Chapter 4: Arpious

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!

I turned my head to face the ground, and I see a wolf with its jaws wide open. If I don't do something quick, I'm going to be eaten.

After preparing my talons, I use [Spark]... but nothing happened.

Shit, I'm out of mana! I was going to stun it and have it flinch for a split second. Guess I'm going to have to follow through without that chance.

I try to use my wings to at least move away from the wolf's jaws, but the wolf sees this and jumps up towards me. When it neared me, I leaned over with all my willpower to try and dodge, but the wolf rips my broken wing clean off, causing me to scream a blood-curdling... 'cheep.'

"CHEEEEEEEEP!"

Enraged and pumped full of adrenaline, I turn my body back towards the side of its head and use [Peck]. I pierce straight into its head, killing it instantly.

"EAT... REVENGE..."

Wait, did somebody talk... AHHHHH!

Without getting much of a breather, the last wolf is right behind me. It swipes at me with its paw rigorously and slaps me, sending me flying. I tumble across the ground and stand up with wobbly legs.

I have to end this in one move, or I'm going to run out of gas.

Me and the wolf dash toward each other, readying our weapons. The wolf goes in for a bite which I dodge by sliding under its chin and lookup. From the sliding position, I nail my talons into the soil below me and crouch down.

From the crouching position, I jump up into the wolf's chin using [Peck]. My beak pierces the wolf's chin causing it immense pain. I immediately pull back and step out from under the wolf just in case it falls on top of me.

Blood gushes out of the wound in its chin, looking like an upside-down fountain. Before I can check if the wolf died, I lose all feeling in my legs and feel a wave of pain from where my wing got torn off.

Damn... am I really going to die like this... I wish I didn't have bleeding out as my death.

I hear a loud ding that rings through my ears which prevents me from passing out.

[2460 XP gained]

[You leveled up (x10)]

[Discarding extra XP]

[Evolution available]

[Select evolution]

…

[Cursed Hawk]

[Cursed Raptor]

[Cursed Harpy]

…

I can't even think straight right now, and my head is killing me. Can I inspect them to choose the best one? Mmmmmmm... It's so hard to concentrate with this raging headache.

tsk 

I'm getting the best feeling from the [Cursed Raptor], so I'll select that.

[Cursed Raptor Selected]

[Would you like to evolve?]

[Yes] [No]

Yes... alright, let me go to sleep.

I instantly pass out after selecting yes.

[Day 3]

So bright, let me sleep more.

When I opened my eyes to find out where I am, images flood my mind of what happened before I passed out. I look down to find myself standing on two legs covered in feathers with 3 toes and a talon on the end of each one.

I'm guessing basic things come naturally when you evolve, such as standing... oh yeah, what raptor has wings? I'm only a couple of feet taller than before. I also realize I never really compared myself to other things to see how tall I was.

I look up and see the tree I utilized in my fight against the wolves. I know I said they were half the size of regular cherry blossoms, but they were still enormous compared to me. It looked like I was nearing only 4 feet tall.

Moving on, I check my wings, and they are much bigger than before. Instead of it being normal wings, it was more like an arm with a wing attached to the side of it. I came to this conclusion because I have 3 fingers at the end of my arm with sharp nails.

Oh yeah, didn't I get a notification last time when I evolved-

[Congratulations on evolving to Cursed Raptor]

[Gained the following skill]

[Shadow Control]

[Peck has evolved to Scratch]

So I'm a Cursed Raptor now, just what I selected. Why is everything called control and not magic? Is control maybe just magic but worded differently? But MP isn't called CP for control power? There are so many differences in my sense of fantasy compared to a real fantasy world.

Also, how did [Peck] evolve into [Scratch]? That just doesn't make sense... wait.

I felt my face with my "wings" and found out that my beak was replaced with a mouth that sticks out from my face.

I still don't know what I look like, so I might find a body of water to see my reflection.

Before I could check my status, I got hit by an intense hunger and thirst. I immediately looked around with hungry eyes trying to find the dead wolves.

I could only find 1 left, which was more than enough for me. Scavengers or other monsters must have taken the rest.

I was so hungry I could barely stumble my way over to the corpse. When I kneeled, I immediately lost all sense of reason again and devoured the entire wolf, only leaving its bones behind. I tried to quench my thirst with the wolf's blood, but most of it had dried or wrung out from the wound on its chin.

[Gained the following skills]

[Beserk]

[Swipe]

Damn, I'll check that later. I need water right now... the blood wasn't enough.

I scavenge around for even the tiniest drop of water.

After running around aimlessly for about 5 minutes, I see a light blue silhouette. I don't even consider if it was just an illusion. I immediately kneel right next to it and dip my protruding mouth into the wet liquid.

It almost felt like that time when I was a feather when the blood spread through my feathery body.

Once I snapped back to reality, I find myself kneeling in front of a river right next to the forest I fought in.

Maybe this happens every time you evolve... you know, become extremely hungry and thirsty. But why didn't I get thirsty when I evolved to Cursed Wings? Speaking of evolving, let's check my status now.

『Status』

[Name: None]

[Race: Cursed Raptor (Lightning)]

[Status: Full]

[Level: 0/20]

[HP: 25/25 MP: 10/10 SP: 10/10]

[Strength: 8]

[Defense: 6]

[Magic: 5]

[Speed: 8]

[Luck: 1]

[Charisma: 3]

[Skills: [******] [Shock] [Boost] [Scratch] [Mind Control] [Shadow Control] [Beserk] [Swipe]

[Titles: [Blessed by ********* ****** of *************]

... 

Holy shit, this is a huge jump from when I was a little chick!

So everything got boosted besides Luck and Charisma... which went down somehow. Also, I'm basically frothing at the mouth at how many skills I have now, and I have to save some time to practice and see what they can do.

Now that I checked my status, I should look at how I look like.

I nervously near the water right next to me and poke my head out. I see the reflection of my face, and it didn't look as bad as I thought.

It was feathery in some places, such as the top of my head and my cheeks, but that's it. The rest was pale skin. My beak turned into a mouth that extended out from my head like a snout but longer. I had razor-sharp teeth that looked as if they could tear through anything.

I was never an expert on dinosaurs, but I loved them as a kid. I loved them so much that I watched too many documentaries and movies on them when I had free time.

The reason I'm talking about them is that I looked like one of my favorite dinosaurs from back then... the archaeopteryx. Everything about it, from its name to how it looked, was so cool. Most of the time, I would watch the same documentaries on this one dinosaur.

I really do look like it... I guess they looked like small raptors with wings. I don't remember if they were considered a bird or raptor, though.

[You have been granted a name by ********* ****** of *************]

[You are now "Arpious"]

Wait... what?