It was worse than I had imagined. By the time I made it to where the Honking Menace had struck, it was already too late to do much, aside from resigning myself to Fate’s machinations.

My Guards and Archers lay dead and torn apart everywhere along the northeastern part of my settlement, where the houses of the residential north gave way to the Armoury, Fletchery, and Mount Pen. Many of these buildings also lay in ruins or were on fire.

My disfigured Toadcaller had come to the scene of the tragedy and was chanting in a bizarre language, somehow holding the Menace at bay for now. With a command, I sent for a horde of minions to either drive the Monster away or fill its stomach to the point that it gave up devouring and left.

As I beheld the behemoth in the distance, I activated my Appraisal:

Name: Goose3 (‘Honking Menace’)

Occupation: King of Geese

Species: Hydra-Goose

Level: 183/100

Alignment: World-Ending Calamity of Evil

Faction: Geese vs. Literally All Other Lifeforms

“How is its level higher than the maximum?” I asked Imu.

The Myling scrolled through his Encyclopaedia frantically, but seemed to arrive at no conclusive answer. “It somehow broke the system, but I’ve also never heard of a Hydra-Goose. It could possibly have something to do with that new species and its additional heads? I’ve seen something similar, though not to this extreme an extent, with Midgets and their speed exceeding its maximum value by them evolving an extra toe.”

A gibbering and mumbling army of unarmed minions of various occupations came charging at the enormous three-story-tall bird monstrosity, but with each flap of its three sets of wings and every stomp of its six webbed feet dozens of them were pulverised or tossed far enough into the air to kill them on landing.

In short, it was an absolute slaughter.

To make matters worse, its new third head breathed a strange sort of gas that instantly turned anything it touched into fragrant decaying matter, as though selectively advancing the age of all it touched by decades.

“I have an idea!”

“Uh oh.”

Brave minions, run to the Guild Office and get ready for naming and being evolved to Adventurers!

Only three minions made it alive to the Guild Office, which made sense, given that brave minions seemed to have been at the fore of the unarmed army against the Goose3.

One-by-one I evolved and named each of them. All of them emerged with their basic clothes having transformed into murky-green tunics and fanciful yellow capes, as well as mustard-coloured rubber boots.

I sent them off to fetch the weapons of the fallen Guards and Archers to use against the Honking Menace. As they passed where Imu was hiding, he turned to look at my essence floating after them in the air.

“Oi…”

“What?”

“What’s wrong with you!? Why would you name them that!? How heartless are you??”

“I figured they were going to die no matter what, so, what does it matter?”

Imu sighed, but didn’t actually retort.

The first of my new Adventurers found an iron sword and lifted it into the air triumphantly, before charging at the Goose3 with a loud trilling chirp.

“Why is he making that noise?”

I had no answer, so I didn’t say anything, instead I use my Appraisal to see what sort of power the Adventurer with the sword had to work with.

Name: Test #1

Occupation: Adventurer

Species: Sub-Whomanoid Minion

Level: 1/100

Alignment: Curious-and-Brave

Faction: Toad Town Adventurers’ Guild

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Why is he so weak? Aren’t Adventurers supposed to be strong?”

“Adventurers have a high growth potential, if you look at his maximum level, and—”

Imu winced and never finished his comment.

“He was just eaten.”

“Well yeah, growth has to be tended to, like a sapling. It can become a great oak in time, but not if your idea of nurturing growth is throwing them straight into the maws of a Calamity-class Monster…”

“Look, the other two are going at it now too!”

Imu sighed as both were immediately crushed under a huge webbed foot. “Poor Test #1, #2, and #3. They were led to the slaughter by a maniac…”

“What now?” I asked, as I looked at the mountains of death minions. “We have barely any minions left to throw at it.”

Imu just sighed again. Together we watched the Calamity tear the eastern and northeastern parts of our settlement to shreds.

The Honking Calamity stomped around my settlement for about three hours more, before leaving with a self-satisfied ululating roar that seemed to tremble the ground for kilometres in all directions.

“I suppose I ought to summon new minions and get back to growing my Guard and Archer corps, and get some new Adventurers for next time it comes back.”

Suddenly a dark pillar rose out of the ground in front of my Guild Office. It was very reflective and reminded me of a stone I had once seen on the shore of my pond. There were a bunch of smiling faces etched all over it, but somehow it didn’t seem to be a very happy individual who stepped out of its sliding door.

Imu made a horrified noise and quickly got on the ground, burying his forehead in the dirt at the feet of the figure. He was very tall, at least four metres, but he looked like a skin-covered skeleton, given that he was as thin as a stick-bug. He had three-metre-long silver-white hair full of braids and gemstones and other trinkets. For clothes, he wore a long all-encompassing robe of woven-together black feathers and on his face was a porcelain mask with a simple noseless smiling face.

He immediately looked towards where I floated.

“You…”

“Me?” I asked, wondering if he could hear me speak even in my current form.

“I’ve been following your progress for a while… After all, my cute little Imuxikwiht is your Guide as a Core. But I have to say…” he drew in a deep breath and sighed slowly. “You need to take better care of your minions.”

“Why? Who are you?”

“I hope Imuxikwiht has taught you about souls and reincarnation.”

“I have, my Lord!” Imu said, forehead still planted on the ground, as though looking upon the figure could hurt him.

“Then you should know that many of the souls of your minions have found their way to my realm and they don’t say nice things about working for you, Toad…”

“It’s not my fault they die so easily,” I defended myself. “Also, you still haven’t told me who you are! Why should I care what you think!? It’s my settlement!”

“Shut the hell up, Toady!” Imu yelled in outrage at me for challenging the bizarre figure.

“It is okay, Imuxikwiht. Toad, you must treasure the lives of minions, lest they revolt against you and destroy your Core. It is a rare thing, but it does happen. And to answer your question, my name is Deathheim, God of Eternity, Undeath, and Minion Unionisation.”

“Unionisation? What’s that?”

“It’s a new concept I’ve been trying to get Cores like yourself to adopt, so our soul recycle program doesn’t become tainted with angry rebellious minion souls who were abused and mistreated by their Cores. Basically, it allows your minions to set terms for how much they wish to work and how they’re compensated for their work.”

“That smells like Frogstools,” I commented suspiciously.

The figure waved a bone nine-fingered hand in the air:

Congratulations! For accepting Lord Deathheim’s Minion Unionisation policies, you unlocked the ability to construct a Minion Help Centre!

[Crafting List]

>Structures>Worship

—Minion Help Centre—

A place for minions to gather and share grievances about their working conditions and negotiate better treatment from their Core, as well as receiving the ability to call the Deathheim Inc. Minion Unionisation hotline for help in settling disputes and such with their Core

Required Materials: Wood & Stone

“Hey! I didn’t accept anything!”

Upset, I wanted to use my Appraisal on the God of Minion Unionisation, but it came up with an error message:

You do not have the permission to utilise Appraisal on a God Entity.

Deathheim retreated cowardly back into his strange stone tube and no sooner had the door closed behind him that the entire thing disappeared down into the ground again.

“I’m not building that thing,” I complained.

“Disrespect Lord Deathheim again and I’ll quit,” Imu told me angrily.

“Fine. I’ll build it…”

“It’s not about the blessed building, you swamp-gas-for-a-brain! I want you to respect my Lord!”

“Okay. Sorry…”

“And yeah, we’re not building that dumb building,” he told me.

“Didn’t you just tell me not to—?”

“We don’t need unions. Lord Deathheim’s attempts at helping minions is admirable, but it’s bad for our productivity, and we need our minions to work their butts off if we want to survive the next attack from that goddamn Hydra-Goose…”

“I suppose I could make concessions and not just throw minions’ lives away for no reason at all.”

“That’s literally the bare minimum effort you could make, yes. But…”

“But what?”

“Coming from you, I will take that as a sign of improvement.”

“Seeing most of my minions die all at once was pretty traumatic. I am a changed toad now.”

“I’ll believe it when it see it…” Imu replied with a doubtful scowl.

“Did you see the message earlier about how evolving to a Town will begin attracting people?”

“Yea… it’s unlikely to go over well. So far, Earl Pouch-head hasn’t deemed your sub-human minions a stain upon the natural order of things, but I doubt Adventurers and normal humans will see it the same way. They’re quite a judgemental sort, you know.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“Why do I feel more anxious now that you’ve said that?”