Dual-Wielding Pickaxes

I was no different when it came to feeling that kind of excitement.

Jessica and I waited with pounding hearts for the gacha machine to finish locking in its causality.

And how long did we wait?

Just as I was thinking maybe ten seconds had passed by feel alone, the fierce light pouring from the gacha machine began to fade. Through the thinning radiance, someone finally stepped into view.

Long, passionate red hair like living flame. A specialized combat suit built for free movement. An energy blade holstered at each hip. The moment the light that had cocooned her vanished, the woman approached me, snapped a crisp salute with a manner both confident and impeccably polite, and spoke.

"A pleasure to meet you, Commander!"

"Mm."

"My name is Ignis. From this day forward, I will give everything I have for you and the fleet!"

"Right. Good to meet you."

Once the young woman who had introduced herself as Ignis finished, Jessica beside me turned to her with a thoroughly delighted expression, nodding in greeting.

"Nice to meet you, Miss Ignis! I'm Jessica—I serve as the Commander's adjutant!"

"A pleasure, Miss Jessica."

To think our first gacha pull would hand us a character with not a single rough edge—someone genuinely easy to get along with.

Watching Ignis exchange greetings with Jessica, I smiled. But behind that smile, a quiet disappointment was already settling in.

Not because her performance was weak for an SS-grade. Far from it. Her raw power was so far above the SS-grade curve that, with the right setup, she could tear through even SSS-grade units. She was the kind of character free-to-play players called a human rights unit.

Still, I had my reasons for feeling that twinge of regret.

Ignis was built from the ground up as a pure anti-personnel fighter.

It was a genuinely unfortunate story.

No rerolls. First pull. Our first SS-grade: Ignis.

Even without any special investment, her overall stats sat in the upper ranks of SS-grade. With proper gear, she could carve through the top of the SSS-grade bracket. That much was still true—she was a human rights character, full stop.

The problem was that every ounce of that performance was tuned exclusively for one-on-one combat. Against the kind of swarm now bearing down on us—pirates flooding in on pure numbers—she was painfully inefficient.

Given enough time, sure, she could leverage that A+ stamina, cut them down one exchange at a time, and declare an Ignis victory. But if we simply threw her into the fight as things stood, she would be busy boarding and carving through a single pirate ship while the other two reduced our lone patrol ship to scrap, smashed the utterly pointless defense turrets, and cleaned out the base resource vault and blueprints for good measure.

The moment I confirmed Ignis existed, I slammed the production order for a new patrol ship—only to be met with this.

Fucking hell.

Even after burning the production-speed items sitting in storage as a return-login reward, the ship would still finish a full thirty minutes after the pirates arrived.

Faced with that bleak reality, I decided the only thing left to do was go whine in chat. Not that it was pure whining—it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was closer to venting the rage so it wouldn't eat me alive.

Mm, delicious… wait, this is not the time.

I had slipped into bragging without thinking and eaten a full barrage of curses for it. I scrambled to post a clarification—no, a damage-control chat—and tried to claw my way out.

Other users piled on with answers almost immediately.

Haha. These absolute bastards.

They ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had already thought through everything I had. Half the chat was pity. The other half was pure salt from my instinctive flex.

Still, buried in the noise, a few replies actually had substance.

"Ooooh?"

My eyes lit up. I stared at that message, thoughts already spinning—until the follow-ups landed.

The messages kept coming. I pictured Ignis hard at work in the base training hall right about now, and for a moment I thought, yeah, this really is hopeless—ready to go troll the chat out of spite. Then another line appeared.

"…That actually works?"

The idea was interesting enough that it felt solidly credible. And I had zero hesitation about putting it into practice.

I had Jessica call Ignis in from the training hall.

"Commander. I was told you requested me."

"Ah. You're here."

I pressed two pickaxes into the hands of the woman who had come running at the summons. Then I checked the resource mining ship, which had just finished a transfer run and was preparing to head out again. Without further ceremony, I decided to put my brilliant plan (it was not) into action.

Step one: board the resource mining ship.

Step two: travel to the resource extraction zone.

Step three: mine like hell.

Naturally, Ignis's face went blank with pure incomprehension at the order.

"…Commander? So what you're telling me is… to do mining work?"

That blank look vanished a second later, replaced by a distinctly unimpressed expression that all but said, Is that really what you're asking of me?

I answered anyway, as calmly and confidently as I could manage.

"Yeah. This is the key to improving your abilities."

Ignis's sharp eyes lit with a sudden, brilliant spark.

"In that case, I'll leave at once."