Lucy was worried. She couldn't help it. Even if her mental issues had turned from "entirely bad" to "bad with some positive elements" since she became capable of using Psy, that didn't mean they disappeared.

Sure, she was suppressing her anxiety with her self-hypnosis, but even that wasn't an almighty technique. Far from it, the more time went by, the less effective it became. Additionally, hypnosis had one glaring weakness. You had to trust the caster for it to properly work. Ironically, she was using self-hypnosis exactly because she couldn't trust herself.

The reason her anxiety was starting to overcome the threshold of her hypnosis wasn't because of the demons. Rather the opposite. It was the absence of demons over the entirety of the day.

Sure, a few hours earlier, twenty-some demons had appeared on the forest side of the fort and caused chaos. Even from her position, she had been able to hear the screams and noise of the fight. But for the rest of the day, nothing happened, despite the commander predicting that they would have to fight about 150 to 200 demons.

That didn't mean, however, that those demons wouldn't come anymore. Rather, the opposite was true. Instead of a few at a time, the chances of all of them arriving together increased every minute. And to add insult to injury, there were maybe ten minutes of sunlight left.

Two hours ago, several smaller groups had already been dispatched to build several large bonfires around the fort, and now the first got set alight so that it would go at full force once the last light was gone.

At that moment, a call came that sent her anxiety through the roof.

"Incoming! It's a stampede!"

Lucy's hands started to tremble as the last vestiges of her technique got overwhelmed by her anxiety. It was good timing. Because the more scared she was, the better she would be able to do her job.

It was something the Commander had asked her to do after she had heard about what Lucy did.

In the case of a stampede, it was Lucy's job to use her empathic abilities to shock the first row of monsters. If it went well, the first row would fall and bring the later monsters to a very abrupt and painful stop. If it didn't the later monsters would overrun the first row and just continue on. But even in that case, Lucy would have taken out several monsters without any risk.

Despite being scared, Lucy didn't freeze up. She quickly made her way to the top of the wall and looked out into the plains. She still couldn't see the enemy. Probably because it was already getting dark, but it still meant that she had a certain amount of time before she had to act.

Instead, she looked out for the source of the call. Despite the overall chaos the call had caused on the wall, as everyone got ready, Lucy quickly found the origin.

________________________________________

Sophia Klein was at her wit's end. She just couldn't go on anymore.

Half a year ago, she had been a normal person, just like everyone else. Boring job, boring friends, a boring life. Boring, but happy nonetheless.

Then, they were gone. Her job, her friends, her life. Sure, she had been a bit excited when one of her favorite stories practically became reality, especially when she found out she was one of the few to start out with a Tier two Class.

But reality quickly reared its ugly head. Her first wave, followed by a pointless search for her family, and finally, she ended up here. Commander of the creatively named Dire-fort and responsible for the lives of over two hundred people.

It was a position she had never asked for. But still something only she could do. She had said so in her speech, that she wasn't doing it because she was qualified, and that was the truth. She had also said, that she at least was the least unqualified. That had been a lie.

There were people more suited for the job. She was sure of it. There were two reasons, however, why it was still her who took on this role.

Firstly, everyone else wanted to do it just as little as she did. Secondly, she was the only one strong enough to keep people under control.

She was still surprised every time she thought about, just how powerful she had become. Even after half a year that was one thing that still didn't feel quite real to her.

It was, while she was busy with her own thoughts, that the call came.

"Incoming! It's a stampede!"

There had been a lot of things she had been worried about, things she knew she could have done better but didn't know how, or problems that just completely blindsided her where she had to improvise solutions. But this was something she had accounted for.

She quickly turned to the woman she had kept close the entire day: "Tell your sister to send over twenty people from the other side and keep another thirty ready in case we need even more."

The twins were one of two strategically important pieces that had appeared with the wave. They were both Psy users and had developed the ability to communicate over rather long distances. Another piece was Lucy, who she hoped was already on her way to deal with the stampede.

Of course, there were quite a few individuals who were a lot stronger than them. But that would change under the right conditions.

The telepath nodded at her. The message had been sent.

Now, she had to find whoever gave the warning, and hopefully, she would be able to get more information before the horde of monsters was already onto them.

Only half a minute later, she realized that that wouldn't be the case. She could already hear the thundering hooves of the no doubt oversized monsters coming.

She quickly changed course and made her way to the top of the wall. Ready to intercept anything that was too powerful for others to deal with.

Once at the top, it only took her a moment until she found the lonely figure of a girl standing a few meters in front of the trench the Hero had dug. Lucy. Sophia could only apologize to the girl in her mind for asking her to do something that dangerous.