The sun raced for the horizon. The fourth night was on us. They would throw a curveball at us, I was sure of it. But I had a sneaking suspicion that we hadn’t reached the intended noob filter yet. Versai’s experience with the Third Wave not withstanding.

No, the real screwing over was still in the works. Tonight, they would introduce a new enemy type. I could smell the villainy in the air. They had already introduced the Monster Alpha. Now it would be time for a new base model.

I looked over at my newest artillery summons, Pomoroi. Her uniform was much more old fashioned than Radz. Radz looked like some mashup of a Wehrmacht uniform and a diesel punk fetishist’s “party” dress. Pomori looked like she came from a thinly veiled rip off of cannon-era England. Like… Redcoats era.

I’m saying she looked fancy as hell, and her cannon did too.

Blue jacket with an ivory contrast lining for the wide lapels, red tights with a gold stripe down the right leg, white shirt with a high collar and thigh high riding boots. Shiny, shiny black boots.

You could see your reflection in your boots. Not that I had a boot fetish! With the smell of the wax polish, and the feel of the leather under your fingers, or pressed against your cheek…

NOT FOR ME, NOSIR!

Her canon was pitch black and covered with gold plated ornamentation- crouching lions wearing crowns, mostly, though there was a cluster of decorative leaves around the rear of the cannon.

Which was on a pedal mount like Radz mortar, because this game hates my sanity and wants to hurt me at every opportunity. How did the cannon get loaded? What is loading? What even is ammunition? Recoil? Why would a cannon worry about recoil?

Apparently Pomoroi fired a solid round-shot. I was still not sure what her range was, but I had a bad feeling it was shorter than Radz.

Just… please. Goddess, please send your Doki-Doki angels to blind that evil God Pachinko and let Pomoroi fire at more than one round every forty five seconds. Please and thank you. May Saint Rei who sits at your right hand intercede for me and rain monster hunting blessings on me and my underlings. Amen.

The first plume of smoke rose in the woods. Then another. Only two so far? That won’t last. I yelled down. “Artillery, focus fire on the closest marked target.”

“Radz Raining Death.”

“I regret the targets are out of range, Sire!”

Rei, I really needed you to come through for me, and you let me down. Asuka wouldn’t have let me down. You are just lucky I’m not into Tsunderes. This is why Shinji passed on you. This Kuudere nonsense right here.

“Pomoroi, fire when they are in range. Radz, keep firing at whoever is closest!”

You could mark the time by Radz’s barks and the mortar’s boom. Forty five seconds on the dot. What I wouldn’t give to have found another ancient herb garden!

There was something unreal about the steady thump. I couldn’t see what she was shooting at. I just had to trust that each round fired meant fewer monsters hitting my lines. Boom! And somewhere, an actual biological organism who was not a possessed doll died.

Boom. There goes another. Not that I felt bad for them. They were hideous, and wanted to do hideous things to me. Still. In this sick game, they were biologically closer to human than I was.

Boom. Another down. Are they coming in a little faster tonight? I sure hope not.

My hopes meant nothing. The first monsters reached the clearing in what felt like no time at all. The awful things reached the edge of the tree line and then seemed to freeze for a moment.

That moment was fatal for four of them.

“Pomoroi, by Imperial Decree!” The BOOM hit like a punch. The force of the noise alone shook me, as the black iron canon belched fire. Fire, and a heavy iron ball! It made a flat arc, and smashed through the clumped up monsters. It looked like it rolled a ways after it landed too- if there was more close behind, I suspected a lot of monsters just got broken legs.

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“Radz, Raining Death.” The mortar was quieter, but still loud. The boom of the round detonating was damn loud, but now it was almost indecently satisfying.

“Pomoroi, by Imperial Decree!” BOOM!

“YES! YES! MERCIFUL GODDESS AND HER SWEET SAINT REI! THIRTY SECONDS! THIRTY BEAUTIFUL SECONDS! WOOO!”

I danced, throwing my hands in the air and waving my derriere like I just do not care. She might have shorter range, but she could lay down fire in two thirds the time it took Radz, and while there was no AoE damage, her rounds kept rolling in a straight line after they hit. Some bonus damage right there.

“Oh. My. God. Are you seeing this? Are you seeing this… thing. Right here?”

“Where is H.R.? I need to file a complaint. This is totally harassment and completely, like, unacceptable.”

“I’m like, not a complainer or whatever? But this is super traumatizing, and what if it, like, triggered someone? That's so not okay.”

Right. I had stuck the Blue Roses in the Throne Room and done my best to forget about them. But they were here. Judging me. Fantastic. Goodby authentic joy. Hello flashbacks and intrusive thoughts. Your things are right where you left them. Honestly, it’s like you were never gone at all.

I forced myself to ignore them, and focused on the battle below. It hadn’t just been the first wave of monsters- they were all stuttering to a halt for a second as soon as they cleared the treeline. It only lasted for a bare second, but even after they started moving again, they were slower. More tentative.

My lips slowly peeled back from my teeth. You might mistake it for a smile. Our ape ancestors knew better.

It was the trophy. The Alpha’s head nailed up over the door. The debuff was working.

“Radz, target the monsters that haven’t reached the treeline yet. Pomoroi, focus on clumps at the tree line. If a couple get past, let them! Don’t target groups of less than four.”

I took a deep breath. This was the more… dicey order. “Rakim, don’t trigger any traps until ordered!”

“Yes sir!”

Rache was still marking monsters moving through the woods. No shortage of targets tonight. We just couldn’t afford to spend single use traps on anything less than big clumps of monsters. Better to pick them off with my DPS.

They were out there, somewhere. The new monsters. They were coming. We’d be ready.

“Pomoroi, by Imperial Decree!” The canon thundered out, and the cannonball went flying through a clump of monsters. They were coming in a pretty steady stream, so ready-made clumps were easy enough to come by. I narrowed my eyes, trying to follow the trail of destruction.

The trees in the woods were huge. Not redwood-huge but a lot bigger than anything I ever saw IRL. And the cannonballs were starting to knock them over. It was because the monsters were mostly coming from the same two places. Some trees were just unlucky enough to be in the way.

Which meant that, right now, the number one danger to my giant clearing full of hedgehogs, was my own damn artillery. I smashed my fist into the empty window frame.

One of the improvements that Rakim had suggested was shifting the locations of the gaps in the V shaped barricades. They were now staggered, so the monsters couldn’t charge in a straight line. They would have to go back and forth, or get hung up on the hedgehogs as they tried to climb over.

10/10 landscaping decision, really should have thought of that before. 0/10 for making firing lanes for my Napoleonic artillery. I was going to have to pick my shots very carefully as they started getting closer.

A few were starting to filter through now. The adjustments to the barricades were surprisingly effective. Not just the change in gap placement, but the subtle height adjustment. When stacked with the debuff from the skull, it really did make the monsters want to find the easiest route. It wouldn’t take much for a single trap to nail dozens of them.

Rakim started picking them off between the second and third lines of the barricade. It took her a couple of shots to put each down, but her range and rate of fire was a lot higher than the Mikas. Wasn’t sniping them, but it was a massive help.

I lightly tapped my fist on the cool stone. This was working. Which meant that it was about time for… yep. There we go. A third stream of smoke went up in the woods. Then another, closer. And another. Rache was clearly prioritizing whatever was coming in that column.

“Radz! Focus your fire on the new column!”

It took less than two minutes for big clumps of monsters to start hitting the tree line. Radz must have been doing more than I gave her credit for. Pomoroi was nicely demonstrating on their flesh where the saying “Cannon Fodder” came from.

Her gun was eating good tonight. Real good.

“Pomoroi, By Imperial Decree!” The cannonball smashed forwards, clearing a clump out and rolling deeper into the treeline. Something jumped through the gap it left behind.

Just a touch bigger than the other monsters, but its head was wrapped in a bone-white carapace. Its torso was likewise covered in bones and spikes. Even its limbs had grown thick patches of bone.

It stood on its hind legs and roared, beating its armored chest.

Armored. Monsters. My DPS already needed a couple of rounds on target to kill the monsters, and I hadn’t seen any armor penetration stats. Oh, this was spicy. Very spicy.

It dropped back down onto all fours and started charging forward. It slammed into a lone stake… and barely slowed down. The arm-thick spike just shattered on its chest armor.

I was hammering on the window frame a lot harder now. Monsters were piling up at the clearing’s edge now, and starting to come forward in big clumps. Pomoroi couldn’t keep up. More of the armored monsters were coming on the field too. Still affected by the debuff, still getting closer with every second.

“Rakim, Stand by to activate the Tar Pits! The real battle starts now!”