Melvin immediately did as he was told, and by then a middle-aged man walked in from below with an angry look on his face, "What are you doing in my house?"

Learning from his previous mistake, Melvin gently approached the man and stared him dead in his eyes. With both hands on the man's shoulders, he squeezed very hard until the man grimaced in pain and said meaningfully, "Sorry, but just let me do one single thing here, and I'll leave with no problems."

Witnessing the profound strength of his grip, the man gnashed his teeth in hatred, averted his eyes, and slowly retreated without saying anything.

Melvin then cut off the drying line, and followed Firrol's instructions. He grabbed the big piece of meat and tied it to the feline's back using the thin rope.

With a big piece of meat on his back, Firrol climbed the rooftop's walls and began running around from one place to the next.

"Is this it?!" Melvin mumbled under his breath. He knew that Firrol was planning on baiting the bird with both the meat, and his continued movement, but he doubted its effectiveness.

At the same time, he knew that the guards were on their way which made him slightly anxious.

A cold gleam flashed in his eyes, 'I have given them a lot of chances.' He thought, clenching his fists.

He knew that because they were able to track him, he had to dispose of them otherwise, he would be the one to get disposed of. And he wasn't going to let that happen.

Fortunately for both the guards, and for Melvin too, the bird seemed to take the bait as it dove down in Firrol's direction with impressive speed.

"Wait?!" Melvin mumbled as he had just realized something very dangerous. The bird's speed was a bit... too fast!

Firrol seemed to realize the same thing as him as a look of horror appeared on his face, and this time his run and prey-like behavior wasn't a pretense, but the actual reality as he dashed in Melvin's direction.

"Shit!" Melvin paused, gears rapidly turning trying to think of what to do. He was afraid that maybe the bird, which he now realized was a predatory black hawk, would flee upon noticing his presence. Reaching that conclusion, he moved to the side and hid close to the entrance to the rooftop's door.

When Firrol witnessed this, he also veered off its path and followed after him. He knew that Melvin's strength was impressive now, and only he would be able to save him from the hungry bird following after him.

Melvin could detect the faint change in his trajectory from the faint noise the cat was making in his escape, so he quickly tilted his torso to appear and gestured with his thumb toward the door.

Understanding the meaning, Firrol gnashed his teeth in both hatred and nervousness, and followed. There was no telling what that bird of prey would do to him in the time it would take for Melvin to appear, so he braced himself and jumped toward the flight of stairs.

The Black Hawk sliced through the air with a sharp whooshing sound that gradually increased in intensity in Melvin's ears, and when he peeked his head to look around, he was shocked to find that the bird was growing in size with every second as it dove down. He didn't know whether it was because of his gradual approach or because it was actually because his size was growing bigger.

He tightened his grip over the two daggers and began breathing in steady slow patterns to calm himself down. And then, with an even louder whoosh, the bird closed down its now several meters wide wings and disappeared into the door.

The owner of the house who was glued to the side of the rooftop in fright as he watched everything unfold.

Swiftly moving, Melvin turned around and followed after the two. What greeted him once he stepped inside the door was a frantically running Firrol and a walking hawk that reached his thighs in height.

All of his efforts to calm himself crumbled, and his beating heart began rapidly thumping. The sight of such a monster left Melvin feeling apprehensive, unaware of how to proceed. However, knowing that if he didn't move, his companion would die, he gritted his teeth and advanced.

The bird's climb down the stairs was halted when he noticed the noise behind him and turned around to look. Feeling threatened, he began screeching dangerously as he unfurled his wings to appear larger as he stretched his neck, and with careful steps, he began approaching Melvin.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Glancing down from the step he was in, Melvin paused once again because something caught his attention. The bird's brown eyes were slowly changing colors, and so encountering something he didn't understand he was uncertain. From brown to blue, to green, to yellow... It was a captivating sight, and there was even a gentle swirl in the middle that looked like a magical small whirlpool.

Suddenly, he started feeling this intense headache in his head as he looked at those eyes that shifted from one color to the next, and before long, the headache turned into a slight dizziness that was gradually increasing in intensity.

All of the sensory inputs that his organs were sending into his brain became obstructed by something. His feet felt foreign and strange, and he didn't even know where his hands were.

Feeling as if he was caught under a spell, he weakly threw the dagger in his left hand at the focused hawk.

Noticing the incoming weapon, the hawk tilted its head to evade, and with it the negative effects on Melvin's mind were nullified.

Waking up from his stupor, he was startled by the bird's skill effectiveness.

When the skill was understood he felt more emboldened to approach the hawk, and so slowly he began to close in on him.

Flapping its big wings, the hawk continued its screeches as he attempted the previous skill, but this time Melvin only had to avoid looking at its eyes, and he was safe from it.

With that a stalemate was reached, the hawk was clearly intimidated by Melvin, and in turn, he too was afraid of his razor-sharp beak, and glistening long talons.

However, something occurred that made everything even worse. What he had been fearing all this time had happened.

Firrol returned from downstairs with a scared look on his face, and behind him, Melvin could hear loud, heavy, and frantic steps.

"Fuck!" He uttered, realizing that now was his only chance. If he missed it, he would be fucked, that much he was certain of.

If the bird continued to track his location, then the guards will eventually realize that their strength wasn't up to par, and so the next time they would bring those who will definitely have the ability to easily apprehend him.

"Fuck you bird," He cursed, and with a move of his legs, he charged at him with clenched teeth aware that he will suffer some pain.

The hawk moved its sharp beak with astonishing speed aiming for his throat, but in Melvin's eyes that very fast speed seemed rather slow and avoidable.

With his free left hand, he clutched the hawk's neck, and with lightning speed, he jabbed his dagger into the bird's neck. Witnessing the rich life in its terror-filled eyes, he used more force and dragged his weapon down, subsequently obliterating the bird's neck, and with it ending his life.

[You have killed a Black Ovepir Hawk(Initiate: Rank 9). You have received 3500 XP]

Melvin was slightly startled at how unexpectedly easy it was, but the close footsteps quickly woke him up, so he grabbed the dagger he had thrown previously and bolted toward the rooftops with Firrol following behind.

Once under the vast blue cloud-filled sky once again, the feline jumped on his shoulder with a big piece of meat, and Melvin began his escape once again.

The rooftops of this particular area were very different from the previous ones. The walls were shorter, the rooftops were clearly poorer in quality, messier, smaller, and yet also had more people.

Needless to say, jumping through them proved to be an easy feat for Melvin with his powerful 41 Agility, and so he continued from one roof to the other.

However, there was something that he didn't expect would make things difficult for him, and that was the fact that the people enjoying the sun on their rooftops would always inform the confused guards of his direction whenever he left them behind.

Something he had noticed after the first and second time he lost them, and they still found where he ran away exactly, and though he was more inclined to believe that the bird's death was pointless, Firrol was quick to assure and comfort that it was indeed the people and not some other means.

Still, Melvin was unsure, and with that, he continued running. In this way, he had traversed street after street, through just their rooftops, and because the streets were narrower, he was even able to jump from one row of buildings to the next.

Glancing behind him, he noticed how he had left the guards in the dust long ago, so he quickly studied the rooftop he had just landed in and decided to hide in it.

He removed all of the clothes hung in the drying lines, and piled them into the corner before diving there with the cat and the piece of meat.

Heavily panting under the pile of clothes, Melvin's eyes shone with a cold light.

Even Firrol who was resting beside him noticed the difference in demeanor and he couldn't help but ask, "What is it?"

Waking up from his dead cold reverie, Melvin glanced at him and said, "We'll just continue to hide here for a while," His voice turning slightly chilly he continued, "And if they still managed to find us..."

Understanding what he was thinking about, Firrol asked, "Why didn't you do it before?"

Hearing that question, Melvin became slightly intrigued as to how an intelligent monster might approach the whole concept of morality.

He knew that his feline friend had enough conscience to feel guilty about leaving him to die the last time, so he probed, "Isn't it obvious?"

Firrol easily saw through his motives, and so he chuckled and said, "If you want to know something just ask, no need to play around."

With a faint smile, Melvin whispered, finally remembering that they should be hiding, "Well, would you have killed them even though they were just doing their job?"

"If I was confident I could just run away," Firrol explained, "Then, I wouldn't, but I think like you, if I was cornered then I would do it."

"Would you have found it difficult to do?" Melvin questioned, fascinated.

"Oh yes," Firrol asked as a matter of fact, "I have still grown up among humans, and so I am deeply affected by their ways of thinking. I think even where I used to live was like this, but it's such a long time I could barely remember small things."

'Oh?' Melvin's eyebrows lifted in surprise, "Where is that?" He asked, very interested in the feline's past.

"I don't know the name of the place but that's where I used to live..." Firrol said with a despondent but nostalgic voice, "It's very far away from here."