My Reincarnation as a Chicken

I opened my eyes to find myself standing in the palm of a giant ethereal being, glaring at me with golden eyes. Confused, I tried to get a better look at my surroundings, but the being was the only thing around.

I scratched my head and heaved a sigh.

“What do you want, big guy?”, at this point, I had grown bored of meeting all of these higher entities. They were being a real pain in my ass. For once, couldn’t they all just leave me alone? I was just a high schooler, why do they all keep jumping to talk to me or have me do their dirty work?

“What is it you desire?”, oddly enough, this one claimed to not have a job for me, but rather wanted me to tell him what I wanted.

“Eh? Me?”

He didn’t respond, but the silence was more than enough proof that he was referring to me. For some reason unknown to me, this entity felt homely and trustworthy.

Now, when someone asked what you desired, they could be referring to favours, errands or items. In terms of questions, this was vague, yet I understood what exactly he was talking about.

My lips turned upwards as I shrugged and responded to him.

“Everything.”, when faced with this question, a lot of things came to mind. Wealth, power, fame, more subordinates, or embarrassingly enough, love, were among the things I immediately thought of. So, to me the answer here was obvious. “I want absolutely everything! If you can give me that, I don’t mind doing you a favour or two.”

He didn’t respond to me. He faded into the darkness and I lost consciousness. In the next second, my eyes snapped open and I was in dark, cramped spot. Something about my current situation felt nostalgic.

Just then, I heard some beeping sounds.

[System version 1.0 + 2.0 boot up… successful]

[System administrator(s): Alpha (Lead), Beta (Assistant)

[Loading system screen for display… loaded]

[Displaying message from Administrator Alpha]

[Congratulations on your evolution! I didn’t think you’d choose this one, but I guess a greedy bastard like you really does want it all. It makes some sort of sense why you were the highest rated specimen from your class.

I’m not one for long sentimental messages like this, but this is going to be the last update you’ll receive for the system. Naturally, that means this is the last time we’ll interact… probably.

Yep, the system is finally done, so I can go on to do other things in life… don’t say something snarky. Anyway, I didn’t input in the patch updates because, well, you’ll figure everything out. I even made the system far less convoluted because you don’t use any of the stuff I give you.

If you ever need help… don’t ask me. I’m not around or particularly interested in your life. Oh yeah, one last piece of advice from your favourite system master. Don’t trust that guy or you will really die for good.]

…

Huh?

“Well, she does possess some essence of Lady Hinotori in her, after all.”

HUH!?

“You… when did you get pregnant?”

HUUUUUHHHHHHH!!!!!???????

After being abandoned by the system master, I heard some odd sentences from the outside of my case. The voices sounded very familiar. Krull and Diane. And given this very odd combination of people, I had to scan the outside to see who it was and saw Kara in Krull’s grip.

Ah… I finally get it now.

So, here’s the state of things.

I wake in the palm of some unknown being asking to grant me a wish. Then I receive news from Alpha that she’s given me the final system and we might never talk again. Following up, I overhear a conversation between an unlikely duo about my essence being in Kara. Now, it didn’t take a genius to figure out how or why that happened.

But this is in no way how I expected the situation to be the moment I woke up. In the first place, what the hell was Krull doing here?

Tch. I need to catch a break.

***

“You guys are really annoying, you know?”

Krull froze.

“This isn’t how I wanted to find out I was going to be a parent… again.”, as the voice continued, the heavier the atmosphere became. To the point that Krull was starting to feel the urge to run away with his tail tucked between his legs. “She was supposed to be like ‘I’m pregnant!’ and I was going to have to say ‘Eh? I’m having a kid!?’.”

Slowly, Krull turned around.

‘I wouldn’t advise that.’, A message entered his head. From the corner of his eye, he saw Diane on a knee, bowing down. Shards of a crystalline substance laid at her feet. He tried his hardest to see further, but his eye was at its limit. Any further and it would be popping out of its socket.

He could feel light steps towards him. A certain gentle yet dreadful march. His hand was stuck and his body refused to continue consuming his daughter. It took all his willpower to hold himself from regurgitating.

Kala’s head was deep inside him. It would be a miracle if her skull hadn’t been shattered yet, still she wiggled about in his grip. She was still alive. He had to swallow her now, but his body couldn’t move.

“I guess I have to put an end to this stupid family drama then. Forgive me for intruding, but since we’re technically family now, I can play a part in this.”

A monstrous presence lurked right behind him. His darted upwards, to see a shadow towering above him. The monster was in the shape of a bird easily three times his size. It possessed feathers far more lustrous than gold. Its vermillion red eyes bore into his very being, as if it could see his soul. A collection of feathers stood up on its head like some sort of crown.

“Drop her.”, Krull’s body went into auto-pilot with that single command. He spat her out onto the ground roughly.

The monster puffed steam out of its jet-black beak, clouding his body.

“I feel really, really hungry, Krull. I might need something about as big as you to fill up my stomach.”

Krull shivered. This sort of fear wasn’t something he’d felt before. Not when he was about to charge into his first war. Not when he was under the influence of a war kishin. Not when he was standing before Goliath. This sort of fear felt far different. It rendered his body of any strength. His mind was blank. He couldn’t think properly. He couldn’t say a single word. He couldn’t control his shivering.

It felt like his entire life up till this moment wasn’t real. His experiences were simply fantasy made up in his mind. The persona Krull wasn’t real. The children he’d had weren’t real. There was no real drive for strength, no true ambition. Nothing.

The only real moment of his life was this one, overwhelming event.

Without a hint of hesitation, the creature, swooped down on Krull, swallowing him whole.

It was also Krull’s last ever moment.

***

I consumed Krull’s soul. I saw his life flash before my eyes. Krull was a war ogre, an evolved form of ogres built for war. A relatively extinct species. In fact, at this moment, there are only 3 known war ogre families, Krull’s included. They were seen as something like royalty amongst ogres. These 3 families are subservient to an evolved war ogre called the War Kishin.

Krull was sacrificed to her, but somehow, she fell for him. It didn’t make sense. Even Krull didn’t understand it, but she had somehow fallen in love with a bastard like him. She was older than him. Like, by a lot, although she was the youngest… well, only war kishin alive.

Upon further observation, I couldn’t call what she felt for him love. It was more like pity in a sense. No, that didn’t seem to do her feelings justice either. I couldn’t quite get her feelings from mere observation, so I would have to use ‘motherly-love’ in this situation.

She tried to make Krull happy by marrying him. That didn’t work. She then tried with a kid, two in fact. That also didn’t work and so she asked Krull what would make him happy. There was a part of Krull that feared what would happen to him if she found out his true intention, so he told her he simply wanted his family to be the strongest. He wanted a war kishin child, in order to be truly happy.

Hearing this, she thought of getting a third child. One that would definitely evolve into a war kishin. I wasn’t sure how or why she was certain about this, but she was. However, during her pregnancy, she somehow figured out Krull’s true plan. He wanted to eat the war kishin child in order to become a war kishin himself.

Krull’s true desire was to be strong. From the very moment he was born, all he could think about was being the greatest there ever was. As a war ogre, Krull was far stronger than the average ogre. By the time he was one month old, he’d already started killing and consuming ogres. After all, a war kishin was an evolution brought about from a time of war when ogres consumed ogres to live and get stronger.

He eventually wanted to devour Goliath, gain control of Larm, then wage a war against other strong beings in the world.

Honestly, I don’t think it was more his desire as it was his primal instinct. War ogres were meant to dominate in a war. There hadn’t been a proper war for about 300 years. The war ogres were dying out. Krull was a result of evolution trying to preserve a species, oddly enough. Rather than Krull being his own person, he was a tool for the world to keep the existence of the war ogres. Although that backfired badly and he ended up killing his own family.

Kara’s mother, Kala, noticed this earlier on. She told Krull that Kara wouldn’t be a war kishin. That there was a way for him to become a war kishin without eating her. She could transfer her powers to him and that was it. Krull was no idiot. He knew there was no way for her to transfer her power, but he took her up on it.

When she gave birth, she was weakened. Krull had been waiting for that moment, and killed her. After all, it had been a while since he ate another war ogre. This time, his meal was better. A war kishin for himself. Before she died, she warned him of a dark future. He would be swallowed by a dark shadowy monster. He didn’t take her seriously.

He ate her, but for some reason, the thought of eating any of his children didn’t cross his mind. It wasn’t until now that he realised that she shed her physical form to become a spirit. And a spirit, she’d been watching over Kara, sending out certain signals that made the others treat her differently.

Years passed, Krull grew up far more peaceful than he could explain. This was all her influence as a spirit. Unfortunately for him, we crossed paths and her vision quite literally just came true.

Well, that was the gist of his life. Krull was pathetic from the beginning to end.

I then looked at Kala. She was still alive, but barely. Her head was squeezed in, but I doubted she had any real severe brain damage.

I bought a [Restore Potion] for 3000 gold coins from the store and sprayed it on her. With that, she would be restored to her physical state from about 10 minutes ago. She would be fine, although she’d probably need to sleep for a while.

“Welcome back, king of Larm.”, Behind me, Diane was on her knee, bowing to me.

It felt kind of weird receiving this sort of treatment from her, but there’s no point in focusing on these kinds of things. My interest lied only in what the hell was happening. I could feel so many of the West’s soldiers screaming and running in fear or pain. A great majority of them weren’t alive as well.

I flew out of the room to go get a better look at what was happening outside.

‘Hmm.’

‘Oh boy.’

‘T-This d-doesn’t look good.’

‘*sigh*’

Can you believe these guys? I disappear for a month. Just 42 days. That’s about 6 weeks alone. Just 6 weeks! And they start in-fighting! I purposefully didn’t try to forcefully conquer anything out of fear that something like this might happen, yet it still did!

Was it too much to ask for them to simply try to keep the peace and protect themselves against the one true enemy? Anyone outside of Larm was the problem! It was that simple! There was no need to be stressing out like this. We were one big happy family! What happened to ‘monsters in a forest stick together!’?

Honesty, this was getting tiring. Not a single moment of rest for me since I came to this cursed world. I want at least one day where there was nothing for me to do.

‘Maybe we need a holiday.’

‘Yeah! The international Don’t-Mess-With-Us-Day!’

‘Oh? And what will be the repercussions for those who refuse to abide by the rules of this auspicious day?’

‘We kill them!’

‘Uuhh…’

‘Burn them alive!’

‘Um…’

‘F-flay t-’

‘I’m sorry, but you’ve run out of talking privileges for the next 300 years. We will get back to you when you start thinking like a person again.’

‘I guess the priority for now is’

‘Stop this war.’

‘E-Eradicate all e-enemies.’

‘Then sleep!’

With a plan set, it was time to put an end to the war.