I began to open my eyes, my head throbbing. Everything in my body was screaming in pain and I could barely move. I struggled to remember what had happened then realized that I had fainted after my victory over the Minotaur. I quickly started to look at my surroundings, ignoring my body’s soreness, trying to find the monster.

When I looked in front of me my body shook, my irritating kobold instincts kicking in trying to flee when I saw said creature in front of me, towering above me. But then something interesting happened.

With its large frame the beast lowered its body, one knee to the ground and an arm placed over its chest and its head lowered to the ground with its eyes closed. I couldn’t believe it; the Minotaur was bowing before me!

Before I could process what was happening, it suddenly spoke for the first time “From this day forth I pledge my body to you! I am at your service boss!!~”

The beast opened its eyes, which were filled with a glimmer of admiration and a flame of passion. Even with its ragged body it was practically blinding in its adoration over me…… did…did he get brain damage when I hit him in the head earlier??

“Uhm…. Can you help me up? I can’t move right now...” I weakly asked, trying to test its loyalty to me.

It’s body quickly sprang up in excitement with a determined “Of course!” as it scooped me up with its large hands, being surprisingly gentle laying me beside a rock. It took me about a minute to recover myself and let my mind process what was going on. Meanwhile the Minotaur was bending down staring right at me, it was rather intimidating in a whole different way. Something was up and I needed to get to the bottom of it.

“Exactly why are you pledging yourself to me??” I started questioning it and it responded with overwhelming enthusiasm “Don’t you remember boss? After your glorious triumph over me you had declared me yours and I knew from that instant I wanted to serve that strength of yours!!”

I could only nod in response, damn how did this creature turned from trying to kill me to becoming my most fervent admirer. I then remembered that there was a message that had appeared before I fainted. I quickly used [Game Screen] and noticed a new tab. I looked into it and found it was a follower list. Looking closely at it there were two sections; henchmen, and minions, which seems to indicate different types of followers and below the henchmen list had Unnamed Minotaur marked below.

“Interesting, it seems you really did become my henchman” A small smile formed from my lips. I extended my arm and pointed at my new follower as I stated “Then from now on you will obey me, henchman!! Veehahahahaha!! ~”

My laugh echoed across the room as my new henchman looked at me in awe, but I was soon interrupted by a bolt of pain. “Argh...first order for you… carry me while I recover.”

The Minotaur stood up and puffed his chest in full confidence “Of course boss!” He proceeded to lift me up and put me on his shoulders, with his big frame and my tiny body it was surprisingly easy for me to get comfy. I made sure I had him pick up my items and stash what I needed in my [Dimensional Box]. For extra measure I repaired my new henchman’s axe using its chipped pieces scattered around the field, got to have the best weapons available for my henchmen after all!

I pointed in the direction back at the base; it was time to introduce my fellow kobolds my new henchman! But first things first, “It seems you don’t have a name; you don’t mind if I give you one myself? ~”

“It is the greatest honor to receive a name from you, boss! ~”

With the Minotaur’s approval I proceeded to start to think of a name for my henchman. Just to avoid a possible naming mishap I asked for its gender, which turned out to be male as I had guess. I gave it some thought, wanting to give him a super cool name that could intimidate my enemies! And I thought of just the name~

“From now on your name will be Mordred! ~” there was a moment of silence, I was worried that he wouldn’t like his name but then he started to pump his fist, a huge grin plastered on his face. “An excellent name, boss! And a powerful one as well I like it!!”

To further prove his approval of the name I received a notification.

New name registered

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Henchman Minotaur name has been updated to Mordred

With name in hand, we continued back to the base, my henchman carrying me on his shoulder all the while taking care of any stragglers and picking up any materials I requested, storing them either in my sack or in my [Dimensional Box].

I thought to myself how useful he would be and how real lucky I was that he was mostly injured when I faced him, otherwise I doubt I would have been able to survive that fight. For now, he’s on my side; whether it’s because he was added in my henchmen list, getting some kind of brain damage, or something else entirely he seems to have this high opinion of my strength. So, I’ll have to keep him thinking that not wanting to see what would happen otherwise.

It didn’t take too long for us to reach our destination. When we got near the entrance, I could hear my fellow kobolds acting franticly, probably because of the uninvited guest I brought in.

“Everyone, hide! there’s a huge beast coming our way!!”

“Why is it coming here?! I thought we were far away from all the dangerous monsters!!”

“Let’s just surrender already! Maybe it’ll just leave us alone!!”

I could see that everyone was panicking, clearly intimidated by our presence, so I decided to try to calm everyone’s nerves. I jumped down, feeling my stamina coming back as I began to explain. “I’m back everyone and I brought back a huge find Veehahahahaha~” Unfortunately it seemed I only made them confused instead, oh well at least that got their attention.

“Now listen up you plebians, this Minotaur has pledged his loyalty to my service! Now I ask, who else wants to join him?!” I asked, a claw extended in front of me in an offering stance. Mordred stood proudly behind me, towering over the rest of us.

It didn’t take long till everyone was bowing before me, some visibly shaking from anxiety for what was about to happen. I could even hear some of them whispering to each other about how it was going to suck. Oh well, I’ll just have to show them that they made the right decision.

I took my extended claw and brought it close to me, forming a fist as I announced to them all “Now come join me and become my minions! ~”

Kobold x 12 has joined you as your minions

Seeing the notification pop up, I instinctively checked the follower lists and checked to see that they had all indeed been added to the minion section. I would have to make a mental note to figure out the difference between the two sections later. For now, I have taken the first real steps into my goal for world domination! ~

With my new position of power, I concluded there was no need to hide my abilities from them. I began to show them, and their reaction was rather amusing. They knew of some abilities with the power for storing items though they are rather rare. They never even heard of [Game Screen] and [Material Forge]. It was even more unheard of for a mere kobold to have any rare skills, let alone this many, though I didn’t pay that much mind.

To my surprise during my demonstration, I noticed my [Material Forge] skill had ranked up, so I decided to upgrade it by letting me change the state of the chosen material for more versatility. With the upgraded skill I decided to use it to help improve our weapons. Many of them were in rather poor states, I still had spare [Iron] and my mana had mostly recovered so it was a rather easy fix. And while I was working, I peeked at the others looking at me with curious glares. It was definitely a different type of glare I was used to, but not an unpleasant one I had to admit.

Afterwards I distributed the loot I gathered to everyone. They seemed a little worried, probably because they thought I was going to just hoard most of it, but I wasn’t planning to do that. While I am planning to keep the gear I had equipped on me, I’m going to make sure everyone has an equal share of everything else, including the meat. I needed them all to be healthy and in top shape if they were going to follow me, though for Mordred’s sake he might need double or even triple what we kobolds eat.

It sure is interesting how only a few days ago I was the laughingstock of my kobold brethren and now I was the one in charge. Then again, as I found out, our species seem to be naturally timid and cowardly. I still remember how much willpower it took me just to go against my own body’s instincts and even then, I still had trouble with it. I will have to work on it otherwise it’ll really cause me problems in the future on my conquest. As I’m pondering on it three of the kobolds approach me, who I recognize as the ones who would regularly pick on me for how I acted.

They were really nervous, almost like if they were to give me the wrong look, I’d kill them or something. It definitely felt satisfying seeing them like this and it took them a minute before one finally spoke up, their heads bowing down.

“W-we apologize for picking on you before!!”

“Y-yeah so please don’t send your beast after us…”

“We s-swear we’ll make it up to you!”

The area was quiet, the others looked at us, some also showing signs of worry as some of them had some hand on picking on me though not as much as these three. Though I already had my answer. A big smile appeared on my face showing off my fangs, with claws at my hip as I began to speak.

“Fear not! You have accepted to being my minions so from now on I shall keep you safe! After all everything of mine should be in pristine condition!”

They fell silent for a bit, processing what I said. Suddenly they started to cheer, seemingly ignoring the last bit I said. The three before looked at me with interest, losing the feelings of worry from before and nodded in agreement.

Starting tomorrow things are going to change around here. ~