Fated to Die to the Player, I'll Live Freely with My SSS-Class Ship!-Chapter 149: Applications and Upgrades

To complete all repairs and upgrades for all ships, we need to stay put for a full week.

Yes, a full galactic week. That's 350 hours long in total.

The reason why it's so long isn't because there are too many ships that need repairs—rather, it's the opposite. There are simply too few workers available to handle them all!

If they offered me a quote to speed things up, I would've bought it without a second thought... unfortunately, it's not like they can summon extra hands from thin air, so here we are.

Since there's too many of us—me, Eva, Nyssra, and the thousands of employees under my name—we ended up renting an entire section of the residential area instead. Of course, that wasn't cheap either. It cost roughly five times the standard market price per day.

Nyssra stayed in her room, rarely coming out unless it was for meals. She seemed absorbed in something—most likely related to the Primula Heist plan we were working on.

The little void Dragon was in my room, clutching the orb tight against its body, not moving much. Almost as if it were hibernating.

As for me and Eva, we were...

"No... No... This one's a no too..."

...filtering through hundreds of millions of applications manually.

Right, since we were grounded and couldn't do much else, we decided to tackle the slowly piling mountain of applications.

It was obvious in hindsight, but I'd forgotten to set an "end of application" date on my recruitment post. As a result, the number of valid applicants soared into the millions.

Of course, Eva and I were just humans, not machines. In a single day—working about 36 hours straight—we could barely process around 100,000 applicants each. If we were to do this manually all the way through, the universe might as well end before we finished.

By the way, I already had Percy review most of the applicants beforehand.

The millions that reached us were only those who had already passed through a few automated filtering stages, and who genuinely matched the application requirements—roughly 1% of the total.

And now, after three whole days of relentless screening, the number of applicants we'd actually approved was... just ten.

"No matter what, this is too few."

I grumbled, rotating my stiff shoulders from all the deskwork.

"Currently, our application success rate is one in five hundred million... That's even lower than the odds of winning a lottery."

Eva paused for a moment, raising her gaze from the dozens of data windows flashing before her.

"Then what? You want me to approve this garbage and take them into our team? Never."

She randomly selected one file and dissected the details. "See this? This woman added that she's a virgin and that she's single—she's definitely trying to join just to marry into money!"

"...Sounds like a you problem then."

"The fuck did you say?!" Eva fumed—slamming her table before sitting back down. "Anyway, you're no better. In fact, out of the ten we picked, six were mine. Aren't you the one being too picky?"

"Hmm..."

I won't deny that I'm picky.

To eliminate gender bias, I was handling all the male applicants, while Eva took care of the female, non-binary, and others that didn't fall into those categories.

Even with that division, I still had more applications to process than her. That just goes to show how many more men were in this line of work.

Anyway, the reason I haven't approved many was simple—their applications were trash.

I've gotten used to reading these status sheets back in the game, and by now, I can identify a good mercenary at a glance. Most of the ones I failed were clearly "bad." I even rejected a few decent candidates just because they had a shady history—making them prime suspects for being spies.

I've only selected the cleanest, crème de la crème candidates from the pile and sent them the acceptance notice along with a contract. I even threw in a 1 billion Credit sign-in bonus, making the offer hard to refuse.

We also sent out automated, politely worded rejection emails to the rest, ensuring everything was handled properly.

"Huh...?" But then, I froze.

A familiar face suddenly appeared on my screen, applying for a position.

"This one's..." I muttered. "Who was he again?"

His name was Neardin... In my blurry memory, I remembered him having a brother, with their names sounding like a pun of each other.

"Ah, right!" I gasped as the memory clicked. "He's the head of security at one of the stations we passed through! And he's Fardin's brother!"

Fardin, one of Major Terrence's aides, was a spiteful little bastard, so he left quite the impression on me. Come to think of it, I remember using Neardin as a scapegoat once, back when we were being chased by Prince Leobert.

"So he lost his security job after all, and turned to mercenary work instead..."

Although I felt sorry... that's just how life goes.

But despite that, his data was honestly quite solid.

He had ten years of experience with the military, so he's definitely not some lightweight. He even had administrative skills—deskwork, logistics, security protocols—making him a versatile candidate.

But...

I wasn't sure if I should take him in.

He looked like the type to hold grudges. And that time with the prince? That mess was more or less our fault. I couldn't tell whether he was applying just to get close to me, or if he genuinely wanted to find a stable crew to "hitch a ride" with.

"...Approved."

In the end, I accepted him.

He was an old acquaintance, had a strong background, a solid network of connections, and—judging by his profile—was highly competent. He even had experience piloting military-grade ships. Definitely not a bad addition.

If he held a grudge... well, I guess I could let him punch me once to settle the score. Just once. Any more than that, and he'd be asking for a beating instead.

Time passed.

Soon enough, the week rolled by.

The ship repairs were finally complete, with every vessel painted in a uniform style—jet black, as deep and endless as the void itself. Along each hull, the symbol of a pure white hawk stood out starkly. A hawk without a shadow.

At a glance, one might mistake it for the logo of the Shadowless Hawks, but... it wasn't quite the same. The angle of the talons, the gleam in the eyes, and the curve of the beak—minor differences, yet enough to make it distinct to a trained eye.

"Ye're treading on thin ice here, lad."

The head of the shipyard crew grumbled as he handed me the final receipt.

"To think ye'd go and base yer emblem off those bastards' mark... Hell, it's near identical. I won't be surprised if they start huntin' ye down the moment ye leave me port."

I chuckled at his warning and shrugged casually. "Well... I'm actually betting on that, to be honest."

"Huh?"

He blinked in confusion, but I didn't clarify. He didn't need to know the plan.

After confirming the lump-sum payment—no installments—I ordered everyone to board their newly-refurbished ships.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

Everyone looked completely awestruck by their ships' transformations. The base frames were the same, but aside from the skeleton, everything else had been overhauled beyond recognition.

The turrets had been replaced with long-range, high-power variants, each tailored differently to allow tactical flexibility across the fleet. Munitions, missile pods, advanced sensors, top-tier shield generators, reinforced engines and thrusters... Every part had been upgraded to its peak.

I could feel the collective excitement radiating from the crew. Their ships were now so far beyond their original specs, they could probably defeat their past versions even in a ten-to-one engagement!

Of course, the one we poured the most resources into was our flagship—the Black Halberd.

Since this ship would be piloted directly by us, it received all the standard upgrades, plus several custom features. Most notably, I specifically requested the installation of short-range warp modules. Though expensive, these modules could be a lifeline—especially when you're surrounded by hostile fleets from an entire star system.

Sitting back on the newly-cleaned bridge, cushioned by the soft fabric of the upgraded captain's chair, I opened a channel to the entire fleet.

"Alright, bastards! Listen up!" I shouted, my voice tinged with anticipation. "Fire up your engines! We're doing a parade flyby first—then heading out to our target!"

By the way, Nyssra and the Void Dragon cub weren't on her ship.

They were both here, onboard the Black Halberd.

Nyssra wasn't confident she could defend herself against the Primula if something went wrong. That's why she chose to ride with us, delegating the piloting of her ship to someone else.

In here, Eva took over navigation, while Nyssra handled all things digital—defensive systems, electronic warfare, and hacking.

The little dragon cub, on the other hand... was comfortably snoozing on top of my head.

Seriously, did it think of my head as its nest or something? It wouldn't budge at all, sleeping soundly, completely relaxed.

"...Anyway." I muttered, brushing the thought aside. "Let's set off!"

Although we technically could warp straight into Voltherian territory using the nearby Warp Gate, I chose not to. Instead, I had Eva chart a route that would take us the longest, most straightforward path to our destination.

Why?

"We need to go fishing first—before we go after the big prize!"