Nice Boat

Oxianor was the envoy of the Space Kaiju, currently serving as the princess's direct officer and a Natural-born Super.

Try to capture her, and Rain's monsters would get corrupted instead.

Smeragi was a blisteringly fast assassin-type Super — a nightmare matchup for any "giant monster" fused into the facility itself.

You couldn't even land a hit on her.

Griyanaar, whether you deployed kaiju or leaned on chemicals and facilities, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was already running the same playbook. She saw through everything and countered it all.

Her main body was relatively fragile, sure — but her escort pet tentacles formed an ironclad defense.

Yeah. What a truly nightmarish setup.

Rain herself had almost certainly never imagined it, but the end result was a perfect hard-counter formation locked and loaded against her.

So they'd managed to snare her with the bio-barrier — great. Except then the woman herself got thoroughly worked over, dragged out of the kaiju body, and until the rear force arrived to smash the barrier open, she was stuck inside getting the absolute stuffing beaten out of her by the vanguard.

"That does seem to be the case, Commander."

"Holy moly horrible terrible."

And as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if thrashing her as a group hadn't been enough, Griyanaar had apparently decided that additional intel-gathering was in order — and spent a good while enthusiastically rooting around in the brain of the researcher who'd stabbed them in the back.

Hearing all that, I first ordered them to interact with the already-subdued Rain so we could clear the quest.

Finally got them.

Watching the quest-clear message pop up, I decided dungeon exploration could end here. I was about to order the Supers still inside the asteroid base-dungeon to start heading back.

But right at that moment—

"Commander, hold on a second."

"Hmm?"

"If I dig a little more, I think something actually useful is about to come out. Ugh, doing this outside a proper facility is so frustrating."

Griyanaar, still elbow-deep in Rain's thoroughly scrambled skull, called for a stop — then flashed me a bright smile and nodded, insisting she had something worth hearing.

And the instant that smile appeared, a new event message bloomed in front of my eyes.

Oh.

I didn't know the specifics, but the words "Ancient Empire ship" alone were enough. In-game their performance was nothing special, but rarity kept their trade value high. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I nodded and gave the order.

"Then first we find where that ship is. Search the place, and contact me the moment you locate it."

"Understood, Commander."

"Got it, nya!"

And about ten minutes later—

"Found it, nya!"

"Oh."

After combing through the bizarrely twisted interior of the asteroid base, our Supers finally uncovered an entrance buried under layers of living flesh. Ignis and Smeragi blasted it open, and at last we got a look at the ship waiting inside…

"It's small."

"Small, yeah."

The moment I saw the actual size of the vessel sitting in the berth, my expectations cooled off hard. The overall silhouette was decently cool, sure — but it was roughly destroyer-sized, maybe a little smaller.

"Armament?"

"Hmm. From here, it doesn't look like there's anything."

"Same from my angle. I don't even see the fifty-millimeter CIWS chain cannons that small ships usually mount."

No visible weapons at all — no main guns, no anti-air defense systems, nothing.

Don't tell me it's completely unarmed.

Still, it was too early for full disappointment. The exterior was caked in a thick layer of dust, so even the panel lines were invisible.

"Pashtura, lowest beam output — just a light sweep. Blow the dust off that ship."

"Got it♡"

I used Pashtura like a glorified air blower, torching every speck of dust clean off. Only after studying the newly cleaned hull did I reach a conclusion.

"I think I have a rough idea what this is…"

"What is it?"

"A ship that converted its entire weapons suite to internal mounts. Looking at the panel-line structure, those weapons are probably all VLS systems — missiles and torpedoes only."

"Heeeh."

And once I'd gotten that far, I started thinking the ship wasn't all that great. In this world's setting, carrying only missiles and torpedoes meant you were stuck sniping from long range. Electronic warfare gear that scrambled missiles and guided torpedoes was hardly rare here — so a ship packing nothing else didn't hold much value.

Of course, if you could dump enough missile saturation to punch through the jamming, that was a different story…

Just eyeballing it, though — launch tubes look like ten, maybe twenty at most.

A standard "torpedo destroyer" properly refitted carried thirty-plus tubes minimum. By that measure, this pint-sized ancient destroyer(?) didn't seem particularly useful.

Still. Free is free.

Nobody turns down free stuff. So I decided to claim the mini missile destroyer(?) anyway — and with the boss(?) neutralized, the quests cleared, and the dungeon's restrictions lifted, I sent assault pods straight into the asteroid base loaded with crew to operate the ship.

Those same pods would bring our Supers home on the return trip.

But a few dozen minutes later, once my crew boarded and started working the controls — and the ship's information finally populated — I realized what I'd just acquired was no mere "missile destroyer."

Barely three seconds after the crew reported they were aboard and ready to begin sea trials, a cheerful little chime announced exactly what this ship was.

A ship class I'd never so much as heard of during my entire time playing the game. My head tilted on pure reflex.

What even is this.

Jessica, reading the same message beside me, was just as lost.

"Commander, what kind of ship is this supposed to be?"

"First time I've seen ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it too. No idea."

While our Super friends hauled back the traitor — currently babbling something like "I'm a pathetic femaleee!!" with her brain thoroughly scrambled — and our troops ferried the Neranzara home, I decided to dig through the wiki tab and figure out what the hell this thing was.

But…

"Huh. Nothing comes up?"

"…Hmm."

Unfortunately, the wiki tab returned zero hits on the Neranzara. Then again, only a few dozen users appointed as "wiki archivists" could even write articles there in the first place.