FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 232: Chapter 232: Woken Up By A Cute Bird?

Next Morning.

The first thing Sol woke up to was a rhythmic, persistent tapping.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It wasn’t the earth-shattering roar of some Behemoth or the mechanical thrum of a some obnoxiously large insect pack. Instead, it was light, hollow, and felt right next to his head.

At first he didn’t care much, and was about to go back to sleep, but suddenly he remembered where he was, and instantly, all the sleepiness was gone and his eyes snapped open. The heavy, Golden Liquid in his stomach and silver liquid in his chest instantly flared from a dormant hum to the roaring furnaces.

He shot up from his bed of silver leaves, his hand blindly grabbing the shaft of his Void-Oak spear before he was even fully conscious. He dropped into a crouch, leveling the obsidian blade at the thorny wooden grate he had built the night before, fully expecting a toxic serpent or a pack of giant insectoids trying to chew their way inside.

But as his sleep-blurred eyes finally adjusted to the glaring, golden light streaming in from the outside world, his grip on the spear loosened slightly.

Through the gaps in the crisscrossed thorns, he saw a bird.

It wasn’t a massive, four-winged reptilian monstrosity. It was just a…. Bird. It was big, but it was indeed a bird. It was roughly the size of a large Earth pig, covered in incredibly vibrant, fluffy plumage of bright azure and gold. It had large, dark, innocent-looking eyes and a short, curved beak that it was currently using to gently peck at the wood panels of his hollow.

It paused its pecking, tilted its head curiously, and peeked through the hole, looking directly at Sol with a completely harmless, almost comical expression.

Sol stared at it for a long second, his racing heartbeat slowly returning to normal. He let out a long, heavy sigh of absolute relief, lowering the tip of his spear to the wooden floor.

“So, it’s just a cute bird,” Sol muttered, his shoulders sagging as he ran a hand through his messy hair. “Of course. Morning in the jungle. I’m getting too jumpy.”

But this was the Great Orrath. And the Great Orrath didn’t do “cute.”

Suddenly, the fluffy bird opened its beak.

From deep within its throat, a terrifying, muscular inner-jaw shot outward with the speed and violence of a coiled spring. It was a horrific, barbed appendage, slick with saliva and lined with circular rows of needle-sharp teeth. The inner-jaw smashed straight through the thick, iron-hard thorns of his barricade, splintering the wood instantly as it snapped wildly, aiming directly for Sol’s face.

“HYAAAGH!”

Sol shrieked. It was an incredibly high-pitched, undeniably unmanly sound that tore from his throat before his brain could even process what was happening.

Without thinking, driven entirely by pure, blind panic and his sharp reflexes, Sol violently thrust his Void-Oak spear forward.

The heavy obsidian blade met the lunging nightmare-jaw perfectly. It drove straight down the creature’s horrific, tooth-filled mouth, pierced straight through its stomach, and exploded out of its feathery backside with a sickening, wet crunch.

The bird twitched violently on the shaft of the spear, a gurgling sound escaping its ruined throat, before going completely still.

Silence returned to the hollow.

Sol stood there for a long moment, breathing heavily, staring wide-eyed at the fluffy, colorful bird skewered perfectly on his weapon.

He slowly cleared his throat. He puffed out his chest, deliberately dropping his voice an octave back to its normal, heavy rumble.

“Damn it,” Sol coughed in a deep, manly tone, looking around the empty hollow as if checking for witnesses. “Scared the shit out of me.”

It seemed the old saying was really true: unexpected things terrified a man the most. Not like I was actually terrified or anything, Sol quickly rationalized to himself, nodding firmly. It was just an instinctive reaction. Yes. A purely biological, involuntary, highly trained, instinctive reaction to a sudden threat. Very manly.

He looked at the bizarre, alien bird, its horrifying inner-jaw still protruding slightly around the spear shaft.

“Why does this feel like breakfast delivered straight to my door?” he couldn’t help but mutter, a wry smirk returning to his face as the adrenaline faded. “I don’t remember placing an overnight room-service order though.”

But since it was indeed delivered right to his door, he wasn’t going to turn down free protein.

Sol grabbed the ruined, thorny barricade and violently tore the remaining wood away, tossing the splinters into the jungle below. He stepped up to the edge of the hollow and looked out, fully expecting to see the scorched, acid-burnt hellscape from last night, teeming with prowling monsters.

But no. It was peaceful.

In fact, it was super peaceful. The sun was rising, casting brilliant rays of warm, golden light that pierced through the overlapping canopy. The sky visible above the trees was a clear, vibrant azure, dotted with occasional, fluffy white clouds. A cold, essence-dense morning wind blew directly into his face, instantly washing away the fatigue of sleep and leaving him feeling incredibly refreshed.

Normal, actually-harmless-looking birds were chirping happily in the distance. The bioluminescent fungi had dimmed, replaced by the natural, vibrant greens and purples of the daytime flora.

It looked like a scene straight out of a serene, magical paradise. It was a completely jarring, mind-bending contrast to the apocalyptic hell he had witnessed just a few hours ago.

This world is really bipolar, Sol decided.

Seeing that the immediate airspace was safe, he quickly strapped on his bone-armor, gathered his waterskin and supplies, and, with the cute nightmare-bird still securely skewered on his spear, carefully climbed down the massive trunk.

His boots hit the damp moss of the forest floor. He looked around. The jungle was still happy and peaceful. The chaotic tracks and acid burns from the nocturnal migrations were already being swallowed up by the rapidly growing magical moss.

He shrugged, adjusting the spear on his shoulder. “First things first. Breakfast.”

He needed water to clean the bird and refill his skin. As he began to search the underbrush, his eyes caught on a peculiar, massively bulbous plant sitting near the roots of an ancient tree. It looked like a giant, swollen green teardrop covered in thick, leathery skin.