Elder brother's garrison

“That guy, Xiaobai, you know him too. He’s inconsistent, working only for a few days and resting for a few days. He’s clearly capable of handling all the documents, but he always leaves them until the last few days.” Lexington shook his head. “Maybe Miss Naige is too lazy to be wary of me anymore, so these past two days, Miss Naige has been sleeping soundly as soon as she enters the office, and she hasn’t been staying up late to help you with the documents.”

"I see..." Xiaobai nodded.

"Xiaobai, do you also hope that Miss Naige can help you with the documents?"

"It's not about whether they help me or not..." Xiaobai shook her head with a smile, "After all, the president is so amazing."

Xiao Bai, after all, doesn't have the "corporate slave gene" and won't experience happiness from work.

Even for a novice, wouldn't it be a good thing if the admiral's job were a little easier?

Xiao Bai spread out a stack of documents, picked up a pen, and started writing on them.

"Speaking of which," Lexington, who was making tea in the secretary ship's position, seemed to have thought of something. She turned to Xiaobai and asked, "Xiaobai, what are your plans lately?"

"Huh? Me?" Xiaobai paused in his work.

"Little White, you've had quite a bit of free time since you returned to the naval base, haven't you? Do you have any plans?" Lexington asked.

"Uh?" Xiaobai paused, thought for a moment, and narrowed her eyes. "This... I didn't think of that..."

Recently, Xiao Bai has been dealing with a series of unexpected and varied events, including the development goals of the garrison, the expedition to the Chapter Sea, and some tasks assigned by his superiors. These miscellaneous events have occurred frequently and without any discernible pattern. Although they are not particularly difficult and are all quite leisurely, like a vacation, they have occupied Xiao Bai's schedule in various ways, leaving him no time to consider what he should do when he has free time.

Now that Lexington is suddenly asking himself what his plans are, to be honest, Xiaobai is a little confused.

"Plan, plan... um..." Xiaobai wrote furiously on the document sheet while pondering the matter.

“Xiaobai, you don’t need to think so carefully. Although it’s called a plan, it’s really just some things you want to do,” Lexington said.

"Ah! If that's the case, then I actually do have some!" Xiaobai nodded quickly.

"What's going on?"

"Hmm... First, after the expansion of the naval base is completed and Xiao Hong and the others are settled, I want to go to the second chapter to see Lian Lian."

"Is that the little girl named Luo Lian? I've met her before; she's a very outstanding young admiral."

“Yes, she’s amazing,” Xiaobai said to Lexington with a smile. “Then I want to go to Chapter 5 to find Nia and see how she is doing.”

"Looks like you've got your own circle of friends, Xiaobai." Lexington smiled and took a sip of tea.

"Hehe, I actually know quite a few people my age, besides Nia and Lianlian, there's also Ella."

"Who is Ella?"

“When I first went on an expedition, I was kidnapped by a girl named Muxi, right? She was impersonating Ella. Her family is quite powerful, you know,” Xiaobai said. “The guild leader told me that the ship girl's construction device is generally composed of two parts: physical components and runes. The Mu family, the guild leader’s family, is responsible for making the outer shell and basic parts of the construction device, while Ella’s family is responsible for making the most crucial and profound secrets of the construction device: the runes.”

“I see. A construction device, huh... This is the first time I’ve heard of this.” Lexington nodded.

Xiao Bai finished writing the document in his hand, put it aside, and then took a new blank document and started writing quickly.

As he wrote, Xiaobai turned to Lexington and said.

“I actually saw Ella again in the city of Wisconsin that I went to with Missouri. She had secretly run away from home then—well, not exactly. Her family must have sent a lot of people to protect her secretly, but she didn’t know it.” Xiaobai laughed as he said this. “Ella even invited me to her house back then.”

"Oh... so, Xiaobai, what you want to do next is visit Ella's family?"

"Yes." Xiaobai nodded, then looked down at the blank file on his desktop.

The reason why Xiaobai wanted to visit Ella's house was not simply because Ella had invited him.

There is something else.

Ella and the others, whether judging from their ability to identify the mysterious rune O-Wu Sanba Qiyi or their appearance, are likely descendants of Lily of the Valley.

Even though Ella isn't a direct descendant of Lily of the Valley, she should at least be a relative of Lily of the Valley, so Xiaobai really wanted to visit her.

"These are the three things for now," Xiaobai said to Lexington.

“Yes, it’s a good thing that the plan isn’t set too far in the future; it makes it more precise and motivating.” Lexington nodded in agreement. “So, speaking of which, Little White, do you know where Ella’s house is?”

"Huh? Uh..." Xiaobai squinted, "It seems... to be... on some mysterious ocean island?"

"...Xiaobai, you haven't never asked Ella where her hometown is, have you?"

"Uh..." Xiaobai said, embarrassed. "Since Ella and I are good friends... we should be able to find her, right? We just need to ask Ringo-neechan."

“That’s true.” Lexington’s lips curled into a smile as he took a sip of tea.

Xiao Bai awkwardly finished writing the document in his hand, and then reached out to take another document from the pile of documents.

When Xiaobai's gaze fell upon the newly picked-up document, his eyes froze.

"Huh?" Little White exclaimed.

"Xiaobai, what's wrong?"

"Lexington, this document is black." Xiaobai placed the document where Lexington could see it and gently shook it.

Lexington looked at the documents in Xiaobai's hand, her smiling face slightly startled.

"A black file?"

The documents that the Admiral handles are of many different types, and these documents are quite varied. Therefore, the more special types of documents are usually presented in a conspicuous way.

The ordinary documents are the most numerous, covering almost everything from the ship girl expedition status, sea area data surveys, and the recent situation of the naval base's expedition. There are countless civilian and military commissions. These ordinary documents have no special decorations; they are just ordinary blank sheets of paper, with at most a few pages of reference documents attached.

In addition to ordinary documents, there are also invitations for exercises and exchanges between admirals, banquets between admirals, and special operations. These invitations are mostly wrapped in fine parchment. Documents such as Xiaobai's first expedition and his later meeting in Wisconsin belong to this category.

Besides these.

leftover.

These are used to remind admirals of special deep-sea activities in spring, summer, autumn and winter, as well as warning documents with colorful packaging and background rendering depending on the urgency of the situation.

Green generally indicates that headquarters has detected enemy activity, but the enemy has not yet taken action, and the overall situation is not very serious in deep-sea operations.

Yellow generally indicates that headquarters has detected enemy activity and the enemy has begun to take action, but the overall situation is not very serious in deep-sea operations.

Red generally indicates that headquarters has detected enemy activity, the enemy has begun to take action, and the overall situation is quite serious, requiring the support of the admirals for deep-sea operations.

Generally speaking, documents reporting deep-sea activities are in these three colors.

As for the black file... this is the first time Xiaobai has ever seen one.

“A black document…” Lexington put down her teacup and walked curiously to Little White’s side. “Is this a document warning of deep-sea activities?”

"Uh... where did you get these documents, Lexington?"

“It’s the mailroom. But I don’t usually review these documents beforehand, so this is the first time I’ve seen this,” Lexington said. “Should I ask the mailroom staff about the origin of this black document?”

"Uh...no need, we're already at the office, let's just open it and take a look." Xiaobai smiled at Lexington.

Lexington nodded silently.

Xiao Bai opened the black file in front of Lexington.

The two of them leaned closer to the black letter and began to read it.

The envelope inside the black document contained very little information.

"Upon inspection, at 8:00 AM on [date], a highly polluted deep-sea fumes eruption was detected in a deep-sea area adjacent to a safe zone. Currently, this fumes are spreading rapidly to the surrounding areas..."

Xiaobai and Lexington paused here.

"Is this a large-scale marine pollution incident?"

“Hmm… if that’s the case, it is indeed a very serious matter.” Lexington nodded. “However, although such dangerous things are rare, we, the rookie naval base, have encountered them a few times in the past ten years, and those incidents were only red-level warnings.”

"But this time it's black..."

"That's it."

"Could it be that headquarters doesn't like red and changed it to black?"

"...Let's continue reading."

Lexington and Little White continued watching.

The black envelope contained data on the expansion of this deep-sea area, as well as various deployment information.

The information was dry and boring, and it wasn't until the last sentence that it returned to serious text.

The envelope had a bold font on it, with a very conspicuous message at the end.

"This expanding abyssal area is less than 100 kilometers from the core component production site for ship girl construction. If the abyssal territory expands, this base will suffer devastating damage. The situation is extremely critical. I hereby order all naval bases and admirals ranked in the top ten of the world's admiral rankings to bring their main forces to the component production site to defend and fight before the abyssal area threatens the core component production site! It is imperative! It is imperative!"

Xiaobai and Lexington stared blankly at the black envelope in their hands.

The two looked at each other.

“Ah… this… this is…”

"Could this so-called parts base... be...?"

"Ella's hometown?"

written request for leave

I woke up this morning with a sudden, severe back pain. It felt like my back was about to break; it was stiff and uncomfortable. I couldn't concentrate at all while sitting in a chair. I spent the whole morning trying to get better, but it didn't seem to be getting any better. Anyway, I'll rest for the day... and see how my back feels tomorrow.

No kidding.

Damn, my back is killing me.

Chapter 1417 The Most Shameful World-Class Admiral

Deep-sea pollution occurring in safe waters, especially large-scale deep-sea pollution that is visible to the naked eye, is of course a terrifying and urgent event.

But as Lexington said.

While large-scale deep-sea pollution occurs very rarely, it is not actually as rare as some other cases that occur only once in a century.

Even more than ten years after the opening of the newbie town hall, it has been "lucky" a few times.

Furthermore, during those major deep-sea pollution incidents, the most severe deep-sea warnings issued by headquarters were only at the red level.

But the deep-sea warning in Xiaobai's hand is black.

Although headquarters has not specified the exact level of the black alert.

But no matter how you think about it.

A somber black is more frightening than a bright red...

"Lexington, take a look at this data on deep-sea pollution."

Xiaobai handed the black envelope to Lexington. "Could you take a look and tell me if this deep-sea pollution is on a larger scale than the previous red alerts?"

"Okay... let me take a look."

Lexington took the black envelope from Xiaobai and looked at the section containing data on deep-sea pollution for a while.

Lexington's brow furrowed in confusion at first, then relaxed.

"...Hmm. In terms of scale, although this is a deep-sea pollution event of considerable severity and terrifying scale, it is actually not much more serious than the red alerts that our rookie naval base has encountered before."

Lexington put down the black envelope, paused for a moment after saying this, and then closed his mouth to think.

"As expected. The reason for using a black envelope to issue the warning this time is probably not just because of the scale of the deep-sea pollution itself, but more so because of the location of the deep-sea pollution."

Lexington handed the black envelope back to Little White.

"...Just as I thought." Xiaobai took the envelope and sighed helplessly.

Large-scale deep-sea pollution itself is not actually that scary.

What's truly frightening is that large-scale deep-sea pollution has occurred in places where it shouldn't have.

This massive deep-sea pollution just so happens to have occurred near Ella's hometown, which is the production site of rune parts, the most essential core component for manufacturing ship girl construction equipment.

Based on the degree of pollution in large deep-sea areas.

The deep-sea territory will not only give birth to tens of thousands of large deep-sea ships, but will also give birth to incredibly powerful deep-sea deans.

If these deep-sea deities were to appear in remote ocean areas, they wouldn't pose much of a danger.

But the real fear is that there might be human cities around the newly established Deep Sea Dean.

Because newly appointed Deep Sea Deans are generally blindly confident in their own strength, as the saying goes, "a newborn calf is not afraid of a tiger." If there are human cities nearby, they will fearlessly lead their Deep Sea army to attack human cities.

Let's set aside the question of whether the deep-sea fleet could win.

Because of the unique nature of Ella's hometown, where only her family in the world can produce rune parts, even if the Deep Sea Fleet failed to destroy Ella's hometown, even if Ella's family was only slightly affected by the Deep Sea Fleet's artillery fire, it would still be a terrible loss to the entire human society, enough to severely damage the current admiral system.

"Thinking about it this way, this matter is indeed very serious..." Xiaobai looked at the black envelope and muttered with a frown.

“Xiaobai, don’t worry too much,” Lexington said to Xiaobai. “Although this black alert is unprecedented, in essence, the large-scale deep-sea pollution we are facing is not that scary.”