Taming the Beast World with a Frying Pan-Chapter 185: Goodbye, Bird Chad

Ren managed to drift back into sleep, mostly because her brain shut down out of self-preservation. It was just a dream. A very detailed, very sweaty, very crowded dream.

When she woke up again, the world had reset.

Sunlight was beaming brightly through the entrance of the hollow, turning the dust motes into dancing gold. The birds outside were chirping their morning gossip. The storm was gone.

And so was Altair.

Ren sat up, blinking the sleep from her eyes. She scanned the hollow. No giant bird. No naked Adonis.

Ren sighed, sagging against the moss.

"Good," she whispered. "It’s for the best."

She rubbed her face. "He left on his own. No awkward morning-after conversation."

Ren nodded to herself, compartmentalizing the entire experience with the efficiency of a file clerk.

"He was a one-night stand," Ren decided. "Technically a no-sex stand, but the emotional damage was the same."

She had a category for men like this. In her past, whenever she made a bad decision with a guy who was too handsome for his own good and vanished by sunrise, she filed him under one name.

"Chad," Ren muttered. "Bird Chad."

She tried to stand up, and her body immediately filed a complaint. Her neck was stiff. Her back ached. Sleeping curled up in a tree nest sounded magical in a fantasy book, but in reality, it was like sleeping in a lumpy basket.

And then there was the ick factor.

Ren grimaced. Her skin felt tacky. The sweat and the dried... evidence of her biology lesson between her thighs made her feel gross.

"I would kill for a wet wipe," Ren groaned. "I would definitely kill for a magical portable bath that I could just lug around in my inventory. System, write that down. Feature request."

[System: Noted. Priority Level: Low.]

Ren ignored the sass. She looked at the twig in the corner.

There it hung. The itchy abomination. The wool dress.

It was dry. Stiff as a board and radiating pure scratchiness.

"I hate you," Ren told the garment.

She slipped it on with disdain. It scratched her sunburned shoulders. It scratched her sensitive nipples. It scratched her soul.

"Ugh."

Ren got her waterskin from the inventory. She took a swig to rinse the morning breath from her mouth, swishing it around before spitting it out the entrance. Then she poured a few precious drops into her palm, lathered up the lavender soap, and scrubbed her face.

"I miss toothpaste," Ren mourned, running her tongue over her teeth. "My hygiene score is definitely in the negatives."

She washed her face then shook the empty waterskin. Dry.

"Great. Out of water. And I need a bath," Ren sighed. "I should find the river."

She returned the soap and the empty waterskin to her inventory. She was ready to leave, but something caught her eye.

A single, golden feather lay on the moss. It shimmered in the sunlight.

Ren picked it up. She twirled it between her fingers, her expression going blank.

She thought about his intense silver eyes. She thought about his handsome face.

"Goodbye, Chad," Ren muttered.

She looked at the feather one last time.

"We can’t be mates," she whispered to the empty air. "And it seems we can’t be friends either."

She opened her fingers.

"I hope we never cross paths again."

She dropped the feather. It fluttered lazily in the stagnant air of the hollow, drifting down to settle back on the ground.

Ren didn’t look back. She walked out of the hollow and disappeared into the trees.

The hollow was silent.

A minute passed. Then two. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

The feather lay still on the moss.

Then, the wall of the tree blinked.

To the left of the nest, a patch of rough, grey bark shifted. Colors swirled and melted like wet paint. The texture smoothed out.

A large, reptilian eye opened. Then another.

The Chameleon Lizard detached itself from the interior wall. It had been there the entire time, blended so perfectly with the wood grain that even an eagle’s eye might have missed it in the dark.

It grew in size, bones cracking and shifting, until a humanoid figure stood in the center of the hollow.

He was a Lizard Beastman. His skin was a mottled green and brown, covered in fine, pebbly scales. His eyes were bulbous and moved independently of each other—one looking at the entrance, the other looking at the nest. He had a long, thin tail that curled twitchily behind him.

He laughed, a wicked, raspy sound.

"Kekeke."

He reached down and picked up the golden feather the female had dropped.

"What a strange female," the lizard muttered, his long, purple tongue flicking out to taste the air. "She said such strange things. I couldn’t understand half of her babbling."

He rolled his eyes.

"But she is the mate to the White Tiger King and the Snake King of the Swamp?"

He shivered.

"And she has strange abilities," he noted, glancing at the empty spot where strange objects had vanished into thin air. "She is dangerous."

He tossed the feather up and caught it.

"I won’t bother with her," he decided with a smirk. "She isn’t my target. And I enjoy living."

He sniffed the feather deeply. The scent of the Golden Eagle was strong on it.

"Finally," the lizard hissed, clutching the feather to his scaly chest.

"I have been tracking random golden eagles for moons," he grumbled. "Every golden eagle that flew over the Beast World, I followed. I have eaten so many bugs. I have slept in secret in so many trees."

He looked at the spot where Altair had sat.

"But this one... this one finally showed his beastman form."

The lizard grinned, revealing rows of sharp, serrated teeth.

"There is no mistaking it. The overwhelming good looks. The golden hair. The silver eyes. He matches the description given by the Golden Eagle Beast King perfectly."

The lizard snickered.

"And the bird admitted it himself. ’My name is Altair,’" he mocked.

The bounty hunter did a little jig of victory, his tail whipping back and forth.

"And the best part," the lizard whispered, his voice trembling with greed. "He has lost his memories."

He looked at the feather as if it were a bar of solid gold.

"A lost Prince. A clueless Prince. A Prince who doesn’t know his worth."

The lizard’s eyes gleamed.

"This information is going to make me rich."