Time passed, and I could feel my consciousness coming back to me. You’d think by now I would get used to it, but it always came with a massive headache! I shooked my head to try to calm the pain as I gathered my thoughts and checked my surroundings to make sure I wasn’t in any immediate danger.

  I immediately realized I was in a familiar situation that I had found myself in time and again. Laying down on the comforts of the soft black fur. It felt like I was resting on a fluffy carpet as it nuzzled against my scales. As I suspected I was currently resting my head on Damian’s lap, with the rare moment of not having the life squeezed out of me.

  I got up which got his attention. His expression slightly changed to a small smile. “…. you’re awake, good.”

  I’ve noticed that whenever the situation is serious enough, Damian avoids getting too emotional. Guess he can still act professionally when it matters. That must mean the matter with the kingdom isn’t quite done yet.

  I was immediately proven right when I looked outside my fluffy cushion. We were still in this awful room… The body of that damnable pig king was still lying motionless on the ground with Mordred keeping an eye on the rest of the humans who were tied up at the moment.

  Questioning the situation I began to ask. “What happened here exactly?”

  Mordred realized I was awake and answered back, rubbing the back of his head. “Oh, boss you’re awake. So uhh … we didn’t know what to do with them without your input so we…kinda decided to tie them up till you woke up.”

  I was silent for a bit, trying to process what he said before looking back to Damian for an answer.

  He responded with a shrug and tilted his head while answering. “…. His idea.”

  …. yeah, I can totally see my Minotaur doing something like this. Part of me should have been mad about this. But I was so damn tired from squeezing out my mana that I could only rub my forehead in annoyance. All the while Mordred was looking at me like a nervous little kid that was caught by his parents stealing from the cookie jar.

  I took a single sigh over the stress of the current situation before deciding what to do next. “This is going to be a lot of work to deal with. Alright untie them, I’ll talk with them.”

  Mordred did as he was told as he tried to unbind the humans, though with his big hands made that task amusingly difficult. All the while the humans were trembling with fear having the minotaur come really close to them.

  Seeing as this was going to take a while, I took the time to try to pull myself up. It was a bit of a struggle but it’s not like it was my first time. It wasn’t long before I was able to get on my feet, but with how tired I was I could only walk at best.

  When I finished, I saw that Mordred managed to get the last human freed. As soon as they were freed, they immediately kept their distance from him. That was the expected reaction after all. This would pose a small problem for me if I were to recruit them. Oh well, not like I’m a stranger to this type of thing.

  I walked up to them, a slight limp as I was still regaining my strength and extended a hand to them. This only got them to quiver even more. I leaned my head in confusion from their reaction.

  “P-please don’t kill us!!” One of them desperately begged.

  “We were forced to participate to this by the king! We never wanted this!!” Another one cried out in fear.

  From the way they were acting it seemed they were being genuine in their pleas. Now that I think about it, they must be scared of me as well since they had front row seats to my rather violent display to their king earlier. It felt like a good idea at the time, but now it's only going to make this a lot more difficult than I thought.

  Well first things first, I need to do something to reassure them my actual intent. I raised my claws up in reassurance as I tried to explain. “Look I don’t have any intent to kill you, but you must admit that your king deserved what I did to him.”

  They all looked back at the sight of their dead king and reluctantly nodded in agreement. One of them managed to build some courage and asked “W-what do you intend to do instead?”

  Good, looks like they calmed down if only a little. I immediately took advantage of this as I quickly stated my desire. “Quite simple really. I wish to take this kingdom and make it mine. ~”

  I clenched my claw while giving off a huge grin, my excitement barely contained. I noticed that they picked up on this based on the expression on their faces. “I-is that so? And what do you plan to do with us now that you have achieved that?”

  Hearing this question, I simply shrugged. “Guess I should try to improve things here shouldn’t I? I rather not let this place crumble just as I was taking it for myself.”

  “I-I see that is good then. M-maybe we could be of service in helping you with that sir?” One of them offered, the others nodded in agreement seeing the opportunity.

  “Y-yeah, I never had the chance to say this but I always hated how poorly the king handled this kingdom! He always ignored our advice but if we ever dared talked back at us then he’d send his knight captain to make an example of us!”

  “Ah, that useless pig of a king can’t even bother handling his underlings himself huh?” I asked, shrugging while shaking my head. “You know, I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

  Their eyes beamed with hope upon my statement, “Oh Thank you thank you sir!!”

  Well now that solves that problem, with most of the soldiers and these people submitting it should be a cakewalk to get the rest of the kingdom to submit as well. It’s going to take some time but it’ll be worth it in the end.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  After some time, I managed to gather the citizens and even the nobility of this kingdom which surprisingly was rather little. Bah, I blame the useless king for that, I imagine he wanted to hog the control here all to himself. I had them all come together at the front of the castle.

  Many of them were rather confused and scared, which was the expected reaction. The people from the slums though seemed to be expecting something. No doubt Zeph had something to do with that considering he was standing there with them. Well if it helps me out, I have no reason to complain.

  Once I had everyone’s focus on me, I began giving my speech. “Ladies and Gentlemen! I know you all must have lots of questions right now. Like why have monsters invaded your kingdom, what has happened to your king or why the kingdom’s soldiers are gathering at my side.”

  Silence filled the air, confusion over the crowd as they wondered what I was saying. It wasn’t until someone spoke that the silence broke. “No, I say the biggest question is why is a little lizard like you're talking to us like you’re the one taking charge!”

  With his statement, the rest of the crowd started to laugh.... Guess they think it’s really funny huh? I noticed that my minions were starting to back away from me. Seems they can predict how I’m feeling at the moment and what was about to come….

  But before I could even utter a word, Mordred loudly tapped his weapon to the ground and stopped the overall laughter. “Pay attention.” His statement was simple but effective. That managed to get everyone to finally listen.

  After a second, I coughed into my claw out of reflex before I continued. “As I was saying, I’ll start by answering the ‘kind’ gentleman’s question.” I decided to mock the man for interrupting me by extending my claw to him to remind everyone who exactly got Mordred angry earlier. It seemed to work as their eyes were focused on him for a moment before immediately looking back at me.

  “You see I, a ‘little lizard’, am here acting like I’m in charge is because I am. ~” They were about to interrupt me but another tap from Mordred’s weapon was enough to keep them quiet. “As you can see, this Minotaur here serves under me. If you have any doubts about my position, he is more than happy to address it.”

  No one replied, hopefully that got them to understand. I formed a toothed smile as I resumed my speech. “As for why we are here, simply put I am here to conquer and take over your kingdom. Your soldiers have already surrendered to me and will soon join as my minions. As for your king you don’t have to worry, both he and his knight commander are dead. Felled by my claws personally.”

  My smile broke for a second after making that last statement, but I managed to return my confident smile. The crowd were murmuring to themselves. They must have been discussing whether or not what I was saying was true.

  Before I could confirm it one of the kingdom’s soldiers stepped up to do the job himself. He was nervous when he spoke up. “I-it’s true, he led us to the body of the knight commander to confirm that he was indeed dead.”

  Next one of the humans that was at the ritual spoke up in defense of my claim as well. “We of course were right there in the same room as him. He indeed ended him, made the fat bastard suffer before he died. It serves him right!”

  It seems there was still lingering anger in the man’s voice. Just how far did that pig do to incite this much anger from his own men. As if to answer my question the crowd, who before was cowering in fear had suddenly cheered and were rather full of joy from the revelation.

  “Yes finally!! We’re free from that useless king!! We no longer have to suffer anymore!!”

  “After everything those two have done to us, I rather that a monster took over instead. Anyone would probably be a major improvement over that overweight man!”

  Heh seems there was one thing that pig did right at least. He made convincing the civilians to accept my rule rather easy! ~

  To further confirm my dominion, a notification had popped up in front of me to inform me of a change.

  Seeing the number of minions I have acquired just tickled my stomach full of joy. Now well and truly I have made a real start into my quest for world conquest!!

  “Good good, I can see now you all have accepted me as your new ruler. Do not worry, I’ll make sure to start by fixing all the problems your useless king has left for you all. After all, I got to take good care of what’s mine after all. Don’t you agree? ~”

  My monster minions cheered in celebration over my triumph conquest, many of them clapping in praise to me. The humans though were talking amongst themselves, the soldiers were standing to the sides trying their best to act professional though a bit of nervousness escaped from their face on what was going to happen.

  “So…we really are just going to accept a monster as our ruler now?”

  “I’ll take my chances with it after everything the old king did to us. He killed him off himself but spared the rest of us, maybe it won’t be so bad.”

  “I guess you’re right. At the very least he seems more willing to help improve this place compared to how the hog would hoard everything to himself. Still…. Having a monster ruler has got to be a first.”

  Just as I was shaking my head over the various gossip I could hear, to the group of my monster minions I can overhear the familiar trio talk amongst themselves.

  “Well, I know we should have expected the chief to conquer the kingdom but damn!”

  “I know right? Was the previous human in charge that bad?”

  “Must be, since the chief refuses to let us inside the castle right now. He seems rather adamant to making sure we listen to that order.”

  Well I definitely couldn’t let my monster minions see what they were doing, especially my fellow kobolds. Who knows how they would react to the ritual set up.

  Theres still a lot I need to do before I can make my new kingdom back in working order. From releasing the prisoners and dealing with their collars, to reorganizing the working structures from both the soldiers and citizens, to figuring out what to do with the aftermath of their experiments.

  But for now, I’m going to revel in the moment of triumphed victory. “Veehahahahaha! ~”

  Suddenly a new notification appeared in front of me, it was different than the others I was familiar with.

  A new feature for [Game Screen] huh, curious I checked my menu and found that a new tab had appeared labeled titles. This implies that there were more titles I could gain, I checked at the only one currently listed in there and my jaw dropped when I saw what it had to say.

  I barely processed what I was reading. Energy started to swarm around me as everyone stopped what they were doing as they noticed. My monster minions seemed to be guessing what was about to happen as they slowly backed as far away as possible.

  …. I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I faced high across the sky as I was ready to scream at the heavens as my surroundings starting to reshape from my [Material Forge] activating in response to my emotions as I begin to yell out.

  “….WHAT THE FUUUUUCCCCC-”

  ….

  ….

  …

  I didn’t know it at the time, but news of my conquest will soon spread faster than I had anticipated. Other kingdoms will take notice and how they react to the idea of a monster ruler I will soon find out.