My Reincarnation as a Chicken

“Woah. You got super big in such a short time.”, In this highly tense situation, there was someone with zero situational awareness. And that person, was the blonde idiot with no arm.

“Marcus!”, Celica smacked the back of his head without any care for the shadowy tentacles that were before them.

“What? Just saying ‘Hi’ to an old friend.”, He cried, rubbing the back of his head, apparently unaware of the mistake he had just committed.

“Are you idiots ever going to change?", While I was trying to look intimidating, I found myself breaking my persona because of their stupid, reckless behaviour. “Seriously, there’s no way this world is safe if it has you guys as its future heroes.”

I dropped my shadows, to lessen the tension.

“Clearly you did. You’re so big now.”, Marcus marvelled at my size. He took some steps forward and came to be just a few feet away from me. He put a hand to his chin and started to check me out.

“It’s like watching a little sister grow into a woman. I’m starting to feel so proud. Is this what older brothers feel when they see their younger sisters all grown up?”

“Want to die? Who the hell’s your younger sister, you freak?”, I retorted.

"Oh, come on, don’t say that. We’re practically relatives at this point.”, Marcus raised his arms for a hug.

“I didn’t even spend more than a week with you.”, I flicked his forehead and sent him stumbling back a bit.

Honestly, this guy had to be the boldest person I’d met. Ignoring my strength, who in their right mind just walks up to an 8-foot-tall woman that was shorter than 5 feet some months ago and treats it like it’s the natural progression of life?

“Celica! Tori’s ignoring me.”, He cried to the elf who was busily thinking of how best to keep her neck at this moment.

“Stop dragging me into your crap. I swear, I’ll kill you one of these days.”

“Calm down. There’s no need to get agitated.”, Daryl, the ever calm and reasonable sage, tried to mediate. “Still, you’ve gotta be a bit smarter, Marcus.”

“That’s right. If it was somebody else, you’d have lost your head already.”, I added in.

“I knew that Tori wouldn’t decapitate me, though.”

While this silly conversation was happening, I sensed that everyone else was preparing some sort of attack.

Kana, Daisuke, Akari and Seiko were thinking of how to get Shiro out of my hands. The other group with the names 4, 6, and 7 was thinking of how majestic I was. Then there was Jasmine. She was the only one I couldn’t get any sort of reading on. She looked so aloof and relaxed that it was absolutely disheartening.

‘Can you all just relax. Shiro’s not going to die.’, I wanted to say, but I wasn’t sure how. This conversation with Marcus was dragging on for too long, and anytime now, these guys would snap, so I needed him to act fast.

“Ahem. Marcus.”, I called to him, making him stop his banter with Celica. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to these people?”

“Oh right.”, He scratched the back of his head and walked forward.

“You already know Daryl and Celica.”, he said, gesturing at his teammates.

“These are Mister-I-shoot-before-asking-questions, Jasmine, Daisuke, Kana, Akari and the girl in your arms is Shiro.”, He listed them in the order in which they were standing, ending with my arms. “You guys, this is Tori. She’s… uh, what are you?”

The moment Marcus turned his neck to ask me that question, my eyes trained on Seiko. He was ready to use Marcus as a cover for the bullet he was firing, in order to hit me in the head in one shot.

Honestly, if he wasn’t so heartless as to try to use Marcus to get to me, I just might have spared his life.

Before the paladin’s finger pulled on the trigger of the gun, my shadow spike pierced through his head from the chin, making him drop lifelessly to the ground.

“Wow, you were right. He really does shoot before asking questions.”, I joked, then stretched my body a bit. “Alright, you guys can be on your merry way out of Larm now. Nukeme, ensure that they leave Larm safely.”

That slimy goblin disobeyed my orders, snuck over here, and was spying on my conversation with them. He’d also brought along his corps, meaning, these guys were surrounded and had no chance of escape. I’d analysed all of them and had acquired a counter for their unique skills, meaning, there were no real threats here.

I spread my wings to lift off, but then…

“Wait! Tori! We need your help.”, Marcus yelled at the top of his lungs. I stopped myself from lift off. “As you can see, some part of my body is missing.”

He waved his right arm in front of me.

“We came to Larm hoping that you would help us fix ourselves.”, He said with the most serious expression he could ever muster.

“Hm? How in the hell am I supposed to help?”

“Eh? You can’t grow back my limbs?”

“Do I look like I can just help people grow limbs back willy-nilly?”

“Eh? B-But she said… ah.”

“She?”, Now I was interested.

“Your relative. She said, "We’re supposed to come here for you to help us.”

Relative? The only relative I had was Vermillion, right? At least, that was what everyone had been telling me recently. Did that mean these guys had been in contact with Vermillion this entire time?

“You know of Vermillion?”, The moment I asked this, five people’s expressions turned grim. Three were the numbers, and the other two were Celica and Daryl. Both their faces turned into a concerned frown, so I immediately read their thoughts.

‘V-Vermillion? Isn’t that the God-killer?’

‘S-She’s related to that being? That means, Sora is related to her? So, why is she opposed to freeing her own relative?’

Oh? This Sora person, who might be my relative, was opposed to the release of my supposed mother? The more I heard about her, the more interested I was.

“Don’t know anything about a Vermillion, but Sora says you’re related. Remember we told you about her when we met the last time?”

“You did? My memories are kinda fucked at the moment. Sorry.”, I said, dropping my wings. This entire conversation changed things. “Well, if a relative of mine sent you guys, I can’t just send you packing. I’ll welcome you to my home like I should have. It’s not that far from here, so you guys should be able to make the trip with Nukeme’s guidance.”

I gave the signal to Nukeme for my change in orders.

If these guys truly had some sort of relationship with a relative of mine, I could use them to get to that relative. That way, I could get more answers about Vermillion and why I keep having dreams about Vermillion. And if I couldn’t get any answers that way, the robed people behind me definitely had a lot to say on the matter.

The only issues were the others.

“Hey! W-Where do you think you’re going with Shiro!”, the girl, Kana, timidly shouted.

“Hm? She’s clearly unwell, so I was going to give her emergency treatment. Oh, that’s right. I need to take care of that rude bastard as well.”, I grabbed Seiko off the floor.

When I did that, my eyes crossed paths with Jasmine. The stare she gave me actually sent a chill down my spine. She really was creepy for so many reasons. Both she and Seiko having the race [Modified Human] was something I never thought I’d see.

‘Are they siblings? Or from the same facility?’, With such thoughts in my head. I flew off to the mansion. I didn’t have to go back to the ceremony. Those guys could have all the fun they wanted.

****

“Woah. You really evolved, huh, Nukeme?”, Marcus, following closely behind the goblin captain, commented.

“Keh. Of course. All thanks to the grace of my goddess.”, Nukeme boasted. “Look at the new weapons she even gifted me with.”

Nukeme showed off his gold and silver daggers to Marcus and everyone else following closely behind.

“Hey, hey! Aren’t they [Aurum] and [Argentum]!?”, Cardinal 4 pushed Marcus out of the way and shouted in glee. “I thought those were lost long ago? How did you acquire such relics?”

“My goddess! She can acquire anything.”

“Hey! Don’t push me!”, Marcus tried to push the cardinal in retaliation, but he was so much weaker in comparison that it felt like trying to push a deeply fixed tree out of the way.

“What’s this bug saying? Want to die here?”

“C-Can we calm down?”, Daryl, who was tensed, pleaded.

“No, no. Please kill him. That retard’s given me far too many heart attacks in the past month than I’ve gotten in 30 years combined.”

While this group was conversing at the front, the Kazoku at the back were having their own conversation.

“Hey, what do you guys think of this situation?”, Daisuke, feeling extremely uncomfortable, asked for the others’ opinion.

“Hm? Nothing much, really.”

“Same.”, Kana and Jasmine high-fived, both happy to have the exact same mindset in this situation.

“I’ll admit that I am a bit on edge.”, Akari said, with a smile. His eyes kept darting into the shadows of the trees, where various hobgoblins and shadow rats were hiding and monitoring them.

“Eh? Why? Shiro’s getting healed up, and we get somewhere to rest. What’s there to be on edge about?”

“Gee, I wonder. It couldn’t possibly be all the dangerous creatures watching our every move at the moment.”, Akari sarcastically responded with an exasperated smile.

“Oi, Kana. Were you born with no situational awareness?”, Daisuke asked, putting his hand to her forehead to check for a fever.

“Of course. I was the best in my class back in school, you know?”

“Doesn’t answer the question.” Daisuke face-palmed. He was starting to feel stupid for even expecting any kind of proper response from her.

“Still, this is the most dangerous forest in the world. I wouldn’t raise my expectations for the reception.”, Jasmine pointed out. “For all we know, we’re just going to a cave in the middle of nowhere and will have to sleep on the floor.”

“Huh? Seriously, Jasmine? That’s just stupid. You think a giant thing like her sleeps on the floor?”

“Well, where else would she sleep?”

“I don’t know? A tree branch? Oi, Daisuke. Where do you think she sleeps?”

Kana stopped walking when she realised everyone else had stopped. She looked up at Daisuke from behind him.

“Um… why don’t you have a look.”, the giant of a teen listlessly pointed his finger to his front.

Kana, confused, followed Daisuke’s raised finger to its target. There, she saw a massive mansion sitting conspicuously in an open clearing. Around it, the ground had been artificially flattened, and a few other structures had been set up, a majority of them about half-complete, whereas the minority were finished.

It was empty at the moment, but just looking at it made them all wonder why the hell there were human buildings being built in the West of Larm.

“What the heck is this?”

“Kekeke. Welcome to Onigashima. We are still in building, but we shall soon become the most powerful country in the world!”, Nukeme announced.

<A/N: While writing this chapter, I looked up outside my window to see the peaceful neighbourhood with absolutely nothing happening, then I realised. It's too hot! Wish I could sit in the living room to write so I can turn on the AC, but that messes up my entire flow.

Anyhow, if you enjoyed the chapter give me your power stones, comments and reviews.>