The Spoils of Victory

"…Then the battlecruisers are in the same boat, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I take it?"

"Both of them are at least moderately damaged, so there's no getting around it. And the light carrier lost its flight deck, of all things, so that needs repairs too."

Aside from a single exception, every remaining capital ship was in thoroughly miserable shape. That meant I had to throw every large-ship shipyard I owned into nonstop repair work.

As for the Kraken and Hresvelgr, they'd hung back from the start specifically so they wouldn't take critical hits. From mid-battle onward they'd either been tucked inside the fortress or serving as glorified pillboxes, so aside from Unit 2 eating a nasty indigestion debuff, neither of them had any real problems.

The smaller ships were a different story. The fighting had been so vicious that even a graze was potentially fatal — which meant the ones that made it through were completely unscathed.

Surviving means… they're strong…

The survivors were pristine, without a scratch on them. Nothing worth fretting over there.

"Wow, the damage really is severe. Shall we start putting the ships into the shipyards for repairs right away, then?"

"Yeah. Start with the large carriers and battleships. Slot a battlecruiser into the remaining dock."

"Understood. I'll handle it."

But no sooner had I more or less sorted out my own fleet's problems than a fresh set of headaches came knocking.

"Commander! You wouldn't happen to have any spare shipyards free, would you?!"

"When can we expect the resources for our Security Fleet's recovery to arrive?"

"Ah."

Judging by the frantic way Commander Lepahn and Aquarius had barreled into the command center, the issue was obvious: restoring the Rhodes Mercenary Group and the Avalonia Security Fleet — both of which were under exclusive contract to me.

The Rhodes, led by the thoroughly voluptuous Commander Lepahn, had been riding nothing but battleships and battlecruisers, so mercifully nothing had been outright sunk. The catch was that their hull integrity across the board was hanging by a thread, and the official assessment was that they couldn't operate until every last ship was repaired.

Avalonia's battleships, on the other hand, had come through largely unscathed and could manage with their own repair facilities. The rest of the fleet, however…

"So half of the heavy cruisers and small ships are completely gone?"

"Yes. And most of the remaining half are at least moderately damaged and require repairs."

Just as Aquarius had reported, the rest of their ships were in truly abysmal condition. I accordingly committed all six of the base's standard shipyard docks to repairing Avalonia's support vessels.

As for the Rhodes Mercenary Group, unfortunately my own ships currently had priority on the large docks. For now, I ordered their vessels moved into the fortress's armored berthing facilities, with repairs to begin as soon as large-ship shipyard slots opened up.

Once I'd finished assessing the fleets' damage and issued the recovery orders—

"Commander, what about the base fleet?"

"They can handle their own repairs."

"Well, that's true enough."

—I finally turned to the happy problem of collecting my rewards now that the surrenders were in. What exactly was I going to squeeze out of that mountain of clans?

Of course, as the Unity incident had already demonstrated, even an unconditional surrender in this game came with hard limits on what you could demand. The same applied to a standard surrender…

Despite surrender conditions that were rigged to the bone, I wasn't particularly worried.

Well, this time I didn't snatch any superhumans or ships anyway.

My close-combat superhumans — Smeragi, Partia, and Ignis — had been too busy repelling the supers storming the fortress to even dream of ship-jacking. The enemy supers, likewise, had never been in a position to be captured in the first place.

All I needed to do was vacuum up resources as hard as I could, so even with those restrictions I managed a small smile.

After carefully tweaking the demand conditions and setting everything to the absolute maximum, the results came in.

The fifty-three clans that had dogpiled me — or rather, the Walpurgis Alliance — were being thoroughly fleeced for a mountain of resources, making for an exceptionally fine set of wallets.

EXODUUUUUUUS.

I'd thoroughly cleaned out the Walpurgis Alliance and its fifty-three member clans, but strictly speaking, the victory over the enemy hadn't been mine alone. Among the other neutral players who'd joined the attack, those who'd contributed real damage or support would clearly be taking a cut.

Granted, given that the fighting had chewed through my fortress and fleet, my share ought to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be at least fifty percent… but there was a real chance I'd lose anywhere from a minimum of ten percent to as much as half. Time to check exactly how much I'd actually walked away with.

"Drumroll, please…"

"What are you doing?"

"Checking roughly how many resources we actually netted from this battle."

"Ah. Fair enough."

And when I flipped the results—

Ah. Didn't quite hit fifty percent.

Probably because of how many players had piled in at the end. They were walking away with a slightly larger share than I'd expected, and the feeling that left me with was… complicated.

But only for a moment.

Wait a second — seven million minerals and over six hundred thousand rare resources.

At that level, the minerals alone more than covered what I'd burned through in the battle. I could live with that.

The rare resources had come in lighter than expected, sure — but the shortfall on both resource types had been converted into Gold and paid out instead. All things considered, I'd call it a solid showing.

Receiving the resources was one thing, though. The problems I still had to solve at this point were far from over. Most of my transport destroyers had been wiped out, and five of the resource mining ships themselves had been reduced to space dust.

"Commander, about the resource fleet's current mining efficiency…"

"Go on."

"Compared to before the siege, we're only operating at about two-thirds efficiency right now."

"Hsssss…"

Just as Jessica reported, our base's resource mining efficiency had taken a serious hit. And it wasn't purely a resource-fleet problem, either.

"The forward bases… all of them got blown up, didn't they?"

"Yes. During the encirclement, the Walpurgis Alliance destroyed every forward base outside the main facility."

"…Right."

"And honestly, saying efficiency dropped to two-thirds is generous. All twenty-five resource mining ships are currently tied up repairing vessels."

"Ah."

I'd forgotten about that. Given the current situation, my mining ships weren't out gathering resources at all — they were busy repairing my shattered fleet and every other ship in critical condition.

"The shipyards are still occupied with Avalonia's vessel recovery first, I take it?"

"Yes, that's the priority for now."

Once that sank in, I cast back through my memory and said,

"So… ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠right now we're essentially only pulling resources from the base and fortress's resource synthesis production complexes?"

"There are the daily quests as well, but… yes, essentially."

"And that's roughly how much? Around eighty thousand minerals a day?"

"One moment… Yes — about eighty thousand minerals and twenty-three thousand rare resources. For reference, daily consumption is around fifteen thousand minerals and five to six thousand rare resources."

Jessica's crisp, immediate answer earned a nod from me. Until the fleet's emergency repairs were finished, I decided against sending anyone wandering around the perimeter. We'd rely solely on the base's internal resource generation and keep the mining ships locked exclusively on repair duty.

Meanwhile, at the same time…