My Reincarnation as a Chicken

“I refuse.”

“Huh?”

“I. Refuse.”

“Oi, at least tell me why?”

“I’ve seen the records of the previous dungeon core.” The hollow voice said. “That dungeon core had the pleasure to be one of the Kaleb Zen’s personal assistants in most of his projects. Imagine having been there to converse with the greatest genius of all time. I refuse to be a downgrade of that.”

Some of you may be confused, well I am too.

I came down here, into my dungeon which I rightfully obtained after clearing it. The original owner himself said it was mine now and I even powered it up myself. I purposefully let it grow to attain enough mana to grow sentient all for it to just blow up in my face.

Calmly and reasonably, I explained to the dungeon core that I was going to be too busy to take care of it, so it would have to manage itself and eventually grow powerful, only for it to refuse my order. I couldn’t even call it an order. A request felt much more suitable.

Why did it refuse? Because it wanted to feel important! I knew it grew sentience, but I didn’t expect it to suddenly become an egotistical bastard!

To be honest, I was tempted to pass the job off to one of my counterparts or even have a servant take care of it, but all mes were already busy ensuring my survival. The next best thing was the servants and if I narrowed it down to a list of people I one hundred percent trusted with the job, I had only Reiman.

Not like the others couldn’t do a good job. I simply calculated that Reiman’s efficiency was far above almost everyone I talked to. He was that stereotypical salaryman who just does everything excellently for a promotion. However, I wasn’t a slave driver. Even I could understand that the sort of workload he was working with could make a man collapse.

The next best thing I could think of was the dungeon core itself.

What I originally had planned was for the core to act as A.I assistant. A personal Jarvis so to say, that’d be working on the dungeon and giving me frequent updates and suggestions as I organised everything. Just like the agent was supposed to be doing. Then… I got lazy. I was just going to shove all the work on the dungeon and make it do all my work for me.

If things got cumbersome, I’d have the agent fix it up for me. Giving the way I was now, I didn’t have to lift a single finger to get anything done! I simply had to coerce everyone around me into doing my bidding. Slowly, I’ll amass a massive empire and become the king of this world. Money, power, workers, everything would eventually be mine! I really would attain everything this world has to offer and more…

But this shitty Dungeon core didn’t want to work.

“Oh come on, you’re still the same dungeon, no? Kaleb Zen’s already been in you before… pfft.”, I couldn’t help myself.

“That was not me. That, was the dungeon core before me.”

“Ah… so what exactly do you want? It’s not like you’ll ever see Kaleb Zen again.”

Whether it liked it or not, the fact was that Kaleb Zen was dead. The details of his death were unknown, but no one’s heard of him in quite a while, so it’s best to say that he’s dead. There was nothing neither of us could do about it.

“That is true… in that case, I would need something else.”, Finally, the dungeon core stopped obsessing over the dead man and moved onto something else.

“Oh? What is that?”

“I want to be the ultimate Kaleb Zen Treasury!”

The core declared its intentions boldly. I was holding myself back from grabbing the core’s physical form and shattering it in that moment. Sadly, if I did that, I’d have no dungeon core and the dungeon would remain dead. I needed it alive to make some profit.

“The hell is that supposed to mean!?” I could feel a vein about to burst in my head and I wasn’t even sure if I had veins anymore.

‘Ah, do phoenixes have veins? I don’t bleed… I just burn or something, right?’

<<Although your physical structure is distinct from most lifeforms, you still do possess veins>>

“I wish to have Lord Kaleb Zen’s treasure in here!”, the core interrupted my lesson with a bullshit statement.

“And how the hell am I supposed to acquire Kaleb Zen’s treasure?”, I didn’t know the man personally. I doubted on his death he just said “You want my treasure? You can have it I left everything I gathered together in one place. Now you'll just have to find it!"

“According to my records, Kaleb Zen left some of his most valuable treasures in two other dungeons. The closest one is located in the Winter Zone.”

‘Winter Zone? Is that where Kaleb Zen said his dungeon was?’

<<He mentioned the crimson fields which can be located between the Demise Mountains and Fairy Plains. The B rank dungeon <Yellow Springs> >>

‘Oh? Thanks for that!’

“If I go grab some treasures from this dungeon, you promise to spec this place up?”, I asked, trying to make a deal.

“If you do this, I promise to turn this place into hell for intruders.”

“… That sounds kinda sus, but alright then. We’ve got a deal. I’ll bring some treasures as soon as I leave.”

All I had to do was pop in and pop out with treasure. Easy-peasy. Even I could pull off such a heist. I mean, not to brag, but I was the person to steal from the king of the underworld after all.

We had a deal. I’d have to go out, but it couldn’t be now.

“Could you start now then? I’ll need to sort out a few things before I can leave, is that alright with you?”

There were a few minutes of silence before the core responded approvingly. I was about to march out the dungeon when I sensed a familiar person coming my way. Normally, I’d have just teleported to go do something else without batting an eye, but I chose to wait.

“Big sis! I knew it was you!”, Ulva said as she jumped into my arms giddily, causing me to stumble back a bit.

“Woah there! You’re getting a bit heavy.”, I lifted her up in a hug. From an objective point of view, it was quite weird since I was smaller than Ulva in my human form. Ignoring that, there was something about seeing Ulva’s bright smile that just made me happy.

Following closely behind her were two children of a height similar to mine. One was Arisu and the other was a dark-skinned boy with horns and bunny ears - Hefla. I honestly didn’t expect to see Hefla ever again, especially not in a humanoid form and acting as Ulva’s bodyguard.

Then again, I assumed it had something to do with Ulva’s new unique skill [Doting Touch]. The skill made anything or anyone she touched want to submit to her…

I wanted to lie that I didn’t know what the hell could have caused her to develop such a skill, but I got the sense it had something to do with me. This was probably a cry for more attention in the most roundabout way possible.

Maybe I needed to pamper her lots more. If she was strong enough to fight in the war without taking any damage, then she had probably done enough training with Grimm. And given that he’d be a lot busier with the guild, he definitely didn’t have time to teach her anymore.

Oh well, it’s still a win.

“I haven’t grown any bigger. You just grew smaller.”, Ulva teased my new size. It was bothering me that I grew smaller in my human form. Something wasn’t adding up here, but I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. In the end, I just had to assume the system master… Alpha, had a hand in this.

“Meh. I’m just glad to see you’re doing alright.”, I gently dropped her down then patted her on the shoulder because I couldn’t reach her head… this was just wrong.

“Of course! I even helped Reiman out, see?” She gestured to Hefla, as if that explained the entire situation to me. The bunny boy glared at me with unflinching eyes and I responded in kind, not sure what his problem was.

Ulva explained that Reiman had both her and Arisu go out in search of Hefla. Their mission was to either knock him unconscious or ensure that the enemy didn’t use him for any nefarious plot of theirs. He was right about them trying to use a slumbering monster against us, but he probably gave this order before he found out that they were looking for the Ursa Major.

I had to hand it to Reiman. His instincts and foresight were leagues better than anyone I knew.

I decided to sit down and have a conversation with Ulva. I found it amazing that she didn’t run out of things to talk about even though it had only been a month. Then again, a lot could happen in a month. I was probably just downplaying things.

Arisu and Hefla stood back like guards, but once I told them to act normally, Arisu scuttled next to me and decided to rest on my lap, whereas Hefla sat next to Ulva, still glaring at me. He even allowed her to pat his head, showing me one of the funniest faces I’d ever seen.

After spending about thirty minutes with her, I told her to get some sleep. This was mostly because I was furious. According to Arisu, Julian had mistreated Ulva on more than one occasion. Maou was the one who stopped him, but every time both were in close proximity, the chuuni bastard tried to shorten her lifespan.

I had to hunt him down and make him pay for disrespecting. However, the moment I left the room, all my anger subsided, almost as if it was fake. I didn’t understand why, but I suddenly didn’t care anymore.

‘Ah, that’s right. Did you get what you were searching for?’, I directed a question to the agent.

<<Yeah… I found the origin of my sickness.>>

‘Oh? Does it affect me?’

<<No. Rest assured, it’ll affect me and me alone>>

‘Eh? What sickness is it?’

<<I forget… everything I learn>>

‘So… you have Alzheimer’s. We’re twinning now.’

<<No. It’s a curse. And there’s no fixing it>>

Oh… so we really were twinning.

‘Huh. You know anything else? Like who did this to you?’

<<Yes. The Chaos God, or something. I only saw glimpses, so I’m not sure. I… I had a family, but they… they are all gone>>

I wasn’t expecting that.

The agent’s monotone voice sounded… sad. I wasn’t sure how to comfort her, so I chose to do the next best thing.

‘Don’t be sad, because being sad makes you sad. Be happy.’

<<…>>

‘Ok, that was a terrible joke.’

<<Absolute garbage>>

No need to rub it in!

‘All I’m saying is, we’ll find a way to undo the curse on you.’

<<How? The archive I contain has no records on means to deal with such a thing.>>

‘So? It doesn’t matter if such a thing doesn’t exist! We’ll make it exist! And even if we can’t, then all I need to do is beat up that Chaos God’s ass, right? We’ll definitely fix you up, so don’t be sad! Or something… God this sounds cringe.’

<<… Why?>>

‘Hm?’

<<Why would you do that?>>

‘Why wouldn’t I do that? We’re partners after all. We’re even twins now with our memory problems.’

<<But->>

‘Nope. Don’t try to make any objections. I’m already beet red from embarrassment. Don’t make this any sadder than it has to be. I fight for you and you fight for me. That’s how we do this. You (the agent) have always been with me since Day 1, so it just feels right to be there for you at your time of need.’

Nope. Nope. What the hell was I spouting? This was beyond cringe. Aah, this never happened. This absolutely never happened.

***

As Hinotori closed off the conversation from embarrassment, a change had begun to take place within the agent. An unfathomable direction for the emotionless demon had been opened up. The agent was starting to… feel.

A concept that was foreign to it. If this was the skill [God’s Voice], it most likely would have collapsed from the foreign element. However, this was not [God’s Voice], but a far more complicated entity.

Unbeknownst to the two, they had already taken their first steps towards curing the Agent.