CUCKAAAAA—
"Captain Beak, on my gods…" he grumbled into his straw pillow, his belly rumbling.
The rooster crowed another piercing, loud call, as if to claim mastery over the sleeping world.
"The chickens are crying again," Sylas groaned, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. His body not used to yesterday's labor pained and his back knotted, hands cracked, and calves aching from lugging wood.
"Why wasn't I given a warning about chickens being ungodly hard work?" he growled.
He tugged at his rough linen shirt and breeches and went outside, the sharp morning air closing around his skin. His breath misted in the early cold, and a pale mist hung about the fields like a sleepy blanket.
The coop stood a few steps away from his hut, a bit askew but solid. Five chickens fluttered about within, already awake and scratching the ground. Captain Beak sat on the fence post, chest pushed forward and eyes screwed shut.
"You're lucky I don't feast on chicken," Sylas said, wagging a finger at him.
The rooster crowed once more, as if in challenge.
> [Quest: Feed the Chickens (0/1)]
Reward: +5 EXP | +1 Copper
Sylas blinked. "You're still staring at me, eh?" he told the System. "Well, at least you pay."
He strode over to the sack of feed, picked up a handful of the hard grain, and flung it into the trough. The chickens came clattering down like a pillow fight, pecking wildly. One alighted on his boot and scowled up at him.
"Hey, I paid for the food," he said. "Don't get sassy."
He filled their water from the bucket beside the well, so all the chickens had space. They flapped and clucked, Captain Beak marching among them like a general reviewing his troops.
> [Quest Complete!]
+5 EXP
+1 Copper
[Passive Skill Unlocked: Basic Animal Handling (F)]
> [Skill: Basic Animal Handling (F)]
Your presence has a calming effect on household animals. Increases productivity when working with livestock. Slight resistance to pecking, biting, and barnyard hostility.
Sylas grinned. "You're kidding. Barnyard rage is a thing?"
One of the hens pecked his ankle, as if on cue.
"Okay, valid point."
He settled down onto a nearby stump, letting the cold wind rustle his face. Despite the chaos, it was. quiet. There was a rhythm here. Feed. Clean. Build. Sleep. Do it all over again. It was plain, and raw. For a man who once rested dying in a cold white hospital room, it was living.
A while later, a familiar voice hailed along the trail.
"Well, well. You're still not lunch."
Mira came with a basket on her hip and a crooked smile.
Sylas waved. "Morning. Just in time to watch a rooster reign of terror."
She came by the coop, leaning against the fence.
"Captain Beak still causing you grief?"
"He thinks he's royalty."
"He is, sort of," Mira said, feeding a slice of bread to the pen. "He was the village elder's until he got too rambunctious."
"Excellent. I purchased a crook."
She smiled and handed him the basket. "Bread and dried fruit. Thought you'd skip breakfast again."
Sylas accepted it with a grateful bow of his head. "Thanks. This 'create-your-life-from-scratch' business stimulates an appetite."
"You're holding your own," she said, surveying the yard. "The coop remains upright, the fence doesn't lean, and you haven't run screaming for your life."
"I considered it," Sylas confessed, crunching on a piece of fruit.
"But there's something to all of this. it feels good."
They stood there for a moment, observing the chickens scratch and puff out their feathers. It wasn't good, but there was a wholesome to it.
Mira shoved him. "You planning on going into town anytime soon?"
"Eventually. Why?"
"There's a library. It's small, but it's pleasant. If you're staying here, might be worth learning magic—particularly if you don't want to get taken for everything you're worth."
Sylas raised an eyebrow. "You think I'd be able to do magic?"
Mira shrugged. "You've got that look. Like someone who doesn't have any idea how dangerous they could be."
That made him laugh.
Sylas came back to the coop in the afternoon with an armload of hay and a hammer in the other. He labored for hours, mending the coop walls and holes in the fence. It was grueling, monotonous work, and it splintered his hands, but there was something oddly soothing about it.
He was tired by the late afternoon. Sweat trickled down his brow and he sat under a close-by tree. The sky's color was soft orange as it neared sunset, and the shadows stretched upon the ground.
He stooped to retrieve a loose piece of wood—and that was when.
The instant his hand made contact with it, he sensed a weak pulse. A gentle heat, a heartbeat, throbbed through the wood. His breath froze.
"What the…?"
The board glowed with a gentle warmth for an instant, a golden light dancing over the grain. It vanished just as suddenly, leaving Sylas staring and speechless.
> [Hidden Trait Detected: Magic Affinity – Earth (Dormant)]
Condition to awaken: Extended exposure to natural sources of mana.
He gulped hard. "Magic…?"
He glanced at his hand, and then at the wood once more. It was solid. True.
A spasm crept up his arm, but one that was not painful, so much as an impression that his skin recalled something his mind didn't.
> [Optional Quest Unlocked: Seek Mana Awareness Training]
Description: Your underlying affinity has come to life. To learn what it is, seek training or learn in town.
Reward: Unlock Magic Skill Tree
He breathed slowly. "So it's not chickens and dirt only. There's more."
Sylas felt, for the first time since he'd come here, that same feeling of wonder he'd had as a kid reading fantasy books in his previous world. Magic. Actual, living magic. Not something he'd shelled out a small fortune for in a hospital complex. Not something that arrived too late to heal his old body.
This was not like that. Something of his own.
He constructed a small fire outside that evening and dined on a plain meal just root vegetables and desiccated flesh, but hot, and sufficient.
He sat in stillness, the stars overhead shining bright and pure. No street lamps. No machines. Only the soft popt of the fire burning and occasionally a cluck from the hutch.
He lay out on his back and gazed upward at the sky. "I really died, huh?"
He remembered the hospital room. The soft beeping. The smell of antiseptic. The endless loneliness. Twenty-one years old, cueball-bald from chemotherapy, waiting for a finish he could not escape.
But here—this dirty, uncertain, chaotic world—he had meaning.
A barn. Chickens. A system. A redo.
"I won't waste this."
[System Update: Personal Status Summary]
Name: Sylas
Class: None
Level: 2
Traits: Magic Affinity – Earth (Dormant)
Skills: Basic Animal Handling (F), Manual Labor (F)
Inventory: 3 Copper, Wooden Bucket, Bread (Stale)
Recommended Objective: Visit Town Library (Unlocks Magic Tree)
Alternative Objective: Raise Livestock (0/2)
Sylas laughed. "I suppose it's time to study books."