My Reincarnation as a Chicken

It was the 2nd week since Lord Sora had set his sights on the entirety of Larm. The king of manticores wasn't a particularly strong king, but he was still important enough for Lord Sora to have personally given him command over the invasion force.

Unfortunately, the West was stronger than anticipated and progression was near impossible. Rumours he'd heard about the West possessing the weakest collection of monsters started to feel like made up fantasies by delusional idiots.

The West was organised, relentless and cunning. For some reason, Lord Sora had permitted him from sending in all his manticores for a full assault till he was given permission. Even though it was earning them no results, the king chose to obey. The manticore king would never disobey Lord Sora, but it was obvious that ever since returning from the Mystic Peaks, something just hadn't been right about him.

However, the king's luck was turning around today! Lord Sora was wise, but he wasn't present to see the events of the battlefield. The king on the other hand, knew that the West's forces would have been in a more unfortunate situation after a certain amount of time. When he thought about it, the angle at which Lord Sora was fighting appeared obvious. Waste their time and corner them for a bit, then strike when finding food becomes difficult for them. Since the War was happening so close to the West, the edible creatures must have run to less violent places for safety, meaning hunting would have been far more difficult for them and the forest had a lot of spirits protecting the trees, so they couldn't take fruits and the likes excessively.

It was simple and unfortunately lacking plan. The king felt like he could touch on it just a little bit. Now that the West had shown weakness, they'd be foolish to not use it to their advantage. In fact, if he did this and succeeded, he'd be praised and possibly given a name by Lord Sora.

That was right. He was doing this to simply promote Lord Sora's image as a genius strategist. He couldn't fathom a scenario where this failed.

So, how did things turn out so terribly?

They progressed mercilessly, hoping to vanquish the West's forces and met a new force that had been waiting right out in the open. A collection of Orcs, kobolds, wolf monsters and silver-back pumas, all in new-looking armour with weapons at the ready and in formation.

At first, the king thought that this was a last ditched effort from the West to resist losing to the very end, but then the goblins and timber wolves ran past the army, going to hide under the cover of the forest and becoming nearly impossible to spot. Still, that was no concern of his. They could just burn down the forest. It'd grow back and there'd be no problems.

But then, the ground forces were being completely overwhelmed by the West. Aerial support from the north was rendered useless by the West's mages and those hiding in the forests and shooting projectiles at them. Burning down the trees didn't even work for some inexplicable reason. Flying too close to the forest ended up with some manticores being swallowed by the trees.

All that the king could hear were the screams of the fallen. The scene that befell his eyes was one of incomprehensible defeat. He couldn't come up with any sort of explanations for this and all he could do was to order a retreat, but their escape point had been blocked off.

From behind, an army of cyclopes and shadow beings was pushing the North army back and preventing them from moving away. From the very beginning, the North was being manipulated into jumping into the West. It wasn't that the West couldn't proceed or that the North was that good, but that the West had been putting on an act this entire time to make the North drop their guard for this one particular moment. Even worse, the king couldn't figure out when and how they got the cyclopes behind them without anyone noticing.

As much as he hated to admit it, this was an immense failure on his part. He had to return to report this.

No, he had to escape from this fight, then flee Larm entirely. There was no way Lord Sora would ever forgive him for this blunder. He had doomed himself and there was no chance of surviving no matter who won this war. His only chance here was escape.

But there was a problem now. A storm cloud had appeared. The king had experience with flying in dangerous storms, but even he couldn't escape this one. It wasn't natural. This storm was definitely out to wipe out anything that was in the sky without fail. The storm wasn't natural.

The West. They were monsters.

NUKEME POV

It was the 2nd week since the war officially begun. Neither side had made any serious progressions against the other and it was obvious that both sides were still holding back somehow. Everyone was waiting for the other side to strike first, but there was neither side was so impatient to unleash their full power before the other. If need be, the leaders of both sides were ready to keep this stalemate for as long as humanly possible.

Nukeme had been kept on scout duty, leading a huge portion of his [Black Division] – a division of the [Shadow Ops] concentrated by stealthy-goblinoids - to track the enemy's movements and report back without being noticed. It was a really easy job, although risky since the moment they slipped up, they'd be killed without mercy. Their leader may be strong, but resurrection was beyond her even. At least, for now or so they believed.

Today, Nukeme had been given a new job. He was to leave a good portion of his scouts checking the enemy, and have a few of them guide Reiman's experimental [Inferno Ops]. A collection of cyclopes and some shadow demons Hinotori had summoned, but hadn't given any specific use to. They weren't obeying anyone's commands, but it was then revealed that Maou, Hinotori's child, had total control over them just like their mother.

With that, Reiman had started to utilise them and this was their second confrontational mission. The plan was simple honestly. Reiman forced the original [Goblin Army] and [Fenrir Alliance] to backdown, allowing the North to push a bit further in and create the image of weakness and tiredness. Nukeme had to lead the [Inferno Ops] behind the North so they could perform a pincer attack and force the North from behind within a certain range.

Once this was done, Kara could set up her barrier. According to her, it wasn't the sort of dome she was dreaming about, but it was one good enough to work in this war. This barrier could prevent the Northerners from returning and reporting anything, giving the leaders in the North the presumption that this fight was still going on. That way, the West had some time to recover a little bit before preparing for the next phase of the general's plan.

The plan worked perfectly without a hitch and in one flawless swoop, they had conquered the North's attack forces. Nukeme couldn't help but feel a little bit icky, like something wasn't right. Everything went according to plan, but his senses were telling him that what they just did wasn't profitable in some way.

Then again, even if he was right, Reiman had claimed to already have a countermeasure. He was dead-set on winning this war before Lady Hinotori woke up to show just how capable of a general he was. Nukeme had to admit that he admired Reiman's undying fealty to Hinotori and was inspired to be better.

KIARA POV

"Sister, I've returned with great news!", the doors leading to the room burst open and Kara came running in with a wide smile on her face. Kiara, who was sitting down in front of a desk, reading some scrolls just smiled as her sister came in.

"Really? Did something good happen?"

"Yes! My barrier, although not what I was going for, managed to trap all the Northerners.", she sat next to her sister and rested her head on her laps. "They said my barrier was the most crucial part of this plan. I'm so glad all my research and learning were actually useful to someone. Maybe now Lady Hinotori would praise me. Teehee."

"That's great.", Kiara patted her sister on the head with a gentle smile.

She was happy that her sister could smile so many days in a row off late. Back in the east, it was always terror, complaining and annoying teenage angst, but now she only ever came with joyful news. This new version of Kara really put Kiara's heart at ease. She had to admit that she couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous as well.

If she was the one that had been kidnapped, would she have been lucky enough to meet Hinotori like Kara did? Then again, for a girl has manly as her, she doubted Hinotori would have any sort of interest in her.

'What the hell am I thinking about?', she finally noticed her thoughts and shook her head violently.

"What's wrong, sister?", Kara caught her head shaking, but Kiara just smiled and put her head back down on her laps.

"It's nothing serious.", her thoughts were simply stupid. Besides, there was something that concerned her far more considering what she'd heard from Kara over the past few days. "Sister. I don't like how this war is going."

"Why? We're winning, aren't we?"

"That's what appears to be the case, but remember how Karon is like?"

"Uh, I know he used to act cold, but was secretly watching out for me just like you."

"Huh, he really didn't show you his other side at all?", being pampered and kept away from the true reality of the family business most of the time, Kara had a childishly pure perspective of her older brother. "I guess sometimes he would get really mad and shout at me, but that was the worst of it."

"I see.", she heaved a heavy sigh and gently lifted Kara's head off her laps. "Father believes in upfront combat with both sides bringing their full power at the beginning, but Karon is the opposite. Karon believes in baiting the enemy with countless traps and finishing them off with one clean blow. In a sense, Karon is someone far worse than father. An obsessive psychopath that never stops till he acquires what he wants."

"Eh?", having heard about this side of her brother, Kara tilted her head, completely shocked.

"Sorry about that. Don't think too much about what I just said."

She comforted Kara. If anything, she was happy that Kara was still innocent enough to think of her older brother in such a light. If possible, she wanted it to remain like that.

If she had to kill Karon to protect this innocent smile of her sister's, she wouldn't hesitate to do it. It was her obligation as Kara's older sister to keep her smile.

'What are you up to, Karon?'

KARON POV

"Lord Karon, news of the North's capture by the West has arrived!", a guard marched into the room briskly. Staring at a mural depicting a family of ogres, was the prince of ogres, Karon. He didn't respond for a while and just kept looking at the mural.

In the centre was a large ogre, sitting on a throne. Krull, the tyrant. At his side was his beautiful wife, Kala, who was deceased at the moment. At the feet of both parents, the children, Karon, Kiara and Kala, all of them playing with one another. It was a picture-perfect family at first glance, but now the mother was dead, the father had lost his mind and one sister had eloped to help an enemy nation and the youngest was kidnapped and being forced against her will. The only one that remained in tact was the first son.

To recover his family, or at least a semblance of what it once was, Karon was going to win this war. It was his moral imperative as the oldest child in the family, to ensure that they were together with as little problems as possible.

"Finally. That general is either smart or just a coward for having taken so long to do this. I do have to admit however, his assassins are really good.", he stood up, the skulls that he wore around his waist rattling.

Behind Karon, stabbed through their hands, abdomen and feet and squirming on the wall, was a random assortment of rat men and goblinoids that had been sneaking around the premises. From the looks of things, rather than simply scouting for information, they were here to kill someone.

Their killing intent made it too obvious for him. He narrowed down the possible targets to himself only. Krull was completely out as him being a tyrant must have given them the perception that killing him would be far too difficult a task.

The motive here probably went along the lines of: "I'll kill the son to set Krull off so he makes rash decisions."

A good plan if Krull actually cared about his family. Clearly, the one who ordered the assassination had no actual awareness of who his opponent was and that made him a complete fool. From this one action, Karon believed he had completely figured out who the leader of the West was. A sly, cocky fool who acted on surface-level knowledge rather than digging any further.

"Now to get Sora start the second phase of this war.", he walked out of the room, then tapped the two ogres standing guard on the shoulders. "Leave only one of those things in there alive."