Shipgirls and Salted Fish Commander, Port Survival Guide

If anyone's to blame, it's the Sirens. Ultimately, this situation arose from a lack of timely communication.

Of course, merit is merit, and demerit is demerit; ultimately, the Eastern Huang's ship was blown up, and punishment is due.

"Yes, Commander, punish me as you see fit. I'm willing to accept whatever punishment you give me." Upon hearing Jing Su's words, Yorktown immediately stood up, her face resolute. Just as she said, no matter what Jing Su wanted to do to her, she wouldn't say a word against it. Even if she had to be dismantled, she wouldn't be the first to do it; she would personally destroy her own mental cube!

"There's no need to make that face." Sensing Yorktown's resolute attitude, Jing Su was a little troubled. Yorktown was clearly willing to accept any punishment from Jing Su. In fact, Jing Su didn't care much about punishment. If it were just him, he wouldn't even want to punish him.

After all, as he said, with communication blocked by the Sirens, Yorktown could only analyze Jing Su's situation with limited intelligence. As time went on, Yorktown would only become more and more anxious. In addition, it was later intercepted by Binjiang. It was normal to think about the worst-case scenario.

However, they did lose control of the plane later on, almost causing a major incident.

Yorktown certainly deserves a penalty for this, but how to impose the penalty is a major problem.

The current situation is that Yorktown is guilty, almost causing her death, but she is also meritorious, coming to save her, and doing so with all her might. She even charged into the torpedo array without hesitation, just for the sake of it. If Yorktown is severely punished for this, Jing Su feels very uncomfortable.

Ultimately, this situation arose from a misunderstanding.

'Wait a minute, a rainbow airplane!?'

In her distress, Jing Su suddenly had a flash of inspiration: Oh right, she had almost forgotten about this.

"Here's what we'll do, Yorktown. As punishment, you're not allowed to seek reimbursement from Yixian and the others for the destroyed colored planes."

"Huh...?" Yorktown stood there, stunned, not understanding what Jing Su was talking about for a moment.

"Similarly, Binjiang, you also have some responsibility for my current condition. Yorktown did come to rescue me, so you should be punished too. You're not allowed to exchange your cruise ship for a cruise ship with Yorktown."

This matter ends here. Don't mention it again. If I hear any discussion about what happened these past few days, don't blame me for getting angry.

"I...this...Commander, sob sob sob." Yorktown was a clever person and quickly realized what Jing Su was saying. She immediately squatted down, covered her face, and burst into tears. However, this time, she cried happily. She cried with excitement and relief. In the past few days, she had not rested for a moment and could not eat a bite or drink a drop of water.

If we're talking about who suffered the most after Jing Su's accident, it would definitely be Yorktown, which almost killed Jing Su.

Now, Jing Su has essentially said in person that he has forgiven her!

"Commander!" Hearing Jing Su's words, Yi Xian was a little indignant and wanted to say something, but before she could open her mouth, she was pulled back by Bin Jiang. Seeing her best friend's expression, Yi Xian seemed to have thought of something, took a deep breath, glared at her, turned her head away, and stopped talking.

The reason Jing Su was troubled just now was precisely because of this. In essence, what happened before was just a misunderstanding. Neither side was wrong. Yorktown thought that Jing Su was in trouble and rushed to save him, which is perfectly reasonable.

Binjiang knew the truth and wanted to protect the research data that the port area had obtained with great difficulty, so he formed a torpedo array to intercept Yorktown's planes. No one could find fault with that.

Neither side was wrong, but they almost caused a major disaster and must be punished.

Putting aside prestige and such, Yorktown couldn't accept not being punished. This inner torment would destroy her. From the moment she entered the room, Jing Su could tell that Yorktown was in a very bad state, truly on the verge of collapse.

At this point, if we want her to move on, we must alleviate her guilt. Punishment is the way to do this, to help Yorktown ease her inner torment.

Punishment is one thing, but finding the right balance is really difficult. Too lenient and it won't have any effect; too harsh and Yorktown will really hurt itself. Jing Su is simply being stubborn and hitting a wall.

Fortunately, the torpedo defense perimeter of Binjiang had shot down many of Yorktown's aircraft. Later, in order to break through the defense perimeter, Yorktown almost deliberately wiped out all the carrier-based aircraft that flew over.

As mentioned earlier, colored airplanes are not so easy to replace.

Now that Yorktown's bombardment has been almost completely wiped out, her combat strength will be reduced for a long time. This loss is considerable, and letting her bear this loss herself is a good choice from all sides.

Moreover, this also provides an explanation to Binjiang. Jing Su not only punished Yorktown but also Binjiang. After all, judging from the situation just now, it's not just Yorktown who needs to be comforted.

Binjiang's own mind was also in turmoil. To her, she felt a great responsibility for Jing Su's transformation, and it was a very serious matter.

Therefore, Jing Su stated that Yorktown, your rainbow plane was almost completely destroyed, so you must bear the loss yourself and are not allowed to seek reimbursement from the port area or other factions. The same applies to Binjiang; your cruise ship was bombed, but you are also at fault, so you are also not allowed to discuss compensation with Yorktown.

Using two already destroyed things to resolve an event that could trigger infighting between the two factions is arguably the most appropriate solution.

"Hmm... Commander, I won't talk about this kind of thing again." Yorktown slowly stood up, her face once again showing a gentle light. This time, her expression was full of relief and joy, with a feeling of surviving a disaster, making people want to sink into it involuntarily.

"Hmph..." Seeing this scene, Yi Xian was still a little dissatisfied, but considering that Jing Su had already made a decision, and that if they really had to compensate York City for the Rainbow Plane, the Eastern Huang camp really couldn't afford to do so now. The materials for the Rainbow Plane were scarce throughout the world, and even money couldn't buy them. It was indeed the best way out for both sides, so they simply let it go.

"Well, now I'm a little tired. Everyone, get out and let me get some rest. And Yorktown, especially you, I'm giving you a little punishment. Go back to your room, lie in bed, and sleep for twenty hours straight. Don't come out until you've had enough sleep. Look how weak you are."

"Everyone, get out."

"Yes!"

Chapter 345 You Have to Help Me

Although she had a brush with death, as the saying goes, fortune and misfortune are intertwined, and Jing Su unexpectedly gained the ability to provide long-range support for the ship girls in their battles.

To be precise, it wasn't that he acquired it; he'd had the skill from the very beginning, and now he just knew how to do it.

As he had previously told Binjiang, he had inherited some of the player's abilities in the game, including but not limited to: remotely constructing resource channels, allowing ship girls to maintain combat capability even when their resources are exhausted, i.e., air-launching attacks.

Information Retention: Jing Su can act as a relay station to record information in the ship girl's mental cube. If a ship girl sinks due to an accident and suffers a fatal injury, Jing Su can completely revive her by consuming mental cubes and specific resources.

In the game, when a ship girl sinks, aside from losing some mood points, there are almost no penalties. Even her equipment remains the same. If the player is carefree, they can even seamlessly transition and launch another attack.

However, if Jing Su sees that a ship girl in the sortie team has sunk, she will investigate the situation to see if she sank when she was out of ammunition or when she sank when she had ammunition. If she sank when she was out of ammunition, her survivability was not good enough and her equipment needed to be adjusted. If she sank when she was out of ammunition, her training level was not high enough and simply adjusting the equipment was not enough. She needed to level up her level.

In this world, the same applies to ship girls. Ship girls are essentially Rubik's Cube spirits, with the core being the Mind Cube. Theoretically, if one could obtain all the information from the Mind Cube, it would be possible to perfectly replicate a ship girl. However, in reality, this technology is almost impossible because the evolution of life is unpredictable, and each ship girl experiences different things every moment.

Even the most intelligent AI cannot predict or deduce what a ship girl will experience at a specific time. The information that her mental cube can record will naturally be different. In this case, even if a ship girl is replicated, it will only be a robot with the ship girl's memories. It will not have the ability to think independently and will be even worse than a computer doll.

Therefore, theoretically, no machine or device can completely record all the information in the ship girls' mental cubes. Even if such a device existed, it could only record a certain moment. However, time keeps moving forward. In other words, the information contained in the ship girls' mental cubes is actually constantly changing.

But Jing Su could do it. Although Jing Su himself didn't know how he did it, he just could. He could even update and record in real time what happened to the ship girls and what changes occurred in the information. He updated in sync with these changes.

However, reality and games are different. In the game, if a ship girl sinks, aside from losing some mood, there is almost no loss. She can be sent out immediately and seamlessly continue the battle. But in this world, that's not possible.

First of all, to awaken a ship girl, you definitely need to use Mind Cubes and resources. The higher the level of training, the more resources are needed. With the current level of Jing Su's ship girls in the port, even if you awaken a white-rarity ship girl again, the resources required are enough for a rainbow-rarity ship girl to launch a full-force attack more than ten times.

In addition, there's the issue of ship equipment. In this world, don't expect that the ship equipment on a ship girl will automatically return after she sinks. You either have to find a way to recover the original ship equipment, or you have to build a new one.

After understanding the full details of the information record, Jing Su discovered that this thing was the same as the Sirens' backup device. It could only be activated and used if the ship girl was truly sunk. If the ship girl was still alive and kicking, it could not be used under any circumstances.

'These features are truly amazing.'

A faint blue light flashed in Jing Su's eyes as she murmured.

'But why do I have to wait until Tova gives me this mimicry substance before I know how to use it? And why do I have to rely on the equipment at the port? What secrets does the port hold?'

It turns out that Jing Su was able to obtain this intelligence because of the mimicry substance given to him by Towa. Through this mimicry substance, Jing Su connected to the central equipment in the port area and obtained the information from there.

Binjiang was right before. Jingsu was almost drained dry, and it was indeed related to her. After the channel for remotely transporting resources for the empty missile ship girls was built, Binjiang began to frantically absorb resources as she had always done.

However, the resources in the port warehouse had already been completely used up before the ship girls split into factions. After the split, the ship girls took turns in faction units, and during this time they would put some resources into the warehouse, but compared to before, it was definitely a drop in the bucket, barely enough to cope with a single skirmish.

But Binjiang's skills are like a bottomless pit. The unlimited torpedo system can also be understood from another perspective as the resources Binjiang can consume are also infinite!

The resources in the warehouse are hardly enough.

Resources are insufficient, but the passage has already been built. Binjiang is frantically demanding resources, and Binjiang is already in a state of depletion. If resources cannot be supplied, Binjiang will be squeezed dry.

So Jing Su had no choice but to use his emergency backup resource—himself!

To be precise, there was a device in the port area that could perform the simplest and most brutal energy conversion. According to the mass-energy equivalence equation, it could release a large amount of energy by annihilating matter. At that time, Jing Su was also helpless in the face of the empty warehouse. Binjiang was urging him so urgently, and he had nothing to perform energy conversion.

Isn't all that's left to convert the nutrients in your body?

Jing Su originally just tried it out, but it actually worked. According to the settings, anything that can burn can be thrown into the energy converter. Since the main components of petroleum and fat are carbon oxides, throwing them in in an emergency is in line with common sense.

This really put Jing Su in a lot of trouble. To some extent, Binjiang's skills are indeed top-notch. As long as the resources are sufficient, he can truly wipe out a team by himself. His two skills are simple and brutal: one is to launch torpedoes indefinitely, and the other is to control torpedoes, making them fly in the sky. Just thinking about it is exciting.

But the resource consumption was really huge; Jing Su was almost completely drained.

Knowing that the ship girls would care about this, Jing Su deliberately concealed the cause and effect. He decided that unless in an emergency, it would be better to seal up this emergency resource conversion device.

Otherwise, judging from Yorktown's shocked and devastated reaction, Jing Su really didn't dare to gamble on what Binjiang would think after learning the truth.

'TB, can you hear me? TB?' After making the decision, Jing Su whispered the name of the navigator TB in her mind, trying to summon TB without any other operation.

He was met only with silent response.

'Can't you hear me? Or... can't you speak?'

Jing Su thought to herself.

He did this for two reasons: first, to test whether there was such a thing as the ability to directly spy on people's thoughts; and second, to find out the connection between TB and the remote control hub of the port area.

In the game, TB is said to be a special operations support system sent from headquarters. It connects to the "host" to support the commander in combat and exploration, and its true identity is shrouded in mystery.

The most common place for players to encounter Terrorists (TBs) is the open world, which is where the name comes from. It guides players. In the early stages, TBs hardly participated in the storyline. Even in the open world, they were just like passersby NPCs. They only gradually participated in the storyline later on.

As for why we should pay attention to TB, it's because there are too many suspicious points behind TB. The most classic one is that TB looks almost exactly like Zero. In addition, even Towa specifically said that when we return to the port, we should not easily connect this mimicry substance to the port's main program. If we really need to use it, we should find a way to open a new network and bypass the main program.

At the time, Jing Su didn't feel anything, but now, looking back, there are problems everywhere.

'Forget it, let's not think about these things now. Even if there are problems, they're not something we can figure out right now. I should rest first; this is really exhausting.'

What is the current environment?

Adjacent to the front line, and nearby is a Siren arsenal in operation, the shielding is at its maximum. Logically speaking, TB should have no way to contact her. Therefore, even if there is a problem, TB would not respond, as that would expose them.

Then, Jing Su closed his eyes and stopped drinking the porridge. He was truly exhausted.

As Yi Xian said, almost all of his stored energy was exhausted. He was still able to move only because of his life-saving substances. Otherwise, under normal circumstances, given his current emaciated state, he wouldn't have been able to think about these issues, let alone calm the conflict between Yorktown and Yi Xian, or soothe the wounded hearts of Binjiang and Yorktown.

When a person is in a critical condition, all their energy is focused on saving that last breath. At this time, any judgment or thinking ability will approach zero. You should know that after this incident, Yi Xian's dissatisfaction with Yorktown is written all over her face, or rather, almost all the ship girls, including Yorktown, think the same way.

I almost killed Jing Su!

Is there any greater sin than this in Hong Kong?

In Yi Xian's opinion, Yorktown should not have been wrong to just sink himself. Yorktown originally had the same idea and was even preparing to do so, but Bumblebee discovered it and stopped him. Later, Bumblebee had a sudden inspiration and said that even if Yorktown wanted to sink himself or be judged, it would have to wait until Jing Su woke up.

Jing Su had personally stated that in the entire port area, any life-or-death issues had to be decided by him personally, and no one was allowed to make decisions on other matters, regardless of the circumstances. It was through this that Bumblebee was able to barely appease Yorktown and Yatsen.

...

Mysterious space.

"Hey, isn't this Towa? You're back? How are you? How's it going?"

"What does it have to do with you?"

"Oh, oh, oh, you're turning your back on me now, aren't you? Don't forget who helped you bypass that guy's surveillance. Do you think it was easy to do that? Once you're discovered, you'll be fine, but I'll be in trouble. I don't have many servers left, so I'm giving you all the resources to help cover it up."

"Tch, it's just some resources. I'll return them to you later."

"What do you mean by 'a little bit'? Is that even a little bit? Do you know that I blew up several worlds to cover for you? Come on, tell me, how are you going to pay me back!"

"...grateful..."

"Huh... Did I hear that right? What did you say? Thank you? I actually heard those two words from you! Good heavens, this might be the dignified cold-faced demoness Tova, has she been infected with a virus?!"

"Believe it or not, I'll beat you up!"

"So you really did get the virus. You used to just take action directly and never said these things to me. It seems you've had quite a few gains these past few months. Come on, tell me quickly, how does it feel? What kind of person is he?"

"You're the observer, and you're asking me?"

"You still know I'm an observer, huh? My combat strength is no match for yours; I can only watch from afar. You're the main combat unit; you even survived close to him for a while just now..."

Um! ?

Wait, something's not right. What's wrong with your health?

No way, how did it get like this?

"Tova, take a few steps on the ground?"

"Huh? What are you trying to say?"

"Oh my god, really? Have you taken any safety precautions? What if a small host is produced? If that happens, we won't be able to hide it anymore. We're doomed, Zero will dismantle it. You've really put me in a terrible situation!"

"what do you want to say in the end!?"

"Ugh, I said I was jealous. Fine, you bastard, I knew you had no good intentions. You actually, you actually did this kind of despicable thing behind my back. You bastard, you despicable, you slut, you liar! You asked me to cover for you, but you did this kind of thing with him yourself!"

You, you, you... I shouldn't have covered for you.

Woo woo

"You bastard, I should have had Zero tear you apart, you bastard!"

"...You..." At this moment, Tova suddenly remembered the identity of the person in front of him. She was called the Observer. As the name suggests, she was a mainframe that was produced specifically for various observations. Given Zero's personality, who would he have her observe after she was produced?

Although it was just observation, how long did it take? The observer had been observing that bastard for almost the longest time among them. She had only spent a month with him and was already deeply infatuated and unable to extricate herself.

What about the observer?

Even if it's just observing from a distance, the observation period would be measured in years.

"You compensate me!"

"what?"

Give me that thing!