My consciousness rises out of nothingness, like a swimmer taking a breath out of the still waters of a pool.

Something smells really bad.

Like make you want to cough and try to spit the strong taste that came from just the scent out of your mouth kind of bad.

My eyes flicker open.

Once, twice, until they focus on the brown and green shape in front of my beak.

I was laying in Greenie's lap, but this time instead of trying to put some meat between my beak, he was holding something up in front of my face.

And there was the source of my major discomfort, olfactory wise.

Why did it smell so strong!?

I cover my beak with both wings, over the holes at the top of the beak where I think my nose is.

Nope, it wasn't making it any better.

One of the glowing text boxes, probably left from my evolution next to Greenie's disgusting hand, answered my question.

[Skill proficiency reached. Acquired skill 『Scent Detection (Blood & Decay)』]

A handful of brown, runny goblin feces.

So feces counted as decay?? The strong, foul, scent was banging at my head, rattling my brain.

In one corner of my mind, I cooly thought 'better change some of Greenie's diet so his crap is not so wet'.

But the other 99% was filled with only a long, screaming NOO-EWWwWWWWWW!!!!!

Was it a part of goblin culture to wake someone up with their poop!?

I was NOT ok.

It seemed so, with the toothy grin Greenie gave me with hand dripping with his own-

Yeah, I wasn't going to focus on what he was holding. Urgently, I wave my wings as fast as I could, propelling myself up and out of Greenie's lap and towards the other side of the cave.

But there's only his old poop back here too, and strewn about the cave as usual.

Urgh.

Flying out to the entrance of the cave, I can see the orange-red sun setting over the treetops, staining the upper leaves of all the trees in the same color.

In the sunlight, I noticed a berry patch next to the entrance of the cave, small green berries I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't stood on the dirt, instead of Greenie's shoulder, and looked while the sun was still out.

My wings shake open as I look down at them in the diminishing light. They were bigger, blacker somehow, each feather in the wings sharply defined and shaped like a honed dagger.

Waaaait a minute.

I'd been able to fly over here. Going from point A to B in a straight course, instead of spirling in different directions without part of my wing.

And my left wingtip wasn't hurting anymore.

Ohhh!! I'd evolved!!

Though it had been different from the one Greenie had gone through....

What had been the ??? title? There was something out there that was interfering with my life, maybe even watching me, which was scary.

I needed to know what their intentions were, what the ??? title was.

But that required more information. The only source of which came from my evolution, where the system lady would tell me what was happening…

Guess I would need to try and evolve again.

Though I wasn't sure where my evolution would head towards.

It would be killing 2 birds with one stone either way, because I needed to get stronger. The wolves and the humans were just the tip of the iceberg.

Who knew what other creatures were out there. There was no guarantee that all of them would be limited to land like the wolves or the snake. If the other, just as dangerous creatures could fly,

I would be dead meat.

As an analyst, one thing I knew for sure in response to this situation.

Information is power!!!

And as they say, my job now was to know thyself.

What was my status now?

Status!

Ding~!

The cloying smell of poop was still messing with my train of thought.

I needed to get away from it before looking at my status. Maybe eating a berry would help with the sour taste on my tongue, filling up the inside of my beak.

With a short beat of my wings, I'm already at the berry patch.

Wow, these wings were nice. It took less effort to get to where I wanted to go, and seeing my shadow glide over the ground as I flapped my wings less was exhilarating. Instead of landing, I keep going, flying over it.

As Greenie comes out of the cave, wiping his hand on the stone wall (which explained the brown stains inside the cave!! I thought it was old cave-art at first) he sits cross legged, leaning his back against the outside of the cave wall as he watches my antics as I hoot and do one turn around the clearing.

This was better than riding a new car!

Greenie might have dropped some poop on me, because the scent of his poop was still bugging me. Making sure to keep some distance between him and his poop-fingers, I land next to the berry patch.

My body had changed too.

Before, my short baby raven body had reached to Greenie's mid-shin (before his evolution). Now, I was tall enough to reach his waist while he sat on the ground with my beak. If he was standing up, my head would probably reach his knee.

So this was what it felt like to have a growth spurt!!

I'd been so jealous of boys when I was a small kid in my old life with their sudden growth spurts, while girls gradually grew.

It helped lift my spirits a little, and I touch my wingtips to each other over my head and swing them around my torso in a little jiggy.

But then I whip back my head and take one berry into my mouth. Seriously, I couldn't even have a moment of happiness when I was surrounded by the heavy smell of a public toilet.

Greenie follows my example and pops one berry into his mouth.

Poooft!

And one bird and gobin spit out the berry in sync.

I couldn't taste anything!!! There was literally no flavor from the berries, and the juice from the berries was making the scent turn into a liquid form and coat the inside of my mouth more..

Were these berries tasteless, or had my raven taste buds changed with the evolution?!

Now I couldn't eat the berries, either!

"Kieeeeeek!!"

Greenie rubs at his tongue with his dirty fingers, light green tongue hanging out of his mouth as he winces in pain. The masticated chunks of green berries drop from his mouth, hitting the dirt with a plopping noise. I pause, looking up at him.

What's wrong, Greenie??

tofu_moon

I put Raven's status as a spoiler, though it's not one, but I thought having the option of opening/closing it might be nice. Enjoy~!