Charlemagne regained consciousness to find himself amid a throng of enemies once again. The last thing he remembered was flying away from a group of enemies that looked exactly like the ones attacking him. He couldn’t figure out if he was still fighting in the same area or if the monsters had followed him, but either way it didn’t matter. His body was starting to give out, and he needed to retreat and find a food source as soon as possible.

  He turned and started running in a direction that seemed to have less of the strange energy that he had been forced to purge from his body numerous times, taking a few minor wounds as he broke out of the circle of enemies. His Mana Core struggled to send mana to his legs, allowing the now pursuing monsters to gain on him. He was about to take to the skies once again when he saw a creature that looked exactly like the one that had torn open the statue a few hours before. Before he could react to its presence, the lanky beast hurled a long, thin stick at him. It hurtled through the air and slammed into one of the monsters chasing him.

  A wonderful smell emanated from the missile, almost causing Charlemagne to turn around then and there to grab whatever it was. But the strange humans chasing him were still numerous and he was growing weaker. He couldn’t afford to stop. He continued running full tilt away from his pursuers as a second delectable thrown weapon blew away a few more, then a third, and finally a forth. With their numbers diminished, the remaining monsters were just slow enough that Charlemagne was able to follow his instincts. He whirled around, digging his claws into the hard-packed earth, and reversed direction. He zigged and zagged until he reached the closest of the round, brown sticks and grabbed it in his beak. Then he resumed his escape at top speed, not looking back again. The creature that had thrown the missiles was running away as well, but Charlemagne passed by in a blaze of pure speed, not caring if it lived or died now that he had a source of nutrients.

  In less than a minute, the rooster had put enough distance between him and the monster pack that the System realized he was done fighting. This time, he was not surprised when the squiggles arrived, as he had always seen them after a prolonged battle. Even though they always brought good news, he pushed them away without hesitation. There was something far more interesting than the squiggles in his mouth. Just its mere presence made him salivate. What Charlemagne had was more than just a piece of stale bread with some charred flesh stuck to it. It was magical stale bread with some charred flesh stuck to it.

  A plaintive noise reached his ears. It sounded like something was trying to get his attention. The rooster turned around to see what the disturbance was and found the lanky, hairy former owner of his piece of bread. A thought crossed the rooster’s mind. What if it had more of that amazing food?

  But, first things first. Charlemagne tossed the baguette onto the ground and consumed it with an alacrity only possessed by those who have truly known hunger. Deeply suspicious of the creature watching him, he kept his eyes on it, waiting for it to show any sort of aggression. But the big hairy creature seemed content to keep its distance. That worked just fine for Charlemagne, at least as long as the bread lasted.

  After making short work of the entire baguette, the rooster looked up and saw that the creature was inching closer, holding out more of the amazing food in a manner that appeared to be sufficiently subservient. There was a moment of misunderstanding when the other being tossed the bread his way, causing Charlemagne to momentarily retreat, but the rooster magnanimously overlooked the indiscretion as he dug into the second piece of bread.

  His hunger largely sated, Charlemagne checked in on his body and found that, although his wounds were largely healed, his Mana Core was not doing so great. So much of the strange energy had accumulated that it was simply choking his ability to absorb, circulate, and store mana. It was time for him to vent it out again. The process of using a small amount of mana to trap, condense, and expel the foreign energy was routine for Charlemagne by this point, and it wasn’t long before he lifted his head to the sky and forced the energy out of his mouth. Having finished with his purge, he looked over again at the creature who been watching him, wondering if was anywhere as tasty as the treat it had given him. While he was still considering what to do, the hairy being slowly reached into a strangely shaped sack that it carried and withdrew another loaf of the incredible substance. All thoughts of immediately eating the creature left the rooster’s head as he waited for another piece of warm bread.

  This time, the creature lowered the baguette gently to the ground and backed up a bit, allowing Charlemagne room to approach and take the offering. The rooster walked up boldly and stared the other down for a moment, waiting for it to give him even more space. Once he was satisfied that the hairy biped was sufficiently distant, he began eating his third baguette, this time allowing himself to savor each bite.

  “HOoooooAAAh ohhhh eeeeeh ahhh!” the other creature said as the Charlemagne dug in. “HoooHoouah aheeehoha ahahoa!”

  Something inside Charlemagne’s head started itching as the creature repeated itself several times. It was so annoying that the rooster finally stopped eating and gave the other creature a vicious glare. Its eyes widened in surprise, but it kept on making the same noises over and over. The strange sensation grew until Charlemagne couldn’t take it anymore, and he puffed himself up, ready to attack the other beast.

  The creature yelled again, causing the itching sensation to morph into a short, sharp pain. Charlemagne, who had been on the cusp of charging the other creature despite its gift of delicious bread, suddenly stopped short. It wasn’t the pain that deterred him, for he was used to charging in the face of certain injury. Now, what gave the rooster pause was the fact that he understood what the other creature was saying.

  “Wait! I just want to talk!”

  The rooster understood that the other creature claimed to be interested in an exchange of information rather than combat. It would only be proper to respond, even if he did decide to eat the other animal later.

  “Bawark!” he responded.

  The strange, hairy creature backed up a bit more, as if unsure of Charlemagne’s intentions. This confused the rooster, as he was sure that he had been reasonably polite.

  “Bwoark?” he added helpfully.

  The other animal muttered something that appeared to be scatological in nature before speaking up again.

  “Can you understand me now?” it asked.

  Charlemagne was not familiar with the body language used by bipeds, but the most common motions he saw, apart from them making weird noises with their flat, ugly mouths, were the waving of the arms and the nodding of their round, ugly heads. Wondering what the result would be, the rooster flapped his right wing once.

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  “Ok, I think that was a yes,” the other animal said out loud. “Think, Francois, think. How can we make this work? I know! If you can understand me, flap your left wing.”

  Charlemagne, who had never been taught the difference between left and right, flapped his right wing again. The creature let out a heavy sigh as it lifted its flat, human-like face to the sky.

  “I guess I should have expected that. Maybe something simpler?” he grumbled before looking back at the rooster again.

  “Flap your wing two times if you understand me this time,” the creature demanded before adding a belated “Please,” to the end. Charlemagne, still feeling generous after having eaten his fill of bread, flapped his right wing two times.

  “La vache, it worked!” the creature cheered. “Ok mon ami, my name is Francois and I am a gorilla. I know I might look a bit like a human, at least to you birds, but I am not one of those, those, monsters. I was part of a team that was sent out on a scouting mission, looking to recruit strong creatures to join our new city, when we were ambushed by a group led by humans. We managed to drive them off, but only a few of us were healthy enough to keep going, so I sent the rest of the team back home with my second-in-command, Benedict, while I continued on alone. It seems fortunate that I did, because you’ve got incredible growth potential…”

  While Francois continued his incredibly lengthy speech, Charlemagne remembered that he had received a message from the squiggles. A quick thought brought the shimmering symbols back from wherever it was they hid when projecting themselves in the air. As always, the squiggles brought amazing news.

  Charlemagne, as a rooster, generally followed three main priorities. They were, in descending order, making baby chickens, eating, and dominating lesser life forms. Thus, he instantly eliminated the Hybrid Body Special Ability, properly identifying it as directly opposed to his primary life goal. That left two strong contenders, Battle Meditation and Radiation Core. Battle Meditation seemed to be particularly useful in long fights, and Charlemagne got the impression from the squiggles that it would help his Mana Core get stronger over time. Since he relied on his Mana Core to enhance his body, power his ranged attacks, and get rid of unwanted energy, it was never a bad thing to make Mana Core more powerful.

  But the other Special Ability also promised to enhance his Mana Core, turning into something else entirely. Being able to better harness the strange energy that had come both from the piece of metal he’d eaten as well as the strange human-like monsters was something that could help him now and possibly for a long time in the future. Besides, the more forms of energy that he could harness, the better. The one downside to the Special Ability, according to the squiggles, was that he needed steady access to a source of that energy to continue to advance his evolved Mana Core. But there was plenty of the energy in the area around him, so it probably wouldn’t be hard to keep finding more of it.

  The rooster thought harder than he had ever thought before, putting every braincell to work trying to weigh a hundred different variables, some of which he didn’t actually understand. One of his frustrations was that he didn’t understand what the skill Meditation actually did. As he stewed over this particular grievance, the squiggles arrived to help him out.

  Charlemagne wasn’t sure what to think about the Meditation skill. On one hand, he already regenerated mana and healed really quickly. But the ability to focus was something that intrigued him, and he wondered what affects that would have on his fighting skills. The Radiation Core upgrade didn’t offer him an extra skill at all, but it did affect Mana Core, which the squiggles always said was very special.

  The rooster spent a few long minutes pondering his choices, and had just finally made up his mind when a sound like the blast from one of the humans’ weapons broke his concentration. Focusing his eyes, he realized that Francois had clapped his enormous hands, generating a deafening shockwave, in the hopes of getting his attention.

  “Hello? Are you there? Did you hear what I said?”