Phew, that was close.

My left wing throbs in time with my quick heartbeats, pounding away in my chest. The trees pass by us in a continuing blur of green, as I focus only on breathing deeply.

Guess Greenie knows where he was going now. Which was a good thing, since I wouldn't be able to do any more reconnaissance. That encounter with those humans had messed me up pretty badly. Now if we were to get lost again, I wouldn't be able to find the way back.

We were still close enough to see the mountain, the cliff face where our Ice Cavern was.

It was important that we stayed close enough to not lose sight of the cliff face, but not too close that we would encounter the humans again. Now that I knew that humans would attack once they saw us, I was at loss for what to do. Did being a raven make me any less human than them??

With a small croak, I mournfully express my feelings into the cool forest air.

I was losing sight of my goal. It was depressing, with the way the humans treated me. The way they'd looked at me, the loathing, was so much worse than my slight disgust from seeing a crow rifling through the trash.

But even my hate for crows never led me to try and kill them.

Greenie strokes my tail feathers with the back of a crooked pointer finger, lifting up my left wing to assess the damage.

The thin lips of his wrinkly green mouth tilts down, upset at the damage he sees. His sympathy for my pain was so kind, it made me want to cry a little. I'd never asked for this. Waking up in a strange new world, losing my family and friends, when I hadn't been able to enjoy my time with them because of the demands of my work life.

Maybe this was all a nightmare, or a really bad acid trip. Though it wasn't likely, since I'd never taken drugs, being the good girl I had been.

I still couldn't remember how I had ended up here. Things got blurry when I tried to think about my most recent memories.

A nightmare was more likely.

But the tightness in my wing and the sharp pain felt all too real.

And it was crippling to know that I couldn't fly up in the sky for a while again......It seems I'd become more used to having wings than I initially thought. Having wings was a major plus to the new body I'd woken up to find myself in.

It was a whole new level of mobility that made me Queen of the skies. I could go wherever I wanted, as high and far out as I wanted. If a monster wanted to catch me, they would have to be able to fly first.

If I didn't have Greenie, I probably would have made a nest in the trees like Mother had, high up from any possible threats. Any time I got hungry, it was only a matter of hopping out of my nest and finding something edible.

Yep. Not being able to fly was hard.

Greenie gives me another pat on the head, shaking me out of my reverie. No, I wouldn't think that way. His evolution had depended on me, like I depended on him. Our destinies were tied together.

But I'll have to borrow your shoulder for a little while longer.

My wing was still hot with an aching pain. One of the shards of ice in the Ice Cavern sounded nice to put on my wing. Or the magic potion, whatever it was, that Greenie had first given me. Maybe there would be one tiny drop left we could use.

[Resistance: Pain Resistance upgraded from LV 1 to LV 2!]

The waves of pain seem to lessen a bit as soon as the announcement appears. Just in time too. It had been getting harder and harder to ignore the pain that went in waves screaming up and down my spine.

I look up, and the familiar layout of trees tells me we're back at our home cave.

Yippee! We did it!

There were the trees with their rough brown bark, and within the ring of trees, the small mouth of the cave that gaped open.

The giant snake was still there, body unmoving as it lay knotted around the tree, head hanging down. It had probably exhausted itself from trying to escape from its own mass of muscle wrapped over and around itself, getting tighter and tighter around the tree as it struggled, like a noose.

Appraisal!

{Mirror Snake}

{With hard, mirror-like scales that shift to blend into its environment, the Mirror Snake is a predator that uses sneak tactics and hypnotics to swallow it's living prey whole, to be slowly digested by the powerful stomach acid.}

Hmm. Not a bad appraisal. Not bad at all. It was giving me more information now, sort of restating my previous observations while also giving me a new bit of information.

Oooookay. Good thing I'd scratched Greenie before it had swallowed him, then.

When I stared closer at it as Greenie passed by the snake to enter the cave, I could see the scales slightly shimmer as they shifted with the light breaths the snake took.

This was a perfect opportunity if I ever saw one. And I'm not one to turn down a good opportunity. If this nightmare was ruthless, then I would be ruthless too.

We wouldn't have any meat in the cave since Greenie didn't have the jar after our encounter with the wolves. And I wasn't willing to go back to the Ice Cavern now, when the sun was beginning to set. We both needed to eat.

I tap on his shoulder to make Greenie stop, right next to the snake's head. It's easy to hop off and onto the snake's shoulder from his distance, using the momentum of my wings, though I still couldn't fly.

Deep breathes, Raven. It's just like gutting a fish, remember? I hype myself up, trying to prepare myself for what's to come. It wasn't going to be pretty.

Here's the jackpot, Greenie!

This world hasn't forsaken us yet!!

Ding~a~ling~!

Time for a small quiz from Raven!

Now, there is one weakness that every creature, big and small, no matter how hard the skin or how strong their bodies have…

Can you guess what that is?

Throwing my head back like a head-banging rock musician, I-

「Peck」!

Right into the snake's swirling golden eyeball.

Pop!

The fragile organ explodes like a runny egg yolk under my beak, splattering gunk all over my feathers.

Yuck.

My self-defense instructor in high school said that this was a necessary move to do when you had no other choice. I'm sure this wasn't the kind of situation my instructor had in mind, but I think she would approve.

She'd always said to aim for the eyes, throat, or groin. I didn't know where the Mirror Snake's throat or groin was (was it a boy or a girl??) so eyes it was.

She'd never mentioned how it would feel to stab into someone's eyeball in her lessons though...

Now that's gross. Greenie follows my lead and stabs his spear into the other eyeball, while the snake undulates underneath me, almost like it was having a seizure. It's thrashing was enough to make the thick trunk of the tree it was wrapped around creak and groan as the leaves shivered above. Better hope the tree holds out until the snake dies, or we'll have one very angry snake on our hands.

「Peck」!

「Peck」!

「Peck」!

I pause to stretch out my neck so that it doesn't get a kink in it.

And then again!

「Peck」!

「Peck」!

「Peck」!

I keep frantically pecking, shifting my body to match the snake's struggle. Greenie keeps stab-stabbing away, jumping back once in a while when it seems like the snake is about to break free from itself..

We keep at it like a duo of crazy murderers, Greenie getting sprayed by blood that flows out of the emerald snake's eye while my feathers stick to my sides with the mix of crimson liquid and white eyeball chunks that I'm bathed in.

Urgh. I felt sick. Making sure to keep my beak tightly closed so no bits of grey matter can sneak in, we keep going until the snake finally falls to the ground with a thump, the whole body relaxing its hold from around the tree as it dies.

The goblin is quick to dig a hand in and rip out a chunk of red eyeball meat, using his new forefingers to tear up a small piece and offer it to me.

That was gross, but sweet.

Greenie understood that I like to eat my meat in bits now.

I hadn't been planning on eating the eyeballs...

But he's insistent, following my beak with the piece even as I whip my head away from the proffered chunk.

Hahh. Ok, one small bite.

I gingerly take a piece.

Phooey!

And immediately spit it out on the ground. Yep, that texture was similar to what Mother used to feed me.

Greenie shrugs and eats the rest of the piece, licking the blood off his fingers as he did so.

Urghh. I try not to look at him, and focus on the snake.

While the head was still intact, it's eyes were completely gone, with only bits of white eyeball and red blood dripping out. It was horrific.

But it had worked. I wasn't going to question the method. A girl's gotta survive, you know.

Let's work on getting the meat, shall we?

From my failed attempts pecking at the head, I knew the skin would be tough to break. But my beak wasn't hurting anymore from pecking at the Ironwood tree.

I peck, starting at the thinner skin around eyesocket ringed with smaller, softer scales, while Greenie enjoys his eyeballs.

The snake's flesh is revealed after an arduous time spent peeling back to hard skin with multiple uses of my 「Peck」skill. The white meat tasted like an extremely bland chicken. Mmmm., Not bad. Though it wasn't great either. And it was making my tongue tingle a bit.

[Evolution requirements fulfilled. Would you like to evolve into a Carrion Raven? Y/N]

[Evolution requirements fulfilled. Would you like to evolve into a Greater Forest Raven? Y/N]

What's a Carrion Raven?

Appraisal!

[Carrion Raven: The dark, mindless denizens of the battlefield. Ravenous with a desire for raw flesh and blood, they use their excellent sense of smell and sharp beaks to tear into still-living prey.They are usually found following the scent of corpses wafting on the winds of the battlefield.]

[Warning: You will become unable to eat anything except meat]

Wait, what?

Just eating the meat and I'd fulfilled the evolution requirements?

The mindless part was making me scratch my head with my good wing.

This was basically describing a zombie, wasn't it? I hated zombies. And horror. Scary stuff. Gross stuff.

I didn't want to become mindless. There was a better life to be had then spending it chasing after raw meat. And from the phrasing of the description, it didn't seem that there were any other evolutions beyond a Carrion Raven.

How come the system wasn't showing me any other options, only this? If there was some sort of evolution tree, it would be so much more helpful in making my decision...

Sigh..

Was it like the world lose it's excitement for whatever being controlling this place if the players knew all the rules?

Now, what was a Greater Forest Raven??

Appraisal!