Five Friends Required
Meanwhile, Griyanaar was quietly burning with the determination to hand out clones to everyone else and keep the original for herself.
Of course, Tiamat — who had been half-dragged into the meeting and was hearing all of this for the first time — had no hope of understanding any of it. Faced with their bizarre, not-quite-obsession, she tilted her head with pure, genuine innocence and offered a single remark.
"The Commander's a kind person and all, but… is he really worth going this far?"
"What did you just say?"
"Excuse me?"
Naturally, Tiamat's comment landed about as well as a normal person walking into a room full of hyper-obsessed weebs and announcing that their favorite character was mid. The result was immediate.
Because Tiamat was forced to listen to excessive advocacy on your behalf, her affection has decreased!
Tiamat's Current Affinity: +25 (-5)
"Oh, come on. What now."
Icarus had been zoning out, trying to neutralize his mental stress, only to get blindsided by a completely random affinity-drop event.
I thought I had a lot of friends…
Faced with this sudden, unfair hit to Tiamat's affection, he launched an investigation to figure out what on earth had happened — and uncovered the superhumans' secret, terrifying scheme: something they called the "Commander Supplement Plan," which amounted to milking him dry to manufacture clones.
He immediately enlisted Jessica, Partia, and Ignis — who had naturally gravitated to his side — and set about dismantling the plan along with their little cabal.
In the process, he also tried to forcibly tear down the clone-production system they'd built…
"Pweeeeeeeeh!"
"Griyanaar. This is unlike you."
"But Commander, I worked so hard making this!"
The usually composed, devilish little mad scientist sprawled across the floor in absolute refusal, insisting that this one thing was non-negotiable. She looked so much like a cardboard house collapsing into a full-blown catastrophe that he decided to let her keep it.
As compensation, of course, he casually floated the idea of building an army of superhuman clones.
Griyanaar — who had been wailing her eyes out moments earlier — proved those had been nothing but crocodile tears. She sprang to her feet in an instant, waved a pet tentacle in place of a hand, and delivered a razor-sharp verdict: impossible.
Hearing that even Griyanaar-emon couldn't pull it off, Icarus felt himself deflate at the realization that his dream superhuman-clone unit would never come to be.
At any rate, after abolishing the so-called "Commander Supplement Plan" — more accurately, the "Extract the Commander's Genetic Material and Mass-Produce Bio-Weapons Plan" — he made up his mind to tackle a far more serious problem.
"…Jessica."
"Yes, Commander."
"I think it's about time we either founded a clan or joined one."
"Oh… finally?"
And that problem was a shift in his perspective on clans.
He had reflected on it once, ages ago, but his memories of clans in this game were not good ones. A quiet PTSD had kept him from even touching the subject. But enough time had passed since then that those memories had grown considerably hazy, and the thought of founding a clan had begun to bubble up anew.
There was one problem he hadn't anticipated, however. And that problem was…
> Clan Name: (blank)
> Clan Leader: Icarus
> Clan Members: Currently 1
> Clan Capital: Minimum 10,000 Gold (Leader's current Gold: 41,055)
Reason: Clan creation requires a minimum of 5 members excluding the founder
What.
That was it. To make a clan, you needed at least five friends(?).
That was the problem.
Obviously, no such restriction had existed in any version of the game he remembered — not before possession, and not after.
"They used to let you make two- or three-person clans no problem. Hell, they even let people make solo concept clans. Why the sudden overhaul?"
"Right?"
Wondering what on earth had happened — and half-afraid he'd come down with the "early-onset dementia" he sometimes joked about — he immediately dove into the gallery to dig up clan-related info.
Fortunately, it didn't take long. Someone in a similar situation had posted a question, complete with replies, and the comments underneath made the whole mess clear.
[Screenshot of the "minimum member limit" warning on the clan settings screen.jpg]
Pretty sure this wasn't a thing before
Just popped up out of nowhere
Was trying to make a clan with three people I know and got hit with this
Didn't used to have anything like this, right?
At least as far as I remember you could do it with no member restrictions
[Screenshot of the clan creation menu.jpg]
Well, now that it's come up more people will know lol
No idea why the limit got added though
Word is that solo and sub-5 clans were being used for so much nonsense that the screw-ups piled up, so they changed the system itself
Nobody among the players would know for sure though
They never posted a reason in the patch notes and just snuck it in as a silent patch, so how would anyone know lol
Funny part is they put the restriction in place but all the existing solo and sub-5 clans are still sitting there perfectly fine
Plenty of other miscellaneous chatter had piled up on top of those, but the summary was simple: the system had changed.
"Hmm."
"So the system got changed, Commander?"
"Apparently so. At least now I know I don't have early-onset dementia."
"…Pardon?"
As for why they'd bothered adding a member limit in the first place, there was no way to know. But after combing through the posts, it looked like the change was at least two or three months old.
The system said so, so he decided to start by rounding up five friends(?) to join a clan.
The moment he set out to do just that, however, Jessica — who had been watching from the side — drove a very sharp dagger straight into him.
"By the way, Commander. There's one thing I'm curious about."