There are less than half of the enemy octopuses left on the radar. It seems the ones marked with prickly balls on the radar were devoured by other ships.
Tortilla Double is moving in random patterns, as I stay conscious of friendly lines of fire.
I make sure to not get hit by snail octopus boarding pod attacks and keep firing the laser cannon away, but… Something hits Tortilla Double.
“Connect! Shine!”
“We were hit by an octopus pod! Directly above!”
“Get down! I’ll blow it away! Thunderbolt!!”
Vasilisa starts chanting before Saratha can say anything. I stop the turret at the moment she uses magic, and fire four bio guided missiles.
The octopus we assume is clinging to the ship takes a direct hit, and it’s hit with four missiles after getting away from us, but it doesn’t feel fatal, so I fire the large laser cannon at it from a close range. It’s not even fifty meters away, so the shiny octopus is evaporated.
“<Wao! It moves slowly, but it’s agile when it’s time to do it!>”
“<It’s like they don’t need us! I’m going to cover something else! Watch yourself, stout one!>”
“You too~!”
Ten bipedal robots are in a 4-3-3 formation. They move away from us just as the laser cannon hits a big octopus and deals consistent damage.
“They’re too big, so we need to work something out like they’re doing if we want to deal damage with guided missiles.”
“I wish we had incendiary missiles, but we don’t have them or the recipe. Should we go back to Akul for a bit?”
“They’re getting blown away, so the damage… Uah!?”
“Hang on! Damn octopus!”
Tortilla Double is encircled by a magic energy sphere.
I suddenly fire up the plasma engine past the limiter. And I do a half turn within the safe zone, using the thrusters to assist.
Within a few seconds, a teleporting octopus appears right behind Tortilla Double, or right in front, and I fire torpedoes and the laser cannon.
The octopus’ tentacles lightly trace our shield, and the shield capacity drastically goes down. This is bad.
I hit its body with two torpedoes and a laser, and it bends backwards. I aim the laser cannon between its eyes again, where its brain is, and fire. Its body turns white and it stops moving.
“It’s such a waste that we can’t salvage~!”
“It makes sense, this is a war! It was like this in every one I took part!”
“I can’t imagine that counts for the reward, but this octopus was like taking down a destroyer.”
“They can take down destroyers in the first place…”
“We can perhaps expect a nice reward!”
“I hope so, because I think we burned the engine a little…”
I think about going after the next octopus, but they’re throwing urchin while retreating. I keep attacking with the laser cannon, and most of the combat ships are disturbing them with their speed, but the octopuses keep going towards an octopus with a shell on its back. They freeze, touch it with their tentacles… and disappear.
There were about twenty octopus reactions, and they’re all gone. I can’t see any magic energy spheres, and the radar shows nothing.
“<Did they disappear? They disappeared!?>”
“<I-I survived…>”
“<This isn’t what I signed up for. There were too many dangerous things other than the big octopuses.>”
“<They lost big ones and we lost a destroyer. I want to call it a draw.>”
“<Hey, the people thrown out of the cockpit are still alive! Armors, rescue them!>”
“<There are a lot of survivors from the broken destroyer! Leave the firefighting and rescue operations to us!>”
We can finally take a breather. The battle didn’t last ten minutes, but there were too many points where a bad decision in the heat of the moment could be dangerous.
Savages are scary when they attack. That’s all I’ll say.
The formation was too close, and I wanted to go back more… But that was the client’s decision, so we couldn’t do anything. I wish the whole thing was pulled back next time. That’s a problem with being a mercenary, they can hold us up like heroes, but in reality treat us worse than dogs.
“Two six hundred meter teleporting octopuses, two one kilometer big space octopuses, one small ten meter octopus… That’s Tortilla Double’s tally.”
“Isn’t it a lot?”
“When did we take out one kilometer ones?”
“The gun camera confirmed that the laser cannon just happened to hit them, so we should assert it was our kill. I also told the Mercenary Guild what to watch out for when it comes to teleporting octopuses.”
“You really work fast, Iris…”
She snorts with a smug expression. Yes yes, cute cute. Saratha and Iris pat her head.
After the battle, we leave the cockpit to Iris, and go to sleep. I sleep for three hours in the pile of blankets in the cockpit we call the napping room, and wake up holding Saratha. Why is she here?
Iris is looking at me. She looks really cute crouching and tilting her head, but the light behind her makes it scary.
“Master, the war is over.”
“Really?”
“It seems the Space Octopus Confederation understood our situation through the first battle. They agreed on a hundred year truce with Brefilmore Prime and The Federation of Star Systems. Also, they will be handing over rare metals and large octopus magic stones as reparations. It is no exaggeration to say it is an unconditional surrender.”
So they’re worn out. They had the power to split a destroyer in two, but no chances of winning.
“The mechanical intelligence of Lumomo Fourth excitedly said the two teleporting octopuses you destroyed played a big role.”
“I think so too. It’s no exaggeration. I assume they wouldn’t have retreated if those didn’t die.”
“I wonder… Will you sleep a little longer…?”
No, I’m up.
“What about the war quest?”
“It ended early, but the contract has been fulfilled. The rewards are being calculated, but… Teleporting octopuses are worth half a million puni, and being paid as if they were cruiser class ships.”
“Good thing octopus meat and skin is soft. It really taught me the importance of shield and armor.”
“That’s good money…”
Saratha wraps herself around me. Not with her tail, her upper body. Scary.
“High firepower makes right.”
“Yes, we landed big ones.”
“Now we should work on the shield.”
“Not if we do not go after big ones.”
I guess, I say as I’m dragged into the snake’s nest.
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