Punishment

"Master all of the staff have woken up, and the maids are preparing breakfast"

Rex opened his eyes and stretched, he found chainling 34 stretching a tentacle of liquid-like metal poking his face.

He yawned and nodded "Thanks 34, yesterday was really busy hopefully nothing as stupid as that happens again.

He got up from bed and went to the bathroom that was connected to his room and took a shower. Then he got changed and went down to the kitchen, the maids were cooking in total silence. He walked in with a smile "Good morning, how is today's cooking?"

The maids quickly jumped from surprise and gave a bow "Morning master, breakfast should be done soon."

Rex nodded and looked around he could still see that they were scared of what happened last night. He sighed and waved his hand to have all of them walk towards him, he looked at the eyes of everyone in the room "Listen like I said yesterday what that man did does not speak for all the beast-men okay. I'll get some help for you today but I want all of you to get used to being around them."

The maids hesitated but nodded and bowed again "Thank you, master, we will make sure to meet your expectations."

Rex sighed "That's good, don't force yourself just go at your own pace. Also, don't keep bowing it makes me feel weird."

They nodded and were about to bow again but stopped themselves "Sorry master it's going to take some practice."

He smiled and looked around the kitchen "Hey where do you keep all the meat? I have some more left and I was going to hand it over to all you so there wouldn't be any shortage."

One of the more mature maids smiled and pointed at a door at the back of the room "All the meat is placed there so that it doesn't go bad."

Rex walked towards the door and opened it, inside he found a room that was lit up by what seemed to be magic cores. The deeper he went into the room the colder it got, he inspected it but didn't find how it got colder. After placing the meat he went out and found the maids cooking again but this time the atmosphere began to feel lighter.

He walked to the maid that had told him about the room earlier and tapped her sholder "Hey I wanted to let you know if you could make 11 bowls of food with twice the serving size?"

She looked at him confused but nodded "Yes master"

"Great let me know when you have that ready" then he walked away from the kitchen and began to head towards the courtyard. When he got there he was surprised when he saw all the men and women demi-humans waiting for him.

For a moment he just stared at them with a confused look on his face, he began looking around and spotted Trey, the Tiger demi-human.

He walked towards him with a smile "Hey Trey what's going on? How come everyone is here already?"

Trey stood up straight and gave him a short nod as a greeting "Morning, we were all ashamed by our actions that last night. If what you have shown us is the real then know that you have our respect. As long as you keep treating us the way you have till now then we wouldn't mind helping you out."

Rex looked at the man and tried to see if he could find any movement in his body to see if he was lying but he found none. He gave them a big smile and nodded "That's what I planned on doing in the first place so don't worry. Now the thing we have to do is to get started training and making sure that you are some of the best warriors that this kingdom has ever seen."

He began to hand out copies of the unit lists. The women were all happy when they heard that they wouldn't have to participate in combat unless someone attacked the mansion.

Rex handed each one a wooden version of the weapons that they would use. He gave the Rhinos heavy iron shields and staffs to act like spears. Half of them made shield walls while the others charged and tried to make them fall apart; they were instructed to keep it up all day so that they could get used to working together.

The Tigers, Wolves, and Leopards were given sabers and shields and were taught some stances by the twins. After they successfully learned some of the stances they were split into 3 groups and made to fight each other. While they were fighting Rex had the kids throw eggs that he had asked John buy the earlier to symbolize arrows.

Since he was training a miniature army he wanted to have each of them form their own style. If he taught them all as thoroughly as he did the twins then once the enemy fights one then they would already know everyone else's weaknesses. At the moment he didn't have any horses so he made all of the Tigers, Leopards, and Wolves train swordsmanship together for now.

He had the cheetahs and foxes shoot at targets so that they could get used to firing arrows. While he watched them he started making plans for their future training "Looks like after they get used to reloading I'm going to have to make them train when everyone else is resting so that they can get used to shooting from long range."

Rex turned around and looked at the snakes who were fighting each other with staffs, during the night he decided that he would give them glaives instead of spears.

By the time that everyone had their arrangements Rex was called over by one of the maids "Sir the meals are ready, there are also the 11 meals with extra food that you've ordered."

He nodded and turned towards the demi-humans "I need 20 women to give the maids a hand with distributing food." After the 20 women lined up and headed to the kitchen he found the 7 slaves that took off their rings with the help of the slimes and called them over. He took them outside and looked for the 4 guards that with the help of John he quickly was able to locate.

After he had all of the 11 people rounded up he took them to the dining room and made them sit in the rectangular table with him. He looked around the room and found all of them with their heads down, he sighed and waved at one of the maids to bring the 11 meals and his own.

Once the meals were placed on the table they looked at him in surprise, in front of him was half of the meal that they had on their bowl. He gave them a smile and shook his head "Don't worry there's a reason behind it, now eat up and we will talk afterward."

They hesitated but after seeing him start they began to join in. The atmosphere was awkward, to say the least, 15 minutes passed before they all finished eating Rex gave a short nod and moved his stare around everyone "Great now that you are finished we can talk about the matter at hand, as you can imagine I don't like it when people lie to me and break their word. Since

we just started working together I figured that it would be okay to give you a second chance."

All of the 11 people lifted their heads and had a genuine smile on their faces "Don't misunderstand this is a one-time thing and you won't go unpunished. Also don't you dare break your word again, I'm not the type of person who will give third chances."

He put his hand in his pockets and pulled out the chainlings and put them on the table. He made them repeat their promise before putting on the ring "Some of you may wonder how you lost you them, the reason behind it is that they have magic that will make them appear on my hand minutes after you take them off. This way it's highly unlikely that we get infiltrated."

The people now looked at their rings in amazement, the guards even kneeled and cried "we're sorry for our ignorance master, not in our wildest dreams did we imagine that you would entrust us with magical items. We may not deserve it but we ask you to please forgive us."

Rex nodded "I already have, just remember no more mistakes okay. Anyway, follow me, we still have to complete your punishment after all."

He brought out a log that was about 12 ft long and dropped it on the floor. The men and 2 women looked confused, "You will be carrying this log and rotating it from left side to right side as you walk around this area. You are not allowed to drop it or stop until I come back and say so. Now, women don't give me that look, I know that you aren't as weak as you want to make me think. This punishment will allow you to work together no matter what race you are, also some advice make sure that you coordinate so that about half of the people carry most of the weight and then rotate positions. No matter how strong all of you are, in this heat you won't last long if you don't get some sort of break, I'll come back with some water later."

He began to walk into the mansion as the 11 people started marching while rotating the log from different sides of their shoulders. Rex looked at the sky and sighed "That's one thing taken care of but I still have so many others."