The Grand Cross of the Central Zone Is Laughing! (2)
Users from the other zones were finally waking up to a brutal reality: even something as basic as concentrating their forces—the absolute minimum preparation for fighting a powerful boss—was practically impossible in the Central Zone.
And as if the political mess weren't enough, the Central Zone was currently sitting on one other serious problem…
[Result report: Solo players got absolutely wrecked in Event Stage 1.jpg]
Yeah, the politics are politics, but can you people not even figure out why the Central Zone users are limping around like this??
In Stage 2, what the stronghold users lost was mostly merc companies and faction detachments. You can re-contract, resupply, and train those up again in a week, no problem.
But the Stage 1 meat grinder for solo players? That shredded their main fleets AND their bases.
The issue is unfinished ship repairs.
People keep forgetting—fixing a battleship that's been gutted takes a full week by itself.
And for solo players, it wasn't just the ships. Their bases got smashed, so they had to carve out a whole separate chunk of time for that too.
So what else are they gonna do?
There's a reason the only people still pushing the Grand Cross right now are the stronghold-docked users who took light hits in Stages 1–2.
And there's a reason every true solo player is dodging combat and holing up in their bases. It's not for fun.
Exactly.
"The other commanders took more damage than I imagined."
"…Yeah. I didn't even factor in base repairs myself."
Just as those users had said, the "solo" players—by far the largest population in the Central Zone—had taken such catastrophic fleet losses that their force recovery was crawling along far more slowly than we stronghold users had ever accounted for.
The Grand Cross of the Central Zone is laughing! (2)
With one disaster stacking on top of another like that, the Central Zone users had been living through a genuinely miserable stretch of time…
But no matter how ugly the situation got, it wasn't as if their brains had completely shut off.
…Or maybe it was just that the Grand Cross's main guns, still dreamily pursuing the abolition of all social class under the banner of universal equality, had been roasting solo player bases and strongholds alike into a nice even well-done. Hard to say.
Either way, the practical result was that the users had finally arrived at a shared consensus: Stop fighting each other and get along.
Would've been nice if they'd said that before half the Central Stronghold Coalition got wiped, I thought—and still, watching the Central Zone's little comedians finally set aside their mutual loathing and start gathering together, I nodded and shed a quiet tear.
Gathering opinions was progress. The problem was, I'd already spotted one more critical issue waiting for us.
"There's one very big problem."
"What is it, Commander?"
"There's no one to lead those comedians."
"…"
Just as the gallery users had pointed out earlier—calling them "one zone" was a polite fiction at best. Internally, they were five minutes from total anarchy. Who the hell was supposed to gather up a mess like that and actually lead it?
So as I watched the situation unfold, I pressed X to pay my respects in advance to whoever was about to get stuck as commander of the Central Zone Coalition Force.
About thirty minutes after that thought crossed my mind—
[Chat log screenshots from the Central Zone exclusive chat.jpg]
At first the consensus was that people who'd actually run clans would be the best fit for the job.
But the people in question—the Freedom Legion and the other clans—all refused, saying it was too much pressure.
Next, someone floated that among individual users, Raksha had the highest ranking, so maybe he should lead.
Raksha himself shut that down immediately, saying he couldn't command for shit, and the commander's seat was left hanging in midair.
So naturally, the next-highest-ranked player after Raksha—an "individual" user who is, for all practical purposes, a full faction—got forcibly appointed commander: Icarus.
Of course, nobody actually talked to him about it.
Figured he'd bolt if they did.
"Why does this always happen to me."
"There's no one to replace you, Commander. Congratulations on the promotion."
"GAAAAAAAH!!"
Maybe it was because I genuinely hadn't expected the victim to be me, but I could feel tears welling up in my eyes before I even realized it.
Of course, just because they'd forcibly appointed me didn't mean I had any obligation to take the job. So after the gathered users ran a marathon of meetings about what the hell they were actually supposed to do…
[Rank 14 solo player 'Snow Leopard' being forcibly 'recognized' as commander.jpg]
The right of refusal no longer exists.
The major clan leaders of the Central Zone, Raksha, me, and every other clan user in the running—all of us had refused, and then refused again.
So the next name in the hopper, Rank 14 and leader of a small clan—Snow Leopard—ended up forcibly crowned as commander.
I nodded at the spectacle. Jessica tilted her head at me, clearly baffled.
"Commander, why did you refuse?"
"Let me flip that around. Why would I accept?"
"Well… watching how you usually command, it felt like something you could more than handle and carry out?"