In Danmachi as a Witcher

Hey folks! I'm sorry for the long inactivity. I had to write 2 giant project reports and prepare 2 presentations for Uni, so I got completely burned out. Now that that's over with, I'm back and the updates will resume the regular 1 chapter per 2 days rate. Enjoy!

-------------------------------------------

Several hours had passed since their battle against the Crystal Mantises and Hellhounds. It was hard fought, but after getting into a rhythm, was finished up nicely. The extraction process afterward was not fun, but they got lucky and got a good number of drop items.

The problem arose with Leo's buff, as it seemed that the horde had dried up the energy reserves of the dungeon in that region, meaning no more monsters spawned, and the last remaining Kobold and Almiraj apparently got trampled to death in the battle.

They had to be very careful with their selection of fights after that. Using Cassian's senses, they navigated around monster parties that were too big or made up of stronger monsters and instead hunted Almiraj and Hellhounds to build the buff back up to a level where she could freely fight against the stronger monsters.

Their bags had been overfilled quite a long time. It physically hurt Cassian and Nico to leave behind loot, but there was no more space for them and getting back to empty out would take too much time, so they were forced to do so.

It further convinced Cassian about the idea of getting more supporters.

They had decided to finish their dive for today and get back, reaching the 1st floor, the trio started walking towards the exit.

Suddenly, Cassian stopped and looked toward one of the tunnels in confusion.

Nico and Leo, having gotten used to this and practically developed a reflex for it already, immediately tensed, preparing for an attack.

"Captain, what's going on?" Asked Leo after hearing no instructions from Cassian. He just kept looking in the same direction, trying to better hear something.

"Why can I hear a chicken's clucking in the dungeon?" His face scrunched up in confusion.

"A… chicken?" Nico asked equally confused. He was expecting an attack, but why was his brother suddenly talking about chickens?

"In that direction over there, I can hear a chicken's clucking noises. Did someone bring a chicken to the dungeon?"

"Uhmm, maybe it's a familia going on an expedition and… bringing it as food?" Leo tried reasoning weakly.

"Maybe. But why would they bring a live one?" Cassian's eyes narrowed. There was something here…

"A chicken on the dungeon's… first… floor…" Nico's words trailed off as his eyes started widening along with the other two's as understanding dawned.

"""JACK BIRD!"""

The three exclaimed in unison before grinning.

"Oh, this is good. If we play our cards right, we'll get an extra 1 million today." Cassian had gotten tired of staying at an inn already, so he started planning to save up funds to buy a nice, little mansion. An extra million Valis would be a great help toward that end.

"But how do we catch it? I've heard from other adventurers that it instantly runs away when it senses danger and it's very hard to catch."

"Hmm, let me thiiink… Ah, I've got it! Here's what we're going to do…"

It was a peaceful day for the golden rooster. Some dumb adventurers saw and tried to catch it, but as if those slow, hairless goblins could ever catch a magnificent being like it.

So it continued contentedly pecking at the magic stone remains it could find until it was interrupted by a faint footstep it heard in one of the pathways. Looking up it saw an adventurer's rather poor attempt at stealth.

/Bawk!/

With a cry, as it saw the adventurer suddenly dash towards it, it bolted from its spot with great speed.

Hah! As if the pale goblin could ever catch it. But its smugness was interrupted, as it was about to dash into the right pathway, the ground exploded with violent winds.

/Squawk!/

With a startled cry, the Jack Bird jumped back and took off to the left. With panic clouding its mind, it did not notice the purple sparks on the ground until it was too late.

The rooster felt its body seize up as if electricity was running through it, before being grabbed by the neck a second later.

Cassian grinned at his prize, before swiftly tightening his hold on the Jack Bird as he cast a weary eye on the surroundings. The other two had rejoined him and were equally cheerful about the catch, but they weren't the only ones.

"I guess trying to keep this quiet on the first floor was asking too much… Nico, Leo keep your guards up." As soon as he said those words the two tensed up and started eyeing their surroundings, and true enough, adventurers started pouring out of the various pathways.

Half of them were eyeing the Jack Bird struggling in the white-haired elf's hand with unfiltered greed in their eyes, though Cassian was pleased to note that the rest simply had disappointed looks at their loss. It seemed they wouldn't be causing problems about their possession. But the rest?

"Well, ain't that great, someone did all the hard work of tiring out the prey. You know we've been chasing that Jack Bird for a while now, you know?" One of the men in front stepped forward and addressed the two with uncontained ill will.

Cassian narrowed his eyes at the man. He could see he was with another dozen or so adventurers, all of them following the man's lead. Cassian recognized the man. A raccoon Beastfolk with shaggy hair and more fat on the body than what one would expect on a diligent adventurer.

'Wasn't he from the Soma familia? One of the people who tormented Lili?' Inwardly Cassian couldn't help smirking. This guy was weak, and so were the people behind him. Considering that none of the other groups were stepping forward and instead took a step back to avoid trouble, it was most likely that these guys were the strongest force here. This means he wouldn't have to worry about a level 2 or higher suddenly jumping him.

"No, you weren't, when we came across it, it was wandering around with no pursuers. Even if you had marked it first, it's irrelevant, it escaped from you and became a free target. We've broken none of the adventurers' rules." Calmly he shot down the cheap justifications he knew the guy was about to spout at him.

The raccoon man's face twisted at that. He thought that the three were a bunch of newbies he could finesse through rule exploitation, but the damn freaky eyes shut that down. He looked at the Jack Bird again and his greed was empowered even further.

'Those things' drop item sells for 1 million Valis, but a captured bird sells for so much more than that. Fuck it, even I'll just brute force it further, even if everyone knows it's bullshit, we're the strongest faction here so they'll bow their head!' The raccoon man, named Canoe Belway, thought.

"Well, that simply won't fly! We do all the work of herding and tiring out the Jack Bird and you swoop in and take the prize?! You really expect me to accept that Knife-Ears?!" He bellowed out while stalking forward in an attempt to intimidate them.

"I don't care what you accept Gutter-Crawler, the bird is ours." Cassian spent most of his life as a human, so elven racial slurs didn't really affect him, at least not yet, but it wouldn't do to just let it go now, would it?

"Gutte- The fuck did you just call me, asshole?!" Canoe's face went completely red from anger as he strode forward and got into Cassian's face. Sadly he only came up to his shoulders, so it wasn't quite as intimidating as he had hoped.

"You heard me Trashrat." Cassian passed the still-struggling bird back to Leo and signaled them to not get involved.

Now all he needed was for the imbecile to throw the first punch and he'd be all set. And the imbecile in question certainly didn't disappoint.

"You fucker! Fine, that's how you wanna play?! Then we'll just have to take it from your corpse!" And with that, he immediately swung his dagger at Cassian's throat.

The attack may as well have been in slow motion with how pathetic it was. Cassian quickly ducked down to dodge and delivered an uppercut to the raccoon before him.

Canoe only had time to see how easily the elf had dodged his attack and start realizing that this may have been a mistake, before what might have been a Warhammer connected to his jaw, completely shattering it and sending him up in the air. His thoughts were soon cut off as he passed out.

The rest of the party froze seeing their leader get taken out so easily and had to take a moment to process the giant pile of shit they may have just stepped in.

"Well, this should be fun." Cassian grinned and without giving them time to regroup, dashed forward to start delivering punishment on the addicts.

He wouldn't kill them of course. In addition to not wanting to rack up a body count in front of so many people, he didn't know whether these people, aside from Canoe, deserved to die or not.

So he settled with a couple of broken bones and a KO. Not that that made him any less terrifying for the Soma adventurers who saw their fellow members get thrown around like ragdolls.

Within seconds all of them were knocked out and lying in a heap.

Cassian straightened out his clothes before addressing the rest of the adventurers, gawking at him in fear and shock.

"Anyone else feel like they should have the Bird, over us?" All he received in return were panicked headshakes. "Good, but that doesn't mean I didn't see you eyeing it and deciding whether to rob us. Unless you wanna join these fine gentlemen on the ground, pick them up and carry them out of the dungeon. NOW!" At his raised voice, they quickly scrambled to pick them up and quickly got the hell out of there.

"Uhh, as cool as that was, was it wise to antagonize another familia like that?" Leo seemed hesitant about the situation.

"It's okay. We didn't break any rules or laws, the raccoon swung first so they were the aggressors. Plus they're from Soma familia. They're not exactly a strong familia. They only have 2 level 2s if I remember correctly and one of them is a complete weakling, so there won't be any retaliation unless they want to piss off a force that may well be stronger than them."

Cassian would have been a lot more diplomatic if it was any other familia. He wasn't an idiot to go and piss off someone that could wipe them out with ease if he didn't have to. Plus this was a necessary show of strength. No doubt a lot of the adventurers here were planning on robbing them and some of them may have tried something on the surface. This way, they knew not to screw with them.

"Huh, well I guess you're right. Let's get going now. I want to cash in already and take a bath! I'm covered in monster gore. Who would have thought a Greatsword didn't equal the cleanest fight possible." Leo complained and she truly was covered from head to toe. Every time she cleaved a monster in half, she'd get a fresh wave of blood on her.

"Heh, you two can head over home directly. I'll go to the guild to take care of the matters. I'll see you later!" Cassian told them as they exited the dungeon and took back the Jack Bird from Leo to start heading toward the guild. Hopefully the golden rooster struggling and squawking in his hands wouldn't draw too much attention...