Theft

Evan was debating on where to go steal from. The village was by far the best option, with so many houses and shops to choose from. But Evan didn't think he would make it to the village in this condition. That just leaves his neighbor.

Neighbor was a bit of a stretch seeing as his house was almost 2 miles from his own, but that was only a mile away from where he was in the forest. The village was almost 6 miles the other direction.

Evan was wondering what the best option would be to steal. According to his memories Feldman Agate was a Cluck farmer, he also had some small crops and other livestock in small amounts, but his primary livestock were clucks. He wasn't a warrior, and he had 2 children of his own, although they were grown and had families of their own.

Clucks were large chicken like spirit beasts. They were about the size of an Emu but had 4 legs with paws on them instead of claws, and their wings were too small to fly. They were birds though as they had hollow bones and were surprisingly weak to damage.

Evan set out towards the neighbor's house, using the bodies memories to guide him there. It took a little over 20 minutes to walk there seeing as Evan still only had one stat point in speed, he was quite slow.

In a large pen, a good distance from Feldman's house, there were gigantic red colored chickens with 4 legs instead of 2. The red was a vibrant bright color, making the large birds extremely easy to spot. This was the main reason people would raise them in captivity. Since they were weak creatures that were so large and easy to spot, if they weren't domesticated, they would have easily been extinct by this point.

Seeing the size of the animals Evan knew that his slingshot wouldn't be strong enough to kill any of these. They may be weaker, but weak is all about perspective, and in Evan's predicament, everything was strong. The only plus side was being weak to damage. But still, size still comes into play and a small rock isn't going to be strong enough to kill these large birds. To make matters worse Evan was in the body of a child still, making the size difference much more prominent than it would have been.

Evan started to stalk around the property, looking for something he could use as a weapon. He had circled the enclosure and Feldman's house several times. He couldn't find anything sharp or even blunt, which seemed odd for a farmer. There was a small shed attached to the Cluck enclosure, but he couldn't be sure what was in there. He didn't want to take the risk to look just in case Mr. Agate saw or heard him.

The shed was old and many of the boards were rotten through, making small holes through the structure. So, Evan crept up on the side of the shed opposite of Feldman's house, trying to minimize the chance of being seen. He started peering through the holes that were large enough to look through. Inside, he could make out some very crude farming and ranching tools. There were hoes, pickaxes, shovels, and what looked like an old-fashioned plow.

'All of this stuff seems really old. It doesn't look like any of it has been used in years.' Evan was slightly perplexed. The memories he had seemed to say that the Agate family was fairly wealthy.

His father used to tell him how the Agate family were the best Alchemists in the village, and they had taught him as well. It was only due to the promise that he showed in the field, but he was proud enough for his toddler son to hear all about it.

Alchemists were known to be extremely wealthy due to the fact that they could refine materials found into the world for their spiritual energy to create elixirs such as enhancers, medicines, and tonics. These had millions of uses, from healing an injury in the blink of an eye, to helping people strengthen their spirit pathways.

Feldman was an Alchemist himself but had stopped producing when he had children. Producing alchemists is a dangerous life. Many cultivators will go through serious lengths to achieve strength, including hurting those who you love. So, he had destroyed his inner pathways using a forbidden practice, to make sure no one would come after his family.

'These don't seem like the tools of a wealthy man. Hell, they look like something you'd see in the yard of a mid-western country house.' But beggars can't be choosers, and his stomach was starting to cramp from hunger. At least he fixed the water situation for the future, he had found a stream with clean water not too far from his house when he first started his "hunt".

Evan slowly cracked the rotted door to the shed open, hoping to God that it didn't make a loud creaking sound. It was the middle of the day, but Evan had bad memories associated with stealing that made him overly paranoid. He had done this once in his childhood back on Earth, the nice old lady down the street, Shirley, had a big garden in her back yard. He had tried to steal out of it a few times and was successful. That was until he made the mistake of stealing her prized watermelon. She waited on her back porch with a BB gun and shot him 18 times with that thing, and he could still remember the sting of each shot.

He grabbed the pickax off of the wall. It was much heavier than it looked. The rust on it was weird as well, it didn't rub off like rust typically would but seemed to crack into the metal in a honeycomb pattern. The rust flaked off on the parts he touched, leaving a bright sliver shine underneath. There was no sign of deteriorating underneath the rusted flakes.

Evan had a weapon. It was awkward for him to hold and just as large as he was. The metal was definitely not anything from Earth, it was much heavier and much more dense. He swung it over his shoulder and crept back through the crack in the door trying not to make a sound. The weapon was awkward which made it hard for him to step silently. Luckily the clucks aren't very smart as they would look at Evan moving towards them and make no effort to flee.

'Hey, this might not be as hard as I thought. I just need a piece of it not the whole thing. I'll just kill it and pull some meat out of whatever hole I make, and I'll run.' His plan was short and simple, but then again at this point he just didn't want to starve too.

Evan had moved close enough to be within striking range, and he was running on fumes at this point. His muscles were passed screaming and were refusing to move. His movement had become sloppy, swaying left to right more and more with each step and his arms were basically wet noodles. Still, he persisted on with his goal.

He tried to raise the pickax back as far as he could to make sure that he definitely killed it. He pushed with everything he had left in him to propel the spike through the large bird's side, where he thought the heart was.

*BOOM!!*

Evan was kicked by the bird and sent flying backwards towards the shed. It's not that the kick was strong, but Evan was in the body of a 4-year-old child. He was small and light. The Cluck is large and heavy, so the outcome was predictable.

"Who the hell is out there!" A large booming voice was heard over the hard thump of wood hitting wood.