Chapter 16: Definitely Not What I Expected
I’ve never been on an adventure before.
Sure, I’d run for my life. More than once, actually. I’d scrambled through thorny brush, rolled down hills, flown into trees, and even played dead more times than I’d like to admit. But none of that counted. That wasn’t an adventure… that was survival. Chaotic, clumsy survival.
This though… this was different.
I had a goal. A direction. I was going from Place A (Sacred Hill, now sadly behind me) to Place B (anywhere Master might be), and I wasn’t just running for my life… I was running with purpose.
And surprise, surprise…
I found out almost immediately how completely out of my depth I was.
Behind me… snorting, stomping, and snarling… was a giant boar. And when I say giant, I mean it was bigger than any beast I’d ever seen outside of Master’s illustrated scrolls. It looked like it had chewed through trees for breakfast and headbutted boulders for fun. Its tusks curved like swords, and its eyes, gods above, its eyes were small but mean.
Now, I’d like to say I stood my ground nobly and tried to negotiate peace like a proper enlightened beast. Instead, I screeched, turned tail, and ran like feathers on fire.
I don’t know if it was a demonic beast or just a really, really big pig. I mean, I know demonic beasts were supposed to have qi and “wisdom,” but… I couldn’t exactly sense those things yet. My nose wasn’t trained for it, and my divine sense was, well, non-existent.
I’m a darn body-tempering beast!
All I had was instinct. And that instinct screamed: “YOU’RE NOT READY FOR THIS!”
Luckily, I wasn’t entirely hopeless. Master hadn’t trained me for nothing.
With a running leap, I bounded up the trunk of a tree, flapping my stubby wings for balance, and vaulted onto a thick branch. It wobbled under my weight, but held. Good tree. Smart tree.
Below, the boar slammed into the bark with a furious snort, shaking the trunk. I almost fell.
“Easy now, easy…” I muttered to myself, pressing flat against the branch.
Then, I tried something bold. Maybe stupid, but bold.
Master had taught me the basics of the beast tongue… a way demonic beasts could speak to each other even without human language. So I cleared my throat and tried.
“Friend?” I called out in beast-speak, tilting my head. “I mean no harm. Just passing by.”
The boar stopped. It stared up at me with narrowed eyes and snorted again, a deep, grumbling exhale that shook the leaves.
It didn’t respond.
Not verbally, anyway.
Instead, it snarled, flicked its tail in irritation, and turned around, stomping off into the underbrush like I’d just insulted its ancestors.
“Okay…” I breathed, still not moving. “Not friendly. Got it.”
But there was something there. The way it had paused, like it had understood. It hadn’t attacked me blindly. That was… interesting. Maybe not intelligent like Master, but not just a dumb beast either.
“That was probably wisdom, right?” I said aloud to no one in particular. “Wisdom and annoyance.”
I waited. Five minutes. Ten minutes.
No crashing hooves. No angry snorts.
I exhaled slowly, easing down onto my belly against the branch. The bark scratched at my feathers, but it was solid. Safe.
“This isn’t quite how I pictured things,” I whispered to myself. “But then again, I never really pictured what an adventure would be like.”
All I knew was that I was alone now. For real.
No Master to laugh at my missteps.
No cozy hill.
Just a dumb bird in a very large world filled with angry pigs, forgotten roads, and the faint hope that somewhere out there, Master was still alive.
I stared up at the canopy above me, the sky peeking through in golden slivers.
“I’ll find you, Master,” I said softly. “Even if I have to climb every tree and dodge every beast between here and the heavens.”
My thoughts were interrupted by a sharp thunk to the back of my head.
I squawked in pain and nearly lost my balance, my claws scraping against bark as I flapped wildly to steady myself on the branch. Spite rose in my chest as I turned around, glaring, ready to rain curses on whatever fool thought it was funny to hit a bird mid-thought.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
That’s when I saw him.
A yellow-furred monkey crouched on a branch a few paces away, laughing his shrill, wheezing laugh like he’d just witnessed the best joke of the year. He had a long tail that flicked back and forth, and his bright eyes gleamed with mischief.
“Such a dumbass,” he said in beast-speak between his wheezing. “You just sat there like a plum waiting to be knocked off. Priceless.”
I didn’t reply right away. I stared at him, feathers bristling, still rubbing the sore spot on my head with a wing. My irritation didn’t fade when I noticed what he was carrying. A short spear rested against his shoulder, the shaft weathered but well-maintained, its iron tip catching the sunlight. It wasn’t a toy. It wasn’t something picked up for play. It was a weapon, forged and used.
“You know pigs,” he continued, unbothered by my silence, “they're known for their stubbornness and low intelligence. Of course they can’t talk properly. Most demonic beasts in the wilds? No better than animals. You’re lucky that one didn’t try to eat you out of sheer boredom.”
I kept my eyes on the spear. Master had told me about beasts like this. It was rare for cultivating beasts to use weapons, and even rarer for them to use them well. Most didn’t need to. Their claws, fangs, or innate techniques were enough. But some… especially those with weak starts or clever minds… took different paths. They used tools. They used tricks. This monkey, I guessed, was one of those.
I didn’t like his tone, but I wasn’t foolish enough to pick a fight over pride.
“What do you want?” I asked, my voice edged with caution.
He tilted his head, curious. I added quickly, “Just to warn you, I know martial arts.”
For a moment, he just blinked. Then his mouth curled back into a grin and he burst into another round of laughter.
“A bird who knows martial arts?” he cackled. “Hahahaha! What’s next? A rabbit who teaches swordplay? A snail with lightning techniques? Hoooh, strange world we live in.”
I let him laugh. It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard that tone before: mocking, amused, and dismissive. I used to care. Now I just measured people who laughed like that. Sometimes they were harmless. Sometimes they had too much confidence and not enough bite. But sometimes, they laughed because they were strong.
Still, I didn’t sense killing intent from him. Just mischief and curiosity. That, at least, was manageable.
He stopped laughing eventually, resting the spear across the back of his shoulders and letting his long arms hang casually over it.
“Didn’t mean anything by it,” he said. “I was just passing by and saw you trying to chat up a pig. Thought I’d stick around and watch you get stomped. You lasted longer than I expected.”
I ruffled my feathers again and tried not to show how close that stomp had actually been.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said dryly.
“Anytime,” he grinned.
There was a beat of silence between us. He examined me with sharp, clever eyes, and I did the same. He wasn’t someone I trusted, but he didn’t seem like someone I needed to avoid either. At least not yet.
He gestured toward the forest with a flick of his chin.
“You heading deeper?”
I gave a small nod.
He scratched his chin thoughtfully.
“Well, if you’re smart, you’ll keep to the trees. And don’t waste your time trying to talk to everything you see. Wisdom’s rare out here. And the ones that have it? Some of them would rather silence you than answer.”
That wasn’t exactly encouraging, but it was more warning than threat. I took it as advice.
“Noted,” I replied.
He shrugged and hopped to a higher branch, balancing with ease.
“Strange bird,” he said, giving me one last look. “But maybe not the worst kind of strange.”
With that, he vanished into the foliage, moving through the trees with an acrobat’s grace and a thief’s silence.
I sat there for a while, watching the spot where he’d disappeared. My head still throbbed from the hit, but the pain was already dulling. My thoughts returned, a bit more grounded now.
Strange bird, he’d said.
Maybe I was.
But I was also a bird with purpose.
Ah, I forgot to ask him if he’d seen a squirrel with a sword around. The thought hit me just as the monkey disappeared into the canopy. My wings drooped a little. That was probably my best shot at getting any real direction in these woods. I wasn’t even sure if I was still heading east. Maybe Master had left tracks behind, or signs, or maybe… no, that was wishful thinking. Squirrels didn’t leave footprints on branches.
Then, as if summoned by my regret, the monkey came back, swinging from a vine with that same grin stretched across his dumb yellow face.
My expression brightened.
“Hey! Wait, before you go again, have you seen a squirre—”
My words got cut off as the monkey suddenly yelled out, loud enough to scare a whole flock of birds out of the nearby trees.
“Boys! Here’s that plump chicken I saw earlier! We’re eating good today!”
What?
From the branches behind him, more yellow-furred monkeys emerged. I didn’t even get time to count them. Some carried sticks. Others had stones. One even had a rusted pot lid, like he was ready to make soup out of me right there and then.
I squawked as the first rock came flying. I dodged, barely, and launched myself off the branch.
“Hey! I’m not a chicken, you bastards!”
They didn’t care. Another rock grazed my tail feathers. I flapped hard and aimed for the next tree, landing with a clumsy wobble. I leapt again, this time lower, just barely weaving between the thick branches.
“I knew I should’ve learned a movement technique,” I grumbled. “Anything would’ve helped! Wind Steps, Shadow Glide, even Leaf Skipping... Ugh, anything but this!”
The monkeys were fast. One of them swung through the vines with practiced ease, closing the gap. I could see the gleam of his sharpened teeth as he hooted, preparing to tackle me mid-air.
“Don’t you dare!”
I twisted mid-leap and reared my head back, focusing all my strength into my neck and beak. Qi surged through me, steady, focused, deadly.
“Earth. Breaking. Spade!”
I slammed my beak forward, straight into the monkey’s chest. There was a wet crunch. The monkey exploded in midair, reduced to chunks of meat and fur and something that smelled like boiled liver. Blood sprayed the trees, painting the bark in a sickening splash of red.
I landed shakily, wings trembling.
“Oh my god… OH MY GOD! That was nasty!”
My heart pounded. I’d trained that technique for years, cracked hundreds of boulders, but I’d never used it on something alive before. I glanced back, and the other monkeys had stopped mid-pursuit, some with their mouths agape. One even dropped his stick.
“Well… still think I’m a chicken?”
I tried to puff out my chest. It quivered instead. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to fight or just throw up.
The monkeys began to chatter among themselves. I couldn’t understand most of it, but I heard a clear “run!” and a moment later, they scattered back into the trees like rats fleeing a fire.
I exhaled, shaking.
My first real fight in the wild… and I won.
Kind of.
Also, I might be traumatized forever.
“Master would’ve scolded me for panicking like that,” I muttered.
Then again, Master wasn’t here. I had to be both disciple and teacher for now. Maybe that was part of the journey.
I took a breath and looked toward the sun.
East, I told myself. Just keep going east.
And maybe next time, ask the monkey questions before letting it leave.