As I evolved another Breeder in the shack of the Mount Pen and imbued him with a bit of essence so he could spawn the Mounts, I was surprised to see him pull a massive toad, and not a frog, out of the ground.

Imu immediately walked up to the enclosure with a handful of berries, enticing the beautiful mustard-yellow toad to hop over to him. After feeding it, he entered the enclosure and mounted the toad, then leapt over the Stone Dyke atop its back.

“This is degrading to Toadkind,” I warned him.

“But look how big he is! Surely, you can overlook their usage as mounts, and just appreciate the chonky boy for what it is!”

“That Toad is a girl,” I enlightened him.

“Regardless! You ruined my Minion Chair, so I’m keeping this one.”

I had a random thought just then, and asked, “What happens if you die?”

“…Toad… Are you threatening me?”

“I am just curious.”

“Well… Normally, if the Guiding Fairy dies, the Core dies too. Of course, if the Core dies, the Fairy doesn’t.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“However! It seems that, if I die attached to a Settlement Core like you, I simply respawn in your Core Chamber.”

“And if I die?”

“…” he quickly pulled out his Encyclopaedia, scrolling hastily through dozens of pages, while the Toad he sat atop of was munching on grass. It seemed that, the spawned Toad mounts in my settlement were quite different from true Toads, but they were nonetheless the peak of the evolutionary tree.

“So?” I asked.

With a deliberately-careful gesture, Imu closed the tome. “Please don’t die,” was all he told me.

As the construction of the Armoury and Fletchery were underway, not to mention the construction of the Fortified Stone Wall that would encompass the twenty-metre radius closest to my tree, a pop of sulphur and gooseberries announced the arrival of a Support Imp. The Imp joined Imu and I atop the few metres of stone wall that had thus far been constructed, observing the minions toiling below.

Next order of business was to get beds made such that my workforce could expand on its own.

Imu looked at the newly-arrived Imp with a hint of surprise.

“Heya Imu,” the Imp said.

“Long-time-no-see Yonn,” he replied.

“Not long enough… We can’t keep meeting like this.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Yonn, the Imp, was hairy like the previous Imp, but his ears drooped all the way to his knees and he was missing the middle-finger on his right hand. Also, his skin was purple.

“I heard about this new Core through the grapevine,” Yonn said. “Looks pretty weird.”

“We’d be fine, if our System wasn’t so batshit crazy. Can you believe she censored me!?”

Yonn looked to where I hovered in my essence form, “Isn’t that a positive?”

“Hey, screw you,” Imu retorted. “But, seriously, can you do something about it or what?”

“The rate of deterioration seems quite extreme, so I doubt anything I do would last long. Also, looking at the logs,” he continued, having swiped his crow-feathered pen through the air, “it seems that last go around was mostly caused by stress, but this time your System has also developed Oppositional Defiant Disorder…”

“Is that why she’s so hostile towards me?” Imu asked.

The Imp nodded sagely.

I had remained silent until now, but raised my voice to ask: “Can we not send her down the river this time?”

Imu and Yonn both turned to look at me, one with an incredulous look on his face and the other with a patient smile.

“What other options do we have?” Imu answered.

“No, let’s hear him out. I’m interested in seeing Toad’s perspective on this.”

“Well, I haven’t thought it through a lot, but… maybe we could let her roam around my Demesne. Perhaps that would help with the stress?”

Imu seemed at a loss for words, but Yonn nodded, seeming to have some idea of what I meant.

“It could work,” the Imp said.

“You’re kidding me. We might as well just set fire to all our buildings, cause that’s what she’ll do!”

“If we put the soul of your System into a God Entity automaton, she would not be able to perish, but she would also not be able to damage your settlement nor leave its area.”

“Oi… don’t you dare…”

Yonn looked down his big hooked nose at Imu, who was a head shorter than him. “You, mister, are just a Guiding Fairy. The decision is for your Core to make.”

“Just say it!” Imu started, getting right up into the Imp’s face. “Say that you resent me because I made your wife leave you!”

A loud smack resounded through the Village as Imu was punched off the edge of the stone wall and hit the ground below with a loud thud.

“Screw you!” he yelled impotently from below.

I looked down at the Myling, who was still yelling, and then back at Yonn, who wore a satisfied expression, perhaps having wanted to punch Imu for a long time now. I wondered what exactly their past history was.

“We should try it,” I said, agreeing to the Imp’s suggestion.

“Excellent!”

He waved his crow-feather pen in the air in long circuitous rings and sharp jabbing motions, and then a humanoid-esque porcelain doll appeared in front of him on the stone wall. It had no face nor distinguishing features to show whether it was a male or female representation. Yonn began a new series of gesture and finished it with a light tap of his pen against the forehead of the doll.

A lightning strike flew out of my core in the hole in the tree above and struck the doll right where he had tapped it, and, moments after it came to life, moving around cautiously, like a newborn fawn or foal.

“Congratulations! I love you Toad!”

“Hello System,” I replied. The System Doll ran to my essence with its arms wide in preparation for a hug, but when I thought her limbs would go straight through me, she instead managed to clutch my essence form like a balloon and squeezed me tightly.

After releasing me, she jumped from the stone wall and down to the ground below, before finding Imu and kicking him sharply between the legs, sending him flying halfway across the northern settlement quadrant.

“Congratulations! I feel FUCKING fantastic! Wooooh!!!”

“Call me if you need me,” Yonn told me. “I get the feeling you guys will be quite amusing to watch.”

“How do I call you?”

“Ask Imu. Once he gets his senses back…”

The Imp was about to vanish, when he looked over to the eastern part of my settlement and spotted the Butcher.

“Why is that minion cosplaying as my people’s oppressor? That’s very insensitive to my culture and the plight of my ancestors!”

Not knowing what to respond, I just went with the easiest answer: “It was Imu’s idea.”

“Fuck that guy, for real.”

With a swish-and-a-flick, Yonn vanished in a puff of sulphur and gooseberries.