My Reincarnation as a Chicken

Once things calmed down, Malius took charge and ordered up some fiends to clean up the mess I had made.

"I-I apologise on behalf of my comrades for showing such disrespect!"

He bowed down and shook, with sweat streaking down his face. I wanted to say I didn't like this feeling of superiority I was feeling, but that would be a lie. I was starting to love it.

"Don't worry about it."

I patted him on the back, prompting him to straighten up and clear his throat.

"What now?"

I asked while awkwardly looking at the others. The cloaked one picked up the owl and attempted to help it stand while looking at me cautiously.

"Shall we head inside to talk? Higher ranked devils could try to interrupt us out here."

Understanding his point, I shrugged and followed after him. We hurriedly headed into the shack, which was actually just an elevator that took us down while playing some godawful music for more than 5 minutes.

'How long does this thing go?'

I wondered while just standing, bored out of my mind. Malius must have noticed this because he started to speak.

"It actually doesn't take even a minute to get down. The music just plays on the passenger's perspective of time and traps them in a mental loop in which they just keep going down and down for all of eternity. Devils are especially susceptible to this because of how we view the world, but it loses its effectiveness once you figure it out. This is one of the many traps we keep in case we are invaded."

'W-What the hell?'

The thought that if only they hadn't attacked me on the surface, that could have been me made me shudder.

DING!

The elevator door opened up and they walked out. I followed closely behind and was met with the scene of a giant underground workshop. It was easily three times as large as one of my dungeon floors, and filled with multiple fiends working on different things, as well as screens and wires.

I couldn't really explain it well, but this was like a secret government facility. Two fat fiends rolled up to us with some papers, and the cloaked devil took the papers from the fiends.

"Fiddlesticks… We'll need to send an expedition team to the fifth ring for more Divinium. Hopefully Lord Abbadon is feeling generous. Get some scorpios in on that."

'Fiddlesticks?'

"Fucking scorpios won't do if we need more Divinium. We'll have to personally go get some. All because of this fucking devil peer."

The owl cursed me right in my face while looking at the papers. Malius went towards them and took a look at the papers as well.

"Oh dear… can we not just manage the amount of Divinium we possess?"

"Impossible."

The cloaked devil completely rejected Malius' idea.

"With the amount left, we'd be lucky to keep operations running until the next sandstorm."

"This is why I told you shits to get some more Divinium, but nooo, that's just being greedy, Atlas. Fucking retards."

The owl scoffed and flew away. The cloaked devil just sighed.

"Suspend current use of divinium cores on the scorpios and redirect all power to the barrier. Shut down any project that requires divinium apart from maintaining power and the barrier, and make it so Arch Devils can't shatter it so easily."

Both fiends gargled some sounds out, then rolled away. Confused, I looked at Malius for an explanation. He scratched his cheek and then looked at the cloaked devil. The cloaked devil looked at Malius, then at me. And we looked at one another for a few more minutes.

Malius eventually led us to a room where we could sit down to talk.

We sat down for 10 more minutes with zero conversation, just looking at one another with intense gazes, before the cloaked devil finally had enough.

"I can't deal with this anymore! Explain what in huffletuck is going on here, Mali!"

The cloaked devil slammed down on the table, huffing heavy breaths. That clearly took more from her than anything else.

"Oh, sorry. I forgot to do that. This is an Arch Devil I met while searching for scrap in the Red-Light Slums. I assumed I could harvest some of her body parts, but that failed badly, and here we are."

'Is this guy actually an air head?'

Even the cloaked devil was shocked by his brazenness.

"A-Anyway. Welcome to our home."

Malius said, gesturing to our surroundings. The feeling of numerous malicious gazes piercing me was far too annoying to be ignored. I had to do something about it. Maybe killing a few of them would put them in their place.

"Ah… right. Hello there, great devil peer. Welcome to our humble abode. My name is Pai, scientific genius and hopelessly charming Chief of Operations. You are already acquainted with sweet Malius, and then there's our adorable Atlas."

The cloaked devil – Pai – gave me some introductions, throwing me off my original plan.

"You call that owl, cute? With that tongue, he wouldn't even pass for a high schooler."

"You can understand him?"

Malius asked. I tilted my head.

"Is... that an actual question?"

"Yes. Atlas just "hoots". The only one that understands him is Pai, and even she doesn't understand his words all the time."

"Hmm, must have something to do with being such a high-ranking devil. I wish I could perform some experiments on you."

Pai suddenly popped up behind me, scanning my back. She lifted my arm up and monitored my sides, observing me from head to toe without leaving a nook or cranny.

"May I ask why you are so calm?"

She asked me after returning to her seat.

"You want me to be violent?"

"What circle were you born in?"

"Uuuh… an egg?"

"Do you feel like you lost something?"

"Sort of…?"

"I see. Then you're just like the former members of the Ars Goetia. Judging from the fact that you still have so much power, you must have been one of the higher ranking ones."

She started to explain something completely wrong. It was the exact thing Malius assumed once he got a good look at me. I was almost curious about this Ars Goetia group, but not curious enough to waste time on it.

"I don't care about this Ars Goetia thing or whatever. I… I just need to figure out why I'm here first."

That was a problem I hadn't given much thought to. Alpha sent me to hell for a mission, but I had zero memories of that discussion or what my objective here was.

This was the very definition of flying in blind.

"You can stay with us till you regain your memories… however, I wish to run some tests with you first."

_______________________

The East of Larm, Krull's Fortress

"The Tyrant, Sora, has agreed to my earlier proposal. The West must have angered him for him to change his mind.

Karon, the young ogre, told his father who was simply slumped down on the throne. Looking at the kind of state his father was in, he couldn't help but feel enraged.

"My trip to the Demise Mountains proved fruitful. I managed to find the Renegade Martial Master and he trained me for a month. I was excited to tell you all of my tales."

He spoke, trying to get some sort of reaction from his father, who had failed to get the attention of this Martial Master once before. However, when he looked into his father's eyes, all he could see was an empty husk of a man.

"So… can you imagine how I felt when I returned, only to find out that you let them take not one, but both of my sisters?"

Karon angrily punched the ground, cracking it.

"Speak! What the hell have you been doing for these past two months since I left, huh?!"

The young ogre regained his composure then scoffed after failing to get a rise out of his father.

"And that little entitled brat. Betraying this family for the enemy? I always saw her as someone to be protected, so I tried my best to keep her safe."

Karon reminisced about the old days when Kara was younger. She was always weaker than the others, but she did possess a talent none of them had. And that was her brains and the odd ability to sometimes divine the future.

The latter ability reminded him of his mother so much, he felt like she really was the last living memory of his mother. While their father didn't care much for her existence, he cherished her and tried his best to make her happy.

"With her recent actions, I'm forced to brand her as a traitor. Same for the other ingrate."

He went through the trouble of killing every single ogre in the fortress to spare her life, yet she so willingly abandoned the East for the West? Such fickleness couldn't stand by him.

Both sisters had betrayed their family and would be killed for it.

'Then again, Kala is still a child. Maybe if I just punish her, she'll regain her senses.'

He had decided. He would only kill one and spare the other.

'Her body is weak, so she might die from the punishment… so be it then.'

The results of the punishment would determine whether she stayed alive or dead. He simply gave her a chance at living, so he felt it was now up to her.

"Oi, you. Troll king."

Karon pointed at the red troll that was standing in the back quietly.

"Second boss?"

"Get the trolls ready. And march on to the other ogre camps my father hasn't brought under his direct rule yet. Gather their strongest and have them prepare to be picked up by griffins and wyverns from the North. Do so quickly. Also, don't forget to wipe out all the remaining orcs and kobolds in the East. We need to send a message. You can take Storm Fyre too, if you want. He's been itching to kill off late."

Karon said a lot of things and he personally doubted Zod was smart enough to have picked up on everything he said. However, he didn't care.

If anything at all resonated with the troll, it was the order to kill. Trolls liked to commit such violent acts, so that was no problem.

The next problem was how he could get Sora to keep an alliance with the East after the war. He personally knew, after going to the North, that the East was just a bunch of fodder. Especially when they lost to even weaker creatures in the West.

'Ah… what should I do, mother? This family's a mess without you.'

________________________

Back in Alpha's Domain,

"I tried readjusting the soul frequency, so when you return to hell, some devils will recognise you, but that skill thoroughly rewrote your very being."

Alpha said while tinkering with a slimy black blob.

"Is that so? I don't mind that to be honest."

The blob responded to her.

"No one will recognise you, you know?"

"That doesn't matter to me. The only reason I went to hell in the first place was to acquire the [Akashic Records]. I was always going to leave that place eventually. This just makes things easier."

"Well, if that's what you want. Get the birdbrain to finish this quickly. One month will be over soon and I won't be able to send her back to hell after this."