We decided to be extra cautious for this first fight since I was the only one who had fought these monsters before. So as soon as everyone else was in position Fern and I started charging towards the Terror Birds while the other two started to attack from range. The first projectiles that Evie and Katy had fired struck one of the weaker birds in the side making it fall to the ground with a surprised squawk.

Activating my Ward as the other two Terror Chicks screeched in rage and turned towards us, I quickly cast Jolt on the larger of the two before engaging the remaining one with my naginata. As soon as I did this, I was reminded how much more difficult to fight these monsters were than the rabbits had been. The Armoured Rabbits might have had higher Stats, but they just weren’t as smart and didn’t have as many different ways to attack as a Terror Chick had.

While I stabbed and slashed at the agile Terror Chick that I was fighting Fern watched from a slight distance so that she could get an idea of how these monsters fought while Katy did her best to keep the bird that she and Evie were attacking from closing in on Fern and I too easily by peppering it with more attacks.

However, Fern’s decision turned out to be a poor one and I was forced to use my Barrier Skill to protect Fern when the Level 3 Terror Chick decided to ignore me and attack the person who was just standing there watching me fight the third bird.

“Shit, that was too close!” I shouted as I quickly used Slash to try and get the Terror Chick that I was fighting to back off and charged the other bird down before it could get around the wall of blue energy that had sprung up between it and Fern who was currently backing away from the menacing creature with a scared look on her face. The Terror Chick had moved so fast that she had been caught completely off guard but luckily for her I had been paying attention. If that thing had managed to get a hold of her then I’m not sure we would’ve been able to save her even with Evie’s healing magic.

The large Terror Chick snapped at me angrily with its serrated beak, but I was ready for that and dodged backwards just in time for the other Terror Chick to crash into me. This time Fern was the one to back me up. Her twin daggers cut two long gashes in the side of the smaller Terror Bird before it could maul me with its talons making it screech in rage and pain once more.

Before it could recover from the sudden attack, I kicked it further away from me before flipping back to my feet which was something that I could safely say I wouldn’t be able to do in real life but in this virtual world I was more than capable of doing so and I immediately re-joined the fight as Fern dodged backwards out of the range.

Now that we were starting to get a bit more used to fighting them the fight went much smoother, that is until the third and final bird finally made its way onto the scene. Dodging the beaks and claws of three Terror Chicks at once was not easy and I had to resummons my Ward which had broken earlier in the fight to block an attack that almost hit Fern when she was a step too slow in her retreat after attacking one of the Terror Birds.

“Guys, I can’t hit any of them if you’re all bunched together like that!” Katy shouted.

“Don’t worry about it then,” I replied loudly as I knocked the head of one of the Terror Chicks aside with my naginata before hitting it with a Jolt that sent it tumbling on the floor where Fern leapt upon it and started stabbing with her knives. “We’ve got this.”

Katy hesitated before glancing at Evie who had been focusing on keeping us alive with her healing magic and attacking with her basic attacks when she saw a chance. It was pretty clear even from here that they weren’t happy with the idea, but we couldn’t risk Katy accidentally hitting one of us with an arrow. We also couldn’t risk her joining in the melee combat and leaving Evie unguarded which was something that we had all agreed on before beginning the fight.

“Right, let’s finish them off,” I muttered to Fern as she looked up at me from the corpse of the Terror Chick that she had just finished off.

“Yes boss,” she nodded before flipping backwards in an astounding display of agility as one of the other two Terror Chicks attacked her in a rage.

Activating Sweep I attacked the other remaining Terror Chick which just so happened to be the Level 3 one before it too could chase after Fern. The blade of my naginata cut a long line into the things body causing it to screech in pain and as it turned its serpentine neck towards me, I followed up by smashing the butt of my weapon into the side of its head stunning it long enough for me to activate Slash which nearly decapitated it completely.

It was much easier to fight these things with a weapon more suited to slashing attacks, there were times that I still missed my spear but my naginata was definitely better suited to my fighting style.

After tabbing the fallen Terror Chick one last time to make sure that it was actually dead and not just pretending which was a real worry when one considered how intelligent these monsters were I turned towards Fern and the remaining Terror Chick just in time to see it stab her in the left shoulder with its serrated beak.

Moving quickly, I activated Barrier once more as it pulled its head back so that it could peck her again and managed to block the follow-up attack causing the monster to squawk in irritation. Evie quickly cast her healing spell on Fern who fell back as I engaged the Terror Chick which was already fairly badly injured.

Stepping to one side to avoid the monster’s talons I countered with a quick slash with my naginata as it pulled its leg back that sliced off one of its toes making it screech in rage. Seeing that the Terror Chick was now favouring its left leg Fern ducked in low and slashed at the back of its right leg causing it to fall to the ground which put it in the perfect position for me to finish off which I did with a simple swing of my naginata that slashed its throat.

The creature gurgled as it expired leaving the two of us panting, as we looked down at it.

“Well these things are definitely harder to fight than the rabbits were,” Fern panted. “Thanks for the help boss.”

“Oh, come on, I was just returning the favour,” I replied with a chuckle. “I can’t wait for Julian to get here so that I don’t have to be our Tank though.”

“Is he really that good?” Fern asked curiously as the other two approached.

“Oh definitely; the man’s like a freaking cockroach,” I laughed. “Honestly it creeps me out sometimes how much he seems to enjoy getting the shit kicked out of him by monsters. He’s also pretty scary when he decides to return the favour.”

“Ah, he’s one of them,” Fern sighed, and I grinned in reply.

You had to be a little bit crazy to be a tank in a game where you could feel pain and there were even people who definitely enjoyed it a little bit too much. However, it couldn’t be denied that they often made the best Tanks.

Once we had finished looting the Terror Chicks, I looked down at the two new crests in my hand with a smile. With the two that I had managed to loot on the first day this brought my total up to 4 and killing these three Terror Chicks had been much easier this time around thanks to the fact that I was no longer fighting alone. I probably would be able to handle one Terror Chick without too much trouble but fighting two would be difficult and if I had to fight more than that on my own then I would be torn to shreds even though I was stronger now than I was stronger than I had been on the first day. It was a bit annoying that a third crest hadn’t dropped but we had seen that Quest items don’t always drop before so I wasn’t too surprised either.

I also wasn’t surprised by the fact that Evie had Levelled Up her spell-gun Core. She had the option of getting a Skill that gave all of her attacks with the gun including other Skills added fire damage. It wasn’t a massive increase in damage, but it was enough to make it worth using. Especially since we were mostly still using the basic weapons that we had gotten from the tutorial with exception of my naginata and Evie’s spell-gun.

Once we were ready, we started heading towards the field where I had found the Terror Birds on the first day keeping an eye out for more roaming groups of Terror Chicks. I was actually starting to get a bit nervous about what was happening. There had already been a large number of Terror Chicks in the field on the first day and evidently their numbers had only increased since then. But the thing that I was really worried about was the Adolescent Terror Bird that led the flock. That thing had been Level 12 back then and I really didn’t want to think how much stronger it had gotten since then.

Sure enough, we came across another group of Sickly Terror Chicks a few minutes later. This time it was a group of four with three members at Level 2 and the final one at Level 3. Since Fern and I felt like we had gotten the hang of fighting the Terror Chicks we decided to go with our usual formation this time instead of the slightly more defensive formation that we had used last time.

Things went pretty smoothly up until one of the Level 2 Sickly Terror Chicks decided that it would rather attack Katy and Evie than deal with Fern and I. Luckily although Katy wasn’t as good with her dagger as Fern was with hers she and Evie were able to take the thing down before either of them got too badly injured. I, on the other hand was slightly less lucky and the Level 3 Terror Chick got a couple of good hits on me while I was distracted that nearly put me out of the fight completely.

Thankfully Katy and Evie managed to put the Terror Chick that had decided to attack them down before I was finished off and I had been able to thrust the head of my naginata through the tough breastbone that protected its internal organs when it had tried to charge me down.

While I struggled to get my weapon loose another of the Terror Chicks decided to attack me, so I was forced to drop my weapon and blast it with a Jolt that sent it tumbling to the floor as its muscles all locked up and started spasming. The stunning effect had obviously ended up proccing this time.

Before it recovered the monster was turned into a pin cushion and then shot with red bolts of energy that left its body smoking. I turned towards Katy and Evie who had just saved my bacon and nodded before casting Barrier to keep the remaining Terror Chick from attacking me while I extracted my naginata from the corpse of the Terror Chick that I had killed.

As soon as my weapon came free, I turned and charged in the direction of Fern who was dancing around the attacks of the last remaining Terror Chick with an expression of extreme concentration on her face. Slamming into the bird shoulder first as it lunged at Fern I knocked it to the ground which allowed Fern to pounce on it like some sort of large cat and slice a gaping wound in the back of its neck with one knife while driving the other into its eye socket with a wet crunching sound.

When we looted the bodies, we found three more crests which brought our total number up to 7. We had decided that we were going to complete my Quest today at the very least and then scout out ahead to try and get an idea of how dangerous things were going to get the closer we got to the field. The others also had to get 10 crests to complete their Quest, but they had insisted that we complete my one first which I had grudgingly agreed with. Not that it really made any difference in the long run since we had to get a total of 40 either way.

Even if we managed to get the 40 crests that we needed to complete the Quest for all of us we were probably going to have to come back tomorrow to get another 20 when Julian and Sarah joined us. Of course, that was assuming that there were even enough Terror Chicks to loot that many crests from which was why I had suggested that we scout out the surrounding area.

Once we were ready to move on, we once again started making our way closer to the field. We were moving much slower this time because we knew that the Terror Chicks were going to be increasing in number and likely Level as well as we got closer to the field and even though we could deal with the ones that we had fought so far I got the distinct feeling that a Level 4 terror Chick would be an enemy that I would struggle greatly to defeat even if it was alone which was unlikely.

Sure enough, as we approached the broken stone wall that surrounded the field I saw a Terror Chick slowly walk out from the gap in the wall that I had noticed the last time that I was here and signalled silently for the others to stop as I checked its Level. This Terror Chick was much larger than the others that we had seen so far so I wasn’t too surprised when the words Terror Chick Level 6 appeared above its head.

“Yeah, that’s a no from me,” I muttered to the others and we slowly started to back up before the Terror Chick noticed us. Thankfully it looked pretty tired and didn’t really seem to be paying too much attention to its surrounding. However, this meant that it was going to be a bit difficult to get too much closer to the field from this angle which meant that we would have to go into unknown territory if we wanted to see what was going on behind those walls.

Picking our way slowly around the perimeter of the field I spotted several other Terror Chicks including one that looked for all the world like the Adolescent Terror Bird that had been leading the flock on the first day which sent a chill racing down my back. It turned out to only be Level 10 which meant that it wasn’t the same bird but that still didn’t bode well for us.

Finding another gap in the wall that didn’t seem to have anything guarding it Fern crept up to it. Despite the fact that she didn’t have any Stealth Skills as of, yet it was obvious from the way that she moved that she was just as skilled at moving unnoticed as she was with her knives if not more so. Once she had made sure that we weren’t going to be spotted she turned around and gestured to me. Leaving the other two behind to perform lookout duty I slowly made my way over to Fern.

I wasn’t anywhere near as good as she was when it came to moving stealthily but I was still better than some of the people that I had played with over the years not that it ended up mattering in the end because there weren’t any Terror Chicks nearby that could’ve noticed me but Fern still shot me a pleased glance as I crept up beside her.

As I looked out over the field, I turned slightly pale. Inside of the walls I could see several tiny Terror Chicks that barely even came up to my knee, about 20 Adolescent Terror Birds and two much larger individuals as well as several eggs that were about the same size as a bowling ball.

The two larger individual had razor sharp spikes poking out of their bodies that looked to be made out of the same material as their beaks were. They were solid things that stood taller than the average emu and a quick check of one of them told me that it was a Level 21 Terror Bird. Sweat started rolling down my back as I checked the other individuals present which ranged from a Level 1 Terror Hatchling all the way up to a Level 23 Terror Bird which had to be what the Adolescent Terror Bird that had chased me on the first day had grown into. It also turned out that the average Level of the Adolescent Terror Birds that we present was 14 which meant that we were pretty much screwed if any of them spotted us. However, since it was just after noon now most of them were still asleep, so I wasn’t too worried about that happening unless we were really unlucky.

The presence of the eggs also explained where the new Terror Chicks were coming from. I was guessing that the two Terror Birds were a mated pair which meant that if we could kill one of them, we could prevent their numbers from increasing until more of the Adolescents reached maturity. Of course, there was no way that we were going to be strong enough to do that any time soon which mean that we would either have to try and get the Ponson Guards to do something about it or wait until we got strong enough to do something about them ourselves which would probably take way too long even with Julian and Sarah helping out.

Still, at least now we had something that we could report to Jameson which might even net us an extra reward if we were lucky. As we turned around to make our way back towards the other two, I noticed something odd out of the corner of my eye and immediately abandoned any pretence of stealth. Sure, enough as I made my move a large Terror Chick leapt out of a bush and started charging towards our friends who immediately started firing at it. Activating Barrier as I ran over towards the girls, I quickly checked the Terror Chick’s Level and cursed when I saw that it was Level 5.

Thankfully it seemed to be alone, so I was actually fairly confident of our ability to take it out. I was actually more worried that we would end up alerting the Terror Birds in the field which would be really bad.

The Terror Chick slammed into the wall of blue energy I had created between it and the two girls with enough force that cracks immediately spiderwebbed from the point of impact and bounced off.

More fiery bolts and arrow slammed into the monster but didn’t seem to be doing very much damage and the monster soon scrambled to its feet looking only slightly worse for wear after slamming face first into the Barrier and being pummelled by ranged attacks.

“Yeah, that definitely ain’t good,” I said out loud as the Terror Chick ran right around the Barrier this time and lashed out at Katy who had drawn her knife and stepped in front of Evie to protect her. While we had all agreed that Katy would be the last line of defence in the vent that they were attacked I couldn’t help but think that this was going to go horribly wrong.

Sure, enough the Terror Chick knocked the knife from her hand and speared her through the shoulder with a single attack.

“Really not good!” I shouted angrily as I raised my hand and fired a small bolt of electricity at the bird with my Jolt spell before it could injure Katy more than it already had. The bolt of electricity caused it to freeze up briefly but that was all the attack actually seemed to do and the bird turned towards me and squawked angrily.

Evie who had grabbed Katy before she collapsed tried to pull her away from the Terror Chick which was now hissing at Fern and I as we charged towards it but unfortunately this only served to draw the attention of the monster which screeched in rage and pounced at the two girls. Reacting faster than I had expected considering her wounded condition Katy managed to get a hold of one of its legs which pulled it off balance causing it to fall clumsily on top of Evie who screamed in panic but this also meant that it was considerably more difficult for the bird to savage her with its talons. It’s beak however was another story entirely and sure enough as soon as it had recovered from the surprise of what had just happened its long sinuous neck reared back like a snake just in time for me to slash at it with my naginata.

The bird’s head turned towards me as blood began to run freely from the surprisingly small wound that I had opened on its neck. I could hear Evie sobbing in fright underneath the bird and I kicked it hard enough to push it partially off of my friend before stabbing at its body with my weapon. I was hoping that keeping it focused on me would force it to ignore the other two and it looked like it was working considering that it kept its fierce yellow eyes focused completely on me as it got to its feet.

I kept stabbing at the thing with my naginata trying to force it further away from my two fallen friends so that Fern could check they were okay. Every time I stabbed it with my naginata it tried to riposte with its beak but its neck wasn’t quite long enough to hit my body thanks to the length of my weapon and for what must be the thousandth time by now I was thankful that I typically used polearms like spears or the naginata that I was fighting with right now in games because they prevented me from taking a lot of these sorts of counter attacks as well as allowing me to attack enemies from behind the safety of a tank if I needed to. But just because the Terror Bird couldn’t reach my body that didn’t mean that these attacks weren’t hitting me and soon blood was running down my arms from several nasty looking gashes but I gritted my teeth and kept thrusting my naginata at the bird before suddenly stepping in and activating my Slash Skill swinging my naginata at the neck of the Terror chick once more ripping yet another hole in the muscular neck.

“Hey, Katy, you need to drink this,” Fern said behind me followed by the familiar sound of a cork being pulled out of the narrow head of a potion bottle. “Sorry Evie’s still freaking out a bit right now. I don’t think she’s had something quite like that happen to her before.”

I continued to fight the Terror Chick as Fern helped Katy drink the potion. I really wanted to look around to check on my friends but the look in Terror Chick’s eyes told me that it was waiting for something like that, so I had no choice but to keep my eyes glued to its every move.

Most of my attacks were doing little more than scratching the large bird skin through its thick feathers and in all honesty I was going to end up losing this fight if I didn’t get any help soon but I didn’t have a choice but to handle this by myself until Fern got the other two back on their feet. With every new gash that the Terror Chick’s beak opened on my arms it became harder and harder to raise my naginata and eventually I decided to switch completely to defence and activated my Static Armour spell.

The Terror Chick really didn’t like the small jolts of electricity that arced out from my naginata every time I blocked an attack. It seemed that not only its beak, but its claws also had some form of metal in them that conducted electricity really well and I made special note to use this spell more often.

However, it quickly became clear that I had waited too long before switching to defence and I started missing my blocks and soon blood also started dripping down from the holes that had been ripped in my body.

“Guys, if you’re going to help out, now would be the time,” I said as the Terror Chick’s beak slipped past my guard once more and stabbed me in the shoulder before quickly pulling back as electricity arced into its beak.

As the Terror Chick pulled its head back a dark shape blurred under its legs and slashed at the back of its legs causing it to squawk in rage as it almost collapsed. A white light also flowed over me healing some of my wounds followed by an arrow that the bird reacted to quickly enough that it was able to deflect it out of the air with its beak as Evie and Katy also joined the fight.

“Sorry boss,” Fern growled as she continued to slash at the bird which spun towards her with an angry squawk. “Things took longer than I expected.”

She looked pissed which didn’t really surprise me too much. She knew that this thing was tougher than anything that we had fought so far, and she had been forced to leave me to fight it by myself. Instead of looking behind me to check up on Katy and Evie I started to attack the bird to try and bring its attention back towards me. I trusted Fern to manage fighting the lower Levelled Terror Chicks by herself, but this thing was faster, stronger and tougher than they were.

More arrows slammed into its side as the three of us continued to attack the increasingly panicked looking Terror Chick while Katy healed me over and over again as soon as her healing spell came of cooldown. Blocking an attack with the Ward that I had summoned a few moments after the girls had joined the fight, I followed up by slamming the butt of my naginata into the side of its head as Fern slashed at its wounded body again.

By now blood was running freely from many of the wounds that Fern had opened in its flesh thanks to her Laceration Skill and its attacks were starting to weaken as its health dropped lower and lower. Apparently in older games the monsters could fight just as well in a near death state as they could when they were at maximum health but that was something that was limited to certain Boss monsters in most games these days which I was currently very thankful for.

With one final Slash I finished off the Terror Chick and all but collapsed as its body slumped to the ground.

“Alright we have to move,” I said as I quickly looted the corpse receiving another Crest, some meat and a beak fragment for my trouble. “That fight might’ve attracted more attention and we can’t deal with that right now.”

The girls nodded and we quickly started making our way away from the field before turning back towards town.