I Won't Give You Time to Prepare (1)
"Honestly, I feel the same way."
Just when I was tearing my hair out over that godawful Tannhauser Gate strategy problem, the Space Kaiju side dropped a gift right into my lap at the perfect moment.
Damn! A reward this precious—for me!!
Of course, that kind of celebration could wait until after I'd actually checked the condition of the delivered goods…
Kyaaaa, my queen! No—choking up at the profound grace and burning love of Queen Nimu, that Queen Alien herself.
Unlike the gacha that had butchered even resource boxes and put on a perfect show of total failure, the contents of this container would yield at least ten times—maybe twenty times—the resources I'd get from cracking open every resource box I'd earned so far.
Looking at that haul, even the grotesque living container—something that looked like a fusion between a hairy uncircumcised dick and a tardigrade—suddenly seemed downright adorable.
And separate from all that, watching that sturdy "mobile pupa," also known as the space pupa, pulse and throb away was leaving me with a thoroughly complicated mix of feelings.
"Commander, I never thought we'd be looking at one of those again in less than a year."
"Same here, Jessica."
"If things go well, you might end up with two Krakens!"
"…Even so, that seems a bit much."
When Jessica started getting carried away like that, I immediately shut her down and shook my head.
"No matter what, a one-in-a-million chance isn't going to hit twice."
"Then that just makes the fact that you failed a hundred Dimension Causal Fixings earlier even sadder."
"…"
Getting free damage straight to the solar plexus like that made my heart ache something fierce, but it wasn't like I'd said anything wrong.
Honestly, deep down I was thinking how fantastic it would be if an actual Kraken or some assault ship or whatever popped out… but realistically there was zero chance of that happening, so I contented myself with the satisfaction of getting two free cruisers.
While I was thinking that, Jessica suddenly spoke up as if she'd just realized something new.
"Ah, wait a second."
"Is there a problem?"
"Commander, you just started construction on a battlecruiser and a large carrier recently, so you don't have any spare Fleet Points left, do you?"
"Mm… true."
"Then no matter what comes out of that thing, you won't be able to use the ships, right?"
"Aha, so that was the question."
It was a perfectly reasonable doubt, so I nodded while calmly explaining that it wasn't a big issue.
"It's fine, it's fine."
"Pardon?"
"You know how we still have three combat destroyers left?"
"Ah, yes. But why?"
"One of them can go into the shipyard for dismantling today—might as well clear a daily quest while we're at it."
"Understood, but what does that accomplish?"
Jessica nodded in acknowledgment, though she made no effort to hide her puzzled expression. Rather than wear out my mouth explaining everything myself this time, I did what I always did.
"Come forth, Almighty Wiki Tab!"
"…???"
I opened the windows in the usual order—Community, Gallery, Wiki Tab—intending to show Jessica the relevant entry. Of course, the moment I opened the community, I had to spend a little time dealing with the mountain of reports: disgusting hate-image spam posts, plus all the smear pieces about the ongoing Xenobia Empire version of the North-South civil war that had piled up.
…Anyway, only after clearing all that junk could I finally show Jessica what I'd meant to show her.
And that was this:
A. Depends on what it is.
For example, if you're building a ship in the Shipyard and you run out of Fleet Points, the ship inside freezes at 99% construction and just stops. No matter what you do, that dock will never spit it out unless you cancel the build.
But if you're not building it in the shipyard—if you're getting the ship from gacha or from another faction?
Then the story changes. In that case you can still receive it even if it would put you over the Fleet Point limit.
However, you absolutely must have at least 2 points free. So 99/100 won't cut it—you need something like 97/100 before you can receive a ship that exceeds the cap.
And this is important: once you've received one that way and gone over the limit, you can't receive a second one. Oh, and for reference, if you receive multiple ships "simultaneously" in one go, the system seems to treat it as a single transaction.
"Ta-da."
"Ah… so that's why."
Whether it was a systemic loophole or some kind of consideration for the players, I had no idea—but according to the game's systems, as long as you had at least two Fleet Points free, you could exceed the limit once.
"That's why I can just gratefully accept whatever Princess Luca sent me."
"I see…"
Having grasped the source of my confidence, Jessica nodded, her big rabbit ears flopping up and down as if delighted to have learned something new.
After that conversation, it looked like the Behemoth-class space pupa still needed some time before it finished growing. So my base and fleet took it easy—gathering resources at a leisurely pace and grinding levels on the trash mobs that helpfully respawned on their own whenever they felt like it.
For the record, the smaller space pupa—that is, the bio-container—had been berthed at the docking facilities inside the fortress for now. If I cracked it open, I'd mostly be using the haul to cover hiring costs when we eventually conquered the Tannhauser Gate Fortress. With no immediate need for a massive pile of resources, I didn't see any reason to open it yet.
Of course, the thing was still a living organism, so…
"Icarus, do you intend to simply leave the bio-container as it is?"
"Is there some kind of problem?"
"Since it's alive, is it going to start chewing on nearby ships or something?"
"No, nothing like that. But if you just leave it alone, it can digest the 'cargo' stored inside."
"Ah."
Oxianor's warning made it clear: left unattended, it might simply eat the resources loaded as cargo. So we decided to toss it captured pirate ships or wild kaiju as feed once a day.
"Kieeeeeek!"
"U-um… since you already have that thing, maybe you could just l-leave our pirate ship alon—"
"Oh? So you're volunteering to get eaten in the ship's place?"
"Now that I think about it, this seems like a necessary method for the space pupa's iron intake."
Of course, throughout the process, nobody bothered asking the opinions of the wild kaiju selected as feed, or of the pirates whose ships were suddenly about to be devoured.