"I-It's not on purpose, I swear!"
Teruria quickly tried to explain herself. And her words were no lie.
By her calculation, her curse's range shouldn't have reached the walls, or Axel and the others, at all...
But due to her new accessory, the Bracelet of Intelligence, increasing her stat by 10 full points, her curses had been improved greatly—including their effect range!
"It's fine, making mistakes is natural under pressure in a real battle." Axel quickly appeased her. "But first, please dispel the curse, or we'll get overwhelmed by the zombies soon enough."
Without their sight, and unable to move, they literally couldn't do much of anything.
But of course, the zombies hit by her curse were immobilized all the same, so his worries were unfounded. Teruria, the caster, should've been affected herself, but thanks to the Substitute Dolls she brought with her, the curse didn't affect her.
It took her a minute to dispel the curse she cast on her allies, enabling them to fight back again.
And her timing couldn't be more perfect.
"Giant Zombies in sight!"
The girls manning the ballistas shouted at the same time. Axel didn't delay and looked around, seeing that there were exactly six Giant Zombies that appeared, equally spaced around the camp.
"Alright!" he shouted. "Ballistas, aim for the Giant Zombies first! Don't let them get close to the walls! Teruria, you use your curses to keep them in place—and don't hit us this time!"
"I-I know! That was an accident!"
Everyone moved quickly, with the little goth loli princess being the fastest. With a wave of her brand-new staff and a Voodoo Doll in her other hand, she cast another set of curses toward the new wave of zombies. This time, she aimed even further, enough that there was absolutely no chance of the curse reaching them.
"Curse of Slow, Curse of Paralysis!"
The next moment, all the new zombies coming from the north side came to a standstill, unable to take another step forward. Seeing that nobody on their side was affected by the curse, Teruria smiled in relief.
"See?! I told you, earlier was just an accident! There's no way I'd mishandle a curse~!" she boasted before rushing to the other edge.
She dashed as she chanted, ensuring swift execution, casting the curses as soon as she was in range. With her speed, unbefitting of her small stature, she finished one lap around the entire wall in under two minutes!
But of course, before she even finished casting the curses on all four sides, the Giant Zombies had all died from the ballistas' bolts already.
Although her help wasn't "excessive," it wasn't really necessary either. Axel simply wanted to let her have some purpose in the defense, and gauge what a witch could do, thus giving her commands.
'But no doubt, it's thanks to her curses that the zombies didn't even move a step beyond the line I marked...'
With her paired curses of slow and paralysis, the zombies literally were standing still the entire time. They were no different from target practice thanks to this, lessening the pressure on the girls.
Thus, in under 10 minutes, all of the 3,600 zombies and 6 Giant Zombies were cleared without incurring any collateral damages. It was an overwhelming victory for the defense side, and a perfect execution of their newly implemented "Arrow Suppression Protocol"!
"With this, we should be safe for the entire night," Axel announced with a smile. "Congratulations, everyone! We defended this camp successfully once more!"
"YEAH!"
A loud cheer exploded from the girls, unable to believe that they were able to do such a thing. Some were jumping in joy, while others hugged whoever was closest to them, crying warm tears.
Axel saw all of it, and simply shrugged.
All that was left was cleanup.
But with the bandits under the Obedience Curse, there were no problems at all. He left them to pick up the not-so-broken bolts and recycle them, before ordering them to return to their small walled section afterward.
He didn't need to seal their wall off again, as with the curse on them—which would last forever until it was dispelled—those men would be unable to run away even if they wanted to.
As soon as they returned to camp, Axel turned to the girls.
"Then, I'll be resting early. See you all tomorrow."
And declaring as such, he entered the first prefab home in the complex and sat down on the bed.
The inside of it was dark, as there was no electricity or lights set up in the rooms yet. But with the system shop within reach, he just bought a desktop lamp and batteries to chase away the darkness.
"Alright, for now, I guess it's time to do manual production until I get sleepy!"
Automatic Crafting was good and all, but the drawbacks of its slow production and lowered quality did make Axel feel that it was lacking. For example, in the time that the auto-crafting could make one Voodoo Doll, he could batch-craft thousands of them in one go!
And of course, that's exactly what he did.
Focusing on crafting, he started by aiming for 100,000 Voodoo Dolls in 1 hour.
Then, he crafted a thousand Substitute Dolls for another hour.
Finally, he focused on crafting random accessories, alternating the types. These were the same as the Substitute Dolls, unable to be batch-crafted, but he didn't mind it in particular.
Again, a full hour was spent making a thousand of them!
"Phew... I guess that's it for today..."
Axel wiped his sweat and checked the time on his system window.
It was still early at just 8 P.M., but adding the fatigue he had for several days and nights straight, his eyes were already about to close by themselves.
Before he retired for the night, he didn't forget to put everything he crafted in his shop. He made sure that his prices were the same as usual, and with the accessory prices the same as the resellers' prices—ranging from 5 to 20 million Colts each.
He was way too sleepy to price them one by one, so he just set all accessories at the maximum within the said range.
"Ugh..."
Axel lay on the soft bed, resting his head on a pillow for the first time in a few days. The comfort alone was enough to pull his consciousness into the world of dreams, but—
"Brother Axel...?"
"Huh?"
A lonely voice echoed from within the darkness, making Axel open his eyes and stare toward the entrance to the bedroom. There, little Arianne stood, looking at him with an anxious gaze.
"What's wrong, Arianne?" Axel asked. "Your room should be next door—"
But just as he was explaining, the little girl jumped on him, snuggling against his chest. "It's too dark there, it's scary... Can we sleep here?"
"Huh? Ah, right, you're all kids right now..." Axel muttered sleepily. "I guess it's fine..." before pausing a bit and asked. "Wait, did you say we?"
And before he could ruminate on what he just said, four more little shadows jumped on top of the bed, shaking it greatly.
It wasn't only Arianne, but Eve, Beatrix, Maria, and even Cherry were present!
Axel didn't really have had kids before and felt a little annoyed by their sudden intrusion. Still, his mind was already muddled from sleepiness, so he only muttered a stern warning:
"At least remove your costumes before you go to sleep..."
Just as he said that line, a loud ripping sound echoed.
It wasn't just one, but multiple.
"Huh?"
Axel, due to his sleepiness, forgot about one critical fact...
The Regression Curse's duration.
It was 8 P.M. now, and they were cursed near noon. Thus, time-wise, it was the perfect moment for the curse to end!
As the curse faded, the girls' bodies grew rapidly, their clothes violently ripped off their bodies due to their transformation.
"..."
And the next moment, five naked beauties were left hanging over him on the bed.