Chapter 31: The Furball and Beast Armies

I am the king of beasts.

I stand above any and every beast.

Master held a competition to see who could hunt better with a different male yesterday, and I too participated.

“************!?”

As a result of that, I succeeded in showing that foolish and inexperienced male, lacking in strength compared to my master, the difference in our strengths.

Muhahaha, this is the difference in strength between myself and humans.

The status as living beings I and you peons were born with differs so.

And I also came to realise something else.

That the difference in strength between master and me was not so large after all.

Indeed, as my still juvenile body had grown, I had also gained in strength.

I was no longer second to those simple humans.

Who won or lost in this hunting match merely depended on who had the luck to stumble across the better prey.

The meaning of which was that in a pure comparison of strength, I would not lose easily.

The time hath come!

I will challenge my master to a battle, emerge victorious, and eat his flesh!

♦ ♦

“Today, you’ll be practising the next level of body strengthening magic, elemental strengthening.”

“Okay, I’ll try my hardest!”

Liliella-san replied with a tense expression on her face.

It was the day after the match with Rody-san, and we had accepted a monster subjugation request to help with Liliella-san’s training.

A lot of monsters seemed to have been appearing around the royal capital lately, so there was no shortage of subjugation requests.

“By elements, you mean like in fire magic or in water magic, right? But won’t I get burned by my own magic?”

Hmm, quite a good question.

“That would be if you activated it as attack magic. In the case of elemental strengthening, however, it’s important to think of yourself as having become the element itself as well.”

“So I’ll become that element?”

“Yes, for fire elemental strengthening, you have to imagine yourself as the fire. You can’t get burned by fire if you’re fire yourself, right?”

“…It sounds ridiculously difficult to do though…”

“Don’t worry, it’s easy. Just do as I do. Lightning Boost!”

I activated lightning-attributed body strengthening magic, covering my whole body in lightning.

“Uwawa!? You’re crackling and going ‘bzzt’!?”

“If I had to give a different explanation, it would be that you basically have to put that element on and wear it as if it were armour. By the way, activating and even higher level of body strengthening would look like this. Lightning Effect!”

I circulated lightning-elemental mana through my body.

This level of body strengthening wasn’t something as simple as just covering one’s body in an element, but rather I was letting the lightning element permeate into my body, making it turn into something akin to lightning itself.

Liliella-san didn’t seem surprised.

I looked around, and jogged over to a monster nearby.

I drew ever closer to it, but it just kept staring off into space, showing no signs of having noticed me.

I grabbed it, simultaneously shooting lightning-elemental mana into it.

It still hadn’t reacted.

I returned to Liliella-san, still holding onto the monster.

It followed after me, not resisting at all.

Then, once we were back where I had been standing originally, I undid the magic.

With a loud bang, the monster jumped up in the air, then lost consciousness.

“Kya!? W-What!? Eh!? The monster!?”

Liliella-san had been surprised by the sudden bang.

Then, she had been surprised by a monster suddenly appearing in front of her.

Then, she had been surprised by the fact that the monster was unconscious.

“Eh? Did you just do something!?”

That’s right, Liliella-san hadn’t been able to perceive what had happened.

That was how fast I had been.

“I activated the upper-level elemental strengthening of the lightning attribute, and then went and grabbed a monster nearby and brought it back, all at the same speed as lightning.”

“…Huh!?”

Liliella-san was dumbfounded, unable to comprehend what I had just said.

“To put it another way, I moved with a speed humans are unable to comprehend.”

“A s-speed humans are u-unable to comprehend!?”

“Yes, the elemental strengthening I used has that kind of effect. The characteristics of elemental strengthening magic vary greatly depending on the attribute you use, so you’ll have to learn to do it with all sorts of elements.”

“…Isn’t that impossible?”

Liliella-san said, looking at me without any self-confidence.

“Don’t worry, everyone has things they’re good and bad at, and not being able to do something at all happens in only the rarest of cases! So you’ll be able to do it if you try hard enough!”

“I’ll do my best, but that’s still way too difficult! Way too difficult, I say!”

“Don’t worry about it, just do it! C’mon try it!”

With that, Liliella-san began to practise elemental strengthening.

“U-umm, the element and mana…”

“Right, focus on picturing the details too. That should reinforce it.”

“Kyuu!”

The furball said, running off into the forest.

“Going out to hunt again? Come back before it gets dark!”

“Kyuu!”

It replied, so it’ll be fine.

It also seemed to be strong enough to hunt down a Shadow Fox, so I didn’t really need to worry about it.

“Now then, let’s get back to training.”

“We’re really doing this!?”

♦ ♦

“************”

“************”

As usual, master was teaching the female in his pack how to hunt.

Not being able to hunt unless taught how to do so, it must be tough, being inferior species.

However, I am different. I have been a king ever since my birth.

I understood how to hunt by instinct.

I ran through the forest.

I was doing so for food, but not just for that.

My true objective was to build an army.

Beasts act in packs, hunting like that too, after all.

And while I, as the king of beasts, can proudly say that even on my own, my strength is second to none, leading a pack, I would be the supreme leader.

Why am I going to such lengths, you ask?

In order to defeat master, of course.

Leading my subordinates, I will defeat master, even if he possesses the strength of an army!

It’s not like I want allies because I can’t defeat him on my own.

On a whim as the king of beasts, I just want to lead subordinates into battle as their king.

And so, I am going on a search to find suitable subordinates!

And those who are not suitable to become my subordinates shall instead be my food.

♦ ♦

Hmm, there’s a strangely good smell coming from over there.

“Groooooo!!”

But it seemed like someone else had arrived before me.

And the nice smell seemed to be coming from their mouths.

It seemed like it had already been eaten.

All right then, you people shall be my food.

It’s not like I was mad that they’d taken it all for themselves or anything.

♦ ♦

“Gyaun gyaun!”

“Gyurururu…”

“Kweeee…”

Muhahahaha, weak, how weak!

Running through the forest, I killed any monsters that I stumbled upon.

I made the ones with some prospects into my vassals, bringing them along with me.

Mowaan…

Ugh, the smell of something delicious came from the mouth of whatever I had just killed.

When will I be able to eat something so delicious!

But, on a different note, the number of my vassals had grown a lot.

They were all inferior to me, but they were still all very powerful.

Fufufu, it’s about time I challenged master!

My people! We go to battle!

I shall bestow the honour of being my right front paw to the one who kills the one I ordered them to kill!

“Guooooooon!!”

“Gyaooooooooon!!”

“Kisha!!”

“Kweeeeee!!”

Fufufu, they’re all rearing to go!

Like this, not even master will be able to win!

Kukuku, don’t think too badly of me, master. This is also a law of nature!

Muhahahahahaha! Let us go, soldiers!!

♦ ♦

“***********!!”

“Gyofuuuu!!”

“Gyauun!”

“Shwee!!”

“Kukyeeeee!!”

And then my army was quite literally destroyed by an attack from master that I couldn’t recognize at all.

Awawawawawa.

“************”

Oh no, master is coming closer.

T-this is bad, I betrayed him and was defeated, my life is now but a candle in strong wind.

W-what should I do!? H-how do I survive!?

“********”

Master muttered something, touching my head.

Argh, I’m dead!!

I wet myself.

♦ ♦

Uwaa, the furball somehow managed to attract a bunch of monsters.

They’re in the way of Liliella-san’s training, so I guess I’ll get rid of them.

“Hey!? What the!? We have to run!!”

Liliella-san said in a panic, wanting to run away, but I told her it was fine, and attacked the monsters.

“Cyclone Buster!!”

I created a large tornado that spun parallel to the ground next to the monsters with magic.

And thus, the tornado, which would normally have been vertical, now headed forwards horizontally.

I of course made sure to adjust its height not to hit the furball at the front.

The tornado caught the monsters, buffeting them up and down.

It left a pile of unconscious monsters in its wake.

“But why did the furball bring monsters with it? And all these different species too… ah, no way!?”

Right, the furball lured them here so we could hunt them.

So that we wouldn’t have to go searching in the wilderness.

“I see, so you did your best for our sakes.”

I stroked the trembling furball’s head.

Psssshhhh…

Ah, it wet itself.

…I see, right, right.

It had been terribly scared, yet it had still done its best.

It’s only natural, little one, you were only just born a little while ago, after all.

“Thank you, furball. I’ll prepare a feast for tonight!”