The monster’s vanguard were the Toads. I understood the logic. What harm is there in shoving the ranged units out first when their death is arguably more useful than their life?

  “Versai, Mrs. Hungry, stand by near the rear gate. You may need to deploy shortly.”

  “Yes, Tower Master.”

  “As you wish, my Lord.”

  “Miyuki, prioritize herding scattered units together with your arrows. Set edges and narrow them.”

  “As my Lord commands!”

  She replied loudly, but I noticed she wouldn’t look at me. I wondered why for a second and slapped my forehead. “Never mind hearding the Toads. Just kill ‘em. Do the herding if other monster types appear.”

  She nodded seriously, looking at me this time. “As my Lord commands!”

  Her arrows make Toads pop with one hit. She couldn’t herd them, but neither the game nor fantasy Japan would let her contradict my order. I forcefully pressed on.

  “Just confirming, Mrs. Hungry, did you learn the Speed Hack?”

  “I’m not as proficient as little sister Versai, My lord, but I can just about use it.”

  Just going to ignore the “little sister” bit and press on. “Good job. Keep working on it.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  Pomoroi has opened up. They are closing in. I looked around, trying to spot any surprises, but so far, there weren’t any. Which… fine, it’s not a wave that ends in a zero or a five, but I’m still suspicious.

  “Pomoroi, Radz, focus on their flanks and work inward. I want clumps! Nice solid blocks of Toads, if you please!” Maybe it would work?

  “Radz raining death.”

  “Pomoroi, by Imperial Decree!”

  Literally named by an Imperial Decree. I don’t know why she gets to me in a way that Radz doesn't. Maybe it’s because she never broke. Radz lost herself to the horror. She fell in love with destruction. Pomoroi didn’t. Pomoroi was alive and fiercely loyal to the very end.

  I swear I’ll bring her to Wastet. I’ll let her hammer down the gates of the monster city, surrounded by as many “Death To Traitors!” Genuda mercs as I can afford. She’s earned the chance to go on offence. By all that’s holy and a lot of the things that aren’t, she’s earned it.

  The Toads hippity hopped their loathsome selves out of the tree line. They kept about five feet apart from each other. Seemed a little close, but since they weren’t going off in cascades of explosions, it must be working. I checked the sides. They were bunched closer together on the edges, but when they got out of the rough radius of where the artillery hit, they spread out again. Irritating. Well, as the acid puddle density increased, they would have less room to spread.

  Actually, never mind irritating. It’s worrying. If they spread back out after being clumped up, it means they can remember an instruction like “stay five feet apart at all times.” No, I do not like that one bit. Could there be Murder Baboons hiding nearby? We have seen them controlling other monsters in the past, at least a little bit.

  They moved towards the Tower. Miyuki was picking them off one at a time, but even with a wider impact radius, my artillery wasn’t doing much better. The Toads were bursting apart into sprays of acid, creating hazards for the following melee monsters and weapon emplacements for the following Toads. Thanks to the perfect clear bonuses, my ranged unit’s firing rate was ticking up. Pomoroi was either at exactly one round every thirty seconds or slightly faster. Miyuki was well under the thirty second line, closing in on twenty five. We were getting through them, but they were going to reach the Mikas’ range.

  If they were in Mika’s range, then we were roughly in theirs. And we would definitely be in the range of their follow up toads.

  Should I have the artillery blast the acid puddles? Spread it out wide, so that there wasn’t much for the Ice Toads (or whatever) to catalyze?

  My fingers rapped the stone railing of the balcony as the pro’s and con’s zipped back and forth through my mind. My eyes were moving across my Awakened, but I kept coming back to Pomoroi. Something about her was nudging me, and firmly at that. Pomoroi, by Imperial Decree.

  Ah. “Vive le Emperour, or whatever.”

  This was crazy. But screw it. “All Awakened, stop shooting the Toads. Wait until they stop advancing to attack them. I want them as close to our moat as they will come.”

  I’m just assuming here, but I’d bet even Napoleon didn’t use the “let the enemy park their artillery right under your walls” strategy. Which means, if this works, I’m twice as smart as Napoleon. I already know to pack winter clothes if I invade Russia.

  The Toad front line advanced. A second line of Toads advanced from the tree line- ice type this time.

  “Miyuki, Artillery, focus fire on the Ice Toads!”

  Did… did we test what happens if Carousel hits one of them? I don’t think we did. “Carousel, as soon as an ice toad gets in range, shoot it with Glass Arrow. I’m curious to see what happens.”

  “As am I, my Lord. It will be done.”

  Now… What are the odds of this being an all-Toad wave? It wouldn’t actually be the stupidest idea, and it would be a very ‘tower defense game’ play. So far, they haven’t really done single unit waves except for the first few. Maybe they would consider it a change-up.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The ice Toads didn’t leave much of a puddle, I noticed. It was more a thin area of frost. Maybe a smidge of ice on the ground? Hard to say, but whatever it was, it wasn’t obvious. I had already theorized that the Toad variants used the base-Toad as their catalyst, so they wouldn’t be built for others to exploit.

  But hey. I’m an equal opportunity exploiter. One of the toads reached Carousel’s range. A glass arrow shot out and slammed into an Ice Toad’s guts. I could see the Toad’s expression change from all the way up on my Balcony. Turns out there was more bulging the eyes could do. Then they turned red, and exploded. The whole Toad exploded, which I expected. What I didn’t expect was for the Toad to explode into a blizzard of knives.

  It was kind of beautiful, in a horrifying way. Each knife was a snowflake, hand sized, beautiful repeating crystalline geometries flying out like saw blades. They flew a lot further than the frost explosions that had marked the Ice Toads so far. They radiated out in a wide circle roughly forty feet across. The Ice Toads caught by the knives didn’t trigger another knife bomb, but it was still nice to see the blue bursts scattering across the clearing.

  “Carousel, quickly- can you target the frozen patch where the exploded Ice Toads were?”

  She glanced over, then grinned. “I can, my Lord!”

  “YES!” I pounded the rail. “Kill ‘em all! I can’t wait to see what you can do with this.”

  I kept my eyes on the battlefield. Adding Carousel to the mix rapidly accelerated the rate at which the Ice Toads exploded, and once the base Toads reached the edge of the moat, I ordered Mika to clear them out. They got a few shots off, but it all splashed harmlessly against the stonework. “Harmlessly.” I’m sure some other Toad will find a way to make us suffer with that. But… heh heh heh..

  Carousel gently waved her staff at one of the frosted patches of dirt. The effect wasn’t particularly dramatic, but it did make a load of ice spikes pop up in a four foot circle. Not amazing, but it could be an area denial move. Not bad at all. Every day, we learn a little more.

  There was still a lot of smoke coming from the woods. “Artillery, fire as soon as anything comes in range.”

  Flashes of yellow and blue started popping up in the woods. I kept a close eye on it. Sooner or later, there would be-

  A sharp flare of orange-red light lit the sky. The boom was incredible too.

  “Called it! Carousel, keep an eye out for Fire Toads. Looks like they blow up pretty well!”

  “Yes, my Lord!”

  “Here we go, here we go.” I muttered. I did regret letting the base Toads get acid on our walls. It sure looked like those Fire Toads could turn that into a serious explosion. But it was going to give us some very useful flexibility in the near future. Well, assuming non-toad units showed up.

  A mortar dropped into the forest, exploded and a brutal howl rose. I smiled. Sounded like an Alpha monster or similar. I’d wait until it cleared the forest, and then… Another mortar dropped and another, slightly different, howl rose. Seems there is more than one. Fun. Pomoroi started opening up, sending heavy cannonballs ripping through the air and into the dark forest.

  “Sudden unhappy thought- what if Alpha size monsters start throwing Toads like baseballs at our walls? Or over them?” I asked, not really expecting an answer. Because I was pretty sure I already knew it. It was a logical progression of behaviors we had seen before. Low level mini-bosses becoming standard enemy types is also, regrettably, standard. Hell, Final Fantasy Seven did that before you even left the power plant. I think. It’s been a while.

  Some kind of robot tank thing? Eh.

  “Versai, Mrs. Hungry, deploy to the clearing. You have three jobs. Job number one- test out moving across the battlefield using the speed hack and aiming for where the Toads blew up. Job Number Two- kill the Monster Alphas as soon as they enter the clearing. And, most important, Job Number Three- Don’t get surrounded, and do come back in one piece. If you even think you will be surrounded or pinned down by Toads, retreat at once back to the Tower. Clear?”

  “Yes Tower Master.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “Rakim, you are on skeet shooting duty. Hold your fire. Only shoot at Toads that are about to be thrown at us, or have been thrown at us.”

  “Yes Sir!”

  Don’t know if you can go skeet shooting with a carbine, but hell, someone somewhere must have done it. Maybe Rakim will be the first to shoot flung toads out of the air with a carbine semi-auto magic bullet gun.

  Probably the first. Damn Youtube and its endless creators. Once I learned there were fountain pen review channels, complete with episodes comparing inks and paper, I knew humanity was cooked.

  The alphas burst into the clearing, and it wasn’t just two or three. At a glance, it looked like ten of them.More than I wanted Versai and Mrs. Hungry to tangle with. “Artillery, fire on the Alphas until our people reach them. Miyuki, pick them off.”

  The long cannons roared, eager for the fight. Miyuki displayed her elegance by pinning one to the ground just as it scooped up some ammunition. Throw a toad the length of the clearing? I think not.

  The alpha tried anyway. It got about half way, before it crashed down into a puddle of acid. At which point, I finally understood the attack strategy of the Monsters.

  The explosion was white hot. There was a sound, high pitched and almost squealing before the endless thunder of the explosion rolled out. It blew apart chunks of the clearing, flattening the earth around it.

  No death animation but- “Versia, Mrs. Hungry, report!”

  “Damaged, Tower Master, but we can still fight.”

  “Like hell! Back to the Tower and report to the medics for treatment.” I raked my eyes over the close and middle parts of the clearing. We had cleared out the toads. “Mikas, you are also on Toad Intercept duty. Whether it’s in the air or on the ground, kill it! You too, Carousel. No need to get cute with them.”

  Goddess save us, that blast would have cleared the battlements. I don’t know that it would have knocked down our wall. It’s damned thick, and everything I have ever read says packed earth is great at shrugging off explosions. But I am pretty sure it would shatter the stones covering the wall, and even more sure it would kill everyone on top of it. I had been wondering how the game would deal with effective wall builders and moat diggers, and this was it. They had their own artillery.

  The Alphas were as hideous as ever. None were the two headed variant, which was a mercy. They were just oversized basic monsters. A terrible mashup of animal features and disturbingly human hands for their paws. Less than two weeks ago, they would have paralyzed me with terror. Now? Now they were just another problem to solve.

  I saw one grip a toad in each hand and heave itself upright. It bellowed its challenge at me. At me. I could see it looking straight at me. I could see the hate in its eyes. I could also see the cannonball decapitate it. It had stood still too long, and Pomoroi was happy to take an easy kill. What was interesting was what happened next. The toads were immediately dropped by the corpse, and landed on the ground. They hadn’t been very high up, so there was no explosion. What was interesting, though, was that they didn’t advance again. They just sort of shuffled around, looking confused.

  “Are they glitched? Were they so locked in on blowing up, they don’t know what to do now that they don’t have to blow up? Because that would be hilarious if true.” I muttered to myself. I didn’t have long to watch them. Another alpha ran out of the tree line and grabbed them. It ran forward a few steps and launched them one after the other.

  Carousel caught one in mid-air. The explosion was a shocking white that made the secondary explosion of the toad being the first even more vivid. There were little crackles of blue white lighting that drifted around the edges of the blast, and remained even after the light faded.

  The lightning crackles hung around for about ten seconds. No idea how lethal they were, but we’d find that out soon enough. It was the oddest thing- the residual electricity wasn’t distributed through the area the explosion had been in, but on the exterior edge of it. Like lace over a fishbowl or something. One of those lattice pies, if someone removed the pie from underneath it.

  Alphas and Toads were coming in from around the clearing. Miyuki was pinning the Alphas and trying to form funnels, but so far she wasn’t having much luck. They were just too spread out. The pinned Alphas were little screaming islands that the tide of enemies flowed around. “Patience. Patience.” I had to keep reminding myself. It was still early in the wave. It would build up.

  We were in an odd situation. The weight of forces coming in was… unfavorable. I had four Awakened that could reach all the way across the clearing. On average, they could each fire once every thirty seconds and kill up to three enemies. That would have been a fantastic rate if it was only the Alphas, but we had dozens of Toads hopping towards us. But the Toads were comparatively slow. We had lots of time to burn them down, not to mention the colorful results of Carousel shooting them.

  So, we were being kind of overwhelmed, but we were clearing them out, but every base Toad killed added both anti-personnel puddles of acid/weapon platform for the other Toads. Which was fine, because other than the puddles at the edge of the moat, I don’t think any of the acid pools were close enough to be useful to the enemy. And just having all these Toads on the field meant I couldn’t easily deploy Versai and Mrs. Hungry, which defeated the purpose of letting that one batch of toads reach the moat in the first place.

  Things were, in other words, chaotic and mostly okay for now. Bounding into all this confusion came a wave of fast monsters. They zipped around the Toads, only occasionally fell into puddles of acid, and just generally made a chaotic battlefield even more of a mess.

  “What in the hell are YOU doing here?” The fast monsters were useless on this battlefield. Maybe as some kind of screening force to keep me from slaughtering the Toads with cavalry? But the only cav. I have is Rache, and the damned Toads explode if you damage them. I’d have to be crazy to send melee troops after them.

  The fast monsters came rushing in, and I didn’t even know what to do with ‘em. Was it worth pulling Carousel off medium range toad murder to run Final Revel and slaughter any who survived the fall into the moat? I just didn’t get it.

  The fast monsters rushed to the edge of the moat, narrowing to a broad front as they came. They all rushed through the puddles of acid. I don’t know why, but dozens of fast monsters took pains to get at least a little of the horribly strong acid on them before they plunged into the moat.

  I found out why a minute later. I really wish I hadn’t.