Even before arriving at the farm Apollo was able to guess what the problem was all about.
"...Bacon?"
The little female boar that Yuu had brought to the camp while it was still an egg had now fully grown up... yes, in just three days...
"Briony! What the hell did you gave her to make her get this big!?"
Even bigger than the wild boars that attacked the camp before, Bacon was now over 3 meters in height, as for her length, Apollo had no idea... Luckily, no matter her size, the huge boar was still fairly quiet and obedient, barely reacting from Apollo's approach, only taking a glance before continuing to eat the tulips on the floor.
"Oh! Master! You are here! Hmm, answering your question, I just fed her with whatever I could find, like tulips, tomatoes, cucumbers, and so on..."
"And where did you find them? Did you take them from the farm?"
"Of course!"
"..."
"Anyway, Master! We got a problem!"
Apollo sneaked a glance at Bacon again, but decided to fake ignorance and ask.
"What problem?"
"Bacon has no place to sleep at night!"
(Oh, don't you say!)
"And we will soon run out of food!"
(Of course! Wait! What!?)
"Didn't we have enough food to last us a few weeks!?"
"Well, yes, but that was before adding the boars consumption into the table."
"How much does these meat balls eat!?"
"If they eat like Bacon, something around 3300 pounds or 1500kg per day..."
"Won't Bacon stop eating now that she is fully grown?"
"Of course not! She will continue to eat just to sustain her huge body! Maybe she will slow down a bit, as for how much, we will have to wait and see..."
"That's...true. So, what do you suggest??"
"For now expanding the farm will do, but if we get more boars later we will need to build a specialized farm just to feed them."
"Can't they just eat the same as the other wild boars eat?"
"Roots and berries? Well, yeah, but they should run out soon if we leave them be."
"Then, how did those boars not die from hunger yet? Shouldn't they have eaten all the food available in the forest?"
"I have no idea. Maybe they hibernate?"
"Hibernate??...I wouldn't be surprised... Anyway, how long will our current supplies last?"
"They should last 3 days if we let the boars look for their own food during the day and only feed them at night, but this will slow their growth and they will probably be left hungry..."
"It can't be helped, we are in no condition to build another farm now."
"If only they didn't grow up....wait! I got an idea!"
Apollo approached his bracer from his mouth and spoke in a loud voice.
"Hey Cindy, can you hear me?"
"Master? How can I be of service?"
"Contact Alyssa, I want to know how the research on Beast Form is progressing.... No, actually call her out here in the farm, I want to discuss something with her!"
"All right!"
10 minutes later...
"M-mas...ter...haaa~~...haaa~~...haaa~~What can...I...do for you?"
"Calm down Alyssa. Take a deep breath and regain your breath."
"I'm..all...right..."
(No, you aren't!)
"Okay, listen me out, no, actually look at that first!"
Apollo points out at Bacon who is now sleeping in the middle of the grass.
"M-Master!? If you want to get rid of a boar call Daisy, not me! I'm useless in a fight against something of that size!"
"That's Bacon, not a wild boar."
"What!? ...Fascinating! How did she grow that big!? Did you test some special drugs on her?"
"You are the crazy scientist here, not me!"
"I'm not crazy!"
(Yes you are, crazy for tentacles at least...)
"Anyway, how is the Beast Form research progressing?"
"We are following the steps described in the system and calculating the correct amounts of each substance necessary for the transformation. The research has just started, so it should take some time for any visible result..."
"By what you learned from it, can you apply such technique on the boars as well?"
"A Boar Beast Form?? But they are already beast! How can they be more of a beast than they already are!?"
"My bad, I expressed myself poorly. What I want to know is if you can change their form to something more petite that will require to eat less food."
"You mean, instead of transforming Bacon into a beast, transforming her into a humanoid form?"
(Hmm...that could work, but it would make our plans for the boar ranch go down the drain, so I'm not sure if I should ask this...)
"Can't you make them just keep their shape and shrink their size?"
"That will be extremely difficult! It's not impossible, but it will take a long time..."
"So you are saying an humanoid form is better?"
"Well, yeah. At least we have plenty of data about humanoid forms. I could cross evaluate our own data with the cat girls data and pick the similarities then-"
"In short it's faster, is that it?"
"Yesh!"
Apollo looked at Bacon, who was now staring at him with a pitiful look.
(I will regret this, right? Yes, I will! No doubt about it! Damn! What do I do??)
"Master?"
"Cough! Cough! W-Well, as long as she is able to eat less in her new form and stay like that for an undefined amount of time, I will be happy."
(Yeah, let's focus on the main problem right now! We can make another type of ranch boar later, or just use the wild ones!)
"Do you have any other demand about their form? It would be nice if I could have a target in mind."
(To say I don't care is kinda heartless, and it's not like I don't care at all. I mean, if it was a cute form, it would be the best, but if it's not, as long as it's not too ugly, I don't think there would be any problem with it as well...So...what do I say???)
"Hmm, if you can make her cute, that would be the best!"
"Understood, but this still should take a few days, so don't expect results before next week. Because it's not a research suggested by the system, we will have to manually make many tests until good results can be reached, so it will take a lot longer than suggested researches."
"What if I leave the boars with you?"
"You mean, as guinea pigs?"
"Yeah... as guinea boars."
"Master, your joke sucks.... Anyway, Bacon won't fit inside the research center, but the other just born ones should prove quite useful in my research. If I can delay their grown, that would be even better... Maybe I can try this and that and..."
(Am I making a mistake? I don't know anymore! I feel like I'm starting to turn into exactly what I vowed to fight! But if I don't do this... Hell, let's get over with it!)
"...All right! Use them as you wish. Just don't let them suffer too much..."
"Hmm! Hmm! No problem! I promise I won't disappoint you! Once I'm finished they will have cute little tentacles all over their bodies! It will be so cute nobody will resist hugging them!"
"NO TENTACLES!!!!"
For the first time a research out of the system bounds was being made.
"EEEEEEEEh!??????"
Sure, it was nothing world changing but the simple fact that it was not listed on the research system ensured nobody but Apollo would have access to it's results.
"Please, Master! Just two! No, one! Just a single one! I will add to it's tail and make it able to grow and shrink!"
This created a little advantage that would only increase as the number of custom researches grew by each following request that Apollo made starting from this point.
""NO!!!!""
For now such advantage would remain unnoticeable, but one day...
"Why nobody can appreciate tentacles like meeee~~~~!?"