Fated to Die to the Player, I’ll Live Freely with My SSS-Class Ship!

After berating me a few more times, Eva finally left. Cassandra, however, for whatever reason, chose to stay behind and watch me work. Under her observant gaze, I couldn't help but feel a little distracted. "Aren't you bored? Repair work isn't exactly thrilling to watch, you know." Although I tried to be indirect, Cassandra was perceptive enough to pick up on what I was saying. 'If you don't have anything to do, go away! Don't distract me!' Yet, instead of taking the hint, she simply smiled sweetly, acting as if she hadn't noticed my underlying message. "Honestly, ever since the day I was almost kidnapped, everything feels new to me. Everything is exciting—and terrifying at the same time." "..." Right. Before all this chaos began, Cassandra had been a princess, living a sheltered life with little interaction with the outside world. She was no longer the "Crazy Princess" from the novel—the one so fearless and reckless that mountains of corpses trailed in her wake. To her, every day was now a journey into the unknown. "...Alright, but please don't bother me while I'm working." I sighed, resigning myself to having an audience. "I need to concentrate. If you have any questions, wait until both my hands are free before asking." "Yes, I will!" Seeing her cheerful smile, utterly devoid of remorse, I could only sigh again. For the next four hours, Cassandra never left. Using her newfound knowledge about ship parts, she asked questions whenever I paused for short breaks, eager to deepen her understanding. Honestly, seeing her work so hard didn't feel too bad—but what we were about to do next made my conscience sting a little. --- "Alright! Let's begin your training for the finals!" After an hour-long lunch break and another hour to rest, we planned to spend the next 23 hours inside Eva's Hunter Frigate. Of course, when I said "we," I meant all three of us. "The controls are smoother, and the acceleration is much greater than before!" Cassandra commented as we took Eva's ship for a short test drive. "The sensors' delays have been shortened. As expected of expensive upgrades!" Even Eva was impressed with the ship's improved performance. But, of course, we weren't here just to admire my work. "Enough dallying. Eva, activate the training program!" We had less than six galactic days left before the Grand Prix. Within that time, I needed to make sure Cassandra could endure 500 minutes of high-intensity piloting—at the very least. The upgrades had significantly reduced the physical strain on the pilot, allowing her to last longer. However, that didn't change the fact that this race was a grueling test of endurance, focus, and skill. "As such, we'll be practicing on the GP's actual track and traps for the next 24 hours!" "You..." Eva, seated to my left, narrowed her eyes at me in suspicion. "Not to mention the obstacle data—how the hell did you even get your hands on the map data in the first place?" "Right, I was wondering about that too." Cassandra, seated diagonally in front to my front left, chimed in. "You said you're not doing anything illegal, but I doubt you could get the race's map data without some shady business..." "Well, you lose if you overthink it." I grinned, dodging their questions. "But I swear I didn't use any illegal means to obtain this information. No hacking, no shady deals with information brokers, nothing sketchy." I couldn't exactly tell them that I had memorized every possible race track variation from TSO's decades-long Story Mode, right? And no, I wasn't a no-lifer. I was a working adult. I had just... played it a bit too much while speedrunning. "So you still don't trust us, huh?" Eva mumbled under her breath, her tone barely audible. I couldn't make out the words, but her disappointed frown told me enough. "Now's not the time for that, right? Focus on training for now!" I cut in, pointing toward the white wireframe track displayed ahead. "First, let's see how you handle one lap. Go, Cassandra!" "Y-Yes! I'll do my best!" And just like that, with Cassandra at the helm and Eva providing warnings about upcoming traps, we began our training. Thirty minutes later... we finally completed one lap. "Uuuugh..." Cassandra looked teary-eyed, utterly distraught, and guilty. "Thirty minutes for one lap..." Eva sighed, tallying the results. "Smashed into traps 156 times. Out of those, 121 resulted in instant death. With the time penalties added, that's 43 minutes for just one lap." She shook her head. "At this rate, we wouldn't even have enough lives to survive a single round." "W-Well, it was the first try, after all..." That said, I could see improvement. The issue was that Cassandra's muscle memory for the ship's reactions was completely off due to the upgrades. As proof, in the last quarter of the track, she hit significantly fewer traps than in the beginning. "...Given about three more tries, we should get a decent time." "Uuu... I'm just a flea... I'm not fit to be a racing pilot...!" Cassandra sniffled, visibly losing confidence. Feeling sorry for her, I gently patted her head, trying to calm her down. "Come on, we all know this was bound to happen. Your piloting experience is still less than two days, after all, so struggling this much is only natural. No need to beat yourself up over it." "R-Really...?" "Yes, yes." I nodded, offering a confident smile. "And even with that little experience, I still made you win the preliminaries, didn't I? Trust me—we can win the Aegis Grand Prix too!" "...I-If Arthur says that much, then...!" After some much-needed pep talk, it seemed like Cassandra managed to pull herself out of her self-derision—at least for now. "What a gigolo..." Eva muttered from the side, sounding irate. I chose to ignore her comment. After all, I was not a gigolo! Not in any sense of the word! With that, we moved on to the second lap. As expected, Cassandra's performance improved significantly. The number of times she hit traps was nearly halved, and our lap time dropped to 22 minutes—29 minutes including penalties! Since this was also a test of her stamina, we didn't stop to analyze her performance between runs. Instead, we pushed through laps three to ten in one continuous session. With each lap, the time improved. By the tenth lap, we had managed to bring it down to under 20 minutes—including penalties! The problem, however, was exactly what I feared. Cassandra simply couldn't endure prolonged high-intensity maneuvers. We had barely reached 150 minutes of continuous operation, and she was already completely out of breath. "I guess this much is good for our first session," I commented, ending the training early. "Cassandra should rest. Eat foods high in protein to help your muscles recover. Eva, make sure she's taken care of." "I'm already on it, even without you telling me!" Eva scoffed, draping Cassandra's arm over her shoulder and supporting her as they left. Left alone, I scratched my head. "Well, at least they're getting along..." The real issue now was how to improve Cassandra's stamina. With barely a week left, no amount of normal training would be enough to make a difference. "Do we need to resort to drugs after all?" I muttered, before shaking my head. "No, too risky. Too many downsides." *TING!* Right then, my terminal beeped—an incoming message. Checking the contents, I smirked. "So, they've arrived!" I cheered, immediately pushing off the ground and drifting away. Less than five minutes later, I arrived at another docking bay—separate from where Eva's Hunter Frigate was kept. This one housed the Range Falcon. But that wasn't what made me smile. To my right, a towering stack of metal crates sat waiting for me—dozens of them. Rushing over, I quickly checked the information panel on the side. [--- Manufacturer: ACG Warfare Factory Type: Condensed Pulse Ion Laser Version: Mark 2 Charge: 0% Cooldown: 1 sec Range: 200 km Power Consumption: 1.8 GJ/s Energy Efficiency: 75% Damage Against Shields: 200% Damage Against Hull: 150% ---] "Yes! This is exactly what I needed!" These ten crates contained all-new weapons—turrets meant to replace the Beam Turrets currently equipped on the Falcon. 'A war is coming. I can't afford to sit still and be satisfied with what we have!' While the Brionac served as our main firepower, I couldn't ignore the output of our other turrets. The more damage we could dish out per second, the more enemies we could handle at once. "With these, I can upgrade the turrets on both the main and portside batteries, more than doubling our instantaneous damage output!" I clenched my fist, grinning—though my eyes were "sweating" a little. "Aaaahh... If only it didn't cost me a fortune..." As the saying goes: "Good weapons aren't cheap, and cheap weapons aren't good." This batch of weapons had drained 75% of our mercenary group's funds. A massive hit to our wallet. But we'd recover it soon enough. "As long as we participate in the war, we can..." Huh? What about the mission to protect Cassandra? Well, as another saying goes—"The best place to hide a tree is in a forest." If we joined the war, the chances of being found and targeted would actually decrease. After all, they wouldn't have time to scan every single enemy ship before them in the heat of battle! "Well then... time to get to work!" I had to install all these turrets myself. And no, it wasn't because I was skimping on paying repairmen—it was simply because there weren't enough hands available. Every single technician was already swamped, fine-tuning the Astoria Conglomerate's fleet for the upcoming battle. Even if I had the funds, there was no one left to hire. Thanks to this sudden surge in repair jobs, rumors had begun circulating among the citizens and merchants. People were starting to suspect that something big was about to unfold. But for now... "I wonder if I can finish all this before our next training session?" I suddenly found myself worrying about an entirely different problem. ...It seemed like I won't be getting any rest today.