Charlemagne panicked as he realized that the cucumber he was supposed to be taking back to his hens was now in his stomach. But the more immediate concern was the rat currently lining up another swing of its great axe. Embracing his newly-earned Dodge skill, he ducked under the axe, which had been aimed right at his neck, and slipped inside the rat’s guard. Charlemagne took advantage of the rat being off balance to deliver a peck to the eye, followed by a claw to the abdomen. The rooster raced out of the hut, bowling over the goat guard, who seemed a bit slow on the uptake.

  Shouts and screams rose from every direction as the blood-smeared bird zigged and zagged around buildings, fleeing at top speed as he tried to figure out his next move. Although Charlemagne did not fully grasp the concept of blame yet, he was nonetheless annoyed at his dead companion, Francois, over the incident. It took the devolved rooster about half a minute longer to realize that he had wings, and so he took to the skies, once again startling a number of creatures with his abrupt and noisy ascent. But as he began to gain altitude, something invisible punched him right in the face, cracking one of his orbital bones with a disgusting crunch.

  Charlemagne instinctively swerved, trying to get around whatever it was that had hit him. He banked sharply to the left and then flapped his wings to gain altitude. Then there was another crunch, this time in his chest. His wings faltered for a moment as hairline fractures erupted throughout his sternum. He dodged again, this time to the right, and continued flapping his wings in a desperate attempt to get away from whatever was hurting him.

  He put his three-hundred degree vision to good use, hunting all around him for any sign of what was going on. Down below, he could see a number of appendages pointed his way as the crowd watched him ascend, but no one was throwing anything as far as he could tell. Then the third attack caught Charlemagne right in the stomach, and he coughed up a bit of blood as his organs fought to stay in their rightful places. The cucumber was rather close to making a reappearance before a calming wave of mana soothed the rooster’s stomach.

  A flash of khaki caught his eye as Charlemagne pulled another sharp turn. Charlemagne looked down to see the System guide running along the ground directly beneath him. He punched out.

  Another blow caught Charlemagne right in his beak, sending shockwaves through the young rooster’s skull and giving him an instant migraine. He was both confused and angered by the attack, wondering how the guide was punching the air but hitting him instead.

  The surge of adrenaline that came from being beaten half to death made it difficult for Charlemagne to think clearly, but every portion of his conscious mind screamed at his instincts to not fight back. The squiggles’ warning against attacking a System guide had been so dire that even a murderous traveler like Charlemagne did not want to deal with the consequences. Plus, if he was being honest with himself, the cucumber was making his stomach feel a bit bubbly, and not in a good way.

  Promising himself that he would stop and eat whoever was throwing things at him from the forest near Bembereke, the rooster put on another burst of speed and attempted to leave the guide behind. But the attacks continued, each punch causing more and more damage to accumulate until the bird could hardly remain airborne. Just when Charlemagne thought that he was going to drop from the sky, the attacks suddenly halted. The guide was running in place on the grass, a furious expression on his face. The rooster, although failing to realize that the guide was confined to the boundaries of the Special Zone, was nonetheless relieved. It was against his nature to be used as a punching bag and not retaliate.

  Charlemagne didn’t have a lot of time to process his close escape, as the squiggles returned. At first the rooster thought that the message would be about leaving the special area, but as he read the message, he recalled that for some reason the squiggles only spoke up when he entered one.

  Charlemagne was happy with the achievement. He felt that he understood what the System wanted him to do: explore, fight, and experiment, and during this trip he had done all three. It mattered little that the rooster could not have defined two of the three objectives, the point was that and the System got along.

  The news regarding the Settlement Token was concerned, as was the frothy feeling that he felt in the pit of his stomach. Since he was no longer in combat, he was unable to activate his Meditation skill to help him examine the flow of mana inside of his body, but given his high level Mana Core skill and his body of experience in handling foreign objects interacting with his digestive system, the rooster was able to turn his focus inward while still maintaining flight.

  What he discovered was intriguing. The cucumber was not being digested at all. Instead, it had formed a mana shield around itself, maintaining its structural integrity against the rooster’s powerful stomach acid. Long, thin spikes of mana protruded from six spots, anchoring the shielded cucumber firmly inside his digestive tract.

  Although the shield was decently strong by itself, it possessed another property that Charlemagne had never seen before. Some of the rooster’s own mana was being absorbed into the shield as it passed by, strengthening it by exactly the amount needed to offset the mana being used to defend the cucumber from the perils of Charlemagne’s innards. The mana that was being absorbed and deployed was still Charlemagne’s, however, and he felt that he still retained a measure of control over it. Once the entire shield was made out of his mana, perhaps he would be able to dislodge the Settlement Token and figure out how to get it work for him. Or maybe one of the girls should do that. Charlemagne had had enough trouble just acquiring the thing.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Adjusting the flow of mana around the magical cucumber helped to settle the rooster’s stomach, so he turned his sights to his next goal: a bit of light revenge. Although finding the city of animals had been difficult, returning was much simpler. Charlemagne flew north until he reached the Niger river and then turned east until he found Karimama again. Taking the main road out of town, he found himself back in familiar territory, this time taking the correct turn at Guene. He flew south over the city of Kandi and made good time on his way to the city of Bembereke.

  Charlemagne landed well north of the spot he thought that the spears had come from and entered into a long, thin strip of forest that ran alongside the road on foot. The air was hot and still, creating an oppressive atmosphere that even the shade produced by the forest could not dispel. As the he crept forward, the only sounds he heard were the loud chirping of insects. But that didn’t deter the devolved rooster, who all too well remembered the feeling of being caught unaware by an attack he should have been prepared for. Charlemagne hunter instincts were flaring up, teaching him how to revel in stalking ones prey, even if it took hours.

  The patience of the predator always exceeded that of the prey, after all.

  Several hours later, Charlemagne was not entirely sure that his patience was greater than that of his target. He wasn’t even sure that he was in the right area. He had worked his way from the north side of the forest almost all the way south. When he reached the edge of the trees a few minutes later and looked out to see a single lizard sniffing around an abandoned building, he realized that he needed to try something else. The only idea he had was a stupid one, but that didn’t deter the rooster one bit. So, after eating the lizard, he took to the skies.

  Soaring high into the air, Charlemagne began to make his way back to the north. Then he started to circle around, starting out with tight turns that gradually spiraled out into wider and wider circles. It wasn’t all that long before his idea bore fruit, with mere minutes passing before an unprovoked attack came whistling up out of a heavily-wooded area to the west. This time, however, it was not a single spear that was headed his direction. It was three.

  The rooster had been waiting for the attack, however, and it was not easy to box in a flying creature with only three projectiles. After dodging the spears with ease, Charlemagne immediately dove toward his assailants. Another volley arrived, but he once again dodged the hastily thrown spears. He was quite low, almost to the forest’s low canopy, when the third volley arrived, which was sooner than Charlemagne had expected. He took two spears to the chest and wing, and then slammed into the forest’s densely packed branches, breaking through with his velocity greatly diminished and his orientation compromised. The young rooster slammed into the ground face first, the impact snapping the spear shafts and sending spikes of pain coursing through his body.

  Josephine the chimpanzee cheered as she watched the dead bird crash down into the ground. She and her two companions, Jacques One and Jacques Two, only wanted to be left alone to enjoy life and rebuild chimpanzee society one day at a time. Since chimp society mostly entailed eating, grooming, and taking long naps, they had been largely successful in their life goals after coming across a cache of military rations that had been overlooked during the mad rush to evacuate Bembereke. While not nearly as good as fresh meat or ripe fruit, the meals had enabled the trio to take it easy. Josephine had even thought of starting a family, despite the constant worry that something would come along that they couldn’t scare off.

  Those thoughts had ended the day that Jacques One threw one of those stupid spears that he could summon due to his class, Ancient Artillery, at an enormous bird passing overhead, which shrugged off the hit and just continued flying. Somehow, the chimpanzee knew that the bird would be back, and she wasn’t sure that the three of them together would be able to take it out.

  But, it seemed that all her worrying had been for nothing, because they had taken out the enormous reptilian-looking bird that looked an awful lot like a demented rooster. And they had done it without even take a scratch.

  Jacques One, who had recently discovered fire and was always eager for a chance to use it, walked toward the rooster while rubbing his hands together in glee.

  “Hey Jacques, do you think we can singe off all these feathers, or are we going to have to pluck the bird before we can cook it?”

  Jacques Two frowned and went to join his older brother over by the corpse.

  “It’s going to take forever to pluck, what if we boil it? Would the feathers fall out then, you think?

  “You idiot,” Jacques One answered, making the insult sound like a term of endearment, “where are we going to find something big enough to boil that thing in? It’s got to be at least as heavy as you are!”

  Jacques Two moved closer to the downed bird and put his hand out to heft its wing. The next moment, his hand and half his forearm went sailing through the air.

  “Ahhhhhhh,” he screamed, dropping to his knees and clutching just below the stump.

  “Oh, no, oh no no no,” the Jacques that still possessed two hands moaned, backing away from the monster that had just amputated his brother’s limb.

  “Kill it, Jacques!” Josephine screamed, having the presence of mind to scoop up the last of the spears Jacques had summoned and hurling it with all her strength at the ugly bird. The spear struck true, embedding itself deep into the chest of the feathered beast and sending it slumping over once again.

  “You got it!” Jacques One cheered, rallying now that the bird had been put down for good this time. Then, seeing his brother still rolling on the ground with blood spurting from his amputated limb, he ran forward to help to stop the bleeding. He felt a sudden flash of pain, followed by an oddly distorted scream as the world made a lazy spin. Darkness ate away at the edges of the chimpanzee’s vision until he could only see a narrow tunnel straight ahead. The last thing that Jacques One saw was his headless body lying on the ground.

  Josephine screamed again as she turned around to flee, having run out of weapons to use on the seemingly unkillable monster. She heard a cluck of derision from behind her as she sprinted forward, sheer terror causing her heart to hammer and her breath to come faster and faster. She suddenly skidded to a halt.

  The rooster was now in front of her.

  Its eyes burned like they contained raging bonfires within them. Blood dripped from its wickedly sharp beak. Josephine’s body locked up as her vision locked in on the implacable face of the rooster that had just taken out her two companions.

  “Please, spare me?” she begged, knowing even as she pleaded that her efforts would be in vain.

  Then the rooster opened its mouth, and a sharp blue light forced her eyes to shut themselves in order for her pupils to adapt. But although her eyes were closed, she was still able to hear what the rooster said. It was the last sound she ever heard.

  “Buck-kawk!”