From Now On, Protect Each Other (1)
Of course, that was what happened when you poured resources in the moment they became available and kicked off the next build the instant a hull cleared the dock.
Progress varied from shipyard to shipyard, but overall, everything was scheduled to finish sometime today or tomorrow.
"Jessica, how many days left until the final event participation cutoff… five days now?"
"Yep. More precisely, about four days and twelve hours."
Setting aside the builds currently underway, I figured that if we pushed hard enough, we could still get some decent leveling done on Hresvelgr and the newly pulled battlecruisers.
"Not bad."
I let out a quiet breath of relief. At least the new No. 3 battlecruiser and the rest of the ships finishing construction wouldn't be thrown into the event as raw Level 1s.
And as for the resource pipeline feeding all of that — the Superhumans were rotating through quest after quest, clearing them in shifts — when…
"Oppa!! I'm home!"
"Oh?"
After the clashes down south had kept her away for a while, Marianne was finally making her comeback home to the base.
She'd left for months at a stretch before, but this time there had been so much going on that her return hit differently.
The moment her transmission came through — warmer and more welcome than usual — I decided to greet her properly.
A little while later:
"The base looks like it's changed a lot! Did it get bigger somehow?"
"Of course it did."
Maybe she'd swapped out her flagship to keep pace with the ever-stronger players. Marianne arrived aboard a massive battleship that looked far larger and sleeker than before, parked it at one of our berths, and made straight for the command center.
And then, as always, she latched onto me like a little sister who'd been waiting forever to cling.
"Hmm… you've grown quite a bit, Marianne."
"Ehehe, you think so?"
As if determined to prove she was growing every single day, she showed off a subtly taller frame and a fuller build. Back during the pirate raid event she'd been a scrawny, half-starved little refugee of a kid — and now here she was, a healthy young woman with a proper balance of soft curves and muscle.
No wonder the middle-aged guys in my past life got so into parenting stories and raising kids. Something warm and full swelled in my chest for no good reason.
And right on the heels of that thought:
"By the way, Oppa, I heard you got attacked by some awful people while I was gone."
"…Ah. Right. That did happen."
"I sent help as fast as I could, but if I hadn't pulled my forces back, that never would've—"
"Mm."
"I'm sorry, Oppa."
Is she an angel?
We'd already settled the matter when the troops were withdrawn. There had been plenty of practical reasons Leonard's fleet had to pull out. Sure, the plan had gotten tangled when they unexpectedly collided with another player clan midway through — but right after that, hadn't she come up with a new solution and sent fresh forces to help the base?
And even after that, once the cleanup across the entire southern theater delayed her a bit, she'd come here in person to handle the aftermath. And now she was apologizing to me on top of it all.
Ahhh, a heart as vast as the ocean itself. Truly moving.
At this point, whatever was attached to Marianne's chest wasn't mere fat — it was clearly a personality pouch storing all that outstanding character and intelligence. Of course someone with a personality pouch that big would turn out like this.
Anyway, setting aside the random nonsense running through my head, this whole mess hadn't been Marianne's fault. I tried to gently push her clinging form off my shoulder and respond like a gentleman.
The problem was that Marianne was considerably stronger than me, so forcing her off was a lost cause. I settled for lightly patting her head, letting the gesture carry my gratitude instead.
Once the little commotion settled, I figured I might as well introduce the new companions who'd arrived while she was gone.
"So, this friend here is Smeragi. She joined us recently."
"Nice to meet you, nya. I've heard lots about the Commander and everyone else, nya."
"Hi. Nice to meet you too, Miss Cat."
Naturally, even if Smeragi greeted her cheerfully — high as a kite off the brain parasite — our Marianne wasn't about to beam and welcome a greeting like that out of nowhere.
She seemed to feel something complicated toward anyone who wasn't me, Jessica, or the original three she'd carefully raised back when she was still a scrub.
But that only lasted a moment.
"Pashtura and Griyanaar said you're the official wife, nya. You two really suit each other, nya."
"What."
"…Is that so?"
"That's right, nya."
"Smeragi, was it? I have a feeling you and I are going to become very close."
"I think so too, nya."
Smeragi's brain might have been getting stroked by parasitic tentacles every hour, every minute, every second — but that didn't mean her intelligence had vanished entirely. Her flawlessly smooth handling of the situation succeeded in demolishing the sturdy walls Marianne had built around her heart in an instant.
Of course, that wall-collapse applied to Smeragi and Smeragi alone…
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Pirate Empress."
"…Oppa. What is this?"
"Ah. Stuff happened."
When Marianne laid eyes on Rain the Fixture — who somehow looked happier after being welded into the base wall than she ever had before — her expression went flat. Couldn't really blame her.
And the final destination of that expression was the D-grade feminist Kanf we'd pulled as a guaranteed single last time— no.
"Uuuuughhhbugguhbrrbrrggggbrrgg!!"
"Oh my, Commander, what brings you all the way out he— hello? Miss Pirate Empress."
"…"
"…"
Watching that something currently being modified inside and out in real time by Griyanaar, Marianne's face completed its journey to peak disgust.
At any rate, after showing her around the place following her long absence, I let Marianne wander freely and turned my attention back to assessing the current state of our fleet.
The Neranzara-class — barely the size of a destroyer, yet somehow more expensive in Fleet Points than a light carrier — was one thing. And Hresvelgr, classified not as a regular battleship but as a "Special Battleship" on account of its strategic missile payload, left me with a faintly complicated feeling.
But more than any of that, the thought that we could hit at least 500 Fleet Points before the event started had my head nodding of its own accord, a quiet satisfaction settling in.
Two days had already passed since Marianne's arrival.