I glared at the three incoming smoke signals. There was a case for picking one and having Radz pound it. There was a case for splitting her fire and trying to slow the columns, break up their rush. It came down to how fast she could adjust her aim, and how long it took her to fire. Forty five seconds.

“Radz, eat the herb now!”

“Radz, ready for action.” She chomped down on the ginger-root looking thing. I counted the seconds in my head. Twenty. Twenty five. Thirty.

“Targets marked. Radz raining death.”

Thirty five seconds. The herb shaved ten seconds off. That… wasn’t nothing. It was a lot, considered as a percentage. A little less than a quarter. Nearly a quarter increase in firing speed. Goddess, let it be enough!

“Radz, split your fire. Target whichever column is marked closest.”

“Targeting.” Her white legs flashed as she pedaled, subtly shifting the angle of the barrel and rotating it fractionally. A tiny change on this end- “Targets marked. Radz raining death.” High explosive death on the other. “Targeting.”

Minute adjustments were made after every shot. Rache was out there, under strict orders to stay well away from the monsters but keep them marked. Keep moving around and tracking them as they pressed in through the woods. She couldn’t be everywhere. My biggest worry was that they would wrap around the tower from behind, from an angle Radz couldn’t hit. So far, no sign of that.

Why couldn’t I have a Judith just look out the window and yell down if she saw something moving to the east?

“Sorry boss, no can do.”

And that was the end of that conversation. I will just have to find out the hard way.

Radz was calling out her shots with metronome time. “Targets marked. Radz raining death.” Then a click and a whoosh. Then a boom that I would probably never stop flinching at. The blasts were definitely brighter. I just hoped they were doing more damage.

“Kim, what exactly does your buff do?”

“It increases the fire element in someone’s attack. Basically they do more damage when they hit, and some of that extra damage is fire type. It also increases the attack speed for vanguards, front line and direct damage.”

“By any chance does it make people more susceptible to burning or taking fire damage later?”

“Not that I know of, sorry boss.”

“The debuff?”

“Increases chances of rage, increases damage taken.”

“Improved chances of catching on fire?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Great! What’s the range on the debuff?”

“Ten Meters.”

Well that was no use whatsoever.

Can’t have everything. Stiff upper lip. Think of Dekku, resolve not to be mid, and carry on.

The blasts were walking closer. The monsters could hustle. They weren’t insanely fast, thank the Goddess, but they could hustle. I think it was their too-human hands and the way their legs were jointed. They moved like gorillas on all fours. Fast enough that I wouldn’t want to try and outrun one, but not faster than Rache. Or Versai, for that matter.

So far I hadn’t seen one take to its hind legs to fight, but I certainly wasn’t going to rule it out as a possibility.

Thirty five seconds. Do you know how long thirty five seconds is when monsters are charging at you? It’s a lot longer than thirty five seconds. It’s an eternity.

The monotone enthusiasm in Radz voice as she called out her bark, over and over. Like a D-List celebrity working the line in Hell.

“Targets marked. Radz raining death.” “Targets marked. Radz raining death.” “Targets marked. Radz raining death.” Etching her autograph in torn bodies and scorched organs.

Three streams of monsters charging in. I could track their progress by the smoke markers Rache was setting. I could feel the alienness of my doll-body pressing in on me. My blood should be thundering in my ears. I should be feeling my heart pound in my chest. Hyperventilating, flooding my body with oxygen so I could run or fight.

I could feel fear. I swear I was feeling the adrenaline. My knuckles whitened as I gripped the top of the palisade. So why wasn’t I shaking? Why didn’t I have to pee? Why wasn’t I throwing up in terror as things designed purely to kill me as horribly as possible poured through the woods. Not slowing down for one second as their comrades were blasted apart by artillery fire. Not even bothering to chase the scout marking them for slaughter.

Closer now. They would be breaking into the clearing in a moment. I was pounding the wall. Lightly, but constantly. I didn’t know how long I had been doing it for. None of the summons noticed or cared.

There! They were through the treeline now. “Radz! Hold your fire until they group up between the hedgehogs!

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“Orders Received.”

The metronome blasts stopped. She was only delaying for a few seconds. The monster figured it out quickly. Some got shoved onto the stakes, but most went for the comparatively empty channel in the middle. Radz waited until there was a good clump fighting to get through the first hedgehog barrier, and dropped a round on top of them.

Radz… had some aim on her, I’ll give her that. The blast went off at roughly head height. There were a dozen of the horrors, with their faces like the ugliest features of wolves and goats and bats. The blast smashed them around, slamming them into the oncoming monsters or into the stakes around them.

I noticed that the blast alone wasn’t really enough to kill all of them, but it sure killed a lot of them. Of the dozen hit, eight stayed down, and the four that got up were a long way shy of healthy.

Most importantly, they slowed down the hoard behind them, and my stakes weren't damaged much. Looks like the broad backs of the monsters absorbed the hit. Nice. Very nice. Now if she could just hit them again in some kind of reasonable timeframe that would be super.

The monsters didn’t wait long. They surged over the bodies of their fellows and pushed into the gap. They were only getting through one at a time, and slowly, but they were getting through. I hesitated. There were more monsters streaming in from the forest. The first couple were through. Looked like there were… thirty? Maybe forty? Bunched up at the barrier.

“Radz, keep firing on the big clump at the first barrier.”

There was a click, and a whoosh. The blast made me flinch.

“And now that there is a nice oxygen filled gap in their ranks…” I muttered. I called up the screen, and set off Fire Trap #1.

Sometimes, just sometimes, you get what you hoped for. I had been hoping for an enormous carpet of searing flames. The monsters didn’t appreciate learning about my hopes and dreams.

The flames shot up white hot, searing hot. Hot enough that the stakes around it burst into flames, and the monsters trapped in it screamed as the water boiled out of their muscles and blood. Flesh blushed for just a moment, then blackened and cracked, spilling unspeakable fluids that evaporated as soon as they hit the blast furnace heat.

The ones injured by Radz died almost immediately. Those that had rushed in to fill the gaps… lingered. The screams. Bleating, howling and horribly human. The screams pierced my ears. Drilled into my head.

I told myself over and over- “They wanted to make you scream like that. That’s what they wanted to do to you. This is all the Dev’s fault. This is black robe’s fault. Hate them. Hate them!” Anything to not think about the sounds. About what I was doing.

There was no escaping the noise. Mercifully, the smell hadn’t reached me yet. It would, though. I knew it would.

The flames died down eventually. Not completely gone, but lowered to something more… ankle high. A sick part of me was glad. It might not kill them at once, but it would burn their feet. Slow them down even more. I spotted the next big clump coming in from the treeline.

“Radz, switch targets. Hit the group coming in from the treeline.” I would let damage over time get to work on the first batch. Besides, there were only a few left. I wouldn’t even trigger the other traps to stop them, the Mikas could clean them up no problem.

“Orders received.” Click. Woosh. BAM! Then the wait. The scorched monsters clearly didn’t want anything to do with the fire, and started trying to pick their way through the stakes. It was very slow going, as I had made damn sure there weren't any gaps in the line around the fire traps. It was a funnel. You could go through it, or spend just as long as you pleased climbing over the very spikey barricades.

The lightly charred horrors opted to climb. Well. That was fine with me. They could take all the time they liked.

The next wave was closing in fast. The burning stakes didn’t slow them nearly as much as they had the first wave. The smokey red light made the nightmares seem even more demonic as they passed. Their swept back goat horns seemed at home in the infernal darkness. They didn’t go for the barricades. Apparently they didn’t get the memo. They charged straight across the burning carpet.

“YES!” I slammed my fist into the palisade. The monsters screamed and tripped over their long, human-like hands, falling face first into the fire. The ones in back smashed into the ones in front, piling up. Standing in the fire.

“Radz, hold your fire! Target that group there but only when they have passed the fire trap!”

“Orders received.” The fire wasn’t incinerating them the way it had the first wave, but they were taking damage. They were slowed down. I could feel the seconds tick past. Twenty five. Thirty. Thirty five. They were up now, dragging themselves out of the fire. Getting themselves together, gingerly trying to move on their burnt paws.

An animal, a normal animal, would have run away. No food here. I could see their heads swing around. Fixating on the tower. I swear they were fixing their bloody eyes on me!

Most of them were out of the trap now. Yeah. Before they really started moving again. “Radz, fire!”

“Targets marked. Radz raining death.” She was as good as her word. The iron tube bucked and spat between her long legs. The mortar round went up high, invisible amongst the stars. Then dropped down directly on top of the recovering monsters.

There was a boom and even though I knew it was coming, the sound made me flinch again. I was smiling this time, though.

Thirty monsters had made it through the fire trap. Only five survived Radz. Between the ones hung up on the barricades and this batch, we were looking at maybe fifteen injured, spread out and slowed down targets. Acceptable. Totally acceptable.

“Target the treeline again. Wait for the next group to appear.” If they wanted to keep feeding themselves to me in clumps, I would happily eat up every bite. Even if I wasn’t hungry, I could eat.

I didn’t have to wait long. They came through the trees like a flood under the front door. Tens of them in the first second, then scores. There must have been at least a hundred of them clearing the woods, all at once!

“Fire! Fire!”

“Targets marked. Radz raining death.”

Her legs pedaled the mortar around, the round fired, and she punched a hole in their mass. It was filled by more monsters almost instantly. Hundred and ten? Hundred and forty?

“How many are there!?”

“I never counted.” Versai’s voice was subdued. “More than two hundred in the whole wave. You cleared out the advanced elements. Now you face the main body.”

They smashed into the stakes, and kept sweeping forward. If one got shoved onto a stake or slipped on the gore of an exploded comrade, they were simply trampled over. They dutifully funneled into the gap, and Radz got another round off. It ate a chunk out of them, but they hadn’t been injured yet- a lot of them just stood up again, shook it off and charged on. More slowly, but charged still.

The front of the line hit the fire trap, screamed and collapsed. Those pressing behind fell over the first group, then they started screaming. But the group behind them climbed over the screaming carpet with eerie ease, and were through. Racing towards the second line. All I could do was count the seconds. Count, and pray.