In my old life, I used to think of myself as a problem-solver.

That couldn’t be farther away from the truth now.

The only thing I was good at was, in fact, acting fast, immediately if possible, in an attempt to address the current issue hoping that the details would resolve on their own. There was no consideration of thoroughness. I was saying it was all about giving myself just enough time to find the right answer before the actual problem festered to something considerably less manageable, but the truth was, it was about running away from problems, preventively.

Serious trouble made me paralyzed with hesitation and uncertainty each time I realised I didn’t have a quick, throwaway solution for the difficulties besetting me. I was terrible at long-term planning.

In this new life, ever since I opened my eyes back on that ruined stone slab in the middle of the ruins overrun by forest, was plagued by those two extremes in tandem - remaining fearfully passive until the problem threatened to crush me, then jumping at the most convenient silver lining only for the backlash to drive me back into inaction. Agonising over my situation like I was now.

Not that the realisation necessarily helped.

I wasn’t ready for any of it. Although to be entirely honest, I haven’t been ready even for the trouble I had context for.

But that didn’t mean I had an excuse not to try at least.

I didn’t want to act as myself, for once.

The fact that ‘Displacers’ would be easily able to bypass the obstacle represented by the thick fortress walls by simply teleporting past them didn’t necessarily mean it was wise to use them as such.

It would be easy to order the feline monsters to get rid of the ‘caster’ still hiding behind the castle’s walls, Sora was considerably more reckless than any of the followers I was given, more than willing to portal herself towards her own doom, but it could just as well leave her sealed, and the enemies aware of our newest stratagem.

One small mistake could have unforeseen, and possibly lasting consequences.

While it had been the death of yet another human that taught me a lesson about the unpredictable, and even fatal outcomes, it was this strange, unexplainable link between me and my monsters that made me reconsider my moves regarding the castle.

The power that gave life to my monsters considered the ‘sealing’ a threat to its own existence, a provocation which needed to be answered with unproportionate retribution. Not only did it leave this tingling, nudging compulsion at the back of my brain, trying to convince me to act in due haste, but the mere thought of it also sent a shiver up and down my spine as a reminder of the feedback the link between me and my monster provided.

I wouldn’t sacrifice my feline monsters this easily.

This wasn’t about finding a way home, so I could return to my life of horribly bad decisions.

I had responsibility here, for my monsters, my girls, my people.

And it meant, I had to finally learn how to think tactically, instead of lashing against the first obstacle I encountered to save myself the trouble later. It meant being considerate, it meant being careful.

It was only a matter of time before the humans either realised the mechanic behind our rising numbers and focused on only magic that inflicted permanent losses, or until I encountered an even stronger ‘caster’ with even more devastating abilities tailored to counter ours.

My girls might not understand death, but they hated the ‘sealing’. Uncomfortable with the idea of sacrificing my followers to the only force they feared, I decided to play it safe.

Instead of rushing forwards to meet the enemies in the battle, relying on our considerable but certainly not infinite numbers, I decided on a slower approach by converting the lands surrounding the enemy’s castle into a secure area for our forces to fall back to, as well as fortifications our own should the ‘elites’ from the other side of the hills return.

They might be able to scale walls easier than us, but my girls would think of something that gave them trouble. At the very least, there would be much less space to manoeuvre next time my little reptiles decided to use their powers in combat.

Seeing themselves slowly overgrown would hopefully strike a sense of urgency into the castle defenders as well. Just grinding down their resolve would be helpful if they fared only half as bad as me under pressure and I was confident that my monsters could deal with any attempt to break the siege.

Rather than meticulously planning the ‘caster’s’ assassination, something I didn’t have the confidence in arranging, ‘playing forts’ would be significantly easier, at least for the few days necessary for regaining my footing, and there was no window of opportunity I could aim for now.

The ‘Displacers’ ability would instead see use in what I’d originally gotten them for - logistics. Given our enemies’ ever-increasing movement speed combined with their extraordinary abilities, I felt it necessary to increase our scouting range and improve our reaction time.

It would also mean risking offending even more of the locals but being blind was worse. In addition, the rampant presence of ‘elites’ in this obviously remote forest, and their default hostility led me to suspect that there might be something akin to the system’s hate for ‘sealing’ affecting them, in which case more would come regardless.

We had no place to go, no home to return to anyway.

We could just as well make that home here.

I made the choice to make a stand here.

It left me with too much time on my hands to rethink my horrible decisions.

However, while I pondered the meaning of my new life, my followers had a camp to build.

The settlement was in a flurry of activity, with hundreds of monsters running around performing various tasks ranging from pilfering the local homes to cutting wood, to preparing meals from this village’s own meagre stores. Their selfless dedication even to the most menial tasks allowed me to focus on forming our long-term survival strategy.

It was a task I was hopelessly unprepared for, but I forced too much on them already to have the right to avoid the responsibility.

Never in my life would I have imagined being put in charge of an army of anthropomorphic monster ladies rampaging through the vaguely Eastern Asia-themed land.

Yet, there I was, sitting at a fire in the busy camp, in the warm, gentle embrace of a white werewolf, amidst the organised chaos my furry horde enthusiastically created each and every time they were directed towards a larger assignment I wanted them to do.

Despite their eccentric behaviour accompanied by girlish giggles, occasional chanting, and seemingly disorganised tendency to run around causing a stir for no apparent reason other than their own entertainment, there was a certain overlaying scheme, an order brought to their madness.

They even managed to restore the water-powered sawmill to functionality, judging from the relatively regular, mechanical clanking sound, while a first cut-down three rolled down the hill.

At the same time, the village was put apart, only to be rebuilt in their image.

They didn’t demolish the houses, true, but it didn’t prevent the ‘Corruptors’ from giving the entire settlement their very personalised touch through the rapidly spreading overgrowth fueled by their personal brand of magic, covering everything with the oddly coloured creep of blackened wines and alien leaves.

Considering some of their plants would turn inflammable through either sufficient exposure or conscious effort, it didn’t seem an inherently impractical idea, especially if the mutant plants could be turned into improvised shelters for the rapidly multiplying horde, or to be quickly converted to energy by ‘Defilers’ in emergencies. My healers were indispensable and since their ability was seemingly a transfer of the life essence itself, there was a constant need to keep living things to sacrifice at hand.

Perhaps that was the true purpose of the ‘Corruptors’ creep.

I let them do their own thing.

Mai, still sitting next to me, once again spaced out to coordinate her numerous kin, seemingly enjoying the task once more, as the little cute reptiles let their power run rampant only to exhaust themselves in the process.

They didn’t even need their rodent-like cousins to channel more energy into them, when the hundreds of ‘Corruptors’ set their minds to something, they surely left their mark. They might not have been artisans in wood crafting, but as more and more twisted constructs of briars, trees and wine fused together, it became apparent that they did know how to start a hive.

Perhaps I should try letting them make the equipment. Long, pointy wooden sticks wouldn’t compare to steel-tipped spears, but they would be better than nothing. The use of poison was also an option, many cultures on Earth tried it in their weapons, and we could, as well.

Other monsters didn’t laze around either. They were insistent on putting things where they were, in their minds, supposed to be, and it most certainly didn’t match the humans’ idea of order.

The contents of each and every house were dragged out and put apart, the clothing and tools distributed between the individual monsters according to a plan I wasn’t quite able to discern, along with various pieces of small knick-knacks they would be able to use as trophies to carry around to give each one of them a somewhat personalised look.

Even though they were, in a way, an anthill of fluff and claws, there was a certain level of individuality among the small ones making them more than drones, waiting to be appreciated for their own trace of individuality.

Many of them even came to me after they scored pieces of apparel that previously belonged to some hapless villager, almost like they wanted to hear that it suited them. Half submerged in thoughts, I gave them encouragement, while enjoying the soothing presence of Miwah and Tama. Mai too, though she seemed absorbed in distributing tasks to her little sisters.

Only Kuma kept some distance, standing guard a few steps away, her hulking figure hard to overlook. She seemed to focus on perfecting her manipulation of metal. Perhaps, it was a matter of time before ‘Ravagers’ and ‘Corruptors’ truly mastered their shaping power.

I leaned on Miwah, the white werewolf held me in her protective embrace from behind.

Be it the forced isolation from anyone and anything human, combined with the language barrier between us and the natives, or the cruel twist of the power that spawned them, I felt about them more like my girls than anything else. They, in turn, considered me one of their species, regardless of the fur or scales they had.

Tama nudged herself close, flirty as always. I was losing myself here.

“Overview.” I subvocalized, forcing my mind to focus on things other than feeling attraction to my anthropomorphic monsters.

The system obeyed the command, displaying the sum of our ever-growing numbers.

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 First Obliterator

Sora, The Dislacer Alpha

691 * Purifiers

27 * Named Purifiers

710 * Eviscerators

60* Named Eviscerators

126* Defilers

8* Named Defilers

696* Corruptors

14* Named Corruptors

39* Ravagers

5* Named Ravagers

6* Displacers

Units (In queue)

None

Sealed (per caster)

15* Eviscerators

6* Purifiers

3* Purifiers

1* Purifier

There were a lot of us.

Although that much was apparent from merely a passing glance at the milling crowd of monsters around me, the exact count had started eluding me once the numbers rose beyond my ability to count quickly enough.

Now, the status screen provided a more exact calculation. It wasn’t flawless, I was already aware that this system was rather prone to make errors and miscalculations, displaying incorrect figures, or defying its own apparent logic and formulas. It tended to underestimate the numbers rather than not, and I assumed that if the system didn’t make apparent errors in math growth would follow an even steeper curve.

Yet even with that potential loss, the horde was still a fitting term.

What once was a small group, merely a dozen of the overexcited ‘Purifiers’ a few days ago had now grown into a sizeable army counting over two thousand creatures of varying shapes and abilities. Even the ‘Purifiers’ counted in hundreds now.

They were all my monsters, my girls, and my responsibility.

Should our strategy become more static, more careful and thought-through, and less reliant on random wandering around the area, we needed to find a way to sustain our numbers.

There weren’t even remotely enough ‘Displacers’ to cover the scouting and transportation I considered a few moments ago, but I needed to take care of who I had first.

Settling down meant agriculture.

Yet another thing I wasn’t competent in.

This was, theoretically, solvable through the ‘Corruptors’ ability to manipulate the plants, growing food on-demand was possible as long as we had the samples of the appropriate crops to work with, along with arable soil. The plant manipulation abilities don’t seem capable of inventing new plant species on the fly, which required a control group of saplings to distribute and subsequently mutate, but I felt it was doable. Mai suggested as much.

At least as long as my monsters - my girls - were capable of eating the fruit, or grain, which I thought they could.

I thought that Miwah confirmed that they were, in fact, omnivores, with meat being a matter of preference rather than a necessity for survival, while the ‘Defilers’ could bypass the dietary habits entirely by the grace of draining the very life essence from the surrounding vegetation.

This, would, in theory, give us at least a stable source of food, along with an alternate method of sustenance dependent entirely on the generic bounty of life itself, rather than the existence of specific plants. Even fields overrun with weed would be viable with the ‘Defiler’ ability thrown into the mix.

A glimpse of the dozing ‘Corruptors’ however reminded me it wasn’t a perfect process and was ultimately dependent not on the numbers of the certain monsters, but on the sheer amount of land available for growing just about any kind of plant.

There was just one problem. Most of that land was a forest, an area theoretically filled with plant life, but in practice, only harvestable by ‘Defilers’ within a very limited range.

My thoughts, fixated on finding the longer-term solution, desperately sought the answer.

“Mai?” I asked silently, my eyes still fixated on the floating screen, “Did we recover any seeds from the fruit trees?”

Mai, still sitting near me, snapped to attention.

“Yes, my Master.” She said.

“Gather seeds, and send a group of your sisters outward to the forest, have them attempt to convert any of the plants there into ones that produce the edible fruit.” I ordered, “Start with…”

Then paused. Despite everything that happened, I had only a very vague idea of the surrounding lands, with the only landmark in the terrain being the cobbled road we kept following, up and down.

“Start with the land surrounding the road, it will allow for easy transportation later.” I ordered, “Have Defilers remove the greenery you don’t want around in favour of the new one, so your sisters can keep going.”

The fact that she wasn’t able to command the ‘Defilers’ made me hesitate for a brief moment, Narita wasn’t around this time, but then the realisation hit me. Not only was she likely able to hear me through the ears of her smaller kin, but my own tendency to make a short-sighted decision would also give me an easy shorthand to remember who was assigned to what.

Time to learn from yet another mistake.

“Mia.” I called out, “Come here!”

“For Master!” The excited squeak came from somewhere behind me, and in a moment I had a little, anthropomorphic rat on my lap. She was somewhat heavy only due to the ill-fitted armour piece, a padded breastplate of leather and linen looked more like a puffed dress on her diminutive statue. It wouldn’t protect her effectively, but perhaps she liked the look.

Mia, compared to Mai, was Narita’s little lookalike, and the living monument to my inability to get the naming straight.

Now, it was going to be useful, and I scratched the little rat girl. She seems to like this.

“Mia here would assist your sisters,” I ordered, “Mia, you are now assigned as the aide to Mai, to clear the plants to give my Corruptors a boost to plant new ones.”

“For Master!” She replied and jumped out again to rush towards the task.

“Yes, my Master,” Mai replied, without hesitation, her reptilian face betraying a certain amount of excitement with the implication of the changes she could make. I let her.

Tama took the opportunity to push herself closer once again, sliding into my freed lap.

“More land to populate with our offspring, Master.” The vixen said in her suggestive tone.

I ignored her. As much as I became used to the anthropomorphic, yet very feminine shape of my monsters, I wasn’t quite engaged with the idea of fathering a new species, especially when surrounded by hostile natives.

My mind was, at this moment, occupied with the idea of mapping the land and creating a defensible position.

“Miwah. Send Eviscerators up and down the riverbanks.” I said, “ I want to see the area we have on our side of the river.”

“Yes, Master.” The white werewolf purred into my ear.

“We should also look whether we could fish anywhere.” I mused.

I couldn’t see this from a bird’s perspective - and if I did, I would be scared out of my mind being afraid of heights - but should we ever settle the surrounding lands, we needed to draw a line in the sand for the humans not to cross.

Maybe it was for the best ‘Displacers’ were busy mapping the area for me - the image of being teleported up in the sky was absolutely terrifying.

A couple of the space-bending felines dropped from their portal nearby, almost as if summoned by the thought, but I decided to pay them no mind, unwilling to test my stomach - and possibly my life - by the ride through one of their rifts. Not now. I was exhausted, hungry, and quite overwhelmed by thinking about a strategy that wasn’t my forte.

Luckily for me, there was a very good natural barrier present that didn’t require the eagle’s eye to map, and we currently sat at the edge of it.

The river seemed like a good place to start.

It wouldn’t be an impenetrable barrier, but it would, at the very least, be quite visible. Masses of water were used as borders since times immemorial.

This would be our line in the sand, more metaphorical than literal.

Too bad that the castle was on our side of said line.

The logic of this would demand an attack. I still refused to order the assault, it was a rash decision I was now struggling to avoid, leaving the very apparent flaw in this idea of the line of separation between my people and the hostile natives.

However, perhaps I should abandon the idea of the flawless assault to take out the ‘caster’ in her stone den.

Instead, I should stick with this idea of the border, the line drawn, and think about how to bring down the bridge their castle was built to defend.

Without their lifeline to the nearby city, it would be them who would worry about the supplies running out, and perhaps, in the end, it would be them who made the rash decision this time.

The question was whether I would be trapped here with them, or them trapped here with us after the bridge would be gone.