"It's fine," Hikaru gently held Yat Sen's hand. "I love anything you cook. If we can't have our reunion dinner today, then we'll have it in a few days."
That was all they could do for now. Yat Sen nodded, her cheeks faintly flushed.
"Commander, you're holding my hand too tightly…"
"Oh! Sorry," Hikaru quickly let go. Of course, he hadn't hurt her—Yat Sen's hand was just so soft and delicate that he'd instinctively rubbed it twice.
That little motion was somewhat suggestive, making Yat Sen's heart race.
Avoiding eye contact with the others, Yat Sen hurried off to catch fish.
Vampire tilted her head in thought, then jogged after her. She said she wanted to catch a few fish to collect their blood—for research into enhanced torpedoes as part of their war prep.
Naturally, Glowworm wouldn't be left out of something like this. The little one shouted excitedly, waving her wand as she took off at full speed.
Ignoring the scornful glance from Tirpitz, Hikaru cleared his throat. "Well, since we're not eating yet, why don't we go check out the warehouse first?"
Lexington smiled softly. "Good idea."
The warehouse was one of the most important facilities at the base—at this point, maybe even more important than the Command Room.
Right now, the Command Room had no confidential documents, no treasures—its importance was mostly symbolic. But the warehouse? It held real, tangible resources, stockpiled in massive quantities.
As the several-meter-tall iron doors opened, row upon row of neatly arranged equipment came into view.
Most of it glowed white, green, or blue—indicating low-tier gear—but there was no shortage of gold and purple glows. There were even quite a few rainbow-tier items.
Battleship main guns, anti-air cannons, torpedoes, fire control radars, dive bombers, fighters, torpedo bombers, advanced propulsion systems, underwater armor… if you could think of a naval weapon, it was probably in here.
The overlapping gleam of all this gear lit up the warehouse like a miniature sun—it didn't even need ceiling lights.
"It's like stepping into a divine armory…" murmured California, her face bathed in golden light, utterly in awe.
"Actually, only a small portion of this gear is usable," Lexington tilted her head and smiled at Hikaru. "Most of the few thousand pieces are low-grade. But luckily, we never dismantled them."
Her meaning was clear: these low-tier items could be sold in bulk for resources.
For example, a Comet dive bomber that no shipgirl here would even glance at could sell for 30 million on the open market—that's 30++ in game terms, or 30,000 units of each of the four core resources.
And if you dismantled the Comet? The recovered resources wouldn't even add up to 50 units.
This was practically Hikaru's golden cheat code.
"These are really well organized… and not a speck of dust." Hikaru brushed his hand across the cold wing of a golden Flying Dragon bomber—the strongest dive bomber ever developed. There were over ten lined up in front of him.
It gave off a sense of elegant, overwhelming power.
And considering all this was just the gear that hadn't been equipped—left to "gather dust" in storage—it was clear just how strong the base had once been.
According to Lexington's report, aside from a few "living" equipment items—like Bismarck's black cat Oscar, Hood's two cats, and Kent's tiger—nothing was missing from the warehouse.
The animals had stayed in the dream-world base, naturally.
"It's Leipzig," Lexington said with a smile. "She's the perfect person for the warehouse manager role."
Even Bismarck, who rarely spoke unless necessary, gave a small nod. "Leipzig is indeed diligent."
Leipzig was a light cruiser from the German faction—a sort of younger sister figure to Bismarck—so of course Bismarck was going to speak up for her.
But her real sister wasn't having it.
Tirpitz huffed. "Leipzig is stingy and acts like a hoarder. She treats everything in the warehouse like her personal property. I wasn't even allowed to play with anything. Commander, when she gets here, you'd better scold her!"
Hikaru didn't even get a word in before Bismarck sighed, grabbed Tirpitz by the collar, and dragged her toward the depths of the warehouse.
Realizing she was about to get beaten, Tirpitz panicked and reached out toward Hikaru. "Commander, save me! Sis is going to kill me!"
Ah, if you don't seek death, you won't die. When will you ever learn, Tirpitz?
Pretending to offer a token prayer for her, Hikaru turned to Lexington. "Madam, how much in vital resources do we have in the warehouse right now?"
[End of Chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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