CH24: Collared

They moved the cow to one of his nice stone floored shacks he kept for rituals and dark deeds. When Zacharia built the shack, he hadn't expected to use it to investigate a cow's bowl movement but live and learn. The presence inside the cow continued to give off faint mana pulses like it was using a spell. That wasn't unheard of, but the shape of the monster was.

Most rank-1 creatures weren't classified as monsters unless they deviated from the baseline animal they were born as. A bee might change colors or grow much larger than what is common as it approached its rank-up. That was normal, and those monsters were rarely hunted down by adventurers. What his dear Elizabeth described would be hunted down if only for the curiosity. No matter their strange appearance, there wasn't a lot a rank 1 monster could do. The disparity of rank was immutable.

A humanoid-shaped leech with three human-shaped eyes on its head, arms with opposable thumbs, and a tail. That would go in some rich nobleman's collection. He was sure they would take their guests to their outside menagerie and say look here, this is my walking leech. The guests would undoubtedly admire such a specimen and spew many gasps of admiration for such a freak of nature.

Zacharia knew why the monster was most likely in his cow. Some threshold's required some creative tasks to break through. Skills could function as instincts, like the programmed responses of servant automatons in a wealthy enchanter's home. The leech would have seen his cows and been forced through pleasure chemicals to get devoured.

Behavior says otherwise; it hid when his daughter neared it and didn't leave until she presumedly left the area. She watched it use the tall grass and shadows to move down to the old pond where the cows drank their fill. It used the black mud to its advantage and found its way into the pond first. Some animalistic cunning was involved in the leech's approach, or perhaps its humanoid appearance was more than aesthetic. Perhaps it was even as intelligent as a goblin.

"Are you ready? It's time." Elizabeth said before the cow raised its tail and feces rained down on his formerly clean stone floor. Only the cases of cleaning solution stocked in the shack's plentiful closet allowed him to keep his cool.

He saw feet appear amidst the sludge with 10 wiggling toes tiny enough to fit on a man less than a foot tall. Then, more of the monster oozed out, revealing its tail with a set of closed lips at the end of it along with an animalistic sheath that didn't belong with its design. Its arms were next, and it used its hands to quickly grab the wrinkled edges of the cow's anus to force himself the rest of the way out.

The containment circle lit up, and the cow walked out of it, leaving the monster in shit, figuratively and literally.

…

His body froze in a very nostalgic feeling. Symbols glowed all around him while his frozen body fell into the very shit that had been his only traveling companion throughout his journey through the cow. Directly in front of him was a disheveled blonde-haired man with bloodshot eyes and an air of OCD. He placed a square monocle on his face that hugged the side of his head, and all three of Silas's eyes widened.

The man had a scouter. How was that a thing? He could see his stats appear on the piece of glass, and right there and then, he knew his goose was cooked. There was a frantic look in the man's eyes as he turned to the girl with wolf ears.

"I think we can use him." The man said, and Silas groaned.

He tried to open his mouth and talk, but the old man only took out what looked like a collar made of silver etched with symbols and placed it around his neck. Then, before he could do anything, the ring resized, and he knew he had really stepped in it.

The woman sighed, and he felt something knock into his brain. He saw her raise an eyebrow before glaring at him. The next hit was much harder than the one before.

"Obey it will make things easier." A voice said, probably belonging to the woman.

"Fuck you," Silas replied and would have flipped her the bird if he could.

"You can understand me. Or do you only know an explicative?" The girl said.

He felt another hit like a sledgehammer to his frontal lobe; it reminded him a lot of crashing through the windshield of his truck.

"Damn, that hurts," Silas said.

"Father, I think we have a problem." The girl said.

"I will release the circle; if you try to flee, you'll regret it."

The second he felt his body, he threw himself on his hands and knees, and dry heaved. Everything was spinning, and he would have run for it if he knew which way the door was.

"Good, you are obedient. If you do as I say, this will go smoothly with as little pain as possible."

"It's intelligent, and I think we can use him for the fights."

"He has the invertebrate trait, which could be useful in the pugilist games. While he's small, leeches are known to have great regeneration effectiveness, second only to trolls and starfish in the first rank. He will grow until he's lvl100, and he's only half-leveled now. Swapping a leech for a goblin should earn us more winnings for the spectacle alone, even if he loses. This is your monster, dear do you want to risk it in the games?"

"What's going on? What are the games, and why would you level me to 100?" Silas asked.

"Ask his name. I don't know whether to give him intelligence tests or throw him in a breeding pit with other leeches to see what happens. Would you like that?" The crazy man asked, turning to Silas.

Sharp pain made his vision swim. "My father isn't crazy. He's a genius you don't understand."

"Did I think that out loud?" He was certain he kept that hidden.

"I have apprentice-rank telepathy; you can't hide your thoughts from me." Silas blanked his mind out like he did when his wife used to yell at him. "How did you do that your thoughts have become like a serene lake?"

"Practice; you aren't the only telepath I've met." She wasn't a telepath either. While he wasn't the most experienced, he had felt telepathy before, and her mental attacks weren't it. Something else was going on, and it probably had something to do with her class and the collar he wore.

"Here is the deal you broke onto our property and used one of our cows to better one of your skills. It could have easily died or caught a disease from you, so you owe us. Right now, there isn't a thing you can do to pay us back, so we're going to put you further in debt by getting you to lvl100, granting you the pugilist skill, and a serum that will help you get stronger faster, and reach greater heights. In exchange, you will fight in the Colosseum against some of the best-trained rank 1 creatures in the area." He knew he couldn't even think about it. This wasn't an offer anyway; she told him what would happen. He could either get along or be forced along. His choices were limited.

"I'll work with you." She nodded, and the apparent genius smiled.

"Good. I prefer my subjects to be cooperative. The first order of business will be to get you up to lvl100. Do you allocate your own skill points, or does the system automatically allocate them?" The man turned to his daughter. "Does he understand, or am I going too fast?"

He kept his mind serene even if he wanted to rape the man's daughter in front of him for the lols. She didn't manage to pick up on it and let those thoughts slink down to the bottom of his serene pond.

"I allocate them," Silas said.

"Oh, I just realized I've been rude. My name of Zacharia Archimedes, and this is my lovely daughter Elizabeth Archimedes. This may sound rude, but do you have a name." Zacharia said.

"Silas Flex," he said as they led him to a corner, and Zacharia immediately cast a spell that hosed him off. But, by the symbols on the side of the walls, he assumed it wasn't actually a spell on the man's part but an enchantment built into the wall. The falling water disappeared moments later.