Reborn As A Ghost: Time To Build My Undead Army!-Chapter 1413: Weird Birds

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After having already explored a Nightmare Field before yesterday, we were quite accustomed to the landscape of the place. Making sure to not step into weird stuff was a must… Well, for the girls from this world, not for us though, anything that could bite us in the grass would possibly not do anything to us at all.

Anyway, another thing was that trees weren't safe either, sometimes they would start moving and try to kill you on sight, it wasn't as if that wasn't the case in Yggdrasil though, although I had not visited too many forests before.

Nonetheless, it didn't take long to find Nightmare Beasts, as they roamed everywhere in these Nightmare Fields, feeding off the plants, or one each other.

Unlike other Nightmares, Nightmare Beasts weren't beings made entirely out of Nightmare Energy, but mutated animals that turned into monster-like beings.

Sometimes they continued mutating and evolving, and so did their offspring, until they didn't even look like animals anymore, but still technically were.

Nonetheless, their special bodies are physical and not mostly ethereal like nightmares, meaning that despite being able to harden, Nightmares can be "poof" out of existence and disappear into soot, only leaving a core behind.

Nightmare Beasts are physical and leave large corpses completely intact and fueled with Nightmare or Dream Energies, making them top notch materials for the creation of weapons and armor to enhance the fighting style of Dream Warriors.

Hence, I wanted as many as possible to use as materials to sacrifice and boost my friends Dream Weapons to the max!

"Ooh, there are Nightmare Beasts there, yeah… It's kind of pretty though!"

Nyx looked into the distance by my side, pointing at the creature that was eating the black and purple grass from the floor, unbothered by its venomous spikes thanks to its hard, golden beak.

Yes, it was a giant bird creature, with pink, purple, and black feathers, and a massive golden beak, it was roughly twice the size of an average human, surpassing three meters in height.

Despite its huge form, its wings were actually small and looked atrophied, it seemed to be a completely terrestrial bird that lost the ability to fly.

And it exchanged it with a huge beak and a deadly pair of claws at that!

"That damn thing's doesn't look that intimidating," Emily. "Do we charge at it?"

"Hm, wait a second," I said. "Look."

As we waited, we noticed several other silhouettes appear, giant bird heads popping out of the grass. Their feathers allowed them to camouflage their surroundings, but once their heads came out from the grass while eating it, we noticed.

"Oh, they camouflage using their damn feathers, huh? Color me surprised, they're quite interesting." Emily smiled with a nod. "Now what do we do?"

"Hmm, I calculate that there's roughly… a huge pack of these, at least forty!" I said. "They're perhaps even behind us and we didn't realize."

"E-Eh? Are we surrounded?" Alma asked.

"Yes most likely," I nodded. "But don't worry, that's for the better anyway. And it isn't as if I'm worried of getting hurt or something either. You girls should be completely fine as well. So we're going to charge at that one and bring all the attention of the other birds! How about the plan?"

"E-Eh? Are you crazy?" Alma asked. "T-That will only make things impossible!"

"Impossible isn't in my vocabulary, dear Alma," I smiled. "And more than anything, with Nyx, Lucifer, and I around, you'll be fine no matter what."

"R-Really?" Sofia wondered. "But…"

Suddenly, I saw Emily patting Alma's shoulders.

"Okay, let's trust them. I mean, we've seen with our own eyes how Maria just killed a Nightmare Demon on her own, and we've seen her killing Nightmare Beasts all on her own too," said Emily. "We shouldn't doubt her strength… even if forty of those giant birds is a bit scary even for me, with my armor I think I can handle it."

"…I agree," Martina said, summoning her Dream Weapon, a jester-like puppet spreading pink clouds everywhere. "I have to train this guy so he's better at fighting too!"

"Hmm… O-Okay then, yes… L-Let's be more confident…" Alma tried to force herself to be more confident, but I could tell it was quite hard for the girl.

"Relax and take it easy," I said. "You can stay inside of our formation healing and attacking from afar, we won't let you receive any harm."

"Yeah, take it easy Alma!" Nyx nodded. "Me and pap- big bro will fly high and use our dragon powers to burn them!"

"Don't burn them," I said. "We need their bodies without being damaged too much, dear."

"Aaah, then we'll cut them!" Said Nyx.

"Yeah, what she said, don't worry and let's do it," Lucifer nodded.

"Okay…!" Alma and Sofia said almost at the same time, provoking a slight giggle as they looked at one another.

"Looks like it's decided, let's do this."

Without further ado, we moved to the nearest bird, the one we had eyed before, which was still eating the grass in silence.

The moment I stepped forward, however, the giant bird stopped eating, and then looked at me with its big ol' eyes.

"Squeak?"

It made a cute and weird squeaking sound, something you wouldn't expect from a monster of this level and appearance.

"There, there, remain right there before…"

"SQUEAAAAK!"

The bird cried angrily, so loudly that the entire forest trembled.

Crack, crack…!

CRASH!

But that wasn't all, as half of its head, including its beak, split apart into five pieces, revealing a mass of tentacles and eyes inside the bird's head.

"SHYAAAAEEGH!"

"Oh wow, okay, that's not what I expected, but fair enough."

I swung my sword faster than the creature could reach me, even as it attempted to leap towards me.

"Well, a hunt is a hunt!"

SLAAASH!

The bird was instantly split apart, a monster of this caliber wasn't even worth my time and effort.

Or well, it was worth, as the other birds quickly gathered around us.

"GRUUAAAH!"

And as they appreciated, their heads opened in the same fashion as the previous one…

"W-What is going on?! These aren't even birds anymore!" Alma entered into a state of panic once more.

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