I jogged back up to the Throne Room, just to make sure I had gotten through all the non-combat missions. And to collect the rewards, naturally!

Let’s see, I visited the map room for the first time, that’s worth… Huh. Forty Rune Bones. With which I can purchase… nothing. Fantastic. First Expedition- OH! Oh, now we are cooking!

Not me cooking, obviously, I’m a cup noodle and delivery guy, but we, figuratively, are cooking. Because First Expedition nets me fifty Resonance crystals. Added to everything else, I’m only ten short!

I knew they weren’t going to screw me on summons. Come on Honeymoon Phase! Daddy needs to draw some legendary rares!

Resource goal- we easily got the logs, another ten Rune Bones there, and another fifty for processing them into boards. Huh. It took me a minute to figure out, but I got there. Workers must be a lower probability draw, let alone Level 2 Workers. It would eat up a lot more time to make boards usually, so my reward was better. Not a lot better, but better.

Hmm. Not a lot of missions here. Aren’t there supposed to be tons? Keep the players occupied? I mean, “Purchase the Special Supply Chest in the Gnome Market? What Gnome Market? Show me where in this Tower there is a Gnome Market!

One of the flyers I had ignored earlier was flashing. A little yellow white spark. Blink. Blink.

I sighed and tapped it.

From out of the flier, an enormous counter with goods on display popped into existence. Behind it, blatantly standing on a box, was a rather pretty Gnome. She had all the usual Gnome accessories- overly elaborate brass spectacles, lots of inexplicable geegaws hanging off her, sensible leather jacket and quite charming curly red-gold hair.

“He he he HELLOoooo! Welcome to the Gnome Market! Special prices for special customers. See what we have on offer today!”

And just like that, it was awkward.

I hate talking to people in stores. It’s why I get everything from Amazon. I know she’s just being polite and hoping I’m going to buy something, but usually when a woman is being nice to me and smiling a lot, it’s a possible love interest in an Eroge. But I’m not a moron, so I know it’s not that IRL. But it’s still weird. So. Not really sure how to deal.

“Hey. Uh. Is this your shop?”

She kept beaming a smile in my direction. The more I looked at her, the more the details added up. I sighed and relaxed.

”You aren’t even as responsive as a One Star Awakened Soul, are you?”

She didn’t even blink.

”One way to handle customer service, I guess.”

I had a look at what was on the shelf. None of it stood out. Most of it was miles and miles out of my budget. Twenty thousand rune bones for a sack of… something. Eight hundred for five fragments of a specific summon crystal, but for a person I didn’t recognize.

One of the items sparkled. I shook my head and checked the total amount of Rune Bones I had collected. It had added up nicely, coming in at a hundred and seventy. Plus the starting bonus, but I wanted to save that.

”How much is that sack right there?”

”Oh, you want the Special Supply Chest?” It was a sack. A Sack! “Fifty rune bones!”

I looked at the other shelves. Honey blond wood, neatly divided into boxes, each displaying a single example of the sold goods. Each with a big, eye-catching price on display, many with a thin red line through them and a discount written above.

The absolute cheapest thing, with discount, was four hundred Rune Bones. A pure “Get them into the shop and used to buying stuff” mission.

“Say, this is good, but do you have any special stock? Really top quality stuff?” Perhaps H material? You never knew if you didn’t ask, right?

Glassy stare. The glassy staring intensified. And continued. And continued.

“Here are fifty rune bones. Please give me the Special Supply Chest!”

”Thank you for shopping at the Gnome Market! We appreciate your business!” Her voice was lovely. High pitched, but not grating. It warmed my weeaboo heart to hear it. I had seen Furbies more alive than this “Gnome.”

The shop vanished back into the flier. I could read it now- Gnome Market. The other flyers were still quite blurry. Maybe I had to progress a certain number of waves to unlock them? Collect so many supplies? I’d find out.

I opened the chest. Two resource packs… and exactly ten Resonance Crystals.

You are damn right I ran my way to the summoning pool!

I had been wondering how they would handle losses from the first wave. It sounded like a zero loss first wave was just not something that ever happened. In my case, I was able to pull it off thanks to the comically huge abatis provided by the Judiths and the concentrated ranged firepower of the Mikas. And people just didn’t draw five Mika’s all at once. Maybe that was the mysterious starting difficulty adjustment. A strong first pull.

I got to the pool and was once again struck by the holy feeling of the place. It… felt humbling. Like I needed to wipe my feet before coming in. Maybe I needed to wipe up my soul.

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I went to the long pool and tossed in my hundred resonance crystals. Versai said that more than half were Level One. Still, you always hope, right?

Now that I was giving it my concentration… the normal summoning remained underwhelming. A faint chorus of wordless holy sounding music, a lot of “AaaaaAAAAHHHHHHAAAhhhhaaaaaAAAAA” stuff, a swirl of pearly white mist, and a faint shape emerging from within.

“Radz reporting. What needs to be gone?” I spotted a single faint star shimmering above her head, then it vanished. Damn. Oh well. I took a look at the rest of her and wanted to shove her back in the mists.

Pretty, of course, in that porcelain doll kind of way. Short black hair, cut like Snow White. I don’t know what you call that haircut. Deep, deep black eyes. Eyes that looked right through you and into some place you were thankful you couldn’t see yourself. Black and gold headset on her head that looked more like a fancy headband, and that brilliantly coordinated with the black uniform she was wearing.

I don’t know what army decided that the correct uniform was a white shirt, black tie, black jacket and a thigh length black skirt held up by a thick leather belt and leather suspenders. Clearly there was at least one. What got my attention the most, though, was the enormous suitcase she was dragging.

“Report, Radz- what class are you?”

”Radz is artillery, Tower Master.” Her voice was slow. Not quite monotone, she wasn’t over the line into kuudere territory. Just… slow. Like she wasn’t going to rush for anyone or anything.

Not a trait I personally value in an artillery officer, but what do I know? Her fit was impeccable. That much, I do know.

“Oh? What kind of artillery?” This was kind of pushing it. The other Level One’s seemed refreshingly simple, but I had a feeling here.

”Radz has a M701 Light Field Mortar, currently able to fire airburst anti-personnel rounds at a minimum range of forty meters and a maximum range of two kilometers.”

What’s that in cheeseburgers per freedom-eagle? Jesus never used metric, and he was American. Proof, if more was needed, that Metric was a Masonic conspiracy perpetrated by that quisling Napoleon.

Ah nertz. Was a meter the same as a pace? Is a meter shorter or longer than one of my steps? Or is a pace two steps? There are no rulers around so… screw it. I’d figure it out. Wait? Minimum-

“Sorry, there is a minimum range? You can’t shoot at anything closer than forty meters?”

”Correct, Tower Master.”

My mind immediately went to the very shallow palisade wall outside.

”Well. This is going to be a challenge.”

________________________________________________________________

The Judiths had exceeded my expectations. They also screwed my lumber supply, but under the circumstances, I forgave them. They were not kawaii. They could only apologize by being ferociously good at their jobs.

The palisade wall was built right where I had dug the Trench. Which was good! They had peeled the bark off the thick tree trunks, hacked off the branches and trimmed the trunks down to an even twenty feet tall.

It felt worryingly low, given how I had seen the monsters run and climb yesterday. The Judiths had apparently thought the same.

Instead of jamming the logs in a solid wall, they had tilted every other log thirty degrees forward, then lashed them to the upright logs. They then reinforced everything with horizontal nailed planks.

It would hold up to a charge better, keep the monsters from climbing easily, or jumping straight up, and would give the Mika’s plenty of space to shoot from on the firing step behind the sharpened points of the logs.

Naturally, the branches and smaller offcuts had been sharpened into stakes and added to the absolute field of them we had arranged in front of the tower. A lot of the ones from yesterday had been broken, and were now basically just wood chips. I had them heaped to one side.

We had gotten flower seeds. I might know zilch about gardening, but when have you ever seen a garden without mulch?

All very good stuff. They had even processed the remaining trees into rough planks and beams. Yep. All very good.

Except that I figured the people fighting on the barricade would be the Mikas, with Versai as backup, and Rache sweeping around the outside to pick off stragglers and the wounded. I was not, in other words, expecting to deploy artillery in my deliberately very shallow, easy to build, easy to defend, wall!

Deep breaths. Deeep breaths. The sun is setting, woo woo… Oh wait, I didn’t really like those movies. Yeah, I’m stressed.

Alright. Alright. Positive thinking. Can we turn this frown upside down? I have one order left. I have timber. I have the Judiths. I even have some new resource packs.

I quickly cracked them open. More trash tier nails, rope and metal fasteners. Just what I needed. Thank you RNG Gods! Unless you are Black Robe and Rosalia, in which case, I hope you catch something unspeakable from your sickening hobbies.

“Hey, Versai?” I yelled across the clearing to where she was still planting stakes.

“Yes?”

“Would it count as an order to have Radz here demonstrate her weapon?”

”Yes.”

I take it back. The RNG gods can fall into a vat of festering weevils. Alright, the design up to this point hasn’t been the… most robust. Maybe I can do this the dumb and easy way.

”Hey Judiths?”

”Yes boss?”

”Order for you. Using the timber we have, and using as much of the stockpiled supplies of nails, rope and fasteners as you need, build a platform behind the palisade where Radz can deploy her mortar and safely fire it.”

They grinned. “Can do!”

I… may have to broaden my definition of “Kawaii.” Right now, no one was cuter than Judith. They got right to work.

“Alright, tonight’s menu will be monsters, skewered, shredded and sliced. And by the Goddess and all her doki doki angels, I expect to see each of you alive and well at the end of the meal.” Because you are not replaceable just yet, and I want to live.

”Yes, Tower Master!”

Tonight was the first “real” wave, according to Versai. The monsters would be very slightly stronger, there would be a lot more of them, and they would come at us a little faster. I handed out most of the herbs, but privately swore I wouldn’t order them eaten unless absolutely necessary. I wanted as many edges as possible for Wave Three.

I went around, divvying up the Stone Tapes. I skipped Versai and the Judiths, concentrating on the Mikas, Rache, and new arrival or not, Radz.

I am broad minded. Sometimes, flat truly is justice. But under the circumstances, I want to be on the side with the big cannons.