Charlemagne’s head swam as he set himself down to the east of the forest due to the venom still coursing through his veins. He failed to stick the landing, crashing face first into the soft dirt before rolling end over end a few times. Quickly righting himself, he coughed out quite a bit of dirt before checking out his surroundings. His senses still pulled him toward the forest, but the scents that he’d discovered had completely disappeared. The squiggles interrupted his thoughts on why that might be.
Charlemagne was happy for the level, although he would have also liked to have leveled up Mana Core, Ironskin, and Strike. His stomach rumbled while he was still evaluating his gains…fighting off the snake’s venom had taken a lot out of him. Realizing that exploring the forest would have to wait, he set off to find something more tangible than glory: food.
Allowing his Special Ability, Food for the Stomach and the Stomach for Food, to lead him, Charlemagne headed north towards a cluster of buildings on the outskirts of the town of N’dali. It took him a while to get there, but the rooster was unconcerned about the passage of time. After all, acquiring food was an activity that had consumed almost all of his waking moments until a few weeks ago.
Upon arriving at the location indicated by his Special Ability, Charlemagne simply had to look around, as the special sense provided by the ability let him know if he was getting closer or further away from the source of nutrients. After breaking down a surprisingly sturdy door that had been closed with a rusted, unassuming padlock, the rooster knew that he had hit paydirt. It was a mother lode of parboiled rice.
Parboiled rice is nutritionally somewhere between white rice and the more wholesome brown rice, due to the parboiling process driving nutrients from the bran layer into the rice grain. Since it tends to taste better than brown rice, it is highly favored in some markets to make dishes like Jollof. Interestingly enough, there was very little demand for parboiled rice in Benin before the System integration. And yet, the country was consistently one of the world’s top importers. The reason for this was simple: most of the rice imported to Benin was eventually smuggled into Nigeria. Some was even smuggled from Benin into Niger first before being smuggled a second time into northern Nigeria.
So, what Charlemagne had uncovered was a smuggler’s warehouse full of parboiled rice. The rooster did not care about the rice’s origins. He only cared that it was not yet in his stomach. Pecking straight through one of the heavy-woven polypropylene fabric bags, the young rooster got to work on sating his hunger. It was only after he had finished the entire 50 kilogram (110 pound) bag and started on the next that the squiggles rewarded him for acquiring such a nutrient-dense food source.
Congratulations, you have consumed a sufficient amount of high-quality plant material (rice). Upon digestion and processing of the essential vitamins and minerals within, your bones, muscles, and nerves will operate at increased efficiency. The iron contained within will also aid in leveling the Ironskin skill.
After eating his fill, Charlemagne realized that he was thirsty. Heading downhill, he searched for a river, a stream, or even a ditch that would allow him to slake his thirst. But there was nothing in the area. The rooster was forced to take to the skies, casting about in ever widening circles until he spied the Yerou Maro river to the north. He landed on the bank, this time managing to stay upright as he bounced once off the soft turf before coming to a halt. Then he drank.
It was only after drinking his fill and sloshing his way back up from the riverbank that Charlemagne realized that there was a problem. His stomach, which had never refused to accept any amount of food, no matter how ludicrous, was swelling rapidly. He didn’t understand what could have happened, since the water and the rice had both gone down just fine.
The rice was, of course, expanding in the rooster’s stomach, slowly absorbing the water that he had just drank. Ordinarily, this would not be much of an issue. But Charlemagne had eaten more than two sacks of the parboiled rice, an amount far exceeding his own body weight. In no time at all, the rooster was so rotund that his feet no longer touched the ground. Annoyed, Charlemagne used his powerful wings to remain upright, flapping them whenever he felt that he was about to tip over.
A hissing sound coming from behind alerted Charlemagne to incoming danger, and he flapped his wings while turning his body to get a better look at what was going on. A West African crocodile that was the size of a small elephant had emerged from the surprisingly deep water and was advancing on him, its mouth open in a display of dominance. Charlemagne froze for a moment, his predator instincts unable to drive his legs forward and his prey instincts confused as to how exactly he might escape. Then he remembered that he had an ability that would let him gauge how strong the other creature was.
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The squiggles told Charlemagne that the other creature was strong and he got the impression that he should stay far away from the monster’s powerful jaws. As the crocodile surged forward, the rooster’s Monocle of Refinement activated, highlighting the monster’s open mouth. His blood pumping at the thought of a good fight, Charlemagne began to charge up his most powerful attack.
Mana condensed in his throat and open mouth as Charlemagne began to create a mana ball. His Mana Core, glutted from a week of peace, responded beautifully to the incredible energy required to direct and condense the ephemeral substance into a coherent form. Then his Meditation skill activated, stripping the non-essential detail of the world away. The ball condensed even further as layer after layer of mana were laid down on top of each other, stretching the rooster’s mana manipulation abilities to the limit. Charlemagne aimed the ball directly at the crocodile’s open mouth and ejected it with all his might.
“Buck-kawwwwwk!” he shouted as the recoil from the attack pushed his head back, causing him to roll backwards and bounce off the ground, returning to a more or less upright position like a child’s inflatable punching toy. As his vision stabilized, he saw that his aim had been ruined by the kickback. The crocodile had lost its right eye and a good portion of the side of its face, but it was still very much alive. And it was very much enraged.
His legs still unable to touch the ground, Charlemagne flapped his wings with as much strength as he could muster, managing to overcome the pull of gravity long enough to escape the crocodile’s snapping jaws - mostly. As he passed directly over the charging beast, there was a sharp pain in his leg, and the rooster’s momentum was stopped so quickly he nearly fell straight out of the sky. He flapped his wings desperately as the pain spiked before being rewarded by a sickening snapping sound, that signaled his freedom from the vice-like jaws that had caught his leg.
Once again rolling end over end, Charlemagne circulated mana to the stump of his missing leg to stimulate healing, and to his stomach to help settle the nausea that had followed the rush of pain and adrenaline. He quickly regained his bearings and then did the only thing that he could think of doing. He began charging another mana ball.
After having depleted his Mana Core so thoroughly during the first attack, Charlemagne struggled to create a mana attack that he felt would put the crocodile down for good. The monster, on the other hand, took a moment to toss Charlemagne’s severed leg into the air before swallowing the thing whole, and charged again. As it did, the rooster noticed that its face was already starting to look better. If he didn’t hurry, it would recover faster than he could hurt it.
Charlemagne had to perform his flying dodge two more times while maintaining control over his mana, which was a feat he would have found challenging with two legs and a stomach that wasn’t threatening to disgorge enough soaked rice to feed a small village. In his current situation, it would have been impossible were it not for his Meditation skill aiding him in corralling the unruly energy.
At last, the attack was fully charged. Charlemagne knew that he needed to catch the crocodile in its open mouth if he wanted to be sure of a one shot kill, so he gamely waited and let the boss monster charge him a final time. Its footfalls were so powerful they shook the earth, but Charlemagne used small adjustments of his wings to maintain his balance as the powerful attack begged to be released. With each rumbling step, the distance between the two powerful animals shrank, until Charlemagne felt like the entire world had been swallowed up by the crocodile’s pink mouth and dagger-like teeth.
Then, he fired his attack.
“Buck-kawk!”
A roar erupted from the monster as Charlemagne’s attack impacted it head on, going straight into its wide-open mouth and savaging its throat, before disappearing further into the crocodile’s body. Charlemagne saw none of this, however, as the boss monster’s incredible roar had literally sent him rolling off into the distance, blood streaming from his ears, eyes, and nose. But as the young rooster rolled, his stomach finally began to deflate. His Mana Core was greedily absorbing nutrients from his distended stomach in order to power its own recovery and heal the internal damage that Charlemagne had suffered from the crocodile’s final attack.
Grimfalk pumped his claw in triumph as Charlemagne’s mana attack hollowed out the boss monster, punching straight through its mouth before blasting its tail clean off. Charlemagne flew the other direction, somewhat injured but still the clear victor of the contest.
“Yes,” he crowed, “I knew it! How much did we win?”
Longclaw tapped at her phone for a moment, checking the betting app, GODbets, that some of the less scrupulous members of GOD were using to place all sorts of wagers. For example, one could bet on ongoing or potential fights, Quest completions, or upcoming GOD member rankings. After winning the wager against Plasmodius, Grimfalk had gotten gambling fever, betting heavily on his own Champions. In fact, Ricardo had just earned him a huge payout after successfully helping a sunfish make it back to the ocean. Grimfalk was especially proud of that particular arrangement: he had gotten paid for his help, made even more divinity on GODbets, and had used the Quest reward system to send his favorite Champion a boon token.
“Three-thousand and fifty-two DKP,” Longclaw announced.
“Wait, what does that mean?” Grimfalk asked.
“DKP is ‘Divinity Keepers Points’,” Longclaw explained. “It’s a new way to quantify the usage of divinity. One point is equivalent to the energy granted by the average level one follower per day. Even for those with no followers, it’s a fairly handy unit of measurement, and it’s small enough that it never needs to be subdivided.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Grimfalk answered, scratching at his belly as he switched the feed to his newest Champion, a Rhode Island Red named Sungay. Sungay was currently picking his way through the slums of Manila, avoiding packs of dogs and cats and looking for an area he could use as a hunting ground.
“So, that was a pretty good fight, wasn’t it,” Longclaw said after a moment.
“Yeah, Charlemagne did all right!” Grimfalk answered with enthusiasm. “I suppose his Zen Barbarian class isn’t all that bad, especially since he has a Mana Core. Do you think…do you think that he’s upset with me?”
Longclaw snorted.
“He probably doesn’t even remember that you were ever mad at him. And even if he did, he wouldn’t hold it against you. You’re the Alpha, after all.”
Grimfalk leaned back with a small grunt of satisfaction.
“You’re right, I AM the Alpha.”
Longclaw smiled.
