Farewell, Overseer
Naturally, given that a player like Koenig was skilled enough for even rankers like Arcadia and me to find him genuinely impressive — impressive enough to draw a little admiration — the escort provided by the temporary escort player turned out to have far more holes than I'd expected.
And so, the result of that failed escort:
Unable to withstand the enemy barrage, my two remaining free-floating corvettes — the last of their kind — met their end. And of course, with the escort having failed, the surviving enemies closed in, wiping out more than half the resource mining ships as well.
But looking at it another way: for the mere price of two corvettes and four resource mining ships, we'd managed to protect that miraculous eight-win streak.
"Farewell, little corvettes. Live strong out there in the cosmos."
"…"
After offering a loyal salute to the corvettes that had burned themselves out protecting the capital ships — especially Hresvelgr — I resolved to redouble my efforts for the next battle to come.
This is True Love, baby.
When I finally warped out into the eighth battle room, I quickly scanned the surrounding fleets with my eyes. And everyone was… how should I put it.
"Hmm. By the eighth round, fleet sizes have definitely shrunk quite a bit."
"There are hardly any commanders left with small ships remaining."
While everyone had gritted their teeth and dragged their capital ships along — especially battleships and carriers — cruisers and below? At most one or two per player?
No, even that was generous. Of the nine people present, six no longer had a single corvette left, composing their fleets entirely of capital ships.
And one of those six was me.
"…What ships do we still have left?"
"Excluding the Naranjara-class that went into stealth the moment we entered the battle map… Hresvelgr, Kraken, three regular battlecruisers… ah, and the Overseer. Seven ships total!"
"Hmm."
How had the Overseer — once the greatest vessel in our fleet — become our smallest ship? Well, the Naranjara was only destroyer-sized… no, even smaller than that.
Jessica waved both arms wildly at me, insisting we still had a small ship remaining.
"But Commander! We still have the Naranjara-class, so it's not like our small ships are completely gone!"
"…A ship that costs more fleet points than a battleship?"
"Ah."
Even so, for something that tiny to gobble up fifty points all by itself was crossing a line, wasn't it?
Anyway, with my small ships for evasion-tanking completely bottomed out, I resolved to go full coward-meta this time — nothing but ultra-long-range sniping potshots.
But while I was thinking that and discussing with the other players in chat where we should go, a new fleet appeared from the rear of our formation, about to join the battle.
—Static crackle…
—"Wait… is that you, Icarus?"
"Arcadia. Meeting again three times in a row — what an incredible coincidence."
—"R-right?! What an incredible coincidence?!"
At the fact that Arcadia had appeared three times running, I thought the world was truly full of mysteries — and yet, considering that the player count was being halved each round, by the time you'd won seven in a row the numbers would have thinned dramatically…
In a way it was only natural. I nodded and offered a welcome greeting.
Meanwhile, at the same time, on the bridge of Arcadia's flagship, the Hood…
—"Shall we stick together again this time? Better to run with people whose composition actually works than wander around with folks we haven't even coordinated with."
"Eep— a-ah! Of course!"
—"Then once the battle starts, we'll keep the comm channel open like before…"
—Beep!
"…Hehe. Heheheh."
"That happy about it, Commander?"
Arcadia — member number one and president of Icarus's unofficial fan club, and simultaneously the clan leader of the massive Justice clan — the moment her communication with Icarus cut off, launched into a lovestruck high-school-girl voice, squealing away without restraint.
No — with her cheeks flushed bright red in excitement, Arcadia grabbed the shoulders of her adjutant Clione beside her and shook her vigorously. Looking at that, it wasn't that she "seemed" to be in love. She was already head-over-heels, sunk as deep as a person could sink.
"What do I do, what do I do?"
"Umm."
"Not only getting matched with Icarus three times, but hearing him ask to go together himself!"
"Ugh… uuuugh."
"This is destiny! The red thread of fate the heavens themselves have tied!"
"I-I understand, so please calm down a little first, Commander."
Naturally, faced with Arcadia's excitement, Clione felt her shoulders about to dislocate and desperately tried to calm her down. And the fortunate thing for Clione was that Arcadia, despite being in love, had not evolved into a raving lunatic bitch who'd gone blind and lost all reason.
"Commander, the battle is about to begin. Are you going to keep showing this lovesick goofy face then too?"
"…Hah?!"
"If you continue like this, you may only show an unsightly side to Commander Icarus, whom you so adore."
"You're right, Clione… I need to pull myself together."
Arcadia slapped both of her soft cheeks, and the lovestruck high-school-girl act from moments before vanished without a trace. In an instant she displayed the cool, composed bearing of a commander and immediately prepared for battle. Watching her commander's pure, single-minded first love, Clione felt her tongue click in amazement.
She's got it bad. Really, properly bad. Is it because he's her first love?
More than anything, once she'd teamed up with Icarus, she'd thrown out her previous attitude of carefully conserving forces for maximum gain at minimum cost. Calling it the "power of love," she charged into battle with truly aggressive ferocity, displaying unyielding courage. Clione shook her head back and forth at the sight.
Mahiro, the superhuman riding on the bridge to defend the flagship Hood, placed a hand on Clione's shoulder and said:
"Don't worry too much. Just because our Commander's blind with love doesn't mean she'll throw us away for nothing."
"…I wasn't particularly worried about that."
Mahiro had picked the wrong thing to worry about, and for a moment an awkward atmosphere flooded the bridge — a minor incident. But that was only temporary.
Watching their commander, as if a war god had descended upon her, continuously pouring out overwhelming offensives while receiving supporting fire cascading in from Icarus's fleet, Clione, Mahiro, and all of Arcadia's waiting superhumans could nod as one, of one heart and mind.
"The power of love is incredible."
"You know why the power of love is strong?"
"Because it's incredible."
"The power of love is incredible!!"
Even if that love was directed not at them but at another commander… from the start, it was their beloved Commander's first love — so what could they do? First love, pure love — that was the truth. Most of the superhumans remaining in Arcadia's fleet nodded along, cheering on their Commander's pure first love.
But while Arcadia fought so hard and handed Icarus his eighth victory, after the eighth battle ended, the moment the battle results appeared before my eyes…
"Nooo, Overseer! Augh, my baby!!"
"Wow… the battlecruiser that got sunk would cry if it saw this."
I felt the back of my head throb as my blood pressure surged like a storm. I clutched the wreckage of the Overseer, reduced to fragments, and couldn't stop my wailing.
Of course, the sinking of the Overseer and the battlecruiser wasn't because Arcadia, fighting alongside me, had failed to do her job properly. It was simply that, unlike before, the other players' brainpower had risen to the point where top-rankers like Arcadia and me could no longer just crush them with raw physical skill. A truly simple fact.
"Who would've thought they'd reverse their flanking maneuver and hit the main force from there."
"Thanks to that, Hresvelgr nearly cooked off and killed us all."
It was true that the enemy's fleets had also shrunk, but—