We all expected a reaction when we showed the corpses of the volcora to the mayor, but I don’t think we quite knew exactly how big of a reaction we would get. After a few hours, almost everyone in Shirakaze has woken up to come and look at the corpses of the dead wolves — often spending several minutes staring in horror.

  As the sun rises on the next morning, the mayor’s previous lax attitude is nowhere to be seen, replaced instead by the commands of a harsh taskmaster. By the time the sun is finally out and I’m ready to shift out of my assault state and go to sleep, all of Shirakaze has been mobilized.

  Sitting up on the roof of the house we’ve been using as a lookout post, I watch the stream of villagers head out into the fields, followed quickly by the two Field Teams who do their best to watch over them. Blinking tired eyes, I once again wonder how on Earth we’re going to keep all of these people safe. However, at least for the next couple of hours, that’s someone else’s problem.

  Not too long later, Troy’s head appears, poking up from the edge of the roof from where he climbs the ladder that was set out for us to use. I offer him a tired smile, looking at the rising sun and wincing at the idea of trying to sleep during daylight hours.

  Troy’s hair is damp from a recent shower, and his eyes are bright and alert — mentally, I curse him for it. I’ll bet he even got Yumi to make tea for him, the bastard.

  “I hope you found those blackout curtains,” I murmur, walking over.

  “No curtains, but I did drag the bed into that central room. Yumi didn’t mind and it’ll be easier to sleep without any windows in the first place,” Troy responds.

  I nod, giving one last smile before walking to the edge of the roof by the ladder.

  Yumi is the old woman with the flower apron that I saw on the way into town, and this house is hers. At first, we only knocked on her door because her home’s roof made a perfect lookout post to keep watch for volcora trying to enter the town. However, she quickly invited us in to sleep here as well.

  Evidently, Yumi once had a lot of children and grandchildren to share this large house with her, but they all ended up leaving for either Tokyo or Shinara in search of better work a few years ago. Yumi, not wanting to leave the town she spent her entire life in, stayed behind.

  All of my interactions with the old woman so far have been very friendly, making me think she misses all the grandchildren running around her house. I feel for the old woman, and when we finally get to evacuating Shirakaze, I’ll try to help her find her family in Shinara. It will be good for her to be surrounded by people she can love and care for again.

  Blinking and realizing I’ve gotten lost in thought again, I shift out of my assault state and hold out my arm.

  “Alright, let’s pack it in,” I tell Celeste, who has spent the night variously perched on roofs around town and soaring in loops high above.

  A moment later, Celeste lands on my outstretched arm, shrinking down and scrambling over to nuzzle into the crook of my neck.

  Giving Celeste a quick scratch, I nod to Troy and tiredly make my way down the ladder — mentally cursing myself for not waiting to get back into the house before shifting out of my assault state.

  Once inside the small home, I offer Yumi a quick nod of appreciation before heading back into the middle room of the house and finding the mattress Troy dragged in. Without a word to Celeste or a moment to get ready for bed, I close the door to the room and drop onto the mattress. Moments later, I’m asleep.

  What feels like mere minutes later, I’m shaken awake by a tired-looking Ken in his assault state. Is it my time to go on watch again? I thought-

  I sit bolt upright — my previous train of thought abandoned — as I hear the sounds of distant screaming. “Volcora?” I ask, Ken adrenaline giving me the energy to hop out of bed and shift into my assault state. It seems my dreams of taking a shower like Troy were in vain.

  Ken nods, “One of the workers on a distant field saw a large group heading in our direction. Luckily, it seems like it’s just a lot of small stuff, mostly wolves and these ape looking things. The problem is the numbers, theirs at least fifty of them maybe more.”

  I curse, “They’re attacking the workers?” I question, my bow appearing in my hand in a swirl of mist.

  To my surprise, Ken shakes his head. “They’re just watching. Standing at the edge of the field and watching everyone work — it’s super creepy, I’ll tell you.”

  What? Why would they just be watching? Could it be a mind flayer driving them — just trying to gather information on our numbers and relative strength? If so, then why not just attack? The mind flayer in the incursion zone seemed to have no problem with just throwing wave after wave of minions at Audrey and the other mentors in an attempt to kill them.

  Or… what if they’re trying to build up a large enough force of volcora made up of those who’ve made it across the front to wipe out Shirakaze? Either way, this can’t mean anything good.

  “What’s the plan?” I ask, starting for the door. Afternoon light streams into the house at an angle, indicating that I slept for at least a good couple of hours.

  “Baylee is mobilizing all of us to try and deal with the threat,” Ken says. “Apparently, she’s also been consulting with GDF command on what to do.”

  I nod; “Let’s get out there then.”

  While Ken and I aren’t quite as fast as Troy and his blazing speed, we still make great time moving out into the fields. However, while my mist makes me great at traversing difficult terrain quickly, over flat fields of barley, I have trouble keeping up with Ken’s strength-fueled speed.

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  Luckily, it doesn’t appear that we need to rush. Baylee appears to have just arrived on the scene and is talking quietly on her phone — presumably with GDF Command.

  The rest of us sentinels are congregating around her waiting for orders while the townsfolk that were working the fields are standing back from us.

  Near the edge of the field, a large group of bristling volcora stand, as Ken described, in a line. While the beasts seem to be on the edge of attacking — growling and shifting as they are — they don’t seem to want to push forward at the moment, which I take as a good thing. If this group caught the field teams off-guard, we absolutely would have taken casualties.

  Looking at the massive group of volcora, I oddly find that I’m not actually too afraid of them. A cursory glance puts all of them in E Rank, and I’m fairly confident in my ability to fight them or at least escape if they try to rush me. What I’m not confident in is my ability to protect the people relying on me if they rush us.

  If this group of volcora decides to stop simply watching and instead attack, they will get torn apart by our sentinel teams. But I’m certain at least a few of them would be able to get around us to attack the vulnerable farm workers behind us. Not a great situation. It would be good if we could get all of the villagers somewhere safe and then take on the threat on our terms.

  After a long few minutes of the volcora staring at us and us staring back, Baylee puts down her phone to address us.

  “Consensus at command is that this group of volcora is waiting to accumulate more numbers before attacking,” she says, turning to look out across the enemy.

  “So, what’s our play?” Troy asks, glaring at the enemy volcora as if he could kill them with just his stare.

  “Well,” Baylee says, “that depends on us. If we feel as if we can take them, we should attack first. Just know that if they’re showing themselves like this, it means that they very likely have more strength than we realize and are trying to bait us.”

  “Bait us how?” Melody asks, also looking at the volcora. I notice that the specific volcora she’s looking at, a larger wolf, lies whining on the ground, pawing at its ears. I can’t help but feel a small twinge of sympathy for the creature. Melody’s powers are awful to be on the receiving end of.

  “Command says the Volcora at large have used this tactic before,” Baylee says, turning to Melody. “They offer us a hard but winnable fight, only to turn the tables the second we take the bait. I’m almost certain they’ve got something stronger hidden in their number that will try to ambush us if we attack.”

  “We can’t just let them keep threatening people, though,” I comment, looking back at the scared townsfolk.

  “I agree,” Baylee says. “If the strength of this group was truly more than we can handle, they would simply attack and get this over with. The fact that they aren’t attacking but are trying to lay a trap for us leaves me to believe we have relatively even strength. The way they see it, if we wait, they win because they can build up more numbers; if we attack and don’t see their trap coming, they also win because they will gain a tactical advantage.”

  Troy grunts in appreciation. “I’d say what we need to do is turn the advantage on them. The major failing of their strategy is that we know where they are and get to choose when to attack. I say we get ourselves prepared and hit them hard.”

  I nod at this; if we can make a good plan, it’s very possible we can turn the tables on this group of volcora. The plan that they’re executing is clever, but not that clever — which makes me agree with Baylee that there’s nothing like a mind flayer guiding them. More likely, a slightly more intelligent volcora giving these simple-minded troops slightly more advanced orders.

  “Our first step should be getting the townspeople somewhere safe for the fight,” I say, glancing back once more. “They are our biggest vulnerability. If the volcora abandon the fight and try to attack them, we’ll be forced to disengage and play protectors. If we can tuck them away somewhere safe first, then we can fight more simply, us against them.”

  Baylee thinks for a moment before agreeing. “Yes, I’ll go talk to the mayor. You all stay here keeping a watch on those volcora; make sure they aren’t trying anything funny. Serena, you have Celeste fly around the back of the town, I’m worried they might be trying to pincer us, and I want to see it coming.”

  “Got it,” I say, Celeste leaping off my shoulder to go scout from the air.

  With that, we set in to wait while Baylee gets the townspeople safely tucked away.

  Hours later, with all the normal people of Shirakaze safely tucked away in their school’s gymnasium with several armed men to watch the entrances, our group of sentinels once again congregates near the edge of the barley field.

  While I feel mostly alright, more than a few of the sentinels around me look exhausted — Ken in particular. Having all of us awake at a time isn’t good; we’ll all build up mana toxicity and general exhaustion. We will need to deal with this threat quickly and get back into our schedule. Otherwise, we’ll end up having real problems in the coming days.

  Not to mention the ticking clock in my mind that reminds me that, with the townspeople hidden away, no progress will be made on harvesting. They may be safe, but the longer this goes, the longer we’ll have to guard Shirakaze.

  As Baylee returns to our group — having organized the people — she arrives in the midst of an already started discussion.

  “-we shouldn’t be trying to pincer them,” Troy was saying. “That leaves our backline fighters too vulnerable and splits our strength. I think we just go in hard and fast; Serena’s mist can give us a massive advantage as we fight, and when anything too strong comes out, we take care of it with Melody’s dominion art.”

  “That feels like walking straight into their trap,” Akari responds, looking out over the still-waiting volcora. “If we split back into our normal team lineups and hit them from either side, maybe we can throw off whatever ambush they have waiting for us.”

  Baylee, having paused to listen to the current discussion for a moment, nods in appreciation. “Both are good ideas. We do need to act soon, though. I’m sure we’ve all realized that we can’t allow the enemy to perpetuate this state?”

  This receives a general round of nods and anxious looks, although a few of the members of Team Firestorm seem ready to rush into the fight immediately. Perhaps the alure of getting new abilities is starting to weigh on them.

  “What if I just blanket this field in mist and we approach that way?” I ask, “I can keep the mist up and can teleport anywhere within it so I can provide extra support to anyone who’s struggling.

  Troy nods, “Exactly; you blanket our approach in mist, and we hit them hard and fast. We start a rout and run them down. That way, we don’t have to split our strength.”

  At this Troy turns to Akari, who was the main one in opposition to rushing straight in, after a moment of consideration, she shrugs. “That does work I suppose. Besides, if we try a pincer any team without Serena would be exposed.”

  “Why not do it both ways?” Baylee asks, looking between Troy and Akari. After receiving confused looks, she elaborates.

  “All the volcora in that line are clustered together, and Serena can create a lot of coverage with her mist — I’ve seen her do it. What if she blankets our approach, but instead of attacking straight on like the enemy would expect, we hit them from the sides. Our two teams would be a lot closer together that way, but Serena will still be able to jump between us based on who needs the most help,” Baylee explains.

  At this, we all exchange glances, and no one seems to disagree with Baylee’s sentiment.

  There is, however, one thing I want to add. “I think we should only fight as two teams at the start; once we’ve started the rout, we should group back together and follow that way. If one team gets caught in an ambush but not the other, that could make things go very wrong.”

  Baylee nods, “Agreed. Anyone else have something to add?”

  After a moment of silence, Baylee shrugs. “Alright, let’s get started.”