Ships Sometimes Make Excellent Stock Market Material (3)

What the hell kind of nonsense is this for a game?

I had no idea what they were talking about, but one look was enough to tell they were spinning pure stock-market-style stories.

And that wasn't all…

There were even posts that reminded me of a certain community I'd browsed on the internet before getting forcibly kidnapped and isekai'd into this place.

Anyone with eyes could tell this reeked of stock trading, and I genuinely had no idea how I was supposed to process any of it.

What am I supposed to do? Can I really dive into a ship stock market overflowing with human madness and come out the other side?

If it were one-on-one secondhand deals, my hard-earned experience would at least bump my IQ from 50 up to 100 — but stocks were a completely different beast.

So I fretted and fretted over what to do, and in the end I even dropped by the solo ranker chat for the first time in a while, hoping to pick up some advice…

Nothing but lukewarm reactions came back, and the thought of whether charging straight in was really the right call started bubbling up all over again.

But I couldn't just sit around forever staring at a gacha that only ever exploded in my face, either.

So I took a moment of careful deliberation — and while I was at it, I spent a few minutes poking my fingers into Smeragi's ears as she shoved her head at me, demanding praise after finishing her daily quests.

"Ungogogogogot."

"Hmm… I've decided."

I only stood up and made my choice once Smeragi was making weird noises, every hair on her tail standing on end as she trembled all over.

"What are you planning to do, Commander?"

"Strike while the iron's hot. Once a man declares his resolve, how ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠can he turn tail and run?"

"Wow…"

And right after saying that, I opened the auction house window again, flipped through the destroyer listings, and — spotting an Anaphylaxis-class Air Defense Destroyer whose auction was nearly over — dumped all 2,100 gold into the bid, formally announcing my entry into the "ship stock market."

Ships sometimes make excellent stock market material. (3)

At a glance, you might wonder how an "auction" is supposed to function like a stock market.

But to be precise, this game's ship trading system worked like this:

Players set their desired sell prices and buy prices against specific ships. Other players see those prices, buy and sell accordingly, and from those transaction prices the system calculates an average — the market price.

And how did ant-tier players like me turn that into a stock market? Nothing fancy. Buy at the lowest price, flip at the highest. That was it.

Of course, buying and selling were strictly handled through the trade window, while the auction house operated as its own separate gambling-adjacent mess — a thoroughly cursed structure where gamblers could pile in and make everything even more complicated.

Even so, I charged into the market with overflowing confidence and a mere 2,100 gold.

But just as even Sir Isaac Newton — the man who rewrote Earth's gravity by throwing an apple — failed to predict the madness of human stock trading, I too was forcibly subjected to a spectacular roller coaster of ship stocks that flared bright and then crashed hard.

At first it was beginner's luck: starting from 2,100 gold, I ballooned it to 4,500 within days, then all the way to 6,000.

"Who am I? Icarus, the man blessed by heaven itself!"

Spouting garbage like that, I was brimming with hope that just a little more and I'd finally be able to touch the heavy cruiser tier…

Unfortunately, not long after, I slammed the graph straight into the ground, torching 1,500 gold off my 6,000. Then, panicking and flailing around trying to recover, I proceeded to lose another 2,500 gold in a full-blown catastrophe.

The details are still too PTSD-inducing to recount properly, but I didn't lose those thousands of gold in one go. It was death by a thousand cuts — stubbornly hanging on, tinkering with this and that, shaving off a little at a time until it all added up.

Naturally, Jessica couldn't stand watching me any longer. She enlisted Pashtura and Smeragi — who'd stopped by to deliver a report — and the three of them grabbed both my arms, eyes bloodshot, and forced me to calm down as I tried to throw more gold at the market to claw back my 6,000…

A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠few minutes later.

— Soft and squishy ♡

— Soft and springy ♡

"Ohoho, feeling a bit calmer now, Commander? ♡"

"Uuung, ddeuddyadya…"

"Commander, next time just do it once and take a break, nya."

Surrounded on all sides by soft, fluffy, squishy, springy sensations, I felt my body and mind stabilize at an almost alarming speed.

After putting on that disgraceful display, I stroked Smeragi's head — she was bizarrely affectionate toward me for someone whose favorability had barely cracked +100, probably thanks to the brain parasite Griyanaar had jammed into her through some weird project called "Red Bean Paste Affirmative" — and spoke.

"Jessica, no matter how I look at it, if I try to squeeze solid profits out of this, I'm only going to get my nose broken."

"I'm glad you've realized it now, at least, Commander."

Of course, even as she said that, Jessica was radiating a full-body aura of I told you to be careful, didn't I?

Ugh, that fighting spirit.

Taking the full force of Jessica's murderous resolve, I decided then and there to make a clean declaration.

"Let's give up on deliberately grinding gold through ship stocks. We'll just quietly flip small ships for modest profits and leave it at that."

"Hmmm, so you're not even considering the large-ship side at all?"

"Not unless I have about ten times the gold I have now. Probably."

Tripling my principal had been nothing more than classic beginner's luck. Charging back in hoping for a repeat would only tank my already gacha-ruined fortune even further.

"If I just stack a few dozen to a few hundred gold a day, I'll have around ten thousand in a month, won't I?"

"Is that so."

"And more importantly — while I was doing this ship-stock thing, I discovered one more new fact."

"Pardon?"

Faced with Jessica's puzzled look, I immediately opened the community window and showed her the gallery.

"My goodness — so gold supply is actually possible?"

"Exactly. This was completely unheard of back when I used to play."

Even when I'd first researched the trade and auction systems, nobody had mentioned anything about gold supply routes. Finding that post felt like taking a solid hit to the back of the head.