We had a lot of luck with hunting. And what better way to show it than to show off a fancy discovery I made?

Show current Favor.

Favor: 82

Shortcuts exist for everything. To summarize our hunt today, we earned over half of that supply during our hunt.

Since getting back and letting the others settle down into their houses, I'd also moved aside a few traps within our protected clearing. Bomber and Ivy's house has the largest section of wall along it so I figure I'll set up the pen there.

For starters, let's talk about the supplies for my project. I won't be able to complete the entire job in a single instance, so it's about completing phases of it.

Each of the stone blocks I have is five feet long; those stone blocks are perfect for fortifying spots.

Since I don't have too many stones right now, the best solution is to cut them so that the pole is two feet thick and a foot-and-a-half wide. I cut them down the center with Cutter Thorn, going slow so that the blade doesn't catch and the cut it smooth. Each stone makes two posts.

Next step, cutting out holes in their sides. This is also why I chose the two-foot-long side as the one to avoid cutting; now, I cut deep inside it. My Cutter Thorn is long enough to reach six inches deep. After the hole is cut, I go in from the thinner side; a simple cut straight down through the already cut stone. It's a slow process but I repeat this three times on each side of the post.

By the end of my stonecutting, I've made 12 posts with a total of six large holes on their sides. They also have six cuts down their sides but that's not important right now.

Earthy Grasp. Earthy Grasp. Earthy Grasp.

One-by-one, the tall posts are secured four feet apart. The pen itself is wide but backed naturally against the stone half-wall. The size of the fenced area by the end is roughly 20x8 feet.

Honestly, it's pretty damn big. I could have made it larger but I wanted to have two additional posts incase I ever need to repair them.

The next step is to convert my mana into some lumber and cut that down. Comparing it to the stone block, the log is also five-feet-long but it's easily four feet in its diameter. Cutting it into a block is the first step. An even 2x2x5 post, cut into fourths to create four 1x1x5 posts.

And I repeat this a lot. Honestly, the night went by a lot faster than I'd have liked. The stones coming in blocks really helped cut it a lot faster than the log. But after I finished? That felt satisfying.

Now, I'm sure there are some people who wouldn't understand why these details matter. Cutting holes in stone posts and then making the log into such precise beams may not be foretelling. But first, one final detail: cutting a thick groove into the ends of the wood beams.

After that, I finagle and slot the beams one-by-one between the stone posts. Due to their length and the depth of the holes, it makes the fit tight but secure; three beams between each post is no more than a few inches apart, letting you see inside and making it easily climbable for Bomber, Ivy, and myself. Technically Ropert too, given his length, since he can just slip over the top. Once the beams are in their places, I slip a slice of wood into the holes I cut into the sides of the stone posts, fitting it perfectly between the groove from before to act as a natural secondary stopgate.

To wrap it all up, I set crafted DCT along the top to prevent anyone hopping or climbing over it.

[Notification] Construction Critter Pen detected.

Adding Construction to [Dungeon Manager].

Based Brogdar, I'm glad you acknowledged my isekai aspirations. But now I also get to show off another shortcut so that I no longer need to open up menus.

Construct Search: Critter Pen.

Construct Search Name Summary & Effect Costs Critter Pen

Location(s): Dungeon Town All dungeons and towns need food or sacrifices for the dungeon. This one just lets you keep and feed them. Default Size: 8x8 ft

Allows raising and breeding 1/1 Evolutionary creatures.

Requires Mana upkeep based on creature. 20 Favor

1 Stone per extra 4 ft. [Close]

Interesting... this pen is designed for raising 1/1 creatures? That might verify my thoughts before that 1/1 is to do with the first step in some new evolutionary line, given Bomber and Ivy are 1/1 yet my current state is 1/2. I mean, 1/1 might also imply something else... but there's too much I still don't know yet to weigh one way or another. The important part is knowing that I've assembled the pen and the night is almost over.

Sleep sounds pretty damn nice right about now, too, since the sounds of ranbi death shouldn't be too far off from starting.

...

Morning is here and all of us have our plan: capture a female and male ranbi minion and get them in the pit. All four of us working together is going to be important, especially given the danger of taking something alive rather than killing it. Even if the ranbi are weak, one wrong move could have them biting Ropert or I or delivering a kick to Ivy or Bomber's head.

So step one is Bomber's part; we all wait for a ranbi to appear that doesn't run into a trap wire on the houses. The little suckers come right in and the weaker of the ranbli delivers an unskilled kick to disorient them.

Ivy and Ropert then immediately jump them. Ivy's paws are more developed than Bomber's but their lack of true grip makes her better suited to controlling the back and pulling its ears while Ropert snakes around its legs and ties it up. Creeper Thorn is quite strong when it can wrap around something tightly, whilst Ivy's stats make her almost as directly strong as Bomber due to their similar STR values.

And after that, my job comes in. The two of them keep it still while I check whether it's a boy or girl.

... What? Someone has to do it and they're the summons. It makes sense that I'm the one making the call on whether we kill it or not.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The first one we got is a male, of course, so I'll explain the rest of the process using him.

Now that we have him completely bound and identified sex-wise, I set-up one of the planks left over from construction at an angle, leading right up along the wall and the pen's side. Bomber then joins the two, lifting the ranbi up and scaling the plank.

Now, with all the grass we cut yesterday there are tons of scraps Ivy didn't eat to draw on. Bomber delivers another stunning strike with the blunt end of his DCT-wrapped club, giving Ropert just long enough to uncoil before the pair of ranbli toss the bastard down onto all the piled-up grass we cut down.

And just like that, he's in the pen with food. And, as I figured, the ranbi dashed and darted around, bumping his head against the wood and stone countless times. I'll admit it's a bit horrifying and makes you think it's going to kill itself but that's not the case. Its jumps are all shallow, never even bringing it close to passing the highest post and its DCT.

After a few good ramming smacks and minutes of struggling, the critter calms down and changes color. The green hue I had seen them take for so long turned instead into the brownish hue of a normal colored rabbit. It's still definitely a ranbi... but I think this is what the minions look like once they disconnect from the leadership of the wild groups and become my penned creatures.

[Notification] Critter Pen #001 set to Ranbi Minion.

Condition Met: Granting title.

New Title: Ranbi Wrangler Yeehaw! You've captured your first Ranbi!

Passive Effect

+ 4 Maximum SP

+ 1 DEX

+ 1 LUCK

Equipped Effect

+ 2% damage to all Ranbi species.

There's an Equipped Effect?

... Well, it's not like I have any other title that has one so I might as well equip it. Ranbi Wrangler Kaden has an awful ring to it but any percentile boost to fighting ranbi isn't something I'll turn down. 2% of damage against a fight like that Omega is far more than 2% ever should be.

With my title equipped, though, let's focus back on the pen. Given I don't think there's a way to access- ah, there it is. Just like the Toolroom, the pen has one of those floating spheres for a menu.

Critter Pen #001 - Ranbi Minion Welcome Dungeon Master.

Current Pen Daily Upkeep: 0.1 Mana

You currently have 1 Ranbi Minion(s) present.

[View] | [Butcher] | [Evolve] | [Release] | [Close]

View.

Critter Pen #001 List

Capacity: 1 / 12

Unnamed (Level 1, M)

[Rename] | [Info] [Back]

Wow. This is pretty interesting; this lets me name and tracks the level of my captures, while also confirming their sex. If paired with the mention about evolving... would it technically be possible to evolve the ranbi I capture? If so, would a ranbi minion turn into a proper ranbi? That'd mean I could still keep them but they'd be worth more.

Back. Butcher.

Critter Pen #001 List Name Value Selected? Unnamed 1 Favor (+.2 per day)

+ 1 Ranbi carcass ▢ [Confirm] | [Back]

So the little bastard slowly curries Favor for butchering. So it sounds like it'd be optimal to wait five days before butchering them. If it evolves, that value probably goes up quite a bit. Couple that with breeding them and I bet I'd earn even more. And at the end of everything, I'd still get the body. That's not bad at all.

Evolve.

Critter Pen #001 List Name Information

Unnamed (Ranbi Minion) Ineligible; evolves at Level 2 into Ranbi (capturable) [Back]

That's the proof that these little bastards turn into Ranbi. I mean, part of me already believed it before seeing that but it feels great to be validated. It also explains why, although similar, they were still slightly smaller than my pair. Their colors being greens must mean that the minion is loyal or bonded to one of the Alpha and Beta evolutionary lines. If Bomber or Ivy had been a leader-type, would they still have been yellow-red and able to change these little guys to their color if they overpowered it?

Honestly, it's just cool that this system answers and gives me proof of things. Isekai heroes normally have a system that's rigidly simple for them to abuse but Brogdar's being so deep is almost just as good given that depth allows multiple styles to approach things. Hell, being able to build naturally using my own knowledge allows me to bypass the construction limitations.

But I have one more section to check.

Back. Release.

Critter Pen #001 List 

Current Recruit Chance Gain per day: 1% Name Recruit Chance

Selected? Unnamed (Ranbi Minion) 1% of 100% ▢ [Confirm] | [Back]

Wait. Recruit chance? And it increases by 1% per day? Is this thing saying it's possible to recruit captured creatures from the pen to fight for my dungeon? Although doing that with a Ranbi Minion would be stupid since it might just be dominated all over again, that could be huge in the long-term.

I get it now. This is the weighted trade-off; butchering them is a quick means to obtain Favor, but recruiting them requires you to hold them long-term. The other incentive of that is to probably keep mating pairs so that you can produce more of them at a stable speed, granting you a larger population to raise for either slaughter or recruitment.

At 1% per day, it's definitely going to be better to prioritize the first few we capture as the breeders and the ones to keep alive, while butchering the younger ones. As horrible as it may be to imagine this situation employed on Bomber and Ivy, I can't allow myself to think of ranbi as anything more than animals. At least, not when they're in the state of Ranbi Minions.

I hear another ranbi struggling behind me so I guess for now I'll just need to focus on our plan. Once we get three mating pairs, we'll turn back to killing and let the day wrap-up. Making decisions on how to approach the pen can't be made without seeing just how fast these little shits breed.