Side Story 8 - Good Boy (Patreon)

Howard got out of the barn, wiping grease off his hands as he walked back towards the small farmhouse. It was soon time to harvest season, and he had to make sure the old machines still worked properly.

As a small-time farmer, it was hard to compete with the large corporate farming industry, so he mainly relied on small farmers’ markets and high-quality organic products. He was proud of what he did.

Entering the house, he began making some quick breakfast as he called up the stairs: “Benny, I can hear you up there, come down for breakfast, or you’ll be late!”

He heard some more noise as the laughing child came running down the stairs, followed by a wagging golden retriever.

“I was just playing with Ollie!” he said, trying to defend his own tardiness.

“Well, Ollie doesn’t have to go to school, but you do,” Howard said with a smile as he rubbed the dog behind its ears.

The family ate their breakfast before Howard once again had to tell Benny to hurry up and get his backpack.

With less time to spare than he would like, he went to the door as patted the dog. “Take care of the house while we’re gone; I have to stop by the bank on the way back.”

--

He saw them leave in the big metal moving box through the window as he whimpered a bit. But it was okay because he was patient and would wait for his humans to come back home again!

They had entrusted home to him, and he would make sure to take good care of it! He zoomed a bit around, checking out that everything was as it should be before he lay down on his blanket. They always took so long when they left, so Ollie just tried to sleep usually as that made the time go super fast.

After resting a bit, he heard the sound of the metal moving box return. Excited, he jumped up, but then a weird thing happened that never happened before. A super weird sound came, and suddenly everything just began to… change.

Ollie got up in a bit of a panic as he felt the changes happen. The kitchen was the first to be struck as suddenly the big box that made things hot disappeared. Next, the other big box for cold things was gone, and next, the box with moving people and sometimes even dogs inside it was gone!

He looked out of the window and saw no metal moving box even though he heard it! But other metal moving boxes that were normally outside were now gone too!

All the boxes that did things Ollie didn’t understand disappeared! Even his snack-thing that the humans used their hand-boxes that sometimes made music-noises to activate disappeared!

NO!

Ollie had been told to protect their home, but now someone was messing with his house!

He barked angrily, trying to scare off the evil box-stealing thing, but it didn’t stop. Soon all the human stuff that did the weird stuff was gone, as everything slowly returned to normal.

But it wasn’t truly normal. Ollie could smell that something new was in the air now, and he felt like he had just gotten a super-duper rest time in and was full of energy.

He kept running around the house, trying to understand what was happening. Even if many things had disappeared, most everything was just like before… until the shaking came.

A massive earthquake struck the area as the ground broke apart. It didn’t last long, but when it was over, most things that had been on shelves were broken, and even all the plates that dad said bad words when he dropped all broke!

Many of the windows also broke, making Ollie able to go outside… but also for things to come in. That was bad because Ollie knew that his humans didn’t like the small flying things that sometimes made itchy spots on their bodies.

The poor dog kept walking back on forth in distress before it heard a sound outside.

Jumping up on the couch, Ollie looked out the window and saw that the neighbor’s cluckers were no longer in their big cage but were now running around and attacking things.

Ollie jumped out of the window, sitting on the border of their land to make sure the evil cluckers didn’t enter… which they did.

He tried to scare them off by barking as loud as he could, but they didn’t care. They charged towards him as they began pecking at him. Ollie didn’t like the violent birds… but he was a good boy. Dad had always called him a good boy, and good boys didn’t bite…

But… maybe it was okay if they were really bad cluckers? Yeah… it had to be, because if Ollie didn’t defend himself, then he would get really hurt. So he bit.

His teeth sunk into the clucker as he shook his head to make the damage worse, allowing his instincts to take over. With blood frothing at his mouth, he attacked the next clucker and the next after that.

After only a few minutes, all the cluckers were dead on the ground, the once pretty and blonde golden retriever hurt and covered in blood. But Ollie had defended their home… and during the fight, he had several times felt a weird warm feeling in his belly as he felt himself become stronger.

The warm feeling was super comfortable and felt nearly as good as belly-rubbies.

Nearly.

Ollie went to sleep after that but awoke again soon from the pain. He was very hurt, and he needed to get better. He looked at the cluckers' many corpses and knew that eating was good for you when you hurt. What the dog didn’t know that his instincts were indeed right…

[Devour (Common)] – To eat is at the core of any living being’s instincts. Consume meat to absorb a small portion of the remnant vital energy left within, restoring your own health points. Increases the effectiveness of Devour by a minor amount based on endurance and vitality.

So Ollie ate the chickens’ meat before falling into slumber once more, the wound healing over the next few hours.

Waking up, Ollie felt super good again, if a bit bad for eating all the cluckers. But the cluckers had been bad, so Ollie was still a good boy… right?

While sleeping, he had experienced a warm feeling again, making him even stronger.

Making his way back home, he saw that there were baddies at the door! The evil mouses that kept making dad mad when they ran all over the human foods! Ollie knew that dad didn’t have anything against him scaring those off, so with gusto, he ran towards them, barking.

“BARK!”

He barked as loud as he could, and without even noticing, released a wave of force that knocked the mouses away from the porch. It also damaged the wood, making Ollie feel a bit bad, but he got the evil mouses away!

“BARK!”

He barked again and once more hit them, knocking them down. One of them didn’t even get up again, as it began bleeding from its little mouth and ears. Ollie felt like he had done something bad, but he didn’t stop barking until all the mouses had either run off or were unmoving on the ground.

Ollie would defend his home no matter who came! Because Ollie was a good boy and dad had told him to keep it safe! He didn’t know where his humans were, but they never left for that long, so they would be home soon…

… they would, right?

--

Days passed as the lonesome dog defended the farm located in a small community of farmers. The other animals had also changed along with it, and many had begun fighting, turning entirely feral. As beasts, they grew from killing, but also just from remaining alive.

Of course, there was a limit to their growth if they didn’t develop their Records. The inherent records for animals also varied widely. Some docile creatures wouldn’t gain a single level without hunting, remaining at level 0, while others would naturally grow to E-grade and far into it.

Dogs fell into the middle of the pack, and it varied widely between them. Some of the larger dogs would likely reach E-grade naturally, but most would remain F-grade. For someone like Ollie, growing to E-grade naturally was already a challenge.

But… Ollie didn’t just grow naturally. He defended his home.

Beasts were naturally in the area, to begin with, and some of the nearby farmers also kept livestock. All of this led to a very chaotic area… with a single dog sitting in the middle of it, protecting a single lonely farmhouse.

That in itself would allow it to grow to an acceptable level… but it is what happened next that changed the fate of this particular animal.

--

Ollie was lying on the porch, keeping an eye on the area for any would-be-intruders.

He was very lonely… his family hadn’t come home yet, but he was patient. He was a good boy.

Nearly a month had passed already, and there were very few beasts left in the immediate area. Ollie had gotten two big boy growth spurts, but both times he made sure not to change how he looked. So even at E-grade, he still looked like just a normal golden retriever.

If he suddenly became big and scary, then dad and Benny wouldn’t recognize him… so that wasn’t something a good boy would do.

On the 1-month mark or an eternity from Ollie’s point of view, something big happened. The world shook once more as more changes came.

This time they continued for far longer, and Ollie once more panicked as he tried to keep the house from falling.

But this time… the shaking was just the beginning.

Flashes of light appeared on the horizon, pillars of different colors descended from above, blessing certain areas or leaving items of substantial Records and power.

One such area that was struck by a flash of light was Ollie’s backyard.

A meteor-like item descended as it left a massive crater in the backyard, scaring the woof out of Ollie.

With many angry barks, he approached the crash site, pushing through his fear. He had to protect the house, and what if something bad came with the big falling rock?

A good boy would at least investigate.

Ollie walked carefully up to the crash site, and inside he saw something that made his eyes shine.

BONE!

It was a good meteor! A massive bone more than five meters long, embedded into the backyard of the old farmhouse, much to the delight of the dog living there.

With gusto, the dog bit into the ivory bone that looked almost to be made of crystals. It was super tasty, and Ollie’s instincts practically yelled at him that it was a great thing. The only annoying thing was that it was too tough to bite through, so the dog was just standing there, biting into it for a while.

The bone was far too large to drag off and seemed almost rooted in place. But that was fine because that meant Ollie could chew on it and defend his home at the same time!

But… others wanted his bone too!

From all around the area, evil home invaders came to steal its bone and ruin his home! First, a pack of other dogs came, but Ollie beat them all because he was a super good boy with a super-strong bark!

Next came the cats… his nemesis. A big group of them came, many times larger than normal cats – heck, they were even larger than Ollie himself!

“BARK!”

He barked as hard as he could, releasing a shockwave of force that tore up the land several meters in front of him. It was his secret technique, the SuperBark!

Two of the invading cats were caught in the blast, but the others attacked. They were large and strong, but Ollie was even stronger and faster! He knew it wasn’t a good-boy thing to do to bite others, but he had learned over the last month that he had to. But… he was a smart boy too, so he found a new way to do it!

He opened his mouth as a large phantasmal jaw appeared in the air, closing around one of the cat’s legs, biting it clean off. The big jaw looked a bit larger than last time and had these weird star-like marking on them, but Ollie felt like it was stronger now, so that was fine.

The cats were quickly killed, and Ollie once more felt the warm flow that nearly felt as good as the belly-rubbies.

This kept up as Ollie defended his home and munched on the mega-tasty bone every chance he got. He felt that as he munched on it more and more, he got stronger and stronger, but the bone also began to lose its luster.

Eventually, what could only be called hordes of beasts came, but the brave dog never surrendered. With incredible zeal, it struck back time after time, its power growing by the day. The bark that could only blow away a few beasts soon became a blast that could annihilate anything in its path.

Its jaws became instruments of death, a phantasmal weapon able to bite even larger beasts in two. The zone where the dog resided became known to other monsters as an off-limits area - a powerful beast’s territory.

Ollie kept his stalwart defense, killing all foolish enough to enter his domain. The bone soon lost all its luster and was consumed entirely as the second month passed, and humans would now soon return.

He had waited patiently all this time… defending home just like dad had told him to. He had grown stronger and had done some bad things, but… he was still a good boy... right?

--

Howard held Benny’s hand as they saw that the timer finally about to run out. The man had what looked like an old hunting rifle strapped over his shoulder, while Benny stood, looking up at his dad.

Their tutorial had been safe for the most part, but not entirely. Benny, as a child, was never put in danger, but his father was. Howard also knew he had to be able to protect his son. He had been a single father after his wife died a few years ago, and he would rather see himself in the grave than throw his son to the wolves.

The planet they returned to would be changed, and he did everything he could to protect the two of them. Benny was level 10 in his race from the elixirs given by the tutorial organizers, while Howard had reached level 34.

He was lucky that there was an old gun-fanatic in their tutorial, which could make him the old rifle he was currently using. Before that, he was forced to use a spear, which was frankly far worse. Using daggers was out of the question as there was no way Howard wanted to get any closer to those damn monsters more than necessary.

Father and son, hand in hand, saw the timer slowly reach 10 as they disappeared from the tutorial and back to Earth. Howard could feel Benny’s hands tremble a bit, and he gave it a soft squeeze to calm down the boy. I’m going to protect you.

In a flash, the two found the ground beneath their feet as they both felt it…

Suppression.

A powerful aura washed over them as they both stood frozen for a moment, Howard barely able to turn his head before he heard it.

“Woof!”

The figure appeared before them in a flash, a very familiar one.

A perfectly normal golden retriever stood in front of them, jumping happily up and down while making small barking noises, the tongue hanging out and tail wagging like never before.

“Ollie?” asked Benny, who broke out of his spell faster than his father.

“Woof!”

The dog wagged its tail even harder as it jumped at the boy, licking him in the face.

“Ollie, stop! Hehe!” the boy laughed as he began play-wrestling with the dog that was about the same size as himself. He soon found the mighty beast’s weak-spot as he began rubbing its belly, bringing it to the ground.

Howard saw his son smile and laugh as he played with his dog. It looked like such an everyday scene from before the system, but the man just stood there frozen… as he had the clarity to use Identify on his dog.

[Golden Argosian – lvl ???]