“Outta the way!” Came one shout which had Merownis hopping to the left.

  “Yer in the way!” Came the next shout, causing him to hop further to the right instead. A pair of tutting creatures, a goblin and a gnoll, walked through the gap Merownis had created while carrying a pile of lumber. The Sundercat held back a genuine snarl and replaced it with a sigh. It wasn’t his fault, but nor could he truly blame the creatures of the forest area.

  He was just not built to lead this diaspora.

  “You know you can just kick ‘em if they annoy you, right?” Turning once more, Merownis found himself looking at a female goblin. Her spiky tufts of blue and yellow hair were at odds with the grey-green skin of her race, Jovie tapped Merownis on his knee and nodded like she had dispensed sage wisdom.

  “They’re only level five, that would probably kill them.” Merownis didn’t hate the idea of killing one or two of the annoying little monsters, but Grant would likely get upset. The human hadn’t set many rules before he locked himself away, and while the Sundercat was sure some things would be forgiven, it was unlikely that murder was one of them.

  “They grow back in a few days,” Jovie shrugged, sauntering away to her new gambling hall. “If you don’t kill ‘em, someone else will.” On that ominous note, she left and Merownis was finally alone. Everyone seemed to need something or want permission to annoy someone else. The decisions of a leader were not ones that Merownis made lightly, but neither could he stop the flow of progress. He felt like he had been putting out fires since the moment he returned to what was affectionately being called Home Base. In the last four full cycles of day and night in the dungeon, a lot had happened.

  Along with the gambling hall and general area of degeneracy which had grown around it, there were a few sections to Grant’s new village which he might have a problem with. Well, Merownis shrugged, that’s only until he stops being such an Earth Human. Those emotions would be ground out a little by the System, but Merownis also hoped that they wouldn’t be rubbed away entirely. Grant had freed him from a mind control so ingrained and insidious, Merownis wouldn’t have even been able to sense it if he somehow became the most powerful being upon the Tree. It was good that he had strange ideas.

  Grant had good thoughts, and Merownis was proud to not just be a follower, but a friend of his. The boy was powerful, and there was little chance that his rise would stop here. Merownis was confident of that. Grant would survive this and become stronger for it, somehow. He was that kind of existence. Which is also why Merownis knew he would see the value in the attractions around his town. Grant was not the type to look any potential benefit in the eye.

  Probably.

  Watching the goblin and gnoll which had shouted at him continue to bungle their way around a corner, yelling at anyone who got close, Merownis let out a tiny groan. As much as he would pretend to have taken command of the situation, so much was going on that he had no idea about. Merownis trusted Grant’s choice to bring the forest denizens into the fold, but they were getting a little troublesome without his guidance. Trying to find Ayseral, he decided he really should see if there were any more surprises around the corner.

  The gambling hall, or as they Goblins were calling it, the “Gablin’ ‘All”, was a fairly egregious mark against the local skyline, so the goblins had been forced to move it. With surprisingly industrious speed, they had built the thing as close as they could to Grant’s workshop as possible. The first building was seen as something of a centrepoint to their growing town, and so the Goblins felt they were getting prime real estate.

  It had been a decent undertaking to shift the building, but less than it would have been if the place was built to code. The Gablin’ ‘All’s rickety pop up frame somehow weathered the passions within. The sounds of laughter, jealous and scornful, tickled Merownis’ ears as he passed by on his patrol. Monsters were capable of looting other monsters, so there were plenty of gold coins in circulation at this point. Almost too many, as those less inclined to games of chance decided how they would like to get the shiny coins, too.

  If the Goblins were becoming casino masters, then the Gnolls demanded they also be allowed to rise to similar heights. Merownis’ watched from a distance as, completely without input from himself, the food market bustled. Speedo, the leader of the Gnolls, was happily butchering some poor creature that seemed to still be half alive. At least it wasn’t the half which the Gnolls were eating, and the monster itself was regrowing the lower portions of itself which had been lost.

  The less he knew about it, the better, Merownis decided. It wasn’t that he wanted to shirk responsibility, but Grant hadn’t exactly left him with any plans. He doubted whether the human had even made any, or if this whole thing was caused by an accident. The village, which became a town, which kept growing in scale was likely not a part of Grant’s ideas for the future. Merownis allowed himself a smirk. Good, he thought, the more distracted he is, the more chance I have to catch up.

  “Would you like some tea?” Continuing his path along what Merownis was just now realising would become districts, the Sundercat was greeted by the third new leader of monsters for their growing faction. Offering a dainty cup with steaming red liquid was Naru. The words Merownis heard were not quite speech, but instead a one way telepathy that acted as speech for the Ent.

  “Good morning, Naru,” Merownis nodded, taking the cup. The ent fluttered her droopy leaves and branches in response and agreement. The two sat quietly. Merownis sipped his tea while the hustle continued around him. It was impossible to stop at this point, with cliques of creatures inside the faction all trying to outdo each other. Competition was the heart of the System, after all. It was encouraged and rewarded, though the rewards may be intangible at first. “This is a great blend, did you make it?”

  The tree shivered again, somehow evoking the sound of giggling as she held out a long “arm.” The Ent was not humanoid, really. It was just capable of completely reshaping its wooden form on the fly. Right now, she was appearing as a wall, bench and table. Her branches loomed over the space, and she served the tea which she had taken to making.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “You said Grant will like this stuff?” He asked again, sceptical. The ents had been instrumental in the initial building phase for their buildings but most of the work was done now. The lumber production had slowed, and the ents had taken up more personal projects. For Naru, that was tea making in preparation for Grant's return. The Ent bristled, offended by the suggestion she had mistaken the human’s thoughts when they connected. Merownis could only laugh as the ‘walls’ of Naru’s peaceful area became thorny. “I’m sure he will, too.”

  Chuckling, Merownis said his goodbye and continued his rounds. Despite the calm he had just experienced, his thoughts turned towards the negative. For this, he blamed Grant. He had certainly never been a worrier before his influence, and it was probably something inherited from their stagnant Battle Bond. Whatever the root cause of his anxiety may have been, he sought out Ayseral to assuage them.

  The growing economy was a potential issue down the road, according to Ayseral. Lots of the information which Merownis acted on was sourced from the female. He was beginning to rely on all five of the monsters Grant had given names to. The cheetah Sundercat was intriguing to Merownis, not because he found her attractive, but because of her explosive growth. If Merownis remembered rightly, she had only been level ten when he and Grant went to fight the Scorpion Queen. In the time since, she had been the quickest riser in their small town, growing from level ten to match Merownis’ own. He had only gained a little from the large battle with the scorpions, so her gains were impressive compared to his own.

  Not that Merownis’ attributes weren’t amazing, he accepted. At Grant’s suggestion, Merownis had pushed to fifty attribute points in Command, and had gained the Specialist (Command) achievement like Grant had. Not only did the benchmark give Merownis an extra attribute point per level, he felt his very soul grow as the powerful achievement settled in. It was standard for a creature to gain additional attribute points from levelling as they progressed through the Grades, but in between was rarer. Even just one achievement gave Merownis much more potential for growth.

  It was this new capacity and the outlook it gave him which really changed Merownis. Grant likely didn’t know, but it was only after his influence and the effects of the contract forged with Severance that Merownis could even control his attribute distribution. The System itself handles all of that for the monsters under its control. He had probably never even looked at his Character window before Grant gave Merownis the option to choose. Familiar bonds weren’t uncommon, many individuals had skills to bend the minds of a System monster but the connection between the human and the Sundercat was not one of master and servant.

  Unable to find the female Sundercat, Merownis decided to eat. A Gnoll food stand of frying meats called to his nostrils and he wandered over, flipping the excitable hyena-man a gold coin for a pile of mystery meat. None of the other creatures were precious about the act of eating each other, but it was just fairer not to give out names. The box of meat was still delicious, even if Merownis might have known the contents while they were alive.

  Merownis wondered how best to describe the bond between himself and Grant while he sat and ate one of the fast food options available in the Dungeon. Part of the System information which made up the minds of monsters during creation was a general knowledge of local culture. Apparently, the capitalism of Earth was ingrained so fiercely even the monsters couldn’t avoid it forever.

  “This place needs a name.” The prideful Sundercat had to contain a kitten’s yelp as Kruegar somehow snuck up on him. He had been so absorbed in his thoughts that even the bulky orc could get the drop on him. Perhaps Merownis’ second specialisation achievement should have been in Perception…

  “That place?” Merownis tried to clarify, gesturing to the food stall a small distance away. “I’d just call it Gnork’s after the one running it, he really does make a good box of random meats. Lean into the weirdness.”

  Unamused, Kruegar stared at Merownis until the Sundercat blinked and took him seriously. “You mean the town, then.” He sighed as the Orc grunted his assent. It had been mentioned before, but if Kruegar was taking the initiative to talk about it, then Merownis really needed to do something. The orcs were basically obsessed with Grant’s workshop and getting them to come away from the industrial area being built around it was increasingly rare.

  Just as Merownis was about to continue, he began to feel Battle Bond activate in a way it hadn’t since Grant was encased in crystal. Kruegar’s head turned in the direction of the feeling, too, and the surly Orc broke into a rare smile. “It seems you will not have to make the decision, fluffy cat,” the Orc chuckled. Merownis ignored the taunt in favour of sprinting towards the magical disturbance. In the distance, he heard a shout.

  “I lived, bitch…”