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Chapter 22

  Charlemagne crowed in triumph, pleased that the squiggles had once again rewarded him for his victories in combat. As he stared at the setting sun, his attention was pulled from his gains and into the light. The rapidly fading light.

  As a rooster, Charlemagne was keenly aware that it was time go to bed when the sun set. Unlike human toddlers, chickens will instinctively search for a safe place to roost when the natural light from the sun begins to fade and then put themselves to bed. This time is very important for chickens from a physiological standpoint, as the birds need their rest in order to stay healthy. Even factory farms, which don’t do anything for the sake of being kind, shut their lights off for at least eight hours a day in order to rest the hens.

  Simply put, Charlemagne had stayed out too late, and needed to get back to his thousands and thousands of mates so he could tell them that they could go to bed. There was also the possibility that some other rooster had infiltrated his harem and was telling the chickens to go to bed without Charlemagne’s permission. The horror!

  Without another thought for the squiggles, Charlemagne grabbed the corpse of the serval in his beak and shot off like a rocket. He made the entire trip between Porto Novo and Parakou in record time, arriving just as the last glow of the setting sun was fading from purple to black on the horizon. The stars were out in their full panoply, dominating the sky since the moon had yet to rise. The air was crisp and clean in a way that it seldom was since the introduction of the internal combustion engine. It was a glorious night.

  The rooster burst into the enormous pen where his treasured mates lay, waking them all up and sending the thousands of hens into an angry tizzy. It took over an hour to get everyone settled, but Charlemagne yelled his apologies, promising everyone a nice breakfast and to be more quiet in the future. Finally, he fell asleep, and dreamed of feeding thousands of his progeny from a magic machine that produced all the baguettes they could eat.

  Charlemagne woke up shortly after dawn the next morning, feeling very hungry after his long day of fighting and flying. Then he remembered the serval carcass that he’d left outside. He sauntered out of the enormous coop and found the corpse where he’d left it, only a little worse for wear. All the radiation had killed anything living on it or in it, which was slowing how quickly the body decayed. The rooster ate quickly, knowing that he had a long day ahead of him.

  Eating really was the best, thought Charlemagne, as he went off to the warehouse to procure breakfast for his twenty-five thousands hens. In his domestic bliss, the battle-hardened rooster forgot all about the messages from the squiggles, and the choice that awaited him.

  Almost a week of bliss passed before Charlemagne realized that he was in trouble. For one, a lot of the hens were getting angry because they hadn’t yet gotten a turn to be fertilized. That was understandable. The second problem was the big one, however. They were running out of food. While none of the hens were strong enough to bring back sacks of food from the warehouse, some of them had leveled up enough to start asking questions when they thought that Charlemagne wasn’t around like, “what are we going to do when the food runs out,” and “how are is Charlemagne going to feed all of us, there are thousands of hens here,” and even “why did Charlemagne have to kill the humans that were taking care of us”.

  Charlemagne did not appreciate this type of talk. He did, however, concede that the hens might have a point regarding the food. So he did something unprecedented among chicken-kind. He listened to them and delegated some of his authority.

  Of course, the hens had established a pecking order long before Charlemagne had arrived: the rooster had merely inserted himself at the top of it as the alpha male. The lack of other males made the organization all the easier, but the hierarchical nature of chicken social organization made fights all too common among the top hens. So Charlemagne did another thing that was unprecedented and declared that three of the best hens were to be co-equals beneath him at the top. It took a lot of squawking, multiple peckings, and literally throwing his weight around, but the clever rooster managed to convey his desires in a way that the hens understood.

  The hens were some of the highest leveled among Charlemagne’s flock and thus were both stronger and smarter than the average chicken. After a full day of organizing the farm, the rooster led the three of them into an empty storage room, clucking at them to compose themselves and listen to him.

  “Bowark”, he announced solemnly to the trio.

  “But Charlemagne, why must you go?” Princesse, the youngest of the three, whined. “Who knows when we’ll start getting chicks from our eggs. Surely you can wait until our numbers have grown more?”

  “Bawark”, the rooster rebutted.

  “Charlemagne is right,” Philomene agreed as she nudged Princesse with a wing. “We can’t wait that long to start looking for a new home. There are still humans and other monsters in the area. As strong as he is, Charlemagne is only one rooster. He can’t guard all of us by himself.”

  “And we would take enormous losses if we tried to level up a group of the stronger hens to fight,” Judith, the most martial-oriented of the three, noted.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Bawk.”

  “Oh that’s a good idea,” Princesse fawned as Charlemagne made a suggestion.

  “It would have to be a pretty small group, so we can maximize gains for the individual members and stay close to Charlemagne,” Judith added.

  “Bowark.”

  “Yeah, no more than five,” Philomene agreed. “And it can’t be any of us. We’ve got enough to handle just running this place.”

  “Awww, I wanted to go,” Princesse complained.

  “Bawk,” Charlemagne interjected.

  Princesse made the chicken equivalent of a blush, letting the others continue the conversation.

  “Baawk.”

  “Okay,” Judith announced. “I think we’ve got the basics of a plan. Tomorrow morning Charlemagne will lead a group of five hens in a day-long sweep of the area, nullifying as many threats as possible while getting as many levels as possible for the hens. Then he’ll head out to look for that town in the north that the Francois the gorilla told Charlemagne about. He’ll recruit assistants to come back here and lead our flock to safety.”

  “Meanwhile,” Philomene added, “we will be here, working on a way to transport our eggs and any chicks that hatch while we’re still here. We also will try to figure out a way to tell fertilized eggs from unfertilized ones.”

  “Bawark,” Charlemagne noted.

  “Yeah,” agreed Philomene, “It’s a total mystery to me too. We haven’t had any chicks hatch yet, but now that you’re here, maybe that will help?”

  “Umm, speaking of transportation,” Princesse said, still feeling a bit shy from the praise she had received. “I had an idea that might help Charlemagne and his battle team. I’ll get a group together and work on it first thing tomorrow.”

  “Bawk.”

  “You’re right, that was a really productive meeting,” Philomene enthused before giving Charlemagne a wink. “We’ve still got 5 minutes before bedtime, if there’s any other business to take care of.”

  The next day Charlemagne ate quickly before helping distribute breakfast. After ensuring that all the hens had been given their morning allotment, he strode out the small field that separated the different factory buildings, expecting to see Judith and a small contingent of hens ready to depart. Instead, he was greeted by the sight of hundreds of chickens jockeying for position, trying and failing to make an orderly line for his inspection. Judith stood at the head of the group, looking embarrassed.

  “Oh, Charlemagne, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said before letting out a deep sigh. “It was absolutely impossible to tell all these ladies that they couldn’t go with you today. I’ve got a squad leader picked out already, though. Get up here, Fidele.”

  The chicken named Fidele flapped her wings with excitement as she sprinted up to Charlemagne.

  “Good morning, sir. I’m looking forward to serving under you,” she said with a smile.

  “Ahem, yes,” Judith said, choosing just to move forward. “I need you to pick out the other four so that I won’t have to fight each of these hens one by one. That would take way too much of my time.”

  The rooster took a look at the lineup of eager women, each ready to face danger with him. They all looked so…fragile. He did his best to focus only on their combat readiness and ignore any other considerations, but it was so hard to tell just by sight how powerful each of the hens was by sight alone.

  All of a sudden Charlemagne was able to see numbers floating above the heads of the hens. He chose four randomly from those tied for the highest number and instructed Fidele to get them ready to go. Then he went off to find a few moments of peace so he could read the messages from the System that he had forgotten all about after the fight with the big cat.

  Charlemagne was pleased with the rewards, especially the level up in his Mana Core skill. He quickly allocated his free points, adding them to his Dexterity and Special attributes.

  The reward options, however, confused Charlemagne. He had never heard of a skill upgrade token, but the knowledge that the squiggles brought indicated that it would not work on his Mana Core advanced skill. Most of his other skills felt underwhelming in combat, except for Strike, so he was not that interested in the upgrade token. The second reward was for an item, which Francois had recommended highly. But Francois was dead, while Charlemagne was still alive, so perhaps items were not necessarily that good. But then again, Francois’ item had made those glorious baguettes, so items were definitely useful. The rooster’s mind went in circles a few times before he moved on to the final reward, a potion that increased attributes.

  He asked the squiggles how many attributes would the potion give him.

  Charlemagne, having just received 20 free attribute points, was not impressed. He selected the item.

  A golden glow suffused the area just in front of Charlemagne causing the rooster to step back as the promised item materialized. When the light faded, he got his first look at his newest reward.

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