“So what did we learn?” Quill asked with his arms crossed over his chest as he glared down at all the buffalo he had taken out of the pit, all of whom were now lying flat on the ground from either exhaustion or repeatedly getting punched in the head. His foot tapped impatiently as he waited for an answer.

  Finally one of the buffalo let out a measly grunt which he didn't understand but decided to interpret as an apology. “That's right. Next time someone shows you mercy, fucking take it. I'm getting real tired of all the killing I'm having to do because of the system's demand for blood and other creatures' stubborn stupidity!”

  All of this had transpired after Quill had brought out the final Buffalo from the pit. The moment the last one touched ground they had all suddenly charged in and attacked him. He wasn't entirely surprised but he also wasn't pleased about it and had then spent the past hour just repeatedly smacking them into the ground either with his own hands or with some blunt manifestation. On the bright side, all of that work had made him more comfortable with the increased body stats he now had so he no longer felt like he was about to accidentally fling himself into the air.

  The increased stats to the mind also helped a lot as he could think a lot faster while noticing and seeing things at an increased perception level which thankfully wasn't active all the time. It only seemed to kick in when danger was being presented to him or he just needed to think faster in whatever moment there was.

  “Hey so, kind of off topic but also kind of not. Just gotta say this stern strict persona of yours is kind of doing something for me. I mean I love your normal, submissive, frantic, erratic behavior but variety is the spice of life. Don't suppose you could take on a stern strict tone with me every now and again. At least one where it's not you telling me to leave or how much you hate me.”

  “Ew. I'm just going to ignore that comment and throw it away into the recesses of my mind.” He quickly refocused on the buffalo and ignored whatever comment she made after that. Making sure to uncross his arms and stop tapping his foot respectively.

  “Now then, ignoring her. Trust me, I do my best and expect you to do the same but that is off topic. I am assuming all of you have learned your lessons and won’t be trying anything foolish or ill advised. Correct???”

  He heard another tired, pained grunt from one of the buffalo and nodded.

  “Good. Now all of you get up. We have to go get the rest of your herd that have survived and I don’t want to hear any complaining. You shouldn’t have wasted all of your energy on frivolously attacking me in the first place.” The buffalo began to shakily stand up on their hooves

  “Talk about a slave driver. I love it!”

  “On second thought you can have the next few minutes to rest. But I expect you to be ready to move when I say so.” At his words and with Grey swearing about needing to keep her mouth shut at times. The buffalo collapsed back to the ground seemingly grateful for the few minutes of break. It was at that moment he got a notification.

  Congratulations! You have learned the skill “beast taming”

  Be it animal, beast, monster or something else all together. Your desperate need for friends has led to you making unconventional friendships.

  You have a higher chance of taming a beast, animal or monster to be your ally or at least not be hostile to you. Success scales with skill level. Higher level monsters to you, elites and bosses have a weaker chance of being tamed.

  Congratulations! You have earned the achievement “Beast whisper”

  Able to get hostile creatures to be your willing lap dogs? That takes a special kind of person no matter what.

  This achievement is earned when you have turned 5 or more hostile animals, beasts, or monsters to be non-hostile and/or friendly.

  .3 stats awarded to mind.

  Well that should be confirmation that these buffalo weren’t going to attack him anymore. Also why were the stats awarded to mind? He felt like he used his body more than his mind when it came to subduing the buffalo. Or maybe he just went about it in an unconventional manner.

  Whatever, it didn't matter. He gave the group of Buffalo a chance to rest a little before rousing them all up. “Right, so. I want all of you to follow me so we can get the rest of your brethren that are alive. Please watch where you step as I am unsure if there are any untriggered traps left.”

  The buffalo looked down at their hooves as if concerned that they were inadvertently standing on one but if they were it would have already been triggered. He might not be proud of the devastation his traps wrought but he was proud in the fact that he made every trap work to the best of their abilities. There was no way he would have placed a faulty trap on the ground and not know about it. He was a professional after all.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Since when?”

  “Since I spent every waking moment for the past six odd months building all of these things.” he responded and began to make his way towards the next non-lethal trap pit he had set up.

  As they approached the next pit which was evident by the sounds of various grunts and guttural growls he stopped and turned towards the buffalo that were following him.

  “Right, I need all of you to tell the ones in the pit not to attack and things will be okay. If they do attack we will have to go through this whole song and dance again with the same results. Only this time I might just grow agitated enough to fling a few of you off the cliff and into the ocean.” he wasn't actually going to do that but they didn't need to know that part.

  The largest of the buffalo that was following him, which Quill identified as a level 51 stepped forward and over the pit before letting out its own guttural growls. This was quickly returned by the various buffalo inside the trap.

  The exchange happened for a little bit which gave him enough time to finally realize that buffalo didn't moo. He had no idea why he thought they would moo, he just always assumed they did. Instead they sound kind of freakish. He wondered if that was a pre-system thing and they were always like that or if the system screwed around with their vocal cords. Assuming the system even took existing buffalo and made them this way. For all he knew the blasted thing scorched the entire surface of the earth and remade everything from scratch.

  Eventually the buffalo above the pit turned to Quill and gave a huff through its nostrils before turning away. He took that as a sign that he managed to convince them and manifested an arm to reach down and picked up the nearest Buffalo. After carefully placing it down on the ground with the rest of the herd, it seemed agitated but it didn't attack and so he quickly started pulling the rest of them up too.

  After he had finished, he only had a couple of extremely stubborn ones try to attack him but a quick punch to the face seemed to right their senses which was helped when several of the other buffalo quickly came in and made sure the troublemakers caused no further issues. He then started to lead the larger herd of buffalo to the next pit for a rinse and repeat.

  It was during these trips between the non-lethal pits that he felt really awkward. He was basically dragging the herd around him through what was essentially the remains of all of their fallen brethren by his hand. Many lay dead inside his lethal pits, skewered by the various spikes he had laid at the bottom in a grotesque scene. That wasn't counting all of the various body parts lying about the strip from his explosions that tore through all of them. It got especially awkward when they would come across one of his “artistic” explosions with various colors and designs.

  “ Look on the bright side, at least all of your artistic explosions worked the way you intended. You should take pride in that.”

  “ I am not taking pride in that.” he grumbled

  “Refuse to acknowledge your artistic talent all you want. There is still a part of you that is proud it all went off without a hitch and you achieved your desired result because of it.”

  He just ignored her and continued to go from non-lethal pit trap to non-lethal pit trap with about the same results as the second one. At least one or two of the Buffalo seemed to think that where all the others failed they would succeed. They failed too of course and at this point Quill wasn't even annoyed about their stubbornness. He felt similar to how one would feel when they just went through the motions of a day-to-day job.

  This continued on through the day and into the night where Quill announced to the rest that they would be sleeping for a few hours before continuing on. This was partially to give the buffalo a break but also partially to give himself one too. He didn't need sleep though. This was entirely because of how mentally exhausting the whole debacle had been. But perhaps his trait “powerful mind” helped with keeping his mental fortitude up, if that were the case he can’t imagine how utterly exhausted he'd be right now without it. Either way he just sat down and pretended to sleep while the rest of the buffalo collapsed on the ground. He was surprised but thankful that none had actually attacked him during these resting hours.

  Once he felt like enough rest happened, and partially because his existential crisis/depression mode activated while he was just lying there alone with his thoughts, he roused the buffalo and they continued on.

  It was about mid-morning based on the sun when he pulled the last of the buffalo out of the last non-lethal pit trap he made. He gave them a few seconds to see if they would all attack him now that he had freed the rest but none did so he decided that they had officially met an accord. Now the question became what the hell was he going to do with all these Buffalo? He had stopped counting them after he passed 500 as it just seemed redundant at that point. Unfortunately, they also didn't seem to know what to do with themselves and we're looking at him for an answer. Or at least that's how he interpreted it anyway.

  “Right.” he spoke out not really sure where to go “The way I see it, you can either go back to where you came from all the way across the strip of land here or you can come back to where my territory is, or perhaps just a little beyond it and we adopt a live and let live situation. If you want to go back to where you came from just head on past me, there should be no more traps so you won't have to worry about that part.”

  None of the Buffalo made a move to go past him and he just nodded. “Okay, guess that means you all are coming with me. Just a couple of rules before we go. Do not harm any denizens within my territory unless they attack you first, do not destroy or break any buildings if it can be helped, and don't eat Wind Cutter. They hold many important positions within my territory and are very highly esteemed citizen. Does that work for all of you?”

  A bunch of the buffalo gave huffs through their noses which he just interpreted as a group yes and so he jogged his way back to his territory with a mass herd of buffalo following him. He was going to have to inform his automatons not to attack them when he got back.

  “So after you get all the buffalo situated, whether inside your territory or just outside, what do you plan on doing next? Because I swear if you decide to build more traps I am going to lock up your body and have you walk off the cliff into the ocean in hopes that the cold water will clear your head.”

  He gave it a brief thought, ignoring the part where she threatened him. He definitely didn't want to build more traps at the moment. He felt like his brain would fry if he had to do anymore anytime soon. But now that he did think about it, he had some free time. Perhaps he could see if those gliders were still for sale in the system shop. That sounded kind of fun.