The Knowledge of Evolutionism
"Kain, how and why did you evolve the spider named Paura?" Hyoran said.
"Is it bad?" I said, nervous.
"Have you heard the tragic tale of Clive the Beast Tamer?" Ezo said.
How could I not? He's the strongest NPC Beast Tamer in history. At first, he's a hero that could defeat a powerful Archdemon named Azeruik who is the self-proclaimed Demon Lord. Wait, this reminds me of that one manga I read.
Anyways, the reason he ditched his title is that he wanted to live leisurely without having a title being some form of baggage. However, he killed Azeruik for the reason that he threaten his chances of living quietly. However, despite the death of Azeruik, the king killed his parents for associating with a potential demon follower.
When Clive heard the news from his little sister, he was enraged. In that fit of rage, he invaded the kingdom and started killing the masses until he meets the king. He brutally kills the king's family in front of his eyes with his own two hands and let the king live to make sure what it feels like to lose everything. The king fell into despair until the burning castle collapsed, burying him in the process. He left the ruined kingdom and created his own kingdom. When other kingdoms found out the destruction of the kingdom by the Beast Tamer, he was branded as the new Demon Lord.
Except one, the Kingdom of Noltia. They knew Clive wasn't the culprit, but since Clive is blinded by rage, they couldn't openly help him. Fortunately, they have a masked hero that is a childhood friend of Clive and sent him to calm his anger.
The hero meets Clive and begged him to cease his rampage. Clive refused, his sister couldn't stop crying about their parents dying unfairly. But the hero disagrees, Clive's rampage was the reason she couldn't stop crying. How the hero knew is that the little sister of Clive told him. She told him to stop him from spiraling deeper into madness.
When an Eagle under Clive's command, it tells him that he is branded a threat to humanity and must be killed. With this, his rage grew larger, feeling betrayed, he yelled at the hero saying "You and every kingdom are the same!"
A battle ensued and Clive is winning, but something is off. When it comes to heroes, they're the strongest out of all and can defeat Azeruik. The hero he's fighting is weaker than expected. He disarmed the hero and unmasked him only to reveal that it was his sister who gotten the role of hero and sent to stop him.
Clive was shocked, his own sibling as a hero. When I first found that out, I chuckled about how fate can be a mysterious bitch in that story. He chuckled and then tears ran down his face. The fact that his sister was the only one left who truly cared and he's hurting her. "I guess I'm no different than Azeruik after all." is what he said. Soon after, he gave up.
No matter how many people he killed, it won't bring back his parents, but to realize that he is harming his sister broke him. He was tired, he was done.
When the kingdoms found out that the late king executed his parents from a false accusation to bring better influence to himself, he was ridiculed and the church that followed him fell afterwards and Clive who was killed by his sister was given a proper, honorable burial. Clive knew that he had no place in this world and will never forgive himself for the atrocities.
The reason Ezo told me about the tale is to make sure I don't end up in the same route as Clive did. Little did he know, that I came from the Void Realm and I don't want to have him kick me out. Deep down before I reincarnated here, I wanted a peaceful family.
"I...have a Unique Skill called 'Evolutionist', it lets me to evolve a monster to a higher stage, making it stronger." I said.
"Evolutionist? That's a new one. I never heard of a skill." Ezo said. "But to evolve monsters at will...that sounds even more dangerous than monster evolving themselves naturally."
"I'm sorry if it's dangerous, you can tell Tuya about it, but no one else! Please, dad!" I begged to Ezo. "I did this to have an army to protect Nolten Village. Just for you to know, I can make any monster stronger too. Including you, Hyoran, Tuya, and myself. The higher the rank, the greater the cost of magic needed."
"Dad, you and Mom are at Rank S. Hyoran, you're at rank E." I continued.
"Wait, only I can know my rank." Ezo said.
"Yeah, me too." Hyoran added.
"That's my Appraisal skill. Allows me to see who they are and what they are." I explained. "Also, I can make Hyoran stronger."
"Really?" Hyoran said.
"Yeah, give me a minute." I answered.
[Proceed?]
"Yeah."
[Acknowledged.]
At that moment, Hyoran's ears and tail spiked up, her breathing became rapid, but not like she was suffering. Her blue eyes widened up and an unknown force came outside of her, emitting a gust of cold wind.
[Beastkin, Hyoran is now rank D.]
After the system announced it, Hyoran fell to her knees.
"Hyoran! Hey, are you okay!?" Ezo yelled, out of concern.
"Wow...my body felt like electricity went through me. And I feel stronger." Hyoran said and jumped up. "Am I really a rank D?" she said, leaning towards her face real close to mine with her eyes brimming with anticipation and her tail wagging rapidly.
"System. Check her stats."
[Checking...completed.]
"Yep, you did." I said.
"Wow...I can see my magics went up too!" Hyoran said as she bounced up and down.
"Dad, can you promise me not to let anyone else know? The less, the better." I said.
"Pretty please? Kain may have his reasons, but he's never a bad person." Hyoran begged.
Ezo sighed. I don't blame him. He sees a monster evolve naturally in person, his daughter getting stronger on the spot, and me evolving a monster on the spot. It's crazy to see it happen throughout his life.
"Then, the time you had a fever." Ezo said.
"Yeah, I ranked myself up to D more quickly than usual. And made me suffer a backlash." I answered.
"Then promise me one thing. You won't become like that Beast Tamer or worse?" Ezo said.
"I promise." I said.
"Good. Let's get going and turn in the quest." Ezo said.
We started walking away from the cave we conquered and my two monsters started following. However, I want to keep the fact I had one monster so I had to keep Paura out. Heartbreaking, but it's the safest way. But I'll be doing Paura injustice if I left him at H rank.
"System, I want to rank Paura up to F."
[Proceed?]
"Yes."
[Acknowledged.]
With this, Paura let out a burst of wind, indicating his increase of power twice. But that's not all, I plan to evolve him again. Although, he'll might suffer a plateau in the long run, but I can't lose him early.
"I wish to evolve Paura."
[Displaying possible evolution paths.]
[Completed.]
"Knife Spider."
[Knife Spider selected. EP required: 5000 EP]
[Reminder: This process cannot be interrupted nor reversed.]
"Paura. Evolution!"
[Acknowledged. Now evolving Paura...]
Paura is now surrounded by a gray mist again, but its bigger and swirls faster than before. After a few moments, the mist dissipated, displaying Paura the same color as before, but bigger. His two frontal legs are now more like blades.
[Evolution complete. Paura is now evolved to Knife Spider.]
[Notice. Paura's ranking has risen to Rank F+ due to evolution.]
[Skills acquired for Paura. Intimidation, Tenacity, Poison Blade, Concealment and Physical Attack Reduction.]
As for knife spiders, they're more ferocious and are like assassins if need be. Also, they can take some punishment.
"Kain...did you break your promise already?" Ezo said.
"No, I gotta keep the fact I have only one beast. Me getting so many in a short time is abnormal." I said. I knelt down to Paura.
"Paura, I need you to stay in the forest and hunt monsters, don't hurt any adventurers unless they're bandits, okay?" I told to Paura.
"Skeee!"
Paura happily screeched in agreement and skittered into the forest and in no time at all, I heard a notification.
[J rank target slain. 100 EP acquired.]
[I rank target slain. 200 EP acquired.]
"Let's go back. We'll turn in our quest and keep going." I said, walking back to Noltia. By the time we get our new quest, I'll call Paura to return to me.