My Reincarnation as a Chicken

The leaves on the tree rustled gently in the hot afternoon sun. Under one of the trees, a young man rested with his arms folded. The bangs of his blonde hair covered his eyes, providing a bit more shade to his eyes. The scent of something cooking wafted through the air and tickled his nose and roused his stomach.

His eyes opened slowly and were met with sunlight piercing through the gaps in the trees. He sat still, just looking up at the sky in thought for a second, before a smile crept onto his face. Quickly, he jumped up and made his way towards the camp site.

It was a good 5-minute walk to the campsite, way shorter if he decided to run. He was only able to smell the food due to his high sensitivity he had built up as an adventurer. He chose the distance since it would allow him to react to any form of danger with the party members in time, while allowing him enough break time from the members. He usually did this whenever his party set up camp. This was his own way of clearing his thoughts and thinking about the party’s next steps. Although technically, he wasn’t the group leader anymore.

‘Gotta stop thinking about those things.’

He reminded himself yet again as he scratched his head. He put his hand to his chin the moment he realised he was grinning. Sometimes his body would unconsciously do that and he would need to correct it. It was just something that he had been ever since he was forced to survive on the streets.

After sometime walking, he made it to the camp. The mood in the camp was as deplorable as ever. It was basically divided into two groups. To the right were people dressed in ceremonial garments that were native to the Kyoto Empire and to the left were a bunch of rough looking adventurers. The members to the left were the Kazoku of the Elder clans, whereas to the right was a party that called themselves The Hero Party.

Marcus moved to the centre, where there was a camp fire brewing with a pot of stew over it. The one cooking this was a young woman with a tiny frame. Her brown hair was messy and short, covering the sides of her face with two feline ears popping up from the top. She was Mika, a Cat person.

She tasted the stew and smiled.

“Yosh! This is good!”

“Really? Let me have a taste.”

Marcus walked towards the stew, ignoring the tension almost completely. Out of everyone, Marcus was the only one who felt no tension. No. Rather than say he felt no tension, it would be more appropriate to say he decided to ignore it.

He grabbed the ladle from Mika and tasted it himself. The stew had a fishy scent to it as well as a salty taste. The vegetables in it were charred, giving it a sort of crispy feel, like someone were eating tasteless biscuits. To the normal person, this was nothing more than crap.

“This is really good. You’re getting better. Keep at it.”

To Marcus, it was good food. Certainly, a decade ago, he wouldn’t have ever claimed that such an abomination was good, but circumstances forced him to change. The members of the Hero Party stared at the stew suspiciously, completely aware of Mika’s bad cooking. They would have preferred if someone else did the cooking, but given the nature of their mission, the only one with time to prepare food for everyone was Mika. Also, it wouldn’t do well to make her sad in such times.

“Um, we’ve only got five bowls, so I guess I’ll serve the kids first.”

Mika suggested, taking out bowls from the bag next to her.

“No one’s got a problem with that, right?”

Mika asked to make sure there were no issues with what she was about to do. Marcus gave her his thumbs up of approval, being the first one to agree.

“Sure. I’ll go patrol the area a bit.”

The blonde elf got up, saying she would go survey the area. Of course, there was no need to do this since they had already searched this area to make sure it was safe. Even Marcus had just returned from checking for enemies, but Celica just wanted an excuse to leave.

“I’ll come with.”

The big man suggested. Celica replied with a simple “Humph” flicking her hair to show complete disinterest. This however backfired and a smug expression wormed itself onto Daryl’s face. He grabbed her and put her on his shoulder like he usually did.

“Wha-?! D-Daryl!”

She cried out, but he put his finger to his lips, suggesting that she lowered her voice. She turned her blushing face away while muttering some inaudible words. The pair left off in a cheery mood.

“What about you, Nika?”

Marcus asked the hooded cat girl who leaned against a tree. She shrugged and looked away.

“Hey, here you go.”

Mika had already started serving the stew. The cautious kids just looked at the bowl, refusing to touch it.

“Come on, guys. Mimi put in a lot of effort into this.”

Marcus sat down and yawned.

“Tch. Who are you guys?”

The girl with silvery blue hair repeated the question she had been asking since she woke up. She had been feeling irritated and if not for her companions she would have already started fighting to get satisfactory answers.

“We’re the Hero Party. I’ve said this countless times already.”

Marcus responded with a condescending tone while picking his nose. He was clearly bored by the question she kept asking him over and over again. But to Kana, his answer was always stupid. What was this “Hero Party” he spoke of? Was she supposed to know about it? What happened the night before? Why were they out here?

So many questions flooded her brain and she felt like she would lose it at any point. There was a limit to how much patience a member of the Taira Clan possessed and Kana was very well proving that she had the highest tolerance level of any Taira clan member.

“I think what my companion means to say is, why are we here?”

Akari, restraining Kana’s movement by her arm asked. Akari’s voice sounded calm and friendly, but only an unexperienced fool wouldn’t notice the danger in his eyes. Sweat drops were starting to appear on Marcus’ forehead, but he decided to not show his slowly increasing fear.

“Like I said already, we saved you guys last night.”

“Saved us from what?”

“W-Well, I can’t tell you all that yet.”

“Why not?”

“Let go of me, Akari. Imma rip him anew.”

Kana spoke in her native tongue, since she wasn’t in the mood to communicate any further with Marcus. Akari sent their head closer to Kana’s and whispered in her head.

“Just relax a bit. We need more information before we dispose of them.”

“Huh… I may not be fluent with the Kyoto tongue, but I know the words for interrogation and disposal…”

Marcus was feeling awkward now. Due to his naturally high perception abilities, he overheard Akari’s whisper. When he looked at Akari’s smile, there was something that suggested that Marcus was supposed to hear that. He was finally starting to feel overwhelmed by the entire situation.

‘I can’t deal with her type.’

He thought to himself, looking for a way to escape the situation.

SLURP

The sounds of stew being swallowed entered everyone’s ears. They looked to source, and sitting down sucking the stew voraciously was Daisuke. After his first gulp, he dropped the bowl.

“That was refreshing. Thank you for the meal!”

Daisuke folded his arms and bowed to Mika, praising her for her cooking abilities.

“Right? Right? Mika’s a real good cook, right?”

Marcus found an escape root in Daisuke.

“Yes. The stew was absolutely excellent. Come on you two, try it.”

Daisuke beckoned them over. Akari and Kana looked at each other then sighed. They had given up and instead decided to just go with the flow for now. They didn’t have their weapons and their enemies were an unknown quantity. They had no idea where they were or how far they were from home and worse of all, they could not remember the incidents from the night before. They only remembered meeting up, introducing themselves and getting along, but the specifics were not there.

They both sat down on the dirty floor and took the bowls before them.

“I-I’m not that good a cook.”

Mika apologised in advance, making the two feel suspicious. For some reason, they felt like Daisuke and Marcus’ recommendations.

Hesitantly, they took a lick of the paste and immediately spat it out.

“Yeah, that’s the reaction I expected. Enjoy.”

Mika told them before serving herself and Marcus. Kana was holding herself back from pouncing on the cat girl.

This all stopped when a portal opened up just behind Marcus. The young man slid away and grabbed his sword, Crooked Dainsleif, a large rusty looking claymore and pointed it at the portal. From it, a young man emerged. This young man had dark skin with silver short-cut spiky hair. His steely gaze scanned the surroundings, assessing the situation within seconds.

Marcus’ years as an adventurer put him on edge when he saw this. This man gave him similar vibes to the one man Marcus held in high esteem. He was similar to Hiro Tatsumaki in terms of aura.

The new-comer pointed a device at Marcus’ head. The device was an odd one, quite the rare sight given how difficult it was to maintain and produce, although its fire power was to die for. It was a gun, if Marcus remembered right. It looked different from the one he had seen before. This one was short, almost palm-sized. It was made with a golden metal with some inscriptions on it.

“W-Who are you?”

Marcus asked immediately. He had been informed that he would be receiving company, but that informant also told him that he could run into enemies at any point.

“Are you the Hero Party?”

The intruder asked emotionlessly with a cold glare.

“Depends on who’s asking.”

“Seiko Sotomura of the Sotomura Clan. Are you Marcus Boulderdane?”

After hearing the name, Marcus' hold on his sword loosened. His face softened and relaxed smile managed to form on his face.

"Oh, the guy we're supposed to meet."

"Where is the little princess?"

Seiko, without even dropping his gun for a second asked. Marcus gestured to the tent behind the kazoku. The others looked at Seiko suspiciously. He couldn't blame them, since he'd never met any of them before neither had they seen him. He was supposed to be a secret, but his name suddenly popped up at the beginning of the year when the [Grand Priestess] in the Mexar Empire divined that he was a paladin.

Still, they had found a way to curb the information spread, allowing for him to travel with a certain level of freedom and anonymity.

Slowly, he stalked towards the tent, not letting his guard down for even a second. Kana stepped up in front of the tent, not trusting Seiko to enter.

Daisuke grabbed her shoulder and shook his head. Clicking her tongue, Kana backed down.

"You know, there's been rumours that the Tatsumaki Clan had been working on a secret project."

The one to say this was Akari, who had a cold gaze directed towards Seiko. Seiko had Akari at the back of his mind as the most dangerous out of those present, but decided to not show it.

"In their secret laboratory gods-know-where, I heard they'd used countless humans and monsters for experiments. Horrible inhumane methods, all to create the perfect human. Is that true?"

Seiko didn't even give Akari a glance, but rather proceeded to open the tent. What he found caused his eyes to widen. There was nothing but jewelries in the tent.

He looked back at Marcus and put his hand on the trigger, causing the gun to whiz with power.

"Where is she?"

"What?"

A confused Marcus asked with his arms up.

"Where is the ojou-san?"

"O-Ojo-san? W-what is tha- Oh, you mean the one called Shiro?"

"What are you talking about? She's sleeping right there?"

Kana angrily barked at Seiko. He didn't spare her a glance, but rather kept his focus on Marcus.

"If she's there, please explain to me why there's an empty tent."

"Huh? Empty tent?"

Everyone was confused. They looked at the tent and rushed towards it. It was only Marcus, Mika and Nika who stood, frozen at their original locations.

The blood drained from the faces of the Kazoku when they saw the empty tent.

"T-That's impossible. She was here just a second ago, I swear."

"Then care to explain what happened to her?"

Just as they were talking, there was a thunderous explosion in some distance. When Marcus looked, his mind immediately noticed that that was the direction Celica and Daryl went in. He knew for a fact none of those two had such firepower in their arsenal, unless they were carrying explosives on their bodies.

"Mika. Nika."

His voice was different from how it usually was. Without a care for the fact that Seiko had pointed his gun at him, he attempted to run.

Marcus would find out that move was one of his worst mistakes once he heard the gun shot.

<A/N: Please leave a comment or review to help in getting more readers! Also join the discord here: https://discord.gg/Ew44jhbVym or message me on discord here: Rados47#5271 to get invited>