Chapter 3 – New Mission

Despite how my day started and went, I wasn't tired. We were able to get started right away.

"Can you hear me, Sire?" Gnarl's voice sounded like it was directly in my head.

"Yeah."

"Excellent. Now, I can see in your immediate area, but only just. If any problems occur, be sure to inform me right away."

Gnarl had a lot of abilities, apparently. Telepathy and far-sight were among them, even if it was only to me.

The tunnels the minions lived in led to a number of places. The one we were about to exit went outside the city.

Moonlight shined down around me, along with the vast number of stars. Any other time and I might really enjoy this.

"This way, Master!" One of the browns said.

My party consisted of five minions. That was the limit of how many I could empower. It was fitting, since normally a party could only have six people before XP returns started diminishing. Unlike a normal party, I could increase the number of minions I was allowed to have, though that might take a while.

As for me, I had on some of the crappy armor the minions horded. It wasn't great and was piecemeal, all made of different materials and styles. My defense wasn't as high as when I had the chainmail—just thinking about it still pissed me off—but it was more than enough for now.

Our goal for the night was one thing: acquire resources.

I could only do so much at level 1, and the minions' stats were based on my level. So, I needed to increase my level. Killing monsters myself would take too long, even with the minions' help. Since minions couldn't kill things for me, we were going with the next best thing: tamed monsters.

Gnarl knew of a monster poacher that hunted around the city at night. That's when stronger monsters came out and potentially left their nests and any eggs they might have. The poacher comes in, takes the eggs, and leaves. That's about where we came in.

Apparently, there was some special ink monster tamers used to force monsters to obey them. It worked better on eggs. This poacher had ink like that, so we just had to find him and, well…

"Fluffy!" Havoc called out, pointing at a round rabbit of some sort.

It gave a squeak and jumped at us. I rushed forward and raised my gauntlet at it, intercepting its bite. It gnawed at the metal fruitlessly.

"Smash 'em!" Havoc yelled, hitting the round rabbit with his club.

It fell to the ground, trying to get back on its feet. The other minions surrounded it and pummeled it with their clubs, quickly killing it.

"Huzzah!" The minions cheered over their kill.

"Quiet!" I hissed at them. This was supposed to be a stealth mission.

Havoc picked up the dead monster and presented it to me. "For you!"

I brought my weapon's gem to it, absorbing it whole.

Usapil Shield
(abilities locked) Equip Bonus: defense 1

That reminded me. Tomorrow, I might try going around to different shops and copying all the shields I can. Gauntlets, too, since I could, apparently. What else? Bracers? Vambraces? Something for later.

I got something else from the monster. In my status, a brown bar fills up a little. It was next to three other bars that were crossed out. That must be the life essence Gnarl talked about. I was on my way to gaining more minions.

We spent several hours like this, me taking the first attack from any monsters we came across and the minions beating them to death. For a more dangerous time, it wasn't so bad. The most problematic were balloons, since I needed to grab them right after they bite or the minions would have to chase after the bouncing things.

More shield forms, more small bonuses with weak stats. I could work on them later. The bar filled up multiple times, increasing a counter. I now had 5 minions worth of energy, if I understood correctly.

At last, we saw a light in the distance. That might be the poacher. We got closer and took a look.

There was a small camp set up, a few lines of strings tied between trees with beads or something dangling on them. Must be to alert people inside of monsters.

"Shh." I reminded the minions of the need for quiet. They mimicked me, each one placing a thick finger over their lips. Idiots.

We stalked around the camp. Already I could see two people, so the 'poacher' wasn't just one guy.

After a full circle around the camp, I made a few observations. One, there were no monster eggs. Two, this wasn't the poacher or his group. Three, there was a small, locked wagon with something whimpering inside. Four, these two men were slavers.

I backed up with the minions and informed Gnarl.

"This could work out well, Sire." He said telepathically.

"How? You said to find monsters to use." I responded.

"Slaves work just as well. Even better, in some cases. A good fighting slave takes a bit of effort to maintain, but—"

"No." I sharply cut him off. I wasn't about to use slaves. As twisted as this path I might be on was, I wasn't going to use slaves.

"No?" A pause. "Ahh, I see. You plan on rallying the local demi-humans to your side. Quite the plan, Sire."

Demi-humans? Like the minions? Whatever, it wasn't my problem. I didn't need to involve myself in this. Even if the whimpering sounded like a child…

"Damn it…" I sighed. I guess I couldn't ignore this, huh? "Alright, here's the plan."

After prepping the minions, we moved out.

The two guys were sitting around the fire, a bit of meat cooking over it. Both were in armor, chainmail. That made this a little easier.

The minions and I sat and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

One of them stood up. He walked over to the edge of the camp. Then, we made our move.

"What the—" The man working his pants to relieve himself looked our way a moment too late. I rammed into him, knocking him to the ground.

"Go!" I called out, turning to the other man.

"For the Overlord!" The minions yelled, surrounding the fallen man and battering him with their clubs.

"Bastard!" The sitting guard stood and drew his weapon, a mace. A fitting weapon for a slaver.

I stood between him and his buddy, the browns mercilessly bludgeoning him.

"Help!" The injured one managed to cry out, but he still couldn't stand. His thick pants came loose at some point and worked against him.

"Hah!" The standing one charged at me.

I brought up my gauntlet and took the hit. Hah! Only a drop of damage.

"Help me—" The one on the ground kept crying out, but his voice became strained.

"Move, damn it!" The other one kept swinging at me, but the attacks were easy enough to block. They only hurt a little bit. He couldn't go around me, since I'd just attack him. I'll just let him keep thinking that.

A squelching noise from behind told me the minions were done. Now it was this guy's turn.

"Shit!" He saw the way things were going and tried to run. I grabbed his weapon arm to keep him from running, and from hitting me again.

Before he could protest, the minions swarmed him and started beating him down as well. I managed to pull the weapon away from him first. No reason to let him do any damage to them.

Soon enough, the minions finished.

"It's done." I said, informing Gnarl.

"Well done, Sire." He replied. "Time to loot their camp."

"In a second." I said this, but Havoc had already taken the mace for himself. The others were trying to strip off the armor from the two men. "Havoc, come with me."

"Yes, Master!" He replied, stepping in line.

The first thing I wanted to do was open up that carriage.

"Break the lock." I ordered him.

With one swing, Havoc did exactly that. He then held up the mace, 'oohing' and 'ahhing' at it.

There was a shuffle when I grabbed the handle of the door. When I pulled it open, the light from the camp fire filled the carriage. It was smaller than it looked. Inside, there was only one person. Just like I thought, it was a little girl, about 10 years old.

She was wearing a torn dress with no shoes. Blond hair on her head, barely reaching her shoulders. Scared eyes looked back at me. The most catching feature, something Gnarl alluded to, were the ears on the top of her head.

They looked like weasel ears.

Author's Notes:

Meet the first companion. I wonder who it could be! All it took was a little ham in my fist! Let's see how she molds Naofumi's worldview, both with her cheerful personality and the tragedy of her village.

Also, changing to past-tense. Present-tense just felt too weird to me. First two chapters should be updated soon-ish, if they haven't been already.