If Victoria was being honest, the commander's speech had sucked. Then again, if what she said was true, then she only had that position because she was the least unqualified. At least the plan to defend the fort was well made, as far as Victoria could judge anyways.

She may be good at many things and had learned a lot of unnecessary skills over the course of her life, but sadly that didn't include military strategy. Sure, she learned about a few historical battles and might be able to apply the tactics that were used in those, but she would butcher them at best. Not to mention, those were strategies to combat other humans.

The fort was about three kilometers away from the forest on one side, with far-reaching plains on the other. Now, that distance would under other circumstances be more than enough for troops to react in time and reposition themselves, especially considering that their defensive position was a square wall with a total length of under three hundred meters.

But, they were faced with two problems. For one, these "troops" were everything but properly trained. Theoretically, they could easily reach any point on the wall in under thirty seconds. But that was only one direction. First, the message would have to reach them, adding another thirty seconds travel time and the same again to deliver it.

That was how it would look with trained soldiers. For this group, however, that time would have to be doubled, at least, bringing it to three minutes. And then, they would just be there. Without anything even remotely resembling coordination.

The second problem was that, with monsters that could run at over seventy kilometers per hour, they could cross the distance between forest and forest, in under three minutes.

Suddenly, three kilometers weren't as much of a distance as it seemed.

That was, how their current strategy came to be.

A hundred new arrivals and three guards Victoria hadn't seen before were all gathered on the wall facing the forest, while the rest was distributed in small groups on the other three sides where they would be able to spot enemies from much farther away.

At the same time, Garry and Shawn, as well as Commander Klein were each on the other three sides of the fort, in case anything unexpected happened.

At the same time, Daniel was in the middle of the fort, where he would stay until the boss of the Wave appeared. As the Hero, he would be the only one who would be able to fight it. As such, he wasn't allowed to fight before that, as it would deplete his strength and might make him unable to win.

Aside from that, and listening to the guards, there wasn't much of a plan, however.

As such, it didn't surprise Victoria when she saw a repeat of what happened in the forest.

She would have thought that, after what happened two days ago, people would know better. But when one hour passed, and that turned into two without anything happening, people began to show two kinds of reactions. The ones that had been far too nervous, became tired already, and the ones that couldn't take the situation as seriously as they should, became more and more relaxed.

The reactions might be different, but the results were the same. People became careless.

They walked around, ate, talked, sat down.

At that point in time, there were few besides Victoria who still kept a close eye on the forest at all times. But it was also due to that, that she got startled when she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder.

Okay, maybe she too belonged to the nervous variety. Just with a bit more perseverance.

"Hy, Daniel. Shouldn't you of all people be a good example and stay on your position?", she asked, trying to overplay her slip-up with a casual question.

"Well, it doesn't really matter. My senses cover the entire fort no matter where I am, and the difference in the time it would take me to arrive where I need to be is so minuscule that it doesn't matter either.", he explained.

"So, you thought it would be a good idea to distract me?", she asked only half-jokingly.

"Well, Sophia told me to make the rounds. Showing everyone that the hero is protecting them and all that. And then I saw you and thought I could say 'hy' since we haven't had a chance to talk in almost a week."

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For the first time, Victoria turned around to look at her friend. Her eyes widened for a split second at the change he had gone through in the short time she hadn't seen him.

Even if he had walked straighter, not a week prior he had still looked like a chubby nerd. Completely with short hair, hoody, and glasses. Now, the fat was completely gone, rather he looked like someone who went to the gym twice a week. He was also missing his glasses.

If she hadn't known what kind of stuff Aura could do with someone's body from her own experiments, she wouldn't have realized that it was Daniel who stood in front of her.

She had been right. If he put in some work, Daniel could be quite handsome.

What she hadn't realized, however, was how good he could look in armor. Sure, considering that it was black and that he had gone a bit too far with those shoulder guards made it look a bit cringy, but he still made it work surprisingly well.

"Sorry, even I'm getting a bit nervous considering the situation.", she finally said. "But we can talk more once this is over."

For a moment, Daniel looked like he wanted to say more, but before he could, Victoria ended their conversation: "See you later."

"See ya'.", Daniel said, and finally walked away.

Victoria knew that it might not have been entirely fair towards him, and even she wanted to talk with him some more. But there was already too much going on and she didn't want to get distracted. Also, now that she knew to look for it and that his appearance had changed as well, she noticed that he had changed more than she had thought at first. It somehow made her uncomfortable.

Once they got through this, they would talk. A lot.

----------------------------------------

Time continued passing until even Victoria couldn't keep up her vigilance anymore. At that point, she decided that, even if she couldn't watch the forest herself, the least she could do was organizing shifts.

It took the greater part of an hour and talking with all three guards on their side of the fort, but after a while, they had finally ensured that at least a fourth of the people present would keep a close eye on the forest.

That this hadn't been done earlier, was an oversight that once again showed that no one here actually had any real expertise regarding large-scale fights.

As such, Victoria got lucky had wasn't on shift when finally some people came out of the fort with food. It wasn't much, but at least something.

It was only a short time later that she heard some shouts and people started pointing towards the forest.

"Everyone! Get in position!", the call finally came from one of the guards.

Instantly, Victoria jumped to her feet and went to the front of the barricade.

What she saw terrified her. It couldn't have been much more than half a minute between the monster leaving the forest and the call, but she could see that the front-most monster had already crossed almost half the distance to their position.

The shifts may have sounded like a good idea, but now Victoria realized that those people who were on break right now, had only become even slower in their reaction. The fact that they didn't have to feel guilty about not doing their job, taking out even the last remaining bit of tension.

Victoria only had to take a short look around to know that there wasn't much she could do at this point. At one point on the side, she saw one of the guards sending of a messenger, and everyone was already screaming, making any attempt at bringing them in order moot if she didn't have a voice like the commander.

She really had to learn how to do that.

Instead, Victoria turned to take a closer look at the enemy. Now that it was three-fourths of the way there, she could make out many details. It was a gigantic stag.

When compared to the squirrel, which looked like nightmare fuel, the stag was almost elegant with its sleek black fur and glowing red eyes. What made it a lot more terrifying, however, was the sheer size of the thing. With the build of a dutch draft horse and shoulders twice as high as Victoria's head, it was a monumental mountain of muscle with antlers that won't have problems taking on five people at once.

It was still over half a kilometer away, but she could already hear the rumbling of its six hoves clearly.

And that wasn't even all. Not far behind it, followed a pack of human-sized wolves. Too many and too close together for Victoria to properly count.

At that moment, one of the wolves howled. Soon, the other joined, creating a crescendo of sound promising violence. Even the stag roared before it lowered its head, preparing to use its antlers as a snowplough-sized battering ram.

It was clear that that monstrosity was far out of Victorias weight-class, in every meaning of the word. But she could see that the three guards were already spreading out right in front of the moat, two carrying a long, thick rope. Victoria could only hope that it would be enough to stop its charge and keep it busy until Daniel came.

Instead, Victoria focused on the wolves following behind. Those seemed like something she could help with.

Trying to ignore the crashing sound of the stag charging right through the barricades, Victoria tried to single out a single wolf long enough to inspect it.

It took until they almost reached the moat before she heard someone call out beside her.

"These are only level ones and twos! We should be able to deal with them!"

She threw a glance to her side, noticing that a small group had gathered around her. She had been far too focused on the enemies in front of her. A mistake.

At that moment, driven forward by those coming behind it, the first wolf tried jumping over the moat, only to get promptly skewered by the stakes covering the rampart on the other side. Two more died in quick succession before the others began stepping on their dead friends, leaping right over the remaining obstacles.

Seeing how they were moving with any disregard for their own safety, they looked less like a pack of monstrous wolves, and more like a wave of rabid zombies. And it made them only that much scarier.

Before anyone could react, three wolves had already encircled Victorias group. To the left, she could see another wolf that had jumped right into the middle of a different team, biting and clawing at everything that moved while completely ignoring the spear in its gut. To the right, Victoria could still hear the constant screams of fear and pain resulting from the stags rampage through the crowd.

And despite all this, there was no sign of Daniel anywhere.