Dungeon Overlord: Monster Girl Harem!

The trees whispered just before it happened.

Nyxara's hand shot up.

"Hold," she hissed.

Asuka's boots skidded in the moss. Sylvie's spell halted on her fingertips, ice crystallising silently. Erina stopped breathing, the weight of the forest pressing down hard. Something in the air—heavy, thick, primal—crushed the silence.

Then it broke.

A roar, raw and guttural, shook the undergrowth.

Orcs.

They charged from the trees, howling, massive arms swinging cleavers and rust-worn axes. Crude armour jangled over their thick frames—eight feet tall, maybe more. Green-black skin, tusked mouths foaming with spit and fury.

"Contact front!" Nyxara snapped, drawing twin hooked daggers.

The first orc slammed into Asuka with enough force to shake the ground. Her blade met it mid-swing—steel on flesh—cutting halfway through a thick wrist before she was knocked back into a tree with a pained grunt.

"Shit—!"

Erina raised her staff, eyes wide. "H-heal—!"

An axe buried itself inches from her foot.

"Sylvie!"

"Freeze!" the Yuki-Onna shouted, frost bursting from her outstretched hands. Ice spires erupted around them, catching two orcs mid-charge, freezing their limbs solid—but it wouldn't last. Already, cracks spread from the impact points.

A third orc shoved through the barrier.

Its eyes locked onto Erina.

Too fast.

Too close.

Her mouth opened in a scream she didn't have time to finish—

CLANG.

Asuka's blade met the orc's face with a wet crack, blood splattering across Erina's robes. The dragonoid spun and slammed the flat of her sword into its chest, knocking it back—but her arms shook.

She was breathing harder.

Not from exertion. From pain.

"Erina—! Stay behind me!"

"Y-yes!"

Another orc vaulted over the spire, roaring.

Sylvie turned, whispering words Erina didn't understand, then thrust her palm forward.

But the orc was faster.

It vaulted over the last ice spire and slammed its skull into Sylvie's face.

CRACK.

She stumbled back with a sharp gasp, nose bleeding instantly from the headbutt. Her glasses snapped, one lens spider-webbed with fractures.

Erina screamed.

The orc raised its axe—

Sylvie's fingers twitched. Magic surged.

Frost exploded from her palm point-blank.

The orc froze mid-swing, legs locking, groin turning to solid ice before the magic spread up its stomach.

It hit the ground twitching, steaming.

Sylvie swayed, blood running down her lip.

"Too many," she whispered.

More were coming.

Five orcs. Ten.

They weren't organised. Just big. Brutal. Unrelenting.

Erina's arms shook as she raised her staff again. Healing spells. Buffs. She knew them. She could help.

But the magic felt so small.

Every time she blinked, another corpse fell.

Every time she breathed, another scream followed.

And they weren't winning.

At least that's what she thought...

The ice cracked.

Sylvie collapsed to one knee, blood trickling past her lips, one hand gripping her temple.

"Fall back!" Asuka shouted, her sword arm coated in blood—hers and theirs. "They're too many!"

Another orc charged, nearly eight feet of roaring muscle, weapon raised to crush Erina's skull.

Erina froze.

She couldn't dodge. She couldn't cast. She—

SHNK.

A hooked blade punched through the orc's throat.

Its eyes went wide, then rolled back.

Behind it stood Nyxara.

No sound. No warning.

Blood dripped from her twin daggers—curved like scorpion tails, one black, one silver.

"Sloppy," she muttered. "Amateurs."

She moved forward.

Graceful.

Deadly.

"How can my beloved ignore me for such inferior women!?"

Her first blade slashed open an orc's kneecap, dropping it mid-step.

The second curved upward, deep into the base of its jaw. It dropped like a sack of meat.

Then the woods screamed.

Not from the Orcs.

From the trees.

Dark elf rangers rose from shadowed branches, bows drawn with threads of spider-silk. Dozens. Maybe more. Their cloaks blended with bark, faces masked in bone-paint.

Thhhhpt!

The first volley dropped three orcs instantly—throats, eyes, joints.

The Orcs roared in confusion, their charge slowing.

Then the ground caved.

Snap.

One orc screamed as it fell into a pit lined with obsidian spikes.

Another stumbled, caught by a snare that yanked it into the trees, leaving its feet twitching above the canopy.

The dark elves didn't shout.

They whispered.

Sang.

Their bows released with soft, ghostly thwips, one after another, each arrow tipped with paralytic venom that numbed on contact.

The Orcs tried to rally.

It didn't work.

A berserker spotted Sylvie in the crowd, his red body covered in muscle and veins, but still an ugly pig face twitched as he brutally charged towards her, ignoring the frost crusting his arms.

He reached her.

His axe rose.

Sylvie barely raised her hands—

CLANG.

Nyxara intercepted.

Her twin daggers snapped upward, locking the axe between their curved edges. Steel shrieked.

Then she twisted and wrenched the weapon from his grip and sailed into the trees.

Before the orc could react, she ducked low and drove both blades into his gut—one vertical, one hooked. She yanked them sideways, splitting muscle, armour, and bone with surgical precision.

The orc collapsed with a guttural groan, twitching violently.

Nyxara stood over the corpse, chest rising and falling slowly.

Her voice was quiet. Calm.

"Messy," she muttered.

Erina stared, stunned.

Nyxara turned to her.

"Try not to die, Saintess. If you're weak, he'll forget your name."

The forest echoed with the dying roars of the last few Orcs.

They ran.

Dark elf rangers gave chase—silent, swift, like spiders on the wind.

Sylvie collapsed fully now, exhausted.

Asuka leaned on her blade, panting, one leg trembling.

Erina dropped to her knees.

She had healed.

She had buffed.

But she'd done nothing to change the tide.

She'd nearly died.

The bodies stopped moving.

The air didn't.

It still pulsed—thick with blood and ash and fear. Erina sat where she'd collapsed, her knees bent awkwardly in the dirt, her staff still clutched in white-knuckled fingers.

Not one spell left her lips now.

The forest was quiet. No birds. No wind.

Just the slow drip of blood from leaves above.

She looked around.

Asuka leaned against a boulder, panting like a dog... with one arm wrapped tightly around her ribs where dark blood soaked through her leathers. Her nodachi lay across her lap, dull at the edge. She hadn't cleaned it.

Sylvie sat nearby, legs folded under her, her sleeves crusted with ice and red. Her breath fogged in slow, pained puffs. The fracture in her glasses was worse now, nearly splitting one lens in half.

Erina could hear her heartbeat. It was too fast. Too loud.

Her magic was gone.

Her voice trembled.

And she hadn't killed a single orc.

"I couldn't…" she whispered. "I couldn't stop them. I barely kept up."

Sylvie looked over. Her lips parted—but she didn't speak.

There wasn't anything to say.

Not here.

Not now.

Nyxara stood at the edge of the treeline, wiping blood from her blades with clinical calm. Her expression never changed. Not after the battle. Not after the screams.

She hadn't even bled.

"You'll die if you stay weak," she hissed, not even looking at them. "He doesn't need girls who tremble after one skirmish."

"He needs women, warriors and those willing to kill and die for him."

Erina looked down at her hands.

They were clean.

Unbloodied.

Useless.

Her throat burned.

But no tears came.

They didn't deserve to—not after that. Not after seeing what Nyxara did. How she moved. How she killed.

Leonhardt had saved her before. Guided her. Used her.

But even when he broke her, especially when he broke her, he made her feel something.

Here?

She just felt… small.

Asuka groaned and flopped onto her back. "Ughhh… That sucked."

"You nearly got bisected," Sylvie said softly, adjusting the broken strap on her sleeve.

"Yeah, and you got headbutted." Asuka grinned, teeth red. "Call it even."

Erina didn't laugh.

She didn't smile.

Because she wasn't like them... both of them were important to Leonhardt, he'd already slept with them, every night they stayed in the citadel, they would leave their shared room and head to his... and have sex.

"..."

The image kept flashing in her head—Leonhardt, calm as ever, cutting through humans like they were cloth. No panic. No hesitation. No fear.

She wanted that.

Needed it.

Not for pride. Not even for survival.

She wanted to stand beside him, not hide behind his shadow.

But right now?

She couldn't even stand.

———

Leonhardt POV

———

The crystal flickered softly in the dark.

Leonhardt stood alone at the edge of the citadel's scrying chamber, the long velvet curtains pulled aside to let in the dying orange light of Embervale's late sun. The blue orb hovered in the air, its glow dim but steady, focused on the forest far to the west.

Smoke drifted through the image. Blood marked the leaves. And three women sat in the dirt.

Sylvie, pale and battered, her magic drained. Asuka, sharp-eyed but wounded, was trying too hard to look unfazed. And Erina—still on her knees, clutching her staff like it could give her answers.

She wasn't crying.

But she would.

Leonhardt tilted his head slightly.

"They survived," he said quietly.

[They nearly died.]

Ifrit murmured, her voice warm but a little judgmental and biting.

[You gave them your name, but they don't have the strength yet...]

(And yet the Saintess didn't run... but she didn't really fight either.)

Dravanna cooed.

(She looked at the blood… and froze like a little bunny. Isn't that something, little Lord?)

Leonhardt's fingers brushed the crystal surface, and the image distorted for a breath before sharpening again.

Erina's mouth moved, too far for sound. But the look on her face wasn't one he'd seen before.

Shame. Hunger. Lust. Resolve.

He let the crystal dim.

"They'll either break," he murmured, turning away. "Or become worth keeping."

The room fell quiet again.