Turns Out I Was a Complete Bastard

"W-wait a second!"

After giving the order to "purge" the officer who, hearing his own words, seemed only now to grasp the reality of the situation and cried out in panic, Admiral Ranka turned his back at once. He gazed out the window at the distant silhouette of Tannhauser and sank into thought.

So he already has the entire situation figured out, and this time he's testing us by giving no response at all… Icarus, Commander. You are not a man to be taken lightly.

While Admiral Ranka was busy constructing that completely unfounded misunderstanding—

our protagonist, Icarus, was simply making Jessica a "new tail" and counting down "3, 2, 1, go shoot!" with her. In short, the two of them were busy with dense, sticky, rabbit-style heat-mewling and nothing else.

Regarding the fact that, as it turned out, I was the biggest bastard under heaven.

After Icarus finished his long-awaited five-day grind session with Jessica… and after another two days of tearful double-shift work that followed that…

"I'm back, Commander."

"Oh Jesus Christ, my runaway Jessi-Jessi-Jessica has finally come home!"

"Ughck."

Maybe it was because, over those two days, I had felt in my very bones just how much of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the workload Jessica had been carrying. I threw my arms around her the moment she appeared with one ear half-folded and showed a welcome so intense it was almost unhinged.

Of course, at that reaction of mine, our Jessica flushed so hard heat practically radiated off her face…

"W-wait a moment, I understand you're happy, but this is a little…"

"No, no, you came at the perfect time. Perfect timing."

"Hweh?"

"Here, sit down. This is a present just for you."

"…"

That only lasted a moment. The second Jessica laid eyes on the mountain of paperwork I had been utterly incapable of processing—an absurd, towering stack of documents—her rabbit ears, which had been folded in left-right imbalance, shot straight up toward the ceiling. The flush and every last drop of color drained from her face in an instant.

I put a hand on that Jessica's shoulder.

"Save me, Jessica. At this rate, we're all going to die."

"Hhheh."

"This is the moment when your terrifying document-processing power is needed most, Jessica."

"I thought it was strange for the Commander to welcome me that hard… so there was a reason after all."

I just kept yelling help me and making tearful pleas, and that was that.

Anyway, once our Jessica finished recovering, she started processing every kind of document at a speed that made her look like the Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara herself. And only then could I finally return to the normal way of playing as a user—namely, the sacred doctrine of You guys handle it; I'll just mess around with the fleet and the Superhumans, teehee—and I was ready to feel genuine joy about that.

The problem was that, with that mindset, while I was rushing through various odds and ends and the backlog of weekly quests that had piled up because Jessica ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and I had gotten a little too enthusiastic… I suddenly discovered one extremely serious problem.

And what was that problem, you ask?

"Uh, wait a second. Why haven't I been using the Space Monster faction's fleet rental function this whole time?"

"…"

It was the problem that informed me I was a thoroughly vicious, evil son of a bitch.

Rewinding a little—right after I had dumped the work back onto Jessica and reclaimed my happy life—I heard that Princess Luca had taken her hobby fleet out for a stroll to Spiralis. And as if on cue, Viridi of Spiralis pinged me in chat.

The contents of that message, however, were anything but ordinary.

At first, receiving Viridi's completely incoherent stream of chat left me feeling nothing but pure bewilderment.

But that only lasted a moment.

True to her background as an officer of the former Four Great Clans (three plus one), Biomass, Viridi delivered a razor-sharp analysis and informed me of the truth: the "faction expeditionary force" I had believed Princess Luca's hobby fleet to be this entire time was, in fact, not a faction expeditionary force at all.

Hearing that truth, I opened the Faction Management window with a sinking no way feeling and checked the fleet rental function.

And immediately after—

"You've got to be kidding me."

You're kidding me.

Just as Viridi had said—I hadn't been using the faction fleet rental function at all. Because my trust rating with the Space Monster faction was sky-high, the Princess had simply been doing me a favor and letting me use her ships out of goodwill.

And I, in turn, had been casually grabbing Princess Luca's actual hobby fleet—the one she had cultivated as a genuine personal pastime—and blowing it up left and right in the most vicious way imaginable. And to all of that, Princess Luca had responded by docking a mere one or two points of affinity at most.

That was the truth that had just come to light.

…A short while later.

"I am truly, damnably sorry, Princess Luca!!!!"

"Huhuung. Since you have learned ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of it now, that is enough."

Having gone through the process above and realized I had been committing acts of pure, concentrated insanity this entire time, I performed a perfect grand prostration before Princess Luca while Grianar and Nero were off running the KV Project—trying out ju-ji attachments on Rain and Femikamp.

Of course, our sage and saint, Princess Luca, responded to that sight with a generosity that knew no bounds.

"Thank you… overwhelming gratitude…!"

—swish-swish—

Looking at Princess Luca like that, I finally understood how a certain blond guy in sunglasses had managed to discover "maternal instinct" in a child younger than himself and fall head over heels for it.

Anyway, after finishing that apology session and naturally making my way out of the Nest of Life, I still couldn't understand how I had ever mistaken Princess Luca's genuine hobby fleet for a faction expeditionary force. So I decided to dig into exactly how the situation had gotten twisted this badly.

And before long, I found out with absolute certainty.

…That miraculous process assembled itself inside my head.

And only at this exact moment did I finally understand why Marian had been whining whenever I mobilized the hobby fleet not long ago, and why Jessica had asked, "So does that mean you'll mobilize the Pirate Coalition fleet too?"

On top of that, I was left with the unnerving feeling of having no idea since when I had been under this delusion—or, more accurately, since when I had completely forgotten the function existed and then thoroughly mixed it up.