I wanted to ask what was happening.

Problem was, I knew what was going on - we were, once again, under attack. There was no point in asking why, as neither I, nor my companion truly understood what the locals wanted, or how they thought.

They just insisted to continue fighting, leaving us without a single day of respite, let alone the time to figure out how to communicate meaningfully.

It irritated me.

I felt like the events of the past days were just repeating themselves, again and again, and it was making me feel helpless, turning my attempts into a meaningless daily grind doomed to fail at its very inception.

How many battles would have to be fought before I even managed to gain even a very basic grasp of the local language?

It wasn’t the first time I was interrupted by sudden, unexpected attacks, and considering the vicious trend of the past four days, it wouldn’t be the last either.

The tendency of this happening when I least expected it was disconcerting.

A few more monsters returned from death, reformed by the ruby mist just as I contemplated the futility of it all almost as if it was meant to remind me I was supposed to take an active part in combating all of this, yet I still did nothing.

Passivity was so far my default approach to such a situation, relying on my monsters' judgement regarding the combat. The ‘Alphas’ seemed to know what they were doing and the best a clueless leader could do was to ruin as little as possible.

A fine excuse for not helping more, I came to think amidst growing frustration with not only the situation but also myself. As much as I wanted humans to stop, I had no wisdom or majestic plan to impart to my companions.

Then a couple more appeared, upsetting me even more.

The anger within me rose as more and more of my girls were slain in the battle I didn’t see, making me reconsider my approach.

“How are you handling the battle?” I asked, noticing how Miwah, Tama, Helmy, and Mai spaced out in an attempt to coordinate the effort remotely, as they often did, a behaviour I already learned to recognise.

“We will keep you safe, Master,” Miwah assured me, though I didn’t really experience any fear at that moment, only confusion, and concern for my companions sacrificing themselves.

Though the atmosphere in the village was tense, as every last member of the furry horde probably sensed what was happening, and stayed on high alert for this very reason, the fighting happened elsewhere without me being able to tell what was happening.

A few more formed, but I still tried to convince myself to trust their instincts in the field they had more experience than I did, not to mention that their telepathy made their coordination much better than any humans would manage.

My reluctance, however, had its limits.

Despite their undeniable, resurrection-based immortality, I hated losing them, even temporarily. Maybe it was the work of the feedback I received from them occasionally or merely a trauma of seeing them bleed and hurt before they disintegrated to be reborn anew, but regardless of the cause, it was always something that upset me greatly almost every time it happened.

They might not die, but would, without a doubt, suffer, and I didn’t want them to.

“Tell me.” I said, finally: “I can’t see what you are seeing.”

“Our camp back in the hills is under attack, Master,” Tama reported. I didn’t want to disturb their obvious effort by demanding answers senselessly when they had greater concerns to address, and the necessity for them to fill me in on the events could have cost us the victory, but my desire for a clear vision of what to direct my irritation at won out.

I still nodded, a gesture no one would pay attention to. It made sense – it was far enough for me not to see or hear the fighting

There were too few ‘Purifiers’ respawned, then a handful of ‘Eviscerators’, a ‘Defiler’ even, but far too many agitated, hissing ‘Corruptors’ vying for attention with their cries. There weren’t many places they could come from. Outside our current spot, our old place in the hills was the only encampment holding significant numbers, making me feel a considerable amount of guilt for leaving them vulnerable.

They were proving to be less combat oriented than their cousins if their reaction was any indicator. I somehow knew how they felt.

Forced to have faith in the organisation abilities of my ‘Alphas’ I decided to pay attention to the returnees instead, trying to calm them down by paying them the attention they demanded. It wouldn’t harm to give a few head pats and hugs to the little ones as their larger kin managed the battle.

My companions were the both first and the last line of defence against the overly hostile world and seemed appropriate to show appreciation for the effort they made, even more so when I considered they were an undying stream of consciousness in endlessly reforming bodies. Each of them would remember I valued them.

So I did.

The little scaly girls weren’t taking this nearly as well as their cousins were and swarmed me for affirmation.

Initially, I decided to fight my own discomfort by addressing theirs.

There was this gnawing feeling that demanded more, and soon the hesitancy proved to be a mistake.

It wasn’t even an entire minute, and there were more than twenty cute, but obviously distressed little reptilians, all upset, demanding my attention, making me finally step up.

I glanced at Mai and immediately understood the reason for this. Their ‘Alpha’ wasn’t handling it well.

The greater lizard girl gazed somewhere on the horizon, blinking furiously, as a couple more of her kin materialised from the red fog while she started to panic, making it painfully obvious she wasn’t in control of the situation, and struggled to keep up with the more level minded approach Tama and Miwah had.

Perhaps it was foolish to assume they all possessed the same attitude and ferociousness.

Two foxy ‘Purifiers’ appeared, and the ‘Eviscerator’.

“Tama? Helmy? Miwah?” I said, demanding answers.

“That was the last of my sisters in the hills, Master!” Helmy growled, trying to fulfil her role as the coordinator, and ultimately failing as most of her kind were tied elsewhere. Her report, however, was echoed by Tama trying to do the same thing, with the voice of the two blurring together.

They were more collected than their scaly cousin was, yet without their respective smaller version present they were obviously unable to contribute to the effort as much.

“Eviscerators?” I queried for status with greater urgency.

“They slew the last of ours, too, Master!” Miwah said, looking around almost as if she was trying to find something, and after a split-second consideration, she seemed to head out somewhere. It was not towards the wood but towards one of the village houses drowning in the shade of the twisted plants.

“No, Miwah. No teleporting reinforcements!” I stopped her immediately, as I figured out what she planned to do.

Aware that Miwah’s newfound ability to move through the darkened places exhausted her greatly, leaving her weakened and unable to fight. She would have to rely on a ‘Defiler’ helper to keep going.

One which she would have to drag through the shadows with her, and hope that the trip wouldn’t disable whoever she was carrying, making it a pointless sacrifice atop of the ones they already made, while employing the life-energy drain on the large scale would destroy the vegetation creating the shade she required to return.

As impressive as newfound Miwah’s ability was, it wasn’t a dedicated power for long-distance transportation, and shouldn’t be used as one by default considering the risks it involved. Perhaps I would figure out the optimal use of it, in time, but now wasn’t the time or place to learn such a thing.

“Yes, Master.” She reacted immediately.

I scanned my surroundings, with many of my furry menagerie already alert, frozen, sniffing the air to detect dangers in the vicinity. They weren’t any, at least it didn’t seem so, though they were already diverting the more little ones towards the fight, pooling and then marching on voiceless cues.

Narita was away, as it was she who dragged our scared prisoner back once the respawning cycle began. At the same time, Kuma directed her lookalikes, likely to the battle, while many others hesitated as they kept the protective circle around me.

Tama and Miwah would likely just push themselves close, but there were too many other monsters on me at the moment due to the excessive numbers of the small ones, especially of the reptilian kind.

“Can Mai handle it on her own?” I asked.

It was a dumb question.

It was evident that, whoever the enemies were, they were mowing down the ‘Corruptors’ left and right, much to my companion’s distress. Whatever tactics the little lizards used were proving to be ineffective considering there weren’t any notifications of rising levels that would signal our triumph and demise of our opponents.

Respawning didn’t stop, with another couple of monsters appearing.

There had to be fifty of them by now!

“Mai?” I called out, literally swimming in the scaly mob of ‘Corruptors’.

It wasn’t working.

I was certain I left about a hundred of the ‘Corruptors’ behind in our improvised dwelling out there, and whoever or whatever was attacking took down the large portion of them before they could retaliate effectively.

More returned, outpacing my ability to count them.

They were paying the cost for my hesitation.

We were losing out there.

“Mai?”

She didn’t reply.

“Mai!” I yelled out, “Retreat! Tell them to run, and to scatter in the forest!”

This time, Mai replied, her shaking voice showing embarrassment rather than fear, while her sight was still fixated on the undefined point on the horizon signalling she maintained the connection with her smaller kin in the distance.

“Yes, my Master. I wasn’t able to stop them. I am sorry!” She said, and even her immediate action didn’t prevent a few more of her smaller lookalikes to appear, as they likely perished trying to flee on my order.

I didn’t like this a single bit.

“We couldn’t do anything at all?” I asked.

“We can send more, Master,” Helmy argued to prove her new position as the commander, and I was certain they would be able to figure out the working tactics as they always did, I wasn’t willing to take this risk.

“Not now,” I replied. I hated this approach, but the fact that more than seventy ‘Corruptors’ died in the fight signalled that this enemy was either well prepared or very powerful, requiring a more clever plan, or at the very least overwhelming force.

Despite my initial attempts to move the looted goods, and the money we found, around, there wasn’t anything of value out there.

Gold and silver coins were essentially worthless without the option to trade them for the things we needed, as valuable they might be to the natives I could easily leave them for attackers without much of an impact. The portion of the food supplies sent that way was of greater importance, but even that wasn’t a pressing issue considering that the other village would still have a store of their own, and the grow-drain magical solution would still work in emergencies.

It wasn’t about the material possessions though, it was about safety.

There wasn’t any guarantee we wouldn’t end up with an army at our doorstep.

“Tell the surviving girls to make the forest as hostile to humans as possible, and to keep running away if the enemy comes close.” I ordered, “Actually, make those locally present to do the same.”

Hopefully, it would slow them down, or inflict some losses, while we’d have more time to organise defence tailored to the new threats we were facing. I looked at Tama, Miwah, and even Helmy, and they didn’t seem to dispute this idea, almost like they understood what I was thinking. Only Mai replied in words this time:

“Yes, we will, my Master.”

I scanned my surroundings again.

My heart pounded, however, it didn’t seem that there was any battle in our immediate vicinity, though there was no guarantee there wouldn’t be one anytime soon.

There was no way of telling if the enemies had some faster way to traverse the land through power I didn’t yet see, but considering the fact we weren’t around for too long it was likely they were.

As ignorant as I was about the tactics of the era, let alone one fueled by supernatural powers, I couldn’t quite help myself but think this was meant to be a hammer to drive us against the anvil that was the fortress we aimed to besiege. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t know, it was the fact.

I briefly glanced at both Tama and Miwah, and our eyes met, showing the understanding of my unspoken reasoning I wasn’t quite able to understand.

They wouldn’t send more of their smaller kin forward, putting their faith in me to provide a better strategy to address the looming threats.

However, before I decided to speak out, I decided to query the system.

“Overview.”

The screen came up instantly as I absentmindedly patted a few new arrivals still lurking nearby, at least a few of those ‘Alphas’ didn’t hush away already. My focus, however, was on the window.

The Master

Skills

Mates

Miwah, The Bride of Shadows

Tama, The Bride of Flames

Units (Active)

Helmy, The Purifier Alpha

Brave, The Eviscerator Alpha

Narita, The Defiler Alpha

Mai, The Corruptor Alpha

Kuma, The Ravager Alpha

332 * Purifiers

27 * Named Purifiers

315 * Eviscerators

40* Named Eviscerators

113 * Defilers

8* Named Defilers

341* Corruptors

14* Named Corruptors

29* Ravagers

5* Named Ravagers

Units (In queue)

Sealed (per caster)

15* Eviscerators

6* Purifiers

3* Purifiers

1* Purifier

It wasn’t all that helpful.

On the positive side, not even a single monster was ‘sealed’ in this encounter.

There wasn’t even the single one in the queue.

It left us with a sizable force, but at the same time our numbers were spread thin to encircle the castle and we were facing possibly the entire army considering how bad the fight went.

I waved the screen away once again.

“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked the question that should have been asked earlier but didn’t.

“Master. Humans appeared after Helmy and her small group withdrew from the advanced post closer to their village. We found them when they were already upon our camp” Tama summarised, with the other ‘Purifier’ in question looking quite ashamed.

The explanation made me check my surroundings before I realised something: there certainly had to be settlements on the other side of the forest. After all, roads usually led somewhere, but initially, I had no reason to assume that there would be two large population centres near each other that would each produce a large number of soldiers. Even in mediaeval times, and after, the density of the population used to be low, and we already knew where the local lord’s fort was.

“How many humans?” I asked, once again looking around, imagining a large army. Losses might not be permanent for us - not even a single ‘sealing’ occurred - but they were quite heavy, especially with how short the fight was. It implied looming danger, a threat of being overrun by numbers so massive than our own until our ability to replace losses wouldn’t be able to keep up against the onslaught.

“Five, my Master,” Mai admitted, blinking nervously.

“Five?”

It wasn’t quite on the scale I was imagining, not even remotely, but it didn’t lessen the danger to us by any margin.

“Yes, Master.”

It was hard to believe that merely five humans were capable of effortlessly combating the entire host of my monsters, however, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities as I did encounter locals with extraordinary, almost slightly super-human capabilities already, even in this relatively small area we operated in.

We had no other means to fight them than overwhelm them with the sheer number - or I could try to rely on the combined force of even more specialised fighters.

I noticed Narita returning. Her ability would be useful, however, the far bulkier ‘Ravagers’ were not around - and they were the ‘Slayers of Champions’ as the associated skill name implied.

I could see one, possibly two of them, but the main representative of my ursine companions was nowhere to be seen

“Where is Kuma?” I asked, relying on the fact they might be able to locate each other, without the necessity for me to strain the already gimmicky power that wasn’t entirely that good in the overall management. Not to mention it produced quite a headache in the process, better saved for time of greater need.

“Heading uphill to face the enemy.” Tama replied, “She wants to shield us as you planned for her.”

It was strange, as I wasn’t entirely certain I ever expressed this purpose for her aloud in front of her, but I had no time to ponder what I did or didn’t say as there were more pressing, considerably deadlier problems ahead.

While the system loved the dramatic, sinister naming, there was no reason to assume she was the hard counter against a couple of warriors whose physical abilities greatly exceeded the limits of ordinary humans.

It was possible they could win alone, easily even, but it was in no way guaranteed as my understanding was based on assumptions and implications, not actual experiences, and I couldn’t afford to take the risk. The guilt I felt for my inaction prevented me from taking yet another gamble.

“No. Call her back.” I decided, and before they had the chance to question my nearly non-existing plan: “We will face them here.”

“Here, my Master?” Mai wondered, while the others simply acknowledged my order with the more usual response.

“Open field?” I said, “Humans armies do battle in open fields?”

I investigated my surroundings - a village or the fields surrounding might be a more suitable battlefield than the forest would be, with its unobstructed view and flat terrain, which I felt was something that was done historically.

However, warfare also relied on fortification as much as it did on terrain, and we used to hold a tight passage through the ravine, an excellent place for the ambush, a natural chokepoint.

It failed.

Then, even the forest could be turned into a death trap by the plant-reshaping powers. But weren’t these exactly the tactics that led to the “Corruptors’ being beaten and slain?

If I didn’t want to be paralyzed by indecisiveness, I would have to understand their strengths and weaknesses in much greater detail than I did until now.

“Master?” My retinue asked after the brief moment of silence.

“Didn’t they go into the ravine we controlled?” I theorised, “You could just block it, and burn it after they were caught.”

“They can scale completely vertical cliffs with ease.” Helmy and Tama were admitted, and it made me worried, as it was quite an impressive, gravity-defying ability to have, making me wonder why they still needed a castle.

We were near one the entire time, which meant that even the supernatural fighting skill had a limit for what it could achieve. There weren’t a lot of ‘Purifiers’ out there after all, as most of them were stuck elsewhere, and even their attacks burned and exploded, they were also our only ranged ability.

“Weren’t they covered by your vines too? Couldn’t you entangle them?” I asked, turning towards my scaly plant controller, as I clearly recalled her power often revolved around the extremely dramatic, physics-defying growth.

“I am sorry, my Master.” Mai apologised, sounding embarrassed, making me realise I sounded quite accusatory.

“Your powers don’t work as well when you are in a rush?”

“I am sorry, Master.” She stuttered once more, and I realised that the time was ticking out while I spent time pointing fingers at the things that didn’t matter.

“No. Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”

I let my mind run wild.

While it seemed intuitive to let my opponents to the open field and attempt to blast them, instead of trying to do what already had failed, we had encountered several fast, nimble, ninja-like swordsmen before, all of which were more than capable to dodge or run past fireballs.

I looked at ‘Tama’ as I spoke, and the vixen gave me a suggestive smile noticing the deep gaze. My thoughts weren’t as focused on her as it was on the approach she chose when defending me back at the foot of the pagoda.

“It’s like those ninjas before,” I said, finally.

“Faster, perhaps, Master,” Tama confirmed, with a nod.

Which was something we also already had encountered.

I assumed they could get either tougher, or faster.

This time, I focused on Narita. Although those locals with supernatural powers could best each and every one of my companions in a one-to-one fight, they were also quite vulnerable to the life drain, at least the strongest I’d seen was. Especially once he stopped on the spot and wasn’t focused on dodging the assault, they could be overwhelmed, though it took the concentrated force and numbers to do so.

“Mai, try to keep up converting the forest around. Toxic to humans, but safe for us.”

I gave my surroundings another thought and another scan. Limiting their movement was more likely the key, as was using the all exotic abilities at our disposal, but even the superior numbers combined with firepower weren’t enough against the magically enhanced mobility if the opponents simply refused to stay in one place.

Without knowing the upper limit of their abilities, and without knowing anything about their societal affair, I knew little of their goals, and I was unable to predict their abilities.

Then something about their approach struck me.

I thought I could determine where they would head.

“I think I have the plan,” I said,

“I’ll need a sword though.”