The blue man, draped in ugly animal furs, waited atop the rough log ramparts. A gentle gust brought wisps of the impending fall season.

Autumn was my favorite time of year. I loved the vibrant colors of leaves changing, the gloomy crisp nights, and warm fuzzy sweaters. If things hadn't changed I'd be spending weekends with my dad watching college and pro football.

Was football even a possibility anymore?

"What are you playing at? Is this some trick to get us away from our defenses?" Harold retorted, bringing me out of my nostalgia.

I nodded for Durkil to follow my lead, and then effortlessly jumped onto the so-called defenses to join Harold. He stumbled back and raised his weapon while the others on the wall fell over themselves to create some distance as wood crackled fighting for its life to support Durkil's weight.

"No." I said fighting back a smirk. "We don't need to get you away from your defenses, and I think you already knew that. So why don't we head down somewhere to chat before your defenses crumble under my friend?"

"Alright, I suppose you've made your point." Harold lowered his bow resignedly, and sighed. "Lower your weapons!" He shouted while waving for me to follow as he hopped fifteen feet below into the quaint village behind.

We followed, along with one other, taller blue man. This was exactly the results we were hoping for before we arrived, to be allowed in and the elves were instructed to remain outside doing their best to be intimidating. Based on everything I'd seen from this faction, Durkil was more than enough to level this place.

But that wasn't going to happen.

"Is this a suitable location?" Harold asked, gesturing with his hand at a round table and four chairs covered with a pavilion of thatched tree branches. They'd even planted long wooden raised beds of purple and red flowers around the pavilion for decoration. Set to the backdrop of pine log cabins.

It was actually quite nice.

"It's beautiful, I think it will work just fine. Except, Durkil you might be a little big for the seat. Are you ok standing just outside?" Durkil shrugged and rested a hand on the top of the pavilion.

Everyone else situated themselves in chairs, and I leaned forward resting my hands on the table.

Harold opened his hands. "So let's have it. You want to assimilate us, what does that look like?"

"Hopefully simply." I teased. "You might not have noticed that our faction is already composed of several others. We hoped yours would be the next."

"Is that what you told the last faction?" Harold's tone was guarded. "What happened to them? Did they not like the terms you offered?"

Jared was afraid this conversation might come up. Every faction was able to access the rankings afterall, and if someone was paying attention it was pretty clear how things had gone down.

"They didn't want to hear the offer. And before you ask, yes, we killed all but a few who surrendered. And, no we are not here to force you into our faction. If you decide it's not within your best interests and you're not a threat to my faction then we hope we can still be allies."

Harold narrowed his eyes. "So why bring the army?"

"Part of my pitch I'm going to offer is that we promise protection and opportunity. I thought it would be good for you to have a product demonstration so I didn't have to duel any of your fighters."

Durkil coughed behind me. Harold eyed him.

"And the other part?"

I leaned back and opened my hands. "Our faction was established on the idea of building a safe, fair and equitable world for everyone who joins it. So far we've done pretty well—not perfect—but we're growing. We'd let you keep your territory, give you autonomy to make decisions barring anything that would be counter intuitive to our desires for peace, and allow you to join our fighting force to access opportunities for levels and coin. We can get into the finer details before your decision but frankly, why wouldn't you?"

Harold looked to the other blue man at the table. The man scrunched up his face in a very "I dunno" kind of way.

"You've seen the rankings. We're in the middle of nowhere, how long before someone bigger comes along who doesn't care about peace?"

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"I'm having a hard time finding a reason not to do this." Harold conceded.

"Then why try?" I smiled and reached out my hand. "You should know though, I do have one more condition to join."

***

The condition wasn't really too bad, and Harold agreed right away.

We essentially used him like a mascot to parade around at the next faction. But to be honest? The special objective was way easier than I expected it to be. As it turns out, most people are not all that interested in becoming experience fodder.

So when we arrived at the territory housing the second faction, it played out almost identical to how things went with Harold. Only instead of blue humanoids it was gnome mages and artisans. After adding yet another species into our fold I wondered if there was cause to change our faction name to Zootopia.

Then again, most of our faction wouldn't even really get the reference anyway.

The second Gorff, the leader of the three hundred or so "Elder Gnomes" as they were officially titled, accepted the prompt to assimilate as soon as the system prompt appeared.

Congratulations! You have successfully completed your special objective.

Reward: 5,000 bonus experience to all active faction members. 40,000 UBC's awarded to faction steward.

Nice start. I braced myself for the second half. What was it going to be? Finally a nice set of legendary armor? Some kind of crazy title?

Reward: 300 genetically modified cattle. These cattle and all subsequent offspring have been genetically modified to be wholly unable to achieve sapience. Be warned, such livestock are considered a moral grey area within the cosmos, however it may help to consider them more like software programming.

With a capable beast handler these cattle may experience upgraded qualities such as higher quality meat, faster reproduction and other beneficial qualities.

I blinked at the screen.

Our reward…is a bunch of freaking brain dead cows?

Level up!

Oh right and apparently enough experience points to earn another level. But, COWS?? Over and over again the system gave me rewards that baffled me. An armor set for someone else, random trinkets from chaos spawn, shards and all manner of random things I had no use for.

But this reward took the cake. I mean, where did these cows even come from? Was I supposed to believe that a herd of bovine were literally sitting somewhere in the vortex of space just waiting for a mission to be completed so that they could be zapped here to earth?

It boggled my mind. Plus weren't cattle made of living organisms or whatever? Did this mean I was at risk of becoming someone's reward? I suspected probably not. Most likely there was something to do with sapience. Or at least I really hoped that was the case.

Gasps of surprise accompanied the faction wide notification of 5,000 added experience. In spite of all my research through the system interface I'd never found an area that showed experience progress to the next level, but if 5,000 leveled me up there was a chance some lesser levels just gained one, two or even three levels from the bonus.

But I didn't care about that. I opened my status screen and eyed the number 24 with greedy eyes. One more level and I'd get a chance to see my next evolution. And something told me that it would be a dandy. Especially since it would be charged with literal stacks of stats and titles.

With my special objective complete I wondered where my next source of experience would come from. I had no intention of killing our neighbors if it could be avoided, and the two final raids were six days away.

Maybe Mischief was out of the first anomaly?

Excited at the prospect of meeting up with my friend, I decided it was time to get Gorff and Harold introduced to Jared. Additionally we just added two more territories that needed defending, it was a lot of ground to cover.

It was time to head back home.

***

Arriving in town was a bit of a spectacle.

"No." Nick said, shaking his head. "You just couldn't help yourself."

He'd been lounging casually in a chair next to his small home on the outskirts of our village. He'd paid a few craftsmen some coins to construct a handsome little enclosure for his goats to roam. Goats that were now lying prone legs stiff as boards.

He was wagging a finger at me, ignoring the two newcomers completely. "You have a problem Layton."

"What?" I asked with feigned innocence.

"Don't play games with me." He pointed accusatorily at Durkil. "What is that?!"

I gasped. "Nick, I know Durkil is a bit different but he's a faction member just like you."

He glared. "You know that's not what I meant."

Obviously I knew that isn't what he meant. He was clearly referring to the big fat heifer draped over Durkil's shoulders.

Honestly I was a bit embarrassed. But really it wasn't all my fault. I was just so bored on the run home, and who could blame me for wanting to take a quick peek at my new reward? How was I supposed to know that once I dropped the cow out of my inventory I wouldn't be able to put the stupid thing back in?

"Oh, you mean this?" The cow let out an indignant mooo after I slapped it on its haunches.

"You just couldn't let me win could you? Well guess what!? You only have one cow." He pointed to the lifeless goats. "I have three goats! So too bad." He folded his arms, puffing out his chest.

"It's really not a competition—"

"It wasn't a competition, but now it is. And I win."

Another cow popped to existence right in the middle of the cobbled street, then another, then another. The cows began to wander aimlessly.

Was me bringing out more cows in the middle of town a bit irresponsible? Oh yeah. Would I do it again? Definitely.

"You're a real bastard. You know that right?"

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