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It was supposed to be a rather uneventful rest of the afternoon.

That was the point.

As the day drew to its end, the time window for the enemy attack was closing down quickly.

Even though the sun didn't begin to set just yet, it shouldn't take long now. I estimated it was already early evening at the very least, if not past it, leaving us, and everyone else with a few precious hours of sunlight.

Once that faded humans should be leaving us alone, at least during the night.

Not only were my monsters able to see in the dark without much of an issue, but they also possessed greatly improved hearing and sense of smell and required very little rest to regain their strength, with seemingly boundless stamina allowing them to stay alert even during the night.

Though they apparently did require some sleep, as I saw some of them dozing while others rushed around with seemingly endless vitality, it would seem that their night cycle required considerably less downtime than it would be necessary for a healthy, functional human. That was before the 'Defiler' abilities came into play.

If everything went well, I would have a calm six to eight hours to unwind and figure out the details of our continued existence here.

Sieges were supposed to be a very protracted business, lasting for weeks, possibly months, spent mostly waiting for the defenders to run out of supplies and finally surrender before they starved to death.

At least, this was how it was supposed to go.

I wasn't, by any means, an expert on mediaeval warfare, and the presence of the clearly supernatural powers certainly shuffled the little I knew quite a bit, but attackers unable to breach the walls would be eventually forced to retreat empty-handed. Normally, the besieging army wouldn't usually double in size every so often, but it merely meant we would eat through our rations at an alarming rate, which benefited the well-fortified stronghold with larger stockpiles. We should be at a disadvantage here, at least, from a human perspective - they could wait. For now.

But we also had the 'Displacers' - an advantage the locals weren't quite aware of just yet.

This meant we had time.

My girls maybe didn't tire easily, but I wouldn't deny them the rest they fully deserved and it was already quite overdue. I supposed that everyone needed their downtime.

This should give me time - to gather my thoughts, to come to terms with my situation, to form a plan my girls expected from me. Resigned that the confrontation was inevitable, it was merely a matter of time to grow into the commander I yet wasn't. All of it should come to me eventually. It shouldn't even take months.

What I hoped for were a few days of relative peace.

At least, I assumed it would take that long for the 'Corruptors' to subvert the local environment and complete at least a partial encirclement of the castle anyway. Even with their power's blatant disregard for the natural growth cycle of the plans they manipulated, there was simply too much land to cover. Trying to crack the stone bridge using the creeping roots would very likely take even longer, especially if I didn't want them to risk the archers' fire or worse, the 'sealing'.

Perhaps it wasn't that difficult to send my monsters against the castle, create the distraction, an opening for the teleporting felines to snatch the damn 'caster' woman from the battlements before they doomed more of the precious girls to the accursed 'sealing'.

Then it would be over.

I, however, refused to be swayed by the false promise of easy solutions, just this once. The 'caster's' powers were an antithesis to ours, so there was no reason to trust that the portals would be an exception. In the worst case, a coup would leave more of my monsters sealed and her ability to prepare against our newest advantage.

Maybe it was about time for me to do something smart for the change. I couldn't decide now, but it didn't matter, maybe it was about a long night's sleep after all.

My girls even made the lunch, attentive as ever. They weren't good cooks, but they did what they could with the supplies we had, with the best of intent.

I, on the other hand, failed even at something so simple as waiting.

My companions tried their best to help, but for some reason, I wasn't able to quite calm down.

Underestimating the locals had proven to be a very dangerous precedent though, and the pressure of the assumed expectation was once again getting to me, sparking an endless wave of erratic thoughts without anything truly definitive coming out of it.

The memories of the past experiences brought me more agitation and I couldn't help myself but agonize over all the pointless fighting over the worthless, cold, damp forest, and few useless wooden huts.

I only wanted to bring my people home! Or was it going home, myself? Was there even a difference?

In all honesty, I didn't know.

I simply couldn't rest, no matter how much reasoning I put into the delaying tactics.

Needlessly upset for reasons I wasn't quite able to formulate, I jumped up back on my feet, pacing around the village, hands shaking, heart racing for no good reason. The 'Alphas' remained within earshot as I had my ...overreaction episode... but two well-meaning 'Defilers' - supposedly the other ones I've named considering they were the ones that kept themselves closest - tried to help.

The infusion of vitality only made it worse.

Despite my previous insistence to not do anything, I wanted to do something even more.

"You!" I barked at the two 'Displacers' emerging from their rift nearby, perhaps only as a brief rest before they would jump to some other place in an effort to move my other companions or to merely gain some understanding of the local area. I only then realised how harsh I sounded

Looking at their spatial anomalies was, as expected, slightly discomforting, and somewhat unpleasant, giving me a feeling of looking from the top of a building. I hated looking down from any notable height, sometimes even a single floor would be enough. The rifts disappeared quickly when they were not needed.

"You two! Come here, please!" I corrected myself, gesturing towards them.

They stopped, meowed, and came close, looking at me expectedly. Despite the fact 'Displacers' were feline in nature, they had an expression of the eager, restless puppies on their faces.

It didn't quite match their catlike appearance.

"For Master!" The felines said, in cute, girlish voices. The tone and pitch were always different even slightly, but there was a certain pattern with them sounding quite young, while their bigger sisters sounded more mature.

They looked like twins and didn't suffer from the heterochromia their 'Alpha' had, and their both eyes were red. They looked at me, curious.

"You should be Kat." I decided arbitrarily. The 'Displacer' perked up.

|

*Unit named! Kat, The Named Displacer! *

Skill "Stalker on the Boundary lvl.3" gained.

|

"And you are Kitty."

|

*Unit named! Kitty, The Named Displacer! *

Skill "Stalker on the Boundary lvl.4" gained.

|

Names I gave them were almost criminally uncreative, and in fact, I didn't have any strong reason for actually doing so in the first place, but the system didn't care- the small eruption of the ruby fog birthed a dozen of the common versions of the 'Displacers' as the dubious reward for my poor imagination.

There wasn't any good reason for abusing the mechanic to boost their numbers at this very moment, but we would need more of them eventually, especially should the demand for transporting a larger body of troops arrive, or a need to mount a full-scale assault for that matter.

I hated thinking of them as troops. I sometimes did think of them as my monsters, but never troops to be spent where it was needed. They might respawn, but they were all precious.

The little furry cat girls swarmed me over, happy to be around. The whole process of giving names wasn't merely an abusable mechanism attached to a whimsical system, but an event of special meaning to the girls.

It was likely meant to be used sparingly.

I gave a few of them a hug, at least, and found out that 'Displacers' weren't any less affectionate than the 'Purifiers' were, and perhaps as a matter of certain irony, didn't understand the personal space at all. Two 'Defilers' also joined in.

"Am I sharing you with Sora tonight?" Tama mused, overlooking the small gang of anthropomorphic kittens: "Or perhaps..."

Vixen sounded rather amused than jealous, but I ignored her. I was too preoccupied with the impulse to do something - it was rather a schizophrenic sensation, considering my biggest concert earlier was avoiding rash actions, but I did it anyway.

"Kat, Kitty. Bring me your Alpha." I ordered, patting new little ones.

"For Master!" They echoed, all over the dozen of them, but they didn't disappear into their usual portals of twisting space. They refused to break up, for now, though the horde of monsters never considered this weird. I didn't forget to give the two small 'Defilers' a hug.

Socialising with them might be calming, but it didn't take away the drive to do something meaningful.

Sora was likely able to hear me through the ears of her little sisters since she appeared, dropping from the usual distortion, soon after.

"Master?" She asked, with a soft meow to announce her presence. It wasn't necessary.

"Could you please somehow show me what you found?" I asked, and then, once I realised it would mean dragging me through the portal I added: "Or tell me, rather. Without teleporting me up?"

It made me shudder - the mere idea of the fall was horrifying.

Sora considered me, bobbing her head slightly, and then the small crowd of distance-bending felines teleported away, all of a sudden, and the twelve distortions opening at once were such a guaranteed source of vertigo it made me wonder whether it was supposed to be used offensively.

Tama was quick to catch me when the strike of dizziness made me waver - and I silently wondered if looking at the portal was particularly unpleasant for others as well. The only thing I knew was that teleporting killed humans, while some of my companions thought of it more as a roller coaster ride.

The two 'Defilers' who gave me a boost seemed quite proud of themselves for some reason, almost as if they were going to catch me should Tama lose her grip. Miwah, Kuma and Mai waited patiently.

"Thank you!" I said, to no girl in particular.

"For Master!" Echoed the two little rat girls. There wasn't any inherent animosity between the 'Defilers' and 'Displacers' either, despite them resembling anthropomorphised species that preyed on each other. Narita wasn't around to ask right now, but her little kin didn't mind the felines at all.

The 'Displacer Alpha' however did show restlessness, but rather than upset the other breeds, she seemed not too keen on standing in one place. There were some giveaways for hyperactivity.

"A model would be in order, Master?" Sora queried, and almost impatient, started: "We are in the valley largely surrounded by mountains. It's infested by humans, Master."

She gestured around us. It was mildly confusing since they acted more familiar with the surroundings than I was, almost like she had already been there. Considering she could teleport at will, it might be true.

"River runs through the entire valley. There is only one larger city, but settlements and fields reach much farther in this direction. The humans mostly grow crops here, but may be quarrying stone or ore near the mountains."

She, once again, pointed. I followed her gesture. I knew about the city, and from an entirely logical perspective it was likely the point of the castle to block access to it, but that was about it.

Sora, however, acted, like she went beyond that - and perhaps, she did. I wasn't sure if the 'Displacers' range was dictated by anything else other than familiarity.

"On our side of the river?" I asked, quite confused, as aside from our descent from the mountains on our arrival we didn't have any good idea of our surroundings, with the 'Eviscetators' scouts either never wandering too far, or they were not in any position to start mapping the area due to circumstances.

We were almost always on the run.

I almost struggled to understand how the 'Displacers' seemingly grasped the land in such a minuscule amount of time, though the view from up in the sky would explain a lot, probably complemented by the extraordinary orientation skills necessary for their primary ability to work.

"This side is more sloped than the other, Master." Sora replied, seemingly unwilling to lose any more time: "Fewer human infestation overall, Master, but still more villages down the river."

The sentence troubled me quite a lot, and it was for more than Sora referring to humans as an infestation. The misanthropic tendencies were strong among my monsters, although prejudice was likely a better term.

However, before I could be further distracted by the thoughts about our current situation, the 'Displacers' appeared once again, throwing an assortment of sticks and rocks on the ground. It puzzled me once more for a moment until Sora started to rearrange them on the ground with more commentary.

"We are here, Master, and hold locations here and here. The human fort is here. City, here."

I let her speak, wondering why I never thought of a solution this simple and practical ever before. The other 'Alphas' likely caught up on the idea immediately and had their kin bring more trash to build the improvised visual representation of the surrounding terrain.

"The river follows roughly this shape with further settlements here and here," Sora said, rearranging the collection of sticks into a curving shape, never hesitating. Her recollection seemed perfect.

"We didn't reach that point yet, Master," Miwah added, reminding me of her sisters dispatched to follow the river on foot.

I didn't reply. We indeed sat in the curve of the river, I guessed as much already. However, when I decided to push the locals to the other side of the river I didn't quite consider there might be any human habitation nearby which would have to be attacked, with their population driven out, should my command be followed.

This wasn't true. Not only was there more native habitation, but my girls were also already en route to them with the only thing standing between them and inevitable confrontation was the 'Eviscerators' default tactics to lay in wait before dropping their invisibility.

The scope and range of the 'Displacers' were also greatly underestimated - even if it was on sight, going up was quite creative out of them. They were quite smart.

The problem was, if I insisted on this imaginary border represented by the body of water, I would be forced to continue with assaults against the natives, continuing the senseless violence spiralling out of control with no end in sight. I was stupid, and more importantly, short-sighted - humans permanently settled near rivers, and if they did, they wouldn't stay only at its single bank.

"Where was the pagoda?" I asked absent-mindedly, thinking of the single landmark I remembered.

"Here, Master.."

"The stream and old camp?"

At least this was a vector leading us away from much heavily settled areas, away from the river and the castle overseeing the largest bridge. It was also the place from which the 'Elite' came from.

I stared at the collection of trash that was being shaped into an improvised map I never seriously considered, one that didn't require any paper or writing utensils of sorts. The area we managed to traverse on foot was quite small, and it wasn't even in a straight line - we went back and forth, at least so I assumed from the information given.

Our world was dangerously small, and we were, at the very least on a technicality, surrounded by enemies.

"But we followed the stone road all that time." I said, "Does it mean we sit on the only access to this valley?"

"There should be more of the road past the human city, Master," Sora admitted, "It leads towards the mountains in both of those directions, with crossroads here."

The feline impatiently explained accompanied by gesturing both somewhere on the horizon, and on a place on her quite improvised map. Her smaller kin, likely guided by their 'Alpha' helped to rearrange the pile according to the scheme I was yet going to see. It was still a brilliant idea when I thought of it, albeit still relying on understandable narration. I used to be too stuck with the concept of writing and paper.

"And following the road in the direction of the old camp, what is past that point?" I asked

"Forest, then the small village with terraced fields, and a mine for some ore, Master," Sora explained readily.

"And past it?" I pressed

"We can look, Master." Sora jumped up.

"Wait." I stopped her before she disappeared into her distortion.

"So. The road goes here." I kneeled and pointed at the collection of the seemingly random collection of stones representing the landmarks that we either previously visited, seen, or at least, were aware of.

"A castle, then the pagoda which was some sort of temple, then our old camp in the quarry, and then a village which has a mine. And the mine is not defended, and the road goes on and on from that point, out of this valley." I said, summarising and added: "The mine is near the village the elite was in, but he abandoned it. If he comes back, he will go through it."

"Yes. Master." Sora confirmed

"And there is no way around it," I asked to confirm - knowing from where the attack would come was quite an advantage, even for a mind as dull as mine when it came to strategy.

"Brave and Helmy are in position nearby," Miwah confirmed, suggesting that the groups moved around and advanced further - they probably figured out the issue sooner than I did.

"There are too many steep cliffs, and forests. The road goes through that village." Sora confirmed.

"The elite left it?" I verified, once again.

"Yes, Master. All human soldiers are gone, they left in a hurry. The locals aren't expecting us, you will be safe." That was the answer.

As much as I was opposed to the idea of assaulting some mountain villages only because their defenders abandoned them for the time being, my mind desperately searched for something I could do, especially now that the duo of proactive 'Defilers' doused me with even more energy.

The mine was such a thing - it wasn't for me, specifically, but for the sake of a certain creativity.

I looked at Kuma. The large ursine almost mastered her manipulation of metal creating some form of armour, using the material readily available to her, but despite her improving control, a lack of metal prevented her from progressing further.

Equipping my girls was, also, considerably better than sitting idly in the cover of the mutated trees, especially when one wasn't mutually exclusive with the other.

"We might need metal for tools. I want to see it," I said absent-mindedly. Having a ready source of any ore would help us greatly, even a relatively small one.

Despite the natives already producing iron, even steel, tools, abusing the magical abilities of 'Ravagers' would let us make do even with the considerably weaker bronze alloy, or even the copper.

The idea of controlling some form of the clearly defined border the humans would be discouraged from crossing wasn't lost to me either, perhaps another wall of thorns could work.

The river here, the treeline there, with the land for us to settle in the middle.

I was considering giving places names for easy orientation - this and that village, it was getting confusing, but that wasn't of priority at the moment, as long as we aren't forced to wage an actual campaign over the lands Sora had seen.

Still, I didn't want to attack yet another settlement, however, perhaps I didn't have to.

When I sent my girls for the seeds and tools, I wanted to leave some money behind to compensate for the displaced goods. The inhabitants of the castle wouldn't even know.

It would have worked should there be no sorceress, or whoever the woman was, and travelling in and out was easier than ever.

I tried to recall where the chest of coins, one the merchant was risking to die for, ended up. Too distracted by the thoughts I almost failed to notice that all the 'Displacers' once again formed their personal rifts and ...

I was flying through the void.

In the blink of an eye, the very definition of space lost its meaning.

Here was suddenly not here.

Here was there.

And then there was up.

And up was down.

And here suddenly wasn't now.

It was all wrong.

I ... was ... beyond descriptions.

And then, reality reassumed itself, as I dropped from the concentrated insult to the laws of physics that was Sora's portal.

I blinked.

It wasn't as nauseating as it was disorienting as my mind futilely tried to adjust to the shock from the transition between the real space, and whatever was the void the 'Displacers' jumped through.

Struggling to process it, I blinked away the floating window from the system.

|

Skill "Stalker on the Boundary lvl.5" gained.

|

What brought me back to reality was the screams, accompanied by the sudden, invigorating infusion of energy that quickly jolted me back to focus.

The dead, shrivelled husk of the man collapsed down to the ground, with his life force completely drained, as two 'Defilers' nearby excitedly chanted their usual mantra.

The air shivered with the spacial rifts, and the 'Displacers' teleported in the more reinforcement.

"For Master! For Master!"

They cheered.

Where I was?

Barren rocks. Mountains?

Forest in the distance?

There was a man trying to charge one of the monsters with the pickaxe, only to be swept away by Tama's fire.

I tried to regain my bearings, catching a glimpse of the felines teleporting away, while the other monsters present already formed a circle around me.

"Hold the line," I ordered.

"Yes, Master," Kuma replied, as her hulking form strode forward, throwing the enemy out of her way.

I looked around. The 'Displacers' dropped us on what seemed a stone terrace of sorts overseeing the mountainous village, into what seemed to be either a quarry or the mine entrance.

Even our arrival already killed several humans, either mauled to death when the first 'Displacers' dropped from their portals, with others killed in the aftermath of the initial surprise strike when a new wave of monsters was brought in.

The village under us was already in a state of panic - I didn't understand the language, but I did hear their shouts somewhere from below, while 'Displacers' didn't hesitate to bring forwards yet another wave of monsters, pushing even two of them out of their portals at once before disappearing once again.

There were monsters of all kinds swarming around.

A few 'Displacers' collapsed on the ground, obviously tired, taking laboured breaths before jumping back into their quickly forming rifts, disappearing again.

"Stop transporting more unless we are attacked!" I barked out, "Sora, let your girls rest!"

I made a few steps forward, preventing my monsters from continuing the assault on the actual settlement proper, assuming there was only one way down my monsters could take. A few already made it up there.

On one side, there was ramshackle construction with a few cave entries suggesting a primitive mine or quarry Sora had mentioned, with the scattered tools and overturned handcarts suggesting it had been worked before the 'Displacers' began the assault.

I got some view of the treeline and the road where a few 'Purifiers' already appeared, a taller figure in the armour among them suggesting it was Helmy's group, approaching the settlement under us from the other direction.

The 'Eviscerators' were probably already sneaking forward, disappearing under their invisibility cloak.

I was up there with more than thirty monsters, with Miwah and Tama included, along with other 'Alphas' with only Narita missing.

It took a while until the 'Displacers' appeared again, seemingly refreshed, while I took a considerate backstep away from the edge before the inevitable vertigo would send me tumbling down to the depths.

There was no point in sounding retreat. Damage was already done.

"Stay away from the village! Don't stop anyone from leaving unless they're heading towards the river. We need someone to talk to them!" I sought out Miwah's claw and braced myself for my own part. "I'll try to make them leave."

The natives hated me as much as they did my monsters, so this would inevitably lead to more deaths, but the strategy had worked before. The problem was my understanding of the language being still practically nonexistent and them being hostile to me even without the presence of my monsters.

I turned to the 'Alphas' half expecting an objection but only caught a glimpse of a closing rift. Mai deliberately looked away from the village while Tama occupied my free arm, yet remained uncharacteristically quiet.

A moment later, the 'Displacer Alpha' dragged yet another human prisoner - the crazy village girl - through the portal.

During the brief moment of shock mixed with the sorrow, I expected her to die a painful death, just as the merchant we transported earlier did, ripped apart inside out by the forces facilitating the teleport.

She did not.

Seemingly experiencing only the minor disorientation from the sudden change of locale, rather than any adverse effects I considered fatal, the strange human girl simply bowed deeply. It left me dumbfounded - not by the gesture, she did that before - but by her complete immunity to the side effect of the 'Displacers' ripple.

"For Master!" She said, in an attempt to mimic the usual battlecry of my girls.

At this point I was almost certain she didn't understand the quote itself, simply parroting what she heard several times without any actual comprehension, it was still enough to make me pause.

Although the mad girl didn't really understand us, she was consistently unbothered by my monsters to the point of complete apathy toward her own fate, which I already knew. The merchant, or the scribe, behaved erratically, afraid, and shocked, but this girl just didn't seem to care.

She had been delirious like the scribe after the lifeforce infusion, so I hadn't paid her much attention so far, but she stopped her manic fits ever since. The old man's rationality and self-control seemed to have taken a turn for the worse by comparison, though I obviously lacked knowledge of his previous bearing.

This was unexpected, strange even, but there was no time to test whether she was an exception to the norm, or whether the symptoms that other humans showed were a supernatural variant of the strong allergy. I didn't know.

Down the village, a few more shouts sounded, without any means to stop this disaster in progress.

Unless...

Unless I can send the girl down to speak with the natives, relying on the fact she doesn't seem to be particularly bothered by anything, ranging from my monsters, their abilities, or even the death and destruction. Who, while not cherished, still lived among the villagers without them trying to butcher her on sight as I was received.

She could potentially spread the good word.

Or make it even worse.

It was a gamble either way. Friendly or not, she didn't in fact speak the same language as us and didn't magically gain the ability to speak it.

She could go, and speak with her countrymen though - I just didn't have any control of what she was going to say.

I, against my better judgement, decided to take my chances.

If nothing else, she would give me time to gesture my intent, unlike the frantic villagers below.