I Have Come to End This War

And in that brief stretch of silence, when the event message finally appeared, I couldn't help but feel a strange little twinge at the fact that I'd landed in third place yet again.

Okay, cool and all, but... I lost the last match — the tenth one. How the hell did I still come in third?

Fortunately, whoever designed this thing must have figured the rankers would find it confusing. Barely a few seconds after that thought crossed my mind, a fresh explanation of the ranking calculation chimed into existence right in front of my eyes.

Jessica and I both let out a heartfelt groan the moment we saw how the scoring actually worked.

"Sheesh."

"What a shame. If things had gone just a little better, Commander, you could have taken first — or at least second."

She wasn't wrong. It was a pretty frustrating result. But realistically, the biggest reason I'd landed in third was sitting right there in bold on the minus list: that single loss. Unlike the other rankers, I had one of those on my record, and that was almost certainly the deciding factor.

I did my best to swallow the disappointment — and still had to sit with the deeply weird feeling of finishing third three times in a row.

"By the way, Jessica. Isn't it kind of bizarre that I'm third again?"

"It really is. Commander, you must have some strange destiny tied to that particular spot."

Anyway, now ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that I roughly understood why E-U had me at third, I opened the gallery and the chat windows at the same time, curious how everyone else was taking it.

Of course, the first thing I checked was the solo rankers' room.

The second I opened it, I was treated to the sight of Laura — the only established ranker whose placement had actually dropped — having a full mental collapse in real time. I casually shoved that chat window off to the side and decided to check the gallery instead.

And the gallery, as always, had its priorities straight: flexing over the event results came first.

Or rather — it wasn't just flexing. Out of nowhere, full-blown classism had erupted, and true to their Hell Peninsula roots, the community had immediately started carving itself into factions.

At this point they were spiraling into full brainrot, so I shook my head and decided enough was enough. Antares was too buried in clan management to post, and Raksha was staying quiet — probably still stewing over how he'd been wiped and lost first place. That left me to step up as the representative, drop a post, and put an end to the nonsense.

And so, having thoroughly crushed the people trying to start a Class Cup over the dumbest possible thing, I turned back to business as usual.

"Commander, an Earth Federation cruiser squadron near our position is reportedly advancing to attack the base."

"Sortie the Kraken and turn them into feed. Just in case, send escorts and the monster fleet along to cover that soft, squishy belly of hers."

"Yes, sir."

As always, the randomly respawning enemies were being generously donated as Kraken chow — and already, I could see the gallery's next wave of bait bubbling up in an entirely new direction.