Assaults on castles were difficult.

That was the whole point behind fortifications, after all.

Defending them was easier than taking them.

I wasn’t even entirely certain I wanted to take the castle.

Only motivation behind attempting to do so was to free my monsters, my girls, still held within what the system called ‘sealing’, the perpetrator of which hid behind the fort’s walls.

Horse rider had long disappeared from my sight, likely warning the humans living within, informing the local authorities about our presence, while my furry horde combed through the woods or prowled the area ahead and around scouting for dangers.

I was worried there were more of those black robbed assassins which we barely defended against with our numbers.

Miwah, Brave, Tama, Narita and Kuma, all four stood here with me, with their smaller kin spreading out to cover more ground, and snoop out more humans that might sneak in on us.

Our most obvious, if not the only advantage, was sheer attrition when we overwhelmed the enemy in the open. Strikes from shadows, especially from those humans with nearly supernatural fighting skills, were a genuine threat.

I expected another assault, another ambush, but none came, not yet, and my ‘Purifiers’ didn’t have to torch the surroundings to flush out the hiding enemies, either. Yet.

For a moment, I thought about my situation. It was a strange feeling, that unspoken expectations placed upon me, deciding on what I wouldn’t imagine to really make actual choices about attack and defence, in a constant cycle of violence.

The benefit of the loyal followers was a valuable one indeed, but it didn’t compensate for all the discomfort and stress it brought, with no end in sight. Escape from the stress in one life to the stress in another wasn’t escape at all, especially with no choice on my side. It brought me a good deal of anger and angst, almost as if the subconscious nudging that drove the aggressive towards the ‘caster’ wasn’t enough.

Miwah protectively looped her hands around me, and I leaned towards her. She didn’t mind at all.

I took a deep breath and forced myself back to reality.

“If we spread in this direction….” I said, pointing somewhere to our right, “We would reach the river, and we would cut the route through the fields and woods to the village, right?”

We stood on the small hill that obscured the field of view from the village on the castle, or from the castle to the village. In front of us were mostly fields, meadows, or small groupings of trees, interrupted by occasional scattered huts that likely belonged to the local farmers.

It felt calm and silent, peaceful - abandoned.

I, however, doubted all those homes were abandoned completely.

While it made sense for them to do so, to hide from monsters, though at this moment I was paradoxically more worried about them harming my monsters than the other way around.

I forced myself to think logically; it was practically impossible to approach the fortification without being spotted. Rushing the walls blindly as a single mob was stupid, and most likely pointless. My introspection on the matter was, however, quickly interrupted by a readily available report from ‘Alpha’

“Yes, Master. We haven't run into more humans yet, at least between us and the river to your right. They are hiding.” Brave confirmed, staring at the horizon, likely directing the ‘Eviscerators’ on their scouting duties. She didn’t gesture towards the place she meant, but I understood what she was referring to.

Miwah, instead, remained more focused on emotional support. I was grateful for that as well.

“Scatter a few girls in good hiding places from where they can observe their surroundings and warn us.” I ordered, hesitantly, and mused: “A few Eviscerators, or Purifiers if they can resist making fire, or Corruptors would do too.”

“Yes-yes, Master.” Answered Narita, every single bit being the commander I was not. She was always the least affectionate one, and the most practical.

“Include Defilers too.” I added, reminding myself they worked the best if they combined their power. The rodent-like monsters weren’t the most numerous, but their abilities to heal were beyond useful.

“Yes-yes, Master.” The rat-woman confirmed.

“Corruptors can make their own cover if they are careful and let us know…” I mused, then realising I have to way of interpreting their output I let out a resigned sigh, adding: “It won’t work, I need Mai to speak for them. Nevermind. They will go in a team of four, one of each kind, so at least one of you can inform you of any situation.”

My intention was to form only a handful of those small squads that would serve as forward scouts and the early warning system, relying on their ability to communicate instantly over long distances, then dispatch the larger force wherever was needed. Whether it was a viable strategy, that remained to be seen.

Only Kuma and her kin wouldn’t get involved. They weren’t the sneaky types, with even smaller ursine monsters still towering over me, and likely, through most ordinary humans too, making them too easy to be spotted.

“We can have Mai here tonight.” Miwah offered, “I can only go to the places I’ve seen.”

“Thank you.” I said, without thinking much of it, instead focusing on the fact of how to handle the siege. Of course, the first thing that came to mind were catapults, which I would struggle to build as I very least required timber, rope, gears and all the tools I didn’t have.

I had neither of those materials.

Siege, foremost, meant encircling.

“What’s through here?” I asked, pointing in a direction which was still obscured by trees, as I assumed that trek in that direction would take us through the forest, around the fort, emerging on their other flank, which wasn’t blocked by water.

Essentially, I assumed the river formed a sort of wedge of land limiting the access to the fortified location from the specific direction and we, as attackers, would have to cover it entirely. Holding a village, currently somewhere behind us, didn’t mean we controlled the area.

A hint of smoke rising above the treeline gave me a hint that I wouldn’t like the answer to my query.

“Another hamlet, Master..” was the answer from Brave, entirely predictable: “I think they are processing wood there.”

“A sawmill?” I asked automatically, looking around.

“Yes, Master.” Brave answered, with her ‘Eviscerators’ being my eyes and ears in the field.

I didn’t know why there was another settlement dedicated to woodworks in the proximity to the one we had already passed through. They would have easily had their own sawyer and carpenter too, especially if they were both in the forest's proximity, but if their sawmill was water-wheel powered, it made sense. I was hardly an expert in that, but I assumed not all parts of the river would be suitable.

Ultimately, my pondering didn’t matter. Moving there would mean the attack on yet another village, causing more deaths, and possibly more casualties on our side as even more exotic abilities locals may possess would enter the equation.

“Can we be certain there isn’t another caster that can seal away my girls out there?” I said, carefully.

“We didn’t sense anyone, Master.” Brave confirmed.

I looked at her, then at the barrier of trees, and then, the fortress. There, in the distance, laid the source of one anxiety, a power that still held fifteen of my monsters - my girls - captive, protected by all that stone masonry and the whatever armed guards the local authorities could muster.

It made me scowl.

Laying siege with my level of experience promised to be a nightmare. If superhumans like the brute in the temple or the assassins roamed the forest, just what would the first actual military fortification I came across hold? Winning would just put a bigger target on our backs and going by the plethora of banners, the tatters of which now adorned my ‘guard’, there was definite interest in the area.

I regretted the fact there wasn’t a peaceful resolution to all of this, but it seemed that the brute force was the most, if not only, reliable method to achieve anything in those strange, and overly hostile lands. So, fighting it was.

Only, did I actually have to take the castle? All I needed was for a single one of its inhabitants to die.

“Please prepare a group we can send there, but don’t attack them yet.” I decided and waved away the whole affair by staring downhill at the scenery in the distance. “I think I’ve seen enough.”

My priority was the so-called ‘caster’ with her ‘sealing’.

I freed myself from the supportive embrace of my Miwah and started my way back to the village, where the rest of my horde still lingered, rampaging through its houses. My little, lizard-like monsters were already giving it their personal, customising touch, while the pyromaniacal ‘Purifiers’ already gathered material for a fire. Since there were more of us than there were houses, some would camp outside.

Then I paused and looked at Tama, my fiery vixen who always stayed close, loyal as she was flirty and, more importantly, for our current situation, perfectly capable of throwing fireballs from a distance.

She corrected the dress she had to put back on since she was, once again, reborn, after the experience, in a slightly teasing way, and looked back.

“Tama.” I said, “Could you please get me volunteers who would risk being sealed away?”

I think Tama shivered at that.

There wasn’t a single doubt that the experience was unpleasant to them, which only enforced my convention that disposing of the person behind it was the good way of repaying them for all the companionship and protection they provided. However, despite everything, she still answered with the usual, affirmative:

“Yes, Master.”

I continued back to the village.

It didn’t take long before I had several especially ecstatic volunteers, a good deal of which were the ‘Purifiers’ whose personality was by far the most distinctive, not to mention they were the kind with abilities especially suited for the job

A few vulpine ones were most keen for the attention, though others came out as well, not less excited than the former. In fact, an entire furry menagerie was there, but at this moment, I only required a daring few. A special unit of sorts.

I could only hope that this approach would endanger fewer of them than the full scale assault would.

“Girls.” I announced, speaking directly to them, and not to the ‘Alphas’ on my side: “I need a few - and only a few - Purifiers to sneak near the castle, use houses, trees, grass or fields as a cover, and try if they can spot the person who did the ‘sealing’ on its battlements. Then blast her.”

General idea was that the woman with its rich robes and the oppressive aura wouldn’t be difficult to spot. Still, I gestured with my hands to stress the idea behind my plan, and though it would seem strange to the outside view, I was certain they got it, as I both saw the comprehension in their eyes, and the positive vibe through the still incomprehensible feedback shared by my power.

“For Master!”

“Perhaps it would be best to wait until the evening, but then I am uncertain if someone important would hold the watch somewhere where you can hit her.” I said, “Either way, it’s a hit and run. I don’t want to lose any of you. ”

“For Master!” They acknowledged, all with their girlish voices.

“If you get sealed, we won’t stop trying to free you.” I added, as my final assurance. Even if the whole impact was technically only temporary, a previous reaction from my canine monsters that fell victim to it, along with Tama's nervousness, suggested it was more threatening to them than the death would.

“I am so glad to have you.” I said, not entirely sure if it was the shaky encouragement after growing unsure what to say, or the expression of my own feelings on the matter.

When they turned overly affectionate, I was more than happy to give the small but brave foxy monsters a hug, holding each of them close for a while, each of them fluffy and warm, and very glad to be there.

They absolutely loved it, and I didn’t mind that a few others joined in at the moment.

Luckily for me, not all thousand of them wanted their share of personal attention at that moment, at least if I wanted to take action in the next couple of days, but I could give the daring few their farewells before the task.

And with the last cry of the chosen few, or the courageous ones, left, while the rest resumed their duties, or rather the frantic, inexplicably productive chaos that was their original means of operations.

The ‘Alphas’, as always, stayed on my side, with the closest of them being, of course, Miwah and Tama. I, as per growing habit, leaned towards my werewolf.

However, among the few other monsters which dutifully guard me, all nine of the ‘Ravagers’ along with their leader, Kuma, absolutely towered. Even with their bored expressions, they didn’t walk away to doze off somewhere, and stood on guard, roughly in a circle. They were my wall of sorts, though of fur, muscle and flesh rather than stone.

This association served as a sort of reminder that I couldn’t rely on the single bolt of fire to resolve the entire issue, and might be eventually forced to commit to a more conventional assault, making all my monsters an easy target for archers.

Only Kuma had any sort of armour, probably a single suit of the typical scale hauberk that fit her truly massive frame, likely fit for the giant among humans, though the small, normally overlapping pieces of metal showed traces of being reshaped by the bear monster’s power.

The rest were resigned to outstretched outfits of cloth, which provided no real protection against piercing weapons.

I looked around.

It was doubtful there was enough metal in this village that, polled together, would make a full plate of armour, and what was under the assumption Kuma had this level of precision with her metal-shaping ability.

However, there was something else I could do in order to prepare for the future battle, and it didn’t require creating an equivalent to a fully armed knight.

“Kuma?” I asked.

“Master?” the bear-like monster replied, sounding tired, however showing no actual sign of exhaustion.

“How many shields do you think we have?” It was a rhetorical question of sorts while I was submerged in thoughts as I formed the alternative plan should the circumstances force me to take a more aggressive stance.

“Only a couple here.” She said, without even checking. I remembered there certainly were a few, however they were a rare occurrence among the soldiers I encountered so far. This didn’t mean that the locals eschewed the protection a shield would provide to infantrymen, as aggressive as the natives were none of them would be a representative of their total armed forces.

“Do you think we can cobble together shields and wooden barriers we can carry that can stop arrows?” I asked, once again scanning the village for the potential materials we could use.

I imagined a barrier or roofed structure my monsters could carry while advancing towards the wall, protecting themselves from the hail of arrows, and the battering ram to break through the gates, or even the walls.

While the battering ram was nothing more than a heavy log, a mobile cover would require some work.

Creative control of plants was out of the question unless, or until, I got Mai here, and brute force might be the only way forward.

“Yes-yes, easy. Planks and hide. Ropes, if nails aren’t an option.” Narita said, energetically, as always. She visibly understood what I had in mind, easing me away from the necessity of explaining it.

Though the material was not rare in our environment, significantly easier to obtain than the sheer amount of metal to abuse the magical abilities my monsters had, cutting the wood to planks wasn’t exactly easy or fast, and would at very least require dedicated workers with saws and axes.

Which brought me back to the idea of visiting the other settlement I was told about, and pushing this conflict even further.

And with it came the necessity of having the muscles that would do all the heavy lifting, and carry the weight of combat in both metaphorical and the literal way, capable of breaking through the castle gates if it came to it.

Even with Miwah, and Brave being taller than me, and likely stronger as well, they weren’t ones for the job.

As much as I despised the idea of using the bear-like ‘Ravagers’ as living shields, they were the defenders and the muscle of our group.

I approached one of my bear-like followers and looked up.

“Master?” she called out. For some reason, all ‘Ravagers’ sounded sleepy, regardless of their actual energy, perhaps as a strange quirk of their personalities.

The nameless anthropomorphic bear kneeled to get in a comfortable position so our eyes could meet. Though she was, in a way, the smaller version of Kuma, the word didn’t serve her justice. All of her kin were large, plump, and absolutely bigger than an adult human.

Despite how exhausted her voice sounded, her eyes didn’t reflect on it. I put my hand on her shoulder.

She wouldn’t be nameless for much longer, as I opted for abusing the only mechanic I was certain it worked. It was almost criminally easy, but I was certain there was a cost to pay somewhere down the line. I still did it, anyway.

“I shall name you… Natasha.” I said.

The usual bland notification, as well as the outburst of the red fog forming the newest additions to our horde, came out immediately.

Unit named! Natasha, The Named Ravager

Skill “Slayer of Champions lvl. 4” gained.

Our numbers were about to go out of control once more.