Chapter 16 - Searching

"Gross," I muttered as I shook my megatherium paw to remove the blood and brain juices. "According to this bastard, this stuff is some kind of healing potion." I looked at the small vial in my hand with interest. "Is it just me, or is it colder than usual?" I said as my body began to shiver slightly from the chill running through my naked body.

"Ah, I guess being in animal form for so long made me forget I was wearing clothes," I muttered to myself, not noticing a certain creature scurry across the grass and then move forward so fast I couldn't even see it coming. "RRRRROAR—!", but slow enough for my megatherium paw to grab it by the neck.

"A lion? I thought you were a demon," I said as I knocked the lion a few feet away with ease, only for it to get up and start growling, baring its teeth. "Honestly, I'd rather not kill stray cats." After that, my body began to take the mutated form of an Atlas lion, Siberian tiger, and brown bear.

"Now," I walked slowly towards the lion who was now shaking like a leaf. "Get lost." With that, the lion began to run away with all his might. "And what exactly do I do to store this?" I said to myself as I looked at the small jar on the ground.

"I guess this can work," I muttered as my body mutated and a kangaroo pouch appeared on my abdomen, then I grabbed the small jar with my mouth and put it in the pouch.

Gurgle

"Well, it's about time to eat." Looking around, I began to look for some animal to eat until my attention was drawn to a herd of elephants. "Elephants, huh, well, I guess another one wouldn't hurt."

...

An hour later, I was full from eating wildly and getting blood all over my body from eating two elephants, I belched. "Expelling all that methane gas makes me really hungry, but I'm satisfied now." Getting up, I kicked some elephant bones on the ground as I walked to the nearby lagoon.

"There, now, I guess I have to get back to the lionesses," I said as I walked out of the lagoon, shaking my body to dry my fur. Taking just one step forward, I stopped short as the memory of a certain documentary came to mind.

"Now that I think about it, lionesses would bite the lion's testicles when he didn't want to mate." My body began to mutate into the shape of a griffin with two pairs of wings. "I'm the lion in the pride, but I'm not a zoophile, so," spreading my wings, I began to fly away from Africa. "I think I'd rather live among humans than live among animals."

...

"Damn it, where's a village when you need one!" After flying for almost three hours, I hadn't found any signs of any town or city. "Should I go back to the lionesses?" It only took a strong shiver to run down my spine for that thought to disappear. "I better keep looking."

Descending from the clouds, I began to look for some human civilization just a few meters from the tree peaks. "Honestly, I could use Google Maps right now, or at least a map," I could only complain about the streak of my bad luck that only increased, until after almost half an hour of searching, I managed to see in the distance a small village in a meadow surrounded by a huge forest.

"Finally, thank you, God!" Flapping my wings more strongly, I accelerated my flight towards the small village. "Well, this village looks like the common villages in isekais and reincarnations in fantasy worlds."

From the skies, I could see that the small village was actually a huge village. There were over twenty houses made of wood and straw. Most of the houses were small, with only two large buildings. There were also several fields of crops and a river that ran down to one side of the village. The villagers who lived there had clothes made of animal skins and hides, as well as plant fibers such as cotton.

"Should I go to the village in human form or in my griffin form?" As I descended, I began to question how I would introduce myself. "I think it would be better to introduce myself in my griffin form; after all, I don't even have any clothes to wear and I might even get killed as a person who is not from their village."

With a thud, I landed in the middle of the village, gaining the attention of all the villagers in the village. "I guess this is where most people run and others point their primitive weapons at me, right?" Contrary to my expectations, the villagers stared at me and then approached and bowed.

"Hey, this is completely different than what I thought would happen, do you guys think I'm a mythological beast or something?" as I looked at the villagers in bewilderment. Out of nowhere, a part opened halfway, giving a fat man with a similar but more elegant outfit than the other villagers a space to pass through, with a staff of what looked like bronze on the handle. "And that what? The boss or what the fuck?"

I looked in displeasure at the fat man's smug face with a disdainful look that looked at me like a simple animal. As he got closer, he raised his hand to touch me only to earn a growl in warning, making his face go from smug to annoyed to start yelling things I didn't understand.

"Do all village chiefs have this kind of attitude?" I wondered as the fat man continued to yell and the villagers just kept bowing. "First that old man from the Chavín culture, then that man from the Mayan culture, and now this fat man from a culture I don't know."

Looking away from the fat man and the townspeople, I began to look around the town. "Huh?" My gaze stopped at an old house, or rather, at the two girls who were looking at me at the old door of that house. The girls were so similar that they must have been twins; they were both looking at me with a feeling that I couldn't quite put my finger on. The clothes they wore were similar to those of the villagers, but their clothes were old and even had mud stains on them. The hair of both of them was also different; while the other villagers had black or slightly brown hair, they had blonde hair. Also, the skin color of both girls was a little lighter than the others.

"Wow, I honestly never thought I'd meet natural blonde people in my life... Wait, am I not supposed to be in the past? Why are there blonde girls?" Before I could continue talking to myself, my attention was drawn to the fat man who had stopped yelling for some reason. Looking down, I turned my sight back to the fat man, only to have him silently staring at me, and following my previous observation, his vision focused on the twins, causing them to quickly look down and start to tremble slightly.

"Don't tell me that—" my low mutterings were interrupted when the fat man's face was filled with hatred and fury. The fat man started pointing at the twins and then started yelling loudly at the villagers. In just a few seconds, the villagers' gaze quickly turned to one of hatred and resentment, and even most of the villagers grabbed sticks and stones to dangerously approach the twins, causing the expressions of the twins to go from expressing a strange feeling to expressions of fear and resignation as they hugged each other in fear, as if they had already become accustomed to this situation.

"This has to be a fucking joke." Opening my wings and tightening the muscles of my legs, I quickly moved towards the twins, placing myself on top of them, hiding them between my legs. "I guess racism is present in any era," I muttered to myself while the fat man easily made his way through the crowd to start shouting while pointing at the twins who were hiding between my legs with eyes full of repulsion.

Asplat, Crackle

As the villagers looked on in shock and disbelief, I pecked the fat man's upper body off, causing small streams of blood to spray out of the lower body and stain a few of the villagers. "I guess this is the only way to shut these scumbags up," I muttered as I spat the part I had torn off to the side.

"Mm?" As I spat out the part I had torn off, I felt something grip the fur on my paws tightly. Looking down, I met the gaze of the twins who looked at me in fear, but also with a feeling I didn't recognize. "Well, I guess seeing a creature tear off the upper part of another human isn't a nice sight to see."

Looking up, I looked at the crowd of villagers who now looked at me in fear as they trembled. "I'm sure they think someone is next to die... well, I would think that too." Turning my head, I looked away to the side, trying to show them that I had no intention of killing or eating any of them.

After a few seconds, I turned my head again to see the relieved faces of the villagers, only to see some of them kicking the remains of the fat man. "I guess most of the villagers didn't like that fat man..." "Huh?" Out of nowhere, a light appeared in the sky. "Angels, what are you doing here?" My question was answered as the light grew dimmer.

When the light disappeared, it revealed a humanoid being wearing black armor that looked more like full black stretch clothing. On its head, instead of a helmet, it had white bandages covering its face, and from its back protruded a pair of black wings like those of a crow.

"Uh... What is it supposed to be?" I tilted my head in doubt at the new entity I met.

"Inferior humans, I hope you've fulfilled my request this time or this time I'll kill half the village."

"What, request?" I looked in disbelief at the black-winged creature, who, despite all the villagers in the village surrounding me, didn't pay me the slightest attention. "This time? Does that mean he killed other villagers in this village before I got there?" I had to lower my head to see the twins hiding in my paws, after feeling their grip tighten and start to shake. Looking down, I met the terrified and fearful gaze of both twins. "Not even I caused that fear when I killed that fat guy."

Looking up, I saw one of the elders approach that entity with black wings. "What the hell did that entity do to cause more fear than me?" Focusing my gaze, I watched as the elder spoke in a language I didn't know with fear in his eyes, only to be cut in half by a trident that came out of nowhere.

"I killed twenty of you the last time you didn't comply with my request; now I will kill half of the citizens of this filthy village so you understand." As he finished speaking, he lunged towards all the villagers surrounding me.

clang

A loud metallic sound rang out as I stopped his spear with my claws, as I stood in front of all the villagers. "Great, first the demons and now this filth," I muttered with contempt and exhaustion as that entity retreated.

"When I saw you, I thought you were a griffin from the fallen angels' side, but I guess I was wrong." Raising his hand, he created a medium-sized magic circle. "Die, trash," a spear of light was launched towards him with a speed that a human couldn't keep up with. "Is this a joke?" I looked with a bored look at the spear of light he had launched at me; opening my beak, I easily grabbed the spear.

"Compared to the monsters I've faced, this is nothing." With a strong squeeze of my beak, his spear of light shattered into fragments of light before his stunned gaze. "You have to be kidding me." Spreading my wings, I lunged at him with my beak open. "Damn it."

Apparently, my attack was too fast, as the entity showed a desperate expression as it swung its trident, blocking my beak. "Too weak," I muttered as I bit down on its trident before throwing it into the sky and destroying the trident with my beak.

"You said you were a fallen angel, right?" My body began to generate electricity, focusing on my open beak as the fallen angel stood up straight in the sky with its black wings. "For your information, we humans are not inferior beings." Following those words, a concentrated beam of electricity shot out from my beak towards the fallen angel. "Nooooooo-!" His scream was silenced as the concentrated beam of electricity swallowed the fallen angel.

It wasn't long after I released the bolt of concentrated electricity, when a sharp pain shot through my entire body. "What the fuck," I muttered as I started panting and dug my claws into the ground. It was a few minutes before the pain subsided; panting, I looked up to see the burned body of the fallen angel and then walked over.

"Was it some kind of attack or what was that?", looking at the burned corpse, I started to think where the pain could have come from. "Unless," closing my eyes, I remembered my mutation. "Griffin, it contains the lion and an eel, plus another eagle to have two pairs of wings; that would be three animals, plus the small pocket of the kangaroo, that would be four." With a click, everything clicked into place in my brain.

"By generating electricity, I added a fifth animal to my mutation." I let out a deep sigh. "I guess the first four animals I can mutate with didn't reflect any pain back at me, but now if I want to add more animals, I have to adapt, what a pain." Lifting one of my front paws, I ruffled the feathers covering my head.

"We humans, huh?" I muttered, looking at the sky. "Am I even still human?" Leaving that question hanging in the air, I turned my head towards the villagers who had witnessed the confrontation. "If I spoke to my past self and told him I would kill people just to kill demons, he would surely tell me I was crazy." Opening my two pairs of wings, I prepared to leave the village.

Hold

Just as I was about to leave the village, four hands grabbed my tail. "This has to be a joke." Turning my head, I found the twins looking at me with that strange feeling. "I guess this is where I organize my advantages and disadvantages." Letting out a sigh, I closed my wings, causing the twins to let go of my tail. "I'm sighing a lot today," I muttered as I turned to look at the twins.

"If I leave, it might take me several hours to find another village, plus there's a high chance I'll have to kill another village chief and have to fight more natural beings." I stayed silent processing that information; after a few seconds, I grabbed both twins with my tail and lifted them onto my back.

"I better stay, I honestly want to avoid all that," I felt the twins' hands hug my back. "I guess it won't be that bad." Letting out those words, I walked towards the old house. "But first, let's rebuild that house that's about to fall down."

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Another chapter finished; this one took longer due to the simple fact of lack of inspiration. Honestly, I really prefer writing the fights to slice-of-life or filler chapters, but oh well, there are only five or six chapters left to finish this volume, so with that said, see you in the next chapter. Take care.

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( ̳• · • ̳) ~ ♡ Gracias por leer. ♡

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