Chapter 3

Quincy cocked his head to the side. Someone was doing something around the corner. At first, he figured that maybe this dark alleyway wasn’t the best place to settle down for a bit. Then, he heard some more scuffling, a louder shout in a childish voice, and the feathers on his back refused to settle. He shuffled his wings a bit. The more he thought about it, the more the idea of the alleyway being his solidified, until his feathers puffed up at the idea of a stranger being in his space.

Quincy stood up from his newly arranged rope-pile and stalked towards the back of the alley. When he turned the corner, two masked men in black cloth looked up from where they were standing over a ragged child. A wooden sword lay on the ground beside him, and his left arm held a loaf of bread to his chest.

His eyes narrowed as he took in the scene. Boxes to the sides. Broken bottle on the ground. Two men ganging up on a child. The alley was narrow—too narrow for him to fly or take a height advantage—but flight wasn’t his only option. It was time for him to give [Parkour Instincts] a go.

The notifications collapsed into a level tag above each of the two thieves’ heads, and a level 1 tag showed above the child on the ground.

“Hissss…”

After the excitement in the square, Quincy wasn’t in the best state of mind. What he did know, and felt deeply offended by, was that not only were these thieves in his alleyway making noise, they were also trying to take bread which was rightfully his. Any food in this alley, of course, belonged to him.

As he waddled forward as menacingly as he knew how to, he puffed up his chest feathers and spread his wings to look bigger. His neck arched down and bobbed as he hissed. The thieves’ focus shifted from the boy they’d pinned to the ground to the goose, and they pulled out short blades that seemed more rust than metal.

Quincy paused and looked around. His goose side knew that he was already a living weapon, but his human side knew that taking nothing into a knife fight was just asking to get cut. His gaze settled on a broken bottle, and he picked it up with his beak.

He flinched as the notification crowded him, offended that he’d picked up a broken bottle to use as a weapon. After a second, the notification shivered, sinking into the bottle. The bottle cracked further, half of the glass falling away to the floor, then with a splintering sound, shifted until it took the form of the ritual knife he’d left in the clearing.

Quincy felt its presence in the back of his head again, hungering for something. For now, he welcomed it. Both his goose side and human side agreed—it was now two weapons against two.

His first move was to run at the thieves. On the ground, he was at something of a disadvantage, but a pile of boxes near the thieves provided a convenient launch pad in the narrow alley. He kicked, jumping at them with a speed which had them backpedaling with wide eyes. The closer thief raised his knife to defend, but Quincy saw it coming and tucked his head lower.

Both of their knives missed. The thief’s went high, and Quincy’s sliced smoothly through his sleeve, freeing a strip of cloth which promptly wrapped itself around his head. He landed uncertainly, bumped into another box, sat down hard, and fumbled with his wings, frantically shifting the cloth until he could see through it.

Both thieves stood stock-still. The goose turned to glare with beady eyes, hissing in frustration, and looked far more intelligent than any goose ought to be. The sleeveless thief looked relieved that he was otherwise untouched, then miffed when he realized the goose had ruined his outfit. They glanced at each other, then slunk forward again, aiming to corner him between the boxes and the wall.

“Where’d the goose get a knife?”

“Didn’t you see it pick it up? Weird, but it still just level one, and we’ve got it cornered.”

“I ’unno, this doesn’t seem worth it. We should grab the boy and go.”

“Shuddup and get the bird. Nobody touches me and gets away with it. Not even a bird!” The thief touched his shredded sleeve and winced.

“You know how much this cloth costs? This contract won’t even cover a repairs!”

As they drew nearer to Quincy, he had a surge of inspiration. There wasn’t enough room to fly in the alley, but… yes that would work.

Quincy turned around and flapped his wings as he ran straight at the wall. The two thieves watched dumbfounded as he kept going, straight up the wall, using his wings to stabilize and push himself up. His webbed feet slapped against the stone walls, nails scratching as they pushed him higher and higher.

He finished by pushing off several feet above their heads, arcing over and lashing out with his knife. His tail twitched precisely, feeling the rush of air and instinctually stabilizing his flight. At the last second, he tilted his wings, careening down past them at an unexpectedly sharp angle. The second thief tried to defend himself, but dropped his knife with a curse when Quincy drew a livid line across his knuckles instead.

Quincy landed between the thieves and the child, whipped his head forward with a strike which left the bleeding thief pinned to the stones by his pants. The other thief took one look at the goose as it reared up with its wings spread wide enough to block the alley and sprinted in the other direction.

“You’re right, it definitely ’ent worth it! It’s gotta be a hidden boss!”

The remaining thief swore as he watched his companion leave him behind. He struggled for few seconds before managing to tug his pants loose. The knife shimmered, then collapsed back into a broken glass bottle as soon as he was free.

He looked up at the goose, now swaggering towards him, and flinched back holding his hands up.

“Hey, easy there! We didn’ know this spot was yers, ok?”

“HONK!”

The thief ran without looking back.

Behind Quincy, the child didn’t know what he’d just witnessed. When he inspected the parading creature, he only became more confused.

Somehow, the pest had scared off not just one, but two thieves many times his level. It had fought them off with a wickedly sharp knife, and somehow suffered not a single injury in doing so.

So, as the goose strutted up to him and pecked at his foot, the boy did what he knew was proper when being confronted by their savior. He sat up and introduced himself.

“Hello. My name is Leo. What’s yours?”

The goose grumbled, sitting down in front of him to groom a few feathers which had gotten knocked loose in the fight. He paused as a notification pinged, and brought it up in front of him.

He pecked at the ‘y’, honked at it, then grumbled until it glitched.

Quincy stared at it for a few seconds, then honked quietly. He wasn’t great at the first three, and had no idea what the last was, but he supposed he’d figure it out. If “Fate” was what landed him on this world in goose form, he had a few choice words for it. What kind of “Fate” used a game show wheel to decide how people reincarnated? Completely unprofessional!

“Quincy Adams? Is that a… human name? What kind of a goose has a human name?”

Quincy honked.

Leo scratched his head. “Is it a goose name?”

Quincy shook his head.

The boy’s eyes widened. “Wait, can you actually understand me?”

“Honk. Honk honk honk HONK.” By which he meant, “Yes, but unless you can understand Goose, this conversation won’t go anywhere fast.”

The boy nodded. “Well, I can’t understand goose. Maybe we can work on that.”

Quincy stood up and walked back to his pile of rope. The child followed him, pestering him with further questions which he either could not or did not deign to answer.

“Where did you get the knife from? Where did the knife go? I didn’t see it on the ground. Where did you learn to fight like that? Can you teach me to fight?”

The goose eyed the kid, now at eye level from his position nested in the rope pile on top of the crate. Even disregarding communication problems, how in the world was a goose supposed to teach someone to fight? Besides, he was more of a brawler than a professional fighter. The kid was going to get himself killed waving a wooden sword around as if it were a real weapon.

Then again, this was a weird world with systems and stats. Maybe there was some sort of [Sword Saint] class which could use a wooden sword effectively. Maybe the kid should try meditating.

He shrugged, and it came out as a sort of wing shuffle with a bobbed head. He wished he could talk to the kid, or well, anyone really. Not being able to speak was wearing on him.

He honked tiredly, waving a wing in Leo’s direction until he got the hint and shut up. Not too much later, as he was dozing off, he heard soft sound. When he opened his eyes a minute later, the boy was gone, and half of the white bread loaf was sitting on the crate in front of him. The fresh, yeasty smell filled his nostrils, a far cry from the grainy, smashed roll he’d scavenged earlier. He settled back down with a trill, satisfied that his rightful tribute had been acquired.

Quincy nibbled at the bread while musing about his life on this world so far. For all that there seemed to be opposing forces of “order” and “chaos”, it didn’t seem like following a path of order would serve him well. He was a goose, after all, and he doubted that even a high leveled goose would have much influence.

If he wanted any chance of returning to a human form, he’d need to lean into the weird glitching interactions with the Lord of Chaos. Despite the name, he seemed more bored than harmful, unlike his interactions with the entity he suspected was “fate” before his summoning. The cultist had invoked a “Divine Lira”, and he’d have expected that if the Lord of Chaos was sticking his fingers into things, there’d be some sort of pushback from them. And yet, there was an apparently insane fate, a bored lord of chaos, and him as a goose. Was this world abandoned?

Quincy shook his head. It was far too soon to come to any conclusions. He didn’t know the rules for divines or lords, if any existed, so realistically all he had to go on was what he’d experienced personally. Ideally, he’d talk to a priest, but after this morning he doubted they’d take kindly to him attending any church events. And what would it mean for a world to be abandoned? It wasn’t as if they were present back on Earth, and he’d still ended up here.

He settled down for a real nap. The cloth around his head shimmered briefly, then shrunk down into a sleek black balaclava which covered his white chinstrap. He shifted, hissing as he dreamed of notifications turning to red static.

The goose did not notice. It was already asleep.

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