Another day,

southwest of the forest that Gosh is currently in, there is a small town called Ko-mark, surrounded by short brick walls.

Stationed at one of those walls are a pair of slender ape-like creatures.

One is staring at the surroundings with a simple telescope, while the other is on his leather-covered butt, eating what looks to be a plantain.

The both of them are of one of the intelligent species of the planet Aberna, the Ko-o race.

The people of this race are born tall, hairy, and muscular, with the males exhibiting those features more than the females. All of the males are at least 2 meters tall.

The ones patrolling the walls are all male, while females are left inside the town doing chores, similar to pre-historic society of humanity's ancestors on earth.

Except for the old and more frail ones, members of their species don't wear tops, but they do cover their bottoms, usually with leather skirts.

The biggest differences between them and earth's apes are that their ears aren't as big, being smaller and sharper, their mouths aren't as long, with the teeth inside more pointy, and they don't move on all fours.

The Ko-o eating the plantain asks "Bo, what are we doing here?"

The Ko-o using the telescope says "Thro, you forgot? Or did you just not listen?"

"No one ever listens to the commander. The commander is stupid after all."

"But the commander was really serious this time."

"What happened to make the commander serious?"

"The young prince killed a kat."

Thro gasped, almost dropping his plantain.

"Is the young prince crazy?"

"No, just stupid."

"Even the dumbest ko-o knows not to kill a kat. Killing a kat would attract the vengeance of them." Toward the end of Thro's sentence, his voice became darker.

"Then the king, because he was afraid of them gathering, ordered people to kill all the kats in town." Bo added.

"Is the king crazy too?"

"No, just stupid. Now, many ko-o in town are scared and we have to keep watch over the town's surroundings."

"...By the way, what is that?"

"What is what?"

"That thing you're holding."

"A telescope. It's supposed to let you see far away by looking through the hole. The commander bought it from a silot merchant using military rations (our food)."

"Does it work?"

"No. But the commander said to use it, so I have to use it."

"...The commander is stupid."

"...Yeah. Too bad. Aside from the king, he's the strongest of us all." Bo lamented. That is the reality of a society where leadership positions are decided by strength. In his opinion, being more intelligent, he himself would make a much better leader.

Bo himself did not notice, that he is holding the telescope backwards.

"Hey Bo, I see something." Thro nudged Bo's shoulder.

"...Me too." Bo put down the telescope and said.

As an evolved species, all at least stage 2, they have pretty decent vision.

From afar, they can see a small black fur creature with a big head and small body, standing on its short hind legs and wave its short paw at them.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Aw~ how cute..." They both said, relaxing their shoulders and expressions.

Then they see that cute little creature open its small mouth till the hole widened to a space half its head.

A hollow black rod pokes out, longer than the little creature's own body, shining with a glint under the bright white sun, its circular tip pointed straight at them.

"Holy bayanas! It's a faux kat, get down!" One of them said. Then both of them threw themselves flat to the ground, hiding behind the short wall.

BOOM!!

A flaming metal rock shot out of the cannon that came out of the faux kat's mouth.

It soared through the air, heating up the air around it, drying up all the grass below its trail.

In seconds, it slammed into the Ko-mark town's short brick wall, blasting a hole into it.

Bo and Thro were knocked away by the resulting shockwave and splattering debris.

Covered in bruises and bleeding scratches, the two of them hurriedly got up and started screaming very loud.

"It's an attack!" "Enemy invasion~!"

Shouts came back from other places.

"An enemy attack? Where?!" "To the west!" "Is it a faux kat?!" "ASSEMBLE!!"

Meanwhile, one cute little creature after another popped up besides the first. Then they started charging at the town in a moderate speed.

Before long,

around a hundred ko-o, being led by an extra large and muscular ko-o, ran into a few dozen faux kats.

"Ooo-oo!" Shouting a battle cry, the ko-o commander swung his heavy stone ax at the leading faux cat, a creature not even a tenth of his size.

"Meow!" The black faux kat leapt up, spreading its tentacles and expanding to a size 20 times as great as before. Having no suckers, its thick and glossy tentacles instead expose columns and columns of sharp titanium claws.

Before the ko-o commander's heavy ax can strike the faux kat, the faux kat's tentacles reach him first, digging their claws in.

CLANG!

The heavy stone ax strikes the faux kat, stone striking a flexible titanium, causing a loud ringing sound to spread out.

This full-strength blow pushed the faux kat back a little, but didn't give it any significant injury.

Instead, it caused the claws that had dug in to be pulled back, ripping the muscular flesh of the ko-o commander.

Then the other tentacles came together and wrapped around the ko-o commander, completely restricting his upper body and clawing into more of his flesh.

"Let go of me! Damn kat!" The ko-o commander struggled fiercely. Yet, he is no longer able to even lift his own ax.

Match-ups elsewhere were even worse.

Unlike the ko-o, who have a society where the strong rule over the weak,

because the faux kats have inherently unruly personalities, although they do cooperate, they rarely have anyone taking leadership positions, even if they do sometimes have individuals that jump the gun and lead others into messes...

Therefore, the faux kat fighting the ko-o's commander is not necessarily the strongest among this group of faux kats, nor might it be the weakest.

Elsewhere on the battlefield,

one faux cat opened a mouth lined with fangs, so wide that it bit off the entire torso of a ko-o as soon as they got close.

another faux cat, body enlarged, spun like a saucer. With long claws extended, it bisected a ko-o and then a second and a third, before it shrunk itself and teetered around, looking like a dizzy kitten.

One spat out a pressurized jet of poison ink, forceful enough to send over 2 meter tall ko-os soaring.

Another turned invisible, not simply camouflaging itself, but turning impossible to see with normal naked eyes, producing no dissonance with its surroundings even when moving quickly. It caught ko-o warriors with its tentacles and snapped their bones.

One faux kat spread fins on its tail and fins on all its tentacles and flew through the air, above everybody, occasionally swooping down to pick up a ko-o, raise him to deadly heights, and toss him into a freefall.

There is even a faux kat that released electricity from its body, electrocuting its foes.

The near hundred ko-os smashed at the few dozen faux Kats with their heavy stone axes and stone swords, ganging up on the little creatures with ratios of 3 to 1 on average, but it is all to no avail. A ko-o's heavy stone sword even broke against a certain faux kat's enhanced titanium shell.

Hearing the screams of ko-o from every direction, and staring into the muzzle of the black cannon poking right against his face, his upper body still restrained and unable to break free, the strong ko-o commander felt regret, regret that he was not slightly stronger. Otherwise,

"Damn stupid king... I should have overthrown you when I had a chance!"

BOOM!

A source of heat appeared in the darkness right before his face. It flew over fast. In the next moment, a heavily crushing impact was felt, and everything seemed to melt...

The ko-o commander's head blew up and unwrapped by the clawing black tentacles, his large body fell to the ground. His last regret was not training harder to become strong enough to usurp the king. Even if he himself were stupid, he would not have been stupid enough to offend faux kats.

Excerpt from Aberna's Cyclopedia of Monster:

Faux Kat - a stage 1 monster. Please note the word Faux in the name of this monster, for it is not as cute as the creature it imitates, a kat. Don't be deceived by its usually small size and cute gestures. It's body is highly stretchable, able to expand to multiple times its usual size. The ink it spits is a slow-acting but deadly poison. Its flexible outer shell is almost as tough as the toughest of metals, arguably the most problematic of its features when it comes to killing it. Some monster researchers argue that they should not be regarded as monsters, but rather people just like us, since they can display intelligence, even if it's only at the level of children's. But because their danger is so great, that they are considered one of the strongest among monsters their own stage, that argument did not pass. Possibly because of their unruly nature, they are also one of the monster species with the most variety in evolution options, another point of interest for monster researchers.