Left right, left right. I dart through the woods in a zigzag pattern to try and throw off the less maneuverable friend of Mr chicken. Up down, up down, B, A, Start. Wait, no, that cheat code does not work here!

  Squawk!

  Silence Mr chicken #2! I will deal with you in due time. I just uh… need not hurt with every step I take as blood drips from my chest hole. I am trying to make sure the area is clear before I get into another fight, but Mr chicken #2 does not seem to care about my needs. Several obsidian feathers fly out and slam into where I was a moment ago. Damn it, how many times can you do that?! Mr chicken #2, or actually you know what, I am going to give you a name because saying “Mr chicken #2” every time is going to get annoying. Congratulations, your name is now Bob!

  Squawk!!

  Ah, yes. Those bloodshot eyes filled with hate and malice. Clearly Bob loves his new name!

  Screech!

  More feathers fly past, this time nicking the side of my head. I feel, well not sweat since I am a lizard, but something roll down my back as I continued to dart around. Yeah, that’s probably blood. Hey! I have [Blood Magic] right? Let’s give it a shot!

  Taking a turn around another tree sharply, I swivel around to face Bob. Pulling on my Ether I reach out to my new friend and yank his blood to the side as best I can. The damn thing barely twitches. Fine, I guess I will use my own blood then! I am fucking covered in the stuff thanks to you and your buddy after all.

  Letting my new and yet instinctual senses wash over the blood coating my body and the path behind me, I reach out with my hand. Not my clawed one, but what feels like my own human hand. The blood on my body leaps off and wraps itself around Bob’s throat while molding itself into the loose shape of a hand.

  Holy shit, that worked?! I fucking rule!

  My eyes go wide at my functioning magic before I realize that the stranglehold of blood is not exactly doing much as it has very little force behind it. However, the fact that something is grabbing its throat is enough to distract the chicken. Flailing feathers swing and swish through the bloody hand as they try and fail to get the crimson appendage off. All Bob does in the end is manage to coat himself in a thin layer of blood.

  Okay! Since I managed to get the [Blood Magic] working, then maybe I can use [Lightning Magic]!

  Snapping my mouth open I focus on the path between myself and the chicken, letting my highschool science classes come back to me about ionization of the atmosphere or whatever. I didn’t pay much attention in that class. I feel the air heat up for a moment before a bolt of bright white strikes out instantly at Bob, frying the chicken neatly and filling the air with the smell of burnt feathers. Gross.

  [You have defeated a monster!]

  [Your maximum Ether has gone up!]

  Doing my best not to gag on the smell, I run [Healing Magic] through my eyes. I can see again! Stupid [Lightning Magic] not giving any protection to the eyes at the early stages… I should upgrade it as soon as I can because going blind every time I use it is a one way ticket to a harsh respawn.

  Sniff, sniff.

  Hmmm, if you ignore the smell of burnt feathers, Bob actually smells pretty tasty. I wonder if that is because of my [Lesser Drake] body? Does my nose smell things differently? Eh, whatever. I don’t feel like bothering with game mechanics like that, I am here to have fun. I can ask on the forums later and let one of those lore freaks figure it out.

  Waddling over to the well cooked chicken I open up my [Dimensional Storage], which punches a small square shaped hole into the air with wiggly purple lines around it, and inside I can see a little cubby hole with a single shelf in the middle. On the shelf are three little vials of bright red healing potion, a few silver coins, a water skin, and a pouch of some kind of monster jerky. All the standard starter stuff. Nothing fancy.

  Pulling my claws along the side of the chicken, I start to scrape off the feathers and carve out a few chunks of the cooked meat for later before storing them on the bottom of my space cubby. Nice! I am glad we get a free inventory skill or I would probably starve to death so fast. Along with that thought, I close the space cubby and munch on what is left of Bob.

  Munch, munch.

  Bob, I must say. Though you were a huge dick for chasing me, your meat is certainly tasty. B+.

  You know, I thought it was supposed to take a while to figure out how to use magic, but I guess everyone else just needs to get good. I managed it through sheer awesomeness! No one can stop me now! Laughing to myself internally, I start my trek out to find a place to call home.

  One of the parts of this game is that you don’t vanish when you log out. Your body stays in place, sleeping. Your hunger does not go down thankfully, but you can still get killed if you don’t log out somewhere safe. Naturally, this is a problem for monster players. We don’t get to log out at a cozy inn or at the safehouses in a church. No, we get the hardcore experience of finding a lair and playing an afk tower defence game.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I had planned on finding a river or something to wash the blood off and get a drink, but with the water skin in my space cubby being full, I feel more like exploring to find a cave. I can just use [Blood Magic] to get the blood off me anyway.

  Looking up I can see the steep slope of the mountain I am on, thick bushes and rustling sounds coming from everywhere. I can’t tell if it is just the wind or if they are monsters, but I know I can deal with monsters so I am not worried. Maybe I can sense them? I got all this Ether stuff floating around inside me, and since I feel like I can move it around, then I just might be able to make a detection spell or something!

  Not wasting any time thinking about how it works, I rely on instinct, feeling, gumption, and chutzpah to make my magic work. I let a trickle of Ether float out of my body and settle in the air, not letting it get so far away that I lose control. Hey, this is pretty easy! I can even feel the things that my Ether touches.

  [You have learned the skill [Detection]!]

  Awesome, magic is so easy to control. I wonder what other skills I can get just by messing around?

  “Dude, come on! We gotta report to the Guild.” Running across the dirt road towards a city gate, a long black bearded and yet rather short man shouts out to his companions.

  “I am coming as fast as I can. Unless you want to pull the cart?” A young woman, who should have nowhere near enough strength judging by her thin arms and all around non muscular appearance, glares at her party member. Pain in the ass at times like this. Keeping her thoughts to herself while still glaring, Dahlia just continues to pull the cart along. Behind her, in said wooden cart, is a monster corpse that looks like a bipedal bull with a thick gold ring hanging from its nose.

  Greg, as a dwarf, should be naturally stronger than a vulpid like Dahlia. However, he just looks away sheepishly and darts on ahead to the Guild. “Impatient as ever.” Dahlia shakes her head, her light orange fox ears fluttering in the wind.

  “What ever happened to that stereotype that dwarves are serious taciturn people?” Nadia, the elven researcher and scout, chuckles as she watches Greg’s antics continuing on as usual.

  “Ha! Don’t let Guildmaster Dante hear you say that. He takes his whole ‘super cool and badass dwarf’ thing very seriously.” Dahlia can’t help but bark out her own laugh as she hears her friend describe the old stereotype. Greg wandering around in his flashy, all too colorful armor and noxiously painted shield completely destroys such an image instantly, all by itself.

  “True.” Nadia nods once and pulls on her leather armor a bit to let the air through as she focuses back on keeping people away from their catch. There are not a lot of other people on the road at this time of day, but being careful of thieves at all times is the norm for adventurers.

  “Hey Lupis! Get your nose out of that book, we’re almost at the Guild.” Shouting behind her to the man lazily sitting on the edge of the carriage she is pulling, Dahlia wrinkles her nose as the wind suddenly blows the monster’s stench her way. The ulfr, Lupis, just presses on his reading glasses and swishes his wolf tail before barking out an annoyed response. “I am studying! Magic is extremely difficult to learn and if you want me to be able to save your hides the next time a glungar attacks us in The Abyss, then I recommend you don’t distract me.”

  Dahlia grimaces at the mention of the glungar. They had been ferrying their hunt back from The Abyss for their latest Guild quest, when a mass of physically resistant sludge attacked them after turning a blind corner. Her [Sword Arts] and [Aura] attacks barely scratched the thing and only Lupis’ [Lightning Magic] was able to bring the thing down to the level where they could defeat it. It was the closest they had come to death in a while.

  “Geez, he is obsessed with magic… Though, I will admit that the lightning really saved us back there. I wonder if I should try and learn magic?”

  The ulfr, who had just been complaining about interruptions, laughs at Dahlia’s murmuring. “Hah! Just learning to move one’s Ether to produce magic takes weeks of practice under the tutelage of the church or a master, and you are a physical type. Most of your Ether goes to strengthening your body so trying to function as a mage at the same time would only weaken you.”

  Glaring back, the vulpid woman huffs. “I know, I know. I was just saying. No need to be a dick about it.” Dahlia was quite good with moving her Ether to reinforce her body or weapon, but she knows very well that using that Ether externally to create magic is not something you can just do without a lot of practice.

  “So, once we turn in the minotaur we need to track down the lesser basilisk that has been nesting in the mountains, right?” Noticing that the conversation had ended, Nadia chimes back in as she takes out her notebook from her bag. Her talent as a scout is clear by her ability to take neat and detailed notes despite the brisk pace they are making towards the Guild, the conversation she is holding, and her duties to protect the monster corpse from outsiders.

  “Yep, should be an easy job. It’s a young one, so the quest is only Rank E. They want it dead before it can start makin’ too many babies.” Dahlia makes a rather scrunched face as she mentioned the last portion of the quest details. Looking over, she sees Nadia doing the same.

  “Ugh, baby basilisks are so annoying. Thankfully, they are easy to kill and can barely scratch the cheapest of monster leather. But you miss one of those little bastards and you end up in an endless cycle. At least goblins need a mate to produce offspring, basilisks have no right making fully fertilized eggs on their own.” Nadia grumbles for several more seconds about basilisks before letting her breath settle.

  “You say that like goblin infestations are any less annoying to clean out… We really should move to somewhere like the capital so we don’t get these shit jobs anymore.” Letting out a sigh, Dahlia laments the backwater town her party ended up in. It seemed like a nice place to start making a name for themselves but backwater means backwater. The words of the Guildmaster from their first meeting echo in her head. There really is fuckall around this place.

  “Find us the money to take the trip, buy an overpriced studio apartment, and scrounge up enough mid ranking jobs in a sea of adventurers to sustain us to pay off said overpriced studio apartment, and I will agree with you.” Nadia’s scathing words just make Dahlia’s shoulders droop further.

  “Urk. Right, why did I become an adventurer again?”

  “Because you are a muscle head who thought a life of fighting in The Abyss would make you famous and rich?”

  “Fuck off Lupis.”

  System Breaker: Fine, I Guess I'll Be The Demon Lord Then! for now.