Shadow Slave

"Draw! Aim! Endure!"

Just as Night shouted these words, Aiko tripped and fell. The bundle of arrows she was carrying in her arms scattered on the ground.

"Ouch…"

Picking herself up from the coral, she hurriedly gathered the arrows and dashed to the nearest archer, then placed them near his feet.

In this battle, the role of people like her — those who were too weak to fight and did not possess a useful Aspect — was simultaneously the most simple and the most chaotic. They were charged with supplying the Sleepers participating in the battle with everything they needed, be it arrows, crossbow bolts, stones for their slings, or anything else.

There were several teams of runners doing different things. Initially, she was supposed to help carry the wounded from the first and second lines to the makeshift hospital at the back of the formation. There, a few people with Aspect Abilities having to do with healing waited, ready to help. Her friend Stev was one of them.

…But as it turned out, there wasn't a lot of wounded in this battle. Most simply died on the spot. So she was left with nothing to do and ended up here, helping to supply the archers.

She had just brought two quivers to Night, and was on her way…

…Wait, how crazy was that?

Trying to catch her breath, Aiko glanced around and shivered.

'Crazy, this is crazy…'

The scene in front of her was just too bizarre to be true. Several hundred Sleepers were besieged by a horde of Nightmare Creatures on the ground, with another falling on them from above. All that in front of an ugly, endless tower of crimson coral. Surely, she was dreaming…

'Of course you are! This is the Dream Realm, you dimwit!'

breathtakingly beautiful idol whose posters hung on the walls of most girls her age back home. Despite the fact that the two of them had known each other for more than a year and were even… uh…

dream a teenage girl

Aiko saw Stev and another Sleeper carrying a crude stretcher. On it was a young woman, covered in blood and pale as a ghost, her leather armor torn apart

albeit not too seriously. Running up to them, Aiko took

with her tiny body was not easy, but she

they hurried to the back of

run past the desperate archers and the exhausted crews of the siege engines, who were slowly but surely running out of the massive lances to hurl

of it, things weren't going well for the

hold. The second line was now entangled with the Nightmare

on the invisible iron net. Despite that, the number of the flying abominations did not seem to diminish at all. The metal wires were groaning, having to carry more

we all going

head to the tallest point in the Dreamer Army camp. There, on a protruding mound of crimson coral, she saw three

was Saint Nephis herself. The other was her blind oracle. And

is that guy

Sunny, the strange young man who had

Star's faction, Aiko had quickly learned who the important people were and what positions they held in the Bright Lady's

…Except for Sunny.

that pale youth played was entirely unclear. People seemed to consider him a member of Lady Nephis's cohort, but Sunny himself always insisted that he was not. He

for his tendency to keep to himself, ridiculous bragging, and carefree

him appear from the shadows and kill the Guard who had been strangling her with one

was very mysterious. He was a

she

Changing Star

going to survive,