I informed all of my monsters, and then I ran all the way to the main door to have a peek outside. The mist was gone.

The tower was now located at the center of some big settlement. Red walls encircled the place. I supposed they were the same ones I had seen while meeting Sam.

A great number of players and elves were marching for the tower. The leading ones were carrying a large crate.

It was an open coffin, containing a corpse.

A rather bloodied corpse.

The dead elf king.

“What happened to him?” I asked Pook, who had come to the door with me. Pook had to know about this. Afterall, he was the one in the background pulling the strings of the quest.

“The elf king has sacrificed himself,” Pook said. “I hadn’t expected him to go that far. He did it consumed by love for the players. It was part of a ritual aimed at elevating the situation of the players. I must tell you that this has made the players powerful. You must play the cards well, or before you know it the great tower of Oddity that you helped build will fall to the players. Twenty Four hours you must stand strong. Twenty four hours you must stare the enemy in the eye without flinching. One moment of weakness, a single mistake and you can bid goodbye to your dreams.”

I dashed back in, hell bent on following my strategies to the letter. It was action time.

With Fono and some of the stone giants, I went to an unsuspecting place where the giants posed to be ordinary boulders. I hid inside Fono, and prayed everything would work out in our favor.

I could still get any information I wanted just by contacting my monsters through the mind. So despite being in darkness, I still had my countless eyes and ears open.

Goosebumps covered my skin. Twenty four hours. These were going to be the longest twenty four hours of my life.

***

The players infiltrated the tower. I had instructed the intermediate sized monsters to attack defensively, not ignoring their own safety

I got to know from the Mantures that the players had begun searching for the door.

I heard feet rushing in the neighborhood. The players were passing the disguised stone giants, thankfully not realizing what they really were.

My followers were putting their best to locate the door beforehand, so that they could protect it from the players.

Of course, even if they were able to find the door, they would have to defend it in a manner that would not give away the whereabouts to the players.

“This really is an uncomfortable position to be in,” Fono mumbled. He was on the ground on all fours, and I understood his discomfort, but I hushed him.

“Keep quiet, they’ll hear you!”

Fono’s voice rumbled even when he spoke in an undertone.

“Nobody is close to us right now,” Fono said. “I can’t see any—”

“Shh! You can only see what’s in front of you, not behind,” I admonished. “And don’t keep peeking with your eyes. Someone will spot eyes on a boulder and come to investigate. And if there is something really important that you want to tell me, say it through your mind.”

Fono ceased his complaints, thankfully.

But then a dispute broke out between Bono and Bui. They were the ‘boulder’ right next to us, only a few meters away.

“Shut up, you two,” I told them internally. “This is an order.”

I was the one who had got them together. Did all relationships go downhill after a few initial days of bliss?

The duo had been attracted to each other as they belonged to opposite sexes. But now Bono was barely a male anymore–all he had was his head.

The hunt for the door to the next level continued. The players and their helpers were earnestly searching, well aware of the time limit.

There had been a few casualties on both sides, as per reports from mantures.

I suppressed my desire to help the monsters. I had regained the ability to turn into any evilun. But it cost mana. Precious mana that I could require in other circumstances.

A fight began not far away from where the stone giants and I lay concealed.

The monsters were trying to chase the players away from the spot since I was hidden there, but the players refused to budge an inch. They wanted to scour the site for the door.

They were so close I didn’t need the telepathic reports from monsters, because I could hear explosions and cries of pain with my own ears.

A particularly loud blast rocked the place, perhaps occurring at arm’s reach from Fono so that I could feel the change of air pressure in my lungs.

“I am hit!” Bui cried in my mind. “I-I will try to run away and distract them.”

I heard Bui clamber up, no longer pretending to be a rock.

“Bono is unconscious,” Bui sobbed. “I am having revenge!”

Dramatic sounds followed. I imagined Bui launching herself at the players. Squeals of agony. Was she ripping them apart? A throaty groan from Bui. The attackers were retaliating with their own spells.

And then—

BAM!

Fono hollered as he was forcefully thrown away from me.

Some powerful spell had hit him. I was quite exposed now, standing in the middle of a raging battle.

A distance away Bui was bleeding. She had slipped on a pool of blood, most of which belonged to players.

I surmised what had happened:

A wizard had thrown a spell at Bui and she had jumped away and the spell had instead gone on to hit Fono, who currently writhed on the ground.

Next to all the blood on the ground, health vials were scattered. Players had tried to take a gulp from the health vials and save their lives, but death from Bui had come too quickly.

I realized a short skinny thief was frowning hard at me.

He was checking my stats. His jaws dropped.

“Hey, so it’s you!”

He clapped his hands rapidly to get the attention of his friends. “Look! That’s their king, we need to get him–!”

Bui cut him short. She scrambled to the thief, caught him by the waist and smacked him to death, adding to the gory pool.

It was a bad sight. My stomach lurched, even though I knew all that was fake virtual blood. I was about to puke.

Oops! No time for a luxury like throwing up. I was in the wizard’s attention, thanks to the late thief.

He jabbed his hand in my direction, mumbling complex words under his breath. He shot his curse. I activated my ability.