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!'

of most girls her age back home. Despite the fact that the two of them had known each other

the kind of weird dream a

curse, Aiko saw Stev and another Sleeper carrying a crude stretcher. On it was a

down. It appeared as though he was wounded himself, albeit not too

her tiny body was not easy, but she gritted her

hurried to the back of

way, they had to 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

things weren't going well

longer those poor people would be able to hold. The second line was now entangled with the Nightmare Creatures, too. The initial plan had been for

more corpses were falling 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 and

we all going to

the tallest point in the

The other was her blind oracle. And the

is that

young man who had gotten her into this mess

faction, Aiko had quickly learned who the important people were and what positions they held in the Bright Lady's cohort. Everyone's role was clear and easy

…Except for Sunny.

role 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.

himself, ridiculous bragging, and carefree attitude. They

Aiko did not think that Sunny was harmless. She had seen him appear from the shadows and kill the Guard

mind, Sunny was very mysterious. He was a

Lady Nephis now, she suddenly felt a

Star had a

were going