The chickens were indeed waiting for Zombie – and they were doing it by standing in a straight line right by their pen's gate!

It was honestly really cute, and had another positive effect – it took Zombie one glance to count them all without any trouble.

"Two are missing."

His expression soured as he pointed out before he entered.

|Patience, how the hell did we miss a whole monster...? Does it have a high-level sneak skill or something?|

Zombie asked inside of his head.

|No. It's more likely that it got here after we already left... It looks like it isn't nocturnal after all. Good, that crosses out all of the most dangerous options.|

Patience answered calmly.

"Yes... whatever bastard is, it got one hen."

Melon nodded with a dissatisfied frown and glared towards the treetops visible from above the fence.

"One? What about...?"

Zombie tilted his head and looked back at the old man when...

*tap* *tap* *tap* *tap* *tap*

*flap* *flap* *flap*

A large rooster with colorful feathers rushed out from the coop, making it seem like he was late for an important meeting, juped up, helped himself with his large wings – and ended up landing on Zombie's shoulder.

"Khahahaha! There you are!"

Zombie laughed and patted the rooster's puffed-out chest, making the animal close his eyes from satisfaction.

"Hmmm...?"

Then, Zombie's attention turned to the rooster's feet, or rather his talons...

Some of them were broken, two were missing altogether...

"He fought with the monster?!"

Zombie's eye's widened and he turned to Melon without stopping giving pats to the bird on his shoulder – that honestly, he shouldn't be able to carry as comfortably as he did.

"He sure did! I was making fun of your little training sessions but it actually looks like they are paying off!"

The old man nodded vigorously and started explaining.

"Today I was woken up but a loud noise from the outside, just a little bit ago I got up and saw this guy marching back and forth alongside the back of the pen with his talons stained green – there was even some fur stuck to it! Whatever damned bastard snatched another hen, this guy got them good this time!"

Melon said sounding as proud as if he chased away the mysterious monster himself.

"Fur? What color it was? Can I see it?"

Zombie twitched and asked.

"Sure. I took it so I could show it to Gooseberry or some other hunter."

Melon nodded and went inside of his house for a moment and returned with a scuff of stiff yellowish-gray fur tainted with some greenish fluid on his palm.

|Can you tell what we are dealing with?|

Once again Zombie asked the being sealed inside of him.

|Yeah, sure.|

Patience sounded as if they nodded, and made Zombie smirk with satisfaction – which he had to hurriedly hide by looking away, making it seem like he was put off by the sight.

|First of all, that is not fur. Those are pieces of a small insectoid monster's carapace. Judging by the color, we're dealing with a worm centipede. Funnily enough, they are usually low-level monsters on which the birds, like the chickens, feed in the wild. Killing them is not worth the hustle since they hide quite well while being generally harmless. Still, this one somehow got between level 5 and 8 if it started hunting chickens instead, but it's definitely below level 10 or it would have ranked up and lost the fur-like carapace.|

Patience explained, putting the memories drained from the so-called savior from the first playthrough to good use.

|A worm is hunting the chickens...?|

|Ironic, right?|

The two of them scoffed at each other.

"Ah, sorry, sorry, go and have the morning routine with them already! You have a knack for dealing with animals, maybe you have a hidden affinity or something? Haha!"

Melon closed his palm and waved his other hand dismissively before making a joke and walking away – most likely to see the village's hunters and ask for their opinion.

|Hey... you've said that they normally are the food, how come it only takes getting up to level 5 to start winning instead?|

Zombie asked while watching Melon walk down the road.

|That is what I was talking about so many times before. You were a unique monster last time, so you have no idea how difficult it is to level up normally, especially for some fodder monster. Getting to level 5 is hard – and you should realize it by now since you are stuck on level 4 for six months already, and you're still a living human that doesn't have the worst growth rate of all creatures... Though not getting any quest is surely slowing down your potential by a lot.|

Patience sighed, sounding as if they were shaking their head in disbelief.

|I would be on a much higher level if you didn't nag so much about me being careful.|

Zombie furrowed his brows and complained.

|You need to understand that there is no one watching over the system now and the story event will simply activate whenever unlike it was on your first playthrough – there's also no one who could revive you if you would die. I was the one blocking the souls from getting transferred and whatnot and making sure that the story will adjust to the changes. There's nothing like that now. If you'll die outside an event you are supposed to die and get resurrected, that's it. The night of the hungry wolves is one of the unskippable events that will trigger anyway and there will be no one to protect your favorite villainess from the trap set up by the Envy family using the Gluttonys as a cover - or in case that she the event will be skipped, the Eternal with the Invictus title will activate and destroy the world.|

"Well, isn't that annoying..."

Zombie let out an audible sigh and glared down.

"Bock...?"

The rooster on his back made a confused noise and lowered his head, looking at the young boy with confusion.

"I'm fine, don't worry."

Zombie waved his hand at him and laughed it off.

*clap*

"Alright! this guy here showed his worth! Now we will work on you ladies! If you work together, you can get rid of some worm monster, no matter how strong did it got!"

Zombie clapped his hands together and turned to all the hens obediently waiting still in a perfect line.

"You have talons and strong beaks! Today we're going to..."

The boy was speaking confidently while making his way towards the middle of the pen - he picked up a long loose board that must have been there for who-know-when - and stuck it vertically into the ground.

"Now. I will show you how to use them properly. This is your practice target!"

Zombie declared while smacking the board and making the dried-up soil - and other stuff - fell off in large chunks.

"You! You will help me demonstrate!"

"Bo-bock...?!"

The boy pointed at a white hen that instantly bocked in confusion, looking around as if she thought that he was pointing another one.

"Up we go!"

But hen's confusion didn't change Zombie's plans at all.

He walked over and picked up the animal and carried it towards the practice bard.

"Alright, everyone, watch carefully!"

Zombie grabbed onto the hen's paws.

"When you have a target, you need to attack it like this!"

Zombie raised the hen up and then moved her paws so that her talons would scratch against the board in long swoops.

"It might seem weak, but with how many of you there are, it will definitely be so effective that even a certain courageous hero would be defeated by it!"

He cheered, making sure to build up the hen's self-esteem.

|...how come you are so nice to animals but absolutely hate other humans...?|

Patience couldn't help but sigh.