After stopping in Wushan, we decided to leave right away after finishing up our business and begin moving toward the Xia province. The entire trip to the Xia border was originally supposed to take around nine days, but with my ability to temporarily turn us invisible, we shaved off a lot of extra time that would have been spent avoiding the various checkpoints.
Currently, with our pace so far, the Xia border is only two days away, but we've come across a split in the road. The sun will set in a couple of hours and we have three options. We can keep going and look for a suitable place to camp, or we can take one of the two splits in the road. If we go down the left path, we will arrive at the Shu Capital after about an hour. While going to the right will lead us to a small village after about an hour.
"That's two votes for the Shu Capital, two for the village, and one for camping. Lia's vote doesn't count since she's biased, so we are going to head to the village for the night," Aurelia says.
"I'm fine with that, I didn't really care about where we stayed anyways," Wanjing says while curled up on my head.
"But staying in a city is more comfortable and the food is better than whatever we can find in a small village."
"You do know why we chose the village, right?" Aurelia asks.
"I know why, the risk of being found is lower in a small village compared to being found by the garrison of a large city or a random patrol on the road. But what's life without a bit of risk, the comfy beds and high-quality food is worth the risk."
"For you maybe, but I'm not taking the chance, especially since you and large cities don't mix well. I don't think you've ever been to a large city without you getting into some kind of trouble," Aurelia says.
"That's not... holy shit, your right. How did I not realise that until now? Am I the protagonist of a book or something?"
"I think you need to get your head checked by a professional at some point, but let's get going, we don't have all day and the sun will set soon."
As we walk along the road that leads to the village, I begin contemplating my life choices and think that I should start avoiding large cities whenever possible. But before I come to a conclusion, my train of thought is interrupted by Yue shouting.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
"I stepped in shit!"
"..."
After a brief moment of silence, I say, "Is that really so important that you had to interrupt my thoughts, I swear I was on the verge of receiving a revelation."
"It's really important! I liked these shoes! Worst of all the shit I stepped on is fresh! I'm sure the culprit is nearby!" Yue yells as she begins to look around for the source of her plight.
It doesn't take more than a few seconds for her to locate her supposed aggressor. On a wooden post nearby is a red feathered chicken. Seeing Yue glaring at it, the chicken looks to the ground where Yue stepped then back at her face, with a glint in its eye, the chicken raises a wing and does a 'bring it on' motion, causing Yue to lunge towards it.
"If I didn't see this taking place in front of me, no one would ever convince me that Yue was fighting with a chicken, even if I read their mind, I still wouldn't have believed it. But this shouldn't take long, it's just a mere chicken after all," Aurelia says.
"Hehe, the fried chicken against the raw chicken, *pfft*, ok totally worth not going to the city just to see this, hahaha," I say, unable to control my laughter.
"Fried chicken?" Wanjing questions.
"Because Yue is proficient with fire, thus fried chicken," I explain.
"Say, isn't this going on for a bit too long," Lia says.
Bringing our attention back to the fight, we actually see that Yue had brought out her guandao and is using all her abilities. The ground beneath them has been scorched by her flames and the wood post where the chicken once sat has been utterly destroyed, yet the two of them are still going at it. Not only is it taking longer than expected, but Yue is actually losing to this chicken!
"Be careful, this isn't an ordinary chicken!" Yue yells out.
No shit it's not an ordinary chicken, is what I want to say, but I just checked it's status with my Draconic Insight and I'm sure Lia and the others also inspected it since we all have the same strange expression on our face.
"This can't possibly be real right?" I ask.
"I'm not one to question the System, but in this case, I agree, this can't possibly be real," Lia says.
"You think one of Them is messing with our inspection?" Aurelia asks.
Before any of us can respond to her question, we receive a notification from the System, [Believe it or not, neither Akkre, Serabane, nor I have messed or hidden anything.]
"So do you believe it? I don't," I say.
"At the very least, She is more believable than those two, albeit not much, but still, it's hard to believe that this is the chicken's real status."
Yeah, whether it's them or something else, it's hard to believe that this is the chicken's real status.
Name: Chicken
Race: Red Chicken
Tier: 0
Titles: Just Your Everday Ordinary Chicken
Level: 5
HP: 30/30 MP: 9/9 SP: 26/26
STR: 17
VIT: 16
DEX: 11
INT: 8
WIS: 6
MND: 4
Details: Although this particular chicken has reached the peak of its race, it's just an ordinary Red Chicken. Commonly found on farms. Just your average livestock farm animal.
I keep on inspecting it to see its various skills and abilities since I can only see a couple at a time, but all that shows up is stuff like 'egg laying', 'pecking', and 'clucking'. I'm starting to think it really is just an ordinary chicken since it doesn't appear to be doing anything special other than regular chicken attacks and no matter how many times I check, it has nothing special about it.
Before we realise it, the sun has already set and the two of them are still at it. While they were fighting, we've set up camp while Wanjing transformed back to her humanoid form and began to cook. Perhaps because of my previous comment, Wanjing decided to make fried chicken for us as we all just watch the two birds fight.
Eventually, morning came and I was the only one who bothered to stay up and watch the entire fight unfold. As everyone was waking up, they all see that Yue is clearly exhausted and barely able to move while the chicken seems perfectly fine. I begin to explain that they never stopped fighting for a moment over the course of the night and that Yue has gradually been slowing down while the chicken remains in top form the entire time.
After about another hour, Yue finally falls to the ground having completely exhausted herself. Seeing that its opponent has fallen, the chicken raises one of its wings and tilts its head up as a sign of its proud victory. It looks over to us and preforms that 'bring it on' movement with its wing just like yesterday, but we all just shake our heads and deny the challenge.
The chicken nods at us before opening its mouth, but instead of the clucking sound we expect, we hear a deep gruff voice, "very well, I'm sure my family is worried about my long absence, so I'll take my leave here," says the chicken before it runs off.
"It can talk!" Wanjing shouts, bringing the rest of us out of our stupor.
Just before the chicken leaves my range, I use my Draconic Insight to see its skills in a last-ditch effort and this time I do find something new, causing me to shout.
"What the hell, that chicken is fucking immortal!"