Nobody volunteered. Apparently, none of my Awakened Souls had Golden hands. Though, I was curious to try something.

“Versai, do the monsters vanish as soon as you touch them?”

“Pretty much, why?”

Damn. Well, this would be a challenge. Time to see if my muscles were all for show. I dug out one of my new ropes from the resource distribution depot (AKA a heap next to the gaping hole that was my front door) and tied it around the top of the Palisade.

I still firmly approved of my “No Gate” policy. Gate equals complexity, also equals weak point. Rache and Versai were the only two summons I planned to have operating outside the fence tonight, and neither of them would be stopped by a mere twenty foot spiked wall.

Now. How exactly did they do the rappelling in Attack on Titan?

I got the rope tied on fine, and I was brave enough to plant my feet against the wall, leaning back from the spikey, protruding bits that stuck out from the vertical bits. I knew that I would hop off, and then swing back to the wall, neatly avoiding woody facial abuse.

I jumped off, loosening my hands to slide down the rope. Except I didn’t do it enough, as when I swung back towards the wall, a huge pointy log was coming right for my face. I loosened my hands, tried to dodge, but I still caught some across my forehead. Reeling, I loosened my hands even more and leaned further back. This resulted in my falling even faster, smashing into the ground at speed.

Fortunately, my landing was cushioned. Unfortunately, it was cushioned by gorey monster corpses, which exploded over me in a filthy, foul smelling wave. It took me a moment to recover from the sheer shock. I think I was stabbed a bit by some of the bone shards.

I staggered to my feet, shrieking manfully. I flailed, trying to scrape monster entrails off of me. Then shrieking again when I realized all of this had happened in front of my summons. My very pretty, female-ish, summons. Who were all staring at me.

I controlled my instant need to just jump in a hole and die of shame. It was close, but I held on. I decided to pretend like everything was fine. Just… bluff. They are dumb. Bluff, and all shall be well. Please, Goddess, let them have short term memory problems!

I reached over and touched a monster corpse. It was both leathery and hairy- mostly leathery skin, with upsetting patches and tufts of wiry hair. It was disgusting to look at, and not much better to touch. Did it smell? Of course it smelled. What it smelled like… was harder to say. Animal, with sulfur and something else. Something almost tasted rather than smelled.

It did not, however, vanish.

Well. That was a horrible waste of effort and my limited supplies of dignity.

“Rache, go and pick up the monster loot. Remember where each body is in the forest and, if you can, mark where the mortar landed next to it on the map.”

Rache looked confused. “Rache is ready to ride?”

“Do your best.”

“Chromed lightning!”

“Thank you. Start with the furthest away corpses and work your way back. Versai, would you kindly vanish the bodies in my immediate area?”

She smiled wryly. “I have to give you credit for trying at least. Most don’t even think to test. Though how you managed to fail at sliding down a rope I will never know.”

Oh look, Versai could open the shame-death-hole right inside of me. It must be a hidden power move.

“Quick as you can, please, I don’t think there is a shower in the Tower.”

“What’s a shower?” She asked, tapping away at the bodies. They vanished in a tiny flair of white light.

Horrible thought, but I immediately understood. To need a shower, you would have to get dirty. We didn’t sweat. We didn’t bleed. I had yet to see an Awakened Soul covered in dirt or blood. And- yep. When Versai touched the monster-of-origin, I was immaculate again.

My clothes weren’t attached to me, but they were on my lower tier summons. I had my suspicions about Versai, but any exploration of that question, if it happened at all, would come after the relationship system unlocked. A long, long, LONG way after.

I’d prefer if we could just stay friends, honestly.

Real talk? She was so pretty it kind of hurt. I sort of got used to it, to the point where I could look straight at her without choking, but it took focus. Fail to keep that focus, and you were wondering how it was possible to spin grace and the summer sun into hair, or how the true meaning of blue could only be found in the depths of her eyes.

I don’t think like that. It’s not me. It doesn’t feel good when it happens, because all I can think about is how I’m not any of those things. I don’t have cripplingly low self esteem. I made what peace I could with my spherical self, and my current body was Chad. But I’m not on her level, and I know it.

I can be friends with her, though. With time. And effort. A whole lot of effort. Having a built in relationship system was a comfort. Systems have rules. No guessing, just follow the rules and everything works out.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Ren’ai-Shin willing, one day, we will be able to Netflix and absolutely-no-chill, where we watch the finest garbage and viciously trash talk it. There will be snacks, drinks, and absolutely nothing else. Happy thoughts.

“I’m trying as many things as I can to improve our chances of passing the wall of the Fourth Wave. Speaking of, you said you only served one Tower Master who passed the third?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“How did he manage it?”

“Short answer? He dumped all his cut logs in a stack in front of the door and hid behind it with his non-combatant summons. He made a little platform at the top to shoot down from, for his one ranged attacker, and left me and a front line summons out in front. He figured that we would use our mobility to keep them from swarming us, and that we could eventually cut them down.”

“Huh. I guess it worked. Surprising, though. No offense, but I can't imagine three summons, even if you are one of them, being enough to shut down an entire wave.”

Versai waved her perfectly manicured, elegant hand. “Your perspective is off because I’m your only higher star damage dealer. You have seen how much more… functional… the Judiths are compared to the Mikas?”

“Sure.”

“He drew two Three Stars. One a scout with a rifle and a grappling hook that gave her incredible mobility, and the other a halberdier with decent armor. The three of us hit the monsters like a meat grinder.”

“Woah! But you got wiped out instantly in the fourth wave?”

“The poor fellow had underestimated both the numbers and increased mobility of the monsters in the third wave. They also possess a higher degree of initiative. Not much higher, but when we were outnumbered sixty to one, “Not Much” was enough.”

“And he didn’t draw anyone to replace the losses?”

“He drew… the equivalent of Becky.”

I forcibly stopped myself from imagining what must have happened from there. Given the weird way time worked here, I could imagine some very unpleasant things. Very. Instead, I clapped my hands.

“Moving on! Time for us to check the loot. Another flawless victory, and I want to see what the mission rewards will be.”

First things first- the monster loot. Mostly crafting mats, I was unsurprised to see, though there was a decent pile of Runed Bones. Four hundred rune bones, free and clear. Nice. I’d take it.

Next- the wave reward. I tapped the little gold medallion first, this time. Wave #2, zero casualties, zero monsters in the tower. Reward: All units, +.5% Speed.

Versai and I stared at the glittering thing, carefully trying not to make eye contact.

“We don’t know how many waves there are. It could add up over time.”

I appreciated her positivity. Waifus should be Tsundere or Moe, and she wasn’t exactly either. Under the circumstances, if she couldn’t be a Waifu, I would take “Positive human being, or close to it.”

“Right. Every little bit helps.”

She nodded the most perfect chin God ever created. “Yes. You never know what might be the decisive difference in a battle.”

“Yes.”

We stared a little longer.

“Shall we look at the rest of the loot?” Versai asked.

“God, yes.” I dug into the sacks, then muffled a gasp. More of the little fragments, and a full fifty Resonance Crystals.

“The tower isn’t cheaping out! This is good stuff. A big stack of resource packs and stone tapes too!”

“Ten and sixty, respectively. This is immense!”

I put the fragments into my pouch without much thought. This was, apparently, a happy mistake. My pouch started glowing and ringing with soft chimes. I opened it, and a swarm of the little fragments spun around in a cloud. There was a rising musical note, then a flash of ice-blue light. They fused into a pale blue Resonance Crystal, with a blurry face inside of it.

“Is this… a crystal to summon a specific Awakened Soul?”

“I’ve never seen one before.” Versai’s endlessly blue eyes went wide, her voice soft. “So many new things with one Tower Master. Incredible.”

“Have they really all been so bad?”

She shook her head. “The first draw is pure luck. Like I said, you got an extra summon there, but I chalk it up to Becky and don’t count it. After that, the Tower Rewards after each mission start to have a growing impact, and they are based on performance.”

She shrugged a geometrically perfect shoulder. “I thought that losing one or two summons was standard. I have even had some Tower Masters that decided to fight the monsters inside the Tower- just stack them up on the stairs and force them to come one or two at a time.”

She looked over at the medallion. I knew what she was looking at. “Zero monsters in the tower.”

“I guess that was a mistake twice over.”

“Sounds like a legit tactic, in fairness.”

“Yeah? Have you ever stood above someone on the stairs and tried to stab them with a sword?”

“Er. No.”

She shook her head. “It works on humans. Not so much on the monsters. We got slaughtered.”

There were more rewards to collect from the missions of the day, and even some missions that I could still complete tonight. I laughed a little bit.

“Want to see another thing you have never seen before?”

“Alright?”

I walked down to the ground level. It was still night, as I hadn’t progressed to the next day. I walked around to the south side of the tower. I picked up a stick and started scratching in the dirt. Long, shallow furrows, then I scraped between the furrows. Just churning up a shallow patch of dirt about three feet square. I then took out a pack of seeds and scattered them over my new flower patch.

The little square flashed with a pale green light, almost blinding in the darkness. I could see it suddenly looked quite orderly, if still a bit, well, square. I’m not a garden guy. There was a watering can on a metal hook sticking out of the ground next to it. I picked up the can. Full. Of course. I started watering the garden.

“Tower Master… this…”

“You said none of the others ever planted the seeds, right? Well, they seemed to have thought of most of the same tactics I did, but they all skipped this. So I won’t.” I grinned, feeling something fierce rising up. “I’ve been breaking games since I was a kid. Watch me break this place with a geranium!”