Hikaru slapped his forehead and set Vampire down. "Right, almost forgot. I promised that whenever I summon new companions, I'd let everyone here at the base know first."
Glowworm instantly forgot about not getting her hug. She tilted her head up eagerly. "We're summoning again? Will it be one of our UK-class sisters? Ohhh, if it's Javelin that would be amazing! I really, really want Javelin!"
Without Javelin perched on her back, Glowworm always felt like she was missing part of herself.
Yat Sen and Fletcher both turned toward Hikaru with equal anticipation. Even Tirpitz, half-asleep at the table, shifted her head and pricked up her ears without opening her eyes.
Everyone wanted to reunite with their sisters from the base. It wasn't that they didn't welcome other shipgirls, but naturally, they hoped the new summon would be someone from their own faction.
"This time, I'll be summoning three shipgirls," Hikaru explained. "But I won't push myself all at once. One tonight, one tomorrow, one the day after. That way, they'll all be summoned before the end of the month."
Summoning shipgirls back-to-back was draining. Every time Hikaru tapped into the steel memories, it took a toll on his mind. With the northern Abyssals drawing back for now, he wasn't in such a rush to summon all three in one night.
Lexington spoke up. "Will this summoning be random?"
She knew well that sometimes her Commander could summon at random, but other times he could designate the result. Glowworm and herself had been chosen specifically, as had Saratoga and the others.
"This one isn't random," Hikaru said, shaking his head. "It's limited to G-Faction shipgirls." He shot a glance at Tirpitz, who was still pretending to sleep, and snorted. "And it's related to this lazybones right here."
Not long after summoning Tirpitz, Hikaru had received two rainbow-colored limited-time missions.
The first: within three months, raise Tirpitz's happiness to "Dreamlike Bliss."
But no matter what he tried, her mood stubbornly stuck at bright gold—the maximum of "Happiness"—without ever breaking through. Her sister was already here too, so how was he supposed to make her even happier? It gave him a headache.
The second mission was the one that had just completed today:
The Lonely Queen of the North – Within East Asia, raise Tirpitz's renown to the level of Peerless God of War.
Truthfully, that should've been completed ages ago—back in the great defensive battle of the South Seas, when Abyssal Barbarossa, Abyssal Bismarck, and Abyssal Tirpitz all fought against her alone. With so many military observers and reporters broadcasting by camera and radio, her name had spread across the world. She had already been recognized as "Invincible."
But the mission conditions hadn't judged it so.
After all, even if millions had tuned in on radios and televisions across the Nation, many more had not. Vast inland cities, remote towns, entire regions without reliable communications—those people hadn't even heard of the naval battle.
And East Asia was more than just this Country. For Tirpitz's name to spread across other nations, that took even more time.
Still—"World's Strongest" was "World's Strongest." Fame like that would inevitably spread.
In wartime, the title of "World's Strongest" could do more for morale than any amount of speeches.
Sure enough, within weeks, as the state propaganda machines pushed the story deeper and deeper, Tirpitz's name became known to every household across East Asia.
Everyone knew: the strongest shipgirl alive, the Peerless God of War Tirpitz, belonged to a certain Commander in East Asia.
And so, today, the mission finally registered as complete.
The rewards had made Hikaru drool since the moment he first saw them:
Oath Ring x1
Three random mystery rewards
Summon rights for one random G-class large ship, one medium ship, and one small ship.
The Oath Ring was a wedding band given from Commander to shipgirl, strengthening her across the board.
In practical terms, it boosted luck by +5, reduced repair times by about 30%, and increased evasion, crit rate, and accuracy. According to Lexington's estimate, it was roughly equivalent to raising a shipgirl's level by 10.
That was no small bonus—especially for shipgirls like her who were already at level 110 and couldn't go any higher. For them, it was like stepping beyond their limits.
Now, the dazzling silver diamond ring was sitting right in Hikaru's pocket, worth a full 600 gems in the shop.
And that was only half of one of Tirpitz's two limited-time missions.
On top of it all, he still had three lottery rolls and three guaranteed G-class summons.
A massive windfall—almost too good to believe.
[End of Chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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