The party awoke early the next morning at the sound of a rooster crowing, though Zack needed some extra encouragement from Charlie to get up. After a quick meal, they departed from the village, thanking the residents for their hospitality. Allen examined his map and informed them that they should be reaching the next village by sundown if they kept up a good pace, so they all walked a bit quicker than usual.

Soon, however, they came across a roadblock that stopped them in their tracks. A large river cut through the land; too long to go around, too wide to jump, and too quick to safely wade through. They all stared at the flowing water, considering their options. Charlie glanced over at Zack, whose feet had yet to touch the ground since he began floating the previous day. “Couldn’t you fly us all across?”

Zack raised an eyebrow. “Are you kidding? Even if I wanted to do that, I couldn’t carry a single one of you while standing, let alone while I’m focusing all my energy on levitating!” He narrowed his eyes, looking over at Allen. “What about you, you seem strong, why don’t you fly us over?”

Allen shot a glare at Zack. “I can’t.”

“Why not–?!” Zack gestured to Allen’s backside, about to question why he couldn’t fly them when he had two perfectly good wings… He quickly shut his mouth when he realized that wasn’t the case. While his right wing looked fine, his left seemed to be missing a large chunk, with only half of it being intact. A detail Zack hadn’t noticed until now. “... Nevermind,” he muttered apologetically as he finally planted his feet back on the ground.

Charlie furrowed her eyebrows, trying to think of an alternate plan. “Okay, uhh… Is there anything around we could use as a bridge?”

Allen shook his head. “Not anything near, it seems.”

Lynn crossed her arms, examining the width of the river. “I could totally jump that.”

“Your Majesty, no.” Allen shot her a warning glance.

“I’m gonna jump it.”

“No, don’t–!”

Before Allen could do anything to stop her, Lynn suddenly charged forward and threw herself across the river. Predictably, however, she fell just short of making it to the other side and dropped like a stone into the water. She flailed around, crying out Allen’s name as she attempted to stop herself from being washed away. With a groan, Allen hurried over to help her. He held out his spear for her to grab onto and dragged her back up to dry land.

Lynn lay there on her back, panting. “Well,” she said as she caught her breath. “... It was worth a shot.”

Allen clenched his fists. “You–” He clearly wanted to say something but held his tongue. “... Nevermind. Does anybody else have any bright ideas?”

They were all quiet for a moment before Zack spoke up. “Is there, like, some kind of spell or something that could let us cross?”

Allen raised an eyebrow. “What kind of spell would do something like that?”

“I don’t know, Ponytail, you’re the one living in a magical dimension!”

“What’s that supposed to mean–?!”

Zack and Charlie on the other hand often struggled to offer any help. Charlie was having a hard time getting used to the feeling of her bow, and Zack was just generally incompetent. Charlie slowly improved with each battle; Zack, however, had tossed his spear right over the enemy’s head during a battle, which sent it far into the woods. A quick search afterward yielded no results, and he was left weaponless. He kept asking if he could use Allen’s spear as a replacement but Allen adamantly refused.

Despite their delays, the party had managed to make it to the second village before sundown, just as Allen had said. It was another farming village, though this one didn’t seem to have any animals… “You were right, Allen,” Lynn said. “They really did lose all their chickens.” 

This comment put a confused look on Zack’s face. “What? Chickens?”

“Yeah. Apparently, all the chickens in this village went missing. Weird how that happens, eh?”

Zack raised an eyebrow and examined the village around him. There was certainly a distinct lack of poultry. “How… Do chickens manage to go missing…?”

“That’s none of our concern at the moment,” Allen said sternly. “Our focus is on finding the princess. We do not have time for this.”

“Wait, no,” Zack insisted. “We’re on break now, aren’t we? The sun’s going down soon, we can’t really do anything else. Why not look for the missing chickens?”

Allen scoffed. “You’d rather go on some wild goose chase than rest for the night?”

“Wild chicken chase,” Zack corrected. “And yeah. I’m invested in this now. How could I sleep knowing there’s a bunch of chickens out there, all scared and alone?” He spoke with a rather melodramatic tone, which did not convince Allen.

Charlie tilted her head. “I’m kind of curious about it, too… Did someone steal them?”

A smirk slowly spread across Lynn’s face. “Well, we can’t have a chicken thief running around the kingdom, can we? Allen, we’re gonna find the chickens!”

Allen’s jaw dropped. “But–!”

“No buts! C’mon, we’re losing daylight, let’s solve this mystery!”

After taking a very slow and deep breath, Allen nodded. He couldn’t believe he was about to do this, in the middle of a quest no less. But he was outnumbered. “Fine,” he said begrudgingly. “Let’s be quick about it.”

They immediately began searching for clues. With the day slowly coming to an end, there weren’t many townsfolk out on the streets. This made the investigation rather difficult, since they couldn’t find anyone to question. So they just looked around to see if anything around the village could hint at the location of the chickens.

Eventually, Charlie called out. “Hey! I think I found something!” The party hurried over to her location to see what she had found. She was looking at the ground, carefully examining what looked to be the imprint of a pair of talons in the dirt path. “These are chicken tracks, right?”

Allen tilted his head as he looked at the tracks. “... No. These are far too large to belong to a common farm chicken.”

“Well… It’s something, right? Maybe whatever left these had something to do with their disappearance…”

After a moment, Allen slowly nodded his head. “Perhaps,” he said as his gaze followed the trail the tracks left. “Come, we’ll see where these lead.” As he began to walk, crouched close to the ground so he could get a good look, the others followed behind. The tracks led out of the village and into the nearby woods. Allen didn’t seem too fond of straying so far from the village, but the others insisted he kept following the trail.

This soon brought them to a clearing. It was well-hidden, tucked between some tightly packed trees. And there in the middle of the clearing was the exact thing they were looking for. About a dozen chickens, peacefully sleeping close to one another. 

“Ha!” Zack exclaimed. “Easy as that. C’mon little guys, let’s get you home–”

Suddenly, Allen gasped. “Wait, no–!” 

Zack glanced back, already holding a sleepy chicken in his arms. “What’s up?” He looked at Allen in confusion. The others watched in horror as one of the chickens awakened behind him… Though this was no ordinary bird. It was far larger, and donned features more similar to a reptile; scales, dragonlike wings, and a long serpentine tail. It clucked softly as it opened it’s eyes, glaring at Zack with a slitted pupil.
“Don’t… Move…” Allen spoke slowly and quietly with a serious expression. “... That creature behind you is a cockatrice. It is an incredibly dangerous beast. One wrong move and you’ll be dead where you stand–”

As Allen explained the situation, Zack slowly looked behind him. Upon seeing the cockatrice, he began to yell. “SO YOU’RE THE CHICKEN THIEF, EH?”

Lynn joined in, pointing her scepter at the beast. “GET OUT OF HERE! THESE CHICKENS BELONG TO SARINIA!”

The cockatrice squawked furiously as it flared open its wings, attempting to ward off its aggressors. But Zack and Lynn did not let up. They screamed at it and threw rocks at its feet until it could no longer take the pressure and bolted off into the woods. “YEAH! NOT SO SCARY NOW, ARE YOU?” Zack yelled as it retreated.

Allen watched this scene unfold, dumbfounded. He sighed deeply as he rubbed his eyes. “... Let’s just round up these chickens and return to the village.”

As the party began to pick up as many chickens as they could carry, Charlie stepped closer to Allen with a curious look in her eye. “What… Was that thing?”

“Cockatrice. Monstrous hybrid of a rooster and a dragon. They’re quite elusive, not much is known about them. Some say they can kill a man with a single glance, but…” He gazed off in the direction the cockatrice had ran in. “... Seems they’re more cowardly than anything.”

Once all the chickens were gathered, the party hurried back to the village. They returned just as the moon began to rise. With their little side quest completed, they rented rooms at the local inn and settled in for the night.