned toward Griyanaar, who had been eyeing the kaiju ships from the side.
"Alright, Oxianor's business is settled. Griyanaar — what brings you here?"
"Me?"
At my question she turned back, a little devilish smile curling across her face.
"Commander, I hear you've been fretting over those superhumans you captured lately?"
The way she zeroed in on my exact problem made it clear: she had come because she had a solution.
Complex problems sometimes have solutions right next door. (2)
That said, even with Gri-Gri's confident attitude, I had no intention of just handing the captured superhumans over to her. What if she ran some grotesque experiment I didn't even understand and turned them into chimeras?
She already had a track record of turning pirates into chimeras with a 35% pirate-content ratio. Trusting her with superhumans offhand felt like a terrible idea.
Of course, anyone who didn't know better might say, "Wait, you're lumping pirates in with superhumans? Are you some kind of PC activist who thinks pirates have lives too?"
"Commander, don't tell me you don't trust me? Professor Griyanaar herself?"
Griyanaar herself looked offended that I seemed to doubt her brilliant intellect and talent.
A clueless newbie might have handed all three captives over to her right then and there. Unfortunately for her, I knew far too much about the stunts she had pulled.
"Griyanaar."
"Hm?"
"Last time you did biological modifications on our people, Ignis came back with a 'front tail' attached."
"Ah."
"And you told Belial and Ignis you'd make them like Pashtura — what exactly did you do?"
"…Wwwweeeelllll, I wooooonder."
I shut down her cocky act on the spot. Curious what she was even angling for, I started digging through the gallery for information.
It didn't take long browsing the gallery wiki tab before I discovered that Griyanaar really could do something useful. More precisely — it wasn't something only Griyanaar could do, but something only superhumans of her type could pull off.
And I hadn't even found it on the wiki tab. Oddly enough, it was sitting out in the regular gallery.
[GIF: Griyanaar getting smacked upside the head for showing off]
You're gonna need some prep before reading this post.
You need at least ONE research-type support superhuman with the "Mad Scientist" character trait.
You also need your Biology Lab upgraded to a certain level.
If you don't have those, stop reading this and go pet your supers or sell them as slaves on the auction house. Seriously.
And if you don't have any supers at all, grit your teeth and keep petting.
Anyway, continuing — how do you do this?
I'll just say it straight: the mad scientist character ties the superhuman down and force-brainwashes them to jack up affinity. Yeah.
The exact method varies depending on which faction your commander belongs to.
As for the detailed process, you're better off ordering it yourself and watching firsthand.
Whatever the method, doing this can roughly push a superhuman's affinity up to +100 real fast.
FYI, you can set how high you want the affinity to go, and of course the duration scales with the number.
BUT there's one critical problem:
Once you set the affinity target and start the process, you CANNOT pull them out mid-way even if you think "eh, this is enough."
No idea why.
Meaning: the superhuman doing the affinity manipulation is completely unusable until they hit the affinity you set. You literally can't select them.
And most importantly — you absolutely cannot run multiple at once.
One at a time. Period.
"Hmm. So that's how it is."
After deleting the evil anonymous comment that had tried to shove actual garbage into my brain, I decided to take a moment to think it over.
But only a moment.
"Doesn't seem half bad… Hmm, Jessica?"
"You called, Commander?"
"Yeah — go to the prison and bring… ah, right, just 'Smeragi' to the command center."
"Understood. I'll make sure the restraints are nice and tight."
"And call Griyanaar back too. I've got something for her to try."
"Hm? Aha — got it."
Once my thoughts were reasonably sorted, I decided to start by throwing just Smeragi at the problem — the one captive who absolutely required one of our superhumans on babysitting duty.
Leaving things as they were meant Partia and Ignis would keep sitting around wasting time indefinitely. Free up even one of them, and I could rotate the three of them — those two plus Belial — on a nice, leisurely three-shift schedule.
And a short while later…