Faction Affinity (1)
Ignis, who hadn't particularly cared from the start, and Pashtura — a Space Kaiju supporter and self-proclaimed Kaiju-maniac(?) — both voiced their agreement with Griyanaar's proposal.
"Hold on. I demand an explanation as to why that should be the case."
As her military uniform made plain, Belial was a principles-first kind of person at her core. The idea of coexisting with alien monsters that possessed virtually no intelligence — barring a rare few exceptions — was something she simply could not accept.
Then again, given that her lore cast her as a former Earth Federation officer, that reaction was hardly surprising. And considering Belial and Griyanaar's respective personalities, neither was the type to take the other's word at face value under normal circumstances.
Fortunately, both of them understood that this wasn't about picking a fight — it was simply a more thorough exchange of opinions. So Griyanaar, wearing that signature wicked smirk of hers, turned to Belial and everyone else present and began explaining exactly why they ought to choose the Space Kaiju.
"First of all, now that the Commander has brought the space pirates under his command, the aliens are off the table no matter what — even if every other option were still open."
"Uh… why only the aliens?"
"Excellent question."
In response to Ignis, Griyanaar lifted a hand from beneath the wide sleeve of her lab coat and raised a single finger.
"The space pirates are a faction built entirely around mass warfare. The aliens, by contrast, run on the complete opposite philosophy — a pure elite-few approach."
"Hmm?"
"Because their fleet structures and force compositions are total opposites, acquiring both factions at once wouldn't produce any synergy. If anything, they'd just get in each other's way."
"Ahh."
"Think about it. Handing expensive, rare high-grade equipment to fleets and troops you're trying to spam cheaply in bulk? That's putting the cart before the horse."
Ignis reacted as though she'd just been enlightened by a profound truth.
With the alien question settled courtesy of Ignis's inquiry, Griyanaar immediately moved on — turning to face Belial, who had been watching her the whole time, and launching into a full rundown of the Earth Federation's problems and why she had chosen the Space Kaiju.
"As for the Earth Federation, the issue is simple. Aside from their ultra-large capital ships, the rest of their forces aren't meaningfully different from the Commander's own fleet."
"…"
"But the fleets a Commander can produce and control have hard numerical limits — unlike the Earth Federation."
"Well, that's true, but…"
"On top of that, the Earth Federation's pride and joy — Super Dreadnoughts and Super Carriers and other super-capital ships — aren't even something a mere base Commander is authorized to produce in the first place."
Ah, right. That was a thing.
I nodded inwardly as Griyanaar's words jogged my memory of one of the Earth Federation's longstanding drawbacks.
Watching her systematically dismantle both the aliens and the Earth Federation while championing the Space Kaiju as the answer, Pashtura wore a rather sly-looking smile and made her agreement plain. Our Belial, however, showed no intention of backing down just yet. She turned on Griyanaar and Pashtura — the pro-Kaiju camp(?) — and began pointing out the Space Kaiju's own problems.
"But joining the Space Kaiju faction carries a significant risk of souring relations with every other power, does it not?"
"My, my."
"If things go poorly, the other factions could form a coalition and attack us."
That was actually a fairly interesting point, so I set my console aside and focused on the meeting, curious to see how Griyanaar would respond.
She waved the sleeve of her lab coat through the air and shot Belial's concern down with open skepticism.
"'Other factions' — you mean the aliens and the Earth Federation, yes?"
"Well… yes."
"Those two already feel a kind of kinship with each other, unlike the pirates or the Kaiju. They're constantly forming friendly relations at the drop of a hat."
"Mmm."
"And then, the moment they've formed those ties, they're constantly stabbing each other in the back — or at least trying to."
"Mmmmmm."
"What's more, that kind of betrayal isn't reserved for rival factions. They pull the same stunts on Commanders all the time."
"…Nngh."
Having unleashed that torrent of words, Griyanaar thrust out her meager chest with overflowing confidence.
"Compare that to the Space Kaiju. At the very least, they will never stab a Commander in the back, will they?"
"…That's true enough."
"And given that the Pirate Empress over there is already friendly toward the Commander, we can assume the pirate faction is friendly to us as well. In that case, wouldn't merging with the Space Kaiju — who also specialize in mass warfare — produce far greater synergy?"
"…"
Seeing Griyanaar's self-assured attitude reduce Belial to complete silence, I quietly opened the community and checked the comments on a question I'd posted earlier — a lightly reworded version of the topic we'd been debating in this meeting.
Confirming through the comments that our professor had been right all along, I rose from my seat and moved to wrap up the meeting.
"You've all heard enough. Effective immediately, this base will be joining the Kaiju faction."
"Excellent choice. You won't regret it, Commander."
But the moment the meeting ended and I sat down for a one-on-one with Griyanaar — who had, by sheer circumstance, become the base's foremost intellectual —
"Fufufufu. Want to know the real reason? I just wanted to research the Space Kaiju for once, so I pushed for it."
"…"
"Everything I said was technically correct, of course. But ultimately, my curiosity took priority… and that is by no means a lie."
"Ah. Right."
"Once everyone has a third arm or a tentacle tail attached, they'll be boasting about how convenient daily life has become. You'll see."
Listening to that casually delivered confession of "It was all just for my personal tastes!", I felt a quiet little sadness settle over me — the reality that I couldn't even fully trust our base's greatest mind.
Faction Affinity (1)
Anyway — with the faction decision settled, the next morning arrived.
As always, I got everyone started on their leveling work.
"Woo — dual-wield pickaxes, here we go…"
Ignis was dispatched to the mines for good old-fashioned grinding.
"I'll be firing off quite a lot this time… Ufufu♡"
Pashtura, rather than smashing captured ships to pieces, was assigned to the defense fleet — free to rain beam-cannon fire on the various factions' ships that kept raiding our resource zones.
"So each of us is to take command of a fleet for defense, is that correct?"
"If that's what Oppa wants, I'll do it as much as he likes."
Belial and Marianne were likewise put in charge of fleets. And last of all, I found myself staring at Griyanaar — still stuck at level 1 — with absolutely no idea what to do with her.
As I'd mentioned before, I'd quit this godforsaken game over three years ago before coming back. Any knowledge of individual character training methods had long since evaporated from my brain.
Which meant that raising our Superhumans required heavy consultation of the gallery's Wiki tab…
Griyanaar leveling, leveling… wait, why is there nothing?
The problem was that our exhibitionist, scheming professor Griyanaar was not only a rare SSS-grade unit, but one of the even rarer Support-type characters among them. As a result, the gallery's Wiki tab still had zero training information posted for her.
And when I tried fishing for info through the chat window the way I had before—