The months passed and with it so did this worlds lockdown winter, the natives were correct in their statement that winter here was worse than back on my earth.
There was pretty much a solid 3 months where the temperature outside dipped to below -40' centigrade, and then to top it off there was the windchill added on.
Even with our thick fur lined coats, and the ability to create thermal sachets to be used as hand and foot warmers, after even 5 minutes you'd be down for the count.
Of course this limit was higher for each individual the higher their tier was the 5 minute was for the majority of the humans in our territory, the beasts meanwhile had their own methods of protection and since the beasts started as Tier 1's their weakness was even less than that of the humans.
But true to the treaty agreement's this winter passed by without any serious incidents.
There was a few young rascals who attempted to go out hunting from both sides, but each time the disciplinary force rounded them up and punishment was dealt.
Over the last few months I had drawn from my gacha for more than a hundred times, at first it was a way to pass the time, but after that first month were I unlocked my second girlfriend, I can say I was pulling the gacha with more enthusiasm since my higher tier rank meant I was more… versatile and since the support staff even if I was to upgrade them to be 5th stage peak they really only had the power of a 3rd stage kind of like a reverse super soldier but their minds…
God their minds went off the rails, their intelligence shot clean off the charts, and with it not a single game was one by me all winter long.
Not Checkers, not chess, I couldn't even pull out a win in reversi.
So many games, across all the ones I could pull from my memories and I didn't eke out even one win against the two of them.
Alexander also got a bump up to 5th rank during the winter and his charismatic voice became even more hypnotic as he provided regular speaches to the people, and upon taking note there was actually a buff being applied to any allied forces who heard his speech.
Sadly out of all the hundred or so pulls I did, I didn't manage to draw another girl friend…
I mean I still managed to draw more commanders and generals, Like Carville but no more waifu's
The additional units we got were pretty much split 60% RA1, 30% RA2, and 10% RA3.
The bonus of getting any RA3 unit was a great boon.
Their weapons regardless of faction were quickly taken in by the Engineer corp and efforts made to reproduce them started.
In the end our strength over the winter grew, and not just from cultivation, or arms leveled up as well, well not literally but we did replace quite a few older models with newer ones, while also researching and creating prototypes of options not seen before in the RA universe.
The best part was the support powers I drew.
These were game changers.
Sadly because they were gacha draws they were single use only, but that's good enough.
I could use the limited chronosphere to teleport a selection of units anywhere on the map twice!!
Yeah that's right I pulled it twice!!
And I got access to my first superpower!!
No not a nuke sadly, but I'll still take a Lightning Storm.
The last support power I got and luckily this wasn't a one off, was the Surveillance Sweep.
Once every month I could designate a sweep area where a trio of spy planes would observe and reveal a section of the map for us before zooming off into the sky and disappearing.
Thanks to my lovely Lieutenants and their aggressively overcharged intelligence we, or rather they came up with a theory behind my System's levelup conditions.
The system itself never revealed anything to me, and 4 times now I had leveled it up.
The first level up occurred when I founded my base, but the conditions for the other three were unknown.
Was it because of the size of my army, size of the territory under my command, maybe number of subordinates who are not RA spawned who view me even defacto as their leader?
What about number of kills?
Well can't be that one since we'd scored a ton of kills against the insubordinate beasts and yet I didn't gain a level, but it could be a condition.
Having to have X amount of Credits, X amount of Energy, X number of Units, X number of Subordinates, and X number of Kills.
Any of these were plausible, but it could just as likely be the number of bases I produced or buildings within those bases.
It all just made my head hurt to be honest, I didn't care how it levelled up, I just cared that It could!
In the end I abandoned the two who continued to theorize, and went to play games with the others who lived in the command centre.
Ironically beat the Premier at a board game of my own devising based off the events of the second game mixed with the board game risk, seems he also had the memories of his losses at the hands of the allies but also boasted whenever he'd score a win himself.
These days were just more of the ways we passed the time, but the time was coming near for us to emerge from our solitary life and step forth onto the world stage once more.
Count our losses from winter and begin to enact the plans that had been drawn up and redrafted to near perfection over the winter.
The target would be our sister cities in Trent and most likely Inverness.
Our spy team who had infiltrated Trent kept reporting in all winter long and it seems the humans were going out of their way to cultivate new more powerful awakened, and rumors of another military excursion were almost common place at this point.
And it wouldn't take a genius to guess just where they would target.
However the bigger question would be do the Mutant beast know about Trent's buildup and if they do, what's their response going to be.
We could very well get dragged into a three-way slug fest, and if that happens it's possible that both the Mutants and Humanities greatest weapons would step forth from their seclusions and attempts to breakthrough.
For now we'd enact our first plan, operation take over.
Simple enough of a plan we'd send out a series of spy squad have them rise through the ranks from within until we could pull a trojan horse and open the gates from within so to speak, getting the city to voluntarily fall under our command, and well if that failed and they resisted worse than they have already it will be war, and we'll take it by force.
The spy team was dispatched before winter actually ended and were instead staying secure in one of the northern outposts having replaced a couple of the troublesome locals who were 'cast out' under our rules due to their chosen conduct.
At the same time we'd be launching off both our fleets currently docked due to the lakes freezing over, once the waters were clear they'd be setting sail to roam the coasts of Europe and Scandanavia looking for good spots we can use to setup new bases, and gauge how the rest of the world is looking, escpecailly the areas still unknown to us since my radar range is only 500Km around, and probably wont be getting access to the spy satellite until at least the next rank up.
Spring coming also meant a new chance for the locals at least to begin anew.
All winter long Alexander had been giving broadcasts about upcoming plans gifted unto them from the commander (me)
The first up was farming, we were willing to give rental use of our rangers to act in place of horses to plow the land and open it up for agriculture.
If they didn't have the necessary seeds we could provide with the ones that had been grown in our growing experiments that were successful before winter hit.
At the very least we'd have stable cereals, but be limited on the vegetable side of things unless we can barter for them with the beast domains friendly too us, meat on the other hand would be fairly easy to come by.
And as for our limited air force unfortunately just like in the game air units from the first game did not reveal the map except for the spy plane which I did not have access to.
But still the movements we could already gleam with the first spring thaw right around the corner were troubling.
We could only see a big onto mainland Europe which wasn't the problem but what was, was what you see if you turn your attentions south towards Ireland.
Seems the beasts on that uninhabited stretch of land had gotten wind of us, or perhaps they didn't know about us and instead were plotting something else more nefarious.
All we can say for certain is of the ½ of Ireland that we can gaze upon right now, almost all the Mutant beasts had grouped up in one location, and then a few days later had begun to march together their destination appeared to be a straight shot for the Fortress City of Trent.
An army of probably 500,000 or so beasts was surging and going to swim the equivalent of the English channel on a do or die assault doctrine against the humans and seeing their cooperation it's unlikely to think that other beasts likewise wouldn't be doing the same.
Afterall humanity might be limited in what they can do, but the beasts had bird friends that could pass along messages rather quickly allowing them to coordinate their efforts.
Meanwhile on the other end of the map it appears peace won't come to Scotland either, a mass we can see in it's entirety has appeared on the divide between Scotlands West boundary and the adjoining eastern boundary of Greenland.
Seems we're going to find ourselves caught in a pincer attack but if we play this just right we can aquire both these cities ourselves while being hailed as heroes who quelled this particular beast stampede.
At my sides my two lieutenants were already hard at work coming up with the necessary plans, each checking the others work and confirming with me on just how much, or rather how big our potential force could be.
Since spring had yet to come our mining operations in the nation had yet to restart so whatever credits we had would be all we'd have for the first few weeks of spring.
After that we'll have the general mines around prospect re-opened, while also starting up the new mines into the mountains that serve as home to the Owl beasts we've befriended, and the now vacant mountains formerly used as a domain by the Eagles.
Getting our industry up and moving will be one of the most important tasks for us to do here this year.
While the system can produce many things taking on the project of a welfare state is never going to be the intent.
Humanity needs the strength to survive but also the morals to know when to stop.
As shown in his own style of defeating his enemies and then submitting them into a form of artificial breeding to provide for his own peoples needs, once a suitable population has been bred, some of them will be released back into the world, to make sure the overall balance is not disturbed.
"Commander, what shall we do first?"
Looking over at the Lt who'd asked the question I could only look back at her.
"Well go on a tour of course, can't very well be a commander if all I did was spend my days looking over reports. Plus it gives me an opportunity to spend time with my two favorite ladies."
Hearing my answer both my girlfriends blushed a bit before snapping to action and beginning a job of packing up supplied and clothes for our excursion.
I left the two to their tasks as I walked out of my room and into the main halls of the command center.
"Commander!"
Each soldier I passed by stopped to salute me, I just gave a half hearted salute back before carrying on with my walk.
As I reached the war room, the whole room saluted me at once, before I let them get back to work.
Approaching the center console, I was able to see the current radar map.
With my Lvl 4 ability I could see 500km in all directions of our two bases, which covered quite a bit of land, but without building another MCV the radar expansion would not simply happen.
"Commander, the forces of the Fortress cities are still gathering, however judging from their build up we'll expect their attempted invasion within a week, while at the same time we have noticed that the beasts in Ireland have already begun their crossing without diverting their course from Trent."
"That's good, our navy is not yet enough to deal with a beast force of this scale, but if they go to Trent the Army and Air force can stop them, while the Navy cuts off their escape."
"We're going to save the City?"
"Not at first, we'll wait to see the cities true power first, saving them after a disaster has struck will earn us more once we do act to 'save' them, and at the same time we can gauge the sincerity of the cities rules along with their status among the other humans."
"So we remain on standby until your order then commander?"
"Correct, we will act regardless but possibly we will not act until the very end when only the innocents remain within the city, those who would accept our aid unconditionally, and who would be open to the change we would bring with us."
"For the glory of the Commander and his Scarlet Dominion!"
He he, I waved the soldier on returning my gaze to the map once more.
The overall world was still an unknown, and to learn more two ways to do so presently existed.
One was to keep deploying spy squad regardless of their high cost to infiltrate and climb the ranks till useful information could be obtained, and the other was to take the information by force, at the end of a torturers blade or voluntarily after assuming command over them.
For now Great Britain was the only known, which isn't saying much really, the math's add up to us only having the ability to see roughly .15% of the earth's land, and that's not even counting in the sea's which also have returned to the control of nature.
The one bit of good news was that since the Beasts have sent an army over to visit Trent, we can send our own forces to setup a base and colonize Ireland.
The greatest advantage of the long winter was having our forces that we spread out guarding the outposts, cities, and bases was having them go out on excursions to locate all the 'treasure' as indicated from the map.
Most of them were simple credit rewards, but there were others among them.
The total number of MCV cores had reached 8 so even if we didn't space them all that much our growth potential was amazing, the other advantage was that there was a set of upgrade treasures.
The first was a weapon attack upgrade which swapped all the GI's weapons for an upgraded one, so instead of the Berreta Handgun, all the GI's now carried Beretta Model 93R with expanded mags, this allowed the soldiers to fire 3-round burst shots instead of single fire, increasing their overall rate of fire up to 700 rounds/min which was actually 2,100 bullets being fired every 60 seconds.
On top of that when testing these GI's also received an upgraded Heavy Machine gun when they deployed into their static formation. The M60 was replaced by the M60E4.
However the next weapon upgrade was not known at the time as one of the treasures was recovered by another GI but nothing happened, that was at least until the trooper put down the treasure having set it to rest on one of the limited Rhino tanks we'd gotten through my Gacha.
After a moment the cube melted into the tank and moments later it along with the other Rhino's had likewise received an upgrade.
Even without attaining elite status the Tank now had an upgraded Canon barrel allowing the tank to pull of triple shots, a feature only carried by Elite Rhino tanks from the 2nd game, however this tank was fairly new to being deployed so it's veterancy had not risen, and yet it could now perform triple shots with an autoloader cannon, if this new tank design could achieve veterancy would the cannon be capable of rapid fire like it was a cannon machine gun?
We also managed to locate another couple of these treasures most simply raised the veterancy of the nearby forces, while another upgraded the defense of all conscripts, while not bullet proof they did gain armour that was tear resistant almost to the point of being tear proof protecting them better against bites, and lacerations from claws or knives.
There were still a number of treasures we hadn't managed to obtain yet but until I reach 5th or possibly even 6th rank their retrieval is unlikely as they presently rest on the bottom of the northern and southern lakes bordering our territory.