As it turned out I actually had to turn away several people who wanted to come with me. While I was willing to try and get to know some of the new faces, I also wanted to keep several of my fellow evolved folks relatively nearby just in case something happened while I was gone. That and I wanted to avoid looking like we were an invading army.

As such, I chased off everyone but Shaniqua for her many dexterous paws and Rumi since she had apparently lived in the area and wanted to check in. Saul also invited himself along, insisting that he knew more about gardening and plants than we did, despite him not being able to describe seed selection or proper ways of treating various illnesses in plants. So making a few improvised saddlebags out of trash bags, loading them with a few bottles of water, for the trip we began trekking North.

A half hour passed peacefully enough, mostly with me inquiring about what choices the trio had made in their evolutions or what abilities they had. Turns out that Saul had some fairly poor luck for his hatching mutagen and food skill, getting both Chemoreceptor Mutagen which pushed his innate Scent special to what he was fairly sure was miles and Powerful Spit. He admitted that, yes, being able to smell everything within a couple miles of you sounds useful, but it also meant he was innately made aware of every fart and fresh turd in that radius. His Powerful Spit skill seemed like a joke, yes it was impressive to launch a loogie over a hundred feet, and he could shoot heavier objects like acorns even further, but it hardly seemed to compare to Shaniqua's Rain of Blows or Rumi's Kick. Personally, I considered swinging by a store to see what he could do with a box of nails or a battery.

Rumi tried to inquire about Shaniqua's past, though the rabbit woman always redirected the conversation away from her profession. I got the distinct impression that it was something less than legal that she was far from proud of, I suspected it was likely some form of sex work, especially with the way she mentioned her three kids but made no mention of any husband or boyfriend. The bunny-centaur was able to get Rumi happily chatting about her own life with only minimal effort.

Rumi seemed to have had a fairly large family who she seemed to be on good terms with, happily talking about how her grandparents met in the Vietnam War. She had four siblings, mostly brothers but one sister, and part of how she'd ended up by our apartment complex had been her bolting out of her home and frantically searching for them along the major roads. She was in the middle talking about what her various siblings did as we passed the local laundromat and were coming up on the first of the various green areas.

Shaniqua stopped, her long ears shooting upright. "I hear something coming from those woods over there!" she hissed, her little nose twitching, "It sounds like several fairly big things and they're getting closer."

"It's fine," Saul shrugged, "It's just some pigs, there's more of them over at the golf course further on."

The other three began to relax until I boomed, "And you didn't tell us!? Do you have any idea how dangerous wild boars are!?"

"But they're just pigs," Saul blinked in confusion as I whirled towards the direction Shaniqua had indicated.

"Pigs that average around three hundred pounds and can get to be the size of small vehicles!" I snapped, "They also tend to move in large packs and are too clever by half! They are a serious threat to even armed and experienced hunters that will happily eat a human! And this is all before the Event which has likely made them far nastier!"

As if to emphasize my statement, the first of the beast cleared the woodlands. It had obviously once been a boar, but now it had clearly been mixed with a healthy amount of gorilla standing nearly six foot high at the shoulder moving with a knuckle-walking gait. Its piggish face glared at us with tusks long enough to be considered daggers forcing its lips into a permanent snarl that showed not a hint of fear or wariness. The thing that frightened me the most about this creature was how flexible and dexterous the trotters on its forelegs were, flexible enough to be gripping a large sharpened stone. These things were tool users.

Nearly as frightening was the fact that nearly a dozen more of the creatures burst out of the treeline behind it as it rose to its hind legs and squealed a hunting cry. The pack surged forwards as a tide.

–Encounter Quest Available: Boarish Bullies–

–Reward: Performance Based–

–Failure Penalty: Death–

Saul emitted an odd trilling coo as he cowered behind me. Shaniqua was quick to join him, though she wrapped one set of forelegs around him protectively as she cried out, "Joe! What do we do!?" Rumi charged forwards with an equine cry of her own, rushing forwards to meet the boarillas.

"Stay close and back us up!" I shouted, beginning my own slow charge, "Don't let them grab you or Saul, but don't be afraid to rip their faces off!"

Well short of the charging sounder of boarillas Rumi reared up, her forehooves positively radiating a thick red energy as she slammed them into the ground with a sound like a bomb going off. The effect wasn't too different from one as a literal wave of Earth shot forwards throwing the boars flailing as high as ten feet into the air. It also did an absolute number on the street and a nearby gym, but she had absolutely blunted the charge of the monsters. The boarillas all landed heavily, some briefly seeming turned around and others slow to get up if they landed particularly poorly.

"Hoo!" Rumi staggered, blinking dizzily, "That used up more stamina than I expected."

I charged past her, my slow charge rapidly picking up speed as I carved furrows into the dirt and slammed into the disoriented line like a train. Three of the boarillas were sent flying into trees as I rammed through them, four more sent tumbling across the ground. I bit down on one of them as I slashed out at another with my tail. Seeing plenty more around me I threw the boarilla in my mouth into my side and coiled tightly around it to let constriction finish it. The thing squealed wildly as it thrashed against my crushing grip.

Its cries seemed to galvanize the sounder of monsters, all of those I'd knocked away and injured quickly rising back to their hooves. The largest of them gestured at me while squealing and then gestured behind me towards Rumi and the others.

I hissed furiously at the crowd of boarillas, "Try it and see what happens!"

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

As the dozen giant gorilla boars rushed towards me I lashed out at them with my massive tail blade. One of them literally threw themselves into the blade nearly being bisected by it, only for another behind it to use its fellow's dying body as a shield to slow the swing to a crawl. Two more rushed forwards to seize my tail just behind the blade and hold it in place, effectively pinning my biggest weapon. I tried to swing my head around to bite at them, only to be halted as eight powerful arms grabbed my neck and pulled. I struggled against the pull, but the group was overpowering me and slowly forcing me to uncoil around the still screaming pig.

"Joe!" I heard Shaniqua shriek.

Rolling my eye her way I saw three of the boarillas rushing towards her, Rumi, and Saul. I loosed a furious hiss that dropped into a rumbling yowl as I spotted the largest of the monsters rushing towards me with sharpened rock held high. It let loose a victorious squeal as it slammed the stone into my brow.

The blow seemed to set my blood alight with electrical fire and despite it all a vicious smile forced its way onto my face as I howled, "Honorless Vermin!" and focused on my Myoelectric Mutation.

–Suidarian is Stunned! x9–

As lightning danced along my scales, running through those holding me and trapped in my coils, I laughed as they shrieked in pain unable to release me due to the very same electricity attacking them. Their leader's face seemed to twist into a rictus of hate as it gripped its stone in a two handed grip and raised it high. I didn't let him finish, channeling a focused Lunge through my tail.

The attack was absolutely devastating to boarillas holding me, the great guillotine blades of my carapace and smaller barbs of my scales caught and tore at their flesh as I rocketed backwards. I could literally feel chunks of flesh being sliced free, including more than a couple limbs that simply ceased to be as every bit of meat was ripped from them. The one in my coils was crushed in half as the pull of the skill forced my body straight heedless of the beast caught in my grip.

I tore a trench through the ground until I slammed into the already damaged gym hard enough to completely destroy one of its walls. I gave only a passing glance at the badly mauled group of beasts that had been restraining me, quickly moving to look at the girls and the three they were fighting to hold off.

I could see Shaniqua absolutely hammering on one of the monkey pigs with her front six limbs slamming into its flesh like pistons. The poor brute's every attempt to grab her or swing back was punished with dozens of blows that either stole all of the attack's power or knocked it wildly off course. When the thing tried to back away from her she seized it by the tusk and began to viciously tear at its face with her front legs while her middle four limbs proceeded to hammer its torso into a bruised and broken mess.

Rumi herself had her horns being gripped by a porky ape who seemed to be trying to twist her head off. Rumi snarled, raising her head high, completely lifting the pig off the ground as it held on for dear life before slamming down. The stunned boarilla still clung desperately to her horns with one hand and punched Rumi square in the face with its fist-like trotter. The woman snarled, glaring through the blood and brought her own hoof down on the thing's groin hard enough to make its legs pop off and organs start spilling out.

Saul himself was simply running as fast as his little legs would carry him as one of the monsters pursued him. The ape was catching up with him quickly as I snarled and used Leap to launch myself at the pair. I misjudged my angle and ended up flying past them and shattering the road in front of them with enough force to make both lose their footing and get pelted by debris.

I lifted my front high and came down on the smaller pig ape with the closest impression of an elbow drop a snake could manage, pinning the beast under my flank and cutting deep into it with my sharp scales. Using my tail I blocked off the fleeing aardvark and glared down at him with the absolute mountain of contempt I currently felt for him.

"Where do you think you're going?" I hissed with a dangerous softness.

"I-I-I c-can't do a-anything against th-these things!" Saul stammered, his entire body trembling. "I-I was j-just getting aw-out of th-the way!"

"You were getting yourself killed and risking the lives of the girls!" I snapped, looming over the man who was smaller than my head, "You should have stayed near the girls! Used your spit to give them openings or used those digging claws of yours to attack the legs of these monsters! Instead you forced one of us to come rescue you from your own craven stupidity!" I cast a glance back to see that the two women were facing down the largest of the beast, who was half carrying one of the badly mauled boarillas with one arm. "You're damned lucky that I managed to do enough damage to the pack before I came over here. If one of them had died due to you leaving them to their fate I would be executing you for murder!"

"M-murder!?" Saul squeaked, "I-isn't that a b-b-bit harsh?"

"No." I leaned forwards enough that the sharpened point of my face pressed against the little aardvark, "You would have been directly responsible for their death. I think the crime fits. Luckily for you it is simply criminal negligence in this incident and I'm willing to overlook it this once. If something like this happens again on my watch I will see you banished, at best." I pulled my head back and shifted to show the boarilla pinned under my body. "Now kill this thing."

"Wha-!?" the former hippy recoiled, "Why me? Can't you finish it off!?"

"Yes," I replied bluntly, "but you said there's more just up ahead and we aren't always going to be willing to mollycoddle your stupid ass. You get better rewards for killing blows, so get killing so you can get the rewards you need to stand on your own for once."

Looking back at the girls I could see that they had forced the leader to abandon its kin and flee and they were now putting down the beasts that were still strong enough to put up a fight. Despite his tears and protest I managed to get Saul to perform three killing blows before the quest ended.

–Grappling Strike has leveled up! x2–

–Gained 6xp–

–Grappling Strike rank up!–

–Grappling Strike: F → E–

–Constrict has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp–

–Lunge has leveled up! x2–

–Gained 6xp–

–Myoelectric Mutagen has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp–

–Tremorsense has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp–

–Encounter Quest: Boarish Bullies!–

–12/13 Beasts Defeated!–

–CalculatingParticipation…–

–5/13 Enemies Disabled - 6 Killing Blows.–

–Performance: Exceptional–

–SysAutoGen_EQReward…–

–Received: Trait Improvement Token–

–SysAutoGen_BonusLoot…–

–Received 1pt!–

–Gained 130xp!–

–Level up! –

–Gained 1pt!–