## Chapter 11 – Cockatrice Hunt
With that general feeling, we ventured deeper into the forest for quite some time. We should have encountered other monsters, but perhaps because the powerful predator, the Cockatrice, had appeared, there wasn’t much to be seen. They must have all run away.
It was so empty that I momentarily wondered if I was just hiking in my neighborhood backwoods. The journey was that peaceful. If I had brought a picnic blanket and a basket full of sandwiches, it would have been a perfect picnic.
“…”
Since the battle with the Wisp, all I’d been doing was trailing behind William. But the real reason this quest was a total pain in the ass was Winia’s nagging.
It was as if she had a disease that would rot her insides if she didn’t run her mouth every second. She relentlessly gnawed at my sanity with her words. I was going crazy. I was ready to pay any price to shut her up.
“…”
“Hey, dumbass, are you deaf? Should I pierce your eardrums for you? I have a needle.”
“How can someone eat an ear?”
“Are you gonna talk shit? Am I annoying you? Huh?”
“Sorry.”
I would have preferred monsters to appear so I wouldn’t be nagged while fighting. I was screwed, truly screwed. Right now, I could only hope that William would find the Cockatrice quickly. I hated that no monsters were appearing because of that Cockatrice bastard.
“Hoo, hoo… I see.”
Turning my head, I saw Copson observing William’s tracking skills with a look of pure delight. Exclamations of admiration escaped his lips from time to time.
William didn’t seem to mind it much. Monster tracking was a skill and practically a valuable asset, but he didn’t say anything, so he must have had a really good personality.
“Stop.”
William, who was about to push through some bushes, spoke softly. At that, Winia, who had been chattering like a strange bird, shut her mouth, and Copson drew his sword. He was a man who used both an axe and a sword. The tension rose. Was the Cockatrice ahead?
The sudden shift in the heavy atmosphere made me swallow involuntarily.
“I’ve found the nest. As agreed, I’ll take the front, so you guys protect Winia.”
The scent of blood and rotten flesh wafted from the other side. Smelling that strange, putrid odor, I also drew my sword. Monster nests usually reek of that kind of unpleasant smell, because of the accumulation of excrement and leftover scraps.
“One, two, three… the chicks… I see six of them. They shouldn’t be too difficult.”
After saying that, William silently moved through the bushes, gesturing to us. Carefully watching our steps, we passed through the bushes… and indeed.
A huge Cockatrice was sound asleep in a nest made of various plants, embracing its chicks.
ㅡKrrr… pururu…
Just look at that terrifying breathing. I can confidently say that I had never seen such an overwhelming sight in my life. Even bigger than the Drakes that occasionally pulled fancy carriages, its massive form was a perfect monster in itself.
Its large, hard-looking beak seemed strong enough to easily shatter a human skull. The viciousness of those sharp chicken feet was needless to say. D+ difficulty is way too high, damn it. I was inwardly horrified, but William and Winia’s expressions remained calm as they looked at it.
“Heh heh heh… this will be worth some money, Winia.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Burn it.”
At those words, Winia began to chant. The incantation was in a magical language, making it impossible to understand. As she chanted, a red magic circle formed in front of her staff, and crimson mana, visible even to my eyes, began to gather. The wind stirred. As she chanted, Winia had a completely different, serious demeanor compared to when she was nagging me.
ㅡKrrut?
Sensing something amiss, the Cockatrice woke up from its deep sleep. They tilted their heads, looking at us, and then, quickly realizing the situation, they stood up abruptly and tried to spread their wings.
However.
“Flame Arrow.”
Winia’s incantation had long been completed. The large arrow of fire that had been created struck the Cockatrice directly.
ㅡPergong!
ㅡKreeak!
The power of the Flame Arrow was beyond imagination.
The fiery red projectile flew with incredibly fast speed, hitting the Cockatrice’s chest directly and exploding violently. The monster screamed, and balls of fire scattered. Three of the chicks were engulfed in flames and roasted.
It was an incredible splash damage.
I was so surprised that I muttered, “Oh, shit.” That calmed me down a bit. The battle was about to begin. I gripped the sword in my hand tightly.
“Protect Winia!”
At that moment, William shot out like the wind. Ignoring the three remaining chicks that were charging at him, he rushed straight towards the Cockatrice. The Cockatrice, with its feathers burning, looked like a phoenix itself. However, William skillfully swung his longsword, severing the tip of its wing.
ㅡKreeak!
His amazing movements were like a lie. Did you have to be that skilled to be a C-rank? I was impressed by his clean movements and the way he secured the shortest route.
“Hey, Barbarian. Those chicks are coming at us?”
“Looks like it.”
Copson spat on the ground. The remaining three chicks were charging at us. The other three… looking at them, they were already roasted and lying scattered. The smell of burning filled the air… the smell of chicken.
To think that she could unleash that much power with a single strike, mages are indeed too strong for me to handle.
That was why I couldn’t mess with Winia. If I got hit by something like that, I wouldn’t even be able to recover my bones, so resistance was unimaginable.
“Hey, dumbass, I’m tired.”
Winia said that and playfully sat down. Sitting down, she stretched and poked my cheek with her staff.
“You can handle the rest, right?”
I had nothing to say, but well, this was decent. Winia had already done her part in the first place. The rest of the cleanup was up to Copson and me.
“Damn it, just leave it to me.”
ㅡKwieeeeeee!
I pointed my sword at the chicks running towards us like ostriches. Baby Cockatrices were just fodder. They were birds, so they must be stupid, and their size was smaller. Crucially, they were shorter than me.
In a monster brawl, what mattered was size and whether you had a blade. Most small monsters were smaller than humans, and I always carried a sword.
Fighting a weaker opponent with a sword, that was the basics of hunting. I wasn’t afraid because I was sure I would win. The fodder could never break through the distance of a human with a sword.
The only thing scary was the medical bill if I got hurt by mistake.
ㅡKkieeeek!!
The baby Cockatrice, which had approached to a close distance, jumped. I lowered my posture by bending my knees and body, then aimed my sword at the belly of the guy who jumped higher than me, timed it, jumped up, and swung my sword.
ㅡKureeek!
“Copson!”
With the sword stuck in, I pushed my shoulder in and wrapped my arm around its neck. Their long necks were their weakness. Using my knee as a lever, I snapped its neck.
ㅡCrack!
“You idiot!”
I threw away the limp chick and immediately ran to Copson. Two of them were clinging to Copson. Copson was screaming pathetically and rolling on the ground. Glancing at Winia, she was resting her chin on her hand, watching the scene with interest. She had no sense of crisis.
“Dureeeee!!”
“Oh, you little punk!”
I laughed as I ran, intending to make fun of Copson.
It was quite funny to see him getting beaten up by two bird-brained chicks and rolling on the ground. Kicked, pecked by beaks. Copson tried to get up every time he was attacked, but it didn’t seem easy to get up while being assaulted by two angry baby Cockatrices.
Even if they were small, they were monsters filled with muscles, as expected of creatures that ran on the ground.
If he got hit wrong, he would surely be done for. I immediately attempted an attack.
“Die!”
Explosively stepping on the ground, I used the recoil to stab my sword into the flank of one of them. Puk, the feeling of the blade sinking all the way to the crossguard in an instant was superb. The tip of the sword pierced through to the opposite flank.
ㅡKkieeeeeeeek!!!
The chick, which had become a scabbard by accident, let out a mournful cry and collapsed. It seemed that it couldn’t see its surroundings because it was so excited to attack Copson. It was the price for not remembering that if they ganged up on someone, the opponent could also gang up on them.
“Get up, you bastard!”
“Huk… thanks.”
I grabbed Copson’s hand and pulled him up. With two of us, we were unstoppable, and we surrounded the last remaining chick. Only then did it spread its wings wide, scream, and try to threaten us, but that kind of threat was ridiculously laughable.
ㅡKweaek! Kweaek!
“Heh heh heh. How funny. Very funny. Isn’t it funny? Barbarian?”
“Heh heh heh, it’s ridiculously funny.”
Copson, enraged by the beating he had just received, quickly closed the distance and swung his axe. With that clean strike, the baby Cockatrice was half-slashed in the neck, spewing blood as it fell.
ㅡClap clap clap!
When I cut off the neck of the fallen chick to finish it off and exhaled a rough breath, Winia clapped. Seeing her smile with her eyes curved and clapping with high tension, it seemed that she had enjoyed a satisfying viewing time.
“Well done!”
Even I thought I did a damn good job. Well, the difficulty was similar to a Kobold, so I guess a baby Cockatrice wasn’t that threatening of a monster. Two people could easily handle about three of them.
Copson and I approached William to help him.
William was fighting very skillfully. Every time he shed a drop of sweat, blood gushed from the Cockatrice’s body. When the enraged Cockatrice stretched its neck and attacked with its beak, he would immediately evade and slash its flesh. And if the Cockatrice didn’t attack first, William would charge in this time. It was a one-sided battle.
The Cockatrice’s height looked to be at least 2 meters 50 centimeters, but it didn’t seem to be a match for William with his longsword. Honestly, I had no idea how to kill that thing.
“Hey! Winia!”
When William called Winia, she finally got up and dusted off her skirt. Then, she stretched out her staff and chanted againㅡ
“Fire Bolt.”
She fired a Fire Bolt as it was. Unlike the Flame Arrow, a small, ball-sized flame projectile flew swishㅡ! and exploded as it flew towards the Cockatrice’s chest.
ㅡKweeeeeek!
That was the end. Taking advantage of the Cockatrice’s scream as the flames blazed from its chest, William’s longsword drew a clear trajectory and severed its wing joint. William quickly retrieved the deeply embedded blade and immediately thrust the longsword into the severed area.
ㅡThud!
The giant fell. It seemed that the blade had reached its heart. It was still breathing, but that was all. It could do nothing but cough up blood and convulse. Copson and I quickly ran to William.
“Amazing!”
“Incredible!”
William waved his hand once, then beheaded the Cockatrice like an executioner.
ㅡSkeong.
The head was separated, and soon a terrible smell wafted out.
“…Hoo.”
William, catching his breath, said.
“Let’s see if there’s anything valuable in its nest. I’ll start dismantling these guys.”
Copson and I brought the huge bag we had. The nest was piled with all sorts of bones and half-rotting unidentified corpses, so it seemed impossible to find anything valuable among them.
“Oh, shit. Hey, Copson.”
“What is it?”
When we cleared away the vines piled up in the nest, what was there were huge eggs. There were as many as five eggs hidden there. If these were fertile eggs without lying, it would be a huge jackpot. Monster chicks or eggs could be sold at a high price in the arena.
Of course, these were William and Winia’s share, so it didn’t concern me.
“These are some pretty precious things.”
After that, we rummaged through the nest, but there was nothing to salvage except the eggs. Even if we tried to collect bones or horns, they were all shattered because the beak was so hard.
