Raising the Empress (3)
Surely nobody actually thinks that would go well, right?
So you have to clear the quests at appropriate intervals while also, just like that other gallery user showed, talking enough with the other characters to keep favorability managed. On top of that, you have to train her hard enough that when she eventually leaves, it isn't a base desertion — she walks out on her own terms. And you have to manage her so she doesn't get slaughtered by other pirates the moment she's out there.
All of that has to be handled without the quests as a crutch, which is why it's so goddamn brutal.
And once that long, scroll-crushing post went up, you could practically hear the spines of the old fossils who haunt the chat cracking as they rose from their graves.
Watching the veterans' spine organs fire back online, I spent a long while sunk deep in thought.
Okay, this is brand-new information to me.
Sure, someone might ask how a guy who'd been playing since launch three years ago — and had dumped millions of won into the game — could possibly not know this. But unfortunately, recruiting the Pirate Empress this early was a first for me in my entire life. There was nothing I could do about that.
Just look at the way I play even now. Back before I got possessed into this world, when I was still grinding this game for real, I'd always been a lone-wolf type. I barely touched the community boards and just… enjoyed the game itself. A casual player, plain and simple. Of course I wouldn't know.
I piled up every excuse I could invent for why my ignorance was perfectly reasonable — then stopped.
Wait. Who am I even making excuses to right now?
I grabbed hold of my fraying sanity and resolved to just raise our empress properly. And the first thing I needed to do for that was…
…quietly dismissing the quest window that popped up as if it hadn't heard a single word of what came before.
Read the room, Quest System.
Anyway. Now that the quest curriculum had been exposed as completely meaningless, I spent a long time wrestling with how to handle this.
After quite a while had passed…
Wait. Can't I just treat her well like a normal person? Have her stack experience through training and real combat. That should be enough, right?
I threw every clever exploit far, far away and decided to start properly doting on Mary Ann — the Icarus way.
As far as I knew, the Pirate Empress's "escape" event always triggered within roughly a month at the latest. So I'd match that timeline: a month of moderate combat, plus every friendly gesture I could manage for a girl who — despite the popular image players had of her — was so severely malnourished that her body was pitifully scrawny everywhere except her hips and thighs.
"Wha—?! I can eat all of this?"
"Of course."
Eat plenty, grow big and strong, and one day keep countless commanders up at night.
And since I'd already made that decision…
Hey, you absolute maniacs. Mary Ann hasn't even hit level five yet.
Looking at a quest curriculum that went past "hardcore" and straight into sadism — exactly as the gallery veterans had warned — I felt the full weight of everything those old fossils had said. So for the roughly one-month stretch that followed, I ignored nearly every "Pirate Empress Raising" quest that popped up, including the one that had just appeared.
The gallery had mentioned that progressing the quests to some degree was still a good idea, but…
— Om nom nom nom.
"Oppa, this is really good!"
"…Yeah. Glad to hear it."
Come on. A five-percent discount is still a five-percent discount.
Watching her devour whatever I put in front of her with pure, wholesome joy while still training with absolute dedication, I found myself thinking that live combat and the rest of it could all go straight to hell.
And when I really thought about it, I didn't need to do every single thing for Mary Ann myself.
"Today you'll gain experience handling administrative work under Jessica."
"Wh-what? Me?"
"Yep."
"I'll be in your care for the day, Miss Marianne."
"H-hey, my name is Mary Ann."
A live-combat-adjacent assignment: learning administrative duties through Jessica.
"Today you'll deploy with Ignis for close-combat training mixed with live action."
"Yes, Oppa!"
"Just try to keep up with me."
"Yes— wait, eeeeeek!!"
Trailing after Ignis — currently the highest physical-capability superhuman in our fleet — learning how to fight in melee against anything organic or mechanical, plus the training that came with it.
"Today you'll build experience in command and crowd control alongside Belial."
"Huh? Me, commanding…?"
"For the day, I will serve as your superior officer. I will thoroughly hammer both knowledge and practical skill into your body."
"Aaaah— O-Oppa! Wait, this is a little—!"
From Belial — whose style was the closest match to what the Pirate Empress would eventually become — growth in command ability.
And finally…
"Today… Pashtura will be teaching you various things herself."
"Miss Pashtura…? Okay, I understand."
Whatever it was she did, Pashtura always insisted she couldn't teach me and conducted her secret training in thoroughly hidden locations. Filling in the gaps I couldn't cover myself, while carefully arranging things so none of the other superhumans developed any jealousy toward Mary Ann — I was guiding her growth with a delicate, almost surgical touch.
Normally I had no intention of interfering, since each of them was an expert in their own field. But Pashtura's habit of training her in complete secrecy, just the two of them, still left a quiet seed of suspicion. So, partly to satisfy my own curiosity, I asked Mary Ann about it — especially since her reaction had been a little off whenever I mentioned training with Pashtura.
"Is there something about training with Pashtura that bothers you?"
"Ah— no! You don't need to worry about it, Oppa!"
Mary Ann flinched at the question, then desperately shook her head.
"I actually really like that training!"
"…Hm?"
"If anything, I'd do it every single day if I could? I'm serious!"
"Is that so."
Just what kind of training could make her react that intensely?