The Secret to Preserving a Fleet

Just as Marianne had said, the two of them followed my orders far more readily than I'd expected.

Still, while Arcadia was one thing, Betelgeuse falling in line without a fuss struck me as genuinely bizarre.

Once the battle started, I decided to casually float the question past Jessica.

Of course, Jessica didn't know everything either — so all I got was a look of pure inconvenience.

"Commander, even I don't know everything."

"You can do it. I believe in you…!"

"???"

As for why Betelgeuse was so obediently taking my orders, though — I figured that out soon enough.

The moment of revelation came when…

"What's with that fleet of yours, Icarus?"

"…A lot happened."

"Pathetic♡ Disqualified as a ranker♡"

"Okay, but seriously — how did you even keep that fleet intact?"

"Not telling. Why would I?"

"…Hmm."

I'd tried to casually fish for her fleet-preservation secrets — you know, the whole "so what's your secret, oh great one" approach.

But whether it was a matter of pride or just her personality, Betelgeuse cut me off mid-sentence with a sharp about-face and flatly refused.

"Pffft, the guy ranked third can't even manage his fleet properly and only has six ships left? Tsk tsk tsk."

"Ugh."

And just like that, the conversation kept rolling into a steady stream of digs aimed squarely at me.

Honestly, I wanted nothing more than to deliver a righteous noogie to that smug little head of hers.

"Picking fights like that is exactly why you have no friends."

"What?"

"Oh, pardon me, Icarus? Just ignore that trash-tier pink girl over there and let's focus on our job."

"If we're going by that logic, you're currently—"

"Aaaagh."

If I let those two start freestyle brawling in the team-wide chat…

"…"

With teammates that dedicated to fighting among themselves, dumping those two into the chat would have been a disaster.

Which meant that whether I liked it or not, I was stuck relaying both of their opinions into the chat window — and had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠somehow been promoted to de facto team leader in the process.

At this rate, I was genuinely starting to wonder if stress-induced hair loss was in my near future.

But that particular brand of suffering didn't last long.

"Oppa, I had something I wanted to ask you about… oh? Were you in the middle of a conversation?"

"Hic."

The moment Marianne happened to appear on the comms screen, Betelgeuse's reaction was immediate. That cocky expression she'd been wearing vanished without a trace. She started hiccupping, her face twitching as she struggled to keep her composure…

"W-well, of course I'll tell you!"

"Huh?"

"You wanted to know how I preserved my fleet, right? I'll tell you!"

Her face flushed red as she blurted it out in a rush, suddenly pivoting into full Icarus-friendly mode.

I had no idea why, but I figured Marianne must have had a solid reason for looking so confident earlier.

So even while trading fire with the enemy team, I settled in to hear Betelgeuse's field-compressed fleet preservation method.

Arcadia, for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her part, must have been quietly curious too — she kept her comms screen open and watched us, pretending she wasn't interested.

And then, a few dozen minutes later…

Only after enough time had passed to obliterate half the enemy's main force did I finally understand what Betelgeuse had been talking about.

"So… you're saying you just went hard on the political ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠maneuvering?"

"Isn't that obvious? No matter how good you are solo, this game has hard limits."

Unlike earlier, when she'd been putting on that bratty little act and doing nothing but show off — now she was talking about something she was actually good at, and confidence poured out of every word and gesture.

How to put it… it was almost like watching Griyanaar brag about her research results.

Bottom line: through carefully calibrated political maneuvering, she'd minimized her own fleet's losses while letting allied teams grind down the enemy for her.

She really did earn that "smart" reputation. I nodded along — but the second I felt the urge to praise that arrogant pink-haired girl straight to her face, something told me that would count as a loss.

"Damn, as expected of the rank-six player and leader of the second-largest clan."

I immediately deployed a roast and started needling Betelgeuse.

"Whaaaat?! Wh-whose fault do you think it is that I dropped to sixth?! If it weren't for you, I would've still been second!"

Hit with my unexpected sneak attack, Betelgeuse flushed red for an entirely different reason this time, screeching in a shrill, childish wail.

But while I was content to take her explanation at face value and move on, Arcadia immediately latched onto something suspicious in Betelgeuse's words.

"Hold on a second. Wouldn't that mean you couldn't earn proper points, which would tank your ranking evaluation?"

"Oh."

"If you were preserving your fleet that aggressively, you couldn't have been landing real kills or assists…"

But Betelgeuse just snorted at Arcadia's critique.

"You thought I wouldn't have accounted for that? How rude~"

"…"

"I told you, didn't I? I applied the right amount of reading the room and political maneuvering."

"What exactly did you do?"

"Nothing special? When charging in with the rest of the allies, I'd just quietly ease off the throttle at the last second, or delay my entry by a few seconds — so the other ships would eat the aggro instead."

"…"

Easy to say.

But she was doing that while meticulously micromanaging anywhere from dozens to over a hundred ships.

"Once I'd slipped out of the front, I'd sit in the back providing support fire and casually scoop up kill steals and assists. Done."

"Huh."

"Of course, if I took zero losses the whole time, my allies might team-kill me later — so from the start, I'd deliberately throw in some meat-shield ships I'd brought specifically to dump, blow them up on purpose, and boom: perfect alibi!"

"Ohh."

She went on: if you hesitated even a little, people would catch on — so she'd quickly pick an appropriate ship, ram it into the enemy fleet, and secure both the kill and the alibi in one move.

Hearing that, I found myself nodding inwardly. Yeah… that was the caliber of play it took to run a clan.

Of course, even that method only worked through the seventh battle…

"From the eighth fight onward, the players' IQ spiked hard and they stopped falling for it."

"Yeah, that tracks."

"But so what? By that point, everyone else's ship counts were already absurdly low."

"Oh."

"So last match, I just crushed them with overwhelming numbers. You've gotta be able to do at least this much to call yourself a ranker, right?"

It was impressive, sure — but for Betelgeuse of the Loki Clan, famous for her bizarre and unorthodox strategies, this felt surprisingly… small-time.

And it wasn't just me. Arcadia seemed to feel the same way, wearing a peculiar expression as she voiced the question.

But faced with our doubts, Betelgeuse just looked at us like we were hopeless, shaking her head slowly.

"Assuming that a smart person will always use some wild, extraordinary method? That assumption itself is a trap."

"What."