The First King of Beasts

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'Come on goblin? Let's see what you've got.' Dustin said in his mind, while keeping his eyes fixated on the goblin before him.

Both parties participated in a brief stare down contest before deciding it was enough, as the goblin raised the staff it wielded on its left hand up while chanting some words. As it did this, red smoke appeared from the staff and covered the ground before it completely filling the whole space. Dustin just kept his eyes on the goblin observing what it was doing without interfering.

This goblin was just an E+ rank at best, so there was nothing to fear from it. If he ever felt too threatened, he could just use his taming skill to stop whatever it was doing, then killing from that point on would be useless. As long as he had the taming skill and and his opponents were beasts and monsters below the A rank, killing them would be as easy as anything.

While Dustin waited for the unreasonably long cast of whatever spell it was the goblin was casting, a thought came to his mind. He could control any monster below the rank of A, but what really defined a monster? Something like a dragon is said to be a monster, but they are also said to be very intelligent beings whose intelligence far surpasses that of humans and most creatures. Would something like that be a monster? Or would it not?

There was also the issue of demons and creatures like Ogres. Demons wherever one goes are seen as monsters, same as ogres, but these two species of creatures also possess intelligence, and may tend to live normal lives just like any other civilisation, that is except for the unintelligent and animalistic ones. Would such a monster also be considered a monster? Or not?

Dustin had thought through this briefly while waiting for the goblin to finish its casting, and after a solid something of 20 seconds, the spell seemed to be ready, as the smoke sipped into the ground a little, and then various hands began popping out of the hard ground like a scene straight from a 90s horror film.

'Is this guy a necromancer? I thought creatures like goblins were more of shamans and the likes.' Dustin thought to himself.

It wasn't all wrong though. Just like how the normal mages are different and diverse, a branch of the supernatural and magic like the shamans who deal with spirits and nature would be able to do something like this. Raising the dead was simply communicating with the deceased, which was something very attuned to what a shaman could do. At least, Dustin remembered this.

The hands that popped from the ground resembled those of zombies, and the shaman actually fell to the ground after the red smoke stopped coming out from his staff. He goblin placed its hand on its chest as if it was trying to rip out its heart or something, then it turned its eyes towards Dustin, and the look n them said it all. Dustin didn't need to speak goblin language to understand what the was thinking.

The spell the goblin had cast was one that brought back goblin corpses back to life as zombies, and Dustin had a rough idea of how it worked. There were two major ways necromancers of any kind would do this.

First was to call on the souls of the dead to fight for you, the other which Dustin was thinking to be the spell the goblin used, was to bring back vengeful souls the enemy has killed throughout his life time to get their revenge. What the goblin didn't account for was the fact that someone like Dustin who had killed thousands of goblins would show up.

Simply summoning a single zombie took quite the MP for an E rank creature, and summoning over hundreds of them was just too much for the poor goblin to handle. The goblin had just bought a one way ticket to the graveyard – Oh sorry, it doesn't get to enjoy the benefits of being buried, since it will die and be part of the vengeful spirits.

"Maybe one day you'll be among the guys crawling out of the ground to attack me, eh?" Dustin said tauntingly, knowing just how much damage the goblin had caused for its self.

This was a good opportunity, so Dustin let out one of the E rank wolves from his space where he kept them and ordered it to attack the goblin who was for the most part defenceless at that point.

Even with the hundreds of goblins standing before the goblin shaman, the wolf cared not as it dashed through the crowd of goblins, tearing and avoiding them as it went through.

GRACK CAK GAK

The wolf bit the goblins head and smashed it inward as it crumbled the goblin's skull. Dustin seeing this was quite satisfied, and the remaining goblins which had been summoned started disappearing and turning into smoke as the link the y had to the world of the living had gone to join them in monster afterlife.

'Who knew monsters had an afterlife?' Dustin said in his mind as he opened his system panel.

..

[Tamed Monsters]

-Jaguar

-Horned Boar

-Wild Wolves (980)+

- Sea Serpent

..

-Wild Wolves (980)+

E+ rank Wild Wolf (1)

E rank Wild Wolves (6)

F+ rank Wild Wolves (350)

F rank Wild Wolves (623)

..

Previously the number of E rank wolves were 7, but after this one killed the goblin, it became E+ rank. Dustin seeing this was quite impressed, but this also made him realise the need for him to get stronger monsters. If every creature had the potential to become as strong as A rank or S rank, there would be massive problems everywhere, so he was sure of the limits every creature possessed. If he wasn't mistaken, the wolves' limit would be E+ rank, and probably not all of them would be able to reach it even then.

"This is satisfactory result for now. Such ambitions should be left till the proper time. No reason to rush." Dustin said just before closing the stat window.

[Quest Complete]

[You can now leave the quest area]

[Rewards from the quest can be collected from the Collection Centre]

A status window popped out of nowhere into Dustin's view.

There was nothing left to do in the cave, and it wasn't as if some coin stack dropped from anywhere or something, this wasn't a game to begin with. Dustin turned to return to the surface and find something else to do if possible, since this quest wasn't as eventful despite being the most difficult.

After walking for a while and getting close to the path that lead to the previous floor of the cave, Dustin remembered he had collected a blue stone, which was also the return stone in this quest. He originally thought he would be provided a path out of the cave after the quest was completed or something, but no, he actually had to walk back. Bringing the return stone along with him turned out to be a very good choice in the end, huh?

After walking for a while, Dustin remembered he had collected the return stone for this quest. He originally thought he would be provided a path out of the cave after the quest was completed or something, but no, he actually had to walk back. Bringing the return stone along with him turned out to be a very good choice in the end, huh?

Dustin brought out the blue stone from his inventory while placing back his axe into it. He didn't even understand why he brought it out to begin with; the monster was a weak one. Dustin studied the stone for a second longer, then wrapped his hand around it before slowly crushing it.

The moment the stone cracked into two, a blue light shown around Dustin just before he was totally engulfed in it and disappeared.

Outside the cave where Dustin had entered from, Dustin covered in blue light appeared before the entrance and then the blue light dispersed into particles that resembled tree leafs scattering in the wind.

'Wow, so fast. I got here in an instant.' Dustin said in his mind.

"Maybe I should focus on magic and in the future become the one and only.. 'Scarlet Wizard.' Heh." He said while chuckling at the end of the statement. Although, once again, there was nobody to laugh at his joke.

'Wait, who are these guys?' Dustin thought to himself as he noticed two figures walking towards him. They looked like gang members coming to collect their money from a debtor, but Dustin was sure he was the person being targeted. He was pretty sure they came there for the quest, so he just carried on walking back to the town.

'What kind of people rush to buy rusty armour like these using their first earnings?' Dustin asked in his mind.