My Reincarnation as a Chicken

Huh?

Kuromiya-kun? Been a while? Who the heck was this brat and why did she know my other name?

“It’s me… Maya. Maya Shinobu.”, As if she could read my mind, she told me her name. Well, a name that wasn’t in line with what the system said. She must have been lying to me at the moment and assumed I’d fall for it easily.

Maya Shinobu? I felt like I’d heard that name somewhere, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. The name felt like it was of great importance to me, but… ugh. Too annoying.

“Oh, Maya. That Maya? It’s been a whi-”, Neburis’ blade went a tiny bit closer to my neck. One more push, and she’d have pierced my throat. Her strength wouldn’t be able to do that with my high defence, but her unique skill definitely allowed for it.

“So you don’t remember me, huh? I guess [Evolver] must be at work here.”

“!?”

[Evolver]. I’d forgotten I had that unique skill. In fact, if she didn’t just mention it, I’d probably never have remembered. Just then, the memories came flooding in. Maya Shinobu was a girl I knew from back on Earth. Last, I remember, we went out for ice cream. Ken was also there, but I could never forget Ken.

‘Odd… it’s like remembering [Evolver]’s existence unclogged my memory pipe.’

<<The unique skill [Evolver] must be actively repressing your memories from your former life. The skill [Soul Armour] has reached it’s max and cannot be any more effective>>

‘Ah… that’s bad. We need to find a solution quick. Can’t we just synthesize a new skill or something? Force [Soul Armour] to be stronger?’

<<That… I am unsure. Creating a new skill doesn’t seem possible>>

‘Then we make the impossible possible! I don’t want to lose all my memories.’

“It seems it was a mistake to come here.”, Rulis - well Maya, said. She opened her mouth to say something else, but I cut through.

“Sorry. I do remember you. Maya, from Earth, right? We went to the same school and stuff.”, I even mentioned ‘Earth’ to get her to trust me.

Both looked at each other cautiously before looking at me. It was obvious Neburis didn’t trust me, but Maya felt relieved. She pressed her hand against her chest and let out a sigh, allowing her shoulders to fall and her guard to drop.

“Rulis!”, Neburis yelled her name, but the latter just shrugged.

“You can calm down. Kuromiya-kun won’t kill us.”, She defended my validity, causing Neburis to contemplate. She glared at me for a few minutes, piercing my eyes and trying to ascertain if they contained the slightest hint of hostility. Once she deemed me docile, she sheathed her blade, but still kept her guard up.

I rubbed my neck, a little sweat running down my cheek. That wouldn’t have permanently killed me, but death still didn’t sound like a fun experience.

“Phew. I’m glad you don’t hate me or something.”, Looking at me from atop my desk, she said.

“Uh-huh. Can you get off my desk?”, They magically appeared on my desk and were ruining the folders on it with their footprints. I didn’t want to appear like some incompetent bum that stood on work notes.

“Hmm, not the kind of reaction I expected.”, She cocked her head, disappointment and surprise evident in her doll-like face.

“What kind of reaction were you expecting?”, I was genuinely curious about that. We didn’t have a particularly special relationship as far as I can tell from the memories I got, so my current reaction felt perfectly reasonable. Maybe she wanted me to jump in joy at seeing another reincarnater? Well, I wouldn’t. Not that I didn’t enjoy seeing them, but I had no reason to want to meet someone else in a situation like mine. I was comfortable in this new life, so whether I met one or not was unimportant to me.

“I don’t know. Something NEET-like? Maybe fawning over me like you used to?” Fawning over her? Me? Why would I do that!?

“Right, cause I was crushing over you.”, I sarcastically remarked. However, she looked at me with confusion, like she didn’t understand why I said it the way I did. “Wait… I didn’t have a crush on you, right? Right?”

“… Whatever. That’s not important.”, Like a pro at rejection, she brushed off the topic.

“Yeah… can you get off the desk already?”, I myself didn’t want to think about that any further, so I followed along.

Finally, both of them got off my desk. Neburis took a sit on the chair before my desk, whereas Neburis went closer to the balcony and took a peek outside. There, she saw ogres, oni, kobolds and orcs moving about in harmony.

‘That’s… quite the amount of.’, She thought. Even with this, she didn’t have a shred of fear. She was confident in her ability to walk out of here unscathed. The only one she was worried for was Maya. You had to hand it to a paladin, she was dangerous.

Oh yeah, she was a paladin. The [Paladin of Space] to be specific. Her patron god wasn’t listed, but I could tell from her unique skill that she was exceptionally powerful. I wondered if this could be said of the other paladins. Then again, it was a common notion that paladins could walk through Larm unperturbed.

“What’s a building like this doing in the middle of the Great Larm Forest?”, Neburis was the first to speak, her curiosity having reached its limit.

“I wanted a house, so I got one.”, I responded. “Isn’t that what regular people do?”

“Regular people don’t pluck a house from a city and drop it in a dangerous forest.”, She countered, narrowing her gaze.

“Forgive me, but it turns out I’m not even human, so I’m lost in the ways of regular people.”, From the way she spoke, she must have heard about my time in Keimen. Well, it wasn’t a shocker that a story about shadow demons had spread far into other countries.

“And the way the monsters move about with weapons. It’s like you’re preparing yourselves for a war.”, She had noticed what we were doing. She was far more observant than I’d originally assumed.

“I mean, there is a war knocking on our front door. We’ve got to be ready to defend ourselves.”, I responded, hoping to just give her that much. One of our advantages in this whole situation was that nobody was aware of the fact that we were also prepping ourselves to fight back against those who entered Larm illegally.

No one could have predicted that she would just teleport in here and figure everything out. Even at this moment, I didn’t want to allow her to return back to human cities if I could help it. But if not, I’d just let her think that this was all we were doing.

“That isn’t what we came here for!”, Maya shouted, causing a ceasefire between Neburis and I. I was grateful to her.

“Um… what is then?”

“This is kinda… hm, how should I put it?”, Maya was searching for the words. She looked a bit frustrated and embarrassed about this. She kept twiddling her fingers while looking around the room, her face turning red. “This is embarrassing. Oh.”

For some reason, I couldn’t read her mind. There was something inside her that didn’t allow for any mental penetration.

“If you won’t say it, I will.”, Neburis came up from behind Maya and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Ne-!? Wait!”, It was too late. The paladin wasn’t listening to her.

“We’re on the run and need a place to stay. I was wondering if you’d allow us to stay here for a while.”, she told me their ordeal flatly. Looking at her face then at Maya’s red face, there was no hint of joking. They were both actively searching for a place to stay.

“So you want to freeload?”, I accidentally spoke my thoughts.

“D-Don’t say it like that!”, With a face as red a melting steel, she waved her hands around.

“Hehe, that’s cute.”, I rested back into my chair, leaning my face on my arm as I watched them.

“Is that a no?”, Neburis, straight to the point, inquired. Clearly, she didn’t plan on dilly-dallying anywhere.

“No. However, I need to be sure that you guys aren’t come up with any sort of plan to mess up the peace here.”, This entire time, I’d been trying to read both of their minds. Rulis’ mind was being protected by something whereas Neburis’ shallow thoughts were the only things I could here.

It was weird, but I absolutely couldn’t get a proper read on them.

“And how would we prove that?”, Neburis was about to refuse my request, but Maya asked first with a straight face.

“Easy, just tell me if there’s anything you want to do with Larm.”

“Hm?”, Maya tilted her head, not getting where I was coming from.

“Do you have some sort of magical device in place that will kill us if we’re lying?”, Neburis wondered. I simply shrugged at her, trying to say ‘Who knows?’. It was up to them to believe what they wanted to believe.

“W-Wait. Do you have something like that?”, Maya, frightened by thought of it asked me, but I didn’t respond to her. The silence alone must have raised her anxiety to a whole new level.

We sat there for quite a while and I could hear Maya’s heart racing. Beads of sweat started to form as her chest bloated bigger and bigger by the second. The paladin placed her hand on Maya’s shoulder, smiling at her and causing her some ease. For the first time, I finally read one of Maya’s thoughts.

‘Akira’s gotten scary.’

“I simply came here to find shelter as recommended by Ru-Maya, over here.”

After she spoke, nothing happened. I then trained my eye on Maya who still hadn’t spoken.

I didn’t know why she was so reluctant to do so, but she eventually broke.

“Mou… ugh! I just wanted to hide here, ok!?”, She yelled at the top of her lungs, but this was only the beginning. “One moment I’m having ice cream with the guy I like, the next thing I know, I wake up in the body of some girl I don’t know. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’m attacked by some scary demon and the next time I wake up, my new adoptive father is trying to kill me and now I’m on the run! I just thought I’d find a safe space with someone I knew. Even if that person’s the weird guy that has a crush on me, ok!? I’m sorry for calling you weird, but that’s what you were! You and that Manabu guy. Ugh, I hated how you guys kept Miyamura-kun all to yourself. Couldn’t you see he wasn’t the kind of guy to be hanging around weirdos like you? He was hot and good at sports. You guys weren’t supposed to even breathe the same air as him. Mou! I wish I could get Ken to myself. Even now.”

She was panting by the time she was done, but by then, I was certain everyone within close proximity had heard her. Even Neburis looked at her with a flabbergasted expression.

‘Ah… I didn’t think [Authority of Avarice] would be this effective.’

Thinking back to how Neburis’ answer was simple, I didn’t think it’d make Maya go on a rant like this. Ah, that means people like Neburis and Reiman didn’t want much.

At least, I now had an idea on the effectiveness of the skill.

“That was… unexpected. Anyway, I’ll get you two to your rooms.”

The doors leading to the office flew open and came marching a pair of cat-faced kobolds in maid uniforms.

Talk about perfect timing. I’d already messaged them to come over Maya’s rant, but I didn’t expect them to come so quickly.

“I’ll come see you guys later tonight to see how you’re settling in. Please don’t wander about though. Not all of the guys here like humans.”

I’d already sent a widespread message to everyone informing them of these two. Even though I purposefully ignored all feedback, I could tell that a great majority of it was negative.

“Honestly… I can’t catch a break.”, I heaved a heavy sigh, slumping over my desk, mentally exhausted by that meeting. “I didn’t think I’d be so close to death on my very first day back.”

<<Fear not. The unique skill [Space God] will not be able to cause your death ever>>

‘Huh?’

<<The unique skill [Space God] has been analysed and a counter unique skill [Void God] has been created>>

Sensing my confusion, the agent decided to explain.

‘Huh?’

<<Is my explanation lacking?>>

The agent didn’t get my confusion at all! Her explanation was perfect, easily digestible. My only confusion was,

‘Since when could I just analyse my opponent’s unique skills and create a counter unique skill?’

<<With the skill [God’s Domain] ([God’s Wisdom] + [Remorse]), I acquired her unique skill [Space God] and performed a serious analysis on it using the skill [Skill Alchemy] and with [Chained Mammon], I searched through a catalogue of previously existing unique skills, then synthesised certain elements of [Space God] to forge the new skill, [Void God]>>

‘Ah… how long did this take?’

<<An estimated time period of 0.1 seconds>>

‘And you couldn’t tell me this when I thought she was going to slice off my neck?’

<<… Hehe>>

‘Shitty bastard.’

<A/N: Well, Neburis and Maya are now staying in Larm. We’ve successfully increased the human population in Larm to 3! We can keep rising little by little.

Anyhow, I’m kind of disappointed right now. I asked my roommate to get me a Fanta, but he got me some other orange juice. Also been reading ‘Death’s Daughter and The Ebony Blade’. I honestly didn’t expect myself to enjoy it as much as I do.>