Seeing the nemesis alert very nearly sent me into a panic, Andraid saw my face pale with fear

“I doubt the early assault is what scared you, what is it?” (Andraid)

“Let’s just say the early assault may have something to do with someone who can equal me” (Me)

Seeing me mention someone equal to me, also scared him a little.

Looking into the notification further, I learned a couple of disturbing things

[Nemesis: Undead assimilating fleet]

[The undead assimilating fleet uses the flesh of the crew and other organic beings to control the ships, merging them together, low level ships mainly mutate the crew, but stronger parasites will begin mutating the crew to become the tissue to control the ship]

I nearly gagged at the image of a ship with the flesh and organs of the crew controlling it.

I saw an anime with a similar idea but nowhere near as grim as this, at least the crew there would be back to normal after a swim in the sea…

[The Parasitic flesh is extremely vulnerable to high temperatures, It also cannot survive high amounts of water pressure]

So that means sink or singe them, It also means that submarines won't be a thing, which is nice to know. Gives me an idea of what line of ships I can go with if they prove to be extremely formidable.

And the fact they assimilate ships they defeat means at most, they will be extremely large wooden sail ships or ironclads, thus if my ships somehow get defeated, then their military power will skyrocket.

[While most humans get assimilated, very few get chosen to be a commander, these will be proxies for the hivemind to directly control units in the field, drastically improving their combat prowess, these are extremely distinguishable from the others as they merge a ships armament around itself instead of an actual ship]

So a ship rig like mine?

[correct]

typical.

So this means that it is most likely the one to have caused that early assault too right?

[correct]

Hmm

“So it seems my guess was correct, the early assault was not of the empire’s own violation” (Me)

“So who decided that then?-wait how do you know?” (Andraid)

Ah crap

“I have my ways” (Me)

Please catch the hint it's a secret!

He hummed then looked away back to the reporter.

“Something else?” (Me)

“There were also a few reports that the crew’s eyes were glowing red…and also seemed to be severely injured” (reporter)

“If my assumption is correct, they were assimilated by the being known as the nemesis, it infects crew and eventually merges the crew and the ships into its own being. So with every ship defeated, its power grows” (Me)

“S-such a monster would be undefeatable” (reporter)

Andraid was also visibly shaken from that statement.

“Fire and sinking would kill them, I could also imagine that a monster made of raw flesh and wood, would have some weaknesses” (Me)

The fact they can merge ships gives me a few questions of my own, is it random or does it follow a pattern, do they actively shape the parts or tear them to new places?

If they can shape the parts and follow a pattern, it could be very troublesome.

But if it's just slapping parts here and there in a chaotic manner, it wouldn't be too bad.

Mainly because the ironclads they absorb could give them some protection from my ships.

But that’s a problem for future me to deal with~

Now onto the main issue at hand, the fact it was empire ships being assimilated that attacked the alliance, which would start a war earlier than expected, though i'm sure the empire is also confused with the situation.

At the conference meeting that evening, everyone was discussing the matter of the attack.

I later explained that it wasn’t the empire but a monster that controlled the ships to attack them.

“SUCH A MONSTER DOESN'T EXIST!” (belligerent officer 1)

“You saw the witness reports, hell even intelligence reports that empire ships were attacking their own where the crew showed similar symptoms” (not so belligerent officer 2)

After arguing about the issue for another 5 minutes…

“So what’s your view on this, miss septaria” (officer 2)

“It's an enemy which grows stronger the more it defeats, unless we manage a ceasefire with the empire, one of us will be devoured by it and will make life hell for the other” (Me)

They were startled by the idea of a ceasefire, then one spoke up.

“While it is a reasonable option, do note that the empire was one to declare war first, I don’t think they would back down for a ceasefire, they may even try to weaponize this monster against us” (officer 2)

“Then we wait it out a bit, they will later see how big of a threat that monster is, eventually the once seemingly harmless mouse will grow into terrifying rat within a few days, and they will continue to grow, once they see the threat it poses, they will have second thoughts about turning it down” (Me)

“But what if it is too late at that point?” (officer 2)

“Maybe for them, but this monster is the only equal to me, which is why I'm saying how big of a threat it is to you” (Me)

The people in the room stared at me with different looks, however Andraid read my actions and knew what I was going to do, he followed

“If anyone can vouch for her combat prowess, it is me. Septaria is no human, however, she is an ally, a powerful one at that. she alone saved me and my crew from the pirates, hell, my friends won't stop calling her an ocean goddess.” (Andraid)

They gave him multiple puzzled looks, then looked back to me.

“It's time I truly introduce myself, I am Septaira Atima, I am an Anchorkin, all of the Steel Angel ships are in fact, alternative bodies to myself” (Me)

I give them a bow of courtesy

“We have never heard of such a race, however there were legends of a monsterous metal warship which would sink itself and surface, firing bubble streams at ships which would shatter them into a million pieces, it was near impossible to hit, however when it was hit by cannon fire, they merely bounced off.” (officer 1)

“So a submarine?” (Me)

I made my dumbfounded face sound like it was an obvious answer

“What is a sub-mah-reen?” (officer 2)

“Exactly what he explained, those bubble streams were torpedoes, and its armour, while effective against cannonballs, is fairly weak against armour piercing shells. My fleet *ahem* I am actually capable of defeating this ship, however I may take moderate damage in the process. However, does it ever fire it’s torpedoes while it is underwater?” (Me)

“It has once but it missed the ship it was aiming at and hit another to the side” (officer 2)

So somehow it’s accuracy is reduced while firing from underwater, must be a very early prototype, or perhaps it doesn’t have a proper aiming system set up, I honestly don’t know, but knowing it has to surface to accurately fire is great news, since my ships don’t have proper anti submarine equipment.

“The submarines can only fire it's torpedoes directly from the bow or stern, so being on its side does protect you that way, but then its deck gun would come into play there” (Me)

They give a slight sigh of relief knowing how to avoid the cursed torpedoes, I can’t say I don’t understand them, I also tended to have that feeling when getting out of the submarine’s firing arc on games, those things hurtie~

Knowing that the Nemesis has a weakness to fire, I instructed various captains about the fact they HAVE to have fire mages if they want to win against it, I also informed Arthin about the requirements for an incendiary shell and molotovs for the crew.

Having these will not only help destroy the infected ships, but also will prove quite useful to the non full metal ships of the empire effectively limiting their effective ships overall, after all, “fire on the deck” has varying severity depending on if just your deck is wood, or your whole ship.

This also gave me another thought, should I put crew in my ships? Well now that the people know they are ‘me’, it wouldn’t be too much of an issue to not have a crew.

However they keep me company and give ships some autonomy, so I will go with them for now but if it proves that it will be helping the nemesis too much then I will opt for no crew, thus denying them more biomass.

Though it may also turn out that they can't assimilate my crew members since they are not actually human either, that said, what even are my crew?

Aaaah thats too confusing~