Chapter 121: Breeding for War (2/2)
“Easy, the battle shall not last more than a day,” Vainqueur replied, proud of his species. “Do not mistake the situation, minions. This is not a war. This is an execution by dragonfire. Your role is to sort out the ashes.”
“Dragon air support will be decisive,” Knight Kia said. “But the fomors have been preparing for such an attack for years. We need more advanced tactics—”
An imp messenger popped up in the middle of the meeting. “Your Majesty, emergency! Emergency!”
“This is a war meeting,” Malfy said. “Can’t this wait?”
“It’s Daltonia!” the imp hissed. “Daltonia… dodo hybrids have escaped Daltonia’s pens! The Tarasque has gone out of control!”
What?
“I will deal with this myself!” Vainqueur declared, roused to action. “None shall spoil my feast!”
When Vainqueur crossed the portal to Daltonia with Knight Kia in tow, they found themselves in front of a monster feasting on a demon’s entrails.
The creature had the head of a dodo and the body of a bear.
“A [Dodobear]!” Vainqueur exclaimed in happiness. The experiment had been a rousing success!
“You named it?”
“I bred it!” Vainqueur boasted, Knight Kia taking a step back upon seeing the giddy joy in the dragon’s eyes. “I bred a dodo and a slime, then a bear and a slime… and then I bred the results! To create a [Dodobear]!”
“Why would Your Majesty do that?” the [Paladin] asked, unable to grasp her master’s grand vision.
“Because we are at war!” Vainqueur shouted, the knight taking another step backward until she hit a tree. “We are at war with nature! Two species, driven almost extinct by accident! Should I accept it? No! So I bred a new species, taking the best of both! Dodos that can thrive everywhere! What will you manlings say when they see these mighty creatures put their eggs into bears, only to have dodo-headed children coming out?”
Charisma check successful! You terrified Kia Bekele!
“Yes, minion! They will say that I, Vainqueur, bred a [Dodobear]! If there is a god of breeding, it is me!”
Vainqueur gathered his breath, while Knight Kia remained eerily silent. In the meantime, the [Dodobear] had finished eating, letting out a mix of a bear roar and a bird's screech.
The dragon looked around, realizing that the breeding program had gone out of control. The animals had escaped their pens, massacring the staff, and rampaged through the dodocare. Only the Victor-faced statues on the beach remained unscathed, dodos gathering around them to honor their maker and savior. A group of birds had sacrificed a fiend before Manling Victor’s ‘Rolling of the Dice’ statue, feeding on its entrails.
“Your Majesty!” A lone, winged bone demon had managed to escape the slaughter, flying to avoid the claws of two ferocious dodobears. “Your Majesty has come to save us!”
“What happened here?” Vainqueur asked, grabbing the two dodobears with his hands as if they were tiny horses. The creatures went limp in his hands.
“We did as your Majesty asked, creating the ultimate monsters!” the demon said. “Half exp bag, half superboss! But the first clutch started mutating due to radiation, and we couldn’t control them!”
“H-how?” Knight Kia asked, astonished. “How?”
“We cast a [Giant Size] spell on a fertile dodo broodmother, fed gallons of aphrodisiac to the [Tarasque Emperor], and—”
Fearsome roars echoed through the island, as its forest’s trees trembled. Vainqueur smelled the Tarasque and its progeny approach in great numbers. “Here they come!” the demon hissed, hiding behind a disturbed Knight Kia while she drew her sword.
Then they poured out of the woods, as beautiful as they were terrifying.
“Beware… the [Taradodos]!”
Dozens of dodo-headed, bipedal lizards the size of elephants trampled the trees. Their crimson scales were covered with fresh blood, while their eyes radiated with fury and hunger. A spiked carapace protected their back, while their sharp claws and iron beak could tear through flesh and metal both. Their radioactive, greenish father followed, a tiny, normal dodo nesting on its head.
“WEEEAAA!”
The Tarasque let out a roar, his brood screeching in response like an army from the depths of Happyland itself.
“Minions!” Vainqueur snarled in response. “MINIONS!”
[Alpha Magnetism (Scales)] activated! Charisma check successful!
The taradodos and their mighty father immediately submitted to Vainqueur, belly against the ground.
“Return to your pens,” the dragon ordered, the creatures immediately protesting with screeches. “No weeaaaing with me, minions. Return to your pens!”
The creatures dispersed, the Tarasque leading them back into the ruins of the dodocare.
“See, minions?” Vainqueur told his lackeys, releasing the [Dodobears] in his hands; the beasts wisely fled. “They only need a firm, strong dragon master to teach them the minion way of life.”
“You bred a Tarasque,” Knight Kia muttered to herself. “Your Majesty bred a Tarasque.”
“I did!” Vainqueur boasted, proud of saving so many species from extinction. He should receive an award for it.
The dragon-made System apparently agreed.
Congratulations! For creating a new, horribly dangerous monster that will become the bane of adventurers long after you are gone, you earned a level in [Dungeon Breeder]! You earned the [Miniboss Breeder] Class perk.
+30 HP, +10 SP, +1 STR, +1 VIT, +1 SKI, +1 AGI, +1 CHA, +1 LCK.
[Miniboss Breeder]: All your monster minions permanently gain the [Miniboss] Personal Perk (+120 HP, +40 SP, +4 to all other stats, and +10 to damage with their personal Perks). They will keep the benefit of the Perk even if they return to the wild.
“Now, gather all my dodos and rebuild the dodocare,” Vainqueur ordered his fiendish lackey.
“The [Taradodos] regenerate faster than we can harm them, Your Majesty,” the demon said. “And their claws bypass all physical and magical protections. We need better guards.”
“I am half-horrified, half-amazed,” the [Paladin] admitted. “On one hand, these things can make for amazing shock troops, but on the other hand, I dread how many levels a fomor can gain from killing one.”
“Then we shall keep them to ourselves,” Vainqueur decided, amazed by his own brilliance.
And then they would raise them as undead, for double the exp.