Rested and refreshed after advancing to Day 2, I merrily marched to my newly opened Map Room. It was three floors down from the throne room, but I was starting to get a bit suspicious of the Tower’s geography. The floors were all connected by a single spiral staircase, the doors (sealed or otherwise) were spaced evenly apart. It took the same amount of time to get from the throne room to the summoning room, to the map room, and so on and so on, down the tower. Which was obviously nonsense.

For one thing, the spacing on the staircase was plainly fraudulent. The ceiling on the summoning room was European Cathedral high, easily more than a hundred feet. There weren't a hundred feet of stairs between the top two floors, though. And while the tower certainly felt huge from the outside… not that huge.

Can I do anything about it? Yes. Meditate on the teachings of the ancestors. Naruto would never give up. Neither would Diet-Naruto, Asta. Yeah. If Black Clover could get its own animation despite the laws of both God and Man, I can believe anything.

Having successfully meditated, quite possibly transcending the insight of the most profound gurus, I strode into the map room. Then strode right back out again. I gave the door a hard look. Then peeked out an arrow loop doubling as a window on the stair. Yep. That was the outside. I’d recognize it anywhere. Sun shining down on the primordial forest in all its vegital glory.

I stuck my head back into the map room. Looked up. Pulled out one of the XP chips and flung it violently upward. Good strong arms on me now. A good, strong, back. It was a few seconds until the chip clattered back down again.

The night sky- no it was a parody of the night sky, the constellations picked out in stars far brighter than their counterparts, formed a bowl over the seemingly endless room. There was a little sandstone path leading to an enormous table. All around us were the rolling dunes of the Sahara. On the absurdly vast table was a diorama of the forest.

Situated a foot or so from the edge of the table closest to the door was the Tower. Extending further away from the tower was the forest, the lake, and at the very edge of the light were the mountains I could barely make out looking out the top floor of the tower.

What light, given that the room was made to look like the night sky? Excellent question. There was a tiny sun, hovering just above the “eastern” edge of the table. Because of course there was.

“Does the map room always look like this?”

“Yes? What’s wrong with it?” Versai asked.

“Maybe I’m the strange one. With every order I give, the sun shifts a fifth of the way across the sky?”

“I don’t think I ever checked, but it does move, now that you mention it.” She nodded.

Yeah, clocks would be pointless in this place. So why not?

I approached the table. Mmm. I hadn’t given Rache very specific instructions on where to scout, had I? Just “around” or something.

“Is there any way to zoom in?”

“I don’t know.”

Fair enough. I tried a few pinching gestures, some pulling motions- nothing. On the other hand, there was nothing stopping me from getting really close and squinting. Was that… I tried to push aside one of the trees, but it might as well have been made of iron. I got as close as I could without poking my eye out.

“Versai, does that look like a bunch of tiny flowers to you?”

She got close to the diorama, her perfect, sapphire eyes narrowing. “Yes. I would say… some kind of Ancient Garden. Nice. It won’t be anything amazing this close to the Tower, but it’s a nice find.”

“What’s an ancient garden?”

“Oh, you find gardens out there. You know. Really old ones. They can have herbs in them that do stuff, or flowers you can plant around the tower to make it look pretty, that kind of thing.” She shrugged.

“What kind of stuff?”

“Stuff. Make your summons stronger, usually. Sometimes faster. Sometimes healing.”

“Permanently?” I asked, hope throbbing in my voice.

“One Wave.”

Goodbye, hope. I hope our parting is only temporary. Well, maybe I was being too optimistic. I should expect Wave 2 to be stronger than Wave 1. That would be offset partially by better defenses, but having buffs available would also be pretty huge. Yeah. Yeah, this was seeming like a must do activity.

I checked around but didn’t see much else of interest. Although the blasted map did make me think I was developing astigmatism. It turned out that I could see up to the mountains from the tower windows, so everything up to the Mountains was visible.

Everything on the other side of the mountains was covered in impenetrable fog. And within the forest itself, if it wasn’t the tiny band that Rache had scouted, things looked somewhat blurry. I had such fun figuring that out.

I assembled everyone outside. “Alright, we have two main things to do today before the wave tonight.”

“Mika’s here! You have nothing to fear!”

“Yes, thank you Mika. First order of business- Judiths. How long would it take you to build a wall Four Mika’s tall, with a firing step, that covered the entrance to the tower? I’m thinking a box. No need to make a gate. Just a shallow wooden box just outside the door.”

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I had checked with Versai- no ranged units through the third wave, and she hadn’t seen any before she died at the start of the fourth. So no worries about building a covered firing position just yet. The Judiths performed a synchronized shrug. “What kind of wall?”

“Palisade, made from the tree trunks we cut down yesterday. You would turn the off cuts and branches into stakes, and just cover the area in front of, and around, the wall with them. Leave a few intact trees to try and restrict access to the sides and slow everything down.”

Combo-ing some Shogun Total War 2 and some subreddit shenanigans there, but what the hell. It all made sense to me.

They looked at each other. These were old growth trees, cut from virgin forest. Huge, in other words. Plenty long enough. It would be time consuming and difficult to dig them in and clean off the branches, but-

“One order for the wall, another for the stakes. Can we use the iron nails to reinforce the wall with cross braces?”

“Will that make it stronger?”

“You bet!” They nodded. There was a little more going on in there than in the Level One’s, but the glassy eyed stare and fixed smile was getting to me.

I was about to give the order, and hesitated. “How are you two at gathering herbs?”

“Not the best, Chief!” They chorused.

“How are you compared to Mika?”

“God Tier, Chief!”

Ahah. I figured.

“Versai, how are you at gathering herbs?”

“Better than Mika, worse than Judith. Workers have a huge edge in any non-combat task.”

“Any idea how long the investigation of the Ancient Garden will take?”

“No.”

Fantastic. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. I knew I couldn’t go on the expedition, my foot nailed to the floor in the Tower. I was sure that rule would loosen eventually, but for now, I was stuck. I tried to imagine the expedition team composition.

First had to be Rache. She could lead the way, as well as scouting for danger. As soon as I had the thought, there was a sudden lurch and I could see little cards floating in front of me. EXPEDITION: and then an empty box. I could see a very abbreviated map, with a little flag sticking out of it. I focused on the flag.

EXPEDITION: ANCIENT HERB GARDEN

TIME:

TEAM:

I tentatively imagined Rache on the team. A card with her picture popped up, and slapped into the line next to the word “team.” The mission time changed from nothing, to 1. Out of curiosity, I removed Rache. Back to blank. Mika? 3. Versai? 2. Interesting. What about Rache and Mika together? 2. Rache and Versai? 2. Hmm. What about putting a Mika first, then Rache? Still two. HMMM.

Beka? 15. Three full days. I really needed to express my deep, DEEP appreciation to the character design team.

Alright, leaving aside the Tower ballast- Oh wait! Pammy. Also a 2.

“Pammy, do you like picking flowers and collecting herbs?”

“Um. Um. Um. Pammy might be okay, but she’s afraid she’ll mess everything up.”

“I’m sure you will do fine, sweety.” GOD I hated how I talked to her. I just couldn’t see her as anything other than a twelve year old girl somewhere she had no business being. Freaking character design got to me. The moe was too strong!

Versai had said that anyone who was back at the tower by nightfall could fight, so there shouldn’t be any problems deploying most of my strength, but… those Mika’s were just too slow. I assembled an expedition team on the little pop up, and hit Begin!

“Order number one. Versai, Rache, Pammy and the Judiths will travel to the Ancient Herb Garden and gather everything they can!

I quickly looked up at the sun in the sky, and started grinning. It had shifted, but only by a fifth. That meant that the amount of time used by the expedition would not translate into lost orders. I didn’t know if this was an exploit or an intended feature, but either way, I was going to use it.

“Order Two- Mikas, dig a trench as deep as your hips and as wide as two shields along the line I’m going to draw in the dirt for you.”

It would take them far, far longer to dig than it would the Judiths, but we had time. When the monsters came tonight, they would find us well prepared. The expedition team had practically vanished, zooming off into the woods. By the time the Mika’s were done digging the hole for the palisade, the expedition had returned.

I felt myself glitch again. I don’t have another word for it. I glitched. It didn’t make sense. However far the garden was from here, it had a fixed distance. Some characters would be faster than others, that made sense, but to travel somewhere, harvest herbs, and return in “2”- it made no sense! What if I had ordered the Mikas to clap twice for the second order? Would the whole expedition have taken less than two minutes?

It took a few minutes to come back together, but I got there. This was a gacha game world. Things, fundamentally, did not conform to the logic of my world. I would just have to… figure it out. Figure out how to deal.

The alternative was horrible monster death, and I really, really didn’t want to go out like that. Just… crest the wave. Ride the weird. So many of my Isekai’ed heroes dealt with strange new worlds. I would do the same.

“What did you find, ladies? Who definitely spent more than an hour on their expedition?”

“We get the job done!”

“Just cruising free and easy.”

“Pammy did her best. Sowwwweeee!!!!”

“It went quite well. Rache is an excellent scout so the trip was fast and safe. The Judiths, assisted by Pammy and, being honest, mostly just guarded by Rache and I, were able to make a considerable harvest.” Versai held up a basket, showing off the loot.

“We recovered four herbs capable of suppressing damage received, two that improve movement speed, and one that improves attack speed. All and all, a very respectable expedition. We also recovered five packs of wildflower seeds. Which, before you ask, are purely for the purposes of beautification.”

“Oh? How do those work?”

“Haven’t the faintest idea. Everyone died before planting them.”

Fantastic. “And the herbs?”

“You just eat them. Maybe you could do more if we had a worker that specializes in herbs or cooking or something, but I’ve never seen a worker like that. Their existence is pure speculation on the part of other Tower Masters.”

I shrugged. Knowing gacha games, it seemed very likely to me too.

“Versai, just how many Tower Masters have you served?”

“Enough that your faces blur together into one suffering mass. Sorry. It’s why I keep my distance. At least until we cross the barrier of the Fourth Wave… it’s better for me if I don’t really care about you beyond the job. Sorry if that hurts your feelings, but…” She shrugged.

Delightful. And horribly understandable. I couldn’t be mad at her about that.

“Tomorrow morning, we will figure out the best places to plant the wildflowers. Now, we have a defense to plan. We got a clean win yesterday. Let's do it again tonight!”