I had a eccentric friend.
One day, he asked me,
“Isn’t it too boring?”
“What is?”
“Gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, the weak force. The fact that the world moves with just these four forces.”
“I suppose so.”
To explain this world, things like the laws of thermodynamics or the theory of relativity were also needed, but I didn’t bother correcting him. I knew that wasn’t what he was trying to say.
“No change. No miracles. No romance. What a rotten world!”
The older I got, the more I empathized with his words. The world changed rapidly, but my life remained the same. To a commoner like me, this world felt as cold as absolute zero.
“Let’s just play a game.”
On a golden weekend when everyone else was out enjoying Friday night, I sat alone, tilted a beer can, and turned on a game. In the game world, there were things that lightly ignored the laws of this world.
I fell asleep while playing the game and drinking.
***
“Master!! Master!!”
I opened my eyes to the sensation of my body being shaken.
A smooth gray ceiling with a metallic texture. A sleek, futuristic bed. A person with green skin and antennae.
“Ah… it’s a dream.”
I closed my eyes again.
“Master. Please wake up!”
The voice rang out vividly again.
“Is this a lucid dream?”
“What are you talking about? An unidentified fleet has appeared. The Vice-Captain says to bring you to the bridge immediately.”
An unfamiliar environment. The mention of a fleet and a Vice-Captain. I immediately understood the genre of the dream.
It was a game I had played since I was a kid. The setting was space. Various aliens appeared. Interstellar travel. Powers close to magic or psychic abilities. It was a collection of things that didn’t make sense. Perhaps that was why I liked this game.
‘Did I go too hard last night because it was the weekend?’
I occasionally had dreams set in . Today felt exceptionally realistic.
“This is fun.”
“I’m telling you, it’s a serious situation. First, sober up!”
How could it not be fun? I was dreaming about my favorite game.
‘An enemy. What’s the situation?’
The most basic element of combat is information. Didn’t Sun Tzu say it? Know your enemy.
“What’s the scale?”
“I heard it’s about twenty ships.”
“What is my race?”
I touched my head as I asked. I could feel hair. No antennae, and the back of my hand was flesh-colored.
“You’re Human, of course.”
A race whose name meant ‘earth.’ I was just a human.
“What is the size of our fleet?”
“Five ships, including the flagship…”
Then it was a patrol unit. A patrol unit’s formation consisted of five ships. I began to roughly visualize the current situation in my head.
“Where do we belong?”
“The Humildas Marshalate, obviously. Why do you keep asking strange things?”
The fellow tilted his head, but my mind was organized.
‘It’s the early stage of the game.’
The Humildas Marshalate gets eliminated early on. Despite their prosperous territory, their military power was the weakest.
“First. Drink this and sober up.”
He handed me a cup filled with a sloshing golden liquid.
“What is it?”
“It’s honey water. You always ask for it after drinking.”
I was curious about the taste of honey water in a dream. I carefully put it to my lips.
“Oh?”
A sweetness exploded in my mouth like fireworks. It was the most ecstatic and high-quality sweetness I had ever tasted in my life. It felt like I had lived my life in vain. I felt like I could live on this alone for the rest of my life.
“Is it not good? With the world being so turbulent lately, it’s really hard to find top-grade stuff.”
“No, it’s not that. I was just wondering if there’s more.”
I licked my lips with regret.
“I’ll tell the galley, so please hurry to the situation room.”
The fellow thumped his chest as if frustrated. I was curious too, so I decided to go check it out.
“Alright. Let’s go.”
I jumped up from my seat. My body swayed. My head spun.
“Whoa!”
The antennae fellow quickly supported me. For reference, this fellow’s race was a Pikol. A hybrid born between a Celestial Dragon and another race. They mainly worked in occupations such as servants or secretaries.
“I told you to drink in moderation.”
Every time I turned my head, I felt nauseous as if I were drunk. I felt dizzy and felt like vomiting. I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or if I was just drunk. Was it both? I remembered drinking beer while playing the game.
“Let’s go for now. The Vice-Captain said to bring you even by force.”
I headed to the situation room supported by the Pikol.
Click. Click.
The sound of the hallway floor echoing wasn’t bad. However, the state of cleanliness was poor, with junk piled up everywhere.
“Why does it look like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why is there so much trash?”
“Didn’t you say it was a waste of money and refused to buy a robot vacuum?”
The antennae fellow grumbled and opened the door to the situation room.
Clank-!
Everyone’s eyes turned toward me. Nevertheless, no one except for one person saluted me.
“Captain! Please decide on a flight path for our escape.”
Looking at the insignia on the chest of the only person who saluted, it was the Vice-Captain. Her face and body proportions were good enough to make her a huge success as a celebrity. Seeing the pointed ears peeking through her shimmering black hair, she was an Elf.
‘She’s insanely pretty.’
Lust bloomed just from her appearance. I would have welcomed the genre of the dream changing from combat to adult-rated. Seeing the situation, it didn’t seem like the genre would change.
“Position and scale of the enemy?”
Everyone turned their heads at my question. Their expressions clearly showed disregard and contempt.
“Captain. I believe it is reckless to try to collect tolls from twenty warships with only five ships.”
Of course, I knew that.
“Even if we’re running away, we need to know the situation. If combat is the realm of luck, then escape is the realm of art.”
The Elf looked a bit taken aback by my words, then soon opened her mouth.
“Corporal Dobby. Magnify the enemy ships.”
“Yes! Vice-Captain.”
A small dwarf manipulated something. The enemy ships were magnified on the main screen. About twenty combat ships.
“Tsk. It’s too late to run. This is Hell-level difficulty.”
As a veteran of this game, I clicked my tongue. Just from the enemy’s composition, I could visualize what kind of future would unfold. The Elf Vice-Captain wore a confused expression.
“Captain. What do you mean by that? The distance is sufficient for an escape. Judging by the enemies’ reactions, they haven’t discovered us yet.”
In this world, radar is meaningless. Spaceships cannot be detected because they are mixed with dark matter. Since they scout by diligently rotating telescopic lenses, there were many cases where they passed each other in the open vacuum of space without noticing.
But.
“They’re probably pretending not to know. Can you guess their identity?”
“Nothing has been reported on our end, they aren’t broadcasting identification signals, and given that they have no marks or ship names… wouldn’t they be pirates?”
“Then, what would be their objective?”
“Naturally, it seems their goal is to plunder the colonies.”
Wrong.
“Would such guys scout so half-heartedly? At this distance, if they were going to find us, they would have found us long ago. Rather, we were the ones who found them late.”
Everyone’s expressions hardened. If my words were true, quietly retreating would be out of the question.
“And doesn’t the composition of that fleet feel strange?”
“I’m not sure. Pirate formations are usually a mess anyway.”
I had expected much since the Vice-Captain was an Elf, often called the elite, but she was quite incompetent.
“Right. Let’s say they’re pirates and their formation is a mess as you said. But the high-speed ships are missing. It’s the ship type that pirates love the most.”
Pirates were more often composed only of light high-speed ships. They had to plunder and flee before the military appeared.
“Ah…!”
It seemed she finally realized something was wrong. Especially those gunships that were purely focused on attack power. It made no sense for pirates to bring along slow gunships when they weren’t planning on a fleet battle.
“The reason the high-speed ships aren’t visible is because they’ve already moved behind us to establish a blockade.”
“Then, before the encirclement is complete…”
“Looking at their movements, it’s already too late. We don’t even know how many high-speed ships went behind us. Considering the composition and the situation, there are probably about six. If even one ship per our vessel is marked, escape is practically impossible.”
“Then, do we surrender?!”
I checked the map displayed on one side. There were four friendly ships around us.
The ship I was on was a light high-speed ship. Below was an escort ship. Above was a gunship. Behind were two patrol ships.
5 : 20+@
This battle would be difficult even for a veteran like me. But there was no choice but to fight.
“If we surrender, will they let us live?”
I trudged over and sat in the captain’s chair. It was soft and plush, feeling like I was floating on a cloud. My eyes closed naturally at the comfortable sensation.
“Wouldn’t they try to get a ransom?”
At the Vice-Captain’s words, I slightly opened one of my closed eyes.
“As if. Do those guys look like a mere large-scale band of thieves to you? Look. The maintenance of their outer hull is excellent. If anything, we look like the band of thieves.”
“That’s… ahem. Well, they do look like elites outwardly… but I don’t understand your point, Captain.”
“Think about it. Is there any reason for pirates to care about their appearance? Polishing the outer hull doesn’t exactly increase combat power.”
If anything, it’s lucky if they don’t have graffiti on them.
If they were pirates, they would have had graffiti like skulls. If it were a civilian ship, they would often paint women’s faces or body parts. But there was one group that maintained their ships as cleanly as if they had obsessive-compulsive disorder.
“Could it be! Are you saying they are trained military vessels?”
“Bingo. They’re probably guys who came out for a reconnaissance-in-force disguised as pirates. Vice-Captain, is there a power that comes to mind?”
“Could it be, the Grand Marshal of the Imperium?! Not long ago, his delinquent second son died in a colony managed by our Marshalate.”
I guessed as much, and I was right. Of all the many powers, why did it have to be the Imperium? No, since my affiliation was the Humildas Marshalate, it was a natural outcome. They were planning a large-scale invasion using the son’s death as a pretext.
Still, it felt unfair. It was a dream, so why was it progressing according to the story?
The only silver lining was that the setting was the early part of the game. And that this was a terrain I knew well.
“To the entire fleet. Form a column.”
“Captain! Are you planning to charge?!”
The Vice-Captain asked, startled. I could see the atmosphere among the other crew members turning ominous.
‘If I’m not careful, a mutiny might break out.’
In the early stages of the game, shipboard mutinies were surprisingly common.