Elder brother's garrison

Page 556

—In any case, it's already the best outcome that Xiaobai wasn't directly recognized by Koei Tecmo. The consequences of Koei Tecmo discovering his true form would be far more serious than if Warspite had found out.

"You're welcome." Glorious smiled at Little White. Naturally, she didn't sense the fluctuation in the black-haired ship girl's heart just a moment ago. However, looking at this cute ship girl who suddenly jumped into her arms in the crowded crowd, Glorious, as the older sister, felt like she was seeing a lone little bird, and was unconsciously aroused with some protective thoughts. "Little sister, where is your admiral?"

"Uh..." Xiaobai turned his head to the side somewhat awkwardly, "My admiral..."

"So you really got separated?" Glory looked at Xiaobai's stammering appearance and said with some concern, "It's okay, my companions are still preparing their ship equipment. Until they are ready, I can go with you to look for them."

"Ah? No need, no need!" Xiaobai quickly shook his head, "My admiral isn't here!"

"Not here?" Glory looked at Little White curiously.

"Hmm..." Xiaobai nodded, and could only bite the bullet and lie, "My admiral... didn't come, he's in the city."

"Little sister, didn't your admiral come along?"

"Ah... um."

"What about your ship girl companions?"

"Only me."

Are you going to fight alone?

“…Mm.” Xiaobai nodded.

Glory frowned, and her originally kind and serene expression revealed some displeasure.

—What kind of admiral would do something like this? Sending one of his ship girls to the sea for an expedition without even any help? Is he underestimating the Abyssal Fleet?

As a ship girl with experience of being besieged by deep-sea amphibious ships, Glorious looked at the innocent black-haired ship girl in front of her. As she recalled the scene she had experienced in the first node sea area, the displeasure in her eyes began to turn into anger.

What can a ship girl do in that situation besides wait to die?

This poor ship girl had no idea what kind of battlefield she was facing. She ran up alone, and even in the relatively safe First Node, her chances of survival were slim. She might be severely damaged if she wasn't careful. In the end, surrounded by Abyssal Fleet ships, she waited in fear for rescue by passing ship girls or patrolling rookie naval thugs.

Thinking of this, a rather subtle sadness flashed across Glorious's eyes.

This kind of thing... if possible, Koei really hopes it will never happen again.

"...Phew." To calm herself down, Glorious let out a soft breath, then gave Shiro a friendly smile. "Little sister, can you tell me what your admiral's name is?"

Koei Tecmo declared that he would definitely report such an outrageous admiral to the Admiral Guild.

To Glorious's surprise, the seemingly naive and innocent ship girl in front of him began to look around when asked who her admiral was. She stammered and did not answer him.

Sigh... This poor child still can't tell who's a good person and who's a bad person.

Glory sighed helplessly, looking at Xiaobai with a complicated expression as they stared at each other.

"Um, sister, if there's nothing else... I'll be going now..." For some reason, Xiaobai felt a chill run down her spine from being stared at by Glory. She took a few steps back and prepared to leave.

However, at that moment, Glory suddenly grabbed Xiaobai's wrist and, without saying a word, pulled her back to the back of the crowd.

Xiao Bai only heard the whooshing sound of a crowd around him, and soon, he was gloriously taken to a rare open space.

In the open space, several admirals were each in a corner with their respective ship girls, whispering instructions to each other.

"Admiral!" Glorious pulled Shiro along and headed straight for one of the corners.

Xiaobai was being pulled along by Guangrong. As soon as she heard Guangrong call her Admiral, her heart skipped a beat, and cold sweat immediately trickled down her spine.

Little White raised his eyes and looked in the direction of glorious progress.

Sure enough, Admiral Luo Yin, whom they had just met yesterday, was standing in front of several ship girls, earnestly explaining the formation to them.

Luo Yin heard Glorious calling her name. She looked in Glorious's direction and saw Glorious leading a black-haired ship girl toward her.

Xiaobai and Luo Yin exchanged a glance, and then she immediately felt a sense of foreboding and quickly lowered her head.

"Glory?" Luo Yin looked at Glory, then shifted his gaze to Little White, his expression somewhat puzzled.

Luo Yin's gaze lingered on Xiaobai for a moment before turning to Guangrong: "Guangrong, why did you bring ship girls from another naval base here?"

Xiao Bai, who was looking down, suddenly widened her eyes and looked up at Luo Yin with some surprise.

Luo Yin, like Guang Rong, seemed to have been deceived by Xiao Bai's perfect disguise and did not recognize him at all.

Noticing Xiaobai's gaze, Luo Yin gave Xiaobai a gentlemanly smile.

"Admiral." Glory, holding Xiaobai's hand, pointed at him and said earnestly to Luo Yin, "Let this kid team up with us!"

Glory's words came suddenly, startling Xiaobai and Luo Yin alike.

Luo Yin stared blankly at Guangrong.

Seeing her admiral's bewildered expression, Glory released her grip on Shiro's hand and walked up to Luo Yin, whispering what she had overheard from Shiro.

After hearing Guangrong's words, Luo Yin's expression froze for a moment, but then quickly relaxed.

"I see," Luo Yin said.

Glorious nodded and said to Luo Yin, "...I'm sorry, Admiral, Glorious acted on her own."

"It's alright." Luo Yin smiled at Guang Rong and shook his head. "I have no objections."

"Thank you, Admiral." Glory thanked Luo Yin, then turned to look at Xiaobai, her eyes filled with hope that Xiaobai would also accept the team application.

In Koei Tecmo's view, leaving a pitiful ship girl like Shiro alone in the sea would be like sending a lamb to the slaughter. Therefore, rather than letting her go and get herself killed, Koei Tecmo would rather take Shiro with her on the expedition, letting her experience the serious atmosphere of the battlefield under the protection of herself and her comrades, and making her realize how absurd her previous decision to venture into the sea alone was.

"Uh... if we're going to team up... well, I..." Xiaobai looked at Guangrong with some hesitation.

“It’s very conspicuous and dangerous for a ship girl to venture into the sea alone. The chances of her being ambushed by a deep-sea amphibious ship are quite high,” Luo Yin advised Xiaobai.

"Huh? Is it very conspicuous?" Xiaobai asked Luo Yin with some surprise.

Luo Yin was a little puzzled by Xiao Bai's focus, but he still nodded: "Compared to all the ship girls in squads, a lone ship girl on the high seas is indeed very conspicuous."

Xiao Bai looked like he suddenly understood.

—Indeed.

Little White, venturing alone into the deep sea, is as conspicuous and out of place as a single dog running into a park full of couples at midnight on Christmas.

Being conspicuous is a very bad situation for a newbie. Don't forget, there are also ship girls from the newbie naval base patrolling the sea. If they see you wandering around on the sea, then you can forget about using your Abyssal Will to rescue the missing ship girls.

"So, Miss Ship Girl, would you like to team up with us...?"

"Please!" Xiaobai bowed quickly to Luo Yin and Guangrong.

Seeing that Xiaobai finally agreed to her idea, Guangrong breathed a sigh of relief. She walked back to Xiaobai and extended a hand to her: "Hello, from now on, we are temporary teammates. Let me introduce myself, my name is Guangrong."

Xiao Bai reached out and shook hands with Guang Rong.

"What's your name?" Glory asked.

“…Pachina,” Xiaobai replied in a low voice.

Chapter 763 Patina's First Battle

Xiao Bai definitely wouldn't reveal her real name, after all, who knew if Luo Yin even remembered her name? Just because he didn't recognize her now didn't mean he wouldn't recognize her after hearing her name. Therefore, Xiao Bai chose to directly borrow the name of a temporary maid at the garrison.

...Anyway, it's all roadbed, and we're all on the same side, so it's not unreasonable to take over the name and use it.

Upon hearing the name Pachina, Luo Yin's brow twitched slightly. He seemed to have a vague sense of familiarity with the name, but after a moment's thought, that feeling quickly dissipated.

“Miss Patina, you can start preparing your ship equipment now. My ship girls are all ready. You can call me when you're ready,” Luo Yin said to Xiaobai. “As for the distribution of spoils…”

Luo Yin glanced at Guang Rong as he finished speaking.

"Since I have a lot of ship girls, can I give you one-fifth?" Luo Yin said to Xiaobai.

For Luo Yin, this was already an excessive share of the profits.

After all, Luo Yin's original team was enough to handle the situation in the sea. This time, he took a ship girl whose combat power seemed to be very low. The harvest in a day could not be much more, and there was even a possibility that the harvest would be reduced because she was a hindrance. Under such circumstances, giving Xiaobai one-fifth of the spoils was already more than enough to take care of Xiaobai's feelings and prevent her from regretting her decision to form a team.

Glory had also thought of this, and she nodded gratefully to Luo Yin.

“Okay.” Xiaobai nodded. “I can leave anytime.”

Xiao Bai didn't care about the spoils of war. Although it was a bit embarrassing for her to only get one-fifth, it didn't really matter to her. She could even do without any spoils. After all, Xiao Bai wasn't there to go on an expedition. She just wanted to use the Glory team as cover so that she could smoothly enter the depths of the sea.

After that, Luo Yin gave his ship girls a few more instructions before letting them follow Glorious and Little White toward the beach.

The ship girls made their way through the crowds and reached the edge of the beach.

Xiaobai stood on the beach, looking to both sides in the distance, searching for Warspite's figure. Only after confirming that Warspite had not yet wandered around her did she feel relieved. She then stepped onto the water with Glorious and her teammates, heading towards the sea.

As the beach gradually shrank in view and finally slowly disappeared below the horizon, Xiaobai finally felt half relieved.

Just as Xiaobai was relieved, a strange, reviving feeling suddenly surged through her mind.

Xiao Bai quickly reached out and pressed his hand against the top of his head.

Sure enough, just as Xiaobai had told Yixian before, when Xiaobai pushed the power of the ship equipment to a certain limit, the ship equipment began to restore Xiaobai's body.

Xiaobai could feel that her hair, which had been cut short, was showing an uncontrollable tendency to grow back. She quickly focused her attention and suppressed the revival-like feeling emanating from her ship equipment for a long time.

Xiaobai slowly let go of her hand, but the hair did not continue to grow.

"You really can't relax for even a moment," Xiaobai muttered.

"Relax about what?" Suddenly, a ship girl approached Xiaobai and asked her.

These are the other ship girls under Admiral Luo Yin. Glorious is the flagship and is traveling at the very front of the group, while Shiro is following behind Glorious with the other ship girls.

"Ah...it's nothing, it's nothing." Xiaobai smiled at the ship girl who had come close to her.

"Oh." Seeing that Shiro didn't want to answer, the ship girl shrugged and then looked away. "You should thank Glorious Sister properly."

"Mm." Xiaobai nodded with a smile.

"Glorious sister went to great lengths to help an outsider like you." The ship girl pouted unhappily at Xiaobai's seemingly ungrateful look. She glanced at Glorious at the front and lowered her voice to say to Xiaobai, "You should be happy to hear this. If you hadn't met Glorious sister today, you would have been finished."

—It would indeed be troublesome in another sense if one didn't encounter glory.

Xiaobai nodded with deep feeling, and thanked the ship girl who had come closer, saying, "Thank you. Glorious sister is such a kind person."

"Of course." The ship girl's lips curled into a wide smile when she heard Xiaobai praise Glory.

"If I hadn't met Sister Glory, I might have run into some serious trouble..." Xiaobai murmured thoughtfully.

"So you're aware of things after all." The ship girl next to Xiaobai seemed to have completely misunderstood the trouble Xiaobai was referring to. She looked at Xiaobai, her eyes lingering on her face for a moment, before she sighed softly and asked in a low voice, "Do you know why Glorious Sister is helping you?"

"Uh... kind-hearted..."

“But kind-hearted people wouldn’t care so much about strangers.” The ship girl pouted, a hint of regret flashing in her eyes. She pointed to Glorious, who was walking at the front, “In the first chapter, Glorious encountered the phenomenon of the Abyssal Cluster and was besieged by the fleet of Abyssal Ships. At that time, Glorious almost chose to self-destruct in order to protect her companions’ retreat.”

Xiaobai nodded.

Xiaobai knew about this, and the ship girl who saved Glorious at the time happened to be Veneto.

"Fortunately, Glorious Sister was eventually rescued by other ship girls who happened to be passing by," the ship girl said.

"How lucky!" Xiaobai exclaimed.

"Lucky... I guess so." The ship girl sighed somewhat forlornly. "Pachina, I have a question for you."

"Excuse me."

"Do you know when I was built by the Admiral?" the ship girl asked, pointing to herself.

"Uh, I don't know."

"I was built by the Admiral during the second chapter, she's in the third chapter, this one is also in the third chapter, and that one is in the second chapter..." The ship girl said, pointing to the ship girls next to her, "That one is also in the second chapter, and the one behind Glorious Sister is in the third chapter."

"..." Xiaobai blinked as she looked at the ship girl.

"The entire team in front of you, except for Glorious Sister, consisted of ship girls we created after the Admiral graduated from the first chapter," the ship girl said to Xiaobai. "Do you understand now?"

"...Aren't Glorious Sister's original companions here?" Xiaobai asked.

"Yeah, that's right." The ship girl sighed.

"What's wrong with them?" Xiaobai asked.

“Those predecessors are no longer able to fight,” the ship girl said. “Of all the ship girls from the first chapter’s Abyssal Cluster, only Glorious Sister truly survived. Although the other predecessors survived in the end, their confidence as ship girls was crushed by the Abyssal Fleet, and they have never recovered.”

Xiaobai stared blankly at the ship girl in front of her.

"Now you understand, right? It's the deep-sea cluster again, and the ship girls are sent to their deaths." The ship girl poked Xiaobai's chest with her finger. "You're doing the same thing as Glorious Sister from the first chapter. That's why Glorious Sister will help you no matter what."

After the ship girl finished speaking, she slowly withdrew her index finger that was poking Xiaobai's chest. She stared at her finger for a while with some strangeness: "Hmm? Why does it feel so weird?"

Xiao Bai quickly covered her chest with both hands, her face flushed slightly: "I understand, thank you, Sister Glory."

"Hmph, good to know." The ship girl said, and then lowered her hand.

"Speaking of which, how are those ship girls who lost confidence doing now?"