At that moment, frozen by fear, she was struck by the most humiliating thought imaginable.

There is no way I’m suffering the same fate as a fucking chicken.

She clambered back onto the window sill. If she couldn’t see the snake, there was no way she was engaging it, even if she was theoretically stronger. Life on a farm taught her one thing about serpents: keep your distance.

Her knees cramped as she squatted on the sill, pressing one hand to the water wheel for balance. She tried her hardest not to look down.

It’s fine, she reasoned. Just focus. She had dealt with dozens of snakes before. This was nothing new. Sure, it could be a magical snake—but she didn’t see it floating or shooting lasers out of its eyes—so it couldn’t be all that different from a regular farm viper.

I’ll just wait for it to come to me.

It was easier said than done; she was sitting on her very tippy toes trying to avoid the nails shooting out of the window sill. The wood creaked every time she fidgeted, and it felt at any moment that it might split from the structure completely.

Then, she saw it: the snake slithered into the one moonlight-illuminated section of the attic. She swallowed, sweat prickling at her forehead. It may not have been a magical snake, but it was a large snake. Nearly the size of a motorcycle, thick and black and spotted. Two small horns jutted from its head, and its tongue flicked eagerly from its hungry mouth.

The snake reared back its head.

It’s about to strike.

She sprang to her feet, instinct kicking in. With swift precision, she cast the orb and directed it straight ahead. The hornets surged forth, intercepting the snake's attack just as it lunged forward. With relentless ferocity, the insects tore into the serpent, ripping it apart scale by scale. Within seconds, the snake's head was devoured, leaving behind nothing but a twisted, mangled shell of snakeskin on the floor.

She inhaled sharply. It was over.

Or at least—she thought it was. It looked dead, but she hadn’t received any notification in the combat log. She held her breath for several more seconds until she finally dispersed the hornets. Then, she double-checked her System.

There was nothing there.

What the hell?

She endured another torturous twenty seconds on the window sill, the strain of balancing becoming nearly unbearable.

I shouldn’t have dispelled the orb so quickly.

Summoning the last shreds of her mana, she brought the insects back once more. This time, she directed them to chew through the ceiling of the attic, creating several large holes that allowed moonlight to filter into the room, casting faint, blue halos of light.

As her gaze traversed the space, she caught sight of the viper's tail extending into the far corner, untouched by the hornets' onslaught. Its end twitched ever so slightly.

With a steadying breath, she ventured inside. The snakeskin on the floor remained motionless; that part, at least, was dead. Slowly and quietly, she stepped around the circles of light, until she was close enough that she could see what was left.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

To her astonishment, another head emerged from the end of its tail—a smaller one, but just as menacing. It reared up, baring its fangs in a silent threat.

What the hell? Two heads?

Just as she was about to slam down the orb and free it of its misery, a glob of purple something escaped its mouth, shooting directly at her thigh. She screamed, collapsing onto the hardwood floor as a sharp, ice-icicle cold pain ran up her leg.

“Damn it,” she hissed, slamming the hornets down. They devoured their way through the snake, and then—accidentally—through the floorboards, leaving a giant, gaping maw in the attic.

*You have defeated a level 13 livestock double-headed viper - 700xp gained*

Akemi groaned, her head pulsing. The snake was dead, but the venom was still leaking into her leg like a chemical burn. An intense, nauseating pain washed over her as she ripped her pants off, getting the hot liquid as far away from her as possible.

Still, enough had seeped through; all she could do was lay her head on the floor and wait for it to pass. One, two, three, four. She counted mindlessly, waiting for it to abate. Only, it didn’t abate. The nausea turned to chills, and the chills to a low, aching pain in her stomach.

Damn it. She coughed, and, with a trembling finger, brought up her Health panel.

HP: 19/100

Wonderful.

This was a cruel punishment for suddenly wanting to live, she supposed.

To die like a chicken.

In her deliriousness, she searched for any way out, and remembered, faintly, the potions she found in that container with the chimeras’ robes. There had been two bottles there. She had chucked them mindlessly into her inventory, thinking nothing of them. But now…

They were … they were antivenoms.

Protections against the venomous vermin in the sewers, most likely. But would they work against snakes?

As a rim of black began to encroach on her vision, she decided she didn’t care.

She dragged open her inventory panel, shakily removed the two antivenoms, and unplugged the cork on each, one by one, gulping them down in full. The liquid was bitter and terrible, but the relief was sweet. She could feel it dragging her off the cliff of death by the ankles. Her entire body trembled and seized before it quieted, leaving her cold, half-naked, but alive.

“God bless this unscientific magical world,” she groaned, feeling as the thrumming in her skull lessened. “Generic, all-purpose antivenom. Fucking amazing.”

Villainous Achievement Unlocked! [One Man’s Pet is Another Man’s…]

You killed another person’s treasured companion! How cruel. Even if it did try to kill you. Twice. With two different heads. But hey, it was still someone’s pet.

Off topic, but: is this guy a collector of multi-headed animals, or something? So weird.

[+500 XP] [ -100 Reputation]

She muttered a curse on Frank’s family as she raised herself to her feet. Newly pantless and physically exhausted, she was eager to find that runic gem and get the hell out of there.

A cupboard sat in the middle of the room. The snake’s limp body was still wrapped around it, but it was easy enough for her to shuck the skin off with her [Knife Fingers]. It fell to the floor in unmajestic clumps.

I wonder if this could be useful for something, she thought, looking at the enormous amount of black and white snake flesh dotting the floor. Maybe as a crafting material?

She took it into her inventory.

You have acquired [Skin of a Livestock Viper x 10]

Then she gripped her hand around the knob on the newly freed cupboard. With a hard yank, it opened, revealing several jars of dead vermin and other small mammals. Gross. She scowled, pushing the snake feed away until she found a small, glowing egg.

The egg had etchings engraved in patterns along the shell; runic etchings, by the look of it.

She took it in her hand. It was surprisingly heavy, like holding an egg made of pure gold.

I wonder how much this is worth? She wondered idly, pocketing it.

You have acquired a [Runic Gem].

A shiver ran through her as a gust of wind blew through the holes in the ceiling. Even on a summer night, standing in just a shirt and underwear was enough to make her want to curl up in a blanket back in the inn. It was time for this little farm-razing escapade to come to an end.

As she slowly descended the ladder, she took one last look over the farm from above. Almost none of the chickens were left; the only sign that they had existed there at all was a few remaining feathers, spilled chaotically over the grass. Not to mention that her combat log was basically a chicken memoriam. Courtesy of none other than Mutt, who stood there in the field, licking his tiny, unassuming paws.

She sighed.

Enough games. Time to release the kraken.