Nobody got hungry or thirsty. I could have ignored it earlier, but by the end of a long and busy day, it was inescapable. I… wasn’t hungry. More than not hungry, I didn’t feel the compulsion to eat.

There is something that comes upon you when you are very fat. You are rarely truly hungry. You eat almost constantly, without conscious thought. Grazing like cattle. Stuffed like grain finished Wagyu that has learned through humiliation that the beer and massages are a myth. Stuffing yourself, for any of the myriad reasons people run to fat and stay there. But I wasn’t hungry any more.

My muscles, strong and defined, seemed to not need any nourishment. My Awakened Souls labored all day in the sun, but not once did they stop for water, or even look faint. None of us felt the need to eat, or drink, or find a toilet.

I had to wonder just how different I truly was to my Awakened Souls. Clearly I was different, but perhaps not as different as I might have hoped.

The Judiths had killed every tree between the front door of the tower and an invisible boundary one hundred paces due east. They then swept left and right, clearing out the semicircle. All the dead trees were hauled in front of the Tower, and lined up pointing away from the door. They were heaped as best we could manage, leaving a narrow channel in the middle.

Tall walls of heaped trees, pointy branches pointed towards the woods where the monsters would come from, and lining the bottom of that channel were stakes. Some small, the size of a finger, but most as thick as my wrist. There was a line of thicker stakes, about as wide as my thigh, sealing off the end of the channel.

We had done what we could. We all watched the sun set below the horizon. The monsters would be coming, very soon.

“A quick review. Rache, you are running around on top of the barricades, chopping any heads that rise up or get smart ideas about climbing over.” Because that was a thing she could do. Sweet Baby Ray have mercy…

“Chromed lightning!”

“Thank you. Now Mikas-”

“Mika’s here, you have nothing to fear!” Times five. I pressed on.

“Mikas, you line up inside the stakes. Get your shields set. Fire as they come. If you can’t shoot to kill, shoot to wound and finish them off later.

“We hold the line! Nnn Nnn!”

“Great, super, thanks. Just to confirm again, Versai-”

“I had never even heard of the concept of ammunition until you explained it an hour ago. Their crossbows simply produce the bolts they need, as they reload.”

She looked at me like I was the strange one. A look I was regrettably used to receiving. 2-D girls don’t look at me that way. And yet, somehow, I am supposed to prefer 3-D. The world is diseased.

“Pammy stays low behind the Mikas. Never what? Pammy?”

“Pammy’s head never goes above the shields. Pammy only keeps the Mika’s healthy, and nothing else.” She mumbled, looking desperately like she wanted to be hiding behind a teddy bear.

This was messed up. I knew she was a golem that had existed for less than a day, but she still came off like she was twelve. I had tried to just think of her like a giant furby or something, but… this was so, so messed up.

“You keep yourself healthy if you need to. You can’t heal someone if you diiiiieeeeerrrr…. aren’t… there… right?”

“Yes!”

I’m going to hell. I am one hundred percent going to hell. But that Black Robe and his cousin are going there first, straight down to the boiler room.

Deep breath. Just poseable figurines. Playing with poseable figurines. Testing out ideas from Reddit IRL.

“Becky and the Judiths hang out inside. I’m inside the tower keeping an eye on things. Versai is initially posted behind the Mika’s to clear any monsters that reach them, but is free to deploy elsewhere on the field as the tactical situation demands.”

Mmm. As the tactical situation demands. Don’t remember where I heard that line, but it sounded pro. Love it.

A chorus of garbled barks came back, though Versai’s crisp “By your command, Tower Master!” came through clearly. The difference between a Six Star and a One Star had been painfully clear all day.

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The sun set. “Into position everyone! Is that movement in the trees?”

“Yes, Tower Master.”

“Up you get Rache, here they come!”

They burst out of the forest. I could see something of a wolf in them, and something of a goat. Perhaps five feet at the shoulder, with burning red eyes and jutting ram’s horns over the brow. They smashed into the improvised barricade, scrabbling at the tree branches, struggling to get to us. To tear us apart.

“FIRE!”

“Mika can’t shoot! The Bad Guys are too far away!”

Damn! “Fire as soon as they are in range!”

The awful things screamed with rage. Their hides seemed to blend with the night. Scales or fur, I couldn’t tell. But the screams- piercing, furious, like a falcon diving, like someone getting right in your face and telling you that you were subhuman. That you were prey and should be ashamed.

I could feel myself freezing up. My mind slowed down as I tried to process the horror of what I was seeing. My Summons had no such worries.

“Don’t be a road hog!” There was a thunk and a whinny and a monstrous scream as two parts of some beast fell down on its fellows. The channel was already starting to get packed. They smashed through the smaller branches as I expected, but they were slow. They were tearing up their legs and feet. No. Not feet.

Horor crept up my back like a black widow, chitinous tap by chitinous tap. The monsters didn’t have feet. I could see it now, just barely, They walked on their knuckles. They had hands. Horribly human hands, with thumbs and long claws. The closer they got, the more human their musculature was. Still monstrous, defiled, alien… except for those parts of themselves that were all too human.

“Mika says you stay back!”

The Mika’s had formed a shield wall behind the stake wall. Peeking just over the top of their shield were the crossbows. There was a heavy TWANG sound, and a bolt of light slammed down range and into the monsters hung up on the branches.

I forced myself to breathe and focus on the damage they were doing. Five Mika’s hit four targets. None were one hit kills. No kills at all. It took a few seconds before the next volley swept down the narrow channel and hit. Kills. I could see the horrible things falling. It looked like it took two hits to the center mass to kill them.

My face tried to twist into a grin, battling through the fear. When they fell, they fell on the stakes. This didn’t make it easier for the monsters behind them- it clogged up the narrow channel. Slowed them down. More time for the Mika’s to work.

Volley after volley slammed into the screaming beasts. They died in one and twos and threes. The Mika’s made them pay blood for every step. There were a few smart ones that tried to go high, but Rache was there. She could race around on the thin tree branches, her bright saber whipping down on their heads. She wasn’t quite one-shooting them either, but the extra speed and momentum was doing a lot of work for her. As was gravity.

I smiled, watching the beasts claw and tear at each other, as they stumbled into a falling mob. The stakes tore at them. The branches left long scratches. Nothing fatal, but every little bit helped. Every extra second the Mika’s had to shoot and reload, was a second closer to victory. Every time they could focus fire on just two or three enemies, we got enemy corpses.

I clenched my fist. Squeezed until the knuckles turned white. We were killing them. But not fast enough. They were getting closer. I bit off the urge to yell something to Versai. She was already alert, eyes fixed forward. Long sword loose in her hand. It was a straight, two handed blade, but she managed to use it one handed alongside her shield.

They were almost on her. Almost on the Mikas. Must have been a few dozen killed already, maybe forty, but they were still coming. The Mika’s were shooting from point blank now, each bolt smashing open hideous faces. Something of a wolf and a goat, yes, and a bat. Slavering towards the Awakened Mika.

I saw her. I didn’t want to see her that way, but I did. A teenage girl staring up at a monster. And then she shot it dead between the eyes.

The Mikas were one-shotting them now. They just couldn’t reload fast enough. A claw whipped out, looking to separate a pretty doll’s head from her neck.

“DEFENSE!” I screamed. Versai’s sword stabbed out like lashes of lightning, skewering the horrors over the shorter girl’s heads. The monsters were pressing in, the claws starting to wrap around the edges of the shields. I swore. There should be something more, something more I could do!

“MIKA! DEFENSE! NOTHING GETS PAST YOU!”

The Mikas jolted. Just for a fraction of a second, but I caught it. Then they lurched together, pressing up behind their shields. They yelled- “MIKA HOLDS THE LINE! MIKA HOLDS THE LINE! SAVE OUR FAMILIES AND RUN!”

White lights burst from the shields, rising up and forming a short wall. The Mikas were on top of the wall, firing through the crenelations. Their rate of fire exploded, hosing down the monsters below.

The Mika’s were screaming. I couldn’t make out what, I don’t think they were even words. They were screaming pure fear and hate. Bolt after bolt smashed down, the screams of the beasts below now more furious, more wild.

It only lasted a few seconds. Then the light flickered. Once. Twice. The wall fell. The Mikas fell with it. Versai rushed out and finished off the last few monsters that were still on their feet. They couldn’t touch her. Not so few of them and so injured.

“Oh no! Where is the ouchie?” a tiny voice piped up, out of the gore. Out of the terror. “I’ll make the ouchies go away.”

There was only the wind in the trees, and the sound of Pammy’s humming. I was lost. Drifting. This wasn’t… real. This wasn’t what real life was like. And the Summons. I shouldn’t feel anything about them, except maybe their costumes or design. They were supposed to be golems. Dolls. “Awakened Spirits,” for god’s sake.

Oh.

Oh no.

I looked over at Pammy, wrapping comically large bandages around the arms of the Mika’s. I remembered that documentary.

My stomach tied up in knots. “Dollies. They are just dollies. Just… just dollies. Not real. Dollies.” I was bent over, clutching my once-ample gut. Trying to not see… what I saw.

“Free range to ride, and not a bandito in sight.” Rache sauntered down, smiling genially.

I looked over at Versai. “Valkyrie” was the first word I thought of when I saw her. A chooser of the slain.

“Can’t believe we won clean. I expected to win, the first wave is basically a warmup. But clean? I am genuinely impressed.” She looked down at the Mikas. They were still unconscious, but starting to stir. “What did you do to them?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything. I was going to ask you.” I tried to keep my voice together. It was like me- shaky.

“No idea, I’m afraid. Maybe because you clumped a bunch of them together? I’ve never seen five clumped together like that.”

“I yelled defense. That nothing gets past her.” My eyes kept sliding to Pammy. She looked pretty satisfied with her work, then fell into her holding pattern. Fidgeting and looking nervous for no reason. Tearing up for no reason.

Versai must have seen something in my eyes. “Tower Master? She’s fine. Not a scratch on her. We are all fine. This was a triumph. When you claim the loot, it’s going to be fantastic.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Looking forward to the loot.” I looked around at my… Awakened Souls.

I would get out of this death game alive. And I was taking the Souls with me. All of them. I would draw until my hands bled and harvest and level up. I would become a Gacha God. And when we got out, we would find that goddamn necromancer Black Robe and his evil cousin and anyone else responsible.

I forced a smile and looked over at Versai. “Come on! I want to see what dropped.”