Feel the Weight of the Armband (4)

"Clan Leader, wouldn't this much gallery spam be enough?"

"Yeah. Leave a few people to half-ass it and tell the rest to pull out."

"Got it, everyone hear that? Bail out quick and stick to the plan — just a handful of you tank the heat."

"Oof."

Having finished their gallery spam operation, they were quietly preparing to slip away.

Of course, this kind of trolling was something their countless affiliated trolls did all the time. Just as the fourth-ranked Justice Clan had pointed out, anyone looking at it would assume they'd simply gotten bored and decided to set the place on fire for fun…

But the actual perpetrators of that chaos — the members of the Loki Clan, and their clan leader Betelgeuse — wore expressions far too sour for something they supposedly did for kicks.

It wasn't the look of people disappointed they hadn't started a big enough fire. It was pure irritation, thick and unmistakable.

From the perspective of the users who'd been getting spammed with notification terror, those bastards had no right to look so put out after what they'd done. But unfortunately, none of those victims were present here.

And from the Loki Clan's point of view… their reaction was entirely justified.

"Clan Leader, is this for real though?"

"…"

"I mean, we banded together so we could have fun freely without getting threatened by other people… bluntly speaking, we didn't join up to become the admins' dogs."

"Exactly! Exactly!"

"The vice leader's right! Why do we have to do whatever those assholes tell us to?!"

Absurd as it sounded, their gallery terror operation hadn't been something they'd wanted to do in the first place.

"Haa, fuck… this is driving me insane."

One look at the message ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠window Betelgeuse was clutching her head over from the command seat made that clear enough.

Shockingly, they had been operating under direct orders from the game's administrators, moving to manipulate community opinion on command.

Sure, the compensation included a ten-pull gacha ticket — the kind that had become genuinely hard to come by — plus a pile of resources. Even so, Betelgeuse and the vast majority of the clan felt the payoff was pitifully inadequate for something they'd been forced into.

"Tch. You'd better drop any idea of using us like this again, you damn admins."

"Hear, hear!"

"That's our Clan Leader! I believed in you!"

Inside the clan's command structure, resentment toward the administrators poured out without end.

"Commander, am I going to live the life of a miner again today?"

"No. Everyone's on standby at the base today."

"…Excuse me? Is that for real?"

Ignis, who had been standing there with dead eyes and a pickaxe in each hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world, blanked out for a moment at my words. Then she set both pickaxes on the floor, leapt straight up into a midair flip — five full rotations — landed cleanly, and bolted toward the break room as if she'd just heard the best news of her life.

She looked so happy it actually hurt to watch.

"Commander, this is why you should level people in moderation."

"…Yeah. This one's on me."

The only reason she'd stuck it out this long was the friendship affinity bonus from being a returnee reward and a first gacha pull. If it had been any other character, she would've bailed ages ago. Realizing that, I decided I should ease up on Ignis's training schedule going forward.

Anyway — with Ignis handled, I moved on to the others.

"Standby… today, sir?"

"Yeah. There's going to be this and that going on, so all supers are holding at the base just in case."

"Understood. Given that this is emergency standby, I'll ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deploy the puppets in combat configuration as well."

"Yeah, please do."

I pulled Belial out of the training room where she usually was and put her on base standby too.

"Oh my♡ Oh my♡ Commander♡ You've come to see me after so long♡"

"Hmm? Commander? What brings you here?"

I tracked down Pashtura and Griyanaar, who seemed oddly friendly with each other, and told them the same thing — hold at the base. Both of them said they understood and started to get up… except Griyanaar just stayed planted on her personal "bio-sofa," giving a little shrug.

"It is truly a shame that I cannot obey the Commander's orders, but…"

"Hmm."

"I still have so many experiments left to run. My apologies, but do call on me next time."

She sat there boldly declaring she couldn't leave her bio-sofa because of her experiments, toes wiggling. I just nodded and told her to focus on tech development, exactly as she'd said.

And with that, my supers were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all sorted.

Since I still had no idea exactly how the event was going to play out, I ran through another full fleet reinspection on top of the preparations I'd already made. I also switched my daily-quest ship construction from the usual to cruisers, just to be safe — every precaution I could think of.

"Jessica, the gallery should be back to normal by now, right?"

"Ah… probably? Those armband-wearing community managers should have done something about it by now."

With nothing left to do in the moment, and no chance of some user launching a surprise attack right before the event, I opened the gallery window again with a lighter heart, figuring I'd check on the state of public opinion.

But the instant I tried to open it—

…Huh?

I stared at the third of the Four Great Demon Swords materializing before my eyes — the one known as Emergency Maintenance — and found myself genuinely stunned.

And since this wasn't something only I was seeing, but a notice going out to every single user…

The veterans and a portion of the user base were once again tearing into the admins for drawing a full three of the infamous Four Great Demon Swords.

But unlike the spam-flooded dumpster fire from earlier, the gallery now felt… different.