My Reincarnation As A Chicken

I could confidently say that I despised portal travel of any sorts no matter where I went. It was so disorienting and nauseating every time I used a portal that I’d rather stick to raw teleportation magic. Maybe it had something to do with the portals being wormholes, but I absolutely wouldn’t ever use a portal again.

Well, I said that, but my escape route for this heist was a portal.

Wow, calling it a heist suddenly makes me feel like some super thief about to steal a super important item the government is creeping under wraps. Then again, I guess it really is a heist. We have the customer, Alpha, there’s the dreamer/ brains of the operation, Agent and then there’s me, the totally expendable retard who reveals at the end that he actually isn’t expendable and is the most crucial piece to this entire mission!

The plan here was to steal the [Akashic Records]. A book that holds all information on all souls that have ever existed or will exist. A so-called [Book of Life] if you may. Why the system master wanted such a tool when she could easily do a google search of anyone, I’d always be wondering. The agent was pretty clear about how it needed the book to help cure it of its affliction, but somehow, I doubted the book would help it out in anyway.

This sounded nice and dandy, but the main issue was that I had to steal this from the King of Hell. You know, the head honcho with red skin, two horns and a barbed tail. The lord of eternal damnation himself, Satan. Erh, well, King of Hell, Lord Ozvaloth, but you get the idea. He was the highest authority in all the nine floors of hell, accompanied by the lord of the devils, Ozvon.

Their titles basically signified what they were. Ozvon was the strongest devil in all the nine floors, hence, he had absolute control over all nine of them, whereas Ozvaloth was the strongest being in all the nine floors. He was something akin to a god, possibly greater, considering he managed the souls of all things living and dead. Note, according to the agent, gods had souls, meaning, he was of a higher authority than gods. Thinking about it just made me terrified of the fact that this guy was so excited and ready to kill an exiled devil that intruded on hell, as if he was bored out of his mind and was willing to do anything to have fun.

Yeah, so this was a heist for me to steal from a being of higher authority than gods, with the time limit of one month, yet I had no idea how long I’d already wasted. Scratch that time limit. The new time limit was till it took Ozvon to figure out where I was. The agent had shed a little bit of light on what their dynamic was and I could feel a little bit sorry for him, but that wasn’t my problem.

Right now, all I had to focus on was stealing the [Akashic Records]. According to the agent, security around that book is pretty lax. It literally sat on a pedestal, unguarded by any who saw it and was basically free for anyone to read it. She even managed to touch it, but after that, she couldn’t quite remember how she got caught, but once she did, she was banished.

The holes in that part of her memory made me extra cautious. I also had a feeling that the king of hell would set up extra security after the 2nd greatest authority after him tried to steal it from him. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t simply ban all travel from any of the princes, just in case they did anything so stupid.

So, to summarise, I had to stealthily infiltrate the devil king’s abode, scout the area for any guards and if the opportunity arose, steal the book and immediately return to the system master, then get my happily ever after in my peaceful home in Larm!

I was pumped up now!

The royal sheol had led me to an empty room. It was a spacious round room, held up by five pillars. The walls were lit up with pale blue flame torches, although they didn’t really help out with vision.

“I had a feeling you’d come here.”, I froze dead when a man spoke. I wanted to believe that this was a conversation starter directed at someone else, but I knew for a fact that it was me.

Slowly, I turned around to see a man leaning against the wall with both arms crossed. His face lacked any sort of fat and was littered with stubbles of silky back hair. His deathly pale skin was mostly covered up by the simple grey robe he wore. He glared at me with his bloodshot milky white eyes. Looking at him, I got the sense I was staring at an overworked salary man on the verge of death.


“Wh-?”

<<That is the King of Hell Ozvaloth>>

The agent quickly corrected me before I made a blunder in front of the God of the Underworld.
“Lord Ozvaloth! Sir! How are you? You good? You need to sleep or something? Not that you look bad or anything.”, I wasn’t sure how to act to not get blown into smithereens.

“Silence.”

The man walked up to me, the way he moved wasn’t natural. It was as if his feet didn’t touch the ground, but hover. His garments dragged aground the ground, making it impossible to tell if he actually had feet under there. Once he was right in front of me, I gulped. He was about twice my size, so he glared down at me. I could tell that I was nothing more than an ant in his eyes, given his calm nonchalant demeanour, when compared to everyone else.

‘W-What’s he doing?’

<<Most likely scanning us to figure out why we bare Makrov’s curse>>

“So I take it you consumed Makrov?”, he interrogated with a deadpan expression.

“Y-Yessir.”, I coughed out instinctively. He scratched his chin while looking at me. I had a feeling he believed my response. Well, more like he was absolutely certain I wouldn’t lie to him.

“Hmph.”, he scoffed at my response then walked past me, towards the only exit I managed to scout out in the room.

Being this close to him made me feel like I could die at any moment. It was the type of sensation I got back when I was still a weak chick. I was hoping to never have to experience something like that again, but clearly, fate had something else in store for me.

“Hurry up, now. Unless you want me to summon Ozvon.”, he threatened quietly, without even looking back to see my reaction. I hurriedly went over to his side, but receded to behind him when he glared at me. It must have been offensive for a lower level being like me to walk at his side.

We continued walking in silence for a while through an empty hallway that was lit up with blue flames. My steps echoed throughout the entire corridor, making me feel very awkward and like I was doing something wrong, yet the Hell King never once complained about it or showed any sign of discomfort.

He was an imposing man with a menacing face. I was honestly starting to believe the scowl he wore was his default mode.

It was a few more minutes till we came across an open garden. This garden had iridescent blue flowers, lighting up the place and giving it an otherworldly feel. Looking up, I saw the open sky. It had purplish hue, littered with stars of all colours that appeared to be moving by the second. It was slow and harmonic.

Back to the garden, a rectangular table had been set up with two seats. The table had two silver plates and goblets served, with the other appropriate accoutrements set right beside it.

By the time I finished admiring the setting, the King of Hell had already been seated. He was glaring at me, so I hurriedly took the seat across from him. Once I did, the plate started to generate some fruits. Grapes, apples and a peach. The goblets filled up with silver wine. It was an odd combination in my opinion, fruits and wine that is. I’d never done it before.

The king of hell started by taking a sip of his wine. I believed that was a green light for me.

‘Well, there’s a first time for everything, I guess.’

<<Do not consume any of his food.>>

The agent stopped me before I grabbed the goblet.

‘Eh? Why not? I’m starving!’

<<Food unique to Limbo traps the consumers’ souls in it for eternity. This is one of the numerous methods he made to ensure thieves never escape his domain>>

‘Um… I think you should take the lead on the conversation from now on. Just don’t sign our death warrant.’

<<Very well>>

I relinquished control once more. The feeling of losing control over my own body wouldn’t ever get old. Immediately, the agent went to work.

<<This place is a bit emptier than I remember.>>

“What you remember is an alternate Limbo. In this Limbo, I don’t have any servants.”, he responded, then took a bite out of the apple in front of him.

He just mentioned something intriguing. An alternate limbo? What exactly was he talking about? Were there two limbos? Or… I simply couldn’t wrap my head around that.

<<Alternate Limbo?>>

“That isn’t something you should bother yourself with.”, he coldly shut down our question and resumed eating.

I thought it would be a while till the agent spoke up again, but this thing was fearless! It released the next question instantly.

“So… where do you keep the [Akashic Records]?”

My heart sank so deep, it had crossed the core of the earth and emerged on the other side.

“Same place you tried to steal it from the last time.”

His response felt like a dagger stabbing my heart. The agent had basically raised our suspicion level to the max. Ozvaloth must have been thinking ‘You’re laying it on real thick, huh? Want me to torture you for all of eternity or something?’

How could I salvage such a situation? Should I take control once more? But even if I did, what would I be able to do? Tell him that it was all a joke? Then there’d be silence. Then I’d have to eat the food because its rude to not eat his food. But then I’d be trapped in Limbo forever. What the hell is this?

“Did you up the security?”

The agent’s question practically made me lose my soul.

“Doing that’s a drag.”

“I see. May I excuse myself? I wish to powder my nose.”

Without waiting for a response, the agent stood up, and walked away, I on the other hand was busy bashing my head into an imaginary wall and cursing my stupidity for allowing this dumb voice box to handle the situation.