“Rache, report! What kind of monsters were they?”

“Dunno their name, Boss. They have armor, but they look shorter and heavier than the armored ones we usually see.”

Wallbreakers. It had only been a couple of waves, and we were already getting wallbreakers. Not as bad as flying units, but arguably as dangerous, or more dangerous, as the stealth units.

“Do we still have the big pile of dirt over the back door?” I couldn’t hide the urgency in my voice. At least I hope it didn’t sound like fear.

“Boss? Yes Boss.” I got the definite impression that she considered my question profoundly odd. Which was fair, given the multiple tons of dirt that now covered the back quarter of my Tower.

And the watchtowers I had set up next to them, but those were unmanned. Actually, we didn’t even have a good way to get someone into them. Because I didn’t think I would need them yet. Damn it all!

“Radz! Can you fire over the Tower?”

“Negative, Tower Master.”

Damn, damn, damn!

I took a deep breath. Just trying to steady my nerves. The monsters could destroy the Tower doors. I knew that much because Versai had told me so. She had died, repeatedly, when it happened. But what about the walls? The original walls of the Tower, not the ones I built. Could the wallbreakers break down my walls?

Deep breaths. It doesn’t matter if you don’t need the oxygen. Just… breathe. Just wait and see where they attack. My walls now extend to around the halfway point of the Tower. I can split my artillery. Hell, I could pull all of it. It would only slow down the inevitable on this front. We could handle the fast monsters and the Giants without them.

The artillery alone wouldn’t be enough, though. And I really, really couldn’t move my DPS. Except…

“Miyuki, Artillery!” I directed them around the sides of the Tower. Fingers crossed the wall breakers were as freaked out by the whistling noise as the fast monsters. I closed my eyes and slowly squeezed my fists. There was nothing back there to slow down the wall breakers. Not even trees. We had harvested everything we could in range of the Tower.

“Miyuki. I am counting on you. Do your best to slow them down.”

“Miyuki… receives the Lord’s Trust?” There was something off in her voice, but I was too stressed to hear it.

“Yes, Miyuki. You have my trust. My back I leave to you.”

Hah. Now there was a line worthy of a weeb. I can’t even remember where I stole that line from. Must be from somewhere. I don’t have the guts to come up with it on my own. I don’t even have the guts to look over at Miyuki as I say it.

“Miyuki will not fail her Lord again!”

I spun fast, but Miuki was an honest to Kami ninja. She was gone before I finished turning. I had to run across the Throne Room and out to the other balcony. I spotted her on one of the semi abandoned watch towers. She must have used that crummy homemade grappling hook to get up there. Her long hair danced in the night breeze as she stood watching the monsters in their massive charge. Her right hand drew back the starlight string of her bow. The arrow gathered firefly lights, growing brighter and brighter with each breath.

“MIYUKI!”

“Die for my Lord!” Her voice came out as a hiss. I could hear it over the screaming.

“MEDIC! No, wait!” They didn’t have any way to get up there. Sending medics over would be suicide. That brave idiot!

Slender white fingers loosed an arrow of light. It traveled faster than my eyes could follow. So fast, it looked like a solid line flying across the clearing. Skewering two, three, five, a dozen monsters before burying itself in the dirt. The light beam faded. Miyuki fell with it.

There was no one I could send. No one. Everyone was where they needed to be, doing what they needed to be doing. I couldn’t even send my workers. They were too slow, and losing them would be deadly in the long run.

I wracked my brain for bodies I could throw at this, anyone I could send to rescue her! Rache? Rache! Screw spotting work, we know exactly where the enemy is. Rache could grab Miyuki and get out again fast.

“Rache-”

A noise- the distillation of fear, the need to run, to hide, to act like the prey I was. Like the whistling cry of a hunting phoenix, like the pitiless shriek of a hawk. Horror. Horror. The stalker is in your bedroom and he’s holding a knife. Absolute terror. Darkness crept in from the edges of my eyes. I had to run. I had to run. The strength fell out of my legs, and I collapsed, clutching the lip of the balcony. I had to run. I couldn’t run.

I shook on the floor for… I don’t know how long. The thought slowly intruded into my mind- that this was Miyuki’s fear effect, magnified immeasurably. That I wasn’t in danger from this noise. That Miyuki needed me. That she put it all on the line for me. That she was lying on the dirt in the path of the monstrously heavy wall breakers, and if I did nothing, her best ending would be to have her head crushed under their heavy feet.

I owed her more than that.

My hands shook. Holding on to the stone railing, they still shook. There was no strength in my legs, nor any in my arms. The sound battered at my ears. I wasn’t in danger. I knew that. But the fear reached inside my head and dug its long claws into my brain. But Miyuki needed me. I couldn’t give up on her.

I don’t know where I found the strength. My legs managed a weak push. They shoved me into the stone railing. Then they worked with my arms and fluttering hands to press me up the stone and to my feet.

The back field was chaos. Miyuki’s discipline, her ultimate, whatever power she used, had pierced a dozen of the low slung, monstrously heavy wall breakers before burying in the dirt. And it hadn’t vanished. Twelve horrors with the bodies of giant hippos and the faces of mutilated bat-wolves and all too human hands. Skewered on a single pike of starlight.

The Whistling Arrow- the more enemies it pierced, the louder and more powerful it would be, persisting until they died. Twelve in one blow. It stacked with her ult. Holy Goddess, it stacked with her ult.

The wall breakers had gone insane from fear. They tore at each other, blind with terror, pure instinct driving them to kill. When they couldn’t tear, they rammed, slamming into each other, into the ground. Some ran. Some turned and ran as hard as they could, but so many had their legs collapse under them like mine had. So many lost all their strength and lay in the dirt, twitching and screaming.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

We should be. We should be out there. We should be cleaning up the battlefield. This is a heaven-sent opportunity. My brain was pudding. We had to take every advantage. But I couldn’t go myself. Any accident and we would all die. Were my summons affected like I was?

“Rache. Rescue Miyuki, carry her to the medics. Medics, treat Mikyuki when she reaches you. Rikka. Kill the wounded or insane wall breakers. Leave the one’s Miyuki skewered alone.”

There was a long moment. Not a silence. Not under that mind obliterating whistle. But a too long moment. Then-

“Chromed lighting.”

“They will never see me coming.”

I wanted to laugh. Some part of me, some tiny, brave part of me felt that this was the moment for a heroic laugh. But I just couldn’t do it. It took all I had to stand at the railing, and watch a cowgirl on a ghost motorcycle zip around the walls and haul Miyuki off the ground. Slinging her over her lap and speeding off like she did this every day. Sling stones flew silently from shadows, crashing into armored skulls one, two, three times before blood poured from a monster’s mouth and they stopped moving.

My scouts had the back of the battlefield controlled, for now. Then explosions stated tearing up the ground, glowing cannonballs ripped through the thrashing horrors.

“Pomoroi, by Imperial Decree!”

“Radz raining death!”

I had forgotten my artillery. I really did wish I could laugh. I had forgotten my blasted artillery. They must feel right at home.

I staggered over to the other balcony, checking in on what the other battlefront was up to.

“Oh.”

I slowly closed my eyes. Apparently I had gone insane. I thought that wasn’t possible, but here we are. I opened them again. Then closed them.

Why couldn't it be a delusion of landing in some ecchi harem show? That would be a nice isekai. I would be in modern Japan, but for some reason, I was the only boy in an all girl’s school filled with attractive women with eerily similar faces who were so starved for affection, ordinary interest earned their eternal devotion.

Maybe not a school. An adult mind in a teenage body… yeah. Better to be a salaryman on a trip to a rural village and the innkeeper was a charming widow whose children were boarding somewhere far away. I would make friends with the elderly local villagers, worry about the rice harvest, and grow as a person as the innkeeper and I fell deeper and deeper in love. We would have our first kiss under the falling maple leaves of autumn, as I decided once and for all to leave my stifling corporate life and live simply, but happily, in the country.

I opened my eyes again.

Versai hacked the bird head off the giant. The beast head was already in the dirt, yards away. Before it could fall, she kicked off the giant’s sternum and drove her steel clad leg into the falling trophy. The kick sent it flying, smashing a fast monster hard enough to break bones. Drenched in the fountains of black blood spewed by the giant monster, she dove back down onto the battlefield. Mutilation was left in her wake.

The screaming of the impaled wall breakers was everywhere here too, driving the fast monsters into madness. The Blue Roses sang in eerie counterpoint, their wailing chant almost harmonizing with the siren of terror and the screaming of the panicking, wounded monsters. Carousel waved her magic wand, no longer seductive in lilac but a monstrous demon of magic- the gasoline slick of the Final Revel catching the moonlight and driving the monsters into a Hell of terror and ecstasy.

The dead were piled in heaps. No, not piled, they simply died in piles. The quick monsters had come in such large numbers, their corpses stacked into barricades cairns of torn meat without the touch of a human, or human-ish, hand. This was no longer a battlefield, it was a place of slaughter. We were like some primitive tribe that drove its prey into fenced land to be surrounded and killed. No slaughterhouse here. Only the killing fields.

Punctuating it all was the Mikas. Corporal Mika had a very precise sense of timing. She would keep her squad firing normally until she saw a mass of fast monsters coming. At the last possible second, she would trigger the squad’s ultimate ability, and a storm of bolts would sweep out and wash the earth in blood and gore.

Maybe wash wasn’t the word. It was sure raining down anyhow. Pretty soon, we would run out of enemies.

Or dirt.

I had gotten a taste of the war the people of Gradden March had fought. Just a taste. Tonight was a soup spoon of the true slaughter. I understood it a little, now. It wasn’t just the endless fear of death. It was what all the killing did to you. It was seeing all that meat. All that pain. It didn’t have to be your pain. It could still brutalize you. What was a life worth, in the killing field? What did pain count for?

We really were running out of enemies. No new giants crashed through the woods. There were still a few fast demons running around, but from what I could see, there weren’t any more entering the clearing. It would take a while to clean up… but only a while.

“Versai. Rache and Rikka are killing wall breakers around the back of the Tower. Go help them.” She wasn’t needed here. There were still corpses to tidy up, but the Eighth Wave was done.

Rikka had stashed two crippled monsters in the woods. We finished off the ones Miyuki had skewered. The noise was just too terrible. I found Rikka sitting on the dirt, holding Miyuki’s head in her lap and slowly stroking her head. Miyuki didn’t really understand why, but her senior had asked for this, and she didn’t mind.

A two star and a four star. The difference was that vast. It wasn’t romantic, even I could tell that. It was like a big sister looking after her little sister. Just glad she was safe after a big scare.

Miyuki had failed her Lord, or believed she had, and as a result, went into a sort of exile on Hungry Moon Mountain. A penance, maybe, or some kind of warrior journey to hone her skills. I don’t think she would know how to answer me if I asked.

In all the shows, the Daimyo and the Shoguns were all insecure pricks. What are the odds someone decided to send her on an impossible mission, which she failed, and she was then exiled to the mountain? “To regain my trust, bring me the heart of Hidden Moon Mountain!” Or something like that.

Tapping the bodies was an “almost everybody” job. By now, I had figured out that the amount of rune bones and crafting materials dropped by monsters were pretty minimal compared to perfect clear rewards, quest rewards and the like. Some summons might be luckier than others, but I really couldn’t be bothered to figure out who yielded the best loot. As long as the Blue Roses were kept far away, it was all good.

It was a little different this time around. There were just so many bodies. So, so many. And that wasn’t all.

“Tower Master, I think you need to see this.” Versai came over, lugging some door sized slabs of ugly.

“I wish I wasn’t seeing them. It looks like chunks of monster.”

“You are right, actually.”

“Versai… wait. If the monster is dead, and you touched it, it should just vanish, right?”

“Yeah, leaving behind runed bones and scraps of stuff we can feed into the armory for basic weapons and armor upgrades. You delegated that bit to me, remember?”

I did remember, and firmly blessed my wisdom there. That level of tedious micromanagement was just too much for me.

“Yep. And…” I gestured for her to continue.

She gave me a blank look. I looked hard at the slabs, and she made an “Ahah!” face.

“The Judiths got them off the giants. I’m… not sure what they are, but they seem like crafting materials.”

I grunted and grabbed a hold of one.

Two Headed Essence (Weapon Upgrade Kit)- When applied to weapons, the weapon has a high chance of launching a second, identical attack at the same target.

Simultaneously good and not nearly spicy enough. Doubling up the shot of a single Mika, even Corporal Mika, just wouldn’t be that big a game changer. Same thing with Miyuki- she was already one-shotting most things this side of a giant, and I’m not sure a second attack on the same target would be helpful. Arguably it would be worse, because it would make them die faster and reduce the use-time of the fear effect.

Double artillery had a certain charm to it. And I did have to wonder if Final Revel could be double cast. That would be extra spicy, even if they just overlapped the same spot. I kind of doubted it, though. Carousel’s normal attack was pretty average. Doubling it wouldn’t be a game changer. I really, really needed something that could damage ghosts, and at the end of the day? This wasn’t it.

I blew out a long breath. Time to ring the whole Tower with walls. The good news was that I already had half of the wall built, and by now, the design was pretty well evolved. The bad news was that I didn’t have any more bodies to throw at the monsters. I remember the conversation with Versai, and I hadn’t changed my opinion- this was really bad.

Could I put the double effect on the workers? In real life, hammering something twice when you only meant to hit it once was probably a bad idea. Or, like, spreading cement with a trowel or something. But by video game logic, it probably made the work go twice as fast, right?

“Tower Master?” Versai looked concerned. She was still standing in front of me, holding the other bit of loot.

“Sorry, thinking.”

“You drifted away there. You have been doing that a lot recently.”

“Just thinking.” I rubbed my eyebrows. Did fire work on ghosts? Could you silver your blade, or poison it or something? Dip it in holy oil?

“Hey, the Floating Quarter has alchemists, right? And a church?”

“It… has people that make their living through alchemy, yes, though how many of them are actually journeymen of the Alchemists Guild I can’t say. Perhaps as many as one.”

“Hoho. And the church?”

“There is a chapel, I believe. No actual church, for obvious reasons.”

Are they obvious? I can’t imagine the priest who was whispering in the Marchioness’ ear had anything to do with a slum church. Or maybe a church was more like a cathedral on earth, and they just used the same words?

“Any holy oil?”

“Holy oil? Like… for massages or something?” She was now officially giving me a look.

“I’m trying to figure out if there is anything we can make in Gradden March that I can apply to the weapons to make them kill the hungry ghosts. Which, I’m thinking, is magic damage, something that specifically targets ethereal or ghosts, holy damage, or maybe fire. Magic fire would be better.”

“Oh. Well. We didn’t really fight ghosts in Gradden March. Just monsters.” She shrugged.

“Yeah, I figured.” It was too much to hope for.

“And other humans, of course. If “Ethereal” means “Not Physical” then we can probably source some ointments for that. Assassins used it all the time. Way too many people wearing armor these days, apparently.”

“You have an ointment-”

“Slum illegal alchemists can probably make an ointment-” She corrected me.

“That turns a weapon’s attacks ethereal.”

“I think so? You would have to check and see if we are talking about the same thing.”

“And you never mentioned this, why?” I wasn’t tearing my hair out. It was far too strongly attached.

“You never asked. Tower Master.”