Chapter 106
Chapter 106
"Noooo~! Noooo~! Stop iiiit!!!"
I clung to Chacha-san's back, but I was dragged along anyway.
"This isn't a battleship, it's my hooome~!!"
"Shikicchi! The lives and homes of millions of citizens! Which is more important!"
"W-why are you saying something so reasonable at a time like this!"
The battleship Chacha-san named as a candidate to become the hull of a space battleship was, of all things, my house—my battleship, All The Way.
There's no way I can allow this... There's no way I'll let it be used for such a suicide mission. Nine times out of ten, any battleship used in this operation will be destroyed.
I've already grown deeply attached to this battleship. I even did the interior up in my own stylish way.
I picked pink frilly curtains, decorated it with tons of cute houseplants, and bought heart-patterned wallpaper and donut-shaped cushions—basically anything that vaguely felt girly, I bought and arranged everywhere!
This place is already my second home!
"Now then, where should we start..."
Chacha-san stood on the deck of the battleship, lost in thought. She clearly had no intention of stopping.
"C-Can you even do the conversion by yourself, Chacha-san?"
A space battleship shouldn't be that easy to build.
"No need to worry, Shikicchi. I've called in an excellent assistant."
"—That'd be me, I guess."
A soft landing sound came from behind me.
When I turned around, Solnyn was standing there. Ms. Eve was riding on her back.
"I brought tools and stuff, just like you asked."
"Thanks, Evirin♪"
"You summoned me, temporary master?"
"Solnyn!"
I clung to Solnyn's fluffy body.
"Working together again, huh?"
"The golden duo returns~"
The Chacha-san and Ms. Eve combo, back since the Nadra Laboratory incident.
If it's these two, they might actually finish a space battleship before the deadline...!
"I-I still say nooo~!"
I flopped onto my back, flailing my arms and legs to express my refusal as strongly as possible.
"Why's Shiki regressing into a toddler?"
"He's against modifying this battleship~. Can't be helped, I guess."
Oh, did she give up?
"Shikicchi. Don't you want to ride a space battleship?"
"Hauh!?"
"It's totally different from a regular spaceship~. Space battleships allocate resources to weapons and propulsion, so recovery systems inside are pretty weak. Breaking through and re-entering the atmosphere gives you this insane realistic impact!"
"Ugh...!"
"And like, diving through enemy fire to assault their base? Doesn't that sound super exciting? Charging in with a battleship—! That's the kind of scene that makes robot anime fans drool, right!!"
"Guhh...!!"
"Farewell~♪ Oh Earth~♪ I depart~♪ My ship~♪"
Guu~! This person always hits my weak spot with pinpoint accuracy...!!
"Nuwaah~!! Fine, I get it, I get it! Do whatever you want! Just promise you'll compensate me properly!!"
"Of course!"
"...You're way too easy."
Farewell, All The Way. I'll never forget you.
"Can I at least watch the conversion? I want to see how you change it."
"Sure thing!"
"Actually, help out. We're short on hands."
Chacha-san headed to the bridge inside the ship.
She powered on the main monitor and displayed All The Way's blueprints and current status.
"Hmm. Ammo and energy are a bit low. Did something happen?"
"Um, when bounty hunters attacked, I used interception system level 10."
"That explains it. OK. I can restock that much right away."
"Whoa. What is this equipment... This thing could probably take on an army by itself."
Ms. Eve seemed to have read the blueprints and let out an impressed voice.
"It was built on that kind of request~. Looking back, that kid might've been part of the Mētis military. She was oddly obsessed with weapons despite not being enlisted."
Come to think of it, this battleship originally belonged to someone else. That player got banned, and then I took over All The Way—
(Though I just realized, there's no way this battleship was worth selling for only a million... It's clearly worth ten times that, maybe even a hundred.)
Don't tell me she sold it to me just so I'd take care of it until it was needed...?
To use it like this in a time of crisis...?
"Ch-Chacha-san... um."
"Shikicchi. Chacha-san always lives with 100% good intentions..."
This person is 100% malicious, absolutely!!
"Flare Field can break through the atmosphere, armor level is sufficient. We're not planning to use weapons in space, so no need to tweak those. We'll need to shift to space gear for propulsion, and the attitude control and gravity systems are lacking so we'll have to fix those—ahh!?"
Suddenly, Chacha-san let out a strange cry.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh nooo! The engine! What do we do about the core engine! A space battleship uses massive energy, the current engine can't handle it!"
"That's no problem. Solnyn—"
"Nyassa~"
Solnyn turned her back to us and wagged the tail extending from her rear.
"Here ya go, nya."
The tip of her tail popped off, revealing a silver protrusion. It looked like the end of a power cable.
"Connect Solnyn as the core engine, and feed the battleship energy from Phoenix, Solnyn's core engine. It's a twin-engine system."
"Ooh~! Phoenix! Nice stuff. Then we're good."
Chacha-san added new mechanisms to the battleship blueprints one after another, completing the space battleship version. Then she listed all materials needed for the conversion, and Solnyn went shopping under Ms. Eve's instructions.
After the materials arrived, Chacha-san and Ms. Eve split up and started working. Solnyn and humanoids (probably copies of me) assisted them.
(I'm not even needed~. They've got plenty of hands.)
I was mostly just watching. But watching a space battleship being built was interesting.
Some tasks were simplified since it's a game, but others required meticulous manual work despite being in a game. For example, attaching weapons or replacing armor could be done with one click, but rewiring circuits or assembling programs had to be done by hand.
I went out onto the deck, stretched my back, and looked up at the sky.
(I shouldn't be here right now. Should I grind levels for the final battle, or work on raising my player skills...?)
Then,
"Eh?"
In the middle of the day, a pure white meteor streaked across the sky.
---
The ceiling of the Oceanus military's Mother Base command room—had a huge hole in it.
The Six Sages, who always lounged arrogantly at the commander's desk, had done backflips from the shock and tumbled to the floor. Even the always-calm Ness had her glasses slipping down in disbelief.
The girl who had broken into the commander's room asked casually,
"Where's... Shiki?"
Not a white meteor, but a white meteorite had crashed in.