Alone in the Fortress (1)

Even by the standards of someone who'd been living through some truly grotesque days, the recent situation in the gallery and other sectors was nothing short of spectacular.

"Everyone's really having a rough time of it, huh."

"Tell me about it."

I'd seen every kind of incident and accident imaginable, but never in my life did I expect to watch one ranker's clan backstab another ranker's clan. You really do have to live a long time to see everything. I tore my eyes away from the gallery window and shook my head.

Separately from all that, the last gallery post I'd read suddenly made me wonder just how large the populations of other clans actually were. Since the thought had occurred to me, I decided I might as well check the rankings of the top-tier clans.

And the result:

Ah, I see.

Looking at the sheer three-fold difference in weight class, just as the gallery users had said, I nodded along. Yeah, that made perfect sense.

And right around then, I found myself thinking how truly peculiar that whole mess was, before closing the gallery window and getting back to managing the fortress. From my perspective, it was literally a story from a faraway land, after all.

Alone in the Fortress (1)

Whether they tore each other apart over power or not, it was all so far away from here that I might as well have been on another planet. So I focused on the work right in front of me.

And the most important job among them was repairing the two battleships I'd received as a reward last time — the ones I'd put to thrifty, thorough use during the fortress siege.

Naturally, if anyone asked why I hadn't repaired them yet, I had exactly one thing to say:

I don't have the facilities to repair battleships.

It was an absurd situation, but the presence of battleships in the fortress defense fleet had led me to assume I could repair them just fine. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Apparently the player system treated things differently, though — because even stuffing a battleship into a capital ship dock did absolutely nothing. No repairs, no nothing.

Come on, you bastards. Show a little flexibility once in a while.

Just like how I couldn't repair carriers without an Aviation Command, battleships couldn't be repaired until the Fleet Association finished building. With about ten days left on the construction timer, I resolved that the moment it completed, I wouldn't start pumping out new capital ships — I'd fix my two precious, still-unrepaired battleships first.

With the battleship situation sorted, I decided to check on the base's current resource intake next. These were things I should have looked into ages ago, but honestly, I'd been so busy I hadn't had the luxury of checking ahead of time. What could you do?

"So, Jessica — present me with a resource status board, prettily decorated with a fresh, adorable, and utterly charming UI."

"...Haah. Sometimes I really do wonder what on earth goes through your head, Commander."

At my request, Jessica heaved a long, heavy sigh, rummaged around on a nearby computer for a moment, and then began laying out our current situation with clinical clarity.

"First, resource intake — minerals are at fifty-six thousand, and rare resources are hitting twenty thousand."

"...That feels pretty anemic for a base that owns a giant fortress."

"Ah, that's the net intake after consumption. Raw intake without deductions puts minerals at eighty thousand and rare resources over forty thousand."

"Hmm."

Interesting.

Compared to what we'd been pulling in right before docking, that was nearly a two-and-a-half-fold increase. I found myself nodding almost involuntarily.

But right after that, something odd about Jessica's wording snagged my attention.

"Wait... didn't I specifically ask about resources obtained from the base?"

"Yep, you did. Why?"

"And you're saying the net yield is eighty thousand minerals and forty thousand rare resources?"

"Yep."

I still remembered the numbers from before we got here — when we'd vacuumed up every resource from the base, the resource zones, and the forward outposts, minerals had barely cracked thirty thousand and rare resources had just scraped past ten thousand. So what was I supposed to make of this?

"Jessica. I clearly said resources obtained from the base only."

At that, Jessica's eyes went round with genuine puzzlement.

"Yes. And as you requested, the resources obtained solely from the base are at that level."

"...Oh?"

"If you factor in the external resource mining fleets and the production from the forward outposts that have fully come online, I'm not even joking — the daily net mineral intake alone would hit a hundred thousand."

"Oh..."

"Thanks to that, just the resources we've stockpiled since docking at this fortress already exceed 1.2 million minerals, and rare resources crossed six hundred thousand as of today."

"Good."

I nodded at Jessica's report, a grand and swelling sense of wealth blooming in my chest at the realization that I had become a resource tycoon.

With the resource talk wrapped up, we pressed on with various other tasks. Then, right in the middle of handling this and that, Jessica suddenly said something to me.

"By the way, Commander — now that we have five hundred battleships, no commander out there would dare mess with us, right?"

"Hmm... well, when it comes to defense, sure."

"Pardon?"

"Hm?"

Clearly, what I remembered and what Jessica had understood were two different things — the dissonance had just made that painfully obvious. Since the topic had come up, I decided to set the record straight so she wouldn't make the same mistake later.

And the first step was a thorough denial.

"Jessica. I can't command the defense fleet."

"Pardon?"

What came next wasn't a long-winded explanation from me. Instead—

"All the details are right in here."

"..."

—I casually pulled up the gallery's Wiki tab and let a post do the explaining for me. Of course, the fundamental reason was that explaining everything myself was extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely, extreeeeemely annoying. But hey — what of it, this way or that?

Anyway, the information I found on the Wiki tab wasn't particularly complicated or difficult.

"Mmm... that's a pretty disappointing answer."