On Second Thought, the Terror Plan Seems Kinda Off (1)
Hmm, right. I understan' perfectly, yessir.
For a moment, the sensation of my intelligence plummeting was overwhelmingly strong. But it passed quickly enough. I shook my head hard, snapped back to my senses, and felt a bright, full-faced smile spreading across my features all on its own.
Naturally, Jessica — standing right beside me — looked at that enormous grin with pure bewilderment and asked,
"Commander, what on earth has you so happy?"
"Ah, Jessica. We've finally got someone who can give us a carrier aircraft buff."
"…Really?"
"Obviusly."
With that, I turned the gallery wiki tab I'd been reading toward Jessica and went on.
"I'd figured that for the time being, there wasn't much to do beyond the fleet expansion plan. Never expected work would just fall into our laps like this."
"Impressive. So then, how do you plan to handle leveling for this superhuman called Tiamat?"
"Nothing fancy. Once the second light carrier currently under construction is finished… we'll slot her into a carrier task force with the Kraken and two light carriers, hunt some pirates, run drills, that sort of thing."
The wiki tab hadn't gone into much detail, but it had made one thing clear: the only place Tiamat could actually do her job was with carrier aircraft. So I announced a plan of action that matched that reality.
"Well, there's not really any other way, is there."
"Hmm."
Not long after that conversation with Jessica, Tiamat — whose stats left her lagging in both Stamina and Mobility — came back to the command post riding on Partia's back. I immediately assigned her to the Kraken and ordered the start of proper leveling work.
The moment we actually put her on the Kraken, though, it became clear that Tiamat had about as much resistance to the "tentacles" as Belial did.
"Eeeeeeek?!?!"
"Oh."
"C-Commander?! It's all damp and clammy in here?! Something's wriggling?!?!"
"Doesn't seem like a good fit, does it."
Hearing that high-school-girl-style scream the instant she was assigned to the Kraken, I found myself facing a genuine dilemma. Should I leave tentacle-phobic Tiamat right where she was and let her adapt the way Smeragi had? Or take pity on her and put her on a regular light carrier instead?
Of course, the dilemma didn't last long.
"If we leave her like that, what's going to happen to her affinity?"
"You're seriously considering implanting a brain parasite that can drop her intelligence into someone who isn't even hostile toward you, Commander?"
"…Now that you mention it."
I couldn't very well go around shaving points off the Magic stat — the one tied to command ability — on a character whose entire kit was built around command. So I contacted the increasingly teary-eyed Tiamat and ordered her to transfer over to the light carrier next door.
And the next morning.
Same as always, I was deploying superhumans all over the place for daily quests while simultaneously trying to get Tiamat's leveling underway. True to her lore personality, Tiamat grumbled about the light carrier being a mere "Common" grade —
"Want to go back on the Kraken, then? Griyanaar modified it yesterday, so the ride quality's supposedly much better."
"I'm sorry, I'll stay on the light carrier."
— but given that boarding the Kraken meant going through a neural-link process that was, in practice, a full tentacle-groping experience, our horned Tiamat immediately caved at Jessica's words. With no pirates or other trash currently respawning, we settled for leveling her through carrier aircraft training drills instead.
And as I went about that work, I fully expected the rest of the day to pass in perfect peace. Which is why I had absolutely no inkling of what was about to happen.
On Second Thought, the Terror Plan Seems Kinda Off;; (1)
And the day after Icarus had fully thrown himself into Tiamat's leveling work…
…and the day after that.
Humanity's special operations team… no, infiltration cell… no, black ops…
"Why does our designation keep changing?"
"No idea. I heard the commanders are still fighting over which name they like best."
"Whatever it ends up being is fine, just please not 'Pupa Swarm' like a minute ago."
"You little shit, did you just insult the name our commander picked?"
"Come on, honestly, 'Pupa Swarm' is a bit much."
"Yeah, it is."
"…"
Near the border region between the Earth Federation and the Central Zone, a unit whose original name had been changed so many times that nobody could remember what it had been — currently the "Icarus Base Infiltration Team" (to be renamed the Assault Force shortly) — was deep in preparations.
But if everything had gone according to the original plan, they should already have been infiltrating Icarus's base territory by now. So why were they still loafing around near the border?
Explaining that in full detail would clearly require an essay of about 5,700,000 characters. So, for the sake of the poor officers' wrists, a brief summary went as follows:
"So why are we still sitting here doing this?"
"Name aside, the commanders are split on this whole operation. Like, way too split."
"Ah."
And while the superhumans — dispatched from at least twenty different bases — were killing time at a leisurely pace and living peaceful lives…
Their commanders — that is, the players — were in a state of pure suffering. It had gone well beyond discussions among Antares's own officer corps. Opposition factions inside the Humanity Clan, political friction with outside personnel and other clans, and every flavor of discord that inevitably arises whenever people gather in large numbers were all grinding them down.
And naturally, the absolute peak of that suffering belonged to the supreme administrator, clan leader, and golden-haired babysitter of them all: Antares.
"No, you said everything was already settled, so why does this keep coming up?"
"Um… dunno?"
Not only were the participating players still grumbling nonstop — even some of his closest inner-circle players were throwing out "bro this feels kinda wrong" challenges on a conversation that had already been decided. The classic handsome blonde Antares found himself shaking his head at the thought that he was about to turn into a white-haired old man on the spot.
But that didn't last long either.
Antares's closest confidants — the founding heroes of Humanity, more or less — returned from wrapping up the southern campaign, took stock of the situation, and proceeded to deliver what could only be called straight-up counsel. And Antares, who had already made his decision, felt his resolve begin to waver.
"Antares, do we really need to attack Icarus?"
"Huh?"
"Think about it. What even started this whole thing in the first place."
"Right — Arcadia told you something, you cross-checked it with Koenig and Betelgeuse, and that made you certain. Isn't that it?"
"That's true, but…"
"Arcadia's famous for being rigid, so fine, whatever. But Betelgeuse? She could've said that specifically to mess with your head."
"…!"
It went beyond mere wavering. While his closest confidants had been gone, Antares had been so busy managing the clan that his intelligence had no spare capacity left. Now that they were back, they not only lightened his load — they began functioning as a kind of auxiliary brain. The fog that had clouded his vision cleared, and Antares's intellect slowly returned to normal.
"…Hearing it like that, yeah."
"Right?"
He could finally approach the truth properly: no matter how you looked at it, this situation was not something worth hunting Icarus down over.
"Arcadia aside, Betelgeuse is fundamentally built on trolling. That bitch is more than capable of pulling something like this."
"Exactly. There's no way she didn't notice you were trying to cross-check."