My Reincarnation as a Chicken

‘We shouldn’t be here. Your sister said we should go back to the cyclops.’

Dharm thought while looking at Ulva. Obviously, the little girl couldn’t understand his thoughts, but he felt he could still warn her.

They both stood in front of the entrance to the Wyvern King’s territory, looking at the line Dharm drew earlier to show them where not to cross. The girl – his captor – was glaring at him while pouting, but he still refused to budge even a single inch.

There was the possibility of her attempting to kill him, but anything was better than facing the Wyvern king. Most humanoids, didn’t know this since their species didn’t have as strict a hierarchy as monsters, but once a monster comes face to face with a king, they are rendered completely useless.

Unless the monster itself was odd, it wouldn’t be able to do anything else other than obey. And here lied the case where this “king” lorded over other kings. Under normal circumstances, this monster would be crowned a Kaiser monster.

To Dharm, who was the merely the lowliest of the low, entering a Kaiser’s territory was a death sentence. The girl, Ulva, was stronger than him for sure, but she had no chance against a kaiser.

The only reason he listened was because the girl’s sister was clearly in a league of her own. The confidence with which she ordered those around her, the absolute certainty in her voice and her eyes. Her spine chilling, mind boggling, breath stealing eyes said it all.

She was a dragon. Most likely a youngling. They were prideful creatures, but had all right to be so. Even Wyvern kings were nothing in the face of a Dragon Youngling. But there was a rumour going about the wyverns.

The kaiser was no longer a wyvern. That made the most sense, as there had never been a wyvern race higher than a wyvern king. In that case, the wyvern kaiser had evolved into something else. No one knew. No one except the kings, that is, but even they refused to speak on the matter entirely.

“Come on, Dharm. We need to prove our usefulness to big sis or we’ll be kicked out.”

She complained in a whiny voice. Dharm looked at her and shook his large head. He was grateful to her for giving him a name and all, but there was no way he was risking his life for her. Especially not after she completely eliminated his friends.

In truth, wyverns didn’t see one another as friends. Mostly a means to an end. This was especially true of Wallcrawler Wyverns. They weren’t the strongest, or smartest or the largest. In fact, all they had going for them was speed and they couldn’t even fly for too long like the others.

So, they grouped up, fought in packs to conquer large prey then share. Dharm and his group thought they stumbled upon dinner, but ended up being dinner instead.

Who would have thought this cute, frail-looking child was actually a monster. Dharm nearly pissed himself when he thought about how blood-crazed she was earlier.

Still, he preferred facing her to the kaiser.

“Dharm, if you don’t take me up the mountain, I’ll cut you down.”

As she said that, the crest on her hand glowed blood red and an onyx black scythe formed up in her hand. He recognised that as the weapon that cut through his allies’ leather scales like a hot knife through butter.

She placed the tip on his forehead, threatening him. Dharm gulped and slowly shook his head.

“Ugh, come on. What’s it going to take ya?”

She withdrew her weapon and sighed, as did Dharm. For a split second, he thought he really was about to lose his life.

“What? You think you can convince him?”

Just as he was thinking he was in the clear, the little girl started to mutter to herself. Something about the situation caused his heart to drop. He was about to bow his head down once more, but then a shadow loomed over him.

The sound of heavy flapping reverberated through the air as another shadow loomed over both of them. Ulva looked up, but Dharm reflexively lowered his gaze. He should have been able to sense their presence a mile away, yet it was only when their shadow was above him could he tell. Why?

The originators of both shadows descended next to the duo, causing a powerful gust. Ulva had to block against it, but Dharm merely tried walking back.

“What’s a pathetic wallcrawler doing here?”

One of the new members asked.

“With a human no less.”

The other added while glaring at Ulva. Dharm didn’t need to lift his head to know who were addressing him. Two of the wyvern kings.

“Speak.”

They ordered and Dharm gulped. He mustn’t act rude in front of a king.

“I-I was hunting her down w-when she ended up h-here. I s-shall leav-”

“Oh, are these your friends, Dharm?”

Ulva noticed that they were having a conversation even though she couldn’t understand them.

“Dharm? You, a weakling, possess a name?”

One of the wyvern lords glared at him. Dharm couldn’t respond and his vision fell to the ground.

“He’s been tamed by a human. How pathetic.”

“At least, he can be a light snack for Mandrake.”

“Eek!”

At the prospect of him being sacrificed to the wyvern kaiser, Dharm shrieked and backed up. They were going to kill him simply because they were jealous of the fact that he had a name.

He could try to run away right now, but they’d only catch up to him eventually. They were stronger and bigger and the only way he could escape was if he had a distraction.

“I don’t understand what’s going on, but you made Dharm scared. I don’t like it when someone makes my friends scared.”

A distraction presented itself in the form of a young child with dark and white hair. Her scythe stabbed the ground and even from behind the mask she wore, the blood lust her face radiated was undeniably visible.

This was Dharm’s chance to run. He slowly took some steps back as Ulva marched forward, spinning her scythe around.

“Insolent brat!”

One of the wyverns who felt insulted by Ulva’s bold actions raged. He opened his maw to let out a red-hot-flames at the girl and that was when Dharm turned around to run at full speed.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The other wyvern king questioned, freezing Dharm in his steps. The little wyvern turned about and shook his head.

“If you move, I will eat you myself. Now watch as your master burns.”

With that warning, Dharm stood still. He turned about and looked at Ulva’s fight against the wyvern king, paralysed with fear.

The girl, Ulva had dodged the fire breath and was already closing the distance between her and the wyvern king. He swung his tail at her but she merely jumped to avoid it and was hit by the wyvern’s wing instead.

The king turned around sluggishly and fired another breath attack at her, but the girl had already recovered and was on the move once again. She shot ice daggers at the wyvern king, but all of these things were useless as they couldn’t even penetrate his iron hard scales.

The wyvern glared at her then jumped at her with a speed so frightening for a creature its size, she was caught off guard. His claws came down with the intent to kill and smashed down into the ground, almost catching her.

However, it missed by an inch. The shockwave of the attack however, was strong enough to send her flying. She hit the chest of the wyvern then fell to the ground with a thud.

Dharm knew she was no match for the wyvern kings. There was a reason they lorded over the mountains. Right now, all he could do was simply watch her as she struggled.

That is, till his eyes crossed path with hers. A small part of her mask had been broken, revealing her blood red eyes. She was looking at him, evidently asking for help.

Dharm chose to ignore this and look at the wyvern king. The wyvern king hadn’t used any of his skills in this fight, yet he had completely overwhelmed her with raw strength and speed.

The girl struggled to get up, but from the looks of it, something in her body was broken. He wasn’t sure, but he knew that if she continued something bad would happen. Still, he couldn’t interfere.

She rolled over to avoid the next stomp, this time she was right under the wyvern king’s belly. She took out a purple vial from nowhere, then drank it. As soon as she did that, it seemed like she received strength from nowhere.

Her scythe went swinging, piercing through the wyvern king’s under belly. Dharm’s eyes widened in shock. It was a turn around he hadn’t seen coming.

If she managed to actually get his heart, then she’d win this, no?

At least, that was what he thought, but the scythe wouldn’t move no matter how much she struggled. The stabbed wyvern king looked down at her quizzically then laughed. He grabbed her then threw her away, clearly unfazed by his wound.

“If striking my underbelly was the way to kill me, I’d have been dead ages ago.”

He boasted then marched towards her as she laid on the ground, almost unconscious. Dharm looked away from the scene, aware of what was going to happen to her. It’s not that he cared about her, it was more like a reminder of what was about to happen to him so he didn’t want to see.

“Even Krollos didn’t come out to fight? I guess no matter what she did, she wouldn’t have been able to beat the wyvern. Saves me the trouble when I’m teaching her from now on, I guess.”

A new human voice spoke. When he opened his eyes, standing his side with crossed arms and an annoyed expression, it was the man dressed in all black called Grimm.

‘W-When did he-?!’

“Sorry, that’s a weird thing to say when your student is about to die. It’s just that she’s been craving battle but doesn’t want to learn anything about magic or actual fighting techniques, so I thought this fight would knock her down a peg or two.”

‘What’s he talking about?’

The other wyvern king finally noticed Grimm’s presence and roared at him.

“But… I don’t think I can take on two wyverns easily. I’ll be counting on you.”

As Grimm said this, he walked forward, chanting something. He drew two daggers from his pocket. The atmosphere turned ice cold and Dharm could feel himself getting sluggish.

If there was one thing Dharm gathered from that, it was Grimm wasn’t asking. It was an order given with all seriousness. Grimm, would kill him if he didn’t obey. The wyverns were going to feed him to the wyvern kaiser. Ulva would kill him if she survived this and her sister would kill him for bringing her back.

It all ended with death for Dharm.

So what was he going to do about it?

___________________

“Hand over the loli.”

I requested, but the yellow man just kept muttering to himself. In this situation, I didn’t want to attack first since I knew absolutely nothing about him, but from the looks of things he wasn’t going to strike first.

I took in a big gulp and steeled myself for the clash. In a split second, I charged right at him then slashed. Surprisingly enough, my attack actually landed on his arm. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t cause significant damage.

Rather, the moment I cut him, he tried to bite me. Abandoning my sword to save myself, I tried to go around and grab Arisu from the chain, but she only grunted in pain when I tried to move her.

Mine was already on the attack after that and he tried to slash at me with his sharp claws. A shadow fiend appeared before me, tanking the blow for me and giving me the chance to test out something Kira came up with.

Sure, I couldn’t see his stats, but if I used [Skill Alchemy], I could probably perform a random combination that made his skills useless.

I activated it and worked as fast as I could with the shadow fiend keeping the yellow man down using all sorts of barbaric attacks. We worked as fast as we could, but that backfired on us instead.

[An external force is affecting the composition of your skills]

[The skill [Climbing] has been converted to [Walking]]

[The skill [Undying] has been deactivated]

[The skill [Relentless] cannot be found]

[The skill [Evasion] has been downgraded to [Dodging]]

‘WHAT!?’

‘How!?’

‘I-Is he u-using some s-skill against us!?’

‘It’s so efficient!’

<<He’s using the skill [Skill Alchemy] against us>>

‘Using our skill against us?’

‘How?’

‘He can steal skills?’

‘Or borrow them?’

‘T-That’s just like Remorse.’

‘Well two can play at this ga-‘

<<That is unadvisable as we do not know what kind of skills he possesses. And considering you both have a similar skill and his can affect you, that would mean it’s of a higher value than yours>>

‘Of a higher value?’

‘Remorse is a unique skill!’

‘The only thing that is higher than that is…’

‘A-an U-U-U-Ultimate skill!’