Complex Problems Sometimes Have Solutions Right Beside Them (3)
"Commaaaaander?! Has the preparation of a groundbreaking experimental subject for me finally — at long last — been completed?!"
"...Experimental subject?"
"Ah."
Having apparently heard the whole story from Jessica, Griyanaar arrived in a mood that seemed a full level higher than usual. I met her with a complicated expression, then pointed at Smeragi — who had been dragged into the command center exactly as I'd arranged beforehand.
"I have no idea what you're planning to do, but take that one and try whatever method you've got in mind."
"My, Commander. No explanation? No concerns you want to voice?"
When I simply told her to take Smeragi without fuss, Griyanaar's eyes went wide with genuine surprise. The look on her face all but screamed, Wait, how can you trust me enough to say something like that so casually? — and she sold it with absolute conviction.
I just shook my head at her theatrics and answered in the same even tone.
"I already know perfectly well that when it comes to this sort of thing, you're the best there is, Griyanaar."
"...Eheh?"
"I don't know what you're going to do, but whatever it is, you can deliver the best possible result — isn't that why you were strutting around so confidently?"
"Th-that's right? Of course it is! Nothing is impossible for Professor Griyanaar!"
My calm reaction left her looking briefly short-circuited. Then the moment I acknowledged her, Griyanaar lit up so hard her grin nearly reached her ears.
"Well then! Since the Commander has recognized me, I'd better work hard enough to live up to it, right?!"
"..."
"Come along, kitty!"
"W-wait! Let go of me-nya! Nyaaaaah!"
From inside the oversized doctor's coat she always wore half-draped over her tiny frame, Griyanaar deployed her "pet tentacles." They snagged Smeragi — who was still bound hand and foot like a cocoon on the floor — hoisted her clean off the ground, and began wriggling away with their prize.
Naturally, the sudden appearance of slimy tentacles left the tightly bound Smeragi in a full-blown panic.
"Nyaaaaah!!! It's slimy and gross-nya! Put me down-nya! I'll just walk myself-nyaaaaah!!"
"Walk like that? How? Just sit still and enjoy the ride while I'm being nice enough to carry you."
Unfortunately for Smeragi, there was zero chance our mad-scientist Professor Griyanaar would entertain her desperate resistance. If anything, the struggling only made a distinctly experimental glint start to appear in Griyanaar's eyes.
As for me — operating on the principle of I have no idea what she's going to do, but it'll probably work out — I had essentially mashed the Affinity +100 button and decided to stop caring. Still, a little curiosity was inevitable.
So as Griyanaar headed for her nest — the biology lab — I casually tossed her a question.
"Ah, Griyanaar. One thing I'm curious about."
"Ask me anything, Commander!"
"Would it be all right if I asked what exactly you plan to do?"
"Hmm?"
She tilted her head with a faintly inscrutable look, glanced around the command center, then shrugged and answered lightly.
"You can watch if you want... but I don't think it'll suit either your tastes or Jessica's."
The moment she said that, Jessica and I both looked at Smeragi — who was staring back at us, mouth sealed shut with tentacle slime, making muffled mmpf mmpf noises of protest. A flicker of genuine pity stirred in both of us.
That pity lasted all of five seconds, give or take.
The sympathy we felt toward Smeragi held for five seconds at most.
If Smeragi ever found out how we felt, she would no doubt curse us out with every cat-tic in her vocabulary. Unfortunately for her, she was currently being hauled off by Griyanaar — roughly the same predicament as a child promised pork cutlets and then dragged to the dentist. There was nothing more for us to worry about on that front.
And frankly, as unfortunate as it was for Smeragi herself... we had something more important to deal with than fretting over Griyanaar's cheerful experiments on an SSS-grade superhuman.
Namely:
"Commander, what do you intend to do with the remaining two?"
"Hmm..."
Exactly as Belial asked over the comms — the disposition of the two remaining S-grades.
Part of me wanted to just dump both of them into Professor Griyanaar's heart-pounding bio-experiment lineup as well. But as the gallery posts made clear, Griyanaar could only take one subject. That left a binary choice for the other two: throw them into the forced labor camp, or leave them locked up at the base.
Except calling it a binary choice was generous. Dumping them in the forced labor camp turned out to be far messier than I'd expected — apparently because their Affinity was sitting at −200.
Why the hell are they just sitting in the forced labor camp going "nah, I'm not working"? I don't get it. Isn't the whole point of a forced labor camp that you force the ones who don't want to work?
,
These bastards can't be worked even in the forced labor camp if their Affinity is below −100.
I dug through the lore tab on the wiki to figure out why, and there actually is a reason.
Once Affinity hits around −100, they just find the very act of working for that commander utterly disgusting. So when you assign them work, they pretend to do it while deliberately wrecking equipment and parts — meaning you literally can't put them on anything.
Even with supers standing right there supervising, they keep doing it no matter what, which feels a bit forced... but that just makes me more convinced this is a newbie-protection and balance measure more than actual lore consistency. Makes perfect sense tbh.
"Hmmm..."
As those newly popular gallery posts made clear, even the forced labor camp required Affinity above −100 to be usable. That was the problem.
"Commander, then it was never a binary choice to begin with, was it?"
"I only just saw those posts myself."
And so the question of what to do with those two S-grade men and women continued to grind on without resolution.
Ah, should I just leave the two of them alone and watch them make eyes at each other until they film a pure-love romance?
What with Griyanaar constantly shoving weird tentacles in my face, my SAN was already scraping the floor. A little pure♡love to restore my mental health was starting to sound appealing...
While I sat in silence entertaining that thought, Jessica spoke up.
"Commander, no matter how I look at it, those two are going to be hard to use."
"...True."
"Since they're difficult to put to work anyway, why not take this opportunity to try the Trade Window?"
"...Oh."
The moment Jessica mentioned the Trade Window, I remembered something that various circumstances had effectively erased from my mind.
"Come to think of it, there is a Trade Window."
From my perspective, the Trade Window had never really registered as something worth thinking about. Honestly, after skimming it once last time... what business did I even have going in there?
The only Gold I had was the starter capital every user got at the beginning, and that was nowhere near enough to do anything useful in a Trade Window already gearing up for serious inflation. After that, the only reason I ever went near it was to delete reported posts as a moderator. I hadn't even had a chance to window-shop.
That, and the fact that I'd been ridiculously busy — but that was secondary.