"Hm-hm-hmm~"
Lohn hummed to herself in a cheerful mood.
She had poured as much firepower as she wanted into the enemy on the battlefield, and she felt good thinking about how thoroughly she had shown the commander how much she had grown.
"Huh~? Where could the commander be..?
Lohn had gone to the office to show off a little, but the commander wasn’t there in the darkened room.
"Did he already go to sleep..?
Lohn let out a thoughtful hum and stood there, thinking.
Then she came to a conclusion: "Then let’s go to the commander’s bedroom!"
Lohn headed for the commander’s bedroom.
When she arrived, a faint light was leaking through the slightly open door.
Lohn reached for the door, then stopped when she spotted an unexpected figure through the crack.
".........."
Bismarck.
She was half-reclining against the sleeping commander, holding his hand.
Lohn quietly closed the door and turned away.
Then, overwhelmed by a strange feeling she had never tasted before, she hurried back to her own room.
"....What is this feeling..."
It was extremely unpleasant, but it felt different from the kind of "disgust" she had felt before.
A little stickier. A little more viscous.
Unable to define the feeling, Lohn tossed and turned until she finally fell asleep.
...
"The shell count doesn’t match! How exactly were you managing supplies?!"
"No, 203mm shells are what heavy cruisers like you use. Why are you asking me? Are you gaslighting me?"
"G-gaslighting, my ass!"
Hipper shrieked in denial at my question.
"Hmm... Hipper, let me see your gun-room firing records."
"W-why... would you...?"
This bastard.
"Hipper, show me that hand. Is it your stomach?"
"D-don’t touch me!! I’ll shoot you! I can shoot you, you know!?"
In the end, I couldn’t get to the bottom of it and had to settle for resupplying the shells.
Normally that would have been grounds for a serious punishment, but the culprit was obvious and this had been a real emergency.
Besides, she wasn’t the type to do anything with stolen shells anyway. It had only been two rounds.
"Hipper— I’m hungry... Let’s go eat."
Prinz Eugen said with a long yawn.
"Eugen, don’t even think about eating until this is finished!"
Hipper snapped at Eugen, who looked like she was about to melt from how limp she was.
"Eeeh...."
Then Eugen came over to me and hugged me from behind.
"Comman-der~ The commander’s hungry too, right? Let’s eat? Okay?"
Something soft pressed against the back of my head.
Hipper couldn’t do this sort of thing, could she?
"Y-you...! Why are you looking at me!"
Hipper shot me a glare.
She really did have a good instinct for useless things.
"All right, all right. Sugar in your head does improve efficiency."
"Yay~ Thanks, Commander~"
Eugen stretched lazily.
Her silver hair caught the sunlight, and her well-proportioned body gave off a deeply sensual air.
"Heh....."
"Commander, wipe your drool."
"Tch. Anyway, let’s go eat."
The Hipper sisters and I left the office and headed to the cafeteria, where we took our seats.
"Hm?"
Looking around the cafeteria, I spotted a recently joined comrade eating by herself in a corner.
"Was she eating alone?"
I approached Tirpitz and spoke to her.
"Yeah... Somehow, I still can’t get used to the warmth here."
Tirpitz was eating directly under the air conditioner.
Hm... so that’s why she was eating under the air conditioner?
I thought about it for a moment, then made a suggestion to Tirpitz.
"Tirpitz, you finally made it to the base, so it’d be lonely to eat by yourself. Come over here and eat with us."
"Ah, uh... I’m... already used to it..."
Tirpitz resisted at first, but quietly let herself be pulled over to me.
"Long time no see, Tirpitz. You haven’t changed at all."
Eugen said around a mouthful of sausage.
"Eugen, swallow what’s in your mouth before you talk."
Then came Hipper’s scolding.
Tirpitz watched the two of them in silence.
She was probably thinking about Bismarck.
Maybe Tirpitz also secretly longed for a close relationship like the Hipper sisters had.
They had made up, but for these shy sisters to take the first step toward each other would probably take a miracle.
So Tirpitz just watched.
After the meal, I sent the Hipper sisters off first, then handed Tirpitz a cup of coffee and said, "Tirpitz, were you jealous?"
Tirpitz paused with the coffee halfway to her lips and answered my question with a question of her own.
"Of what.. exactly?"
"Hipper and Eugen. They bicker, but they’re close, aren’t they?"
Tirpitz fiddled with the coffee cup, looking awkward.
"Ah... not really... I’ve gotten used to being alone, so it doesn’t really hit home."
I took out my lighter and lit a cigarette.
With a clear metallic click, I opened the Zippo and struck the flint.
This thing... Enterprise gave it to me.
It was a bluish lighter she had gifted me because, as a commander, I was losing dignity by using a cheap 300-won convenience-store lighter.
And while she was at it, she nagged me to quit smoking...
In the end, though, everyone pushed me away all the same.
Still, Enterprise had been a very loyal girl.
The reason I was bringing her up was because Tirpitz and Enterprise somehow overlapped in my mind.
Their personalities were similar, and even their faces were a little alike when I first met them.
"Then are you satisfied with things as they are, Tirpitz?"
Tirpitz said quietly, "...I’m fine."
She gave that vague answer, then crushed the paper cup in her hand.
Honestly, what a shut-in. Why couldn’t she just say what she meant?
By contrast, I was the one who got into trouble because the moment I drank too much, I’d start rambling about my miserable family history.
Thanks to that, my academy seniors sometimes teased me about it at drinking parties.
I finished my cigarette and returned to the office.
When I got back, there was a fax waiting for me.
"This emblem is..."
Vichya Dominion.
They were the faction that had sided with the Iron Blood when the Iron Blood invaded the -3 weeks-.
The contents were basically a request for reinforcements.
Azur Lane’s Iris Libre and the Royal Navy were joining forces and pressuring them...
So they couldn’t do anything to us and were picking on our allies instead?
Using the chicken when they couldn’t catch the pheasant, huh?
I decided to teach that rude Azur Lane a lesson and immediately sent back a reply.
By the way, the Eagle Union was quiet.
That was a relief for me, of course.
If the Eagle Union joined in too, there’d be nothing I could do.
But it was suspicious how dead quiet they were.
I had no way to read their intentions, damn it.
They were one of the factions, along with the Royal Navy, that kept their counterintelligence especially tight, so there wasn’t much to be done.
...
Before setting out, I should give them the reward they deserved for succeeding in the Tirpitz rescue operation.
I gathered the girls at the base and threw a beer party.
"Waaah~ The base is so lively, Commander."
Lohn looked around the noisy base, turning her head eagerly.
"It really has never been like this before. It’s all thanks to you.... Commander....."
Bismarck shyly gave me the credit.
"You all worked hard, so this is the reward you deserve."
There should always be a proper reward for a job well done.
It motivates people to work, and that motivation lets them keep moving forward.
I knew that well. I was only giving them what they had earned.
"Mwaaaahhhh!!!"
"O-oh... Eugen?!"
Out of nowhere, Eugen appeared, her mouth loose and silly, and wrapped herself around my arm.
"Ugh... alcohol... How much did you drink in such a short time?!"
"Mwahahaha~ Commander, drink up too! Drink, drink!"
Eugen said, pressing a beer mug against my mouth.
"Hey, hey, Eugen, you idiot!!"
Where the hell was Hipper at a time like this?
Bismarck looked at Eugen with the expression of someone thinking, here we go again.
"................."
"Huh..."
Lohn, who always wore a bright, smiling expression, was somehow completely blank-faced.
"Lohn..?"
She seemed to answer more slowly than usual.
"Yes? Commander?"
The blankness from before was gone, and her smile was back in full bloom.
Was I just imagining things?
"Ah... no. You fought really well back then too, Lohn, so enjoy yourself."
"Hehe, thank you for the praise. Then...."
Lohn poured some beer and brought it over to me.
"Shall we toast?"
"Mwahahaha~ Cheers~~ Cheers~~~~"
Eugen clinked her glass in a noisy frenzy, and we tilted our beer mugs back.
Ahhh....
Heavenly..
The cold beer that chilled my throat, the pleasant carbonation, and the bitterness all delighted my mouth.
"I’m going to take a quick look around the base."
Breaking away from the group, I looked around and spotted Graf Zeppelin drinking alone with a beer mug in hand.
"Zeppelin, why are you by yourself?"
"Ah, Commander."
Zeppelin was the only aircraft carrier at our base.
Apparently, because she had been left unfinished before, her personality had become twisted.
Judging that Graf Zeppelin’s role was extremely important for the Iron Blood, which lacked air power, I had finished her construction and commissioned her.
"Watching such a peaceful sight makes my hatred rise all at once."
Hm...
For someone saying that, she seemed to be enjoying herself quite a bit.
At least that’s what the plate and beer mug sitting beside her seemed to say.
"Zeppelin, if you hadn’t been there for that operation, it might have been hard to pull it off. Please keep helping us in the next one too."
I raised my glass and invited her to toast.
"Hmph... So the Commander does recognize my worth after all. As expected of the one I chose."
We toasted and downed the beer in one shot.
...
I split off a small fleet to defend the base, then assembled the expedition fleet.
With Tirpitz and Zeppelin added, the fleet now looked fairly respectable.
Whiiiiistle—
"Set sail!"
The signal to depart rang out.
...
"Is Iron Blood’s reinforcements still not here?"
Jean Bart, the Vichya flagship, asked impatiently while biting her nails.
"They departed a little while ago and have gone radio silent since, so they should arrive soon. Let’s hold out a little longer."
Jean Bart looked at her unfinished turrets and left irritably.
Dunkerque offered a quiet prayer.
Please, send someone to save us.
Pull us out of despair.
Give us back our everyday lives.
Anyone is fine, so please...
"E-emergency! Royal Navy fleet spotted to the northwest! All fleets, battle positions! Emergency!"
In the empty cathedral, only sunlight shone through the stained glass in vivid colors.
And that light warmly illuminated the seat Dunkerque had just been in.
Boom
"Bow hit...! Ugh..!"
Le Malin retreated, scattering torpedoes.
"This is a little rougher than expected."
"Tch, the Royal’s commoners are annoyingly strong in battle."
This time the Royal Navy seemed determined, even bringing in the maid corps to press Vichya hard.
"For Her Majesty..!"
The Royal maid corps fought with such ferocity that there was no trace left of their usual "elegance."
Then—
Whoosh!
"Beep— Ah, this is the Iron Blood commander. If you do not withdraw from Vichya’s territorial waters immediately, we will regard it as an illegal act of force and respond with firepower."
For some, it was a voice they had never heard before. For others, it was a voice they had longed to hear again.
"Ma...master...?"
Hearing the voice over the open channel, Belfast was stunned beyond words.
And not just Belfast—the entire maid corps was shocked.
"Ma...master...?"
They hurriedly tried to hail him again, but all that came back was cold, merciless static.
"We... we didn’t mishear that, did we...? Right, Head Maid?"
The maid corps fell into confusion.
And then,
Swoosh!
An Iron Blood 380mm shell flew in as a warning and struck.
"W-we’re withdrawing."
Even the usually composed Belfast was thrown into confusion and decided to retreat.
"Th-they’re retreating...?"
Relieved that they no longer had to fight and that reinforcements had arrived, they hugged each other in joy.
...
"Welcome to Vichya."
Dunkerque knelt on one knee and saluted.
"Hey, that’s cool. Should we change our salute to that too?"
"S-stop saying pointless things and act with some dignity, you idiot!"
Hipper and I muttered to each other.
"Ah, how rude of me. Right away."
When I returned Dunkerque’s salute, she finally rose.
"Our unit barely uses salutes anymore. I’m not used to receiving them."
"Y-yes...? I-is that so..?"
Dunkerque asked, eyes wide in surprise.
"Yeah, it’s my own stubborn rule. You’re the ones fighting, not me, right? Sure, I’m the one commanding, but I got rid of it because I didn’t want to be treated with unnecessary deference."
After greeting combatants like Le Malin and Algerie, I was led into the cathedral.
When I opened the huge cathedral doors and stepped inside, a girl with a somewhat sharp, crooked-looking impression was waiting for me.
"Welcome. I am Jean Bart, battleship of Vichya."
She looked a little rough around the edges as she came up to me and offered her hand.
"Nice to meet you. I’m the newly appointed Iron Blood commander."
"You sent reinforcements as soon as we asked for them. Thank you, truly."
Jean Bart bowed her head.
"We’re allies, aren’t we?"
"Heh... Allies. I see."
Before, Iron Blood had been too busy dealing with its own problems to send reinforcements, but not anymore.
The Iron Blood I led was no longer the same.
...
As expected from the land of gastronomy, I was treated warmly in Vichya and served delicious food.
In particular, the dessert and coffee were excellent.
Jean Bart rested her chin on her hand and looked at me.
"Is the food to your liking?"
"Hm, it’s really good. Honestly, the dessert is so good I’d like to take some home with me."
"Dunkerque made that."
I looked up at Dunkerque.
Dunkerque smiled shyly and lowered her head.
"You flatter me."
"No... it’s really delicious. If it’s not too much to ask, could I have a little more?"
"Ah... hehe... of course."
Dunkerque looked genuinely pleased.
After making my small request, I entered the strategy meeting with Jean Bart.
"Ah, right. I forgot to mention this. The Royal seems to have really set its mind on this, so we asked for reinforcements not only from Iron Blood but also from the Sakura Empire, but..."
Ah, the Sakura Empire?
I had completely forgotten my plan to visit them.
"Could you tell me who’s in the fleet?"
"Hmm... I think they said they’d be coming mainly with the First Carrier Division."
That saved me the trouble of going to find them.
My goal had been to see the First Carrier Division anyway.
I smiled and said to Jean Bart, "Good. Then I can relax."
Jean Bart kept staring at my face.
"...What?"
"Ah... no. You... your smile looks like someone I know."
Jean Bart said wistfully.
I decided not to press her further.
Anyone speaking like that probably wasn’t remembering something pleasant.
And so the first night of my expedition in Vichya passed by.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register