Spreading Nonsense
With nonsense stories popping up like that, I could feel my blood pressure spike on the spot.
Cold, damp, and complicated. (5)
Sure, a few petty little things like that had happened, but nothing else looked like a real problem. So I decided I would not care in the slightest whether the users inside this territory formed clans or not, and simply take some time for myself.
There was no major event going on right now, and the surrounding users were not invading either. Conversely, I had no reason to go charging anywhere myself—so enjoying a stretch of peace like this was the only sensible choice, was it not?
Which was why, as long as they did not turn hostile, I put out the vibe of do whatever you want inside the territory, you people figure it out.
“Oh, Oppa. You think I can’t go too hard right now because I’m pregnant, don’t you?”
“Yeah, so there’s no need to force anything like this—”
—Thud!
“But I can still use everywhere else just fine…♡”
“Huh?”
I had only meant to chat quietly with Marian for the first time in a while, only to get reeled in by her plan to wring me dry with every part of her body except the “front.” And after she charged in like that…
“Hieeet— O-Oppa, a little gentler… nghyaaah!”
…I got to watch third-rate hole Mari-Marian get wrecked in turn by me, powered up on Grigri’s ridiculous vitality tonic.
I spent a sticky, steamy stretch of time with Marian going heave-ho, wriggle-wriggle, red bean paste, yes, there it is, spurt-spurt, nngh-bet, nggiiit. Of course I was not some wild stallion galloping across the plains, so that was not all I did. I packed the days with quite a few other things as well.
And if you want examples of those “other things”…
—KRA-BOOM!
—KRAAAAAAAARGH!!
“What the hell is that.”
“They say Professor Grianar and Dr. Nero combined mechanical and biological traits to make a chimera weapon.”
“…A chimera weapon?”
“You know that D-grade Superhuman the Commander acquired last time? Apparently they used that as material.”
“Then why is it rampaging in the middle of the base right now.”
“Drug-injection machine error. They put in a stimulant when they were supposed to put in a sedative.”
So there was also the incident where the collaborative chimera Kanf that Grigri and Nero had cooked up went berserk, and Superhumans ended up brawling it out inside the base out of nowhere.
“Your ears are so soft. Feels nice.”
“Nnyaaah… it feels good when you touch them, danya.”
“Since they’re cat ears, wouldn’t it feel even better if I put my hand into the furry part? Warm in there.”
“Oh.”
With nothing major to do, Ignis sat Smeragi in front of her and spent time kneading her ears—until:
“H-hey, wait a second. How far is this going in?”
“Nnyaaaaaah♡”
“Shouldn’t I pull my hand out? Is this actually fine?!”
“Ah—no, danyaaah! Don’t, don’t pull it out, danyaaah♡”
“Holy shit.”
Maybe because of the heavy modifications Grianar had put her through before—Ignis watched in pure horror as her entire hand, all the way up to the forearm, disappeared into Smeragi’s ear.
“Icarus Commander. One of the Harpy-class ships from this one’s hobby fleet has vanished… do you know where it went?”
“A ship just… disappeared?”
Hearing a story that felt like the opening of a Neapolitan ghost tale from Princess Luca, I had just started to get interested—thinking maybe this event was going to be horror-flavored—when:
“Mm… Your Highness. Apologies, but we found where the Harpy-class is.”
“Oong?”
“However… it is… well.”
“Where is it, that you speak so? The neural link will not resolve a precise location.”
“In truth, Icarus Commander’s Kraken Unit 3 appears to have… eaten our Harpy-class.”
“Hueh.”
“What.”
It turned out that the barely-one-week-old baby Kraken Unit 3, tired and hungry from leveling, had snuck off and snacked on one of Princess Luca’s ships. Which meant I had to apologize to Her Highness and compensate her with enough resources to build a replacement, among other things.
Nothing truly serious—just a constant stream of miscellaneous accidents that kept yanking my attention this way and that.
And not long after I started living through all of that, trivial talk began to seep up from every direction. Skipping the pure fluff and picking only the meat of it:
[Users in a clan chat room drinking kimchi soup about maybe receiving territorial rights from Icarus.jpg]
So like, if a clan takes a stronghold, he just transfers the stronghold over or what?
Whoa that’s insane
[User in some chat claiming Icarus is transferring stronghold authority to the users at each stronghold and switching to proxy rule.jpg]
Is this real
No matter how I think about it this sounds like pure bullshit
I’m a total newbie who just joined a clan so idk if this is accurate
[Conspiracy theory that Icarus is reorganizing the dominion structure through clans.jpg]
If he becomes clan leader himself the responsibility is too much
so he sets up small-clan leaders as officers, hands out territory, lets them stack experience
then later absorbs them all and naturally builds a mega-clan structure, right?
What kind of ridiculous garbage is floating around like it’s fact.
Apparently I was not making a clan myself—I was having each user make clans. Apparently I was transferring strongholds to those clans and locking in a proxy-rule system. And through that structure I was supposedly planning to build a mega-clan. That kind of pure nonsense kept surfacing in the gallery nonstop.
And it was not only the gallery. The same talk started bubbling up in my territory chat rooms as well.