Adding Game-like Elements!
"Stop picking fights with everyone you meet!"
On the Range Falcon, I threw myself into lecture mode. Eva needed to reflect on her attitude—seriously this time. Under normal circumstances, I'd turned a blind eye to her brash attitude as I was already used to it, but this time? Her impulsiveness had nearly ended our lives. If there was ever a time for a serious sermon, it is now.
"I wasn't in the wrong! It was that pig's fault!" Eva shot back, crossing her arms across her chest with stubborn defiance, showing not an ounce of remorse.
Her unwavering conviction that she was in the right made my head throb. Arguing with her was like trying to redirect a massive comet mid-flight.
"Let's assume you weren't wrong," I tried approaching the topic from an alternative angle. "Even so, picking a fight with a Militia General is beyond insanity! Can't you at least consider who you are provoking before diving into battle head-on?"
"Hmph!"
She snorted, refusing to look in my direction. "I didn't pick a fight. He picked one with me, and I simply answered back!"
"Is asking if you're lost considered picking a fight now?!" I snapped back, irate.
The thing was, I had belatedly learned from the crowd that the whole mess started when the Militia General tried to offer Eva help. She'd looked a bit lost—probably confused by the maze-like layout of the space station—and his question was, by all accounts, calm and polite. Eva, however, treated him like he'd just insulted her entire bloodline. What followed was an unprovoked torrent of snarls and sharp words that escalated faster than I could process.
Sure, maybe the guy had ulterior motives when he offered to help, but that's beside the point.
"And why are you even lecturing me?" Eva shot back, her golden eyes narrowing. "I could've handled the situation just fine without your meddling. It's not the first time some sleazy guy picked a fight with me."
"Is that so?" I shot back, dripping sarcasm. "And when that 'sleazy guy' pointed his laser blaster at your face, was 'staring down its barrel' part of your brilliant plan?"
"Yes, it was!" she snapped.
Then, with an accusatory glare, she jabbed her finger in my direction. "And what about you? Jumping in front of me like that—was that part of your genius plan? Or do you just have a death wish?!"
"I…." Her words hit me harder than I expected.
Why did I jump in front of her like that? It wasn't like I owed her my life. And I definitely wasn't a knight in shining armor or anything noble like that. I was just… me. A random guy thrust into this chaotic game-turned-reality.
"I don't know," I admitted softly, lowering my voice as confusion crept in.
Eva opened her mouth as if to say something and then closed it again. Her sharp glare softened ever so slightly as she turned her head away. I didn't miss the faint blush creeping across her cheeks, though. It was subtle, almost imperceptible—but it was there.
"Anyway," I said, clearing my throat to break the silence, "just promise me you'll stop picking fights willy-nilly. Deal?"
Eva's face stayed turned away, her expression unreadable. I sighed, preparing myself for yet another defiant remark. But instead, her response caught me off guard.
"... I'll think about it."
Her words were soft, almost begrudging, but they weren't a denial. I blinked, momentarily stunned, before a small smile crept onto my face.
For once, it felt like I'd gotten through to her. Maybe, just maybe, my efforts hadn't been completely wasted after all.
---
When we had done everything we needed to do—taken care of Eva's commission, purchased provisions, and restocked miscellaneous consumables—we left the Helios Space Station in a rush, as if running away. Or rather, I was really running away.
That terrifying Supreme General had surely realized that I wasn't the Gerard he was familiar with. Still, he hadn't acted on it for reasons beyond my comprehension. No pursuit, no alarms, and—mostly telling—no messages from the Astoria Family. Which meant he hadn't spoken of it either.
I had no idea what his motives were, but I wouldn't hang around to find out. The moment we finished our errands, we left the station. Better to avoid unpredictable variables entirely.
"Hm hm hmm~🎵"
To distract myself from the lingering unease, I busily worked with a little side project—a temporary escape from the mess that was my current reality.
"… Can you not hum? It's creepy," Eva groaned from a few seats away in the bridge, her expression one of disgust. "Also, what the hell have you been doing over there since earlier?"
We were mid-jump through hyperspace, the swirling void outside lit by faint, iridescent colors as we zipped between Jump Gates. But sitting idle in the cockpit felt like a waste of time, so I'd been tinkering with this for the past half hour.
"This? Oh, it's nothing," I said, only half-paying attention to her as my fingers flew across the holographic keyboard. "Just creating a display application to show the ship's stats and modules more conveniently."
It was easy to view ship stats—which was simply opening a clean, user-friendly status window—back when this was a game with a simple gesture. But now? That handy feature was gone. If I wanted to check the specs of the ship or its modules, I had to slog through either the 100-page manufacturer's manual or the dense three-page summary. Both options were far too tedious for someone who has the attention span of a goldfish and, more importantly, doing so was a waste of precious time.
"Aaaand… done!" I declared, leaning back with a grin.
I was lucky I dabbled in programming as a hobby, and the ship's operating system supported the language I was most familiar with. It hadn't taken long to whip up a working sample.
"Let's test this out!" I muttered, hitting the holographic Enter key.
Instantly, the main holographic display in the middle of the bridge showed the wireframe image of the Range Falcon, rotating gradually. I reached out to it and tapped, then to the right, a polished summary of this ship's actual stats appeared.
[---
Ship Name: Range Falcon
Ship Class: Battle Cruiser
Ship Rarity: SSS
Cruise Speed: 500 m/s
Top Speed: 5,000 km/s
Top Acceleration: 5G
Energy Capacity: 1,000 GJ
Energy Charge Rate: 75 GJ/s
Rated Maximum Energy Consumption: 180 GJ/s
Radar Range: 0.5 AU
Transceiver Range: 10 AU
Shield Integrity: 100% (100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%)
Broadside Ports: 10/10 (100%)
Turret Ports: 12/12 (100%)
Missile Launcher Ports: 2/2 (120/120)
Cargo Hold Size: 9,177/31,250 m³
Hangar Capacity: 1/8 ships
---]
I flipped through the information, nodding my head in approval. "Yes, all's good. No bugs to speak of!"
Rare for me to get it right on the first execution; that was a welcome surprise. Maybe being in Gerard's body gave me better programming skills...? Nah, no way.
To be doubly sure, I tapped on each part of the hologram. The shields, hangar, and cargo hold showed their respective stats, including a detailed inventory of pirate loot, delivery goods, provisions, and random odds and ends.
After weaving through everything that I could check, I finally chose one of the ship's turrets, and a window opened:
[---
Manufacturer: Justice Technologies Ltd.
Type: Beam Turret
Version: Mark 3
Charge: 0%
Cooldown: 2 sec
Range: 100 km
Power Consumption: 1 GJ/s
Energy Efficiency: 50%
Damage Against Shield: 100%
Damage Against Hull: 75%
---]
"Perfect!" I exclaimed, grinning. "This is exactly how weapon specs should look!"
"Huh. That's actually pretty neat," Eva muttered, surprising me with her rare tone of appreciation. "Can you add this to my ship too? I think it'd come in handy."
"Sure," I replied, already thinking about the steps to transfer it. "I'll send it over after I encapsulate the code."
After all, if I don't apply any security features to it, then rather than help, it would end up as a vulnerability in the ship's system. I layered the program with robust security features—integrating it with the system's firewall—before deployment. Sure, it slowed the program down from 0.1 nanoseconds per update to 0.2 nanoseconds, but that difference was negligible—at least to humans.
And then, as if on cue, the ship's warning alarms blared across the bridge.
I sighed, checking the system logs. "Great. Another pirate blockade…"
The main screen flashed red, and the detector on the Jump Drive Jammer lit up as our hyperspace journey screeched to a halt, yanked out of hyperspace—right smack into the middle of an enemy formation.
But something was off.
"…Huh?" I zoomed in on the scanners, my eyes narrowing. "Are those... space monsters?"
Sure enough, right behind the pirate ships came a tidal wave of huge, squirming creatures. These pirates, rather than having the intent to plunder us, seemed to be trying to "dump" these monsters on us while trying to escape to safety.
"If we had been any other vessel, their plot would have succeeded," I said, a thin smile tugging at my lips. "Too bad they chose the wrong sacrifice."
"Percy," I yelled out to the ship's AI, "activate manual control systems!"
Eva's eyes gleamed with a hint of fear and excitement as she buckled herself in. I gripped the controls, adrenaline already surging, before exclaiming. "It's time to kick some ass!"