Suddenly Rank Three

Setting aside the rest of the miscellaneous fluff, the users who saw the rankings were…

Utterly stunned that Icarus — a name that hadn't even cracked the top 100 before the event, let alone the top 10 — had somehow rocketed to third place out of nowhere.

Or, more precisely, less stunned than…

The gallery was flooded with raw, unfiltered outrage over the staff's utterly deranged scoring method, and before long the whole board had once again gone up in flames like a campfire — but the man at the center of it all…

"Who am I again?"

"The great commander shining at rank three, sir!"

"…Hmm. That's a lot more pressure than I expected."

I wasn't particularly stressed about it. I was just quietly working through the problem of how to humblebrag about this as naturally as possible.

From this day forth, your name is Pirate King.

Except the gallery was already so thoroughly buried in posts about me that I didn't even get the chance to show off.

— dejected sigh.

"Jessica, the gallery is already overflowing with posts about me."

"Yes. And roughly half of them appear to be pure rage and envy directed at you, Commander."

At this rate, I had a sinking feeling that player raids would start hitting my base just as frequently as the pirate attacks had over the past six months.

Which meant it was about time I started thinking…

Haah… time for a little preventive war?

Like the mustachioed uncle invading Poland. Or, in this case, more like a certain Middle Eastern nation that loves picking fights with its neighbors — should I just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pre-emptively smash every nearby player who might come after me?

I could feel those nasty little thoughts multiplying in my head, and I gently soothed the militarist ghost rattling around in my soul.

Of course, if the gallery's mood had kept spiraling in that garbage direction — and given that I'd already identified at least one of the shitposters as being stationed near my base — I was fully prepared to take my fleet, plus the "Imperial Guard" fleet Marianne had left behind because she still had business to finish (instead of her main force), and go flatten the lot of them.

Fortunately, that particular brand of deranged newbie uprising was snuffed out by a combination of other rankers' posts and some hard-hitting analysis threads from the veterans.