The Castle in the middle of nowhere.

Oh yes. I forgot to mention that with dropping off my spawn protection shield, Avalon was under constant siege.

And that was fucking annoying!

All my food nodes were beacons for all kinds of critters. Wasps, crows, mice, and some kind of fucking furry lizard. It was maybe 15 centimetres long with brown-green long fur growing from the spine line that works like fucking ghillie when it stands still.

Fucking pieces of shit.

However, my chicken spawner was the reason why I so quickly agreed to level up my wolf spawner. Weasels. Back on Earth, I liked them. They were cute and always so far away that I never considered them a nuisance. BUT NOW I FUCKING HATE THEM. They are big. Much bigger than they should be and hunt my chickens in packs.

My main problem with invaders is the fact that their actions don't generate mana for me. When my residents or denizens gather something I receive mana. To grow something back I however use mana. At first, I thought my spawners or nodes don't use mana. That's not the case as they use it. Very negligible amounts of mana, but, nonetheless in the big picture of the entirety of Avalon it is noticeable.

On the mana economy, however, I will have to write an entirely separate page in my diary to sort it out for myself later.

So that's why I needed just only fifteen minutes of Marie begging me to help her find some 'awesome doggo'.

Marie... Marie is...

Marie is the youngest of my residents and by extension smallest. When I rescued them from slavers they were sure they are going to die anyway. They were deep in the dungeon surrounded but heavily armoured Skeleton Knights who moments ago shredded slavers and mercenaries who planned to kill them. Marie was no exception.

She cried very quietly snuggled into her mother's dress to not bring any attention to her or her mother. That would shatter my heart in my previous life but now it looks like killing is like breathing for me. But when I saw her silent tears my barely contained wrath was ready to erupt.

I saw her malnourished and pale from dehydration face and felt once more simple human feelings in my heart. She was barely alive in this world and almost died in vain. I teleported there holding Amber's hand.

I gave her a nectarine back then and told her that she never again has to be afraid. I welcomed them to Avalon.

They all even children pledged themselves to me. They swore their allegiance to me and Amber to forever serve Avalon.

And I accepted and took their oath.

Marie now is a different girl. She no longer covers herself under her mother's skirt or hides in corners to not bring attention to herself. She acts more like children I remember from Earth. She is a happy, intelligent and cunning little child that always makes me smile.

She is 110cm tall with long light brown hair like her mother and she always has combed them in a ponytail or braids. Her hazel eyes however show how much evil she saw during her short life but never lost this spark of curiosity. She is thin but no longer suffers from a lack of food.

Never again as long as she is in Avalon.

Marie is laughing now more often. She plays with her best friends Fiona and Nicole and for them, every other citizen of Avalon besides Amber is their family. I'm excluded since they know who... What I am. At first, that hurt Amber since she wanted such family affection but after some time she understood that's her share of the price of her own fate.

However, that never stopped Marie from sneaking into Amber's chambers when she is doing her own stuff or some work I asked her to do and playing with the godly Queen whom Marie adores so much.

My scions also loves Marie. It's something in her that made Sebastian and Arani always look after her. Both of them also think they can secretly level up Marie. I few times watched them both assigning their strongest underlings and allowing Marie to fight them. When they finally flee from the fight Marie receives quite a hefty amount of experience.

I'll allow them to think I don't know.

Also, Slime Maids love playing with her. Their favourite game is hide-and-seek on normal rules, not that crazy mix they came up with Fiona and Nicole. Their daily games of hide-and-seek ended with Marie obtaining a rare, almost legendary class.

Requirements for unlocking it are just suicidal for anyone in this world. You have to multiple times track down the same monster that is much stronger than you. Then you have to incapacitate it and spare its life to hunt it again once more in the future.

Apparently, there were some monsters in wild at some point that were neutral or passive toward humans but they survived only in legends of this world.

Observing how Marie is playing with others is very entertaining. You can almost make bets about how long it take her to track down maid or other girls she plays with. I often laugh watching my residents at work or when they grind their levels. A note to whoever finds my journal. I'm not some sick peeper and I fully well understood how privacy works.

I personally find some peaceful serenity in the presence of real living people amongst my walls. I don't know how to describe that. Maybe as some form of fulfilment? Not as a dungeon or castle but as a human who in reality I am. Dunno.

However, back to Marie.

We both moved in secret to the wolf spawner hidden in the lower castle. With Marie having my back I maxed it with the only path I saw cool. Now I and Marie have an awesome doggo. Mine is called Thor but about him later. I was tempted to call him Loki just for the confusion but Thor shall he be.

Marie has tamed the Great Shadow Wolf. It's normally a ferocious beast that would scare living shit out of anyone. As big as a Shire horse from Earth and able to bite your head clean off with a single chomp would be scary enough, but no. We have the Great part explained let's move to the next important part.

The fucking Shadow is not for decoration. Or to fulfill the rule of cool.

No. It is literally a beast of darkness. It can move in and between shadows and while it moves in total darkness is soundless. Nothing this big should move that silently.

I think the wolf part is self-explanatory.

Anyway... When Marie saw him she started screaming. At first, I thought she was just scared. I was wrong.

She was excited.

Normally the process of taming is long as it takes at least a few days. Unless you use the skill like Marie did and tamed the wolf the same second she touched the confused beast. And Marie, as young as she was, nailed her build.

She was a five-year-old girl with a clear plan that would put many adults I knew in my previous life to fucking shame. Once she accidentally unlocked a Phantom Ranger class she was more than happy to tread this path.

She not only picked all her affinity around the Shadow aspect but also focused on four types of skills. With a bow as her basic weapon and a short sword or sabre as a secondary, she invested in five skills for bow and three for sabre or short sword. It looks like in this world sabre and short sword share their skills. Don't ask me. From my point of view that makes no fucking sense.

Anyway. Marie reasonably focused on sneak and traps which have bonuses from her shadow affinity. She can sneak better than fucking ninjas. She can disappear in low light and she sees better in darkness. AND SHE IS FIVE YEARS OLD. She thought out her build better than I feasibly thought possible for a kid.

But that's not even the middle. She also picked the wolf as a soul animal. That's a special perk of Ranger that allows them to be better with chosen creature no matter if as allies or enemies. Then she poked a bit of taming part of her skill tree. Long story short she can tame one creature that will follow her as a familiar companion. She also made sure to level all command, link and buff skills.

That means she can buff her wolf and in turn her wolf buffs her own stats. Furthermore, she can now use Shadow Movement, Shadow Strike and Shadow Armor- skills granted to her by a familiar pact with her wolf. All these skills are fucking cheats in my humble opinion so I'm glad she got them.

Shadow Movement is the same skill that her wolf uses to scare the living shit from anyone in this world. Essentially she can teleport anywhere where there are shadows.

The Shadow Strike is a universal skill she can use with any weapon and effects vary from weapon to weapon. But of course, that skill made her main weapon just broken. When she shoots an arrow into any shadow said arrow will then fly out from any nearby shadow straight into her target.

And oh boy... One of her regular skills is called Barrage. After she fires an arrow it splits into multiple arrows. Kinda classic RPG skill. But Marie made fucking art out of it. Yes, you guessed. She combined her skills. Shadow Strike combined with Barrage is terrifying. I saw her training with my skeleton archers.

Right now her barrage split her arrow into four others. And she shoots right under her own feet. That's right. Straight into her own shadow. Anything on receiving end is fucked. She split Barrage and attacks from multiple angles so at some point no matter how good you are she will get you.

That alone would be broken. But she also has Shadow Armor. That skills literally envelop her in shade making her defences stats so high that most people in this world would mistake her for the tank class. Its downside is the fact that the sun and bright light dissolves her shades over time.

So after that, she focused on her passives and tracking skills. You may think that's OP. Nah. The good part starts now.

She is a resident of Avalon and technically worships Eriar.

On a side note. I still hesitate to call Eriar a God. No, sorry buddy. You were working with Angels and that looked to me more like an unofficial collaboration than official business. I can give you credits for being on the good side of things but it's a no for godhood until further notice.

Back to Marie. As I said She is a resident of Avalon and technically worships Eriar. So she received buffs to her dexterity, intelligence and wisdom. That's for being a resident of Avalon. Not as broken as Amber who got her buffs based on my stats but a flat +15 is still cheating.

Hmmm, wouldn't a resident of Avalon be called Avalonian? The thing to think about later.

From Eriar she received fatal status protections. That means nothing can instantly kill her. And any other status is levelled down. Let's say she is affected by the normal poison. Eriar blessing would change it to lesser poison.

Yeah. I will not even try to hide it. Marie is an absolute monster. She can fight with most of my denizens on her level or a little bit stronger as their equal. I'm suspecting that Marie alone would decimate or annihilate the army of this kingdom.

How this kingdom is called? Pffff... Damn, I forgot to ask anyone. Oh no!

Anyway.

Marie is still a child. But a child that is accompanied by the wolf that would drag your soul and body into shadows and darkness to eat you alive and leave your soul in eternal darkness. That's what Annika knows about Shadow Wolves. Well... I'm fucking impressed Marie. Points for style.

The most terrifying part about her wolf is his name. It's so casual, so unassuming, so... So... Silly that it will catch anyone off guard. And I suspect she knows about that.

The Great Shadow Wolf lvl 53.

Mr Fluffles

However, the fact that Marie is still a child is also a problem. She is short. No, seriously she is a five-year-old kid. She is 110 cm tall. How the fuck she could use a longbow? That's a beast of a bow- it's between 1.8 to 2m long. Two times bigger than the girl. Bjorn made her short bow but on these ranges, she can as well use her wolf as he can almost jump that far.

Worry not kiddo! Uncle Theon got your back! I ordered Ragnar and Bjorn to make her compound bow. Oh yeah. I'll shamelessly use my isekaied knowledge. The bow is still big for her as it is literally as big as she is but she can at least use it freely. And oh boi. Trust me. You don't want to be on the receiving end of a Dwarven-made Compound Bow. That thing is scary as hell. Skills aside it punishes almost like a longbow.

Best part?

She is sniping fucking weasels in her free time now. She is practising target shooting on her maximal range of fucking 300m. With her cheated stats and level she always bullseye up to 100m. Which is terrifying if you think about it.

You may think I'm some kind of maniac. That I allowed children to play with weapons or even expose them to violence. On Earth yeah, I would agree. But here? I'd like to remind she was brought to Avalon just to be killed. This world is not the Earth. This is the dark world where our Middle Ages were like a fucking picnic. I want them all to be as prepared as possible. One day I may need their help and I would never forgive myself if they just die somewhere out there only because I shielded them too much.

That's why I encourage my residents to use every and any occasion to become stronger. And all of them waste no time and not just rise but soar with power. They are taming the creatures that spawn within my walls. Train and level up to be ready.

On one hand, they live in the unimaginable comfort of Avalon. Unbeknownst to them surrounded by little things that should not exist in this world. Utensils and daily use products of a technologically advanced civilisation of the XXI century Earth. With my knowledge that also should not exist in this world, I can make plans no one here would even dream about. It's safe to say Avalon is a place of unfathomable wonders for these people.

On the other hand, I already have the first pictures of how bad this world is. That's why I know I can't allow my residents to just live careless lives. They know very well that one day I may ask them to be my Envoys. They may once again return to the darkness of this world to maybe bring somewhere the light of Avalon as ambassadors of hope or lead armies of my undying soldiers as my generals and conquerors.

And one day Marie may decide she wants to leave the safety of Avalon. They are not held here by force and if they wish they can leave. As strange or impossible as that sound that's the truth.

And that's why I'll make sure they are more powerful than any hero that ever roamed these lands.