My Reincarnation as a Chicken

“You told us they had been forcing you to show them your blueprints on how the weapons we’d been building worked. Now where from these new weapons we’ve never heard of?”

The first one to speak was Yoshitatsu with a scowl.

The Wise Sage scratched the back of his neck before responding to her.

“Straight into the heavy stuff, huh?”

“Answer me!”

Yoshitatsu in a rage slammed the wall of their prison and the sound of her shackles echoed throughout the somewhat empty prison.

The Wise Sage cleared his throat then faced Yoshitatsu with steely eyes. From his expression, it was obvious he felt no emotion as he was about to answer her.

“Over the centuries, each former Sotomura Clan head left behind guidelines, tools and materials to build items of immense value. Most of these were made for the purpose of advancing our empire beyond what it currently is. In fact, from the things there, were none of us to possess any magic, we’d still be one of the strongest empires in the world. I was planning on adding to this reservoir of information for the next clan head given my old age, but it would seem I was destined to bring these creations to life.”

He explained it quickly as he readjusted his glasses.

“If you possessed such things, why did you not build them long ago?”

The one to ask this was Mori, who had endeavoured to create a society where no one was inconvenienced.

Sotomura cleared his throat then retorted.

“The key to this information lies not with the Sotomura Clan. In fact, I only presumed it to be myth till recent times.”

This was confusing information to Mori and Yoshitatsu. How would the clan head himself not know whether such information was fact or legend? The previous clan head should have said something to him about it.

“This makes no sense. You should have heard about it before recent times.”

The argued with his statement, but Sotomura remained silent. The astral body caught a glimpse of Akihiko’s gaze and it was focused on the sleeping clan head. A smirk formed on his face.

“I’m guessing it has something to do with the Tatsumaki clan?”

After keeping quiet for a few minutes, Akihiko finally spoke. Sotomura glared at him from the corner of his eye as that what information no one was allowed to possess. The other two, still confused, looked back and forth between the two.

“I never said such a thing.”

Sotomura denied it.

“Oh please, we all know that you two clans were in a secret alliance with more benefits than we would all get.”

Sotomura flinched at the claims, all the more confirming Akihiko’s suspicions.

“Eh? Explain more, Akihiko.”

Yoshitatsu, finally tired of being in the dark asked for clarification. The blue haired man shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ve been spying on the Tatsumaki Clan for a while now. I found out quite the number of secrets, but there was one that bothered me the most. It was an unconfirmed news, but now I know for a fact that it’s true.”

“Eh?”

“The Sotomura Clan is bound to the Tatsumaki Clan in a Master-servant contract, aren’t you?”

For the first time, the astral being shuddered in shock and yelled. To the members present, it was a tiny echo and they all presumed it came from the guard standing watch.

“T-That’s not true!”

“Oh please, don’t bother. It all makes so much sense now. The reason y-”

Just then, the astral figure could feel that Cardinal Five was before her. She needed to return before he started to suspect her.

Once she returned, she was met with two pitch black eyes barely an inch away from hers. Startled, she jumped back, but due to the enchantment on her binds she was brought back to the ground in a rather painful manner.

She groaned as she slowly sat up to find two different people in the room. Standing with both arms behind his back was Cardinal Five and the creep who was closer to Shiro looked thinner than the cardinal. He wore the same uniform as Cardinal five – a black robe, with a white collar, a golden winged crest on the back, black leather boots, gloves and a weapon of choice – however, his looked a bit bigger. Maybe it was because he himself was a relatively tiny man.

“Calm down Six.”

Six, as he was called, backed off from Shiro and whispered into the ears of Five. She managed to overhear them with her above average hearing skill.

“S-she sm-sm-smells weird. Just like how we were t-t-t-told the D-divine would smell, but t-tainted.”

Instinctively, she sniffed herself and shuddered. It’d been more than three days since she’d taken somewhat of a proper bath. Especially in her human form. That was absolutely disgusting.

“I already know that, dingus. I’m hear to ask what you can do about breaking her. The measures I proposed were considered too extreme which is why you were sent here.”

He elaborated as to why a new Cardinal had appeared. Six scratched his neck and closed his eyes in contemplation.

“According to my reports, she has no care for her mother whatsoever. And since your torture method doesn’t work, it means she has no care for human life. A rather tiresome person to torture.”

He said, his voice sounding tired. Then he returned his gaze to Shiro and her dauntless glare sent shivers down his spine.

“Honestly, I feel it would have been better to get her as a child and raise her as one of us from birth. She’d easily take the seat of Three or Four with that kind of will and potential.”

The sound of the man scraping off his own skin resounded in the silent room.

“Oh, how pleasing would it be to have such a person serving the [Divine]!? I would have loved to train her and raised her in the name of the [Divine], but instead she had to be corrupted by these heretics! Thankfully, she’s merely fourteen. There’s still much we can do.”

A fourteen-year-old in this world was considered an adult and allowed to do multiple things, including going on adventures and choosing their own life path. It wouldn’t be odd to spot several fourteen-year-old amateur adventurers when one went on trips.

His quote “She’s merely fourteen”, confused the girl. He wouldn’t be thinking like that if he used the standards of this world. Did the Dark Church have completely different views on life?

Either way, that wasn’t important. What was important was that Six stopped talking for a while. Five took that as his queue to leave and did so quietly with no comments.

The doors to the hall shut and Six crouched before the girl.

“N-now then, what do I d-do with you?”

He caressed her face as he pondered. Her skin felt soft and bouncy in his palm.

"Maybe like how I raise animals. I-I can break you down and build you u-up. You c-can call me ma-master from now on."

***

“Eh? So, what did he do to you?”

“Nothing noteworthy.”

She explained that what happened was nothing important. Maybe because she wasn’t a normal person, it didn’t seem to work well enough. If it was the average person, they wouldn’t have survived a day under Six’s torture, being heralded as Chief Interrogator of the Dark Church, Six was a master of psychological and physical torture.

She begun to ramble on about what happened to her. Since number Six didn’t possess enough time, he had to activate a skill of his. [Super Speed Thought Process]. However, he managed to share this skill with her and put her in a distorted world where time had been suspended.

What was one day felt like 1 month. In this 1 month, she was not allowed to sleep, she was put in extreme weather conditions, was left without vision and would receive random attacks that never landed. The worst was whenever she was allowed to see, all she saw was her headless body which made her think for a split second that she’d been decapitated.

She got used to it rather quickly, and Six was forced to up the bar. He used methods like dry drowning and other simulations to invoke the sense of death, but to a creature like her, death was the equivalent of a short nap.

Daryl and Celica who were not aware of this fact were sympathising with her.

“Ah, why were they doing all of this?”

“Hmm, they are trying to brainwash Shiro Tatsumaki. He wanted to make her his "pet" as he put it.”

“What? If they wanted to do that, why not just use magic?”

Celica questioned as it provided the fastest and easiest route to accomplishing their goals.

“Because magic can be broken just as easily as it was casted. You could force her through some sort of other rituals, but isn’t it better to have a broken individual who is a devout believer in their word? At least, that way they know they can trust her eighty percent of the time.”

She stood up and stretched a bit.

"If such methods actually work, you humans are just as fragile as I've been told."

She failed to understand what about that could lead one to break down. In truth, it wasn't a matter of being human or not, but she wouldn't know.

“Why are they even trying to get Shiro Tatsumaki? Why are they doing any of this?”

The white-haired girl picked up her mask and put it back on.

“Which one do you want to know most? The former or latter?”

Daryl sat down and thought about it a bit more. From her question, he’d presumed she wasn’t going to answer anymore than their next question. Since she’d given them a general idea on the purpose of the Dark Church already, it was better to get more information on the former.

“The former.”

She lifted up three of her fingers.

“Three?”

“Three reasons?”

Celica added. Her ears twitched.

“First, Shiro Tatsumaki has potential to become a [Hero].”

“[Hero]? As in, [Paladin]?”

“I mean [Hero]. It’s a separate type of class from your usual [Paladin]. The [Hero] is a much more important figure than a [Paladin] will ever be. Like her brother, Hiro is a [True Hero].”

She explained, but they still didn’t get it. She scratched her head thinking of how best to dumb it down for them.

“An existence meant to direct the future of this world. If you had such a person under you control, that essentially made you a god in your own rights, you understand? Their actions no matter how tiny will always have consequences on a global scale. A sort of domino effect if that makes sense.”

Celica and Daryl looked at each other for a while. They had a sort of understanding although, they doubted they possessed the same understanding as she did.

“Second, she has a connection to what they seek. The key to the revival of their goddess. As you know, six years ago, we lost direct contact with the gods. The only way now is through the Pope of the Seven Great Churches in the Holy Mexar Empire.”

“Oh, so they want to bring back the gods? Aren’t they good guys then?”

Celica saw no problem with their plans. If they were bringing the gods back, then tensions between the empires and the elves and dwarves might reduce. Rather than reduce, they’d completely cease and a peace treaty could be formed. That way, they could all focus their forces on the demons in the East and wipe them off the surface of the world completely.

“No. They aren’t trying to bring back the gods for the reasons you think. Just, believe me when I say it won’t end well for anyone if they accomplish their goal.”

Both gulped, nervous from her words.

“Thirdly. Other than being a [Hero], she is also the heir of the Tatsumaki Clan.”

Out of all the reasons, this one was probably the calmest one. Both shrugged, not seeing what kind of value being the heir of that clan was, especially given the other reasons they want her and the fact that her kingdom was under seize.

In truth, the third reason was probably the biggest reason they wanted her specifically. Even if the Dark Church wasn’t aware of all the benefits that came with having the Tatsumaki Clan head under them, they would find out later.

The masked woman had no interest in explaining it. Doing such was an unnecessary hassle at this point in time.

She sat back down on her bed.

“Now. Let me finish the report. Listen closely, since this is the most crucial part.”

She remained silent for a while.

“The Dark Church is in cahoots with a god.”

<A/N: Lots of exposition in the recent chapters.>