Chapter 4: Winner winner chicken dinner

The baby chick lunges forwards, beak open.

I leap to the side and rake my claws over one of its wings, drawing thin lines of blood. It puts a grin to see my hard work pay off. Who said mandrakes can’t fight?

The beast speeds past me, rounds a tree and comes back for more. I’m sure that it was wounded but I can’t see much of that. With adrenaline pumping through its veins it probably doesn’t feel the pain.

It closes in for another exchange. Like before I move out of the way before it can take a bite out of me. But this time it expected that to happen. It follows my movements and pecks into my shoulder tearing roots apart.

Quickly, it gobbles up the several pieces it managed to tear off my body. The Cokoca’s eyes widen in joy, as it tastes the sweet golden sap that must be my blood.

Anxiously, I pull my menu up, looking at how much damage that did. It doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. However, I still rather not get pecked at again.

HP: 13/15

It can be worse but it will not let it happen again.

The Cokoca retreats and prepares for another dash. Before it does it sizes me up again, not as an enemy but as a tasty snack. Already the bird is salivating after having a single bite.

Why can’t I be a monster that tastes bad?

The bird goes far enough to bob its head up and down in happiness as it savours the aftertaste of my flesh.

I quiver with rage. It is one thing to be a mandrake that can be used in thousands of types of potions. It’s a whole other thing when a bird rips off a piece of you and has decided that you are delicious. I swear, I will turn that bird into pillow stuffing.

The Cokoca walks towards me and starts to speed up, beak aiming for my head this time.

I can’t keep evading it like a mad bull. It is time to ride this rodeo.

The Cokoca lunges forwards when it's close enough. I step back making it overreach and topple forwards.

In that moment of confusion, I jump on its back and wrap my arms around the monster’s neck.

Panicked, it starts to flail around, trying to dislodge me.

Seeing that it doesn’t work, the monster stands up and speeds through the forest, trying to shake me off its back, all while I keep pressing its windpipe shut, slowly choking the bird to death.

After a good dozen paces, it arrives at the conclusion that this doesn’t work either. Like an owl its head turns around 180 degrees, facing me with wrath burning in its eyes.

The Cokoca viciously pecks holes into my body, making golden sap spill out. It almost looks smug as it looks at the wounds it carved into me.

I let go of its neck with one hand, opting to use it to give the stupid bird a well-deserved beating.

It lunges for an attack but receives a kiss from my fist instead. The monster looks surprised that I hit it.

I don’t give the bird time to collect itself as I start to pommel it punch after punch.

After a second moment of surprise, it shrieks in anger. The Cokoca chirps in rage as it begins to thrash on the ground again.

I don’t give in and resume pressing its windpipe shut with both my hands.

The beast takes off in a new direction again, having found that flailing on the ground like a petulant child doesn’t work for a second time. it makes a sharp turn that almost throws me off.

It almost slips on the grass when it takes another sharp turn. I take the moment to knit my fingers tight around its neck, forcing it fully shut. Almost immediately the Cokoca starts to wheeze and gasp for air.

In a last attempt to get free, it sprints towards the base of a tree, planning to crash into it.

There isn’t enough time to choke the beast to death before it hits the tree, and I don’t think I have enough health to survive something like that.

A new Idea comes to my mind. With one hand I let go of its neck and grab its head. The other follows and soon enough I am holding onto its head with both hands.

I start to twist and twist as if its neck is a lid on a pot. As those things are, some lids don’t want to come off, and neither does this neck want to break.

It lets out a victorious screech as it crashes into the tree. The impact of it reverberates through my body, and for a second I am back on Earth, feeling the car slam into me.

Dark spots fill my vision and I hear the voices of pedestrians scream in the back of my mind. For a moment think that this all truly was something conjured up by my dying brain, but the screeches of the Cokoca draw me back to the fight.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Dream or not, this bird is gonna die.

Somehow my hands remain wrapped around its head, making it unable to turn around and peck my eyes out.

I continue with the plan, applying force to the lid. I feel it groan and begin to slide loose. With a crack and a pop it opens and I am rewarded with my first level in this world.

*You have slain [Fledgling orange Cokoca] lvl 3/5 (I).

*Congratulations. You have gained a level. You are now level 1.

+2 HP +1 SP +1 Constitution +1 Endurance.

I shrug off the notifications and pull up my health and stamina

HP: 4/17

SP: 5/11

Oh, that’s bad.

I free myself from the corpse and force myself to look at its neck and what I did to it. The monster already had a flexible neck, being able to turn its head like an owl’s. But now it is even more flexible. The head of the Cokoca is turned 360 degrees, facing forwards again. It lays limp on the ground in a heap as if it alone crashed into a tree at tremendous speed.

I kneel down and observe it all close. I did this. I will have to do this again if I want to grow stronger. Again, again, again, if I want to grow and become the strongest. And already I just feel nothing as if killing a monster, a being that has shown a certain measure of intelligence, able to come up with new plans to shake me off, even if they all didn’t work in the end, is just another day.

And with the system, who knows what it might have become? Perhaps I just killed a future dragon.

I feel nothing but a certain satisfaction in my heart. I won this fight, I survived and my opponent didn’t. Now I am stronger than ever.

Sparing one last glance at my defeated opponent, I head home, having had enough for the day.

I need to head home fast it is midday already and I still have a long way to walk back. Besides that, both my resource pools are quite low. So, if another Cokoca decides to jump out of a tree and tries to land on me, I’m done for.

I keep track of my resources and see that my health drops by one point. I look at the bleeding holes in my body, slowly knitting themselves back together, even so, it’s best to not move during the process. I don’t want to tear open my wounds by moving

After heading towards the nearest tree that has the same tone as my mandrake body, I blend in with the tree and begin the wait to regenerate my resources.

In my mind, I go over the fight. While I’m still satisfied, I almost died to a fledgling bird. This just hammers home how weak I actually am.

Let’s see, what went wrong first. Obviously, I let that damn bird almost fall on top of me. That would have certainly ended in my death. So from now on, I need to keep my eyes on the treetops too so that no suicidal Cokocas fling themselves at me. The second thing I could have done better was to opt for breaking its neck sooner. That should’ve ended the fight sooner rather than almost too late.

Maybe I can also practice more with Body of Roots outside of fighting. The claws have shown promise but they aren’t sharp enough to cut through ordinary flesh, let alone flesh that has been system enhanced if stats work like this.

I open up my menu and look at my current stats.

Strength: 3

Agility: 2

Perception: 2

Constitution: 4

Endurance: 4

Mind: 1

It looks balanced enough for now. Though, if I only keep getting Constitution and Endurance it will become bad, I think? How do the stats even work? Are they a static improvement, or are they logarithmic? Does one point in Strength make it that I can lift one more kilo?

These are questions I have to figure out eventually. You have to know the rules of the game to be able to win. This world is the same; know how the system operates and plan accordingly.

I close my eyes and take a steady breath. Just a bit longer and I will resume the track back home, just a few more points of health and I will move.

***

What should’ve been a few minutes turned out to be a good portion of an hour. I spent a bit too much time waiting for everything to regenerate. When I was finally ready to leave, a few creatures found the body of the Cokoca. Some weird walking bird that vaguely resembled a Kiwi started to suck the blood out of the corpse with its needle-like beak. Not long after a rat two times my size popped appeared and also wanted a piece of the pie.

Both fought and the Kiwi began to lose. In anger that it couldn’t have the bird, it decided that no one could have it.

In less than a second it began tearing the body apart, throwing bloody chunks of meat all around. The smell of blood and the promise of food attracted more creatures, turning it into a showdown that more and more monsters joined.

Before the worst of it, I managed to sneak away and flee the growing carnage.

So now I’m sprinting towards my home, hoping that whatever lurks around at night isn’t awake yet and isn’t looking for a tasty vegetable snack to start its day.

My heart, or whatever I have in my chest, that pumps my blood, pounds painfully with each beat. I let a pained gasp as warm air escapes my lungs.

I hate running.

The last rays of sunlight peek over the horizon before vanishing too. The forest has already descended into the eerie silence that arrives before the darkness does.

In the distance, I spot my tree, slide into the tunnel and pack as much dirt as I can into the passageway.

When I hear a cacophony of screams not far away, I halt in my tracks. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that the owner of the eldritch cry doesn’t come this way.

My prayer gets rewarded with a silence that seems to stretch on for several hours.

I relax and get into my most comfortable yoga position. I should get a skill for this if that is how it works. Something like Amazing Acrobatics.

Anyway, today was certainly interesting. I had a peaceful walk and tried to choke a baby bird to death. When that didn’t work I broke its neck. Well, who cares anyway. It is not that papa and momma bird will seek revenge…I jinxed it now, didn’t I? Damn.

I push the thoughts of birds as large as aeroplanes descending from the sky, grabbing me off the ground and stuffing me into a cauldron to make a potion of resurrection to resurrect their now-dead child out of my mind.

Instead, I focus on other things like the fact that I still haven’t eaten anything since I’ve been granted my second life in this world. I do feel a bit parched so tomorrow I’ll go look around the stream for a bit to get some water. Maybe I can even find that blue beetle. It must be an easy target once I evolve. Or I can go after that stupid orange lizard.

So much to kill and so little time. I find a comfortable position as I drift away towards a dreamless sleep while I think of everything I left behind and what I will become in this world, already hating myself for taking the life of something clearly intelligent. And yet I can’t help myself. With great strength on the horizon, I just find myself moving towards it, no matter how much I want to refuse.