Assassin Crow Evolution

Chapter 45: Rogbeard

The bustling city was nearly desolate now. For the past hour, Jimmy had barely seen any humans across the street. The humans carried out their business during the day, and slept during the night, respecting their seemingly ancient routine.

They were productive people, he knew that much. The only humans that should be awake right now, had to be the city guards.

A city as big as this needed protecting, be it from threats from the outside, or from inside the city. He had seen a few guards in the past, but he had never really paid attention to them.

Right now, as he stood on top of a statue, the guards were all he could think about. He tried to figure out if any of them were patrolling the building in front of him.

If there were any guards inside what he assumed to be the religious building, then his simple infiltration plan would fall through.

"I don’t want to fight a guard," He said, "If these motherfuckers can shoot fireballs too, then I’d be torched in a short-range fight."

Jimmy wanted to be careful. The plan he had in mind encouraged strategy. He wanted to visit the suspected tomb of the man he killed, but he wasn’t nearly willing to put his life on the line.

With that decided, he stalked the entrance for about half an hour.

During that time, he didn’t see a single human walk by the open doors. He didn’t hear anyone either.

With a bit of courage, he jumped down from the statue, and snuck through the door.

"Even if there are guards, they’ll probably think I’m looking for food or something." He said, "They won’t kill me, I hope? They’ll just try to scare me away."

Once Jimmy walked past the door, he met with an empty, well-lit room.

The fact that there were no humans around relieved him quite a bit, but he also discovered that this city was capable of designing buildings that didn’t solely consist of stone slabs.

The room, or better described, the wide hallway was well-decorated with marble. Its white features were almost an eye-sore to someone who walked into the hallway during the dead of night.

Benches made of marble, and covered with expensive-looking fur, took most of the space in the hallway.

The benches faced towards a single statue. The statue defined a man who seemed no different from a Greek god.

Tall, muscular, curly hair, and covered in silk. It felt oddly nice to see a statue that didn’t have a distorted head.

Unlike the benches, and everything else in the hallway, the statue was so well-kept that one would think someone cleaned it daily with a sponge.

"If the rest of the city wasn’t a stony, muddy shit-hole, I’d say I was in ancient Greece." He said, "Whatever god these guys are worshipping, I hope it’s not the kind that would tell’em to fight a crow."

Clack-clack-clack...

Jimmy walked past the pillars that held the ceiling of the hallway together, and then he started jumping from bench to bench. Although he tried to be as quiet as possible, he was a heavy bird, so his footsteps echoed like that of a lost penguin.

The benches had been blocking his view. He wanted to find another door that hopefully led to a tomb. He had a feeling that he’d find what he was looking for.

Shortly after, he found another doorway, and followed it. He didn’t care to pray to the shiny god that he left behind, so that hallway, overall, meant nothing to him.

Right past the doorway, he spotted a human. It was an old, mildly muscular, and hairy man who was dressed in white silk, paired with soft green outlines. The man’s beard was so long and thick, that it mostly covered his bare chest.

Jimmy almost thought that the statue he left behind depicted this man right here!

The man saw something dark in the corner of his eye, and feared the worst. He feared that a soul had lost its way again, as only then would a soul appear dark.

"I’m getting too old for this," The man sighed, and as frustration quickly overcame him, he started speaking to himself in third-person. "When will old Rogbeard get his eternal slumber?"

Rogbeard had been working on a corpse. The organs of a recently deceased man were lying in an old, stained, silver bowl. Before he had been interrupted, he was working on the corpse’s liver.

Most people could not stomach doing his job, but he was used to eviscerating bodies. It was a respected process that prepared souls for the afterlife.

Gutting people didn’t bother him as much as the usual problems he had with the lost souls. He was fed up, and his sanity held on by a thread, prone to the whispers, and sometimes even shouts of the lost souls over the past few decades!

Rogbeard swung his body to face the suspected lost soul, and began to shout, using the corpse’s liver as if it was an extension of his finger, and his self-righteous stance.

"Be gone, soul!" His head bounced around as if he was drunk, "You’re not the first man or woman to complain about being buried in salt! Take it up with the big guy upstairs!"

To his surprise, his line of sight did not fall on an angry soul. Although it took him a few seconds to realize who he was talking to, he was relieved, and for some reason, flattered to see a two-foot tall crow.

"What?" He blinked rapidly, "Oh, you got old Rogbeard all worked up, little guy. Wait, you aren’t little. Why are you as big as a cow? Did you eat a cow?"

Jimmy watched the human yammering in a language he could not understand. Initially, he wanted to run away as soon as the human started shouting, but since he wasn’t attacked, he stuck around, just to see how this would play out.

"He’s insane," Jimmy said, "No one would believe him if he said that a crow came to visit the dead."

Rogbeard heard Jimmy caw and grumble, and of course, he didn’t understand Jimmy either. He stopped expecting an answer.

Instead, he threw the liver in the silver bowl, washed his hands in a bowl of water, and rushed towards the other side of the room.

Jimmy was getting ready to flee. His goal was not worth risking fighting a crazy mortician.

However, before he left, he saw Rogbeard pulling something out of a small, linen pouch. They were nuts. Cashews, specifically.

"Come eat, biggie," Rogbeard said, "Eat, and then leave."